City of Fire (4 page)

Novak had been right. She didn’t need an address to spot the death house on Oak Tree Lane. Easing by a long row of black-and-whites, she glanced at the yellow crime-scene tape
already stretched around the perimeter. The open spot at the curb would be left for the Scientific Investigation Division truck when it arrived. But the coroner’s van was already here, backing into the drive under Novak’s supervision and leaving enough space for what Lena guessed would be a temporary command post beneath the eaves of the roof. Novak spotted her and waved. Lena nodded back, then pulled forward and found a place to park three doors down the road.

Cops in uniforms were already knocking on doors and working the neighborhood for possible leads. Lena finished off her coffee, felt the buzz light up her head, then climbed out of the car into the heavy mist. Stretching her legs, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The air was genuinely clean and appeared free of jet fumes and bus exhaust. The slight breeze had an earthy scent, peppered with a faint edge of eucalyptus. But even more striking was the stillness. She couldn’t hear a freeway or traffic rolling up and down PCH. Other than the birds, the only sound seemed to be coming from the water spilling over the polished rocks in the stream. As she popped the trunk open and reached for her briefcase, she glanced down the block. The houses were two to three times the size of her own, some even bigger, but stood within twenty feet of the road. In typical California fashion, privacy was reserved for the backyard, the narrow lanes between the houses blocked by fences or stone walls with iron gates.

Paradise looked as if it lasted longer than fifteen minutes here. Unless, of course, you were unlucky enough to live in the house three doors down the road.

She slammed the trunk and heard a dog start barking in the house before her. As she turned away, a door opened and she glanced back. A small, white terrier on a leash was rushing toward the gate with a middle-aged man wearing a bathrobe in tow.

“Excuse me,” the man called out. “I was hoping you might tell me what’s happened?”

Lena slung her briefcase over her shoulder. “Have the officers stopped by?”

The man shook his head and appeared frightened. “My neighbor called and said that someone was murdered. That it might be Nikki.”

“Then you know as much as I do.”

It hung there, the man visibly shaken. Ordinarily, Lena would have cut the conversation short. But when she noticed the outdoor thermometer attached to the house, she glanced at her watch and stepped toward the fence. At 6:55 a.m. it was still only forty-nine degrees. She took another step forward. The dog started barking again, wagging his tail and trying to pull through the gate. The man tugged on the leash—gently, Lena noticed.

“How’d he sleep last night?” she asked.

“Not very well. He woke us up.”

“What time was that?”

The man thought it over, beginning to relax. “About one-thirty. Then he started barking again around two.”

“How did he do after that?”

“Slept like a baby, while me and my wife tossed and turned.”

The man shot her a look and smiled. He obviously loved his dog.

“Does he bark a lot at night?” she asked.

“Only when someone leaves the gate open and the coyotes wander into the backyard. I checked this morning, but the gate was closed.”

Lena noticed the SID van pulling around the corner.

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“Louie,” the man said with pride.

“Make sure you tell the officers about Louie when they stop by.”

The man nodded. She pulled a business card from her pocket, a generic card provided by the department, and filled in the blank spaces with her name and phone number. She had placed an order for preprinted cards last week. Like her cell phone, she would have to pick up the expense on her own. She passed the card over, then asked for the man’s name and phone number. Shielding her notepad from the
drizzle, she wrote the information down and drew a circle around the time the dog started barking last night. It was only a hunch, but odds were that the deputy coroner and pathologist would match it with the time of death.

Slipping her notepad into her blazer pocket, she thanked the man and headed down the street. But as she passed a hedgerow, her view cleared and she slowed down to take in the death house through the mist. It was an older home, probably built in the 1920s, and had the feel of a one-story gatehouse leading to something bigger hidden in the foliage. The exterior walls were a mix of smooth river rock and cedar clapboard that had been stained a dark brown. Patches of emerald green moss marred the slate roof along the seams. Behind the house she could see a grove of sycamores and two huge oak trees. The canopy overhead looked particularly thick. Even on a clear day, she doubted the place got much sun.

She stretched the crime scene tape overhead and stepped beneath it. Then a cop handed her a clipboard, and she signed in with her name and badge number. As she crossed the yard to the drive, she sensed the tension in the air. Crime scene techs were readying their equipment, absorbed in their tasks, speaking in whispers if they spoke at all. She looked for a familiar face but didn’t recognize anyone. All except for the burly figure with the coffee-and-cream skin hopping off the back of the SID van. Lamar Newton flashed an uneasy smile her way, scratched his head, then sat on the rear gate and opened his camera bag. They had known each other since the bust at Rustic Canyon Park. Two cameras equipped with night-vision lenses had been mounted in the trees overhead. While Lena met with Rafi Miller, Lamar sat in the community center, documenting the event on videotape. Lena and Lamar shared a bond after that night, working well together ever since.

She stepped around the coroner’s van and found Novak standing on a six-foot ladder, clipping a blue tarp to the rain spout. He seemed concerned with the view from Brooktree Road and took a sip from a can of Diet Coke as he made an adjustment. If the press arrived, they would come with cameras
and long lenses, maybe even tip-readers. Novak was trying to buy some privacy.

“You made good time,” he said, climbing down.

His smile was forced. She caught the ragged look in his blue eyes, the gray overtaking his blond hair, his ashen skin. He looked ten years older than he did before they’d grabbed a day off. She felt her stomach begin churning again.

“You took a peek,” she said.

He nodded. Novak was the first one here and had to look.

“How bad is it?”

He didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he turned toward his unmarked car backed into the drive across the street. Lena followed his gaze. An identical car was parked beside it. She could see Tito Sanchez sitting in the front seat beside a man she didn’t know. He looked about thirty and appeared distraught, and Lena guessed that Nikki Brant had a husband.

“Remember Teresa Lopez?” Novak asked in a low voice.

The memory registered. Her partner didn’t need to say anything more.

They may still have been getting used to each other, but Hank Novak was easily the best partner Lena had ever had. At six foot one he was taller than her by three inches, but they always seemed to stand eye to eye. Their friendship had begun the moment Lieutenant Barrera introduced them and asked Novak to show Lena her desk. He seemed pleased with the partnership rather than burdened and did everything he could to make her feel comfortable as he showed her around. Novak was divorced but had three daughters, and Lena could tell that he liked women, which was important to her. Although retirement was a favorite subject, and the front seat of his car was littered with travel brochures and fishing magazines, he loved talking about his twenty-seven years as a cop. The mistakes he’d made, and what he’d learned as a result. Lena often wondered how Novak managed to survive with his humanity intact and hoped that she would be as lucky.

She pulled a fresh pair of vinyl gloves from the box she kept in her briefcase and slipped them on.

“Where’s Rhodes?”

“Inside stretching tape,” Novak said. “The body’s in the bedroom. That’s James Brant in the car with Tito. He says he got home around five-thirty after doing an all-nighter at work. When he found his wife, he dialed nine one one.”

She took another look at James Brant, concerned that he might have contaminated the crime scene.

“How long was he in the house alone?”

“About half an hour. West L.A. had him in their cruiser when I pulled up. Brant says he didn’t touch anything. That he never got past the bedroom doorway. He took one look and made the call.”

“What about West L.A.?”

“They never entered the room. They backed out and sent the paramedics home. The case got bumped to us based on the view from the bedroom door.”

The view from the bedroom door.

Lena tried not to think about it, but she knew that it was already seared into Novak’s brain by the way he drained the can of Diet Coke as if it were a Bud Light and he could still drink beer. As she turned away, Stan Rhodes walked outside carrying a spent roll of crime scene tape. He looked at her with those dark eyes of his, something he hadn’t done since she was promoted to RHD. They shared a history, but Lena didn’t want to deal with it right now. His gaze appeared steady and even, the way it used to be, and she guessed that Rhodes was looking at the situation just as she was.

“It’s clear all the way to the body,” he said to her. “SID ready?”

Novak answered for Lena. “In a minute.”

“I’ll meet you guys in the foyer,” she said.

“Sounds good,” Rhodes said quietly. “But I wouldn’t wander too far down the hall.”

LENA stepped over the threshold into the death house. She might have been anxious, but she also wanted to get a feel for the way Nikki and James Brant lived before the investigation really got started. It had been her practice ever since she’d shed her uniform, particularly when entering a home with a dead body. She wanted a clean view, an unbiased first impression no matter how sketchy, before her mind was forever jaded by the sight of the victim and how they met their end.

The house was smaller than she first thought—about thirteen hundred square feet. And the layout was more open than most homes of the same period. From where she stood in the foyer, she had a partial view of the kitchen on her left and the living room through the archway. To her right was a small den and the hallway leading to the back of the house.

Nothing seemed out of place. There were no obvious signs of a struggle. Just the yellow tape Rhodes had strung across the entrances to each room and along the walls, roughing out a safe zone down the hall to the bedroom in the very back.

The murder room.

Lena looked away, sensing a chill in the air. It felt almost as cold inside as it was out. She glanced at the table and mirror opposite the front door and spotted a thermostat on the wall, wondering why the heat wasn’t on. Digging into her pocket for her notepad, she wrote down the temperature, then took another look at the table. The lamp was still burning,
and she noted the lack of dust, the faint scent of polish. The house had recently been cleaned. Not yesterday or even last night in order to cover something up, but sometime over the past week. Dust and the story it left behind was a tech’s best friend. No one from SID would be pleased.

Lena turned to a blank page in her notepad and made a rough sketch of the floor plan. Peeking into the kitchen, she noted the stack of newspapers by the breakfast table and the dinner dishes set beside the sink. There weren’t many dishes, and she figured it had been dinner for one last night.

When she moved to the archway, she noticed the lack of furniture in the living room. Pressing her body against the crime scene tape, she leaned forward for a better view. The ceiling was vaulted, the rear wall lined entirely by glass. Through the French doors she could see a flagstone terrace giving way to a sizable backyard enclosed by a fence. She looked back at the empty room, searching for personal items but not finding any. Just a TV on the floor set beside a boom box and short stack of CDs.

Lena turned to the front door, saw Lamar Newton asking Novak a question in the driveway, and crossed the foyer for a quick look at the den. The walls were lined with books, but the shelves were built-ins. The only furniture in the room was an old leather couch and a small wooden desk and chair that seemed better suited for a child. A table lamp was set on the floor. In lieu of a coffee table, fifteen oversize books were spread out on the white carpet as if someone had been studying them from the floor. A path had been cleared from where Lena stood in the foyer to the computer on the desk.

She thought it over, cataloging the inventory in her head. In spite of the address, money had been an issue for Nikki and James Brant. Their home was nearly empty. What they owned could easily fit into a van or small trailer. Yet a presence was here. Something extra Lena couldn’t put her finger on.

Her eyes drifted down to the books laid out on the carpet. They were filled with works of art. Paintings, sculptures, but also buildings dating from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Lena recognized one of the books on architecture
because she’d read it as a student at UCLA before she’d ever dreamed or even thought about being a cop.