The First Cut (43 page)

She stepped into a flower bed filled with rosebushes, snagging her slacks on thorns. Checking for Lesley, hoping she wasn’t in his sights, she squeezed behind the roses and dropped to her hands and knees. She rubbed the glass to clear mud splatter over an area where the inside covering was pulled away. She heard a faint, “Help!”

She squinted through the glass and saw Pussycat. She was wearing an ill-fitting LAPD uniform. In her outstretched hand, she held what looked like a drumstick. Her other arm appeared tied to something. Beyond her in the dim light she saw Lisa Shipp, splayed out on a bed, her four limbs tethered to each corner.

Vining worked her hands around the window. There was no way to open it as the latch was on the inside.

She shouted, “Stand back,” looked to make sure Lesley wasn’t around, and then shattered the glass with the heel of her shoe.

The women shielded themselves the best they could. Once Vining had broken through, Pussycat started screaming and crying. Lisa was calmer, but trying to talk over Pussycat. The result was near hysteria.

“Pussycat. Lisa. Calm down,” Vining said quietly. “You need to be calm for me, okay? Where’s the entrance to this room?”

“Through the kitchen,” Pussycat managed through her tears.

“Where is he?”

“We don’t know,” Lisa said.

“He’s not in there?”

Lisa responded, “No.”

“Does he have guns in the house?”

“Lots of ’em.” Pussycat was sobbing and could barely speak.

“I’m going to get you out of there. There’s dozens of police coming. Hear the sirens? Stay calm. Stay quiet.”

Vining’s left arm was bleeding and she only now started to feel pain. She decided to wait there in the flower bed, pressed against the side of the house. Backup was on the property. She heard the cars approaching. It was a good plan and it shortly went to hell.

Pussycat and Lisa began screaming as John Lesley burst through the door into the basement. His shirt was soaked with blood.

Vining took aim at him through the window but he pulled Pussycat in front of him. He held a gun to her head.

“I’ll make a trade, Detective,” Lesley said. “Them for you. You have ten seconds to decide. I mean business. I have nothing to lose. Both of them for one of you. Ten seconds, starting now. One thousand one. One thousand two…”

Vining clutched her badge in her hand as she crawled between the rosebushes and rolled clear of the basement window. A swarm of LAPD uniforms and SWAT team officers fanned out across the property. Guns aimed at her were lowered at the sight of her badge.

“Pasadena PD,” she announced. “Detective Vining,” she blurted to a field sergeant who approached. “Detective Jim Kissick is injured in that outbuilding behind the garage. He needs medical assistance.”

“We’re taking care of it.”

Lesley inside the basement shouted, “Vining! One thousand seven…”

Vining started toward the house, telling the sergeant, “I’m going inside. He’s trading the female hostages for me.”

“Wait for a hostage negotiator.”

The SWAT team was taking positions around the basement windows and clearing the house.

Pussycat appeared in the broken window with Lesley behind her. He yelled, “This is the only deal that’s on the table. Detective Vining for Pussycat Lesley and Lisa Shipp. Take it or leave it. I’ll give you ten more seconds then I start the executions. One thousand one…”

He began shoving pillows into the opening.

Vining jogged toward the rear of the house with the sergeant. “When Pussycat Lesley comes out, arrest her for the murder, kidnapping, and torture of Frances Lynde and kidnapping and torture of Lisa Shipp.”

“I’m not letting you go in there,” the sergeant said.

“John Lesley will kill those women, Sergeant. No doubt.”

She met his eyes.

After a pause, he said, “Detective, you’re sure you know what you’re doing?”

They entered the kitchen. Vining moved toward the open door to the basement, saying to the sergeant, “Yeah. I’m getting the bad guy.”

Lesley continued his countdown, “One thousand five…”

At the top of the stairs, she shouted, “John Lesley, I’m here.” She saw the second door a few steps beyond where she stood. It was also open.

“Take off your jacket and gun. Walk down with your hands up.”

“Send out Lisa Shipp first.”

“That’s not the deal.”

“You said you’d trade me for the women. Send out Lisa.”

“Pussycat first.”

“Look, John. I’m the one you want. I’m the one who tracked down your sorry ass. I’m the reason you’re bleeding to death in a basement. Who better to take with you than me? Send out Lisa now.”

