Or She Dies Read online

  ‘And,’ Sally continued, ‘the computer you rented at Kinko’s — a Compaq. It had a bunch of time-stamped documents implanted in various places, showing the planning of the crime, your obsession with Conner, stuff going back a year. Beyond the question of why you would leave that stuff on a rented computer, it’s impossible that you created those documents.’

  ‘Because the time stamps didn’t match the dates I rented the computer?’

  ‘Even better.’ She let slip a pleased smile. ‘The serial number on the Compaq shows it to have shipped as part of a bulk buy on December fifteenth. Which means the computer didn’t yet exist when you were supposedly generating incriminating documents on it. Looks like you outthought them on one front — they were counting on you to check your email at home or at the office.’

  ‘Me: one. Bad guys: ninety-seven.’

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘it’s a start.’

  I resumed calling our house, Ariana’s cell phone, her work. Busy or off the hook. Full mailbox. No answer.

  A blinking icon on my cell phone caught my eye. A text message. Another threatening communication? Nervously, I thumbed it onto the screen, relaxing when I saw that it was from Marcello: I FIGURE U MIGHT NEED THIS RITE ABOUT NOW. The accompanying photograph was a freeze-frame from the footage I’d recorded onto my phone. It showed the windshield reflection of the Vehicle Identification Number, blown up and clarified. Closing my eyes, I gave private thanks for Marcello’s postproduction skills.

  Sally said, ‘What?’

  I held out the phone so she could see the image. ‘This is the VIN of the car from the second email. Where the guy filmed through the windshield to show me the route to that Honda in the alley.’

  She unclipped the radio and called in the VIN, asking the desk officer to look into it. She gave a few uh-huhs, then an ‘Oh, really?’ When she signed off, she said, ‘That club girl? She had a miscarriage. So the paternity suit’s a dead end. At least that paternity suit. As for the VIN, that should be easy. We’ll get word back on the car soon.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For taking me seriously. All of it. I know you’re out on a limb.’

  The tires thrummed over the freeway exit. ‘Let’s be clear about something. I like you, Patrick. But we’re not friends. Someone got murdered. He may have been an asshole, but he was killed in my jurisdiction, and that angers me. Deeply. I want to know who killed him and why — even if it’s you — and there is no condition more motivating to me than curiosity. Plus, call me old-fashioned, but the thought of an innocent person behind bars makes me chafe. Justice, truth, and all that crap. So I appreciate your thanks, but you should know I didn’t do any of it for you.’

  We drove in silence. I looked out my window for a time before trying Ariana again. And again. The home phone was still busy — had she taken it off the hook? Between attempts my cell rang. I checked caller ID eagerly, but it was the Northridge film department. Probably not calling to offer me a raise. Frustrated, I threw my phone onto the dash. It rattled against the windshield. I took a few deep breaths, staring at my lap. At first I hadn’t noticed we’d stopped moving.

  We were parked outside a familiar run-down Van Nuys apartment complex. Sally climbed out, but I just sat there, taking in the bent security gate and the courtyard beyond. VACANCY, written on rusted metal, swaying from the gutter. APARTMENTS FOR RENT.

  All the signs had been there, and yet I’d read none of them.

  Sally knocked the hood impatiently, and I climbed out, regarding the building with awe. It was familiar, and yet altered in my mind, given what had transpired. The directory box, with its blank renter spot for Apartment 11. I thought about how I’d tried to call up to the apartment anyway, but the line had been out of service. How pleased I’d been with myself when I’d figured out to punch in the entry code. So pleased I hadn’t lingered on the fact that I was heading to an apartment with no renter and a disconnected call-up line.

  We stopped before the locked front gate. Sally waited expectantly until I realized why. Reaching out a trembling finger, I pressed the four numbers. The gate buzzed, and Sally tugged it open and unfurled her hand, waving me through first.

  Up the stairs, down the floating hall to Beeman’s apartment.

  That old-fashioned keyhole where I’d seen Beeman’s eye peering out at me.

  ‘I reached the manager by phone,’ Sally said. ‘He claims the place hasn’t been rented in months. Water damage — I guess the owner’s waiting to pay for mold remediation. The manager’s not on site to let us in. And I can’t get a warrant. It’s not my case, you know. Shame.’ Sally put her hands on the railing, looked out across the courtyard below, humming to herself. Something classical. I watched the back of her head.

