The Edge of Night (11 page)

“Why did you go?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. If he’d gone to protect her, he’d done a piss-poor job. Given half a chance, he might have taken advantage of her himself. So he changed the subject. “Why don’t you want to go back to your parents’ house?”

“They’re mad at me for dropping out of college.”

“Which college?”

“Chapel. It’s a Christian school.”

“They teach about God?”

She sipped her soda. “They offer all of the regular courses. You don’t have to study religion. But it felt … oppressive.”

Eric was surprised by her description. He couldn’t imagine having no job and no responsibilities. Going away to school sounded like freedom rather than oppression. “Some people would kill for that opportunity.”

She sighed, conceding his point. “Do you go to college?”

“I didn’t even finish high school.”

“Why not?”

“My brother went to prison during my senior year. He’d been taking care of me, so I had to get a job to support myself.”

“Where are your parents?”

“My dad is dead. My mom went back to Mexico ten years ago.”

“Do you ever see her?”

“All the time. She lives in TJ.”

She stared at him with wide eyes, bewildered by his nonchalance. He supposed she’d led a sheltered existence, if she found his situation unusual. Around here, there were many kids with absent mothers and relatives in jail.

“You’re lucky your parents can afford to send you to college,” he added.

“I can go without their help. I just enrolled at Southwest and applied for financial aid.”

“Hmm.”

“You could go, too.”

Eric shrugged. Between taking care of his grandmother, working at the store, and fulfilling his obligations to CVL, he didn’t have a lot of spare time for classes. Besides, his crew members would frown on any attempt at higher learning.

They’d think he was trying to get out of the gang, overreaching his step.

By the time Meghan finished her soup, she looked as if she was starting to feel human again. He didn’t envy her the sobriety. Once the fuzziness faded, she’d have a lot of unpleasant things to think about.

The soup stayed down, to his relief. After a brief rest, they rose from the table and continued on their way. Her brother’s house was about a mile from the restaurant. As they arrived, dawn was edging over the horizon.

“This is me,” she said, toeing the sidewalk. He glanced at the numbers on the mailbox, committing them to memory.

“Do you want your shirt back?”

“No.”

She took a step toward him, resting her hand on his shoulder. He tensed at her touch. “Thank you,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come along.”

Although he accepted the gesture, he didn’t react to it. His eyes were shuttered, his body language closed off.

“I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Go on,” he said.

Taking out her key, she approached the front door, her hands trembling. With one last glance back, she slipped into the house and locked herself inside. Moving quietly, she disappeared into the downstairs bathroom, avoiding her reflection as she removed her clothes. Feeling numb, she stepped into the shower stall and turned on the faucet.

She stayed there a long time.

When the pounding hot water failed to soothe, she tried a cooler temperature, letting it flow over her and over her. Her hand drifted down her belly, and she touched herself tentatively, wanting to make sure she was still … normal.

The experience hadn’t robbed her of sensation or taken away her ability to respond. But it had changed how she felt about herself.

Tears sprang into her eyes, and she shut the water off. Wrapping a towel around her body, she crept upstairs, holding the pile of discarded clothes. Rather than shoving the items in her laundry basket, she hid them in her closet.

She put on a clean T-shirt and panties and climbed into bed, pulling the covers over her head. Shutting out the world.

In a few moments, she was asleep.

10

Noah’s cell phone rang, vibrating across
the nightstand, tugging him back to reality.

The cold shower he’d taken the night before didn’t ease his desire for April. Sleep hadn’t come easy, and he’d only just drifted off. He caught his phone as it fell over the edge of the nightstand. The screen read 6:22
A.M
.

It was Detective Santiago.

“What’s up?” he said, his voice like gravel.

“We have another vic. Sexual assault, asphyxiation. Possibly gang related.”

He sat up in bed, alert. “Where?”

“South pier.”

The tension in his chest lessened a bit. The victim wasn’t April. She was home, asleep. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Dressing quickly, he went down to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee, glancing at the note his sister had left. He hadn’t heard her come in, but he got the impression she was here. Frowning, he walked past the guest bathroom. Someone had just showered. “Meghan?” he called out, jogging upstairs.

Her door was closed. He rapped his knuckles against it. “Meg?”

No answer.

When he opened the door, she groaned and rolled over in bed, burying her face in the pillows. “Go away.”

“I thought you were staying with a friend.”

Her response was muffled, unintelligible.

“We’ll talk later. I got called in to work.”

She pulled the covers over her head.

Noah shut the door and went back downstairs, glad she was home. He didn’t need any additional worries right now. There was a killer on the loose.

He didn’t have time to go to the station for his uniform, so he arrived on the scene in plain clothes. It was already a clusterfuck of media, civilians, and police officers. Lola Sanchez’s death hadn’t caused a huge stir. This one would. A second sexually motivated killing in as many weeks suggested serial murder, maybe even a spree.

