The Lost Witness (19 page)

Dean Tremell leaned forward in the leather chair, the overgroomed bull pointing a steady finger at her. “Let me tell you something about my son,” he said in an exceedingly soft and
slithery voice. “Justin’s a happily married man. A new father with a newborn son, Dean Jr. It may have taken a while, but he’s a responsible member of society now. I don’t
know who your witnesses may or may not be, but I’ve got a good idea where they came from. And I’m not going to sit by while you take the word of a lowlife—ruin my son’s
reputation or possibly even mine—then make some weak apology when you realize that it was all a mistake. Believe me when I say that you need to proceed with great care. Do you understand what
I’m saying?”

Lena glanced at Rhodes. Dean Tremell finally reached for the phone.

“Then get out,” he said.

H
er eyes snapped open.
She caught a glimpse of the empty wine glass standing beside the murder book on the coffee table,
then the shelves on the far wall filled with hundreds of vinyl records and CDs.

She could hear music—Buddy Guy’s live version of “Sweet Little Angel” playing softly in the background. Not from her CD player, but from the computer wired into her audio
system. As her mind began to clear, she remembered logging onto 88.1's Web site and listening to the station out of Long Beach over the Internet. The winds had been strong last night. Too strong to
pull the FM signal out of the cold air sweeping through Hollywood Hills.

The Santa Anas were back. The Devil Winds.

Her eyes meandered across the ceiling, following the shadows into the kitchen. The wall clock over the stove read 7:30 a.m. She was still dressed. Still lying on the couch after a short and
troubled sleep. And her cell phone was vibrating. On the table and bouncing up and down.

She sat up and checked the screen. Although the caller had blocked their ID, she flipped it open anyway, said hello and listened.

“Lena Gamble?”

It was a man’s voice. Smooth as silk. Someone she didn’t recognize and couldn’t place.

“Is this Lena Gamble?” the man repeated.

“Yes.”

“Lena, it’s Buddy Paladino.”

She was awake now. All the way awake.

Buddy Paladino represented their primary suspect in her last case. But he was more than that. A criminal defense attorney who made his mark championing underdogs and attacking the LAPD after the
’92 riots. He enjoyed his work and he was good at it, bleeding taxpayers for hundreds of millions in damages. Most of his cases read like fiction, but Paladino had a special talent for
picking a prosecutor’s case apart—no matter how solid—finding its primal weakness and winning a jury over with his soft voice and trademark smile. His million-dollar smile. That
was more than fifteen years ago, his reputation as a dangerous attorney just taking flight. Now Paladino was in another league, a slippery heavyweight who represented only those clients who could
afford his exorbitant fees.

“My apologies for calling on a Sunday morning,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

Lena grimaced. If Dean Tremell had hired Paladino to represent his son, they could have picked a better time to tell her. Still, Paladino was the perfect choice.

“You didn’t wake me,” she said. “How did you get my cell number?”

“A mutual friend who wasn’t really a friend and is no longer with us.”

Although it sounded like Paladino doing another one of his convoluted dances usually reserved for trial, it wasn’t. She knew the friend who wasn’t a friend and was glad the attorney
hadn’t used his name.

“What is it?” she said finally.

“We need to meet, Lena. We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“I’d rather not say too much over the phone. But it’s important to me and I would regard it as a personal favor. I would be in your debt. Given the state of the world, you
might need me someday. I need you right now.”

Lena walked over to the slider, looking out at the city but not seeing it. Paladino was speaking in code. Something was wrong. She moved to the counter and grabbed a pen.

“Where?” she said.

He gave her an address in Hollywood and she jotted it down. Barton Avenue was off Gower, just north of Paramount Studios, directly across the street from the Hollywood Memorial graveyard.

“Thanks, Lena,” he whispered before hanging up. “See you as soon as you can get here. It’s important.”