  Then I turned and kicked in the door.

  The brittle wood gave easily. Stooped, I stood in the doorway. Empty. No mattress, no dirty clothes, no big-screen TV partnered with a convenient DVD player. Just the moist reek of mold, dust motes swirling in a shaft of light, that water stain bleeding through the wall.

  It felt like entering a dream world. I paused a few steps in.

  There he’d sat, back on his heels before the TV, swaying, clutching himself.

  An actor.

  That beaten-down humility I’d identified with so strongly. A man I’d taken for vulnerable, frustrated, damaged.

  Paid to play me for a fool.

  He’d embodied my hopes and fears. He’d known how desperate I’d been to redeem him, to redeem myself. Even in light of everything else, that betrayal was blinding, humiliating.

  Sally was saying something. I blinked hard, my ears ringing, an echo chamber of my thoughts. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, we find Doug Beeman, we clear you.’

  An electronic chirp issued somewhere in the apartment, and Sally’s hand went to her hip. We looked at each other. Sally tilted her head toward the bathroom. We inched over, our steps silent on the worn-through carpet. The door gave silently to the pressure of her knuckles.

  The bathroom was empty, but behind the toilet bowl, to the side, visible only once we’d inched past the chipped counter, was a cell phone. It had probably fallen from a pants pocket onto the wraparound shag rug as someone sat.

  Another chirp.

  As Sally exhaled, I crouched and flipped it open. The screen saver featured a Sin City shot of Jessica Alba and the owner’s name, keyed in purple: MIKEY PERALTA. Doug Beeman’s real name, on the cell phone he’d claimed not to have?

  Clicking the speaker button, I hit ‘play.’

  ‘Message from’ — and then a prerecorded wheezy voice with a strong New York accent — ‘Roman LaRusso.’ Then, ‘Mikey, it’s Roman. The deodorant people rang me in a panic when you missed your call time this morning. I figured you were just hung-over, but then I heard you might have been in an accident? Are you all right? Can you make it to the set tomorrow? Call me. C’mon, I’m worried.’

  Twenty minutes later we were at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, standing over Mikey Peralta’s body, the cardiac monitor going strong, peaks and gullies to shame a tech stock. One of his eyelids was closed, smooth as ivory, the other at half mast, revealing the wine-red sclera beneath. His forehead was dented on the right side, a bloodless divot the size of a fist. The teal hospital gown stretched across the compact rise of his chest, and his arms lay limp, his hands curled unnaturally inward. Dark puffy hair, blown back from that receding hairline, framed his chalky face against the pillow.

  Brain-dead.

  The ICU nurse was talking to Sally behind me. ‘—filed an accident report. Hit-and-run, yeah. I guess no one saw anything, and he was pretty much gorked on arrival.’

  I was still struggling to overcome my shock. As Sally had stepped in and out, taking phone calls and gathering information, I’d stared blankly at the supine body. It was impossible not to think of him as Doug Beeman.

  Stepping forward, I lifted his hand. Dead weight. Turned it over. The insides of his wrists were perfectly smooth. Th
e razor-blade scars had been nothing more than makeup and special effects.

  I set his arm gently back in place. The smell of whiskey tinged the air around him.

  Valentine arrived, and he and Sally conferred in hushed voices. ‘RHD ain’t gonna like him here one bit.’

  ‘Look, we’ve got bigger concerns,’ Sally said. ‘Obviously they’re snipping off the loose ends here, covering their tracks. Once they know Patrick’s out—’

  ‘Come on. They’re not gonna want to Jack Ruby him. That’ll only make it obvious there is a frame and open up more—’

  I turned, and they went silent. ‘Elisabeta’s next,’ I said. ‘Did you find her?’

  Valentine said, ‘I couldn’t run her down. The Fiberestore commercial’s two years old. The name on the contract says Deborah B. Vance, but the Social doesn’t line up and there are no last-knowns. Actresses are a pain in the ass. They reinvent themselves every five minutes, always working under different names, moving, ducking taxes. Their credit history’s a mess, so their financials look like spaghetti. I called SAG and AFTRA, but they’ve got no one paying union dues under that name. I could keep digging, but’ — a pointed look at Sally — ‘this isn’t our case, and you can bet RHD is already all over every move we — ’

  From outside we heard, ‘Officer, you can’t just keep piling into the patient’s room -’ and then a booming voice, ‘It’s not “Officer”. It’s “Captain.”’

