The Best American Mystery Stories 2008

Michael Connelly Mulholland Dive

From Los Angeles Noir

Burning flares and flashing red and blue lights ripped the night apart. Clewiston counted four black-and-whites pulled halfway off the roadway and as close to the upper embankment as was possible. In front of them was a firetruck and in front of that was a forensics van. There was a P-one standing in the middle of Mulholland Drive ready to hold up traffic or wave it into the one lane that they had open. With a fatality involved, they should have closed down both lanes of the road, but that would have meant closing Mulholland from Laurel Canyon on one side all the way to Coldwater Canyon on the other. That was too long a stretch. There would be consequences for that. The huge inconvenience of it would have brought complaints from the rich hillside homeowners trying to get home after another night of the good life. And nobody stuck on midnight shift wanted more complaints to deal with.

Clewiston had worked Mulholland fatals several times. He was the expert. He was the one they called in from home. He knew that whether the identity of the victim in this case demanded it or not, he’d have gotten the call. It was Mulholland, and the Mulholland calls all went to him.

But this one was special anyway. The victim was a name and the case was going five-by-five. That meant everything about it had to be squared away and done right. He had been thoroughly briefed over the phone by the watch commander about that.

He pulled in behind the last patrol car, put his flashers on, and got out of his unmarked car. On the way back to the trunk, he grabbed his badge from beneath his shirt and hung it out front. He was in civvies, having been called in from off-duty, and it was prudent to make sure he announced he was a detective.

He used his key to open the trunk and began to gather the equipment he would need. The P-one left his post in the road and walked over.

“Where’s the sergeant?” Clewiston asked.

“Up there. I think they’re about to pull the car up. That’s a hundred thousand dollars he went over the side with. Who are you?”

“Detective Clewiston. The reconstructionist. Sergeant Fairbanks is expecting me.”

“Go on down and you’ll find him by the — Whoa, what is that?”

Clewiston saw him looking at the face peering up from the trunk. The crash test dummy was partially hidden by all the equipment cluttering the trunk, but the face was clear and staring blankly up at them. His legs had been detached and were resting beneath the torso. It was the only way to fit the whole thing in the trunk.

“We call him Arty,” Clewiston said. “He was made by a company called Accident Reconstruction Technologies.”

“Looks sort of real at first,” the patrol officer said. “Why’s he in fatigues?”

Clewiston had to think about that to remember.

“Last time I used Arty, it was a crosswalk hit-and-run case. The vic was a marine up from El Toro. He was in his fatigues and there was a question about whether the hitter saw him.” Clewiston slung the strap of his laptop bag over his shoulder. “He did. Thanks to Arty we made a case.”

He took his clipboard out of the trunk and then a digital camera, his trusty measuring wheel, and an eight-battery Maglite. He closed the trunk and made sure it was locked.

“I’m going to head down and get this over with,” he said. “I got called in from home.”

“Yeah, I guess the faster you’re done, the faster I can get back out on the road myself. Pretty boring just standing here.”

“I know what you mean.”

Clewiston headed down the westbound lane, which had been closed to traffic. There was a mist clinging in the dark to the tall brush that crowded the sides of the street. But he could still see the lights and glow of the city down to the south. The accident had occurred in one of the few spots along Mulholland where there were no homes. He knew that on the south side of the road the embankment dropped down to a public dog park. On the north side was Fryman Canyon and the embankment rose up to a point where one of the city’s communication stations was located. There was a tower up there on the point that helped bounce communication signals over the mountains that cut the city in half.

Mulholland was literally the backbone of Los Angeles. It rode like a snake along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains from one end of the city to the other. Clewiston knew of places where you could stand on the white stripe and look north across the vast San Fernando Valley and then turn around and look south and see across the west side and as far as the Pacific and Catalina Island. It all depended on whether the smog was cooperating or not. And if you knew the right spots to stop and look.

Mulholland had that top-of-the-world feel to it. It could make you feel like the prince of a city where the laws of nature and physics didn’t apply. The foot came down heavy on the accelerator. That was the contradiction. Mulholland was built for speed but it couldn’t handle it. Speed was a killer.

As he came around the bend, Clewiston saw another firetruck and a tow truck from the Van Nuys police garage. The tow truck was positioned sideways across the road. Its cable was down the embankment and stretched taut as it pulled the car up. For the moment, Mulholland was completely closed. Clewiston could hear the tow motor straining and the cracking and scraping as the unseen car was being pulled up through the brush. The tow truck shuddered as it labored.

Clewiston saw the man with sergeant’s stripes on his uniform and moved next to him as he watched.