At almost 7:00
A.M
., the beach was cool and overcast. The sand was damp. In a few more hours, the sun would burn through the clouds.

There were dividers around the body, and police tape squared off a large area underneath the pier. Noah stepped inside, joining Detective Santiago. The scene was disturbing, and gruesome, and difficult to look at.

Another Hispanic girl, late teens or early twenties. Like Lola Sanchez and April Ortiz, she had dark hair and a slim build. She was lying on her stomach, her head turned to one side. Her jeans were tangled around her ankles, her red top pulled down to her waist. Noah walked around the perimeter, trying to catch sight of her face.

She’d been suffocated by a thin plastic bag.

Her eyes were wide open, her mouth gagged with a black bandanna. He could see the design on the cloth through the cloudy plastic.

“Cristina Lopez,” Santiago said. “Sister of Junior Lopez.”

“I know him,” Noah said. Lopez was a tax collector of sorts. He took a portion of the illegal earnings from every gangster who worked on CVL turf and gave it to the top crew members. Those who didn’t pay earned a beating.

“You heard anything on the street?”

“Nothing new.”

The Chula Vista Locos were longtime rivals with Eastside Imperial Beach. Although colors weren’t as important to them as to some of the L.A. gangs, CVL was associated with white and brown, and Eastside wore black.

This could be an Eastside hit.

Gang violence usually involved men and boys, but not always. For women to be targeted, there had to be some serious shit going down.

Santiago took off his glasses, wiping them with a white handkerchief. He looked flustered, and Noah had never seen him that way before. “This is going to cause a fucking war,” he muttered. “You and Shanley go interview Junior Lopez. Don’t tell him about the bandanna, but find out if he has a beef with Eastside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Noah called Patrick on his way to the station. Shanley sounded groggy and irritated, reluctant to come in. They rarely worked this early in the morning. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” he said, hanging up.

Patrick’s attitude had been bothering Noah all week. He was a good cop, an experienced cop, but he’d lost his objectivity. He seemed to think every kid was a punk, every person of color an illegal immigrant, and every criminal a recidivist.

He’d crossed the line between pragmatism and pessimism at least a year ago.

Noah knew that Patrick had some personal issues and that he disliked working with the homicide division. But he wished Patrick would put those prejudices aside for now and help Noah with the investigation. Young innocent women were being murdered—and Patrick didn’t seem to care.

After Noah suited up, he went to his desk and logged on to the network, checking the details of the case. With no official report filed, there wasn’t much information available. Preliminary time of death was between midnight and 3:00
A.M
. Possible cause of death, asphyxiation. She’d been sighted by a jogger at 5:25.

A cell phone recovered from her back pocket showed some recent activity. A couple of numbers had been entered in the system. One text message, from a caller identified only as
E
, read:
Leaving w/ M
.

Noah printed it out, along with a recent arrest sheet for Junior Lopez, and drank some more coffee. Patrick came in a few minutes later, fresh from the shower, his eyes bloodshot. He’d probably been at Mulligan’s last night, getting hammered. Noah couldn’t bring himself to feel any sympathy for Patrick’s condition. Over the past few months, his drinking, like his attitude, had become steadily worse.

They walked down to the parking garage in silence.

“Where to?” Patrick asked, climbing behind the wheel of the cruiser.

Using the keyboard on the console, Noah entered Lopez’s last known address. The screen lit up with mug shots from prior arrests and directions to the location. “Junior Lopez, age twenty-four, height five foot ten, weight 205.”

Patrick grunted with interest. He liked a scuffle.

“It’s an interview, not an arrest,” Noah explained.

“Shit.”

They used the drive time to discuss the similarities between the two murders. The victims resembled each other. There was no doubt in Noah’s mind that the crimes had been perpetrated by the same killer. Even Patrick, who had feigned disinterest in the previous case, understood the implications. Santiago was entrusting them with a delicate situation.

“How’d it go at Club Suave last night?” Patrick asked.

Noah shrugged. “Average shot-in-the-dark surveillance.”

“Did you see that waitress you like?”

“I might have.”

He didn’t elaborate, so Patrick dropped the subject. “I was thinking about taking the boat out tomorrow morning. You and Meg want to come along?”

Noah was surprised by the offer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hung out with Patrick after hours. “Thanks, but I can’t,” he said, feeling a little guilty. They arrived at Lopez’s residence, an avocado green apartment building called Cholla Terrace. “I have a date.”

Patrick glanced at him, squinting in suspicion. “With April Ortiz?”

After a brief hesitation, he nodded.

“You sneaky son of a bitch,” Patrick said, sounding impressed.

Noah got out of the squad car, shaking his head. It was impossible to hide anything from his partner. And there was no reason to, because Patrick didn’t give a damn about rules. If Noah screwed the prime suspect, Patrick would probably ask for details.

Neither spoke as they ascended the stairs. Lopez lived on an upper level, and they were in luck. He was already outside, smoking a cigarette.

