Robert Crais - The Watchman

“No. I can stay.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

Her face hardened, and Pike liked how she was pulling herself together.

“I can stay. I’m all right.”

Pike turned back to the Mercedes and shined the light in again. The keys were still in the ignition, which meant the car wouldn’t be locked. Pike looked back at the girl.

“Cover your mouth and nose. With a handkerchief. If you don’t have a handkerchief, use your shirt.”

She looked confused.

“What?”

“The smell. Cover your mouth and nose.”

She pulled up her shirt and pressed it hard with both hands over her mouth and nose, but now she backed away. Cole backed away, too.

Pike opened the driver’s-side door. The gases from the bodies had been building for more than a week. The smell rolled over him with the rotten-egg stink of a body dissolving itself. Pike had smelled these things before, in Africa and Southeast Asia and other places; corpses left for days in buildings or along the sides of roads or in shallow open graves. Nothing smelled worse than the death of another human being. Not horses or cattle or rotten whales washed onto a beach. Human death was the smell of what hid in the future, waiting for you.

Behind him, the girl said, “Holy Christ !”

Pike took the keys from the ignition, then checked the man’s body. George King had been shot behind the right ear. The bullet exited his left temple, taking a piece of his head the size of a lime with it. If he had been wearing a watch or rings or any other jewelry, those items had been taken. Pike found no other wounds. The lack of blood spatter and tissue fragments in the car suggested he had been shot outside the vehicle, then placed within it.

Pike checked the floorboard under the steering wheel, the area beneath the seat, and the sun visor. A California Vehicle Registration slip and a card offering proof of insurance were clipped to the visor, issued in the name of George King. Pike moved to the backseat.

The woman was in worse shape than the man. She had also been shot in the back of the head, but she had been shot twice, as if the first bullet hadn’t killed her. Most of her right eye and cheek were missing, as was her jewelry. She was curled on her right side, but her left arm and hip were mottled deep purple where her blood had settled. This also suggested they had been killed at a location other than the warehouse, then transported here, giving time for the lividity to form.

Pike checked the floorboards and the seat beneath her body, but found nothing. He backed out of the car, opened the trunk, and found a layer of blood-soaked newspapers. This confirmed the story. They had been executed elsewhere, loaded into the trunk, then driven to the warehouse in their own car.

Pike put the keys back into the ignition, closed the car, then joined Cole and the girl. They were standing by the loading dock door, as far from the car as they could get. Pike was halfway to them before he took a deep breath. The smell was so bad his eyes were burning.

Cole pointed his light at the ceiling, then along the tire tracks on the dusty floor.

“They came through the skylight, opened the door from the inside, and drove right up the ramp.”

The girl said, “I think I’m going to throw up again.”

“Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

Outside, they stripped off the latex gloves and breathed deep to flush out the smell, Cole coughing to get out the taste, then the girl coughing, too. Pike squinted at her through the brighter light, feeling angry for her because all of it was worse than either of them had known. She saw him watching.

“I’m okay now. It was the smell.”

Cole said, “When Pitman and Blanchette first approached you, they came to your house?”

“Yeah.”

She coughed again, still making a face from the smell.

“When you met them downtown, where did you meet?”

“The Roybal Building. That’s where they have federal offices.”

“Was it just Pitman and Blanchette, or were other agents present?”

“What difference does it make?”

Pike said, “He’s trying to decide whether Pitman is really a federal agent. Everything else Pitman told you is turning into a lie.”

She shook her head, not understanding.

“The room was filled with people. My father. Gordon brought two other attorneys from his firm. We don’t do anything without our lawyers. Gordon negotiated my involvement every step of the way.”

Pike said, “Why is Meesh trying to kill you?”

“So I can’t testify against Mr.-”

She saw it and stopped herself, but Cole finished for her.

“Way Pitman explained it, Meesh wants you dead so you can’t testify against the Kings. Everything that’s happening to you was supposedly because Meesh was protecting the Kings.”

Larkin shook her head.

“But the Kings are dead.”

“Yeah, and it was Meesh’s people who put them here. Meesh knows they’re dead. It wouldn’t matter to Meesh if you testified against them or not. You can’t indict dead people.”

“Maybe someone else killed them. Maybe it wasn’t Meesh.”

Pike said, “Luis was wearing George King’s watch. It was Meesh.”

“Then why is he still trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know.”

Cole turned back to the warehouse.

“Wonder why his people put their bodies back here where you had the accident. Could’ve dropped them anywhere, but he put them here.”

Pike said, “Tell her what else.”

Larkin crossed her arms and paled.

“There’s more ?”

Cole turned back from the warehouse.

“The day after your accident-the next afternoon-two days before they saw you, Pitman and Blanchette and at least two other agents questioned people here. They flashed pictures of two men. One of those pictures matched your description of Meesh. Pitman knew or suspected Meesh was in the car even before they talked to you. They lied to you about what they knew.”

Larkin raised her hands and pressed her palms to her head. She fought to control herself.

“Tell me this can’t get any worse.”

Pike said, “We’ll figure it out. We’ll talk to Bud. They’ve haven’t been lying only to you; they’ve been lying to everyone.”

She sobbed, but it was more like a laugh.

“Please tell me it can’t get worse.”

Pike pulled her close and held her. He held her for what seemed like a long time, but wasn’t really.

Pike led them back to their cars, though he noticed that Cole lingered behind, watching the building as if it was whispering, telling secrets none of them could hear.

Elvis Cole

The building and the bodies within it bothered Cole. Here was this warehouse, exactly on the spot where the lives of Larkin, the Kings, and Meesh crossed like overlapping ripples, and now someone had murdered the Kings and taken an enormous risk by placing their bodies in that location. The location was the tell. The killer left them in this particular building to send a message. What Cole didn’t yet get was who was sending the message, and who was supposed to receive it. He believed the building was the key.

Cole made good time in the lull between the morning rush and the lunchtime crunch. He dropped off the freeway at Santa Monica Boulevard, then headed west to his office. Pike and Larkin were returning to Echo Park to call Bud Flynn, but Cole didn’t think they should bring in Flynn until they knew who they could trust, and right now Cole believed they couldn’t trust anyone. He wondered whether Pitman and Blanchette knew about the bodies in the warehouse. He wondered if Pitman and Blanchette had put them there.

Donald Pitman and Clarence Blanchette had come to his home and identified themselves as special agents with the U.S. Department of Justice. Cole believed this much to be true. Credentials could be faked, but these guys had muscled LAPD, and LAPD didn’t roll for a couple of fakes. Also, Larkin, her father, and their lawyers had numerous meetings with them and other federal employees in official federal offices, and these same people had set up the Barkleys with the United States Marshal’s. Cole accepted that Pitman and Blanchette were real, but everything about their operation felt like a scam, and Cole wondered why.