Robert Ellis - Murder Season

St. John’s Medical Center was twenty-two blocks east on Santa Monica Boulevard. It would be a grind, stop-and-go traffic with signal lights on every corner. But Lena would never get past the first mile on the Pacific Coast Highway. That’s when Cobb let go of her hand. That’s when she looked over at her new friend, saw him take his last breath, and knew.

She slowed the car down, tried to get a grip on herself.

She saw Temescal Canyon Road ahead and made a left turn. There was a park on top of the hill. Pulling into the lot, she found the only spot with a view of the ocean that included palm trees. It was a beautiful view-maybe not quite the one Cobb had photographed in Hawaii … but close enough. She opened the windows to let in the smell of the ocean. When she noticed the pack of Camel Lights on the dash, she lit one and drew the nicotine into her lungs. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t really thinking anymore.

She wished Cobb could have lasted long enough to see the palm trees.

She felt his Sig Sauer in her jacket and pulled it out. Ejecting the mag, she realized that Cobb had held the vet at bay with an empty gun. She smiled-not where it shows, but underneath where it counts. As she smoothed her hand over his forehead, she noticed that the radio was playing softly in the background. The music seemed familiar and she turned up the volume. It was Miles Davis, and she hadn’t heard the cut for a long time.

“My Funny Valentine.”

Lena had called Vaughan and given him the news. She had called Clayton Hu as well. In spite of the fact that Bennett was wanted for the murders of six people-a killing spree that until last night began with Lily Hight and ended with Debi Watson-it was his seventh victim that would burn through the system like rocket fuel.

Bennett was a cop killer now. Even worse, he’d put three rounds into Cobb’s back. No one carrying a badge would show the piece of shit any mercy.

Lena wanted a look at the spot where Cobb had been shot in daylight. Both Vaughan and Hu agreed to meet her there. She was driving from St. John’s where she’d left Cobb behind. And she was carrying his Sig Sauer, the gun locked up in her glove box for safekeeping.

The radio had been switched off ever since she left Temescal Canyon Park. All she wanted to listen to was the sound of the engine under the hood. The sound of the machine grinding forward.

She was heading north on Twenty-sixth Street with the Riviera Country Club on her left. She could see people driving golf carts and hitting little white balls on manicured lawns as if this Saturday was like every other Saturday in sunny L.A. She turned back to the road and lit another cigarette. She wasn’t sure why, but something about seeing those people playing golf fed the rage and only made the day darker than it already was.

She wanted to hit something. Kick something. Kill it.

When she reached Sunset, she made a right, rolled through the horseshoe curve and up the hill, then made the left onto Rockingham. The patrol units were gone, a woman in a Land Rover packed with kids drove by-the events of last night seemingly forgotten, or even more likely, entirely missed by all. Although it didn’t look like Vaughan or Hu had arrived yet, she saw a van parked in front of Bennett’s house and imagined that the workers were busy replacing the living room windows. But as she cleared the van, she glanced back at the house and skidded to a stop.

Bennett was home-his BMW backed into the garage with the trunk open. The door between the house and garage was open as well.

Lena pulled into the driveway, blocking the BMW and jacking back the slide on her.45. She stepped out of her car, took a last hit on her smoke, and ground the butt into the driveway with her toe. And then she started moving forward. One round in the chamber-the rest, ready to go.

Entering the garage, it crossed her mind that it would have been more poetic to use Cobb’s Sig Sauer. That if she had ammunition for the gun it would have had more meaning somehow. But Cobb carried a 9 mm, and Lena preferred a.45-particularly when coming face to face with a monster. An alien.

She had killed people before.

She had shot them dead in the line of duty. But no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the victim may have deserved, taking a human life carried with it a certain toll that she thought about every day. A price that haunted her and would follow her for the rest of her days.

But she wondered about Bennett. She didn’t think it would be the same.

She took a quick peek inside the trunk and spotted his suitcase. Reaching the door between the garage and house, she looked down a long hallway to a set of French doors that opened into the backyard. The house was dead quiet … so quiet that she began to sense something might be wrong. She turned and gazed at the van parked in the street. It took a moment to register, but she realized that it was the same make, model, and color as the van Dick Harvey drove.

Something was going on.

Stepping into the house, she moved down the hall without making any sound. She passed a laundry room, a large pantry filled with cooking supplies, a powder room, and finally the entrance to a kitchen. The room was enormous and looked as if it had been remodeled over the past year. She thought about what Cobb had said. No one could afford to live here on Bennett’s salary. Either he married rich or his crimes involved more than-

She froze.

There was a man sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee. His face was turned as he looked out the bay window at the pool. She took a deep breath and did a gut check. Her hands were steady. Then she raised the.45 and entered the room.

The man didn’t seem to notice her and didn’t move. Lena inched closer for a look at his face. As she cleared the counter, she caught the blood splattered against the wall behind his head. Even more blood was pooling on the floor.

It was Dick Harvey from Blanket Hollywood, and his days ruining other people’s lives for fun and profit seemed to be over. His eyes were crossed, his mouth was open, and he had a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Remarkably, he still appeared to be sweating through his wrinkled suit.

Lena steadied herself against the table, her eyes skipping about the room until they landed on the window and spotted Bennett in the backyard. He had a shovel in his hands and was digging a hole in the lawn by the rear fence.

She hustled out the door and across the yard. As she ran toward him, he looked up and yelped in panic-then started shrieking.

“Oh my God,” he kept repeating. “Oh my God. I didn’t do it, Gamble. I didn’t do it.”

Lena’s eyes zeroed in on the gun laying in the grass. The one he was trying to bury. The 9-mm Smith.

“Jesus Christ-you’ve gotta believe me. This isn’t what it looks like.”

He threw the shovel down, lunged for the Smith, and dug it out of the grass just as Lena reached him.

“Drop the gun, Bennett. Then we’ll talk about what it looks like.”

He pointed the muzzle at her, his hands jittery. “Screw it,” he said. “You’d never fuckin’ believe me.”

“I’m a better shot than you are. You’ll miss and I won’t. Now, drop the gun and we’ll talk.”

He was chewing it over. She could see the wild look in his eyes. Every muscle in his face twitching back and forth and out of control. Beads of sweat were percolating all over his forehead. After a long moment, he turned the muzzle away from her and made a slow arc up and around until he found the side of his own head. Lena grimaced. If the prick blew his own brains out, she was okay with that.

“This isn’t what it fucking looks like,” he said.

“Tell me what it looks like, Bennett.”