Burning Proof (7 page)

Abby had arrested gang members, a serial killer, a wife killer, and murderous thieves, but in all her career she’d never seen such vicious, naked hatred. It slapped at her, made her recoil.

Clayton Joiner was consumed by grief.

It took all of Abby’s strength not to get up and run from the backyard, but to stay and complete the statement for Boston. She couldn’t concentrate.

Abby knew at that moment she needed to get away from work, from murder, until she could sort out the death of Clayton Joiner.

She could miss something critical and let a guilty killer go free.

There was too much of that going around already. She didn’t want to be responsible for more.

“Dr. Collins called me.” Lieutenant Jacoby stood and looked Abby in the eye. “This is because of the shooting?”

Abby bit her lip, wondering if answering truthfully would label her crazy and eventually get her shuttled to some boring job she’d hate.

No matter what, even with the turmoil swirling inside, she had to be truthful. “I, uh, I think so. It’s weighing on me. I know I had no choice, but . . .”

Jacoby watched her. There was no condemnation in his gaze. “I understand. I shot a guy once. He didn’t die, but it affected me, and the court case went on forever. Everybody is a Monday-morning quarterback.”

She said nothing for a minute, relieved he got it at least on that level. When she’d told Bill, he’d understood immediately.
“Take as much time as you need. I can handle our caseload right now. The one today is cake. You’ve been through a lot in the last few months.”

Did she need to tell them how afraid she was that she would never be a cop again?

“It’s really been a rough couple of months,” she admitted.

Jacoby regarded her for a moment. “You’re right; it has been. I’ve signed off on it. File the paperwork with personnel. All I ask is that you keep the line of communication open with Collins. You’ll need to follow up with him before you return to work.”

With that, Abby left the PD, her home away from home for twelve years. She thought it would be hard, but it wasn’t. She needed to get away from Joiner’s accusing face, needed to find some way to wipe the blood from her hands.

BUT DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

Molly walked slowly through the market, studying items on the shelf. She was in the cereal aisle. She stepped close, tapping boxes as she read their names, pretending to concentrate on the cereal, but always watching behind. Then furtively checking in front.

They were watching and staring; she knew it.

“She’s the one.”

The woman with the baby
 
—was it really a baby?

The man stocking shelves.

The old lady in the motorized cart.

Molly felt their eyes on her as if they were pelting her with BBs.

“That’s the girl.”

She hurried out of the cereal aisle for the dairy products, but that’s where a group of teens were staring
 
—everyone was staring.

She turned on her heel and broke into a jog, breath cut off by all the sharp eyes, pounding, suffocating her.

Shoving the bag boy out of her way and ignoring his protest, she fled, hitting her full stride as the doors whooshed open and she was outside.

“She made it all up.”

More eyes. She wanted to scream.

She turned left and sprinted, trying to get away from the eyes, but there was the cross. The evangelical church on the other side of the market, with a large cross in the front.

God’s house.

This was all God’s fault!

God let Molly down in the worst way.

Because of God she was crazy, and now the cross accused her.

Molly’s head felt as if it would explode. She stopped and brought both hands to her head, ripping tufts of hair out of both sides.

She screamed and cut right, into the street, away from the cross and in front of the car she never saw coming.

“SORRY, BUT THINGS
are bottled up right now.” FBI Agent Todd Orson sat across from Luke and Woody in a small coffee shop in East Long Beach. “The federal government rarely moves quickly.”

“What’s the holdup?” Luke asked. He was anxious to start the new job working with Orson, and disappointment bit deep.

“Politics, that’s all. One of the sponsors of the squad has some legal issues to deal with. The situation has shelved the squad for the time being. I’m hoping all will be cleared up by November.”

“Fine with me,” Woody said. “It’s a kick working with Luke here. We step into the most interesting cases.”

Orson chuckled. “Yep, Bullet filled me in. Watch out for those spry old fugitives.”

Luke took the ribbing in stride. “I have no dearth of work to do, but after all the interviews and tests we’ve taken for the cold case squad, I was really hoping to get started.”

“I know. I do have something for you.” Orson paused.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I hesitate to give this to you because I’ll be in DC and I’m not certain I’ll be able to help much. But this woman who writes a crime blog for the high desert has contacted me. I know her because her husband was a Marine. He got home from Afghanistan only to be killed by an irate boyfriend two days later in Lancaster when he intervened in a domestic dispute.”

“Whoa.” Luke and Woody spoke at the same time.

