Cold Hit

Chapter 43

After Alexa left I began to feel cooped up. It was impossible for me to be officially released until ten o'clock the next morning, so I pulled a Zack, got my clothes out of the closet, and just split.

The Acura was still in the visitor's lot where I'd left it. Now that I was moving around, I could see how much damage Zack had done. I hurt like hell. My body ached and when I bent down to check under the car for new bugs, I almost passed out. I got behind the wheel, waited for my head to clear, and then dialed Emdee on the SAT phone. After three rings, he picked up.

"Howdy." His voice coming from outer space, and sounding like it.

"It's me. Number two or three. Whatever I am." "You're three."

There was a long delay after I spoke and before he answered. The scramblers were doing their work.

"I'm outta the hospital."

"Good goin', Joe Bob. Next time ya pick a partner, get one who won't kick the caddie-wampuss outta ya when he gets spiky."

"Good advice. Where are you guys?"

"Market. House ain't got no protein, 'less you eat roaches."

"I'm on my way over. Where's the key?"

"Under the pot."

"Under the pot? Why not over the doorjamb?" "Before y'start complaining, wait'll y'hear which pot."

The pot was on the front porch of a vacant house across the street. Okay. Not bad.

I put the car in gear and headed toward the safe house. The dull pressure behind my eyes was spreading, morphing into a throbbing headache. I stopped at a 7-Eleven for a bottle of water and some Excedrin. As I walked down the aisle, the unexpected shadow of last night's crazy dream flew over me. I remembered walking down the aisle of Yuri's market with Marty Kobb at my side, buying forty-weight oil and windshield wiper blades for a salad. Nuts.

I paid at the counter, got back into my car, and swallowed three pills. Then I drove onto the freeway, still thinking about Zack. After Alexa shredded my murder theories, I was no longer happy with the dumb-ass criminal profile I'd done. As I drove, I came up with even more exculpatory information.

According to another chapter in Underwood's book, serial killers were fractured personalities who were marginalized by their early upbringing and subsequent life experiences. For this reason, they often had difficulty holding jobs. Yet Zack was a veteran on the LAPD. Was it possible that he could have existed in a stress-filled environment like police work and moved up the ranks to Detective II while still being a dissociative personality? I doubted it.

I rode with him for two years in the Valley. Wouldn't I have known if he was some kind of monster in training? Instead of a disassociative personality I had seen a savior. He'd protected me from that bunch of tail gunners at Internal Affairs for the better part of a year. I believed I had a true friend in Zack Farrell. How could I feel that way about a disassociative, narcissistic personality?

I reached for my satellite phone to call Alexa and tell her to forget that background search in Tampa, when a random thought hit me. If you were a cognitive disassociative narcissist; if you were prone to fits of rage and excessive violence; who would you want as a partner? How about good old, drunk-as-a-skunk, throw-up-in-the-backseat, Shane Scully? Passed out most of the time, unable to observe anything except my own belt buckle, so self involved and depressed that I wasn't focused on anything. The perfect partner for a murderous sociopath. I put the phone back on the seat beside me and took the Coldwater off-ramp.

The asset-seizure house on Rainwood looked small and unimpressive from the street. The LAPD wasn't wasting any money on maintenance and the yard was overgrown. I pulled past and parked half a block away, then got out of the car and walked slowly toward the vacant house opposite the one we were using. There was a big, potted rhododendron on the front porch. I leaned down, my vision going gray for a moment as I bent to retrieve the key. I had to pause to let my head clear before walking across the street.

I opened the front door of the safe house and entered a one-story, cheaply constructed California A-frame. Broadway and Perry had left a few lights on and I walked through the exposed beam, lightly furnished living room and out the back door onto a large wooden deck, which was cantilevered on long metal poles hanging precariously over the canyon.

The view was the money with this place. To my right, a million twinkling lights spread across the San Fernando Valley. A soft wind blew through the canyon carrying with it the sweet, peppery smell of lilac, eucalyptus, and sage. I sat in one of the canvas deck chairs and looked down at the valley.

I needed to get my mind off of Zack Farrell and Vaughn Rolaine, and back on Davide Andrazack and Martin Kobb. Right now there was nothing I could do for Zack. I tried to tell myself it was out of my hands.

I smiled as my Kafkaesque dream resurfaced. Forty-weight motor oil for God's sake, tram-fluid, and antifreeze? Some gagger of a salad that would have been. What the hell was that all about?

And then, just like that, I knew. A series of memories tumbled over each other. I took a minute to calm down then tried to put them in some kind of order.

I started with Cindy Blackman's notes and our brief discussion at Denny's. Cindy didn't think an experienced cook would buy fresh groceries five days in advance. Yuri Yakovitch said he was on the back loading dock of the market, supervising the vegetable delivery. He had a good view of the cash register but in his statement, said he somehow missed seeing the burglar, as well as Kobb, when they entered the store. Marty Kobb was supposed to have pulled his gun, and chased the robber out into the parking lot, where he was shot to death. But the money was, for some unknown reason, left behind in the cash register. Nobody saw a getaway car.

I ran it over in my mind and marveled at the simplicity of it. How had we all been so stupid?

An hour later, Emdee Perry and Roger Broadway returned, carrying groceries. They must have been in full Bubba mode when they shopped because their market bags were full of beer and chips. They left everything in the kitchen and we walked back out onto the deck. I returned my aching ass to the sagging canvas-backed chair.

"'Bout time for us to all snap on our garters and get this case movin'," Perry drawled.

"You come up with anything new since we seen you last?" Broadway asked. I took a moment and then nodded.

"What if Marty Kobb wasn't buying food at the Russian market?" I said, giving voice to my new idea. "What if he was buying gas at the Texaco station?"

We sat on the back deck of the Coldwater house drinking beer and talking it over. If Martin Kobb had been at the Texaco station when he was shot, it was a major shift in case dynamics that could change everything. But it still didn't mean we could solve his murder. On the other hand, if the killer was doing a gas station holdup instead of ripping the market, there could be witnesses we'd completely missed.

One looming question doused some of my enthusiasm. If the shooting happened at the station, why hadn't the manager or a customer come forward to clear up the misunderstanding?. Still, it was a promising new direction.

"If this turns out to be right, then the department just spent ten years paintin' the wrong house," Emdee observed.

"First thing in the morning I'm gonna call Texaco's executive offices," I said. "See who used to own that station, see if I can get the employee list, and if there's a record of credit card sales receipts from back then so we can start making up a new wit list."

"Good thinking," Roger said, as his cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket and put it on the table in front of him without opening it.

"What do I do now?" he said. "If I answer it and they have a satellite track on there, will the feds know where we are?"

"Ya ask me, there's a big difference between being careful and just bein' a pussy," Emdee drawled.

Roger frowned, snapped up the phone and answered it. "Yeah?" He listened for a moment, and then gave us a thumbs up. "Good. No, that's okay. No problem. Now's as good a time as any. See ya in twenty minutes." He disconnected and smiled.

"Good thing we bought you some deodorant," he said to Emdee. "Bimini Wright returned my call. We're invited to midnight tea with the CIA."