“Is he still in it?” he asked Fairbanks.

“No, he was transported to St. Joe’s. But he was DOA. You’re Clewiston, right? The reconstructionist.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got to handle this thing right. Once the ID gets out, we’ll have the media all over this.”

“The captain told me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m telling you too. In this department, the captains don’t get blamed when things go sideways and off the road. It’s always the sergeants and it ain’t going to be me this time.”

“I get it.”

“You have any idea what this guy was worth? We’re talking tens of millions, and on top of that he’s supposedly in the middle of a divorce. So we go five by five by five on this thing. Comprende, reconstructionist?”

“It’s Clewiston and I said I get it.”

“Good. This is what we’ve got. Single car fatality. No witnesses. It appears the victim was heading eastbound when his vehicle, a two-month-old Porsche Carrera, came around that last curve there and for whatever reason didn’t straighten out. We’ve got treads on the road you can take a look at. Anyway, he went straight off the side and then down, baby. Major head and torso injuries. Chest crushed. He pretty much drowned in his own blood before the FD could get down to him. They stretchered him out with a chopper and transported him anyway. Guess they didn’t want any blow-back either.”

“They take blood at St. Joe’s?”

Fairbanks, about forty and a lifer on patrol, nodded. “I am told it was clean.”

There was a pause in the conversation at that point, suggesting that Clewiston could take whatever he wanted from the blood test. He could believe what Fairbanks was telling him or he could believe that the celebrity fix was already in.

The moonlight reflected off the dented silver skin of the Porsche as it was pulled up over the edge like a giant beautiful fish hauled into a boat. Clewiston walked over and Fairbanks followed. The first thing Clewiston saw was that it was a Carrera 4S. “Hmmmm,” he mumbled.

“What?” Fairbanks said.

“It’s one of the Porsches with four-wheel drive. Built for these sort of curves. Built for control.”

“Well, not built good enough, obviously.”

Clewiston put his equipment down on the hood of one of the patrol cars and took his Maglite over to the Porsche. He swept the beam over the front of the high-performance sports car. The car was heavily damaged in the crash and the front had taken the brunt of it. The molded body was badly distorted by repeated impacts as it had sledded down the steep embankment. He moved in close and squatted by the front cowling and the shattered passenger-side headlight assembly.

He could feel Fairbanks behind him, watching over his shoulder as he worked.

“If there were no witnesses, how did anybody know he’d gone over the side?” Clewiston asked.

“Somebody down below,” Fairbanks answered. “There are houses down there. Lucky this guy didn’t end up in somebody’s living room. I’ve seen that before.”

So had Clewiston. He stood up and walked to the edge and looked down. His light cut into the darkness of the brush. He saw the exposed pulp of the acacia trees and other foliage the car had torn through.

He returned to the car. The driver’s door was sprung and Clewiston could see the pry marks left by the jaws used to extricate the driver. He pulled it open and leaned in with his light. There was a lot of blood on the wheel, dashboard, and center console. The driver’s seat was wet with blood and urine.

The key was still in the ignition and turned to the on position. The dashboard lights were still on as well. Clewiston leaned further in and checked the mileage. The car had only 1,142 miles on the odometer.

Satisfied with his initial survey of the wreck, he went back to his equipment. He put the clipboard under his arm and picked up the measuring wheel. Fairbanks came over once again. “Anything?” he asked.

“Not yet, sergeant. I’m just starting.”

He started sweeping the light over the roadway. He picked up the skid marks and used the wheel to measure the distance of each one. There were four distinct marks, left as all four tires of the Porsche tried unsuccessfully to grip the asphalt. When he worked his way back to the starting point, he found scuff marks in a classic slalom pattern. They had been left on the asphalt when the car had turned sharply one way and then the other before going into the braking skid.

He wrote the measurements down on the clipboard. He then pointed the light into the brush on either side of the roadway where the scuff marks began. He knew the event had begun here and he was looking for indications of cause.

He noticed a small opening in the brush, a narrow pathway that continued on the other side of the road. It was a crossing. He stepped over and put the beam down on the brush and soil. After a few moments, he moved across the street and studied the path on the other side.

Satisfied with his site survey, he went back to the patrol car and opened his laptop. While it was booting up, Fairbanks came over once again.

“So, how’z it look?”

“I have to run the numbers.”

“Those skids look pretty long to me. The guy must’ve been flying.”

“You’d be surprised. Other things factor in. Brake efficiency, surface, and surface conditions — you see the mist moving in right now? Was it like this two hours ago when the guy went over the side?”