  Valentine looked at Sally, mouthed, Fuck.

  The door opened, and the captain entered with his assistant.

  The captain’s eyes, the same coffee color as his skin, swept the room. Of middling height, his bulk softened with middle age, he would have been unimpressive if not for the sense of authority emanating from him like a radioactive glow. A vein throbbed in his neck, but aside from that, his rage seemed to be restrained. ‘You brought the lead suspect along to investigate the death of a person of interest in his own case?’ He forked two fingers at me. ‘For all you know, he was the hit-and-run driver.’

  ‘That’s not possible, sir.’

  ‘No? And why is that, Detective Richards?’

  ‘Because I’ve been with him since the time of his release.’

  ‘You picked him up downtown?’ Each syllable enunciated.

  Peralta’s monitor kept emitting those soothing beeps.

  ‘I did, Captain.’

  A deep breath, nostrils flaring. ‘A word, Detectives.’ The stare hitched on me a moment, the first direct acknowledgment of my presence. ‘You, wait in the hall.’

  We all snapped to. As I parked myself in a reception chair, Sally and Valentine followed the captain into an empty patient room, the assistant standing post outside, expressionless. The door clicked neatly, and then there was an absolute silence. No baritone thundering, no foghorn blare of displeasure, just a chilling graveyard quiet.

  My phone hummed, and, praying it was Ari, I scrambled for it. But the number on the caller ID screen was my parents’. I took a hard breath, returned the phone to my pocket. Not the best time for explanations.

  The captain exited, his assistant falling into step beside him, and they breezed by me, nearly stepping on my shoes. Valentine came out a moment later, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He paused before me but kept his gaze straight ahead. ‘Four boys, Davis. That’s a lotta bills. The case is with RHD and only with RHD. I’m sorry, man, but I’m not gonna fall on my sword for you.’

  I pointed at Mikey Peralta’s room. ‘They killed him.’

  ‘That boy’s got two DUIs on record. So a car accident? Not exactly a shocker.’

  ‘They knew that. That’s why they chose him.’

  ‘That, too, huh?’ He smoothed his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. ‘This thing is too big for you. The cops, the conspirators, the press — everyone is watching you. If you get in a speck of trouble — and I do mean a speck — you’re fucked. And we won’t be able to help you. My advice is you go home, get quiet, and let this thing shake itself out.’

  He kept on to the elevators. I studied the tips of my shoes, all too aware of Sally’s presence behind the shut door across the way. My sole remaining ally? I almost didn’t want to go in and find out.

  But I did. No one had bothered to turn on the overheads, but an X-ray light box cast a pale glow. Sally was sitting on a gurney, her broad shoulders bowed. The creases of her shirt at the stomach were dark. ‘I’m done,’ she said.

  Dread filled me. ‘As in fired?’

  She waved me off. ‘Please. I’m a broad detective and a dyke, so I can’t be fired. Single mother, too. Shit, talk about job security.’ Her voice held no hint of levity. ‘But I’m off this case. As in I will need to keep my captain advised of my location at all times.’ She wiped her mouth. ‘The VIN number you gave me traced to a Hertz rental. The credit card securing the vehicle was paid by a limited-liability company called Ridgeline, Inc. The desk officer glanced into the company, said it’s like a Russian nesting doll. A shell within a shell within a shell. There might’ve been another shell in there — I kinda lost track when my cell phone cut out.’

  ‘Why are you handing this off to me? What am I supposed to—?’

  But she continued, undeterred. ‘Unless that body one room over is the biggest coincidence since Martha Stewart’s stock trade, these guys are covering their tracks. They probably want you living, since a dead fall guy makes everyone cry conspiracy, which—’ She flared her hands. ‘But clearly you’re in their crosshairs, and they’re waiting and watching.’

  ‘Can I get protection?’

  ‘Protection? Patrick, you’re the lead suspect.’

