Robert Ellis - Murder Season

The thought brought on a smile and she glanced over at Rhodes. His head was back, his eyelids shut but fluttering. Obviously, Harvey wasn’t really a person of interest in the murders tonight. But for ten minutes, Rhodes’s play against the man had provided a short break from the pressure. Depending on the charges, Harvey would spend anywhere from a few hours to a night or two in jail. He would be confined to a cell for however long they could stretch things out. Lena had to admit that the image of the gossip reporter being hosed down with disinfectant and issued a jumpsuit before he got that jail cell felt pretty good, too.

She blew through the red light and started up the hill on Ocean Park. The streets were dead, the trip from Hollywood to the beach made in record time. As she turned onto Sixteenth Street, she tried to think through what she would say to the father of a young man who murdered his sixteen-year-old neighbor, got away with it, then got himself killed. She had mixed feelings about it because what Jacob Gant did to Lily Hight was essentially irrelevant for the next half hour or so. Gant’s father would feel the same pain any parent would feel upon hearing that they had lost a child. No matter what the circumstances of his son’s life, Lena would be delivering bad news.

She made the final turn, following the road around the rim of the hill. To the right, she could see Main Street and the blackness of the ocean cutting into Venice Beach. To the left, the hill flattened out and homes with sidewalks and oak trees began to appear one after the next. She checked the address Barrera had given her. When she spotted the house, she killed the headlights and pulled over.

Gant’s father was already awake. Every window in the entire house glowed with bright incandescent light. Two windows on the first floor of the house next door were lit up as well. When she turned to wake up Rhodes, she found him staring through the windshield completely alert.

“Who lives where?” he said.

“Tim Hight’s is the one here on the left with the picket fence. Gant’s father lives on the other side of the drive.”

“The one that’s all lit up.”

“Yeah,” she said. “He lives there with his son.”

She saw Rhodes check the clock on the dash and look back at Gant’s house.

“Their lights wouldn’t be on unless they knew, Lena. Someone called.”

“The way things happened-the number of people involved-it would’ve been a hard secret to keep.”

“If it’s already filtered down to trash like Harvey, it’s no secret. He probably knew before we did. But now it’s gonna be even harder to knock on that door.”

Lena shut off the engine and they climbed out. She listened to the silence, the rest of the neighborhood still in a deep, seemingly untroubled sleep. Just the hum of air conditioners getting an early start on the year. In spite of the heat, she could feel a chill between her shoulder blades as she gazed at the two houses standing side by side. It seemed so odd that these people still lived next door to each other. After all that had happened, it didn’t make sense that one or the other hadn’t sold their house and moved on. Although the ocean views were better ten houses back, both homes were built on prime real estate. Eclectic versions of California bungalows that had been stretched into two stories with front porches and sunrooms. Both lots were big enough to include driveways and garages. From what Lena could see from the curb, each home even had a small backyard. She couldn’t believe that either place would have been hard to sell.

“We should have brought Tito,” Rhodes said.

“Why?”

“Look.”

She followed his eyes across Gant’s driveway to Tim Hight’s house on the left. She could see someone through the living room window. Stepping up to the picket fence, she realized that it was Hight-still dressed and pouring a drink at the kitchen counter. Even from this distance she recognized the bottle by its blue color. Hight was pouring vodka into a very tall glass.

“It’s five,” she said. “Nothing like a cocktail after a hard day’s work.”

Rhodes took a step closer. “Kill’n and chill’n, Lena. The man likes a big glass.”

“You have those cigarettes?”

“No. I left them on the bar, but it looks like he’s got one.”

She watched as Hight lit a cigarette and grabbed his drink. Exiting the kitchen, he hit the wall switch and the house went dark. After a few seconds, they picked up the bead of light from the head of his cigarette. The light was passing through the living room and moving into the sunroom on the side of the house. Lena could see his silhouette in the window and guessed that the LEDs from a radio or cable box were filling the room with a muted light. When he sat down before the windows overlooking his neighbor’s house, the glow from his cigarette brightened, then faded some. The man was smoking and drinking and probably playing back the last three hours in his head. More than likely, he was replaying everything that went down over the past year, all those images that he would be forced to carry with him for the rest of his days.

His love for his daughter cut against finding her dead body lying on her bedroom floor. Passing the blindfolded statue of Lady Justice on his way to the courtroom two or three times a day, cut against a trial that fell apart and washed away. Holding on for as long as he could, then buckling under the strain and blowing out Jacob Gant’s eyes.

Blind justice.

Lena heard a ticking sound and spotted Hight’s car in the drive beneath an oak tree. A black Mercedes still cooling down after a hard drive on a hot night. She turned back to Rhodes and kept her voice down.

“I think I should go talk to the Gants on my own,” she said. “You should stay out here and keep an eye on this guy.”

“You sure?”

She nodded, her eyes returning to Hight’s eerie silhouette in the window. “Maybe he’s done for the night,” she said. “Or maybe he’s just getting tuned up for more. Either way, I’ve got a feeling about the guy.”

“Me, too,” Rhodes said.

The front door opened tentatively. On the other side of the threshold stood an eighteen-year-old boy Lena recognized from the trial as Jacob Gant’s brother, Harry. He didn’t look at the badge she was holding in her hand. Instead, he kept his eyes on her face and called out to his father.

“They’re here, Dad.”

His father didn’t respond. The kid pointed to the left and she followed him through the dining room into the kitchen. William Gant was sitting at the table in his bathrobe with a cup of coffee. As she crossed the room, the man held up his hand as if to say, Stop, you’re close enough.

“Mr. Gant?” she said. “I’m-”

He cut her off with another raised hand. “You know what, Detective? I really don’t care who you are. If you’re here to tell us that Jake’s dead, you’re more than an hour and a half late. If you’re here to say you’re sorry, save yourself the trouble. I don’t want to hear it. And I don’t think Jake’s brother wants to hear it, either. Nothing you say or do could make a difference now.”

Harry had moved around the table to stand behind his father. The weight of their eyes on her felt corrosive and heavy. She knew that she could handle their anger. She expected it and understood it. But what charged the moment with electricity had nothing to do with them or even why she was here. It was the view out the slider behind their backs. It was that bead of light from Tim Hight’s cigarette. She could see it in the sunroom window. The man was watching them, and he was close. Just on the other side of the driveway.

Lena tried to ignore it. Tried to keep in mind that Rhodes was somewhere outside, watching the watcher.