Skies of Ash (26 page)

“Why can’t you get a female partner, anyway?”

“Cuz there are only so many female detectives on the force.”

“Why can’t Pepe—?”

“Cuz he’s Luke’s partner.” And gay. Also perfect for me.

“It just puts you in an awkward position,” Greg explained.

“News flash,” I said. “Men and women can work together without sleeping together.”

He snorted. “Okay.”

That single word had yanked something inside me, and I sat up on the couch. “Men and women
can’t
work together without sleeping with each other?”

“Sure, they can.”

My hand gripped the receiver tighter. “You have what’s-her-face on your team right now. The one who wears the tight
Star Wars
T-shirts. You gettin’ down with her?”

He groaned. “I didn’t mean—let’s not start. I was calling to let you know that I’m gonna be home late.”

“Cuz you’re bangin’ the chick in the tight
Star Wars
T-shirt.”

“Lou. Stop. I know you’d never sleep with Colin.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“Nope.” He laughed. “Cuz you have the best at home.”

Was this a
dare
? Did he really know what I would and wouldn’t do?

“You always see drama where there ain’t none,” he said. “You can’t let a day pass without poking at shit.”

Shots fired. Officer down.

After picking my teeth off the carpet, I bade him good night. The ornaments stayed in the purple bin. The tree remained naked, and the candles were snuffed. I replaced the sounds of Anita Baker’s CD with the frantic screams of passengers drowning aboard the SS
Poseidon
.

I didn’t plan to eat all three chicken breasts. Nor did I plan to finish the bag of Doritos. I had set out to drink one glass of sangria, but that glass had turned into a tumbler. Then, three tumblers.

At seven minutes to eleven, I still lay on the couch, still nibbling chicken crust from the bottom of the deli bag, still watching Gene Hackman lead a scrappy group of cruise-ship survivors to safety.

The doorbell rang.

I lay there, greasy, still pretending not to be home.

The doorbell rang again.

I sat up.

The den shifted once, shifted twice, then spun all the way around.

I stumbled to the foyer. Part of me knew that I’d had too much to drink. The rest of me didn’t believe that since my feet still worked. I squinted through the peephole.

No one stood there. Just an empty porch.

My inner gyroscope cracked, and my forehead banged against the door.

I muttered, “Ouch,” then stumbled back to the couch.

A knock on the door.

I stared at that door.

The knob twisted.

I squinted.

The doorknob twisted slowly left, slowly right.

I whispered, “What the…?”

Bile, chicken, and tortilla chips bubbled in my stomach, and I fought the urge to vomit.

That happened. I saw that happen… Right?

I crept back to the foyer, uncertain that the twisting had been real.

But the doorknob slowly twisted right and left again.

“Hello?” I croaked.

No answer.

I placed my ear against the door’s cool wood.

Couldn’t hear a thing.

I squinted through the peephole again.

Empty porch.

On weak legs, I hurried up the stairs and to my bedroom closet. I opened the Glock’s case, plucked the gun from the foam, and crept back down the stairs to the foyer. I took a deep breath and yanked open the door.

Night air swept over me, and I sobered up a click. For the second time that night, I slipped into the darkness with a gun in my hand.

Blades of grass wet my bare feet, and my toes grew numb from the cold.

Around the corner…

Television light glowed from Aiden’s downstairs windows.

In the little park across the street, a small group of people hung out at the marble water fountain. Even though the fountain had been turned off, even though there were no exterior lights, they were all smoking—their lit cigarettes bobbed in the darkness like fireflies. One of the men glanced in my direction. Then, his buddies turned to look at me.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just a drunk, barefoot, off-duty cop patrolling her home with a Glock in hand
.

The man and his buddies agreed, and they returned to their smokes and jokes.

I moved on… toes squelching wet earth and grass… pulse racing beneath the grip of the gun…

“There’s nothing out here,” I mumbled.

I stopped at the base of Greg’s office window and looked down to my feet.

Shoe prints left in moist earth.

Buzzing filled my ears as I stared at those boot treads.