  ‘You and Valentine are the only cops who believe me. And he’s walking. There could be a leak somewhere else in the department — in RHD, even. I’ve got no one else who can help me. No one else I can trust. Don’t hang me out.’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’ Her head was tilted, the bulge of her cheek blotched with red. She’d stiffened her hand to punctuate the point, and it floated, four fingers aimed at nothing. Steady beeping from the next room was audible, and I realized with a chill that it was the cardiac monitor hooked up to Mikey Peralta.

  ‘Will you . . .?’ I needed another moment to find my composure. My voice, after her outburst, sounded faint. ‘Will you hand off the conflicting evidence to Robbery-Homicide?’

  ‘Of course I will. But, Patrick, every case has edges that won’t align, and given the preponderance of evidence, they’re eager to move in one direction and entrench. If they’re batting .900 against you, that’s about .400 better than they usually get.’

  ‘But there’s hard evidence—’

  ‘All evidence is not created equal.’ She was growing angry again. ‘And you have to understand: pieces of evidence are building blocks, nothing more. The same ones can be shoved together to form different arguments. Counterarguments. The gas station’s security tape gets you off the hook for the Conner break-in, but you might have hired someone else to do it to give you the alibi. You see? There are sides. The lines have been drawn. It’s not corrupt. It’s not political. It’s not an agenda. It’s how the system works. That’s why it’s a system.’

  My voice rose, matching hers. ‘So all Robbery-Homicide’s gonna do is sit back and piece together what they already have?’

  She looked at me like I was an idiot. ‘Of course not. They’re gonna be working day and night to shore up the case against you so they can come arrest you. For good this time.’

  ‘What . . . what do I do, then? Go home and wait to get arrested?’

  Her hands lifted from her knees, then fell. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  The hospital air tasted bitter, medicinal, or maybe it was just me. Sally slid off the gurney, headed past me.

  I said, ‘I have to find my wife. Can I get a ride back to my car?’

  She paused with her back to me, her large shoulders shifting. ‘Not from me.’

  The door closed behind her. The perpetual beep of the monitor came t
hrough the wall. I stayed in the semidarkness, listening to a dead man’s heartbeat.

  Chapter 37

  Seeing my dinged-up Camry from the backseat of the cab, I breathed a sigh of relief. Since I hadn’t been formally arrested, my car hadn’t been impounded. Media stragglers hung on outside Hotel Angeleno, but fortunately I’d parked up the street last night, which was now beyond the fray.

  As I pulled the remaining bills from my repossessed wallet, the well-mannered Punjabi taxi driver pointed and asked, in beautiful English, ‘Did you hear what happened here last night?’

  I nodded and slid out, ducking quickly into my car, anonymous in the thickening dusk. I kept the radio off. My hands, bloodless against the steering wheel, looked skeletal. The streets were dark and wet. Bugs pinged around streetlight orbs. Coming up the hill, I heard the thrumming of helicopters, the bass track of Los Angeles. My Sanyo was at my ear, and my father was saying, ‘Give the word, we’ll be on a plane.’

  ‘I didn’t do this, Dad.’ My mouth was dry. ‘I need you to know that.’

  ‘Of course we know that.’

  ‘I told him not to go to that city.’

  ‘Ma, not now,’ I said, though she was in the background, crying, and couldn’t hear me.

  ‘Didn’t I tell him?’

  ‘Right,’ my dad answered her, ‘because you foresaw this.’

  I came around the bend and saw the news choppers circling, bright beams laid down on our front yard. I was shocked. Though I’d registered the noise, I hadn’t put together that our house was the draw. I was now the sordid news beat, the pinned frog under laboratory lights. Cars and vans lined both curbs, and news crews swarmed along the sidewalks. A guy in a baseball cap was peeking into our mailbox. Ari’s white pickup was slant-parked five feet from the curb, as if abandoned for a flood or an alien invasion.

  I’d dropped the phone but could still make out my mom’s tinny voice: ‘Whatever you need, Patrick. Whatever you need.’

  I hit the brakes to reverse out of there, but it was too late. They rushed me, and I caught a full frontal view of the flood-water that had forced Ari to ditch her truck. Bulbs popping, knuckles tapping, voices shouting. I nosed the car toward the driveway, nudging aside hips and legs, before the need to flee overtook me and I gave up.