“We see it now for what it was,” she said. “We didn’t then.”
Vaughan shrugged, still mulling it over as Lena found a tie and pulled a clean white shirt out of the closet. Laying them over the gray suit, she gave them a look and returned to the closet for a pair of black dress shoes.
“Do you remember what we thought of Cobb, Lena? Do you remember your first impression of the man?”
She took a deep breath and tried to push the thought away but couldn’t quite make it. She opened Cobb’s dresser drawers and found his underwear and socks. The truth was that it felt a lot like the time so many years ago when she buried her dad. She may have only been a teenager at the time, but that’s the way it seemed right now. She still didn’t understand why she felt this way about Cobb, or how it could come on so fast. His mistakes in life had been horrendous-the size of mountains. Yet it was his mistakes that seemed to make the man. He kept moving forward without looking for someone else to blame. He kept the investigation open, working in secret and helping Paladino out with the gift of all gifts.
The blood samples that pointed to Jacob Gant could no longer be found.
She wished that they could have worked together. Just one more case as true partners.
She glanced back at Vaughan. He’d said something and she’d missed it. Something about Lily’s father. She found a plastic garment bag and packed up Cobb’s clothing.
“What about him?” Vaughan said. “Lily’s dad.”
“I owe him an apology,” she said. “And his friend.”
“The guy who tried to vouch for him?”
“I owe them something,” she said, taking a last look at the room. “Let’s get out of here, Greg.”
Vaughan reached for the garment bag and they walked out of the apartment, locking the door behind them. As they started down the steps into the courtyard, Lena noticed that Asian woman again. She was still standing on the sidewalk across the street. But she wasn’t keeping an eye on the woman guarding her laundry. Instead, she was staring at Lena. And it was a long look-the kind of look that wouldn’t let go.
Vaughan hung the garment bag behind the driver’s seat. Lena climbed in, glancing back at the woman. She wondered if they’d met somewhere before. She looked to be about fifty. She had a gentle face and easy eyes and was dressed in a way that didn’t fit the run-down neighborhood. As Lena turned the key in the ignition, the woman waved at her shyly and something clicked.
She turned to Vaughan and told him that she’d be right back. Then she got out of the car and crossed the street. She needed to talk to a friend of a friend. She needed to talk to the woman who described herself on the Internet as totally hot. She needed to meet Cobb’s woman; Betty Kim.
57
Lena spotted Hight’s house in the middle of the block and pulled over. It was late afternoon and she could see the sun nesting over the ocean below the hill. She turned back to the house, then ducked quickly when she noticed Tim Hight walking out the front door.
His Mercedes had been returned to him, and she watched as he backed out onto the street and drove by.
Lena paused a moment, lost in indecision, then made a U-turn and followed him around the bend. Hight made a left on Ocean Park. When he reached Lincoln at the bottom of the hill, he pulled into the parking lot and walked into the grocery store. Lily’s father still appeared thin and frail, his gait a beat short of steady.
Lena backed into a space a safe distance away and gazed through the windshield.
She owed this man an apology. She knew that. But she wasn’t sure she could find the words. She didn’t think she could look him in the eye and meet his gaze. In spite of the guilt she felt, she wasn’t sure she was ready.
A truck turned into the shopping center, pulling to a stop in the middle of the aisle and blocking her view of the grocery store. After several minutes it finally drove off, and Lena checked the lot and found Hight’s car still parked three rows over.
She was thinking about the burden Hight was carrying. The pain and loss he’d been forced to endure, and now, the new reality he would have to face. But even more, she was thinking about the harsh way she had treated him when she suspected he might have had a hand in his own daughter’s death. Hight had been informed that Bennett was the actual killer by Deputy Chief Ramsey and the mayor of Los Angeles, but apparently it hadn’t gone well. Hight had refused to let them into his house. From what Barrera had told her in confidence, Hight had refused to even open his front door.
Lena lowered her window. As she checked the store’s entrance again, she saw him walking out with two bags. Even from across the lot she could tell that the bag he held close to his chest contained several half-gallon bottles of booze.
She watched Hight open his trunk and place his groceries inside. Rooting through one of the bags, he fished out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. Then he circled around the car and opened the door. Curiously, he didn’t climb in. Instead, he leaned his elbows on the roof and gazed at the traffic moving up and down Lincoln Boulevard. For the next five minutes, nothing changed. Hight just stood there, smoking his cigarette and staring at the street.
After a while Lena began to wonder if he wasn’t fixated on something and turned around for a look through the rear window. She saw a young man on Rollerblades, pushing a baby stroller across the street. As they glided up the ramp onto the sidewalk, she turned back and watched Hight following their progress down the block. When they vanished, Hight kept his eyes on the empty sidewalk for several moments, then dropped his cigarette on the pavement and finally got into his car.
He drove off slowly. He pulled onto Ocean Park and lumbered up the long hill. It took him a while to reach the top, but Lena kept her eyes on the car until it finally disappeared. Then she pulled onto Lincoln, heading for the freeway. She didn’t want to follow Hight home. She wasn’t ready yet. She couldn’t find the words. And Hight hadn’t looked ready, either.
58
She could smell it in the pillow as she pulled it closer. On the sheets as she rolled over in the darkness and searched out cool spots that were not there.
Murder season.
She was floating. Drifting. Cruising through an open seam between sleep and consciousness.
She glanced at the clock radio but didn’t really see it, then fell back into the stream and let go. It was somewhere after midnight. Sometime before dawn. Early spring and the air inside the house had been deadened from the oppressive heat.
Murder season had come early this year. It had rolled in with the heat like they were best friends, like they were lovers.
Lena reached across the bed, probing gently for a warm body but finding only emptiness. As she rolled onto her back, she noticed something going on in the house. She could hear it in the background, a noise pulsing in the distance. She tried to ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t real. After a while she began to wonder if it wasn’t part of a dream.
Until she finally realized that it was her cell.
She opened her eyes. The phone wasn’t on the table. When she noticed the light glowing behind the bed, she reached down to the floor and reeled it in. It was 1:30 a.m., and she hoped that it wasn’t another callout. She needed more time before working another case. She needed more rest.
She slid the lock open on the touch screen. As she pressed the phone to her ear, she heard a man’s voice-an extremely timid voice that she recognized, but couldn’t place.
“Who is this?” the man asked.
“Lena Gamble,” she said. “Who’s this?”
There was a long pause. A long stretch of nothing. Lena looked around the bedroom and realized that she was at Vaughan’s house. The bathroom light was on, the door closed. Her memory of the night came back to her. It had been a good one.