Robert Ellis - Murder Season

Higgins was getting what his office had given Jacob Gant, but with one essential difference. Every blow Higgins took, he’d earned.

Lena exited the Golden State Freeway, winding her way around the airport until she reached Vineland Avenue. After passing Fiesta Liquors and the Rancho Coin Laundry on her left, she spotted a parking space right in front of Cobb’s apartment building and made a hard U-turn into the curb.

Vaughan seemed confused. “Why are you stopping?”

“We’re here,” she said. “This is it.”

He eyed the run-down building-the lost neighborhood. “I had no idea.”

Lena tried not to think about it and got out of the car. She noticed a Hispanic woman draping her sheets over the fence to dry in the sun. Across the street a middle-aged Asian woman was watching them from the sidewalk.

Lena led Vaughan through the broken gate and up the steps to the second floor. Just as before, most of the tenants kept their windows open and they were greeted by the smells of corn tortillas and chicken frying in hot oil. Lena pointed to Cobb’s apartment at the end of the walkway and they turned the corner. She could see that old Mexican woman sitting before her window again, her ancient face still expressionless. Still blank and wrinkled. But this time when Lena met her gaze, something different happened. She sensed a certain recognition in the old woman’s eyes. A certain sadness. And when she looked ahead to Cobb’s door, Lena saw all the flowers and candles that his neighbors had placed around the mat. A snapshot of Cobb taken in the courtyard with an old Polaroid camera had been taped to his door as well.

“They loved him,” Vaughan whispered.

Lena nodded, taking in the display as she unlocked the door with Cobb’s keys. She didn’t want to spend a lot of time here. She didn’t want any more memories than she already had. She didn’t want to let in anything new.

The heat inside the apartment was stifling. Vaughan left the door standing open, gazing at the shabby furniture and gray walls in disbelief. Lena left him there and walked into the bedroom to search through Cobb’s suits. After a few moments, Vaughan stopped in the doorway to watch.

“You know I keep thinking about the day you came to my office,” he said. “The day you wanted to talk, but wouldn’t do it on the phone. You’d just left Gant’s brother, Harry. He’d told you that Jacob was investigating Lily’s murder on his own. That he’d found something and had gone to tell Johnny Bosco about it.”

Lena spotted the gray suit and laid it out on the bed. “Our first break.”

“But I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know what to think. I thought you might even be crazy.”

“Now you know for sure,” she said.

“I’m serious, Lena. Gant may have walked out of that courtroom with a NOT GUILTY verdict, but everybody thought he killed Lily. Everybody thought his DNA made it a lock. Do you remember how far out on a limb we were?”

She gave him a look and nodded without saying anything.

Vaughan shook his head as he tried to remember the details. “We started out in the conference room,” he said. “The caterer had left food. Watson saw you with me and ran out to tell Bennett. Then Bennett shows up trying to listen to what we were saying.”

“We see it now for what it was,” she said. “We didn’t then.”

Vaughan shrugged, still mulling it over as Lena found a tie and pulled a clean white shirt out of the closet. Laying them over the gray suit, she gave them a look and returned to the closet for a pair of black dress shoes.

“Do you remember what we thought of Cobb, Lena? Do you remember your first impression of the man?”

She took a deep breath and tried to push the thought away but couldn’t quite make it. She opened Cobb’s dresser drawers and found his underwear and socks. The truth was that it felt a lot like the time so many years ago when she buried her dad. She may have only been a teenager at the time, but that’s the way it seemed right now. She still didn’t understand why she felt this way about Cobb, or how it could come on so fast. His mistakes in life had been horrendous-the size of mountains. Yet it was his mistakes that seemed to make the man. He kept moving forward without looking for someone else to blame. He kept the investigation open, working in secret and helping Paladino out with the gift of all gifts.

The blood samples that pointed to Jacob Gant could no longer be found.

She wished that they could have worked together. Just one more case as true partners.

She glanced back at Vaughan. He’d said something and she’d missed it. Something about Lily’s father. She found a plastic garment bag and packed up Cobb’s clothing.

“What about him?” Vaughan said. “Lily’s dad.”

“I owe him an apology,” she said. “And his friend.”

“The guy who tried to vouch for him?”

“I owe them something,” she said, taking a last look at the room. “Let’s get out of here, Greg.”

Vaughan reached for the garment bag and they walked out of the apartment, locking the door behind them. As they started down the steps into the courtyard, Lena noticed that Asian woman again. She was still standing on the sidewalk across the street. But she wasn’t keeping an eye on the woman guarding her laundry. Instead, she was staring at Lena. And it was a long look-the kind of look that wouldn’t let go.

Vaughan hung the garment bag behind the driver’s seat. Lena climbed in, glancing back at the woman. She wondered if they’d met somewhere before. She looked to be about fifty. She had a gentle face and easy eyes and was dressed in a way that didn’t fit the run-down neighborhood. As Lena turned the key in the ignition, the woman waved at her shyly and something clicked.

She turned to Vaughan and told him that she’d be right back. Then she got out of the car and crossed the street. She needed to talk to a friend of a friend. She needed to talk to the woman who described herself on the Internet as totally hot . She needed to meet Cobb’s woman; Betty Kim.

Lena spotted Hight’s house in the middle of the block and pulled over. It was late afternoon and she could see the sun nesting over the ocean below the hill. She turned back to the house, then ducked quickly when she noticed Tim Hight walking out the front door.

His Mercedes had been returned to him, and she watched as he backed out onto the street and drove by.

Lena paused a moment, lost in indecision, then made a U-turn and followed him around the bend. Hight made a left on Ocean Park. When he reached Lincoln at the bottom of the hill, he pulled into the parking lot and walked into the grocery store. Lily’s father still appeared thin and frail, his gait a beat short of steady.

Lena backed into a space a safe distance away and gazed through the windshield.

She owed this man an apology. She knew that. But she wasn’t sure she could find the words. She didn’t think she could look him in the eye and meet his gaze. In spite of the guilt she felt, she wasn’t sure she was ready.

A truck turned into the shopping center, pulling to a stop in the middle of the aisle and blocking her view of the grocery store. After several minutes it finally drove off, and Lena checked the lot and found Hight’s car still parked three rows over.

She was thinking about the burden Hight was carrying. The pain and loss he’d been forced to endure, and now, the new reality he would have to face. But even more, she was thinking about the harsh way she had treated him when she suspected he might have had a hand in his own daughter’s death. Hight had been informed that Bennett was the actual killer by Deputy Chief Ramsey and the mayor of Los Angeles, but apparently it hadn’t gone well. Hight had refused to let them into his house. From what Barrera had told her in confidence, Hight had refused to even open his front door.