“Been like this since I got here. But the fire guys were here first. I’ll get one up here.”

Clewiston nodded. Fairbanks pulled his rover and told someone to send the first responders up to the crash site. He then looked back at Clewiston.

“On the way.”

“Thanks. Does anybody know what this guy was doing up here?”

“Driving home, we assume. His house was in Coldwater and he was going home.”

“From where?”

“That we don’t know.”

“Anybody make notification yet?”

“Not yet. We figure next of kin is the wife he’s divorcing. But we’re not sure where to find her. I sent a car to his house but there’s no answer. We’ve got somebody at Parker Center trying to run her down — probably through her lawyer. There’s also grown children from his first marriage. They’re working on that too.”

Two firefighters walked up and introduced themselves as Robards and Lopez. Clewiston questioned them on the weather and road conditions at the time they responded to the accident call. Both firefighters described the mist as heavy at the time. They were sure about this because the mist had hindered their ability to find the place where the vehicle had crashed through the brush and down the embankment.

“If we hadn’t seen the skid marks, we would have driven right by,” Lopez said.

Clewiston thanked them and turned back to his computer. He had everything he needed now. He opened the Accident Reconstruction Technologies program and went directly to the speed and distance calculator. He referred to his clipboard for the numbers he would need. He felt Fairbanks come up next to him.

“Computer, huh? That gives you all the answers?”

“Some of them.”

“Whatever happened to experience and trusting hunches and gut instincts?”

It wasn’t a question that was waiting for an answer. Clewiston added the lengths of the four skid marks he had measured and then divided by four, coming up with an average length of sixty-four feet. He entered the number into the calculator template.

“You said the vehicle is only two months old?” he asked Fairbanks.

“According to the registration. It’s a lease he picked up in January. I guess he filed for divorce and went out and got the sports car to help him get back in the game.”

Clewiston ignored the comment and typed 1.0 into a box marked B.E. on the template.

“What’s that?” Fairbanks asked.

“Braking efficiency. One-oh is the highest efficiency. Things could change if somebody wants to take the brakes off the car and test them. But for now I am going with high efficiency because the vehicle is new and there’s only twelve hundred miles on it.”

“Sounds right to me.”

Lastly, Clewiston typed 9.0 into the box marked C.F. This was the subjective part. He explained what he was doing to Fairbanks before the sergeant had to ask.

“This is coefficient of friction,” he said. “It basically means surface conditions. Mulholland Drive is asphalt base, which is generally a high coefficient. And this stretch here was repaved about nine months ago — again, that leads to a high coefficient. But I’m knocking it down a point because of the moisture. That mist comes in and puts down a layer of moisture that mixes with the road oil and makes the asphalt slippery. The oil is heavier in new asphalt.”

“I get it.”

“Good. It’s called trusting your gut instinct, sergeant.”

Fairbanks nodded. He had been properly rebuked.

Clewiston clicked the enter button and the calculator came up with a projected speed based on the relationship between skid length, brake efficiency, and the surface conditions. It said the Porsche had been traveling at 41.569 miles per hour when it went into the skid.

“You’re kidding me,” Fairbanks said while looking at the screen. “The guy was barely speeding. How can that be?”

“Follow me, sergeant,” Clewiston said.

Clewiston left the computer and the rest of his equipment, except for the flashlight. He led Fairbanks back to the point in the road where he had found the slalom scuffs and the originating point of the skid marks.

“Okay,” he said. “The event started here. We have a single car accident. No alcohol known to be involved. No real speed involved. A car built for this sort of road is involved. What went wrong?”

“Exactly.”

Clewiston put the light down on the scuff marks.

“Okay, you’ve got alternating scuff marks here before he goes into the skid.”

“Okay.”

“You have the tire cords indicating he jerked the wheel right initially and then jerked it left trying to straighten it out. We call it a SAM — a slalom avoidance maneuver.”

“A SAM. Okay.”

“He turned to avoid an impact of some kind, then over-corrected. He then panicked and did what most people do. He hit the brakes.”

“Got it.”

“The wheels locked up and he went into a skid. There was nothing he could do at that point. He had no control because the instinct is to press harder on the brakes, to push that pedal through the floor.”

“And the brakes were what were taking away control.”

“Exactly. He went over the side. The question is why. Why did he jerk the wheel in the first place? What preceded the event?”

“Another car?”

Clewiston nodded. “Could be. But no one stopped. No one called it in.”

“Maybe...” Fairbanks spread his hands. He was drawing a blank.

“Take a look here,” Clewiston said.