“Yeah, it was rough. I knew the kid, met him in country. Anyway, Faye
 
—that’s her name, Faye Fallon
 
—blogs about crime and cold cases in the Lancaster/Palmdale area. She sent me a case she’s profiled a couple of times, and I wanted you to take a look. There is a bit of urgency because with this case, there’s a statute of limitations in play.”

“It’s not a homicide case?” Luke asked.

“No. It might have been. Ten years ago the victim, sixteen years old at the time, accepted a ride from a stranger. He sexually assaulted her, tied her up, threw her into the trunk of his car, and drove her out to the middle of nowhere. This is out near Mojave. She managed to escape, and the sicko was never caught. The ten-year anniversary was a couple of months ago. Because the victim was under eighteen at the time of the crime, the statute of limitations won’t expire until she turns twenty-eight, in a little under two years. . . . Anyway, I’d consider it a favor to me if you would talk to Faye, see if you can help. She can pay you.”

“Sure,” Luke said quickly, touched by the story and curious. He looked at Woody, who nodded.

“Great. I’ll give Faye your number. And I’ll try to help if I can, but no guarantees.”

After Orson left Luke and Woody in the coffee shop, Woody opened the briefcase he’d brought with him. The booth where they sat was private and quiet, and Luke felt okay to continue the meeting here.

He rubbed his hands together. “I’ve been waiting to study everything Asa was hiding in that safe.”

“Hope you’re not disappointed. I’ve glanced over things and I’ve seen only theories, no proof or facts. I did see one tidbit that’s new. Something Asa sat on. I could slap him. It’s something that should have been investigated years ago.”

“I’ll take everything with a grain of salt.”

Woody placed the pages on the table: a file on Simon Morgan, two reports about old hit-and-run accidents, a folder of Asa’s notes, and a file of assorted news clippings. Some of the newspaper clippings were old and yellowed, the edges frayed. They were mostly about the Triple Seven, but he did see one concerning a hit-and-run.

“You’ve looked through everything?”

“Pretty much. Some stuff more in depth than other stuff.” He tapped one of the hit-and-runs. “For example, remember the theory that George Sanders floated, alleging that Buck and Rollins stole a car as kids and hit and killed a guy?”

Luke nodded. He hadn’t been there when Abby and Bill interrogated Sanders about Buck Morgan and Lowell Rollins’s relationship, but he’d heard about it later. Sanders claimed Lowell was driving that night, and he and Buck swore they’d never reveal the truth. Years later, when the Triple Seven partnership was on the rocks and Lowell was ready to throw his hat
in the political ring, Patricia Morgan threatened to go public with his secret. Gavin Kent was supposedly sent in to clean up the mess.

“I thought that was all hearsay. I mean, how reliable was Sanders?”

Woody made a face. “Normally, I would trust him as far as I could throw him. But apparently Asa heard that rumor a long time before Sanders spilled his guts.”

“From who?”

Woody shook his head. “He doesn’t say. But he pulled this report trying to prove it.” He held up a report Luke could see was dated from around that time. Luke took it and skimmed the narrative. A man walking his dog had been struck and killed. There was a Post-it note in the center, the message faded a bit but the words still readable:
Impossible to prove.

“I agree with him,” Woody said. “There would be no way to prove Rollins did the hit-and-run even if this were the right one. Besides, I don’t want to waste time on this.”

“I agree,” Luke said. “It sounds like a rabbit trail, a distraction.”

He took the report from Luke and moved it to the side. Luke considered that Sanders killed himself so there was no way to pin him down about what exactly he heard and from whom. The whole story was odd.

“Now, as far as the Triple Seven murders go, I read his notes a couple of times. Asa had a theory.” Woody held his hands up. “It’s just a theory
 
—repeating, he has no proof, but he was closer to things at the time than I was. I’d just gotten married, my second one, so I missed a lot of stuff he saw.”

“Spill it. I’m ready to listen to anything.”

“Okay. He believed Kent was the killer. But he recognized that Kent could not have acted on his own. Gavin was always more brawn than brains. So Asa’s search was to figure out who helped.” Woody pulled out a page with some names written on it and handed it to Luke.

Luke read the names and stared at Woody. “Seriously?”

Woody nodded. “He believed some cops helped. He cross-referenced work schedules for that day. He also verified that Kent took off five consecutive sick days after the fire. Claimed he hurt himself water-skiing.”

“That punk Sanders said Buck Morgan shot Kent, put some buckshot in his leg,” Luke mused. “He would have had to take time off work. But these other names . . .” Luke read them out loud. “Alyssa Rollins, Kelsey Cox, Graham Sophist, Terry Jackson? I don’t know those last two.”

