Skies of Ash (7 page)

“Where is everybody?” Colin asked. “His people, I mean.”

I, too, had expected throngs of well-wishers sitting shivah with Christopher Chatman.

A nurse pointed us thataway to room 303, and a minute later we stood in the doorway.

A middle-aged Lena Horne lookalike sat in the room’s visitor chair and peered at the screen of her iPhone. She had a café au lait complexion, and her hair had been captured into a shiny chignon. Her thin, pinched nose, inherited from a European grand-someone, nearly grazed the corkboard ceiling. That nose… Until now, I’d never witnessed anyone actually holding her nose in the air. This woman did, and I marveled at that more than I marveled at her plum wrap dress and red-bottomed heels.

Both shoes and dress kicked the repressed fashionista in me, the one that now stank of sweat and firemen.

The woman looked at me, then at Colin, then, nose high, returned her attention to the phone. She was over us already.

Christopher Chatman lay in bed, beneath a light-blue blanket. His big brown eyes were at half-mast. Blood had pebbled and dried on his bottom lip. His left arm was wrapped in a sling, and bandages plastered his face and the back of his skull. Complicated machines flanked him, monitoring his heart rate, blood pressure, and hydration levels.

“May I help you?” A pretty Indian woman dressed in pink floral scrubs touched my elbow. Her name tag said
RAMA
.

I badged her, introduced Colin, and then asked about Christopher Chatman’s injuries.

“Minor fracture to his left arm,” she said. “Minor concussion. Cuts and bruises.”

“So he’ll live?” Colin whispered.

She nodded.

“A few of his friends expressed concerns about his mental health,” I said. “They worry that he may attempt to end his life.”

Rama frowned. “We’ll keep watch for that. He does show signs of distress, which is common in this unfortunate situation, and also common with brain injury. But suicidal?” She shook her head.

“Can we…?” I pointed inside the room.

“You may. The woman sitting with him now is Sarah Oliver, a family friend. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

Sarah: Ben Oliver’ wife, ex-lawyer and driver of the SUV.

“Does Mr. Chatman realize what’s happened?” I asked the nurse.

Rama glanced over to her patient. “Not yet.”

I stepped across the threshold and into the room.

Sarah Oliver slipped the phone into her purse.

We both watched as Rama tut-tutted over the man in bed. We watched her slip a blood-pressure cuff over his right bicep, then watched her adjust his pillows.

Christopher Chatman stirred and croaked, “Jules?”

Sarah Oliver hopped up from her chair.

Rama moved aside to let the woman come closer.

Sarah Oliver whispered into her friend’s ear.

“Wha’?” he mumbled. “Wanna see her.”

Sarah Oliver, eyes bright with tears, peered at me, bit her lip, then whispered in his ear again.

My heart jumped.
Crap. Is she telling him they’re all dead?

Christopher Chatman’s eyes widened. “I wanna see my wife,” he shouted, waving his free arm. “Where’s my son? Where’s my boy?” He tried to sit up, tried to leave the bed, tried to yank away the tubes. “Where’s my boy? Where’s my wife? Where’s—?”

A male nurse a little bigger than Goliath lumbered past us and joined Rama in restraining their patient. Rama reached into her smock pocket, pulled out a syringe filled with clear liquid, then stuck the needle into the IV feed. Seconds later, Chatman melted back into the pillows. The tension in his face dissipated—mouth slack, eyes dull, oh, the magic of medicine.

I followed Rama out to the hallway. “When will he be released?”

“Tomorrow morning,” she said. “He’ll be staying with Mr. and Mrs. Oliver.”

Before climbing back into my Crown Vic to attack rush-hour traffic, I darted to the bathroom. As I was leaving, though, Sarah Oliver, red-eyed and pink-nosed, was entering.

She gasped seeing me standing at the paper towel dispenser. She was as tall as me, lesser-boobed, and smelled of lilacs and vanilla.

I introduced myself and offered my hand.

She offered her name and took a moment to appraise my hand.

Finally, we shook. And as we shook, her nostrils flared as much as they could. Touching in a bathroom did not thrill her.

“Is Mr. Chatman resting now?” I asked, very couldn’t care less about her thrills and mildly hoping that she thought I had skipped soap and water.

“Yes, he is.” She sighed, then rubbed her right eyebrow. “I can’t understand. What
happened
? Ben told me that some
monster
in a hockey jersey did this. Is that true?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out,” I said. “It’s too soon to say how the fire started.”

