The Lost Witness (7 page)

He shook his head, his face losing its color. “A doctor back from the war.”

Barrera’s voice died off. Lena could guess what he was thinking. After the autopsy, she had talked it over with Madina. If they were searching for a doctor with military experience, there
was a good chance the man had passed through USC Medical Center. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, the Department of Defense had been training medical teams in the hospital’s emergency
room. Because of the city’s high crime rate, this was the closest a surgeon could get to real combat experience. Saturday nights at the trauma center had all the living urgency of a
mass-casualty war zone. More than two thousand people were carried into the hospital with knife or gunshot wounds every year.

USC Medical Center might be a step in the right direction, but they would need more than a guess or a hunch before they made it. Some way of narrowing down the man’s identity.

Barrera glanced back at the video on the computer. “It looks like that could be a restaurant in the background. Any ideas where this is?”

“It could be anything,” Sanchez said. “The quality eats shit.”

Rhodes nodded. “We need to get this upstairs and see what SID can do with it.”

Barrera stepped back, chewing it over and looking at Rhodes. “You and Tito are in court this week. You’re on the same case, right?”

“We’re due back at the courthouse in an hour.”

“Who’s the prosecutor?”

“Roy Wemer,” Sanchez said.

Lena glanced at her watch. “And I’m ten minutes late for a meeting with the chief.”

“About what?” Barrera asked.

“The autopsy.”

“Forget it,” he said. “We’ve got a victim and an address. You and Rhodes are on your way to Venice. Tito, you’re going to the courthouse on your own. I’ll run
the video upstairs and check this driver’s license, then talk things over with the chief. Anybody got an issue with that?”

Sanchez shook his head. “Shouldn’t be a problem. I’m the lead anyway. I’ll let Wemer know.”

Lena gave Sanchez a look and knew that he meant it. Even more, she knew that he was used to it. Rhodes’s sister had breast cancer. Over the last three months, Tito had been covering for
him, working overtime while Rhodes took days off to drive up to her farm in Oxnard.

“What about the witness?” Rhodes said. “This video’s only five seconds long. Whoever recorded it probably saw the whole thing from start to finish. And why is the
envelope addressed to Lena? Why isn’t there any postage?”

Barrera turned to her. “This didn’t come through the mail room?”

“A messenger dropped it off at the front desk.”

“I’ll check on it,” he said. “Now let’s get started. Let’s do it.”

Lena met Rhodes’s eyes. Everyone was in sync. But as she packed up, her thoughts returned to the victim—how she lived and who she was. Whether or not she had parents who might be
waiting for her. A husband, or even a child. What it would be like to tell Jennifer McBride’s family that she had been murdered. That their loved one had been mutilated by a madman.

Lena didn’t need to eat lunch to keep going.

She jotted McBride’s address on a piece of scratch paper, then looked over at Rhodes. He had returned to his desk for his keys and was getting into his jacket. He looked rough and ready
and all wound up, just like she was. She could see it on his face.

T
hey ran across the street
into the garage. Rhodes pointed at the Crown Vic backed into a space beside the guard shack.
The car looked like it had been to the body shop and returned before the job was done. It was primed, but not painted—the color of dusk, the color of junk—gun-metal gray.

“I’ll drive down,” he shouted. “You can bring us back.”

They jumped in, and he fired up the engine. Hitting the strobes on the dash, he pulled onto the street and accelerated through the red light. Ten minutes later, they were rolling down the Santa
Monica Freeway at a ragged eighty-five miles an hour. Bobbing and weaving their way through heavy traffic directly into the winter sun.

Lena lowered her visor. As she watched the city go by at high speed, her mind began to drift and she looked back over at Rhodes. He hadn’t said a word since they left Parker Center. She
could see him thinking something over. She could see the sadness in his eyes. Rhodes was a detective-three with ten years more experience than her. But he was more than that. If the timing had been
different, they easily could have become lovers.

“You okay?” she asked.

He turned and glanced at her.

“You were on the phone when I walked in. Was it your sister?”

He nodded. “They’ve set a date. Her operation’s on Monday.”

“You going up?”

