Mrs. Villarosa turned her face and wept silently into her tissue. Her husband nodded. "Thank you for using her name."
Tim and Bear rose to leave, standing awkwardly to see if Mrs. Villarosa was going to look up so they could say good-bye.
"Can I ask what this is about?" Mr. Villarosa asked. "It was an accidental death, that's all."
Bear said gently, "I'm afraid we can't-"
"A girl was killed last night," Tim said.
"And you think it's somehow related?"
"We don't know at this point. We really don't."
Mr. Villarosa's face stiffened, anguish pulling his skin taut. "If there's anything we can do, please give us the opportunity."
His handshake was desperate, as if he couldn't make himself let go.
"We will," Tim said.
Chapter 34
The Impala's steering wheel looked tiny in Bear's grip. The marshal had been beating the drum on agency image, and after the FBI's maneuver this morning, Bear wasn't about to inherit his excess wrath for taking his beat-to-hell Dodge Ram to question a bereaved family. He and Tim had their windows down, letting the cool air clear their thoughts.
Tim watched Guerrera's St. Michael medallion sway from the rearview. "They'd just accepted it was a freak accident. Then we come in…"
"There's no connection." Bear forged ahead. "None." For a reason Tim had yet to grasp, Bear liked to get angry when he thought through a case. "We have a broke girl from Chatsworth and a first lieutenant from Sylmar. One was murdered in Simi, one was an accidental death in Mexico."
"So how do you explain them sharing trace evidence on the embalming table?"
"Could be anything. I know you have an undying respect for the men and women who wear our proud uniform, but who knows what the girl did when she was home on leave? Maybe she doesn't live up to her dad's image. The Sinners run those clubhouses as fuckshacks. Maybe she takes a walk on the wild side, leaves a stray hair in Goat's underwear that hitchhikes around town, winds up in the wrong place."
"Because Sinners love Mexican girls."
"Right, right, stupid theory." Bear chewed his lip. "Plus, the girl looked like she caught every tour of the Indigo Girls, you catch my drift. Too bad the 'friend' is in Iraq-not that she saw shit, judging from her statement." He adjusted the seat for the fifteenth time-still no space-enlarging technology. "It is just a hair. I mean, it's not like they found her blood. A hair you can get anywhere. Maybe it got tracked in on someone's shoe."
"Big coincidence. The hair of another dead Mexican girl?"
"Okay," Bear said. "Maybe the embalming table was taken from the funeral home that processed Villarosa's body. Let's have Thomas look into it." He hit speed dial, but his elbow knocked the passenger chair and he dropped the phone.
Tim scooped it up as Bear swerved and cursed. On the phone, Thomas was hurried. "Yeah, okay. I'll try to source the embalming table. Might open up some angles."
Tim asked, "Where are we with the credit card?"
"We got the subpoenas over to Visa. Chief's statements should arrive in our fax momentarily."
"Okay. I also want you to check out other Mexican and Mexican-American females in and from L.A. County and Ventura County who've died in the past couple months."
"Died or been killed?"
"Pull murders and deaths under questionable circumstances. Villarosa was a supposed accident. There's something going on, we're not sure what."
"You want me to check all dead Mexicans?"
"Let's say fifteen to thirty years old. And overweight."
"Overweight? Fatter's harder. To kidnap, control, and dispose. Are they killing to type? If there's some serial-killer bullshit going on, we'd better get ready to mend fences with our buddies at the Fucking Bunch of Idiots."
"Mr. Hoover's organization hasn't risen in popularity since we left?"
"Tannino pulled his Pacino routine on Malane for a good half hour, booted him off the task force."
"Any chance he coughed up where he stowed Goat before he left?"
"Nope. And I never got the Uncle Pete files from him. The Feebs definitely haven't shared their toys on this one." Someone shouted something in the background, and Thomas said, "Oh, yeah, we got your film back from the lab. The prints from the Dumpster? They're all black. Surprise, surprise. But the good news is, we might have gotten a line on Danny the Wand. A business used to sublease some shop space over in Glendale, went by Danny's Bike 'n' Boat Designs. Closed up in May '03. Records are a mess, but we found a year-old forward-mail request to an address in North Hollywood. Danny Pater."
"That's over our way. Give us the address. We'll check it out on the way back."
Tim punched the address into the navigation system and waited a moment until the woman's frosty automated voice set them on course.
He called Aaronson, who'd promised to follow up with the Cabo San Lucas morgue and peruse the coroner's report.
"Standard diving death, far as I can tell," the criminalist said. "Drownings are tough to unwind, but I didn't see any red flags. I think we chalk this one up to fate's sense of humor."
Tim thanked him and hung up. When traffic inevitably thickened at the 118 exchange, Bear set the magnetic light on the roof, letting the siren burp a few times as they navigated the lanes. They exited, passing through a residential area. A few of the houses had clothes displayed on lawns and across bushes, leftovers from holiday mercado-style yard sales.
A local shock jock, in a fit of decency, had taken up Dray's cause, fielding phone calls from sympathetic listeners. The tearful words of support from strangers made Tim at first uncomfortable, then emotional, so he changed the station. A midstream commercial promising listeners they could say good-bye to unwanted hair…forever…made the whole episode seem mildly ridiculous. Bear thankfully withheld comment.
They found the address, a strip-mall installment nestled between a pager-and-cell-phone shop and a check-cashing operation. Bear eased past the entrance-DTW PAINT DESIGNS vividly airbrushed on the blacked-out windows-parked at a bent parking meter, and shoved the keys in his pocket. The navigation system feigned immense pleasure: You have arrived!
Bear regarded the field file in his lap. "So we're thinking this guy might-"
The Impala's back window shattered. The headrests blocked most of the flying glass, but jagged bits tore at Tim's neck and ear. He and Bear tried to duck into the footwells as more bullets hollowed out the dash.
The car's interior was turning to shrapnel all around them as the chuffing of unseen weapons continued-the unremitting percussion of the full-auto, the sporadic pop of a handgun. Bear was hunched forward, steering wheel jammed into his cheek; they were completely pinned down. Tim saw a flash of inspiration touch Bear's face, and then Bear reached over and tugged the trunk release. The metal lid flew up, shielding them from the onslaught and giving them momentary cover to bail out of the car.
Bear threw his weight against his door. The Kojak light, still magnetized to the roof, whipped around the top frame, clocking Bear in the forehead and knocking him across Tim's just-vacated seat. Set in a high-kneel shooting position on the sidewalk, Tim returned fire at the star-burst holes in the blacked-out windows. Only in the following silence could he hear how loudly his ears were ringing.
Casting a glance at Bear's dazed body sprawled across the front seats, Tim rose and sprinted to a position of cover beside the front door. He inched the door open with the barrel of his. 357. A gunman lay between the tall counter and throw of chairs that constituted the reception area. His biker-long hair had fallen like a sheet over his face, his gasps making it pulse over his mouth. Blood from a chest wound continued to spread through an airbrushed jungle-design T-shirt, the widening splotch devouring pythons and panthers. Tim couldn't recognize the downed man from his build and bearing. Still, the biker clutched a handgun-a little. 32 Centennial from the looks of it. Clearly he'd been backed by meaner firepower.