“They’re both dead. Sophist was a friend of Kent’s. He was on the PD for a couple of years. Got fired for lying. He died about five years ago, heart attack. Jackson was another bad cop. He was under suspension when he died in a small plane crash. They were both tight with Kent at the time, so that’s why they’re on the list. But Asa admits in his notes that there is no evidence they were connected in any way to the Triple Seven case.”

“But Kelsey and Alyssa? He really thought that Alyssa Rollins was a cold-blooded killer?”

“Well, back in the day, she was nobody’s favorite. She was a snob. Rollins inherited old money, but that didn’t change him; he was one of the guys. Buck mentioned that to me once.”

“You and Buck were tight?”

“We were friends, poker buddies. He and Patricia popped meals for cops. From time to time, he’d sit down and shoot the
breeze with us. Asa was still in patrol and my partner then, and the three of us hit it off. Buck was good people. I kinda believe that part of Sanders’s story, that Buck and Patricia wanted to buy Rollins out.”

“Did Asa find proof that the partnership was floundering?”

“Solid proof, no. Asa says that according to Buck, when Rollins married Alyssa, he stopped being one of the guys. Alyssa felt he was destined for greatness, and she wanted him to behave according to his station in life. That station didn’t include palling around with Buck anymore.”

“Sounds like she would have wanted to get rid of the restaurant.”

“The restaurant was a means to an end. This was before social media. People read about happenings at the restaurant in the daily newspaper. Rollins liked seeing his name mentioned often in a positive light. I think dissolving the partnership was a negative to Alyssa, at least at that time. I’m sure that as Rollins climbed the political ladder, there may have been a point where she would not have cared.”

“Just not at the beginning,” Luke said, beginning to see a picture in his mind’s eye of a calculating and manipulative woman in Alyssa Rollins. “And Cox?”

Woody sighed and rubbed his chin. “Well, Cox and Kent were engaged. And Cox has had her issues. But I find it hard to believe that she would cover up a triple murder.”

“I see here
 
—” Luke pointed to the paper
 
—“Asa’s cross-reference that Cox was assigned to the Belmont Shore area that day. The Morgan house burned right after the restaurant; she’d have been at one of the fires.”

“Right, but I bet the records of exactly where she was aren’t
that easy to find. Now everything is computerized, and cars have GPS. Back then it wasn’t so. She could have said she was one place and been on the other side of the city. No way to know for sure.”

“She works for Rollins now.”

“Yep, that she does. And that brings up the second hit-and-run report.” Woody tapped another file, this one documenting the death of Louis Rollins, Lowell’s brother.

“Asa was working the night Louis was killed,” Woody continued. “He told me about the crash back then. He thought it was intentional; he didn’t think it was an accident.”

“He believed Louis was killed to shut him up,” Luke said after reading Asa’s notes.

“Apparently Asa thought so, yes. He even thought Kent was the one who ran poor Louis down.”

Luke set the notes aside to think for a minute. Most of this, except for the names, they already knew because of allegations George Sanders and Gavin Kent had made several months ago.

He pointed to the real unknown. “What about the file on Simon Morgan? What does Abby’s uncle have to do with all of this?”

“That’s what Asa sat on. According to him, someone saw Buck Morgan after the Triple Seven fire. Simon Morgan’s old girlfriend.”

“What?” Luke felt his face flush. This was new
 
—way new. “Smoking, meet gun.”

Woody nodded. “It took some digging, and like everything else it’s all hearsay, but Asa at one time was looking for an old girlfriend of Simon’s.” He pointed to a name in the margin. “Lucy Harper. Asa heard a rumor on the streets about what
she’d seen, that she might have talked to Buck the night after the fire. Asa even took a trip to the prison and asked Simon about her.”

“No way. Even Abby didn’t know this.”

“No one knew it. Asa did it on the down low when he first went to homicide. At that time, Simon was in a prison up north. Asa said Simon played dumb. He thought the con was lying.”

Luke had to digest this. “Why on earth would he sit on this?”

“Can’t say.”

“Have you told Abby?”

“No. I don’t think I should tell her anything until she’s settled her mind over this shooting.”

“Yeah, this might blow her up. Is Lucy Harper still in Long Beach?”

“Asa looked for her, didn’t find her. Maybe this is a missing person case you should take on, pro bono.”

“Maybe,” Luke said, but inside, he wondered if he could do such a thing and keep it from Abby.