Mirror Image (16 page)

It was a watch, a fake gold Rolex watch. The face was cracked, the casing melted to sludge in the intense heat, the enameled face bubbled and warped. Engraved on the back, barely visible beneath the patina of soot was the line, “Robert Maurice Beaumont.”

And she suddenly recognized, she suddenly
accepted
what she was seeing.

The watch dropped from her nerveless fingers, falling onto the burnt meat, sinking into the chest cavity, a tiny blue flame dancing about the hole.

She scrabbled away, wrapping her arms around her knees, hugging them close to her body, swallowing again and again, bile flooding her throat and mouth. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, but the images—vivid, bloody images, of whitened bone and blackened flesh, a charred skull, strips of crisped hair clinging to it, of an arm that ended in a knotted stump—all the images remained.

And the smoke.

The smoke coiling sinuously from the body, flowing upwards, crawling across the surface of the mirror, clinging to it, wreathing across the surface, forming shapes, forming pictures, forming faces.

Tony Farren …

Diane Williams …

Robert Beaumont.

Face upon face, image upon image. Eyes wide, mouths open in soundless agony.

Calling to her …

Pleading with her …

Enticing her …

Emmanuelle Frazer opened her mouth and screamed until her throat bled.

 

30

“T
HIS IS
ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Your insinuations are absurd.”

“Maybe you might want to wait until your lawyer arrives, Mr. Frazer…” Margaret Haaren suggested quietly.

“I don't see why. Your allegations are unfounded. I am innocent of these ridiculous charges,” Frazer continued, almost trembling with rage.

“There have been no charges, Mr. Frazer. You are merely helping us with our investigations.” She looked up as José Pérez came into the small office, his broad face completely impassive, a manila folder in his hand. Without a word he came around the desk and placed the folder before her, and then took up a position at the door, arms folded, eyes fixed on her face. Even before she opened the folder, she knew it was bad news.

“You must appreciate our position, Mr. Frazer,” she continued, speaking to him while her eyes ran down the single typed sheet. “You told us you bought a mirror in London, the same mirror which inadvertently caused the death of one of your employees, the same mirror which a mysterious scarred man offered to buy, the same mirror another employee died guarding. And yet the auction house in South London has never heard of you, they have no record of ever having dealt with you before, and there was no mirror of the size you describe sold at the auction that day. We contacted the shipping company; the people whom you said delivered the mirror have no record of ever having dealt with you. We are left with one conclusion,” she finished softly, having absorbed the impact of what she had just read, “that you have lied to us, Mr. Frazer.”

“But why,” he began, almost desperately, “what possible reason would I have to lie to you?”

The phone on Margaret Haaren's desk rang, interrupting the already tense atmosphere; she picked it up and listened intently to the voice on the other end, her eyes never moving from Frazer's face. “That's all you have at the moment? I see … thank you.”

Margaret Haaren stood up and reached for the jacket draped across the back of the chair. “I think you had better come with us, Mr. Frazer.”

“Why? Where are we going?” he demanded, not moving.

“We're taking you home. There has been … an accident.”

Jonathan leapt to his feet. “An accident! What sort of accident?”

“We're not sure. A fire in your guesthouse. Your daughter seems to have been injured.”

Frazer looked at her in horror, the color draining from his face.

“I've no further details, I'm afraid,” she lied, not telling him about the grisly carcass that had been discovered in the guesthouse.

*   *   *

S
IRENS HOWLING, THEY
drove across Los Angeles in the unmarked police car. José drove, while Margaret sat in the passenger seat, half turned to look at Frazer, sitting wide-eyed, white-faced and trembling in the back seat. She could smell the rancid odor of his fear leaking from his pores, and this, more than anything else, convinced her that Frazer was not their culprit.

It took fifteen minutes to reach the house. A paramedic unit screamed out of the driveway as they turned in, while two fire trucks, their red flashing lights reflecting off the exterior of main house, were parked directly behind one another in the driveway. Lines of deflated yellow fire hoses led around the side of the house down to the guesthouse.

