Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

We left Pike's Jeep by a fire hydrant and walked into a courtyard burgeoning with hand-painted clay pots that overflowed with gladiolas. Apartment number 3 belonged to Marisol Acuna, but Pike didn't come with me to the door. We knew from Mrs. Acuna that Karen's apartment was on the second floor.

A heavy woman in her late fifties stepped out of a ground-floor apartment. “Are you Mr. Cole?”

“Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Acuna?”

She glanced at Pike. He was already climbing the stairs. “She hasn't come home. Let me get the key, and I'll let you inside.”

“Frank gave us a key, ma'am. You should wait down here.”

A line appeared between her brows, and she glanced at Pike again. “Why don't you want me up there? You think something bad is up there?”

“No, ma'am. But if Karen comes home I'd hate to have her walk in on a couple of strange men. You keep an eye out. If she comes while we're up there you can tell her what's going on and bring her up.” What a fine and wonderful lie.

Pike wasn't waiting for me. Karen's door opened.

I gave Mrs. Acuna a final smile, then took the stairs three at a time, slipping into Karen's apartment behind Joe. He stood in the center of the living room, holding up a finger to stop me, his gun hanging loose in his right hand. Pike carries the Colt Python .357 magnum with a four-inch barrel. Firing a heavy bullet, it will generate almost six hundred foot-pounds of energy and can punch its way through an engine block. Pike uses the heavy bullet.

He went through a short hall into the apartment's only bedroom, then reappeared almost instantly, the Python now gone.

“Clear.”

Sometimes you just have to shake your head.

I said, “Can we spell ‘paranoid’?”

Karen Garcia's apartment was furnished well beyond the rent she paid. An overstuffed leather couch with two matching chairs dominated the living room. A modern desk was positioned under two casement windows so that she had a view of the street; psychology texts were shelved on the desk, along with three Tami Hoag novels, a Nunzilla, and an AT amp;T telephone/answering machine combo. The red mesage light was blinking. A framed snapshot of Karen wearing a silly crown and holding a glass of wine was tacked beside the window. She was barefoot, and smiling.

I said, “You want the messages or the rest of the place?”

“Rest of the place.”

All of Karen's messages were from her father except the one from me and one from a man named Martin, asking if she wanted to go to a quebradita . Martin had a Spanish accent, and a mellow voice. After the messages, I went through the drawers, and found a Rolodex. We would bring it to Frank to see whom he knew, and, if we had to, we would phone every name to see if we could find someone who knew where Karen was.

Pike reappeared from the bedroom. “Jeans on the bed, sandals on the floor. Her toothbrush is still in the bathroom. Wherever she went, she wasn't planning on staying.” You take your toothbrush, you're thinking you'll stay the night. You leave it, you're coming home.

“Okay. She changed into her running things and left the other stuff, figuring to change back later.”

“That's my call.”

“You see any notes, maybe a calendar that says her plans?”

I thought he was about to answer when Pike held up his finger again, then took three fast steps toward the door. “Someone's coming.”

“Mrs. Acuna.”

“Someone bigger.”

Pike and I set up on either side of the door as a large, ruddy-faced man in a gray suit made the landing and looked in at us. Two uniformed LAPD officers appeared behind him. The man's eyes widened when he saw us, and he pawed under his jacket. “Police officers! Step away from the door and move to the center of the room. Now!”

The suit clawed out a standard LAPD-issue Beretta 9 as the uniformed cops drew their own weapons. Mrs. Acuna shouted something down in the courtyard, but no one listened to her.

I said, “Take it easy. We're working for her father, Frank Garcia.”

The detective had the gun on us now, and the two uniformed cops were aiming past his head. One of them was young, and looked like his eyes were about to do the Pekinese pop-out. If I was the detective, I would've been more scared of them than me.

The detective shouted, “Step back from the door and move to the center. Hands from your bodies.”

We did what he said. He toed open the door and stepped through, the two uniforms spreading to cover us from the sides.

“My name's Cole. We're private investigators working for her father.”

“Shut up.”

“My license is in the wallet. Her father hired us a couple of hours ago. Call him. Ask the woman who lives downstairs.”

“Shut the fuck up and keep those hands where I can see them!”

The detective told one of the uniforms to see the woman, then edged forward, slipped out my wallet, and glanced at the license. He was more tense than he should've been, and I wondered why. Maybe he didn't like my shirt, either.

He brought my wallet to the phone, punched in a number without taking his eyes off me, then mumbled something I couldn't understand.

“We entered the apartment with a key the father provided and at his request. Would you lighten up?”

The uniform reappeared. “Hey, Holstein, they're cool. She says the father called her and told her to expect'm.”

Holstein nodded, but the tension stayed.

“Can we put our hands down, or you like the view of our pits?”

“Sure, smart guy. Might as well relax. We're gonna be here a while.”

Pike and I dropped our hands. I guess Frank had raised so much hell that Hollywood Division had finally rolled out.

“I'm surprised you guys are on this. She's only been missing since yesterday.”

Holstein painted me with empty cop eyes, then took a seat on the edge of Karen Garcia's desk.

“Not anymore. Karen Garcia's body was found up at Lake Hollywood about an hour ago.”

I felt my breath catch. Joe Pike might've stiffened. He might've leaned forward just a hair, but if he did I could not tell.

I said, “Holstein? Are you sure ?”

More voices filled the courtyard, speaking with the distinct cadence of police officers. Down below, Mrs. Acuna wailed.

I sat on Karen Garcia's leather couch and stared at the picture of her in the paper crown.

“Joe?”

He did not answer.

“Joe?”

April, three months prior to the Islander Palms Motel

Karen Garcia said, “I'm a freshman at UCLA. I study child development there, and work with the day care part-time.” She was almost a foot shorter than Pike, and he had to remind himself to step back. He had been warned that he tended to stand too close to people, and it made them uncomfortable. He stepped away. She said to one of the little boys, “Daniel, stay with the others, please. I have to speak with this police officer.”

Daniel blurped his tongue like an airplane engine and flew back to the group. LAPD patrol officer Joe Pike had already jotted in his notebook that there were eleven children, ages three through five, in the care of Ms. Garcia and her children's group co-teacher, a slim young man with round spectacles and curly hair named Joshua. Joshua appeared nervous, but Officer Pike had learned that people often tensed when dealing with the police. It usually meant nothing.

They were surrounded by children in MacArthur Park, south of Wilshire by the lake in LAPD's Rampart Division. The day was warm and the sky overhead almost white from the smog. Pike's navy-blue uniform soaked up the heat and made the sun seem hotter than it was. The park was filled with women pushing carriages or playing with their preschoolers on the swings and slides. Homeless men were asleep on the grass, and some younger guys who were probably harmless but out of work had drifted away when the radio car had turned into the parking lot, responding to a see-the-woman call regarding a possible child molester. The woman was Karen Garcia, who had phoned 911 with the complaint.