Scars (Nevada James #2) (Nevada James Mysteries) (9 page)

Chapter 12

I called
Dan back as I was walking out to my car. “Shut the fuck up,” I said when he
answered. “I don’t want to hear any more of your shit. I went to a meeting and
you’re not my fucking therapist.”

He was
silent for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said. “I was actually going to
apologize for being short with you earlier. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Oh,” I
said.

“Anything
else you want to get off your chest, Nevada? I’ve got time if you want to yell
at me some more. It’s not like I have a fucking job to do or anything.”

“No.”

“Well,
take your time and think about it. Maybe you want to tell me I’m a fucking
asshole because I care about you?”

“No.”

“No?
Wait, I’ve got it. How about that I’m totally out of line for being worried
when you act like a crazy person and start shouting at nobody at a crime scene.
In sight of fucking
television cameras
, for god’s sake?”

“I said
I was sorry.”

“No, you
didn’t, Nevada. You didn’t say that. You never say that.”

I
sighed. None of the fights I picked with Dan ever went the way I planned for
them to. “I’m sorry, Dan. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that just now.
I’m frustrated with myself and I took it out on you.”

He was
quiet for a long moment. “Wow,” he said. “That was good. Did you rehearse that
apology?”

“No.”

“Did you
see it on television? Read it in a book?”

“Give me
a break, Dan.”

He
chuckled. “I was kidding, Nevada. Mostly. You aren’t exactly known for your
apologies.”

“I like
to think that’s because I’m right so often.”

“It’s
not. Anyway, forget it. You have any thoughts on the copycat? CSI is going over
the scene with a fine-toothed comb but I don’t think we’re going to get much.”

I
unlocked my Mustang and got inside. “You were right before.”

“How?”

“This
one was different enough from the first to be interesting. The body wasn’t
dumped and the facial wounds were done better, even though they obviously weren’t
the Laughing Man’s work.”

“You
don’t think we’ve got two of these lunatics out there?”

“Two
copycats? No. Just one. I think the killer is learning.”

“Learning
how?” Dan asked.

I needed
to come up with a way to explain this that wasn’t going to make me sound like a
psychopath. “He’s learning that the Laughing Man’s signature isn’t the way he
mutilates the face. That’s part of it, of course, but the real signature is the
art. Sarah knew that even before she called me out there for the first body. She
already knew it was a copycat. She just wanted me to confirm it. The killer
didn’t understand that. Now he’s starting to get it.”

Dan
thought that over. “Weird,” he said.

“Yeah.
I’m not sure why he didn’t get that in the first place, but I guess it’s not
the first thing that catches your eye. You see the faces he carves and not the
scene he’s set up. Forest for the trees, I guess. But even if he’d posed the
body better it wouldn’t have fooled me. It’s a hard thing to do right.”

“The
art?”

“Yeah. I
don’t really know how to explain it. It’s like a forgery. Even if it’s done
really well, an expert is always going to spot it.”

“And
you’re the expert,” Dan said.

“Unfortunately.
But the copycat, whoever he is, is so amateur at this you’re not going to need
me. If you get any more bodies before Sarah catches him I’ll come look at the crime
scenes. I’ll help any way I can, but I don’t think I’m going to have much to
give you. Sarah can call me if she needs any advice. I don’t care if it’s the
middle of the night. It’s not like I ever sleep that well.”

“I’ll
tell her. Thank you, Nevada.”

“I’m all
about being helpful,” I said.

“And I’m
glad you went to a meeting.”

“You
know something?” I asked. “I think I am, too.”

I drove
out to a strip mall I knew in Mission Valley to pick up take-out Chinese food,
a carton of pot stickers and another of their house chow mein.  Back at my
motel I sat down in front of my laptop to eat and screw around on the Internet.
There were funny cat videos to watch, and as much as I’d never have admitted it
to anyone, I liked funny cat videos. I also spent a good half hour watching
some PBS show where a guy visited bed and breakfast hotels in New England and
talked about why he liked each one. I had no idea why I found
that
appealing. Maybe it was the idea of getting away from San Diego, but I
certainly wasn’t going to New England anytime soon. If I was going to get on a
plane and disappear, it would be to somewhere tropical. And isolated. Somewhere
nobody could find me.

I
thought about getting a cat. Maybe once my house was done and I moved in it
would be worth considering. I was sober now and could probably handle the
responsibility of taking care of an animal. If I’d had a pet during my drunken
years it wouldn’t have had much of a chance. I’d barely been able to remember
to feed
myself
back then, let alone anyone or anything else.

Molly
sent me a text saying she was sorry she’d missed my call and asking whether I
needed anything. I was a shitty friend in that I only got in touch with people
when I was a mess. I texted back that everything was good and I’d catch her
another time.