The detectives parked their car alongside a coroner's vehicle just as a black body bag was being loaded into the back. Frazer gave a scream of anguish and leapt from the still moving car, screaming as he ran across the drive towards the startled coroner's aides. Still shouting, he managed to pull the zip of the body bag down and revealed a burnt and tattered eyeless face before Detective Pérez grabbed his arms and physically hauled him away. “That's not your daughter. She's alive. She's alive, she's OK.”

Frazer collapsed onto the ground, his head buried in his hands, sobs racking through him. José Pérez sat down beside him and put his arm around Frazer's shoulder. “It's OK, it's OK, it's not Manny. She's fine, she saw the body and fainted, we think. The paramedics say she wasn't injured; maybe a mild concussion, some smoke inhalation, nothing more.”

“I thought … I thought … I thought…” Frazer hiccupped.

“I know what you thought. I've a girl about Manny's age myself. I know what you were thinking.”

Frazer rubbed his hand across his eyes and attempted to stand, but his legs felt like water and the detective helped him to his feet. As the coroner pulled away, he looked at Pérez. “Well if that wasn't Manny, who was it?”

“We don't know yet. The body was found in your guesthouse, burnt beyond recognition, all identity burnt with it. All we have left is some rags and the remains of a gold watch.”

“A watch? Whose?”

“We don't know yet, forensics will take care of that.”

“But if the fire was that intense, what about the guesthouse…” Frazer gasped.

“Untouched.”

Frazer looked at him uncomprehendingly. “How?”

“I've seen it once before, many years ago when I was a patrol officer. I was called in to investigate an old man who hadn't been seen for days. We found him in his apartment sitting in his chair. But although he was burnt to a crisp, the chair he'd been sitting on had only been scorched. The pathologist told me it was called spontaneous combustion. Happens to maybe twenty people a year; they just burst into flames, from the inside out as it were.” He shrugged. “No one knows why or how it happens; just one of life's little mysteries, I guess.”

“I'd like to see the guesthouse please.”

“I'm not sure.…” José Pérez caught Margaret Haaren's nod, and then smiled. “Sure. Why not? Let's go.”

The two men walked around the side of the house. Haaren trailed along discreetly. As they neared the guesthouse they could see police officers and the fire fighters milling about, while from inside, light flashed at regular intervals as the scene of the death was recorded. Frazer moved through the crowd, shouldering his way into the darkened interior, blinking quickly to restore his sight. He walked right up to the mirror, looking closely at it before realizing he was standing on the remains of some damp ashes.

Haaren looked at Pérez. Neither of them had told Frazer where the body had been discovered. And the guesthouse was large, the body could have been anywhere.

Frazer abruptly turned away, his face set and expressionless. When he stepped out into the sunlight, he was breathing quickly and his face had an unhealthy cast to it.

“What was that all about? A touch of guilt?” Pérez whispered to Haaren.

The woman shook her head. “Not sure, but it's significant.” The detective strode forward and caught up beside him, touching his arm. “Slow down Mr. Frazer…”

“There!” he hissed. “There.” His voice rose to a shout. “THERE!”

She followed the direction of his stiffly pointing arm. There was a tall, broad man standing at the end of the driveway among a small crowd of curious neighbors, his face in shadow, only his shock of white hair visible.

Frazer's fingers closed painfully on her arm, his eyes wild with excitement. “That's him! That's the scarred man.”

“I'll get him,” José Pérez murmured, hurrying past them, drawing his gun, crunching stones beneath his shoes. The stranger turned away and faded back into the crowd. “Shit,” Pérez murmured, putting on a spurt of speed. He was too old for this. “STOP!” he shouted.

Haaren turned, pointing to the two officers who had come to investigate the shouting. “Go with him. Quickly.”

José Pérez pounded down the driveway. The crowd of onlookers scattered quickly. He raced around the corner and had time to register a looming shape before he was grabbed by the arms and hauled off his feet. He was slammed against the ornate wrought iron fence, the back of his head snapping off the metal, dazing him.

