Robert Ellis - Murder Season

Hu turned to her. “What was Cobb doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on Bennett.”

“And Bennett’s a suspect?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s a suspect. It’s murder, Clayton. Multiple counts.”

“I was afraid you were gonna say that. Let’s take a walk up the hill.”

They followed the blood trail up the street, then cut into the brush once they’d passed the crime scene tape. When they reached the top of the hill, the two men already there lowered their flashlights and pointed out three more shell casings. After a few moments, the beams of light panned back toward the edge of the hill and Lena’s eyes came to rest on the blood that had soaked into the dry ground. There was a lot of it.

“I’m sorry,” Hu said in a quiet voice. “I’m guessing this is where your detective was keeping an eye on things when he got shot. Is he a friend?”

Lena nodded without saying anything.

“He lost a lot of blood, Lena. But he’s gotta be pretty tough because he walked out and drove away. The blood trail goes all the way down to the next street and then stops where we think he parked his car. We didn’t know he was a cop.”

Vaughan cleared his throat. “He would have driven into Westwood.”

Hu nodded. “We thought so, too, but no one’s shown up yet. Not with a gunshot wound.”

Lena looked over the hill at Bennett’s house, then turned back to Hu. “You’ve got people looking for him between here and there?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But I’ll make it happen.”

She gave him as much information as she had, a description of Cobb’s car, the name of his supervisor at the Pacific Station, the number to his cell phone. Then they started down the hill, avoiding the yellow tape that charted the path that Cobb had taken through the brush. As Lena and Vaughan left Hu behind, she remained silent until they reached the car, climbed in and were alone. The sadness seemed overwhelming.

“What do you think?” she whispered. “Why didn’t Cobb show up at the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” Vaughan said gently.

“Do you think-”

Her voice broke, and she couldn’t manage to keep her game face on any longer. She didn’t understand her emotions. She could feel the tears beginning to drip down her cheeks. When she tried to turn away, Vaughan pulled her into his arms and held her. Moments passed and she sighed as her body met his and began to relax. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders and buried her face in his neck. She could feel his face-rough as sandpaper-and then his lips, kissing her cheek. She turned and gazed at him. Their eyes met in the darkness. And then their lips. Lena’s body flushed with warmth. She could taste the salt on his skin.

She was sitting out by the pool in the early morning light with a tall glass of ice tea. She felt weary-her muscles, her bones, her mind. In spite of Vaughan and the comfort he had given her, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Clayton Hu had called three times, each update more alarming than the next. West L.A. patrol units had covered every conceivable route between Bennett’s house and the emergency room at UCLA in Westwood. Additional units had been brought in to search every possible route between the house and St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica.

Cobb was nowhere to be found.

She heard her cell phone begin ringing from its charging base inside the house. She was assuming that Hu’s next call would be the one where she learned that Cobb’s body had finally been located and her new friend was dead. She wasn’t exactly rushing inside to hear the news.

By the time she reached the phone, the call had been picked up by her service. She read the caller ID. It looked like a wrong number. Someone from a place called L.A. DOG AND CAT had dialed her number on a Saturday morning before 7:00 a.m. When the phone started ringing again and she saw the same ID, her instincts kicked in and she realized that it couldn’t be a wrong number.

“Is this Lena Gamble?”

It was a man’s voice and he sounded extremely tentative.

“This is Lena Gamble,” she said carefully. “Whom am I speaking with?”

“You’re a homicide detective? You work for the Los Angeles Police Department?”

She tried to keep cool. “Yes,” she said. “Now whom am I speaking with?”

“It’s a long story,” the man said. “And I’m not sure there’s enough time left to tell it.”

“Does this have anything to do with someone named Dan Cobb?”

He paused a moment. “Yes,” he said. “It has everything to do with someone named Dan Cobb.”

Lena pushed the stool aside and grabbed a pad and pen off the counter. The man called himself Dr. Frank and claimed to be a veterinarian in Santa Monica. He gave her his address and told her to hurry.

The drive west seemed to last a lifetime. She spent most of it wrestling with an internal dialogue that had begun when Cobb handed her Lily Hight’s boot and she realized that he had seen something no one else had. That the murder of a teenage girl and a trial that had captivated a city and worked its way across the digital universe, had been completely staged by a killer no one was even looking for. A killer who had been standing right beside them. A killer who hadn’t stopped killing and was still loose.

She spotted L.A. Dog and Cat on the right, saw Cobb’s Lincoln up on the curb, and struggled to maintain her composure. As she parked she noticed a dent in the Lincoln’s front fender and a mailbox that had been knocked over on the sidewalk. When she climbed the steps and pushed open the front door, a man in a white lab coat looked up at her from behind the desk.

“Lena Gamble?” he said.

She nodded. “Where is he?”

“Back here.”

He led her into an operating room. Cobb was lying on a stainless steel table, wrapped in sheets and blankets and pointing his gun at the ceiling. Rushing over to him, she got a look at his face, his blank stare, and thought that he was dead.

“I’m too late.”

Dr. Frank checked Cobb’s neck for a pulse. “He’s close, but he’s still here.”

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“He wouldn’t let me. He had the gun. He said he’d blow my head off.”

Lena’s eyes danced over Cobb’s body as she took in the incredulous shock and tried to understand. She smoothed her hand over his scalp. Dr. Frank seemed just as distressed, his voice shaky and worn out from the ordeal.

“He told me he’d lost his phone, but I found it in his pocket this morning. I saw your number and called. He talked about you a lot. He’d drift in and out. Most of the time I couldn’t understand what he was saying. But he trusts you … I got that much. And he’s worried about you. Who’s Steven Bennett?”

“Why?”

“He said that Bennett tricked him.”

“Did he say how?”

“No, but I’m guessing that it has something to do with the fact that he was shot in the back.”

The words hung there. The gristle on the bone. Bennett had shot Cobb in the back.

She watched Dr. Frank move to the other side of the table. He was pulling the sheets away from Cobb’s chest. He was showing her the exit wounds.

“Two slugs passed through and out,” he said. “But there’s one left in his shoulder. I stopped the bleeding, but we really need to get him to a hospital.”

“Help me get him into my car.”

Lena wrapped one hand around Cobb’s pistol and pulled with the other. His fierce resistance to let go of his weapon surprised her. Still, she managed to pry the gun away and slip it into her jacket. Dr. Frank rolled a small steel table on wheels over and gave Lena a look like that’s all he had. Once they made the transfer, they pushed Cobb out the back door and into the parking lot. Lena swung her car around, and with considerable effort they managed to get Cobb strapped into the passenger seat. Cobb groaned several times. And as Lena climbed in behind the wheel, he reached out for her hand and held it as tight as he had held his gun.