L.A. Bytes (18 page)

He cleared his throat. “I’d like to get together to ask you a few questions.”

David had expected this, since he’d been onsite during the crime. He sighed. “Sure. Do you want to meet at Northeast?”

“I have an interview room set up downtown. An hour?”

He grabbed a shower and shave. He arrived at the new LAPD

administrative headquarters. The L-shaped, newly fi nished construction on Spring Street was impressive as hell. Flanked on three sides by City Hall, Caltrans and the venerable Times building, its ten story glass and steel refl ecting back the center of downtown L.A. It was surrounded by green space and sculptures that had already triggered controversy. He signed in at the front desk. Bentzen, a muscular silver-blond haired man, came out to meet him and led him to a well-lit interview room on the fourth fl oor.

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David glanced around the room. It was a far cry from what he had grown used to in the old outdated Parker Center. Everything still smelled new.

“We’re recording this, that okay with you?”

David shrugged. “Sure.”

Bentzen covered the basics quickly: date, time and both their names. Then, “Can you describe what happened yesterday morning at Ste. Anne’s Medical Center?”

David thought back. Had it really only been twenty-four hours ago? So little time for so much to change.

“I woke up around seven. Some nurse I’d never seen before came in around seven-thirty, took my blood pressure and temperature.” He shrugged. “The usual. She left and they brought my breakfast.”

“You eat then?”

“I drank the coffee.” He made a face. “Chris was supposed to come by with breakfast for us.”

“Chris?”

“Christopher Bellamere,” David said, knowing Bentzen knew damn well who Chris was. The whole department knew. “My husband.”

“Did he come by?”

“He never made it.” David rubbed his face. “He called to tell me he was on his way. My impression was he had just picked up our food—”

“Did he say where he was during this call?”

“No, he just said he’d be there in a couple of minutes. The day before he said he would get breakfast from the
taqueria
across the street.”

“So in fact you don’t know where he was.”

“Except he was there, wasn’t he?” David thought of the still fi gure they had dug out of the rubble. Not moving, not breathing.

“He was just coming in when the bomb... when it went off.”

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Bentzen scratched notes in his pad. “Have you been to see Chris since the accident?”

“Yes. Yesterday.”

“He responsive?”

David realized Bentzen must have gone by the hospital hoping to talk to Chris and been turned away. He nodded, knowing what was coming next.

“He tell you anything?” Bentzen asked.

“Sorry, no. He wasn’t up to talking.”

“What restaurant do you think he went to?”

“Across the street.
Café Fresco
.”

“Ah yes, breakfast. We talked to them,” Bentzen said. “They didn’t see anything.”

“They remembered Chris.” David tried a question of his own.

“Have you determined the source of the bomb?”

“They used an explosive called NMXFOAM, something relatively new. It looks and feels like shaving cream.” Bentzen rubbed his chin. “The foam is perfect for injecting into irregular-shaped cavities. Plug a detonator into it and you’re all set. No amount of jostling will set it off.”

“What was it delivered in?”

“Flowers.” Bentzen tapped his pen on the table. “It seems our bomber was trying to get to the third fl oor, but when we thought someone had staged an attack on you, we had an offi cer stationed there. We found remnants of the fl owers on the front lawn, we’re now assuming he placed the explosive device in a garbage can outside the front door. We found a woman in reception who remembered him coming off the elevator looking upset.”

“So she saw him?”

“White male, thirties, early forties. Heavy black beard. She’s coming in later today to work with a sketch artist.” Bentzen rubbed his chin. “She also noted he spoke with some kind of
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accent. She thinks it might have been French, but she wasn’t sure.

She just knew it wasn’t Spanish.”

David didn’t have anyone “French” on his radar. Another lost thread.

“Does anyone remember who he said the fl owers were for?”

“Nobody seems to remember.” Bentzen narrowed his dark eyes at him. David wasn’t sure what he saw there, but Bentzen went on to say softly, “You think it was for you? So you do believe the assault the night before is linked? How?”

“The fi rst attack was on the third fl oor, too.”