“I’m sending out Pussycat.”

Lisa wailed, “Please let me go. Please…”

Lesley said, “Here she comes. Once she’s out, come down with your hands up.”

“Put your hands behind your head, Pussycat,” Vining said.

“Don’t shoot.” Pussycat rounded the corner and faced a sea of firearms pointed at her. “Please don’t shoot me.”

As she pranced up the stairs, sounds of dismay and disgust went up at the sight of her in Frankie Lynde’s uniform. The LAPD officers did not handle her gently as they arrested and Mirandized her.

Vining fished her hands into her jacket pockets and shoved her cell phone and anything else she found into her pants pockets. She stripped off the jacket and handed it and her gun to the sergeant. He and a SWAT team captain blathered instructions and strategy to her, but she knew nothing would likely go as planned. All she could count on was training, instinct, and luck. She felt calm, confident in the knowledge that this was what she had to do. She wasn’t worried about her daughter. She wasn’t even worried about being late for dinner. For the first time in a year, she was completely without fear.

“I’m coming down, Lesley.”

Lacing her hands behind her head, she started down the stairs, passing the interior door and stepping onto the carpet.

He’d unchained Lisa from the bed. The sheet she had wrapped around her was mottled with his blood where he held her against him with one arm. His other hand held a gun against her head. He leaned heavily against her, needing her for support.

Lisa began to weep at the sight of Vining.

“Come closer,” he ordered Vining.

She approached a few steps then stopped. “Let her go.”

Holding Lisa ahead of him, he shoved her to the inner door, pushed her out, slammed it closed, and slid a metal bar into place across it. He staggered back into the room, reeling and catching his balance against a chair.

“It’s just you and me, Detective Vining. You, me, and eternity.”

Vining still stood with her hands laced behind her head. The noises she heard beyond the pillow shoved into the broken window fell away. She knew they were out there, waiting.

“We’re both too arrogant for our own good, wouldn’t you say? Balls to the wall. Look where it’s gotten us.” He smiled, revealing teeth smeared with blood.

She didn’t respond.

“How about some music?” he asked. “I think better when music’s playing. Plus they’re trying to listen to us. I can hear them rustling around, like rodents in the wall.”

He grabbed a remote control and started the DVD of him brutalizing Frankie Lynde, turning the volume up loud.

It took Vining a second to absorb what she was seeing and hearing. Frankie Lynde was prone while he savaged her, holding a knife to her neck.

“You say it’s not music?” Lesley grinned sadistically as he turned up the volume again. The sound of Frankie trying to stifle a moan filled the room. “It’s music to
my
ears.”

He extended one arm, holding on to a chair back with the other. “Look at this. I had a harem. Once I had a dozen women in here at once. All for me.”

Shaking his head with delight at himself, he slipped his gun into the front of his waistband against his bloody shirt. He stumbled to one of the giant mirrors and admired himself.

“Look at me. Like one of those gangster rappers.” He turned back to her. “And you’re my ho. My ho.” He repeated the slang, accompanying it with a gang hand sign probably pilfered from a music video.

He pulled the gun from beneath his belt, pressed off the safety, and came close to her.

She didn’t flinch when he held the barrel against the side of her head.

“What do you have to say now, Detective Vining?”

The gun felt cold and hard. It was the first time she’d had a gun against her head. She’d never even dared it with an empty gun. The cold steel was a powerful sensation and sparked a surprising reaction.

John Lesley, you’re going to die.

“What do you have to say
now
?” He repeated the question slowly, tapping the gun against her with each word.

She turned to face him. His hand remained in place and the gun barrel traced a path around her head. It was now pointed at her forehead between her eyes.

“Speak.”

She looked at him, not blinking. Her stance was steady, as was her heartbeat. One thought possessed her.

You’re going to die.

“Speak. Woof, woof.”

She sensed more than saw the tension on his finger tighten on the trigger.

She said, “If you pull the trigger, twenty SWAT team members are going to burst through those windows. Unless you’re prepared to die right now, I wouldn’t do it.”

“Ya think?” he chortled. “This is fun and all, but I’ve got a little piece of business to take care of before we say the big adios. Turn around.”

She complied.

On the DVD, Frankie shouted in pain and cursed him as the sounds of his sexual ecstasy escalated.