Sooner
or later I was going to have to drag myself back to a therapist’s office. Why
did I keep putting it off? Stubbornness? That sounded about right. I had things
to do first, though. Tomorrow I’d get in touch with the cop who’d worked
Anita’s case back in the 90’s. Maybe he’d have some ideas. If he could just
give me a placed to start, maybe I’d have somewhere to take the investigation.
I’d never expected it to go far, but I’d expected it to go farther than
this
.
The files Jason had given me had been next to useless.

I wasn’t
that surprised to see I’d made the ten o’clock news. They ran a clip of me with
my hands cupped around my mouth, shouting at nobody like a crazy person. The
microphones hadn’t been close enough to pick up anything I’d said, thank god,
but it didn’t look good. I was surprised that no reporters had called me to try
and get a comment. Then again, it wasn’t easy to get my number. No cop who had
it would have been willing to give it up for fear of my reaction, and one of
the advantages of living in a motel was that it made you hard to find. If
someone did track me down, I could always leave and check into another motel
under a fake name. Celebrities were able to get away with that, weren’t they?
To keep the paparazzi away? I wasn’t a celebrity, but I had a gun. Two guns,
actually.

Just
before I went to bed I shut off all the lights in my room and then went to peek
out the window. There was no activity in the parking lot. Nobody was sitting in
a car alone for no apparent reason. No suspicious vans were around. Maybe the
Laughing Man wasn’t watching me. Maybe his attention was focused on the copycat
and he’d forgotten all about me.

It was a
nice thought, but I knew it wasn’t true.

Chapter 13

I picked
up a breakfast sandwich from a gas station the next morning and headed back to
the motel to call Howard Lanford. His phone rang four times before a woman
answered. “Lanford residence.”

“My name
is Nevada James,” I said. “I used to be with the San Diego Police Department. I
was hoping to speak with Mr. Lanford about an old case of his.”

“I’m
sorry, Detective, but Mr. Lanford is resting at the moment. You’ll have to call
back…”

I’d been
about to interrupt and tell her I wasn’t a detective anymore, but an old man’s raspy
voice barked, “Who is that?” before I had the chance.

There
was a noise on the phone as if the woman was putting her palm over the phone’s
handset, not that that kept her voice from coming through. “It’s not important,
Mr. Lanford. You’re supposed to be resting now.”

“I won’t
be told who I can talk to in my own damn house,” Lanford said. “Give me the
damn phone.”

A moment
later I heard his voice clearly. “Who is this?”

“Is that
how you talk to your wife?” I asked him. “You’re lucky she doesn’t cut your throat.”

“She’s
not my wife,” he said. “She’s my nurse. Now who is this?”

“Nevada
James,” I said. “I’m…”

“You’re
that crazy woman from the television,” Howard interrupted me. “I saw you
yelling in the park like some damn hobo.”

I
sighed. “Okay, that wasn’t my best moment ever. Anyway, if you have a few
minutes…”

He
cackled. “I was playing with you, Detective. I know exactly who you are. Can’t
say I know why you’re calling me, though. I never worked a serial killer case.
Or are you people so desperate now you’re calling old men out of retirement?”

Of
course he’d known who I was. Even if I hadn’t once been the most famous cop in
San Diego, I’d been on television twice in the last week. The last time hadn’t
been particularly flattering. “No, but I’m not calling about that. I should
also tell you I’m not a cop anymore, either.”

“I know.
You went down like a shooting star.”

During
my drinking days I’d have taken mortal offense to that comment, but he wasn’t
lying. “Fair enough,” I said. “I’m calling about the Collins case from 1993.
The car bomb.”

Lanford
exhaled slowly as if I’d just poked him with a pin to let the air out of him.
“Let me guess,” he said. “Anita hired you.”

“Good
guess.”

“Not
really. You couldn’t be working it in an official capacity. How did you get
your hands on the case file?”

“I said
some magic words and they appeared,” I told him. “It was really weird. Anyway,
I’ve got a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Why
don’t you come up here?” he asked. “I’d like to meet you.”

I
shrugged, then remembered he couldn’t actually see me. “I can do that. SDPD
gave me your address. When is good?”

“Now is
fine. Julia is trying to make me take a nap, but you’ll be on important police
business, so it’s just too bad for her.”

“I’m not
a cop.”

“She
doesn’t need to know that. See you soon, Detective.”

Scripps
Ranch was just north of me on I-15, not far from Miramar. It took me twenty
minutes to get up there and find Lanford’s house, a modest split-level ranch in
the suburbs. I parked on the street and went to ring the doorbell. A
tired-looking woman in her fifties with gray hair pulled back in a bun answered
the door. She wore a pink lab jacket with the name of some medical outfit on
it. “You must be Detective James,” she said.

