“What?”
“Old newspaper phrase. It means the thing, the nuts, the photo everybody wants. Only this is not a photo. It’s a name.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Look at this.”
I turned the laptop’s screen so she could see it.
“This is the DNA report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that cleared Orton in the rape case down there. Remember, Deep Throat sent it to me? Now look down here where it says the name of the DNA tech who compared Orton’s DNA to the sample taken off the victim.”
“Okay. M. Hammond. What does it mean?”
“Marshall Hammond now works up here for LAPD’s crime lab and lives in Glendale. My partner on the story ran down the second-tier labs that have bought DNA from Orton’s lab. And this guy, Hammond, is one of them. And get this, he buys only female DNA.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you. I need my coffee.”
“No, listen, this is big. This guy Hammond cleared Orton, said the DNA was not a match. Now four years later he’s in business with him. On the FTC paperwork he says he’s researching forensic applications of DNA, but he only buys female DNA from Orton. Why only female if he’s looking at forensic applications? You see? Emily and I were already zeroed in on this guy and now I found out he was Orton’s ticket to freedom. That is no coincidence.”
I got up from the bed again and started getting dressed.
“What are you going to do?” Rachel asked.
“I’m going to go to his house and his so-called lab and check it out,” I said.
“You shouldn’t do that alone, Jack.”
“I won’t. I’ll call Emily.”
“No, take me. I want to go.”
I looked at her.
“Uh...”
“I can help you get a read on this guy if he’s there.”
I knew that she could. But bringing her directly into the story would not go over well with Emily Atwater. Or Myron Levin.
“Come on, Jack,” Rachel said. “We’ve done this before.”
I nodded.
“Then get dressed,” I said. “Let’s catch this guy before he goes to work. We can grab coffee after.”
26
Forty minutes later we were on the street Hammond had listed with the FTC as the location of his lab. It was a residential street, as Emily Atwater had determined on Google Maps.
“Let’s do a drive-by first,” I said. “Get the lay of the land a little bit.”
We cruised by a nondescript, two-story house with a two-car garage and a BMW SUV parked in the driveway.
“A little odd that the BMW is not in the garage,” Rachel said.
“At least it means somebody’s probably home,” I said.
“Wait, Jack, I think the front door was open.”
“Maybe he’s about to leave. Turning around.”
I used a neighbor’s driveway to make the maneuver and then drove back to Hammond’s house. I pulled into the driveway behind the BMW. It was a reporter’s trick. It would make it hard for Hammond to jump into his car and get away when I hit him with the hard questions.
We got out and I saw Rachel put her hand on the BMW’s front hood as she passed by it.
“Still warm,” she said.
We approached the front door, which had been partially hidden from the street by a small front porch with leafy potted plants standing sentinel on either side of the entry portal.
Rachel’s observation was quickly confirmed. The door stood a foot open. The entry room beyond it was dark.
On the frame of the door was a lighted button for a doorbell. I stepped up and pushed it and a loud solitary gong echoed through the house. We waited but no one came. Rachel pulled a sleeve down over her hand and gently pushed the door open further. She then crossed behind me as she changed her angle of view into the house. There was a small entry area with a wall directly in front of us and arched entries to hallways to the left and right.
“Hello?” I called loudly. “Mr. Hammond? Anybody home?”
“There’s something wrong,” Rachel whispered.
“How do you know?”
“I feel it.”
I rang the doorbell again, this time pushing it repeatedly, but only the solitary gong sounded. I looked back at Rachel.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We go in,” Rachel said. “Something’s wrong. The car engine’s warm, the door’s open, nobody’s answering.”
“Yeah, but we’re not cops. We should call the cops.”
“I’m fine with that, if that’s how you want to play it. But say goodbye to your story if the cops lock this place down.”
I nodded. Good point. I stalled by yelling loudly into the house once more.
No one answered, no one came.
“Something’s wrong,” Rachel repeated. “We need to check it out. Maybe somebody needs help.”
This last part was said for my benefit, giving me the excuse I could use later if things went sideways once we entered.
“Okay,” I said. “Lead the way.”
She moved past me before I was finished speaking.
“Put your hands in your pockets,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“No prints.”
“Got it.”
I followed her into the hallway to the right. It led to a living room that was furnished in contemporary styles, with a Warhol print of a Volkswagen Beetle over a fireplace protected by a freestanding glass panel. There was a thick book called The Broad Collection on the table between the maroon couch and two matching chairs. There was no sign of disturbance or anything wrong. It looked like a room that never got used.
“Are we in the right house?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah, I checked the address,” I said. “Why?”
“The LAPD must pay its DNA techs a lot better than I thought.”
“Plus, buying DNA from Orange Nano can’t be cheap.”
Next we moved through a modern kitchen with an island counter that divided the space from a large TV room that looked out onto a pool. Nothing seemed amiss. Held by a magnet to the refrigerator was a color photo printed on cheap copy paper that depicted a naked woman with a ball gag in her mouth.
“Nice fridge art,” I said.
“We need to check upstairs,” Rachel said.
We found the stairs by retracing our steps and going down the other hallway. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, but only one that appeared to be in use — the bed was unmade and there were dirty clothes in a pile next to it. A quick sweep of these rooms produced no people and no sign of trouble.
We went back down the stairs. There were two closed doors at this end of the hallway. Rachel opened these with her sleeve-covered hand. The first was to a laundry room. Nothing there. The second was to the garage, and that’s where we found Hammond’s lab.
And where we found Hammond hanging from a noose fashioned from an orange industrial power cord.
“Shit,” I said.
“Don’t touch anything,” Rachel said.
“Hands in pockets. I got that.”
“Good.”
But I pulled one of my hands out of its pocket with my cell phone. I pulled up the keyboard and tapped in 9-1-1.
“What are you doing?” Rachel asked.
“Calling it in,” I said.
“No, not yet.”
“What do you mean? We need to call the police.”
“Just hold your horses for a minute. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
“We got a dead guy hanging from the crossbeam.”
“I know, I know.”
She offered nothing else as she moved in closer to the body. There was a wooden chair kicked over on its side below the body, which I assumed was that of Marshall Hammond.
The body was suspended completely motionless in front of Rachel.