He patted Vining down. Searching one pants pocket, he found her cell phone and threw it across the room. Sticking his hand into the other pocket, he took out a stiff rectangle of paper.

Vining turned to see him looking at Frankie’s school photograph, his expression wistful. He flipped it over and read the writing on the back.

A voice blasted the room. “You think you’re done with me?”

It was Frankie on the DVD, the volume abruptly spiking louder.

“You’ll
never
be done with me!”

It startled John Lesley. He glanced at the television screen, his expression bewildered.

Vining dropped and grabbed her Walther from her ankle holster just as Lesley regained his composure and took aim. Too late. She squeezed off all eight bullets.

The room exploded with breaking glass, gunfire, and heavy boots.

Vining scrambled to get to John Lesley first.

He gurgled blood. His eyes shifted to focus on her.

She jammed her fingers against his carotid artery. His blood covered her hands. She didn’t care. She held his gaze as she felt his pulse grow weaker and weaker. Soon, there was no pulse at all. The life went out of his eyes. She watched. She didn’t miss a thing.

T H I R T Y - N I N E

V
INING CAME UP FROM THE BASEMENT TO SEE SERGEANT EARLY, RUIZ,
and Caspers waiting. They fell upon her, high-fiving, hugging, and slapping her back. Caspers picked her up and paraded her around the lawn.

“You the man, Nan,” he cried.

Early exclaimed, “No, she the wo-man.”

LAPD officers joined in the accolades. Caspers lost his balance and they both went tumbling onto the grass.

Vining rolled onto her back and looked at the sky where news helicopters were making a racket.

Ruiz grinned down at her. “Poison Ivy. Quick Draw. They’re your jackets, girl. You earned them. You wear them with pride.”

“Thanks, Ruiz.” Vining stared at the copters. “I’ve got to call home. My family’s gonna see this and flip out.”

She borrowed Caspers’s cell phone. She let Emily know she was okay and asked her to tell Granny and to broadcast the news to the rest of the family. When she’d finished, she asked, “Anyone know how Jim is?”

Early sat on the grass beside her. “He’s been transported to the hospital. He was talking, telling us not to worry. I think he’s going to be okay.”

Someone handed Vining a bottle of water.

“You need a doctor, too, Vining.” Early pointed at her bloody left sleeve.

“Bastard got me with an arrow.” Vining looked at herself. “Crazy freak.”

A paramedic approached and Vining brushed him away. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute, okay? It’s not too deep. I’m fine.”

“It’s just a scratch,” Caspers taunted.

“Shaddup.”

Ruiz kneeled beside her, his tone contrite. “Nan, we’re sorry for letting Lesley give us the slip. Turns out there’s an exit from Lesley’s club through the restaurant next door. Lesley borrowed a car from one of the cooks.”

Caspers chimed in. “Really, Nan. We’re embarrassed.”

Vining patted Ruiz on the leg. “It turned out for the best. Otherwise, we’d be putting that asshole on trial. He could be on the street again, the way juries think these days.”

“Word is, you got all the shots right into John Lesley’s sweet spot,” Early enthused.

Vining climbed to her feet as they brought out the gurney that held Lesley’s body. It was covered with a sheet to thwart the photographers aloft in helicopters.

“Hold up.” She raised a corner of the sheet. She wanted to see Lesley’s face. He was the third corpse she’d seen since her return to duty. His eyes were open. Blood trailed from his mouth. To her he was a hunk of cooling, dead flesh and nothing more. She thought of the line of dead people in her white-light dream. He would now occupy the head, standing beside Frankie. She didn’t like it, but he was part of her now and there was nothing to be done about it.

Caspers had gotten up to see as well. Looking at the corpse, he said, “John Lesley has left the house.”

“Yes, he has.”

She went inside and into the basement where the photographers and crime scene techs had taken over. A young man was setting numbered plastic tents beside spent bullet casings and blood splatters. He bent over to examine Frankie’s school photograph that was immersed in the gore.

“That’s mine,” Vining said, surprising him. “I dropped it in the struggle. Can I have it back, please?” When he hesitated, she said, “It won’t add anything to your investigation. It has sentimental value and I don’t want it booked into evidence where I can’t get it back.”