He walked Fairbanks over to the side of the road. He put the light on the pathway into the brush, drawing the sergeant’s eyes back across Mulholland to the pathway on the opposite side. Fairbanks looked at him and then back at the path.

“What are you thinking?” Fairbanks asked.

“This is a coyote path,” Clewiston said. “They come up through Fryman Canyon and cross Mulholland here. It takes them to the dog park. They probably wait in heavy brush for the dogs that stray out of the park.”

“So your thinking is that our guy came around the curve and there was a coyote crossing the road.”

Clewiston nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. He jerks the wheel to avoid the animal, then overcompensates, loses control. You have a slalom followed by a braking skid. He goes over the side.”

“An accident, plain and simple.” Fairbanks shook his head disappointedly. “Why couldn’t it have been a DUI, something clear cut like that?” he asked. “Nobody’s going to believe us on this one.”

“That’s not our problem. All the facts point to it being a driving mishap. An accident.”

Fairbanks looked at the skid marks and nodded. “Then that’s it, I guess.”

“You’ll get a second opinion from the insurance company anyway,” Clewiston said. “They’ll probably pull the brakes off the car and test them. An accident means double indemnity. But if they can shift the calculations and prove he was speeding or being reckless, it softens the impact. The payout becomes negotiable. But my guess is they’ll see it the same way we do.”

“I’ll make sure forensics photographs everything. We’ll document everything six ways from Sunday and the insurance people can take their best shot. When will I get a report from you?”

“I’ll go down to Valley Traffic right now and write something up.”

“Good. Get it to me. What else?”

Clewiston looked around to see if he was forgetting anything. He shook his head. “That’s it. I need to take a few more measurements and some photos, then I’ll head down to write it up. Then I’ll get out of your way.”

Clewiston left him and headed back up the road to get his camera. He had a small smile on his face that nobody noticed.

Clewiston headed west on Mulholland from the crash site. He planned to take Coldwater Canyon down into the Valley and over to the Traffic Division office. He waited until the flashing blue and red lights were small in his rearview mirror before flipping open his phone. He hoped he could get a signal on the cheap throwaway. Mulholland Drive wasn’t always cooperative with cellular service.

He had a signal. He pulled to the side while he attached the digital recorder, then turned it on and made the call. She answered after one ring, as he was pulling back onto the road and up to speed.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“The apartment.”

“They’re looking for you. You’re sure his attorney knows where you are?”

“He knows. Why? What’s going on?”

“They want to tell you he’s dead.”

He heard her voice catch. He took the phone away from his ear so he could hold the wheel with two hands on one of the deep curves. He then brought it back.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m here. I just can’t believe it, that’s all. I’m speechless. I didn’t think it would really happen.”

You may be speechless, but you’re talking, Clewiston thought. Keep it up.

“You wanted it to happen, so it happened,” he said. “I told you I would take care of it.”

“What happened?”

“He went off the road on Mulholland. It’s an accident and you’re a rich lady now.”

She said nothing.

“What else do you want to know?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe I shouldn’t know anything. It will be better when they come here.”

“You’re an actress. You can handle it.”

“Okay.”

He waited for her to say more, glancing down at the recorder on the center console to see the red light still glowing. He was good.

“Was he in pain?” she asked.

“Hard to say. He was probably dead when they pried him out. From what I hear, it will be a closed casket. Why do you care?”

“I guess I don’t. It’s just sort of surreal that this is happening. Sometimes I wish you never came to me with the whole idea.”

“You rather go back to being trailer park trash while he lives up on the hill?”

“No, it wouldn’t be like that. My attorney says the prenup has holes in it.”

Clewiston shook his head. Second guessers. They hire his services and then can’t live with the consequences.

“What’s done is done,” he said. “This will be the last time we talk. When you get the chance, throw the phone you’re talking on away like I told you.”

“There won’t be any records?”

“It’s a throwaway. Like all the drug dealers use. Open it up, smash the chip, and throw it all away the next time you go to McDonald’s.”

“I don’t go to McDonald’s.”

“Then throw it away at The Ivy. I don’t give a shit. Just not at your house. Let things run their course. Soon you’ll have all his money. And you double dip on the insurance because of the accident. You can thank me for that.”

He was coming up to the hairpin turn that offered the best view of the Valley.

“How do we know that they think it was an accident?”

“Because I made them think that. I told you, I have Mulholland wired. That’s what you paid for. Nobody is going to second guess a goddamn thing. His insurance company will come in and sniff around, but they won’t be able to change things. Just sit tight and stay cool. Say nothing. Offer nothing. Just like I told you.”