“What happened back there?” The voice was hard. The huge man began shaking him, holding him inches off the ground, rattling him from side to side. “Answer me,” he grated.

“F-f-f-fuck you…”

“Hey you!” The two officers rounded the corner and were almost on top of the white haired man before he—or they—realized it. The younger of the two men fumbled for his gun and shouted aloud before the big man—still holding Pérez pinned to the fencing—kicked the officer high in the chest with the flat of his foot. The force of the tremendous blow snapped ribs, driving them deep into the lungs and actually lifted the young man off his feet, punching him back into the second officer. Both men went down in a tangle of limbs.

Pérez saw a faceful of scars.

“Answer me,” the big man snarled.

“Fuck you!” the detective spat.
“Que te jodan!”

The white haired man kneed him in the groin. White hot pain blossomed in the pit of his stomach and flowed up into his chest. Suddenly he could not breathe.

“Tell me. Or I will hurt you.”

José Pérez attempted to double over, but he was still pressed to the fence. He could feel moisture on his head, running down into his neck, had seen—dimly—what the man had done to the officer, he had felt the incredible fire in his groin. He was forty-seven years old … too old for this. He was going to throw up.

“Last chance: answer me.”

“There was a fire, a man, burnt to death.”

“Where?”

“In the guesthouse,” he whispered.

“Where?” the big man demanded, raising a huge fist.

“I've told you. In the guesthouse…”

“Where. Specifically.”

“Before a mirror.”

The fist descended, smashing his head against the iron fencing.

 

31

I
N THREE
separate hospital rooms at Cedars Sinai Hospital, three families kept vigil.

Jonathan and Celia Frazer sat in a private room on the top floor, watching over the sleeping form of their daughter, Emmanuelle. Outwardly, she was unmarked and the only piece of hospital equipment in the room was the respirator to assist her breathing which was slightly labored due to smoke inhalation. Celia Frazer had fallen asleep, curled up in the large comfortable chair, a hospital blanket thrown over her shoulders. Jonathan sat perched on the edge of a chair, watching his daughter intently, not thinking, not daring to think, only grateful that she was still alive.

On the floor below them, José Pérez's wife and two teenage daughters sat awake and alert, unable to sleep, holding each other's hands, muttering prayers while they watched over the sleeping body in the bed. In the stillness of the room, a heart monitor blipped softly, the respirator hummed and, although the drips were silent, the three women all imagined they could hear each drop thundering into the IV feed. José Pérez's principal injuries were a cracked skull and concussion. A portion of the skull had been depressed inwards and the doctors had initially feared that it was pressing on the brain, but a series of emergency MRIs and CAT scans had removed that worry. There was extensive bruising to his face, and the red imprint of finger marks were clearly visible on his upper arms. There was a flat ugly weal on his forehead where the palm of a hand had struck him with tremendous force. The doctors had also found extensive bruising around his testicles.

In the ICU was the more seriously injured of two officers, Martin Moore. He had only just graduated from the academy a few weeks prior. He had received a tremendous crushing blow to his chest, which had impacted several ribs into his lungs, collapsing them both. He had actually stopped breathing before the paramedics got to him and there was a grave possibility of brain damage. Sitting in the corridor outside the room, his aged parents sat still and silent, hands locked together. A polished black rosary moved through the mother's tiny fingers.

Even though her manpower was stretched to the limit, Margaret Haaren had placed two officers outside each room with strict instructions that no one was to be allowed in unless they were family or medical staff—and they could prove it. Frazer's description of the scarred man, now backed up and improved by the additional information furnished by the uninjured officer, had been circulated to police within the Los Angeles area. Margaret Haaren's orders were precise and succinct: anyone even vaguely matching the description of the man in the vicinity of the hospital was to be held for questioning.

The situation had now changed dramatically: in the
them and us
attitude held by both police and citizens in most modern cities, the police tended to look upon an attack on one of their own with far more seriousness than a similar attack on a citizen. The attack on Pérez and young Moore had been cold-blooded and brutal, possibly murderous in its intent, and the description of the scarred man had warned that he was “violent and dangerous, approach with caution.”