It’s Thursday. The gardener came—those are probably his prints, and you’re drunk.

I stared at the ground a moment more, feeling my body lean forward as I listened to that buzzing…

Lou!

I snapped upright, awake now, then crept back around the corner. The scent of gingerbread rode atop the smells of marshland and burned popcorn and guided me home.

“You always see drama where there ain’t none,” I said.

I slammed the door and locked it. Then, I sat on the bottom step of the staircase, feet muddied, gun still in my hand. And I didn’t move from that step until the DVD player shut off. And as I stumbled up the stairs at midnight, washed off, placed the gun on my nightstand, then climbed into bed, I told myself that the entire day had been just a dream. A terrible, never-ending dream.

I CLOMPED INTO THE STATION AT A LITTLE PAST EIGHT IN THE MORNING. AND EVEN
though I wore my favorite pantsuit, the tan one with the flared leg, along with cranberry-colored Michael Kors heels that cost as much as a black-market liver, I still felt like stir-fried shit.

Luke sat at his desk, his eyes trained on a report or a form or maybe nothing at all. Pepe stood at the watercooler, a thick manila envelope tucked beneath his left arm, his gaze trained on the red letters that spelled
ARROWHEAD
.

Colin was also seated at his desk. Dark circles hung beneath his bloodshot eyes, and his fingers looked as though mice had been gnawing on his nails. He hadn’t slept, and he now watched me like a kicked golden retriever watching a lion. When I didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. “Syeeda’s article came out.”

I dropped my bag into the bottom drawer of my desk. “Oh boy.”

He handed me the section of the
Times
.

The lede:
TRAGEDY IN THE HILLS.
Above it, beautiful pictures of Cody and Chloe at a sunset luau. My heart raced, scared what her words were about to do to me.

They were just kids, and they were murdered in what was supposed to be the safest place in the world. Cody Chatman, 12, was found in his bed, his favorite Gameboy clutched to his chest. And Chloe Chatman, 8, called “Coco” by so many who loved her, perished in her mother’s arms…

Syeeda had interviewed the kids’ teachers and friends, church members and neighbors. She ended the piece with a call for justice and a plea for information with my name and the tip line listed.

I had finished reading the piece but couldn’t take my eyes off the Chatman kids.

“The warrants came back for the family’s financials,” Colin said, “and I found a few things.”

I handed him the newspaper and plopped into my chair. “Wonderful.”

A stuffed envelope with my name printed in thick black ink sat beneath my desktop Christmas tree.

I tossed Colin a hollow smile. “You heard what happened?”

“Yeah. About twenty minutes ago, L.T. went buck wild on the dynamic duo over there.”

That explained Luke and Pepe’s catatonia. PTSD provided by Lieutenant Zak Rodriguez.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“With the captain.”

I licked my dry lips.
Will I have a job at the end of that meeting?
Stupid mistake, all of us leaving that storage unit. A mistake that had jeopardized the case and, possibly, the successful prosecution of the murderer. And those two thoughts—stupid mistake, murderer free—thrashed about my mind, bucking broncos on speed in a china shop.

I needed to solve the case
now
, before there was no china shop left.

“Lou?” Colin said.

“Colin?” I logged on to my computer.

He hesitated, then said, “I… umm…”

My fingers stopped tapping at the keyboard. “Yeah?”

He inhaled, then slowly exhaled. “Sorry.”

I gave him a short nod—didn’t want to fight or demand or anything. Just work my case.

After checking e-mails, I looked over to my partner. “Find anything good?”

He brightened, as kicked golden retrievers do once shown some positive attention, and he rolled his chair over to my desk. “Their credit reports show four different accounts with Bank of America, one checking, two savings, one credit. But Christopher Chatman had a separate account at Pacific Western Bank in Thousand Oaks.”

“Juliet wasn’t on it?”

