"The big dude."
"Dude's all right. I like that cat. I already told him about those banger dudes I saw. Him, and the police. They were here yesterday."
Jared had seen a lot of action in the past two days. He was comfortable with it.
"I'm not here about the banger dudes. I was hoping you could tell me how long Dru's been living next door."
"Dude. I'm so bad with time."
Cole waited, letting the silence press Jared for an answer.
Jared finally shrugged.
"Gotta be three months. Steve hooked it back to London three months ago. That dude has cash. He's always in Europe."
"She moved in the day he left?"
"That's the way it works. Steve brought her over, introduced her to my mom, this is my house-sitter, all of that stuff."
"When did her uncle move in?"
Jared glanced across the street and made a sly smile. Cole wondered at both the hesitation and the smile.
Jared said, "The next day."
Jared glanced across the street again, and Cole sensed Jared wanted to say something so badly he could not maintain eye contact.
Cole said, "What?"
"I see things, dude. Dru has a hot body. She lays out a lot. I'm up in that window for a reason."
"Tell me, Jared."
"I don't think Uncle Wilson is Uncle Wilson. They don't always act like relatives, if you're catching my subtext here."
Cole stared at Jared for a long time. He felt cold inside, but his mouth was dry and the morning sun was hot on his skin. A knot of anger blossomed in his chest like cherry-red fire.
"Do not say this if it's bullshit."
"Dude. I have a dead-on view of their yard. I can see in their windows, and she doesn't pull the shades. I've seen them fucking. I think she digs it that I watch."
The cold grew until Cole felt numb. He stared at Steve Brown's house, and wondered who these people were and if everything the woman told Pike was lies.
Cole looked back at Jared, but didn't know what to say. The best he managed was a nod.
Cole did not try to hide what he did next. Jared might have gone back into his house, but Cole didn't notice because Cole didn't care.
Cole found the key in its place by the gatepost, opened the gate, and let himself into the house. He knew what he wanted and what he would do with it.
He pulled on the vinyl gloves as he went to the kitchen. During his earlier search, he had seen folded paper grocery bags wedged into the gap between the refrigerator and the counter. He pulled out several bags, shook one open, then placed it on the counter. He selected three glass tumblers from the dishes left on the counter, put each in a separate bag, and placed the three bags carefully into the open bag. He collected two empty Diet Coke cans and a water bottle from the family room, bagged them the same way, then went up to the master for the metal box with Wilson's papers. He brought it down to the kitchen.
Cole stopped in the downstairs guest bedroom on his way out. A few of her things were there, but now he wondered if she really used the room or if it was just for show. An empty stick of Dry Idea antiperspirant deodorant was on the dresser. He added it to the bag, then locked the house and gate as he left.
Cole returned to his car, but did not start the engine. He called a friend named John Chen, who was a criminalist with the LAPD's Scientific Investigations Division.
"John? I need you to check some prints. I need it done fast."
"Dude. I'm at a drive-by in Hawaiian Gardens. I've been here all frakkin' night."
"I need this, John. It's for Joe."
Chen hesitated, which told Cole he would agree.
"Okay. Okay, for sure."
"I can bring the samples to you. Where in Hawaiian Gardens?"
"Uh-uh, bro, way too many witnesses here. Meet me downtown in an hour. Make it an hour ten. Outside CCB."
Cole closed his phone and headed for downtown Los Angeles.
24
Elvis Cole As an employee of the Los Angeles Police Department, John Chen, like the department's sworn officers, was forbidden to perform unauthorized case work, use city resources for personal gain, or help civilian private investigators off the books. These were good and valid rules to preserve the integrity of case evidence, enforce a professional code of conduct, and discourage employee corruption.
John Chen was corrupt.
A paranoid with low self-esteem, Chen lived for the headline, and this was normally Cole's ace. Cole often gave Chen information that allowed him to make breakthroughs on cases he would not have made otherwise. These breakthroughs led to a media profile few other criminalists enjoyed, Chen having been quoted more than a dozen times in the Los Angeles Times, interviewed by various local TV news anchors, and hired as a technical consultant on motion pictures based on two of his cases. Chen, whose obsessions in life revolved around women and money, currently drove a Porsche Boxster. The women had so far eluded him.
Cole worked his way onto the I-10 Freeway for the fifteen-mile trek across the Los Angeles Basin. He was approaching the Mid-City area less than halfway across when his phone rang, and he saw it was Pike. Cole had been struggling with what to tell Pike, but now the call forced his hand. If Wilson and Dru were still alive, he would say nothing until he knew more.
"Was it them?"
"Mendoza and Gomer. They're dead."
Cole felt a kick of surprise. Mendoza and Gomer were the predators. They weren't supposed to be dead. If the predators were dead, where were the victims?
"What about Wilson and Dru?"
"Nothing. Mendoza was in the canal by Washington. Gomer was in a car up at the north end. If the cops found something in Gomer's car, they haven't told me."
Pike quickly described how they were killed, which left Cole even more unsettled.
"When did it happen?"
"Fill you in later. I'm being questioned."
"You're a suspect?"
"It won't be a problem. They're covering the bases."
"There's a third player, Joe. The person who jimmied the kitchen window."
"I know. I've been thinking about it."
Pike hung up and Cole drove on, letting the flow of traffic carry him through increasingly darker thoughts.
When the Los Angeles Police Department relocated their headquarters from a decayed and crumbling Parker Center to the new Police Administration Building two blocks away, they forgot to take the Scientific Investigation Division with them. This wasn't factually the case, but was one of many jokes the criminalists liked to tell. The reality was that until a suitable site was found, SID would remain the last man standing in LAPD's past.
Cole didn't drive to the old Parker Center location. He waited for Chen outside the Criminal Courts Building six blocks away, arriving early and waiting an extra twenty minutes until John arrived.
Chen slipped into the passenger seat of Cole's car so fast it was as if he fell from the sky. He wore oversized dark sunglasses, a Dodgers cap pulled low on his face, and a windbreaker with the collar turned up even though it would reach almost ninety degrees later that day. His grapefruit head was tucked into the collar like a turtle into its shell. Hiding.
"I don't think anyone saw me, but we'd better drive. They might have followed."
Chen's paranoia.
Cole pulled into traffic, determined to make this a short drive. The news about Mendoza and Gomer had left him feeling even more concerned about Smith and Dru Rayne.
Cole reached behind the seat for his bag, and put it on Chen's lap. There wasn't much room. Chen was tall, skinny, and looked like a praying mantis folded into the front passenger compartment.
"It's breakable, so be careful."
"What's in here?"
"Glasses. A couple of soda cans. Things like that. I also have a metal box you can have when you get out of the car.
Chen took off the sunglasses and put on his regular glasses. The lenses looked like they had been cut from the bottoms of Coke bottles.