Robert Ellis - Murder Season

He was losing it. He wasn’t going to make it.

And when he finally rolled down the last hill and saw the Pacific Coast Highway on the other side of his windshield, he realized that he’d made a wrong turn on Sunset. The emergency room at UCLA had probably been less than five miles east of Bennett’s house.

He started to panic. He saw storefronts. A neon sign.

L.A. DOG AND CAT.

He pulled over and groaned when he noticed that the lights were on and someone was inside. He jacked open the door and got out. His gun was in his hand-his Sig Sauer-and he didn’t know why. And his balance was off-the air was still-yet it felt like he’d walked into a stiff wind.

He reached the door. He was surprised about that. Through the glass he could see the vet doing paperwork behind the front desk.

Cobb knocked on the glass. It was a weak knock-more of a tap, really-but the vet looked up, pointing at the sign in the door and mouthing the words, “We’re closed.”

Cobb groaned like an animal again.

We’re closed .

The vet had said it louder this time. Loud enough for Cobb to hear his voice through the glass.

We’re closed .

He thought that he might vomit, but fought it off. He tried to get his head straight, but knew with certainty that he had no chance. He looked at the door-the wood frame and the wood panels below the glass. Then he took two steps back and charged forward, driving his shoulder into the lock.

The door burst open and the vet jumped to his feet.

Cobb raised his gun. “If you say ‘We’re closed’ one more time, I’m gonna blow your fuckin’ head off.”

The vet’s mouth dropped open. Cobb could see him staring at the napkins pushed into his chest. The blood wicking through the paper and dripping onto the floor like a couple of leaky pipes.

“I’m a police officer,” he said. “And I need your help.”

The vet tried to speak, but stumbled on his words. He looked young. Thirty-five with light features, wearing jeans and a lab coat. The tag over his pocket read DR. FRANK.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” the vet said.

Cobb shook his head back and forth, almost losing his balance. “I’ll bleed to death before it gets here. You gotta do it. You gotta help me.”

“But I’m a veterinarian,” he said. “I take care of animals.”

“I’ve been an animal most of my life, Doc. And this isn’t exactly a request.”

Cobb realized that he’d emptied the gun’s mag into Bennett’s bullshit dream house, but flicked the muzzle in the vet’s face just the same. When he saw Frank’s eyes widen slightly, he knew that it had worked. The Sig was a good-looking piece. Cobb had always admired it.

“Okay, okay,” Dr. Frank said. “Let’s go. Let’s do it.”

He grabbed Cobb’s arm and helped him into the back room. There was a stainless steel table here and the tiles on the walls were the same color blue as Gamble’s eyes. Cobb took this as a good sign, but had to admit to himself that good signs were selling cheap right now.

Dr. Frank lifted him onto the table, then slipped his hands into a pair of vinyl gloves. He pulled off Cobb’s shirt and started working on the wounds. He worked quickly, like a medic in the field, and Cobb wondered if the guy had ever served.

“You’ve gotta tell me what happened,” the vet was saying. “I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Cobb looked up at him. He was the right age, and he didn’t look scared anymore.

“Three shots fired behind my back,” he said. “I count two exit wounds. I’m hoping one of the three missed. I lost my cell phone, Doc. If something happens to me-”

A wave passed over his body. A big one with a lot of roll to it.

It felt like he was sinking in a sea of exhaustion. He tried to keep talking. Tried to convey the situation as best he could. Tried to give the vet the real deal in broad strokes and tell him that Gamble was in danger. But he wasn’t sure he was making much sense anymore. He wasn’t even sure if he was really talking.

Lena was weaving through heavy traffic on the west end of Sunset Boulevard on a Friday night. She didn’t know how fast the car was moving because she hadn’t checked the speedometer. All she knew was that the car couldn’t go fast enough. She glanced over at Vaughan in the passenger seat.

“It’ll be okay,” he said.

Over the past hour every time she’d looked at him, Vaughan had said the same thing.

It’ll be okay .

She had waited for Vaughan at Debi Watson’s house in West Hollywood and walked him through the crime scene with detectives from the Sheriff’s Department. Vaughan had spent the day rooting through the district attorney’s computer system with Keith Upshaw. They’d found something and he wanted to talk about it. But Lena’s mind was on Cobb. She couldn’t stop worrying about him. He was supposed to meet them at Watson’s house, but he never showed up. When she tried calling him, his message service kept picking up after a single ring as if his phone had been turned off.

Everything about it felt grim. Everything about it, wrong.

She found a clear stretch of road and picked up speed.

“Rockingham’s just around the corner,” Vaughan said. “It’s gonna be on the right and come up fast.”

She spotted the street sign as she rolled out of the curve. Once she made the turn, she saw the flashing lights and felt the pull in her gut. The street had been blocked off by a handful of black and white cruisers out of the West L.A. Station. A cop directing traffic was motioning her to make a U-turn and drive away. Lena grit her teeth and shook her head at the guy. When she flashed her badge, she was redirected to a spot on the first side street that hadn’t been blocked off.

Vaughan touched her arm. “Are you gonna be okay?”

She looked at him. She couldn’t tell. Everything seemed so raw.

She ripped open the door, met Vaughan on the other side, and they hurried up the street. As they checked in, she glanced at Bennett’s house and noticed the shattered windows and the bullet holes in the garage door. Vaughan gave her a nudge and pointed across the street to a hill overlooking the house. There were two men up there searching the ground with flashlights. It had to be the spot Cobb had told her about. The one with the view.

“I don’t see an ambulance,” Vaughan whispered.

“And I don’t see the coroner’s van. Maybe we got lucky.”

Someone called out her name.

She turned and saw a detective standing at the curb in front of Bennett’s house. She knew him. His name was Clayton Hu. They had spent a year on patrol together when they both wore uniforms and worked out of Hollywood.

Hu seemed surprised as he approached them and offered his hand. “What are you guys doing here, Lena?”

“Looking for a detective named Dan Cobb. Have you seen him, Clayton?”

The detective shook his head. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened. This house belongs to a deputy district attorney.”

Vaughan nodded. “We know,” he said. “Steven Bennett.”

“No one’s around,” Hu said. “We’ve been trying to locate Bennett for the last hour. We’ve got his phone numbers, but he’s not responding to the messages we’ve left. We’ve got calls into every hospital in the city. Anyone walks in with a gunshot wound and we’ll know about it.”

Vaughan gave Lena a look, then turned back to Hu. “Maybe you should tell us what you’ve got.”

Hu nodded again, switching on his flashlight and walking them over to the curb. He pointed out the shell casings, then turned the light on the trail of spilled blood that led up and down the street. Lena forced herself to look, but found it painful. Personal.