Patrick and Noah had arrested him several times, on multiple charges, so Lopez knew who they were. His face showed no emotion upon seeing them. He took another drag of his cigarette, leaning his forearms on the terrace railing.

He was shirtless, barefoot, puffy-eyed.

Noah had done calls like this before, and it was his least favorite part of the job. He’d notified mothers that their sons were dead. Breaking the news to Lopez wouldn’t be any easier because he was a gang member.

“You might want to sit down,” Patrick said.

Lopez looked back and forth between them. The hard expression he’d been wearing changed. His eyes registered shock, and fear, and then denial. “No.”

“Can we talk inside?”

“Fuck no.”

“It’s your sister,” Noah said. “She’s been killed.”

Lopez didn’t react for a few seconds. He stood there, staring at Noah with his lips curled back, like he might throw a punch. Then his eyes filled with tears and he let out a hoarse yell, slamming his fist into the apartment siding.

He repeated the action several times, with less force, and pressed his forehead to the door, praying in Spanish. There was a large tattoo on his back, a brilliantly detailed Virgin of Guadalupe. Blood dripped down his knuckles.

“You’re sure?” he asked finally.

Noah nodded. “She had her cell phone on her, and picture ID.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stanch the tears. “How?”

Patrick fielded the question. “We’re investigating that right now. Maybe you can answer a few questions, help us out.”

After a brief hesitation, Junior opened the door to his apartment, waving them inside. Beer cans were stacked on the coffee table, and take-out boxes littered the floor. Lopez disappeared into the bedroom, causing both Noah and Patrick to put their hands on their revolvers.

“Despiértate,”
he growled. The bedsprings rattled.
“Sácate, ya!”

A sleepy young woman stumbled out of the bedroom, carrying a pile of clothes. Her dark hair was mussed, her makeup smudged. When Lopez shoved a purse at her, she retreated into the bathroom, cursing him in Spanish.

Noah and Patrick exchanged a glance. There was no question as to what Lopez had been doing last night. A moment later the woman came out of the bathroom, fully dressed, her eyes flashing with anger.

“I’ll call you,” Lopez said, wrapping a T-shirt around his bloody knuckles.

Giving him a look of disgust, she left.

As soon as she was gone, Lopez turned and kicked over the coffee table, sending its contents crashing to the floor. Noah knew he was acting out of grief, but he also got the impression that Lopez felt ashamed of the way he lived. He didn’t seem to respect his apartment or his woman. Maybe his tough-guy front had slipped away for a moment and he was seeing himself through their eyes.

Visibly upset, he sat down on the couch, gesturing for them to join him.

“We’ll stand,” Patrick said.

Junior Lopez was a big boy. Stocky rather than muscular. His head was shaved, almost to the skin. The kids in the neighborhood respected him, and women liked him. Although he was a hardened criminal and a troubled young man, he had a charismatic personality.

“Do you know where your sister was last night?” Patrick asked.

“No. I texted her, but she didn’t text back.”

“She have a boyfriend?”

Junior shook his head. He looked … lost. “I don’t know.”

“Can I see your cell phone?” Noah asked.

He took it from the pocket of his jeans, glancing at the screen before handing it over. Noah scrolled through the list of contacts. “Who’s Eric?” he asked, comparing the number to the printout. It matched.

“A friend of mine.”

Noah knew who Lopez ran with; it was his job. “Eric Hernandez?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Any reason he would call or text her?”

“They work together.”

“Where?”

“Bonita Market.”

A chill ran down Noah’s spine. That was where Meghan worked. “Did she have a shift last night?”

“I think so.”

“Until what time?”

“They close at nine.”

He checked the time of the text. “A message from him was sent to her phone at one seventeen
A.M.
”

Lopez’s eyes narrowed. “What did it say?”

“I can’t give out that information. Do you know anyone named M?”

“I know some motherfuckers whose names
start
with
M.
”

“Did you see Eric last night?”

“Yeah. I was at his house for a few minutes before he left.”

“Where did he go?”

Lopez shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me, but he was dressed up kinda nice.”

“You think he was meeting your sister?”

He clenched his hand into a fist. His knuckles were still seeping blood, spotting the cotton fabric. “I think he’s got a lot of explaining to do.”

“We’ll handle that,” Noah warned. “Don’t call him and tip him off.”

“Maybe some Eastside boys saw your homie with Cristina,” Patrick broke in. “Decided to rough her up.”

“They might mess with him. Why would they hurt her?”

“She was CVL.”

Lopez gave Patrick a fierce look. “No. She wasn’t.”

“Your sister was raped and suffocated because of your gang connections,
ese
,” Patrick said. “They found a black bandanna shoved in her mouth.”

Lopez jumped to his feet, ready to fight.

Noah got between them, bracing his hand on Lopez’s heaving chest. “Officer Shanley is only speculating,” he said, protecting Patrick from Junior’s wrath. “She had some kind of cloth in her mouth. It hasn’t been identified yet.”