“Nope.” He turned the page. “The Chatmans have racked up $753,610 in debt. They owe
everybody
, including three credit-card companies, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz Financial—and both of those loans are in arrears—a mall’s worth of department stores, and, finally, the architectural firm that did the remodel for the house and the garage. As for the mortgage statement: the house was paid off back in 1989.”

I squinted at him. “Why are they in so much debt when the biggest bill no longer exists? And, again, how do you spend three million dollars in ten years? I know I grew up like Thelma Evans, but that’s a lot of money. Especially if he’s this hotshot money man.”

“Collecting Beanie Babies?” He held up a finger. “Wait. There’s more.” Then, he pulled out the statements from Pacific Western Bank, with some entries highlighted yellow—specifically, a $5,000 deposit in April, a $12,500 deposit in July, and another $5,000 deposit in September.

I tapped the desktop. “Yesterday, Ben Oliver told me that he had loaned Chatman about twenty thousand dollars. I asked Chatman about the money, and he said it was to cover a large deposit for the kids’ school.”

“You believe him?” Colin asked.

“Eh.” I found the next highlighted transaction: in August, one hundred thousand dollars had been deposited into the account at Pacific Western Bank.

“Who gave him a hundred K?” I asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Colin said. “Still working on it.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Had some time to myself.”

“I should ignore you more.” I rolled over to my file cabinet and unlocked it. I grabbed an envelope Pepe had stuffed with plastic baggies of evidence taken from Chatman’s Jaguar on the first day of the investigation. I grabbed a pair of latex gloves from my desk drawer, tugged them on, opened the flap, and dipped my hand into the pocket. “Let’s see…”

Bank statement from an account used by Juliet and Christopher Chatman for Monday, December 10.

“Two drugstores on one day.” I sat the statement down, then reached into the envelope again. “Nothing remarkable in her last days. Breakfast—one of my favorite places to eat. Gas—she filled up the truck. She got some money out and went to two drugstores. Or she
didn’t
go to two drugstores—the card used could be his.”

A CVS receipt was stapled to the pharmacist’s instructions for taking diazepam, aka Valium. The prescription had been written for Juliet Chatman.

I placed that receipt on my desk but paused before reaching into the envelope again.

Valium for Juliet Chatman
.
Monday, December 10, 5:13
P.M.
The prescription had been purchased on the last full day of Juliet’s life.

But Juliet had stopped taking Valium back in the summer. According to Dr. Kulkanis, Juliet had been too fatigued to continue taking the drug.

Had she been planning to drug the kids just as Colin suggested?

I stared at the slip until I
saw.
“Give me the checking-account banking statements from this past August on.”

Colin shuffled through a stack of papers, then handed them to me.

I found
August 10: CVS
. I flipped to the next month’s statement.
September 9: CVS
.
October 10: CVS
.
November 11: CVS
. “I need to know if Juliet’s debit card was used for these purchases.”

Colin compared the last four digits shown on the CVS receipts to the full account numbers from Bank of America and Pacific Western Bank. “This is his Pacific Western card. Why is that important?”

I picked up the receipt again and looked at the other items Christopher Chatman had purchased:
Prescription, 4 Slim Jim
, Self
magazine, Smucker’s Strawberry Toppings.

My telephone rang—a 702 area code. I hit the speaker button, and before I could finish saying, “Lou Norton,” the caller shouted, “You and your goons need to stop it.” She sounded pissed—the heat of her anger spiked through the speaker.

“Excuse me,” I said, frowning. “Who is this?”

“This is Melissa Kemper speaking, that’s who.”

Colin and I gaped at each other. And then, we both grabbed notepads.

“Good morning, Ms. Kemper.” I snapped the recording device onto the phone.

“For the last twenty-four hours,” Melissa Kemper shouted, “you sons of bitches have been calling my house and hanging up. My tires were slashed this morning, and my trash cans were turned over last night and my bank just called because one of you sons of whores wanted my personal financial information.”

Colin shook his head—
wasn’t me.

“Ms. Kemper,” I said, “no one from our division has called your bank. I
am
investigating a homicide involving family friends of yours, and I was planning to call you today to discuss—”