“That’s
me.”

“I’m
Julia. I’m his nurse. Do you have a badge you need to show me or something like
that? I don’t know how these things work.”

“I’m not
here to arrest anyone,” I said. “We just need some help with an old case of Mr.
Lanford’s.”

She
nodded. “You may as well come in, then, and good luck to you. He’s feisty
today.”

Julia
led me into the kitchen. Howard Lanford was waiting for me there, a cup of
coffee on a circular wooden table in front of him. He looked to be in his
seventies and probably weighed 120 pounds, which I was guessing was down from
at least 180 or more, given his frame. He sat in a wheelchair with a blanket
over his legs and had a clear tube under his nose feeding him oxygen. It was
looped over his ears and attached to a tank on a rolling carrier that could be
pushed along with him.

Lanford
pointed to an empty chair at the table. I sat. “That’s enough, Julia. You can
leave us alone now. We have important police business to discuss.” Julia
nodded, somehow refrained from rolling her eyes, and left the room.

Lanford
looked me up and down. His breathing was on the ragged side. I’d made a joke
about needing to talk to him before he died of old age. I felt pretty shitty
about that now. Lanford didn’t have a lot of time left.

He
finally grunted. “You don’t look like much.”

I
shrugged. “Neither do you.”

Lanford
glared at me for a moment, then his face cracked and he exploded into laughter
that degenerated into a coughing fit a second later. When he recovered he said,
“No, but I’m dying. What’s your excuse?”

“I was
drunk for three years.”

He held
my gaze for a moment and then nodded. “I guess you really were. I’d heard that,
but you know how people talk. I thought maybe some of it was a fish story.”

“No,” I
said. “That was a true story. If anything it was worse than whatever you heard.
I damn near died.”

“I won’t
offer you some Scotch, then.”

“You
drink Scotch for breakfast?” I asked. “I do that, my old boss picks me up and
carries me to the hospital.”

“I’ll be
dead in a few weeks,” he said. He nodded at his coffee. “So I put a little in there
when nobody’s looking. Julia pretends she doesn’t know. She does, of course,
but she also knows it hardly matters anymore.”

“Fair
enough.”

Lanford
reached for the coffee. His hands shook a bit, but from the way his lips
pressed together in concentration I could tell he was putting on a show of
force, trying not to let me see how bad it really was. He probably hadn’t been
exaggerating about how much time he had left.

He took
a sip of the spiked coffee and sighed deeply, then slowly put the cup back down.
“Tell me what you think of Anita,” he said.

I
shrugged, not ready to show him my cards.

“She’s a
sweet old lady, isn’t she?” Lanford asked. “Did she make you cookies and tea? I
always liked her cookies. Rum raisin was my favorite.”

“There
was tea,” I said. Lanford nodded at me encouragingly. “I guess I didn’t rate
cookies. Maybe I should have stuck around longer. I was kind of hoping she’d
read me a story and tuck me into bed.”

Lanford
threw his head back and laughed. “Good,” he said. “You’re not a complete
idiot.”

 Julia
poked her head into the kitchen. “Everything okay in here?”

“We’re
fine,” Lanford snapped. “Let us be, woman!” Julia retreated.

“You
could be nicer to her,” I said.

“I’m
leaving her everything in my will.” He gave me a stern look. “And don’t you
dare tell her that, either. I want it to be a surprise.”

“I’m
sure it will be,” I nodded. “So we’ve established that neither of us bought
Anita’s kindly old grandmother act.”

“Oh, she
wasn’t always like that,” Lanford said. “When I met her the first time, in the
hospital, she was exactly who I expected her to be. Scared, mourning, in more
physical pain than I’d ever wish on a person. It took years before…” he looked
away. “I don’t really blame her, mind you. She waited for justice for a long
time. But every time I saw her, she was just a little bit angrier with me.”

“Frustrated,
I’m sure.”

“Yes.
The investigation stalled out after the first few weeks. I kept trying, of
course, but we burned up all our leads.” He winced. “Maybe I shouldn’t have
said
burned
. Anyway, I kept going back to her with nothing. And then one
day, the anger was gone. It looked that way, anyway. She smiled. She touched my
hand. She told me she knew I’d been working hard for her and she appreciated
it.”

“When
was that?”

“Maybe
ten years in. I kept digging the file out every now and then, and then I’d go
by and tell her we still had nothing. And she was so…warm. So kind.”

“She…” I
thought about how to phrase my next question but didn’t come up with a delicate
way to ask. “Did you two…you know…”

“No!” he
said. “Good god, woman!”

