Steve Gannon - Kane

Carns dimmed the lights and delivered himself to the cool embrace of his armchair. As he waited for the tape to rewind, he mentally revisited Hall’s call earlier that afternoon, realizing his association with the CEO of United Western Packers had become tiresome. Today, for the first time in their relationship, Carns had sensed more than avarice in Hall’s voice. Something furtive had been there as well, something dangerous.

More to the point, half of twenty-three million was a lot of money.

A soft snick sounded as the rewind motor clicked to a stop. Carns lifted the remote control, feeling the throb in his temple finally beginning to abate. Gratefully, he closed his eyes, savoring what was to come. Able to wait no longer, he touched the play button.

A moment later the screaming began.

I kept telling Banowski that the bet wasn’t how wide…” Detective Paul Deluca paused for dramatic emphasis. “… it was how long!”

Having heard the story before, I smiled as I crossed the West Los Angeles Division squad room, approaching a knot of men gathered around Deluca’s desk. Deluca’s tale involved a contest years back between then considerably younger Detectives Deluca and Banowski. In the competition, which had followed a boisterous retirement party at the Police Academy, each contestant was challenged to urinate a continuous and relatively unbroken line as he walked-more like stumbled-forward, with the longest trail winning. By the time of the assigned piss-off, however, Banowski-having during the preceding hours prepared for the match by judiciously consuming as much beer as possible-had long since passed the stumbling stage and required the assistance of friends simply to make it to the field of battle.

Detective John Banowski, a thick-necked man with thinning, military-style hair, glowered at Deluca from an adjacent desk. “If you’d moved up the start time like I asked, I wouldn’t of hadda go so bad.”

Deluca grinned and passed his hand over the dark stubble covering his chin, rubbing a five o’clock shadow that typically made its appearance before noon. “Tough,” he laughed. “Anyway, we get to the starting line up there on the obstacle course, and-”

“Hey, Dan,” a heavyset man interrupted, noting my approach. Levering his blocky frame from the edge of Deluca’s desk, my ex-partner and retired homicide detective Arnie Mercer assumed a look of mock insult, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows bristling with bogus indignation. “I finally accepted your invitation to drop by this morning and witness firsthand you guys wastin’ taxpayers’ money, and you didn’t even have the decency to show up.”

After dropping Catheryn at home in Malibu, I had spent the remainder of the morning at the coroner’s office attending the autopsies of Charles, Susan, and Spencer Larson. “Sorry, Arnie,” I said as I sank into a chair behind my desk. Arnie had been my Training Officer, mentor, partner, and best friend for most of my police career. When he’d retired several years back, I had reluctantly assumed his position as the D-III supervising detective for the West LA homicide unit. Since taking on the additional duties of overseeing personnel, delegating responsibility, and monitoring ongoing investigations, I’d belatedly come to appreciate the scope of my older friend’s abilities. “I would’ve been here sooner,” I added, “but I heard Deluca was reprising his piss story for about the ten billionth time, and I decided to make myself scarce.”

“I’ve made revisions,” objected Deluca. “You’ll like this version.”

Banowski glared at Deluca. “You were never one to agonize over the facts.” Then, to me, “See the news last night?”

“No. Why?”

“’Cause your smilin’ face was all over it, that’s why. That good-looking broad from Channel Two, Lauren what’s-her-name, got a nice shot of you callin’ one of our local psychos a maggot.”

“The other stations picked it up, too,” added Arnie. “Probably get the department sued for slander.”

“Damn,” I grumbled.

“When are you gonna learn not to converse with our brothers and sisters in the media?” chided Arnie. “ Especially the lovely Ms. Van Owen. I swear, every time you open your mouth around her, you wind up sticking-”

“We’re all in agreement that diplomacy isn’t my strong suit,” I interrupted. “So what?”

“So the el-tee wants to have a little conference with you, that’s what,” Deluca answered, referring to Lieutenant Nelson Long, the West LA detectives commanding officer. “He’s been on the phone all morning with the mayor, the chief, and every news agency from here to New York.”

“Sorry, Arnie,” I groaned, rising from my desk. “Can we get together later tonight?”

“Maybe,” Arnie said doubtfully. He had a new girlfriend and recently had been spending most of his time at her place. In the weeks I’d been bunking at Arnie’s, I hadn’t seen much of him. “Kate leaving for Europe tomorrow?” he asked.

I nodded.

“So let’s hit some of the old watering holes later this week,” he suggested. “You can hoist a couple Shirley Temples while I destroy what few brain cells I’ve got left.”

“Sure. Say hi to Stacy for me. By the way, how’s that going? She hasn’t dumped your fat ass yet?”

“Not yet, partner. But thanks for asking.”

After passing a low counter guarding the entrance to the squad room, I rapped on a door near the personnel board. A Formica nameplate screwed to the wooden surface of the door read “Lt. Nelson Long.”

“Come,” a gravelly voice echoed from the other side, sounding like a truck grinding in low gear.

I entered Long’s cramped, windowless cubicle. The lieutenant looked up from a thick binder on his desk, his dark-brown eyes displaying an intelligence that seemed almost startling in his otherwise ordinary, broad-featured face. As a black graduate fresh from the academy, Long had ascended the ranks of the LAPD on ability alone and, in my opinion, was one of the few members of the brass who merited my respect and trust.

“Listen, Lieutenant,” I began. “If this is about my comments to the TV people yester-”

“Relax,” said Long, returning his attention to the three-ringed binder on the desk. “By now I’m used to your press releases. Your on-camera screw-ups are getting to be a matter of course.”

I sat in a wooden chair beside Long’s desk. “This one wasn’t so bad,” I observed. “I’ve done worse.”

Long closed the file, which I noticed was marked “Larson.”

“No argument there,” he agreed with a patient smile. Then, more seriously, “We have a problem brewing, Dan. These Palisades murders are going to turn into a real shitstorm. The mayor’s already jumping all over it. Did you see the papers this morning?”

“Nope.”

“It’s not good,” Long sighed. “Nobody’s safe in their own homes, the cops aren’t doing dick about rising crime in middle class neighborhoods, that kinda crap. Plus, the Times and some of the local TV news stations are hinting at a connection with the killings last month in Orange County.”

“I know. I went online and looked up the previous news reports,” I said. “I’m sure the O.C. guys held back some details, and this could still turn out to be a copycat killing, but everything I’ve learned so far fits. I hate to say it, Lieutenant, but I have a bad feeling that the Orange County murders and those in Pacific Palisades were done by the same guy.”

Both of us fell silent, considering the unsettling possibility that a serial killer might be responsible for both sets of murders. I knew that years back Long had participated in the “Hillside Strangler” investigation, and early in my career I had been peripherally involved in tracking a series of killings-callously labeled the “Bum in a Drum” murders by certain LAPD wags-in which the bodies of transients started turning up in downtown Dumpsters. In each instance, apprehensive public figures and citizens alike had called for immediate albeit unrealistic results, and as the cases dragged on, investigating agents had increasingly been served up as scapegoats. It was common knowledge on the Force that a serial killing investigation was a no-win situation for everyone involved.