“Tomorrow night,” he said. “I’ve been talking to her off and on all morning. I left a message on your machine at home. You just haven’t gotten it yet.”

He grinned at her, then turned back to the road. Lena knew his sister was all that he had left. His parents were gone and there were no other siblings. Like Lena, if his sister’s health
failed, Rhodes would be the last one standing.

“What did she say?”

He shrugged. “She was talking about bees.”

“What do mean, bees?”

“Honeybees,” he said. “The kind that fly around in the air.”

“Okay. So why was she talking about honeybees?”

“She says they’re dying. It won’t affect her place because they grow lettuce. But her neighbor keeps orange groves. If all the bees die, then there’s no way to pollinate
the trees. She’s not worried about her surgery on Monday. She’s worried about her neighbor losing his farm. Kids growing up without knowing what an orange is. I guess that’s why I
love her so much.”

Another smile spread across his face—warm, and quiet, and bittersweet. Turning back to the road, he took the Lincoln Boulevard exit, made a right on Ocean Park and a left on Main. They
were driving through Venice now, two blocks from the beach. When they finally reached Navy, Rhodes killed the strobes and idled slowly down the narrow street. Jennifer McBride’s apartment was
in the middle of the second block on the right—a three-story brick building that had the look and feel of a halfway house.

He pulled in front of the entrance. As they got out, Lena gazed at the place and suddenly felt uneasy. She looked at the other apartment buildings pressing against the sidewalk. She could see
the ocean at the end of the street. A single palm tree swaying in the cold and breezy air.

“You sure you really want to park there?”

She heard the voice but didn’t see anyone on the sidewalk. It had been a man’s voice—abrupt, verging on rude—the direction camouflaged by the wind. As Rhodes moved in
beside her, he pointed to a window on the first floor. It was open but remained blank, everything inside concealed by a rusty screen.

“Is there a problem?” Rhodes said.

“You can read the signs better than I can,” the man said. “That’s a no parking zone.”

“We’re cops.”

“Yeah, right. Driving a piece of shit car like that. Gives new meaning to the phrase
L.A.’s Finest.”

They moved closer to the window. Although the man remained hidden behind the screen, Lena could see the light from a large TV in the living room. The man was watching cartoons.

Rhodes grit his teeth. “What’s your name?”

“Lovely Rita, the meter maid.”

“The one on your driver’s license, I mean.”

“Ted Jones. What’s yours, champ?”

“Come closer so we can see you, Mr. Jones.”

Rhodes opened his ID and held it up. After a moment, the man moved into the window light and that feeling inside Lena’s gut began to glow a little. Jones was a burnout and anything but
lovely. A small, troll-like man, about forty years old, who hadn’t bothered to get dressed today. All he had on were a pair of boxer shorts and an old tank top. By all appearances he
hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Although he was balding, thick waves of greasy black hair hung over his ears. His arms and back were carpeted with body hair as well. But it was his eyes
that gave Lena pause. There was something wrong with them. His irises looked as if they were fading, like a rogue wave that washes up on the beach and dissolves into dry sand. She couldn’t
get a read on the color because it was slipping away.

She traded looks with Rhodes, then cleared her throat.

“You the manager?” she asked.

“No, I’m not the manager. I own the place.”

“You spend a lot of time by this window?”

“What’s with the fifty questions, lady?”

“We want to take a look inside Jennifer McBride’s apartment,” she said.

“Why don’t you try ringing the bell? If she’s home, I’ll bet she’ll answer.”

Lena moved closer to the window. “We’re from Robbery-Homicide,” she said. “Jennifer McBride’s not home. Now get some clothes on and open the door.”

Jones remained quiet, staring at her with those eyes. She watched them flick down to her waist and spot the gun. After a moment, the reason why they were here finally seemed to register on his
face and he let out a gasp.

“She’s dead.”

“Open the door,” Lena said.

“Give me a second.”

Jones vanished into the room. When the door buzzed, Lena pushed it open and they entered a small lobby. The carpet was threadbare. The place, cheap and rundown. As she eyed the staircase, the
door to apartment 1A opened and Jones walked out in a pair of tattered jeans. He was wearing eyeglasses now and jiggling a set of keys.