She looked at her phone, spooked. But as she left the room, she felt a certain degree of relief that Paladino had used her cell number. Internal Affairs had spent another night outside her
house. Although she was still forwarding the home number to her cell, the detectives monitoring her calls would hear the first ring before the telephone company’s computers rerouted the
signal. Rhodes had called last night as he drove up to Oxnard to see his sister through her surgery on Monday. Lieutenant Barrera had checked in. And Matt Kline, a detective from Pacific Division,
called to confirm that she received his Field Interview cards after canvassing the neighborhood in Venice and interviewing the victim’s neighbors. Kline had also taken the time to change the
lock on the victim’s apartment. The new keys had been delivered with the FI cards. Sooner or later, the guys from Internal Affairs would figure out what she had done with her phone.

She took a quick shower and changed, then grabbed a salted bagel. As she pulled to the end of the drive, she paused a beat and searched out the Caprice. She could see it through the tree
branches, off the road to her right and around the bend. She could see it fading away in her rearview mirror as she turned left and hit the accelerator. Her mind was shifting gears faster than her
Honda. She could feel her heart beating as she thought about the sound of Buddy Paladino’s voice. How strange it was that he had called her.

Barton Avenue was a straight shot two and half miles down the hill from her house. When she reached the graveyard, she made a right and started looking for the attorney. The neighborhood had
been lost a long time ago, hidden behind graffiti-covered walls and miles of razor wire. A mix of cheap apartment houses and pueblo-styled homes cut against single-story shotguns with wood siding
and a full front porch. They were called shotguns because they were narrow, boxlike structures no more than one room wide. It was said that if you fired a shell from the front porch, the shot would
make a clean exit through the back door. But the history of the neighborhood had more to do with the glory days of Paramount Studios and the need for low-cost housing. This was the place where set
builders and lighting technicians and all those extras who made up the cast of thousands once lived. Now the neighborhood was in a state of ruin. Left behind by a world that had moved from black
and white to color before going digital.

Lena spotted a car that had been jacked up and left on cinder blocks. The windows were punched out, all four wheels stolen. As she pulled around the wreck, she saw an Acura RL parked on the
right a few houses this side of El Centro. Buddy Paladino was stepping off the porch and waving at her.

He wore a pair of khakis, an Oxford shirt, and a leather jacket. She had never seen him dressed casually before. Never seen him in public or print looking so bleak, so worried and concerned.

She pulled in front of the RL. When he reached for the door handle, she popped the locks and watched him climb in.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

“Are you representing the kid?”

“What kid?”

She looked him over. The defense attorney with the million-dollar smile was visibly nervous.

“Maybe you ought to tell me what this is about,” she said.

Paladino nodded, then looked past her through the driver’s side window. “You see that house over there?”

Lena followed his gaze to the shotgun across the street. The wood siding appeared warped and blistered from too much wind and sun. Two windows needed to be replaced and the screen door had
rusted out and was hanging off its hinges.

“I grew up in that house, Lena. I spent five years of my childhood in this neighborhood before we moved north. And you know what? It was better back then, but not that much better. The
only people left are the Andolinis.”

He turned and gazed out his own window at the Andolini’s house. A garage stood at the end of the driveway, but Lena couldn’t really see it. Although the lawn had been cut and the
place appeared clean and neat, the roof needed to be replaced and the house was five to ten years past needing a decent paint job. Like every other house on the block, security bars had been
installed over the doors and windows. Lena imagined the view for the people inside wasn’t that much different than the view from a prison cell.

Paladino cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know that they still lived here. I didn’t even know that they were still alive. I guess when you’re only a
boy everybody seems old. My family didn’t have much. Mrs. Andolini used to love to cook. Her door was always open. To this day I think of her every time I eat a slice of pizza. Nobody makes
it as good as her. I’ve met a lot of people since then. No one’s ever been nicer.”