“First attack?”

So he hadn’t heard of the hospital hack. David told him about the computer attack on the hospital. After a brief pause, he also forced himself to recount what had happened with the phony link and the kiddie porn on his PC. No way to tell if they were related, but David didn’t believe in coincidences. Neither, it seemed, did Bentzen.

“And Chris wasn’t able to fi nd anything out about this Sandman?”

“Nothing, except that the attack came from inside the hospital.” What was the word Chris used? “Spoofed—Sandman spoofed it so it looked like the attack came from somewhere else.

Just like he spoofed Chris’s email address so I thought that email came from him.”

“What about the guy who called Chris, pretending to be a cop?”

“Chris only talked to him once. Apparently the number was blocked so he couldn’t trace it.” David scrubbed a hand through his hair. “This witness, she’s sure she didn’t recognize this man?

Maybe an ex-patient? A disgruntled employee? The grievance seems to be around the hospital.”

“Do you really think so? Perhaps the grievance is with you.”

That’s ridiculous, David wanted to say. Who the hell would be after him? For what? Instead he asked, “Anyone else see him?”

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“We’re still interviewing. We’ve got HR compiling a list of employees, past and present. We’ll be interviewing them all, too.”

“Any source on the explosives?”

“Still in the lab.” Bentzen tapped his Bic against his notebook.

The end of the pen was gnawed. “But that stuff ’s rare. That ought to narrow our search down. If you have no objection, I’d like to talk to Chris as soon as possible.”

“The doctors say he may never remember much about what happened that day,” he said cautiously, not liking the idea of cops hassling Chris, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Bentzen nodded. “Yeah, they me told me that, too. But you never know, right?” He shoved the pen into his mouth, then pulled it out again. “After you talked to Chris yesterday morning, what happened?”

“Martinez called.” He’d been giving David hell but David didn’t feel like sharing that. “We were on the phone when I heard the explosion.”

“What happened after that? Were you still on the phone?”

“What? No—the phone went dead.”

Bentzen nodded. “All communications were cut,” he said. “At fi rst we assumed it was linked to the explosion, but it looks like it was a separate issue.”

“A dual pronged attack?”

“Looks that way.”

“How were the phones hit?” David asked, though he had his suspicions.

Bentzen looked pleased to deliver the bombshell. “A computer worm was planted in the hospital’s network. Apparently it launched an attack timed to coincide with the bomb. Probably why he dumped the thing when he couldn’t deliver it where he wanted to. I guess our bomber didn’t expect anyone to be talking to a cop. He was counting on a lot of confusion and delay.”

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“Which means maybe he was there, watching.”

“Lot of these guys like to see their handiwork in action.”

“Have you canvassed everyone who was in the area at the time?”

“The ones we can fi nd,” Bentzen said. “So far a few witnesses have come forward. If our bomber was there, someone must have seen him.”

“I guess you get lucky sometimes.”

Bentzen shoved the notebook and pen into his shirt pocket.

“I don’t plan on leaving it to luck. I’ll make my own.”

He stood up and extended his hand to David across the table.

David took it.

“Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Detective.”

“I’ll let you know if anything else occurs to me.”

Bentzen nodded absently. His mind was already on his next step. David saw himself out. He made his way back to his car in the underground parking lot through the corridors of the brand new building that was being touted as state-of-the-art. State-of-theart or not, it still came down to old-fashioned police work more often than not. He had once aspired to join Robbery Homicide, the elite unit that handled all the complex and notorious crimes in the city. But that had fl own out the window when he’d been outed. To the best of his knowledge there were no gay RHD

detectives and he was sure that was just the way they wanted it.

Back outside, he slowed as he approached the newly erected monument to fallen LAPD offi cers. He had been there when it was unveiled. He still remembered the mournful wail of taps as it played in memory of the fallen. At fi rst glance the wall looked solid, only when he got closer did it resolve into over a thousand brass plaques, two hundred and two of them fallen LAPD offi cers, including the most recent—his partner, Jairo Hernandez, who had died at the hands of a gang thug. He found it easily enough this time, unlike the fi rst time he had looked. He L.A. BYTES
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ran his fi ngers over the engraved metal. Name, rank and day of death. So little to mark a life given in service.

