Robert Ellis - The Lost Witness

“Is there something I should know, Lieutenant?”

He hesitated a moment, as if he hadn’t expected the question and was working from a script. “Every case matters,” he said finally. “This is no different than any other investigation, Gamble.”

Lena understood what Klinger was saying because she lived it. But something in the adjutant’s voice didn’t ring true. Not by a long shot. It suddenly occurred to her why the chief might be paying so much attention to this one.

It was the murder rate. He didn’t want it to reach five hundred on his watch. He didn’t want the black mark on his reputation. Yesterday they had been thirteen bodies away from the gold ring. Now they were only twelve.

It was spin.

The thought of it made her sick and she wanted to end the call. This was about appearances, not people. Numbers instead of lives. The chief and his adjutant weren’t thinking about the victim at all. They wanted the case closed quickly so that they could shift the focus with the press. If the chief was asked about the murder rate, he could point out that the number of cases solved had risen. He could manipulate the dialogue, and sweep the murder rate and the victims that went with it under the rug.

“Anything else, Lieutenant?” she said.

“Just one thing, Gamble. You’re a Los Angeles police officer. Act like it. Live the part.”

She heard the phone click. Klinger had hung up on her.

A moment passed. She closed the phone, gazing across the drive at her house. A light breeze was pushing east and she could hear the palm trees rustling over the sound of the engine. She thought about why she wanted to be a cop. All the reasons she had signed up. She knew that she could handle this. No matter what she was feeling right now, she could handle this.

She switched off the radio, pulled out of the drive, and started down the twisting hill toward Hollywood. Opening the windows, she let the cold wind beat against the seats until the rhythm finally changed and any thought of Klinger dissipated in the rearview mirror. She could feel the anticipation of working a real case again. But she could also feel the fear.

The road straightened out when she hit Gower Street. As she passed the Monastery of the Angels, she glanced at the statue of the Virgin Mary on the hill, then grit her teeth and floored it all the way to Franklin. A few minutes later, she was rolling down Hollywood Boulevard and making the turn onto Ivar Avenue.

She could see the coroner’s van pulling behind a row of black-and-white cruisers parked in the middle of the street. Yellow crime scene tape had been stretched across the sidewalk from the corner on Hollywood all the way up Ivar to Yucca Street. The Scientific Investigation Division truck was already here, backed into the alley and blocking the entrance. When Lena glanced across the street and spotted a news van and the video camera that came with it, she understood why. The SID truck had been placed strategically to hide the view.

She turned back to the road. It looked like the lot across from the Knickerbocker Hotel had been taken over by the investigation. When she spotted a cop with a clipboard at the entrance, she signed in and found a place to park.

That feeling in her chest was back, along with a moment of self-doubt that flickered off and on like a lightbulb ready to blow As she started down the sidewalk with her briefcase, she glanced at the hotel. Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had spent their honeymoon at the Knickerbocker. Elvis Presley had stayed there while shooting Love Me Tender. But that was a long time ago. Now it was a senior-citizen residence for Russian immigrants in a neighborhood that had hit the skids and needed a shot in the arm.

Someone called out her name. When she looked across the street she noticed that another news van had arrived. A third was waiting for the light to change at the corner. She looked for a familiar face, but didn’t see one. As she turned back, she realized that it had been Ed Gainer, the lead investigator from the coroner’s office. He was waving at her from inside the van.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said. “You hear anything?”

“Just the word Go. ”

He nodded, acknowledging the media. “The chief’s office made the call over the radio. Can’t believe they didn’t use a land line. They should know better.”

Lena shrugged. Of course they knew better. Everyone who carried a badge did. If a radio was used, then the newsrooms were listening.

She swept past the SID truck, wondering why the chief and his adjutant wanted the press here and thinking about the word trap again. But as she entered the alley, it almost seemed like someone had turned off the lights. The entire space was cast in a deep blue shade, the air thick with fragrant smoke from the grill at Tiny’s. Waving the smoke away, she spotted her old partner, Pete Sweeney, standing with Terry Banks halfway up. A handful of criminalists from SID were waiting off to the side as a burly figure with coffee-and-cream skin worked the crime scene with his Nikon and a motor drive. The photographer was Lamar Newton, another friend and ally she knew she could count on.

As Lena approached, she followed the path of the camera lens until it became blocked by a trash Dumpster. Picking up her pace, she looked back at the two homicide detectives from Hollywood. Although Sweeney was a big, wide man with an extra-easy manner, he appeared extra pale and unable to stand still. Terry Banks seemed just as uneasy, the rich color of his ebony skin and buffed head misted with perspiration in spite of the cool breeze.

Sweeney waved her closer. But when her view finally cleared the Dumpster, she didn’t see a dead body on the ground. Just five green trash bags, the one up front ripped open.

“I’m sorry you caught this one, Lena. Real sorry.”

Sweeney’s voice was barely audible. All she could hear was the din of the city, cut against the rhythm of that motor drive.

She looked back at the trash bag. It didn’t take much to figure out what was inside. Something horrific. Something so horrific the case was bouncing up to RHD.

Sweeney gave her a nudge and pointed to the black-and-white cruiser parked just behind them. A teenager was sitting in the backseat. The door was open, the boy handcuffed. His hair was long and brown, and Lena could tell from his soiled clothes and worn-out shoes that he was homeless. When he turned to look at her, she caught the zombie eyes and guessed that he was either a religious fanatic or a drug addict. When she saw his teeth rotting to the gum line, she knew that his drug of choice wasn’t Jesus. It was crystal meth.

“The kid spent the day on planet X and worked up a real good appetite,” Sweeney said. “Best we can figure, he went Dumpster diving about an hour ago-fished these bags out and thought he’d landed his next meal deal.”

“Merry Christmas,” Banks said. “Enough food to last the week.”

“Who is he?” Lena asked.

Sweeney glanced at the cruiser. “Danny Bartlett, sixteen years old from Little Rock, Arkansas. Ran away last August and ended up here. Only when he opened the first bag he was still fucked up. No meal deal and no nirvana.”

“Just his own demons,” Banks said. “The fucker freaked out.”

Sweeney nodded. “The guy who runs the kitchen over at Tiny’s heard the kid lose it and made the call. That’s as far as we got.”

Lena turned back to the Dumpster. As Sweeney pulled a bottle of water out of his pocket and took a shaky swig, Ed Gainer from the coroner’s office finally arrived. Lena reached into her briefcase for a clean pair of vinyl gloves.

“Let’s take a look,” she said.

They stepped forward as a group. Slowly, but with determination. When they finally reached the green trash bag, Lena pulled open the plastic, spotted the long blond hair, and tried not to flinch.