“I was
wondering if she tried to seduce you,” I said. “I wasn’t saying you’d try to
take advantage of her.”

“Well,
neither of those things happened. We talked and drank tea and she was cheerful.
She asked about my family and laughed when I told her about my new
grandchildren. It wasn’t until later…she slipped once, and I got a look at her
eyes.” He frowned. “She was lying.”

“Lying?”

“She
wasn’t warm, or understanding, or enjoying any of my silly little stories. She
wanted blood. Mine, I thought.”

I
blinked in surprise. “You think she wanted to
kill
you?”

“Maybe.
For failing her. I let the killer go free.” He shook his head. “And she was
right, of course. After that I just called her now and then to let her know what
was going on. I didn’t want to see those eyes again.”

“You
obviously don’t think she was involved, then.”

“No.” He
shook his head again. “No chance. Not with that kind of hate. And you’d better
understand this, Detective.” He wagged his finger at me. “She’s been carrying
that torch for twenty years. She’ll never give up. She’ll never stop.”

“I was
getting that idea,” I said. “Tell me about the suspects you had.”

“None of
them did it.”

That
hadn’t been what I’d expected to hear. That maybe he suspected someone and
couldn’t make a case, sure. Not that he’d just dismiss them outright. “You’re
sure? You cleared all of them?”

“They
were a bunch of useless old hippies. The only one I ever seriously considered
might have done it was Lewis, the chemistry professor. We knew his group built
a couple shitty bombs during the war, even though they never managed to get one
to go off.”

“One of
them was found under a police car, if I remember.”

“You’ve
done your homework. Another dud. Even if it hadn’t been, the FBI never had
anything to tie it to him directly. They spent enough time looking. And he kept
preaching that ‘fight the power’ nonsense after he became a professor. Served
as a faculty advisor for a socialist group on campus. We had him on tape saying
violent action was sometimes the only catalyst for social change.”

“But you
cleared him?”

“He was
in Europe at the time of the bombing. He’d been there for three weeks. He knew
Adam Collins socially but claimed not to know much about his work, and he
didn’t seem to give a good goddamn about some supercomputer nuking everyone, or
whatever the bomber was afraid of. We had no reason to think he was lying. And
to be honest with you, he was the type that if he’d done it, he’d want you to
know. It would have been a statement.”

“Maybe I
should talk to him anyway.”

“If you
see him, tell him I’ll see him soon.”

“Oh?”

“In
Hell,” he said.

I
sighed. That would teach me not to take my research more seriously. I’d never
gotten as far as an obituary. “I only knew he’d retired. When did he die?”

“Couple
years ago. I only knew because I read the obituaries every day. It’s a morbid
habit I picked up when I got sick. I keep waiting for my name to show up.”

I
thought things over for a minute. “Well, shit,” I said. “That means I’ve got
nothing.”

“Welcome
to the club,” Lanford said. “Don’t worry. We don’t collect dues.”

“Maybe
we should have jackets made. We could wear them around town and hang out with
the guys who were looking for Jimmy Hoffa.”

“Hoffa’s
in a gravel pit in Camden, New Jersey.”

“What?
Really?”

“No.” He
smirked. “Got you, Detective.”

I
drummed my fingers on the table, trying to think if there was anything else
worthwhile I could ask. Lanford took another sip of his coffee and frowned.
“Can’t really even taste this anymore,” he said. “Even with the Scotch. I just
drink it out of habit.” He gave me a long look. “Do you carry a gun,
Detective?”

“You
know who I am, so you know the answer to that question. Why?”

He
smiled weakly. “I don’t suppose you’d put it down on the table and leave the
room for a few minutes?”

I felt
my heart break just a little bit. “You know I can’t.”

Lanford
shook his head. “Ah, well. I doubt I’m strong enough anymore to pull the
trigger, anyway.” He sighed deeply. Never get old, Detective.”

“There’s
really no chance of that,” I said. “If the Laughing Man doesn’t kill me, the
shit I’ve done to myself drinking will.”

“You
should take up smoking, just to be sure.”

We
looked at each other for a moment, and then we both started to laugh. “I like
you,” I said. “I don’t say that to a lot of people.”

“Now
you’re just trying to get into my will,” he said. “Sorry. Julia gets
everything. She’s put up with me for a lot longer than you have.”

“I guess
I’ll just have to retire on all this Mafia money I have stashed away.”

Lanford
frowned at me. “Mafia money?”

“Forget
it,” I said. “Long story. Anyway, have you come up with anything since you
retired? Any leads you were never able to track down?”

He bit
his lip as he thought it over. “Not really,” he said. “Although…I was never
sure about the bomb.”