Robert Crais - Suspect

All in all, twenty-seven friends and family members, and one hundred eighteen investors, business associates, and possible witnesses were interviewed and investigated, and all of them checked clean. No viable suspect was identified, and the investigation slowly stalled.

When Orso finished, he checked his watch.

“Anything I’ve said help your memory?”

“No, sir. I knew most of it.”

“Then Melon and Stengler weren’t holding out on you.”

Scott felt his face flush.

“They missed something.”

“Maybe so, but this is what they found—”

Orso tipped his head toward the file box as Cowly interrupted.

“—which means this is where Bud and I begin. Just because Melon and Stengler zeroed out, doesn’t mean we will. Just because it’s in these pages, doesn’t mean we accept it as fact.”

Orso studied her for a moment, then looked at Scott.

“I have Shin and his burglar, I have you, and I have a dead police officer. I will break this case.”

Joyce Cowly nodded to herself, but did not speak.

Orso stood.

“Joyce and I have work to do. You want to look through the files and reports, here they are. You want to go through the murder book, there it is. Where do you want to begin?”

Scott hadn’t thought about where to begin. He thought he might read his own statements to see if he had forgotten anything, but then realized there was only one place to begin.

“The crime scene pictures.”

Cowly was clearly uncomfortable.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Scott had never seen the crime scene photographs. He knew they existed, but never thought about them. He saw his own version of them every night in his dreams.

Orso said, “Okay, then, let’s get you going.”

Orso took a hanging file from the box, and placed it on the table.

“These are the pictures. The murder book has copies of the most important shots, but the master file here has everything.”

Scott glanced at the file without opening it.

“Okay.”

“The pictures are labeled on the back with the relevant report and page numbers. Criminalist, medical examiner, detective bureau, whatever. You want to see what the criminalist said about a particular picture, you look up the report number, then go to the page.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Scott was waiting for Orso to leave, but Orso didn’t move. His face was grim, as if he wasn’t comfortable with what Scott was about to see.

Scott said, “I’m okay.”

Orso nodded silently, and passed Cowly coming in. She had stepped out, but now returned with a bottle of water, a yellow legal pad, and a couple of pens.

“Here. If you have any questions or want to make notes, use these. I thought you might like some water, too.”

She was staring at him with the same grim concern he’d seen in Orso when her cell phone buzzed with an incoming text. She glanced at the message.

“Central Robbery. You need anything, I’m at my desk.”

Scott waited until she was gone, then opened the hanging file. The individual files were labeled AREA, BENTLEY, KENWORTH, TORINO, 2A24, PAHLASIAN, BELOIT, ANDERS, JAMES, and MISC. 2A24 had been Scott and Stephanie’s patrol car. It felt strange to see his own name, and he wondered what he would find. Then he considered Stephanie’s name, and forced himself to stop thinking.

He opened the AREA file first. The photographs within varied in size, and had been taken in the early hours of dawn, after the bodies had been removed. The Kenworth’s front bumper hung at a lifeless angle. The Bentley’s passenger side was crumpled, and bullet holes pocked its sides and windows. Firemen, uniformed officers, criminalists, and newspeople were in the background. The white outline of Stephanie’s body held Scott’s attention like an empty puzzle begging to be filled with missing pieces.

Scott glanced through the pictures of the Bentley next. Its interior was littered with broken glass. So much blood covered the seats and console it looked as if the interior had been splashed with ruby paint. The floorboard in the driver’s well was a deep, congealing pond.

The interior of the Kenworth told a different story, as it was undamaged. Brass shell casings from the AK-47 were scattered over the floorboards and seats, and sprinkled the top of the dashboard. The interior was littered with scraps of paper, a crushed Burger King cup, and several empty plastic water bottles. Scott knew from Melon that these things had been removed, examined, and linked to the truck’s owner, a man named Felix Hernandez, who had been in jail for beating his wife when his truck was stolen from Buena Park.

Scott didn’t bother to look at the Gran Torino. It had been found eight blocks away beneath a freeway overpass, and, like the Kenworth, had been stolen earlier that day for use in the murders.

Scott quickly turned to Pahlasian and Beloit, examining each closely, as if he might see what it was about one or both that had led to their murders.

These pictures had been taken at night, and reminded Scott of the lurid black-and-white photographs he had seen of mobsters machine-gunned in the thirties. Pahlasian was slumped over the console as if he had been trying to crawl into Beloit’s lap. His slacks and sport coat were so saturated with blood Scott was unsure of their color. The broken glass Scott had seen in the daytime picture now glittered from the camera’s flash.

Beloit was slumped in the passenger seat as if he had melted. The side of his head was missing, and the arm nearest the camera was hanging by ropy red tissue. As with Pahlasian, he had been shot so many times his clothes were saturated with blood.

Scott spoke aloud to himself.

“Man, somebody wanted you really dead.”

The next folder contained pictures of Stephanie. Scott hesitated, but knew he must look at them, so he opened the folder.

Her legs were together, bent at the knees, and tipped to the left. Her right arm lay perpendicular to her body, palm down, fingers hooked as if she was trying to hold on to the street. Her left hand rested on her belly. Her body was outlined in the predictable manner, though the pool of blood beneath her was so large the outline was broken. Scott flipped through her pictures quickly, and came to a photograph of a large irregular blood smear labeled B1. B2 showed elongated blood smears as if something had been dragged. Scott realized this was his own blood, and just as suddenly realized he had turned from Stephanie’s folder to his own. The amount of blood was amazing. There was so much blood he broke into a prickly sweat. He knew he came very close to dying that night, but seeing the amount of blood on the street made his closeness to death visible. How much more blood could he have lost before he would have been in the picture with a white line around his body? A pint? Half a pint? He flipped back to the first picture of Stephanie. Her pool of blood was larger. When the picture blurred, he wiped his eyes and took a picture of Stephanie’s body.

Scott closed the photo files, walked around the table to calm himself, and stretched his side and shoulder. He opened the bottle of water, took a long drink, and studied Orso’s poster-sized diagram of the crime scene. He snapped a picture of it, checked his picture for clarity, then returned to the file box, feeling uncertain and stupid. He wondered if he was deluding himself by pretending he might remember something to help catch Stephanie’s killers and silence her nightly accusations.

He took out random files and spread them on the table. Auto-theft reports on the Kenworth and the Gran Torino. Statements from people who heard the shooting and phoned 911. Autopsy reports.

Scott saw a file labeled SID—COLLECTED EVIDENCE, and paged through it. The file contained reports analyzing the physical evidence collected at the scene, and began with a list of collected items that went on for pages. The work the SID criminalists put into compiling this amount of detail was stunning, but Scott wasn’t interested in endless forensics reports. He knew what happened that night was about Pahlasian and Beloit. Someone had wanted them dead, and Stephanie Anders was collateral damage.