Lena released her seat belt and turned toward Paladino. She let him talk it out, but it was difficult. A lot like watching a black funnel cloud on the horizon and counting the minutes until it
arrived. Something horrible was waiting for her at the end of this conversation. She could see it on the man’s face.

“The reason I called you, Lena, is that these people are part of my life. They’re good people. They’re poor people, and they’re very old. You’ve been through enough
that I thought I could count on you to treat them right.”

“What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

He met her eyes. “Let’s take a walk back to the garage.”

They got out and started up the narrow gravel drive, the feeling in her chest growing stronger. As the garage behind the house came into view, she noticed a door cracked open on the right side
of the building.

“They rented the place out,” Paladino said. “They were afraid to call the cops because they thought they might get into trouble.”

“Why would they get into trouble?”

He didn’t really need to answer her question because they were ten feet away from that open door now and she could smell it. The harsh sour odor of tainted blood. Judging the foul stench
by its strength, Lena guessed that there was a lot of it inside the dilapidated garage.

Paladino stepped aside and let her pass. “They saw that photo on TV,” he said. “I guess the shot was so bad they couldn’t be sure it was him. The guy they rented it out
to paid for the year in cash. Like I said, they’re poor. They needed the money and wanted to keep the cash.”

“So you came down to check it out.”

“They found me. I’m glad they did. I can help them now.”

Lena’s eyes were fixed on the door as Paladino stayed behind her on the lawn.

“The lock’s been replaced,” she said. “Who’s got a key?”

“The guy changed everything when he rented the place.”

“Does this guy have a name?”

“He didn’t sign anything, but he called himself Nathan Good.”

A moment passed with Lena thinking it over. Nathan Good.

“How’d you get the door open?” she said.

“I gave it a hard kick.”

“You go inside? You touch anything?”

“The door won’t open any more than that. I couldn’t fit. Besides, I know what death smells like. I talked it over with the Andolinis and gave you a call. I’ve been
waiting on the front porch ever since.”

She turned and measured his face, certain that he was telling the truth. Behind him she could see the old couple staring through the kitchen window. They looked frightened. Thin and frail and
more ancient than old.

She turned back to the door and noticed that the foundation had risen over time and the door wouldn’t budge. After taking a deep breath, she squeezed through the opening and peered into
the gloom. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness and details became more visible, she made an effort to slow down her heart but couldn’t get past the chills. A meat hook hung from the rafters.
Against the wall she spotted five buckets filled with a dark murky liquid. She didn’t need a criminalist to know that the buckets were filled with blood.

The foul odor was so intense in the closed space that she became worried that she might faint. She turned around but couldn’t see Paladino through the crack in the door.

“You still there?” she called out.

“I’m here,” he said.

“You got a handkerchief?”

“How ’bout paper tissues?”

“I’ll take them.”

A long beat went by before his face appeared in the doorway and he passed them through.

“Is there a body?” he asked.

“I’m guessing she’s already at the morgue.”

“You okay? You want to open the garage door?”

She had thought about that, but a breeze might disturb something important. She couldn’t take the chance.

“I’m okay,” she said.

Her voice died off. She had just noticed the table on the other side of the garage. Covering her mouth and nose with a tissue, she located the switch by the garage door and flipped on the lights
with her elbow. The table turned out to be a 4x8 sheet of plywood set on a pair of saw horses. She moved closer. One step after the other—her efforts to keep her heart rate down not
working very well. She noted the massive bloodstains on the wood’s surface. The gashes left behind by a razor-sharp knife. The additional spotlights mounted on the rafters overhead.

It was a makeshift operating table. Underneath the plywood, a 4x8 sheet of linoleum had been laid over the concrete serving as a blood catch.

Her eyes flicked back to the meat hook swaying in the foul air. The five buckets filled with tainted blood. When she turned back to the operating table, she began to pick up patterns in the
stains. Wisps of the victim’s hair, an arc of fingertips, and the stamp of a palm—impressions from the body so clear that they looked as if they had been silk-screened onto the
wood.