Her face darkened, and a small teardrop rolled down her cheek. “I called Juliet’s parents to let them know since Christopher… He’s come undone, and I don’t know why… I don’t know why…”

I waited for the strings and tinkling piano to fade in, for her to look up to the fluorescent lights and warble,
Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky…
Not that I disbelieved her single teardrop. But the woman who had tossed me That Look back in Chatman’s hospital room did not weep in public restrooms like the woman who now stood before me.

She crossed her arms to hug herself. “Any minute now, I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up and I’ll hear Coco laughing with my daughter. That’s what I keep telling myself. That this is all…” She squeezed her elbows, then whispered, “Because I just
saw
them. Not even twenty-four hours ago.”

“Around what time was that?” I asked.

“Six,” she said, letting her arms fall to her sides. “I stopped by to see if Juliet wanted to go to Zumba with me. And I dropped off an
Architectural Digest.
They were remodeling.”

“Did she go to Zumba?”

Sarah Oliver stared at the badge clipped to my hip. “She didn’t feel like it—she had been fighting the flu since the weekend.”

“So you went to class alone?”

She nodded. “Before I left, though, I sat and chatted for a few minutes. Then, I kissed the kids good-bye, kissed Juliet good-bye, then left.” Her cheeks flushed, and she regarded me with sad, wet eyes. “Juliet was like a sister to me, and Chloe like another daughter. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not right now, but I will need to talk to you formally.” I gave her my card.

“About?”

“Everything.”

She pressed her lips together. “I know some people will take this as a chance to say awful things.”

“About?”

Her lip trembled. “Cody. About how he would set fires. Harmless—the fires he’d set… He was just…” She closed her eyes and dropped her head. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Mimi that Coco… Amelia gave her that nickname because she couldn’t say Chloe when they were babies. Mimi and Coco wanted to do everything together. Sleepovers, tea parties, vacations. Sometimes, I had to tell her, ‘Honey, Coco has her own family. She can’t be over here all the time.’ ”

Another tear slipped down her smooth cheek. “The girls had these shirts that matched and”—she swiped her face and exhaled—“they wanted to be in each other’s weddings when they grew up. And for someone to take that away… Whoever did this needs to pay.” She straightened and lifted her chin. “Juliet and Christopher, Chloe… They deserve justice. My
daughter
deserves justice. I’m sure you’ll see to that, Detective Norton.”

“That’s my job,” I said. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I am, too. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

I took a step back to the paper towel dispenser.

She glided to the middle stall like a swan across a pond. Before disappearing behind the locked metal door, she tossed me a smile so bright it fed the sun.

THE HOT, DISEASED BREATH OF THE HOSPITAL WAS WAITING FOR COLIN AND ME AS
we returned to the main lobby. We rushed toward the exit for the parking lot, lips clamped together as the sick lurched and coughed and spat into tissues. Outside, the air smelled of exhaust and cigarette smoke, the regular carcinogenic stink that caused domestic diseases like lung cancer and COPD.

After inhaling a few pounds of poison, Colin said, “So Christopher Chatman.”

“What about him?” I opened the Crown Vic’s driver’s-side door and slipped behind the steering wheel.

“All that ruckus and the waving arms and all that. Really?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You’re such a cynic, Colin.”

“You don’t get the impression that he’s puttin’ on?”

“Would you rally back quickly if a beautiful woman was at your bedside and tending to your needs?”

“Hell no.” Colin chuckled. “My ass would be an invalid at all the right times, but strong and potent when it mattered.”

My fingers tapped across the car’s computer keyboard. “Looks like we were never called out to the Chatman house for domestic drama,” I said, scrolling through the address’s history. “Just the burglary back in 2009.”

Colin leaned into the car. “Any priors for him or her?”

I typed in Juliet Chatman’s name. “A speeding violation last year.” I typed in Christopher Chatman’s name. “And he’s totally clean. He’s even an organ donor.”

“The man’s a saint.”

“I wanna go back to the house,” I said. “See if Pepe and Luke found a MacGuffin.”

The temperature around the Chatmans’ property had cooled some, and heat no longer pulsed from the ground. Melting plastics and paints had hardened into stalactites, opaque orbs, and swamp things.

In the front yard, now lit with halogen lamps, firemen clomped in and out of the house, checking for hotspots, tearing venting holes into walls. On the perimeter, the last news crew reported live from the scene. Pepe was hunched over a crimson-brocaded couch. Luke was snapping pictures of all the items we had collected throughout the day.