Abruptly he turned away. He didn’t need those memories replaying in his head.

Back at USC he found Chris was still unresponsive, though David noted with some relief that most of the machines he’d been hooked into had been removed. Now all he wore was a single heart monitor attached to his chest. His face and arm had blossomed into a kaleidoscope of surly purples and blues and the skin around his eyes looked soft and puffy. A catheter snaked out from under the thin blanket into a half-fi lled bag.

His eyelids fl uttered briefl y when David called his name, but they didn’t open. David took Chris’s hand in his, being careful not to jar the IV line or press on bruised fl esh.

“We’ll get through this. No matter what.”

§ § § §

David was at his desk when Martinez fi nally strolled in around nine. David looked up from transcribing his latest scratchings into his computer.

“You talk to anybody at Caltech yet?” he asked.

Martinez shook his grizzled head. “You?”

“Got a hold of one of Adam’s professors. He said he’d be available to talk to us at ten.” David pointedly glanced at his Rolex. “Can we make it?”

“Hey, no prob. We even got time to stop for some decent coffee on the way.”

“Let’s do it then.” David saved his report and logged off.

Sliding his jacket off the back of his chair he led the way out of the station. After signing a Crown out they headed east toward California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Caltech was the premier technical school in Southern California. Some argued on the whole west coast. David had never visited it. After grabbing coffee at a Starbucks outside
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of the campus grounds, they went over the directions David’s contact had given them.

“He said to meet him in the Powell-Booth Computing Center.

He’d be there until eleven. His name is Sanjeeb Narayan.” David glanced at his notes again. “He said call him Sanju.”

Caltech was a sprawling campus of yellow brick buildings and clean classical lines. It lay in the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains; golden with the last brush of autumn colors on the slopes. Martinez found parking and they got directions to the Computing Center.

Sanju was a stout bear of a man, his surprisingly lean face wreathed in a silver white beard, his head similarly adorned with an equally white fringe of hair. His hand clasp was fi erce; the smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“How may I help you offi cers?” he asked.

“I understand you were Adam Baruch’s counselor—”

“Yes, yes. That’s true, although I knew him as Adam Scott.”

David remembered how hostile Adam had been when he had been addressed with his mother’s name. What had happened to generate that hostility? He glanced around the public area they were in.

“Is there someplace private we could talk, Mr. Narayan?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But please, call me Sanju.” Sanju gestured for them to precede him down the walk. Music wafted through the arcaded walkway, barely heard over the chatter of dozens of student voices. They passed into the shadow of the Jorgensen Laboratory and entered a corridor.

Their footsteps echoed on the tiled fl oor. Sanju unlocked an unmarked offi ce door and gestured them inside.

“Take a seat, please. I’m sorry, I have no refreshments to offer.” He didn’t sound remorseful.

“That’s okay, sir. We won’t take up much of your time.” David sank into a Louis Quatorze chair he seriously doubted was real, L.A. BYTES
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and glanced quickly at Martinez. “And how long have you been counseling Mr. Scott?” David asked.

“Adam enrolled nearly two years ago. His credentials, including letters of recommendation and test scores, were impeccable,”

Sanju said. “As you may or may not know, students are admitted only with the Ph.D. as their degree objective and Adam met that criterion without issue. In fact, he took a subject test in his chosen subject and scored exceptionally high, as I recall.”

“But...?” David spoke up when it became clear Sanju was stalling. “Did his grades slip?”

Sanju pressed his already thin lips together. They disappeared behind his facial hair. “We all had extremely high hopes for Adam. The boy was brilliant in a way that far surpassed nearly all our students.”

David knew that was saying a lot. Caltech was renowned for turning out brilliant, innovative graduates. So what had gone wrong with Adam? And what, if anything, did it have to do with his parents’ deaths?