“Follow me,” he said.

They climbed up to the second floor, the steps creaking below their feet. When they reached the landing, Jones led them across the hall to apartment 2B and inserted the key.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Lena said.

“A couple of days ago, I guess.”

“Wednesday?”

Jones nodded. “She walked out, heading for the beach. Must have been around three in the afternoon.”

“How well did you know her?”

“She paid her rent on time.”

“Did she have a lot of friends?”

He turned and looked at her through his glasses. The lenses were scratched and dulled by fingerprints, yet still magnified his damaged eyes.

“I never saw her with anyone,” he said, pushing the door open. “Now what am I supposed to do? Rent’s due in a couple weeks. Who’s gonna pay for this?”

Lena suddenly became aware of the man’s body odor.

“We’ll let you know,” she said. “And we’ll need that key.”

“I’ve got half an idea to pack her shit up and move it down to the basement. I could have the place rented in an hour. This close to the beach, there’s a waiting
list.”

Rhodes turned sharply. “You wouldn’t want to do that, Jones. You wouldn’t even want to walk inside this place until we say so.”

“But I own the building. I want my fucking money.”

“Forget about your fucking money,” Rhodes said.

He took a step toward Jones. Lena could see him sizing up the vile little man, trying to bridle his emotions. She was struck by the differences between the two. Rhodes towered over Jones by at
least a foot and was dressed in a light brown suit, a crisp white shirt, and a patterned tie. His presence was raw and powerful, his voice, dark and quiet.

“How long has she lived here?” Rhodes was saying.

Jones paused a moment, his eyes shifting back and forth. “About a year,” he said.

“You run a credit check?”

“Nobody moves in without one.”

“Then give us the key and get McBride’s paperwork. Wait for us downstairs.”

Jones started to say something, but looked at Rhodes and stopped. He removed the key from the ring and handed it to Lena. When he was finally gone, they stepped into the apartment and closed the
door.

A moment passed. Rhodes shot her a look, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Jones was a bottom-feeder. A lot of bottom-feeders migrated to Venice. As the silence began to
settle in, Lena pocketed the key and tried to focus on the victim. Jennifer McBride’s presence.

They were standing in the foyer with a clear view of the entire apartment. She could see the living room and galley kitchen through a set of French doors. To her right, the bedroom and bath. She
turned and noted the table beside the front door. One or two days’ worth of unopened mail sat in a basket next to a lamp and a copy of the
LA. Weekly
that had been folded in half. She
turned back to the living room and calculated the floor plan: it couldn’t have added up to more than three hundred square feet. A small one-bedroom at the beach. But unlike the rundown
building, the apartment was clean, the paint was fresh, and there was a certain peace here. An innocence that seemed to match the innocence she had seen in the victim’s eyes.

She held on to that image as she slipped on a pair of gloves and followed Rhodes into the living room. She glanced at the hardwood floors, taking in the couch and chair. Although the TV appeared
new, everything else looked as if it had come from secondhand shops and yard sales.

“She lived modestly,” Rhodes said. “She didn’t have much money.”

Lena turned and noticed the shelves built into the near wall. While the top shelf remained empty, the bottom two shelves were stuffed with at least fifty paperbacks.

“And she was a reader,” Lena said.

She moved closer and scanned the titles, recognizing most of the authors. Every book on the shelf was a mystery published within the last year.

She glanced back at Rhodes and saw him moving toward the double set of windows on the other side of the couch. The curtains were drawn but were made of sheer lace and provided a soft, even light
that filled the room. When he pulled them open, Lena looked past the fire escape at the close-up view of a brick wall and understood why the curtains had been closed.

She crossed the room, spotting the ashtray outside the window. The next building was so close it barely covered the width of the fire escape. She gazed at the rusty steps, following them down to
the first floor and the narrow alley that ran between the buildings. As her eyes rose up the brick wall on the other side, they came to rest on a window. She hadn’t seen it until now because
of the angle. There was a man in the window. Another deadbeat like Jones, only this one was wearing a wool cap and had a pair of binoculars. This one seemed to get off by peering into other
people’s windows.