“What’s up, ladies?” I asked.

Pepe wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his forearm. “People own a lot of shit. That’s what’s up.”

“We need some good food after this,” Luke said.

“It’s Pepe’s turn,” Colin said.

Pepe scrunched his eyebrows. “I got food on Friday.”

“AM-PM is not food, amigo,” Luke said. “I’m talkin’ six-pound Hollenbeck burritos with enough cheese and guacamole to constipate a walrus.”

“You
are
a walrus,” Colin cracked.

Luke flipped Colin the bird and said, smiling, “
Vete y chinga a tu madre
.”

Pepe groaned, then laughed.

“That’s illegal, Luke,” I said, shaking my head.

“What he say?” Colin asked. “Something about my mother? What was that other stuff?”

“Changing the subject,” I said. “Find anything good?”

“Remember the piece Miss Lady was packin’?” Luke asked. “We ran the serial number. It legally belonged to Juliet Chatman. She picked it up last Thursday at a gun store in Duarte.”

“Duarte?”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s, like, fifty miles east of here. Why not buy a gun at the store over in Culver City? That’s three miles away.”

“Did she fire it?” Colin asked.

“Nope,” Luke said. “Oh, and we never did find Mrs. Chatman’s car keys.”

“Think someone took them so she couldn’t leave?” I asked.

The men shrugged and nodded and shook their heads.

“Y’all are as sharp as marbles.” I swiveled and pointed to the SUV in the driveway. “You search it yet?”

“Not thoroughly,” Pepe said. “Zucca sprayed the inside, but he didn’t find any blood. Nothing but old soda spills, Skittles, and hard-ass french fries.”

“Let’s take another look,” I said, pulling gloves on as we stepped over to the car.

“We did grab a few things from Chatman’s Jag,” Pepe said as we walked. “A CVS drugstore receipt from December tenth, which was yesterday. A botanical-gardens ticket from December tenth, which was yesterday. And a charger and cell phone hidden in the compartment beneath the driver’s seat.”

“Ooh,” I said. “Secret cell phone stashed in the secret seat cache.”

“We found some pain meds in the Jag’s glove compartment,” Pepe continued. “Hydrocodone prescribed for Mr. Chatman. And we found an EZ-Mail invoice for personal mailbox service for November. And that’s about it.”

“That phone gets me hot,” I said. “We’ll need warrants to pull phone bills, to get voice-mail messages and texts.” I popped the truck’s rear compartment to see those three suitcases.

“Were they going on a trip?” Pepe asked.

I opened the hard-shelled, hot-pink Hello Kitty suitcase. “Girls’ shirts, panties, calf-length Cons, skinny jeans. Chloe, I’m guessing.”

Next, I opened the battered black piece covered with shoe prints and skateboard bumper stickers. “Games for a Nintendo DS, checkered skinny jeans, three pairs of clean socks, and… a Bic lighter.” I pointed at the Bic. “Cody.”

“Oh boy,” Pepe said, taking pictures of that lighter.

Then, I opened the last suitcase, a newish Louis Vuitton piece with no nicks or scratches. “Obviously Mrs. Chatman’s. Designer blue jeans, stiletto boots, two bras, lots of panties, T-shirts, and… a box of bullets for the Smith and Wesson.”

More pics taken of the bullets.

My eyes combed the rest of the SUV’s compartment. “Do y’all see what I don’t see?”

Pepe, Luke, and Colin scanned the cabin.

“Two kids and a lady,” I pointed out. “Where’s
his
bag?”

We searched the SUV again.

No suitcase for a man.

“Anybody see a suitcase in the house?” I asked. “Maybe he hadn’t put his in the trunk.”

Luke shook his head. “We would’ve noticed that.”

Pepe turned the key in the ignition. “The gas tank is full. Wherever she and the kids were going, she wasn’t planning on stopping soon.”

“Or for Daddy Bear to come along,” I said.

“Oh boy,” Luke and Pepe said together.

“Okay, so let’s backtrack,” I said. “ ‘
Something, something
kill me.’ And she died holding a gun.”

“She had been scared of something,” Colin said.

“Or someone,” Pepe added.

“So scared,” I said, “that she purchased that gun, filled the car’s gas tank, and packed up the kids. But before they could escape, before she had a chance to fire that gun and drive four hundred miles east to wherever, she had been stopped.”