The lights of the Valley spread out in front of him before the turn. He saw a car pulled over at the unofficial overlook. On any other night he’d stop and roust them — probably teenagers getting it on in the backseat. But not tonight. He had to get down to the traffic office and write up his report.

“This is the last time we talk,” he said to her.

He looked down at the recorder. He knew it would be the last time they talked — until he needed more money from her.

“How did you get him to go off the road?” she asked.

He smiled. They always ask that. “My friend Arty did it.”

“You brought a third party into this. Don’t you see that—”

“Relax. Arty doesn’t talk.”

He started into the turn. He realized the phone had gone dead.

“Hello?” he said. “Hello?”

He looked at the screen. No signal. These cheap throwaways were about as reliable as the weather.

He felt his tires catch the edge of the roadway and looked up in time to pull the car back onto the road. As he came out of the turn, he checked the phone’s screen one more time for the signal. He needed to call her back, let her know how it was going to be.

There was still no signal.

“Goddamnit!”

He slapped the phone closed on his thigh, then peered back at the road and froze as his eyes caught and held on two glowing eyes in the headlights. In a moment he broke free and jerked the wheel right to avoid the coyote. He corrected, but the wheels caught on the deep edge of the asphalt. He jerked harder and the front wheel broke free and back up on the road. But the back wheel slipped out and the car went into a slide.

Clewiston had an almost clinical knowledge of what was happening. It was as if he was watching one of the accident recreations he had prepared a hundred times for court hearings and prosecutions.

The car went into a sideways slide toward the precipice. He knew he would hit the wooden fence — chosen by the city for aesthetic reasons over function and safety — and that he would crash through. He knew at that moment that he was probably a dead man.

The car turned 180 degrees before blowing backwards through the safety fence. It then went airborne and arced down, trunk first. Clewiston gripped the steering wheel as if it was still the instrument of his control and destiny. But he knew there was nothing that could help him now. There was no control.

Looking through the windshield, he saw the beams of his headlights pointing into the night sky. Out loud, he said, “I’m dead.”

The car plunged through a stand of trees, branches shearing off with a noise as loud as firecrackers. Clewiston closed his eyes for the final impact. There was a sharp roaring sound and a jarring crash. The airbag exploded from the steering wheel and snapped his neck back against his seat.

Clewiston opened his eyes and felt liquid surrounding him and rising up his chest. He thought he had momentarily blacked out or was hallucinating. But then the water reached his neck and it was cold and real. He could see only darkness. He was in black water and it was filling the car.

He reached down to the door and pulled on a handle but he couldn’t get the door to open. He guessed the power locks had shorted out. He tried to bring his legs up so he could kick out one of the shattered windows but his seat belt held him in place. The water was up to his chin now and rising. He quickly unsnapped his belt and tried to move again but realized it hadn’t been the impediment. His legs — both of them — were somehow pinned beneath the steering column, which had dropped down during the impact. He tried to raise it but couldn’t get it to move an inch. He tried to squeeze out from beneath the weight but he was thoroughly pinned.

The water was over his mouth now. By leaning his head back and raising his chin up, he gained an inch, but that was rapidly erased by the rising tide. In less than thirty seconds the water was over him and he was holding his last breath.

He thought about the coyote that had sent him over the side. It didn’t seem possible that what had happened had happened. A reverse cascade of bubbles leaked from his mouth and traveled upward as he cursed.

Suddenly everything was illuminated. A bright light glowed in front of him. He leaned forward and looked out through the windshield. He saw a robed figure above the light, arms at his side.

Clewiston knew that it was over. His lungs burned for release. It was his time. He let out all of his breath and took the water in. He journeyed toward the light.

James Crossley finished tying his robe and looked down into his backyard pool. It was as if the car had literally dropped from the heavens. The brick wall surrounding the pool was undisturbed. The car had to have come in over it and then landed perfectly in the middle of the pool. About a third of the water had slopped over the side with the impact. But the car was fully submerged except for the edge of the trunk lid, which had come open during the landing. Floating on the surface was a lifelike mannequin dressed in old jeans and a green military jacket. The scene was bizarre.

Crossley looked up toward the crestline to where he knew Mulholland Drive edged the hillside. He wondered if someone had pushed the car off the road, if this was some sort of prank.

He then looked back down into the pool. The surface was calming and he could see the car more clearly in the beam of the pool’s light. And it was then that he thought he saw someone sitting unmoving behind the steering wheel.

Crossley ripped his robe off and dove naked into the pool.