Robert Crais: Sunset Express

The sixth book in the Elvis Cole series, 1996

The author would like to thank Bruce J. Kelton, former Assistant United States Attorney and a managing director of the investigative firm Kroll Associates, for sharing his knowledge of the law and the criminal justice system. Additional thanks go to Det. John Petievich, whose counsel on matters relating to the Los Angeles Police Department in this novel and others has been invaluable. Any errors contained herein are solely the responsibility of the author.

Special thanks go to the world's greatest editor, Leslie Wells.

The author would also like to thank Patricia Crais, Lauren Crais, Robert Miller, Lisa Kitei, Carol Perfumo, Samantha Miller, Brian De Fiore, Marcy Goot, Chris Murphy, Kim Dower, and Jennifer Lang for their support, superior talents, and great efforts on the author's behalf.

The sky above the San Fernando Valley that Saturday morning was a deep blue, washed clean of the dirt and chemical particulates that typically color L.A. air by a breeze that burbled out of the San Gabriel Mountains and over the flat valley floor and across the high ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains. Mulholland Drive snakes, along the crest of the Santa Monicas, and, if you were walking alorig Mulholland as Sandra Bernson and her father were doing that morning, you would have been able to look south almost forty miles across the Los Angeles basin to the tip of the Long Beach Peninsula or north some thirty-five miles across the San Fernando Valley and through the Newhall Pass to the deep purples of the Santa Susana mountains and the peaks surrounding Lake Castaic. It was a day of unusual clarity, the far horizons magnified as if by some rare trick of optical law that might even allow you to see into the lives of the sleeping millions in the valleys below. Sandra Bernson later said that as she watched the small private airplanes floating into and out of Van Nuys Airport in the center of the valley that morning, she imagined them to be flying carpets. On mornings like these, she later said, it was easy to believe in magic.

Sandra was a fifteen-year-old honor student at the prestigious Harvard-Westlake School, and her father, Dave Bernson, was a television writer and producer of moderate success, then working as the supervising producer of a popular series on the Fox Television network.

The Bernsons lived in a contemporary home on a small private road off Mulholland Drive in Sherman Oaks, approximately one mile west of Beverly Glen, and they left their home at exactly 6:42 that morning. Both Sandra and Dave were able to tell investigators their exact departure time because it was Dave's habit to call out when their walks began so that they could time themselves. They intended to walk east along Mulholland to Warren Beatty's home approximately one mile east of Beverly Glen, where they planned to reverse course and return. Their typical walk would cover four miles round-trip and take almost exactly fifty minutes. On this particular Saturday, however, they never made it to Beatty's and they didn't complete the walk.

On this Saturday, Sandra Bernson saw the deer.

They proceeded east from their home, climbing one of Mulholland's steeper grades to a high, flat stretch of road abreast Stone Canyon Reservoir. That was Sandra's favorite part of the walk because she could see the valley to the north and the reservoir to the south, and just before they came to Beverly Glen Canyon they would reach the Stone Canyon overlook. The overlook is built into the top of a little knoll there beside Mulholland, with manicured walks and observation points and benches if you want to sit and admire what realtors like to call a 36o-degree jetliner view. Sandra remembers that as she and her father reached the top of the overlook she saw the deer creeping up from the valley side of Mulholland, sniffing and listening, and she whispered to her father, 'Look, Dad!'

'Mule deer. See the size of his ears? It's a buck, but he's already shed his horns. See the knobs above his eyes?'

The deer heard them. It looked in their direction, its huge ears cocked forward, and then it bounded across Mulholland and the overlook's little parking lot and disappeared. Sandra said, 'I wanna see where he goes!'

She slid across the overlook's low wall and ran to the edge of the knoll just as the buck vanished near a cut in the slope that had caught a lot of dead brush and beer cans and newspapers and brown plastic garbage bags. Dave arrived at her side a moment later. Everything caught by the cut looked old and dusty and weathered as if it had been there for a very long time, except for the garbage bags. They looked shiny and new, and Sandra was using them as a landmark to point out to Dave where she had last seen the mule deer when she saw the hand sticking out of the bags. The nail polish was very red and seemed to gleam in the breathtakingly clear morning sun.

It never entered Dave's mind that the hand might be a movie prop or belong to a mannequin; the moment he saw it he knew it was real. It looked real, and it also looked dead. Dave recalls that he considered working his way down to the body, but then says that he remembered things like clues and evidence, and so he led his daughter back to Mulholland where they flagged down a passing Westec private security car. The security cop, a twenty-eight year old ex-Marine named Chris Bell, parked his unit and went to see for himself, then returned to his car and reported the find to the Westec offices. In less than eight minutes, two LAPD patrol units arrived on the scene. The uniforms observed the hand protruding from the plastic, but, as had Dave Bernson, decided not to venture down the slope. The uniforms relayed their observations in code by radio, then secured the area to await the arrival of the detectives.

Dave Bernson offered to wait also, but by that time Sandra had to pee really bad, so one of the uniforms drove them home. Forty minutes after Sandra Bernson and her father were returned to their home, and thirty-nine minutes after Sandra began calling her friends just as quickly as she could to tell them about this incredibly gross thing that had just happened, the first detective unit arrived on the scene.

Detective Sergeant Dan 'Tommy' Tomsic and Detective-two Angela Rossi were in the first car. Tomsic was a powerfully built man who'd spent a dozen years on the street before making the transfer to detectives. He had almost thirty years on the job, and he viewed the world through suspicious, unblinking eyes. Angela Rossi was thirty-four years old, with twelve years on the job, and had been Tomsic's partner for only five weeks. Rossi spoke her mind, was entirely too confrontational, and, because of this, she had trouble keeping partners. So far Tomsic didn't seem bothered, but that was probably because he ignored her.

Eleven minutes after the first car, the senior detectives arrived on the scene. Detective Sergeant Lincoln Gibbs was a tall, thin African-American with mocha-colored skin, a profoundly receding hairline, and tortoise-shell spectacles. He looked like a college professor, which was a look he cultivated. He had twenty-eight years on the job, less than Tomsic, but more time in grade as a detective sergeant, so Linc Gibbs would be in charge. He arrived with Detective-three Pete Bishop, a twenty-two-year veteran with an M.A. in psychology and five divorces. Bishop rarely spoke, but was known to make copious notes, which he referred to often. He had a measured IQ of 178 and a drinking problem. He was currently in twelve-step.