T. Parker: Red Light

She ran a background on Alexander Coates: clean.

She checked the number of unsolved prostitute murders in the last two years: three.

She talked to a phone company security manager about getting an incoming number list for Aubrey Whittaker. She wanted it fast, no warrant, no subpoena, no bullshit, please. He said he’d call her back.

She looked through Aubrey Whittaker’s leather-covered calendar/address book and considered some of the names she found there. Some were first and last, most just first initials and last names. Some even had what appeared to be credit-card numbers. Christ, she thought, charge a nooner to the credit card and when your wife pays the bills tell her it must have been the mobile car detail. Mobile sex detail.

Plenty of the names had no numbers attached. Private customers, Merci thought, no YACS middleman eating up the profit? She thought she recognized two of them and she called a friend at the Orange County Journal who could run a print search on them. She promised him a first tip in return, if any of them turned into a story. She threw in twenty more just for good measure, guys with names that sounded important, guys who would bend easy if she leaned on them.

On the day she was murdered, Aubrey Whittaker had a date with “Dr.” at 3:45 P.M. and “din” with “DC,” 8:30 P.M. The day before had four dates on the calendar.

Sunday mornings, to Merci’s astonishment, were marked by 8:30 A.M. entries that appeared to relate to sermons, and Aubrey’s opinion of them.

Putting Christ First — Ken H., good but at times unrealistic.

Not terribly likely, Merci thought: They must mean something else.

Six phone calls later Merci found out that the Reverend Ken presided over Newport Maranatha Church, and had indeed delivered sermon of that title three weeks earlier.

Yes, he knew Aubrey. No, he didn’t know she was murdered sounded somber.

He knew little of Aubrey, except that she had joined his congregation a few weeks ago. She was well-dressed, private, apparently unattached. She’d joined the Christian Singles. He wasn’t sure what she for a living.

He asked Merci to keep the name of his church out of the newspapers, if it was in her power. She said it was and she would. He agreed to meet with her any time, or to gather up the names and addresses of some of the Christian Singles who had known Aubrey. Merci thanked him and asked him to have them ready by this time tomorrow.

She went to the restroom, washed her hands and wondered what it must be like to do what Aubrey did for a living. In the mirror she saw someone not cut out for such work, a dark-haired, big-boned woman with an unforgiving and guileless expression on her face. The face had some tenderness in it if you looked hard. Mostly it just looked eager to nail you.

She watched the coroner’s team take photographs and X rays of Aubrey Whittaker’s body. There were no bullet or lead fragments left inside, so far as Merci could see. Near the center of Aubrey’s right ventricle was a small dark disturbance in the pale muscle: probably the bullet hole, said the deputy coroner.

Merci was surprised by the entry wound. The tear was jagged but small, but the edges of the flesh had been lifted up and burned. The skin in a half-inch radius around the break was scorched black. Surrounding the dark circle was another half inch of reddened flesh. Outside of that began the undisturbed perfection of Aubrey Whittaker’s young body.

“The gun muzzle was right up next to her dress,” said the deputy. “The silk was burned. And the skin.”

The exit wound was twice the size but showed little discoloration. A small flap had been torn in the skin. It was nine centimeters higher than the entry wound. Merci visualized the apartment and the angle of the shot, and her mind’s eye followed a line from Aubrey Whittaker’s heart to the upper part of the sliding glass door, where the CSIs had found the hole.

“Looks like straight in and out,” said the deputy coroner. “Didn’t hit a bone, or at least didn’t hit much of one. I’d say the ammo was hard-tipped. With a softer nose, it would have flattened more by the time it came out.”

The full medical autopsy was scheduled for late that afternoon.

Merci hovered over Evan O’Brien’s shoulder in the crime lab, watching him get the fingerprint cards ready for CAL–ID and AFIS. Two distinct sets already, one of them belonging to the decedent. O’Brien was the most effective fingerprint tech Merci’d ever known. His knowledge of comparison points was matched by his knowledge of the labyrinthine state system, which he’d helped digitize during his tenure with CAL–ID up in Sacramento.

She watched Lynda Coiner get the .45-caliber Colt casing ready for the Federal DrugFire registry, on the chance that the same weapon had been used in a narcotics-related crime. This didn’t smell like drugs to Merci, but it was worth a try.

Merci helped one of the lab techs develop and dry the last of the crime-scene photos, which she would need for the walk-through. One set for her, one for Zamorra. Thank God for her college photography courses. As she stood in the twilight of the darkroom with the blow dryer roaring she watched Aubrey Whittaker’s body take shape on the photographic paper, appearing slowly and steadily, as if conjured by a medium.

Aubrey Whittaker, she thought: servicer of men, sermon critic, home entertainer, Christian Single. Change your name, leave your home, begin again.

Who are you?

She burned two copies of the Responding Deputy Report, the lab data and the CSI sheets.

She didn’t read any of it because she wanted to learn it fresh, there where it happened, when she was there with just her partner. A crime scene was always different in daylight.

She spent a few minutes down in the impound yard, talking with Ike Sumich, a young tech that she considered to be a real up-and-comer. Like Evan, Ike was one of her people. Merci liked the idea of tribe; was forming one, collecting members because they could help her and because she liked them.

Sometimes she would look at them and imagine what they’d like thirty years from now.

Sumich looked good in her future-vision, but he had a gut he’d need to get to the gym to avoid.

Ike had helped her out in the case that almost got her killed a couple of years ago. She had no pending business with him; she just wanted to check in, let him know he had a friend in Homicide.

When Zamorra finally came into the detective pen it was almost 3 P.M. He was freshly shaven and his hair was still wet from a shower, but his eyes looked empty and red.

“Are we ready for the walk-through?” he asked.

“We’re ready.”

“I’ll drive.”

Merci unlocked the door and pushed it open, calling on her memory.

“Coates heard the noises and made the call at ten forty-five. Deputies Burns and Sungaila arrived ten minutes later. This porch light was on and the door was ajar about four inches. All three of them saw the blood.”

She gently swung the door inward again and watched it come back toward her. It once more stopped four inches short of the frame. Standing in the shade of the building, she shivered once in the cold December air. She found the CSI sheets, scanned down the typewritten copy.

“CSIs examined the porch for shoe prints, but between the old paint and all the foot traffic, they couldn’t find anything useful. That, from Lynda Coiner. If we believe Alexander Coates, Aubrey’s first visitor wore hard-soled shoes or boots, her second wore soft ones. What do you make of Coates’s ear-work, Paul?”

“Sixty-forty. Sixty he’s right.”

“I gave him better than that. I think we should consider two men. Were they working together is the question. Working on what is the next question.”