The Samaritan (16 page)

He played the clip. It was black-and-white and silent. The camera was positioned over the door of the kiosk, to provide a wide view of the forecourt and a close-up of anyone who approached the door. Sarah Dutton’s Porsche was parked in the top right of the picture, the back of the vehicle slightly out of the frame. The overhead fluorescents cast bright stripes on the glass and bodywork of the Porsche. As they watched, Kelly Boden appeared from the driver’s side and approached the camera, digging something out of her bag, looking as though she was hurrying.

“Okay. Keep your eyes on the car,” Mazzucco said. “I missed this the first time around.”

Allen shifted her focus from their murder victim to the Porsche. She had no idea what she was looking for, but then she saw it. It was as though a patch of the shadow beneath the car detached and elongated, just like a puddle spreading. She realized what it was and that the fluorescent lights had shown something beyond the camera’s gaze.

“There’s somebody on the other side of the car.”

As they watched, the new shadow shifted position, then nodded about a little, as though testing the handle. And then the shadow retreated.

“Did she lock the car?” Allen asked.

Mazzucco nodded. “Yeah. You see the headlights blink earlier on, when she got out. I think he tried to get in . . . maybe so he could pop the trunk.”

“But he didn’t manage it.”

“Doesn’t look that way.”

As they watched, Kelly appeared from under the camera, her back to them this time, and jogged back toward the Porsche, examining the unfamiliar keys for the right button. She found it and the lights blinked again. She stood in the blind spot for a minute or so, putting in the gas she’d paid for, and then she got back into the car. She started it up and pulled toward the camera and then curved to the right and out of the shot and on to face the little that remained of her life. Watching it, Allen had a strange urge to rewind the tape to stop her leaving, as though that could save her.

“So he didn’t get in the car. We know that,” she said. “You can see the trunk and the front seats, and you’d have to go through the front to get in the rear seats. So we’re still at square one.”

“Not quite,” Mazzucco said. “Now we know that somebody tried to get in. That means she was targeted, at least as far back as the gas station.”

“The shadow has to be him, right? He followed her from the gas station, got her to stop somehow.”

Mazzucco was watching her carefully. “Okay, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“How did you know there’d be a guy on the tape? Is this about what you said yesterday? How you knew there would be more?”

Allen had seen that look in her partner’s eyes before, but only in the interrogation room. She glanced around the deli just in case there was anyone paying attention to them. There was no one within earshot. No excuses this time. She sighed. “Okay.”

He looked satisfied. As though he’d half expected to be disappointed but was pleased she’d made the right decision. She wanted to deck him for that.

“You’ve seen this guy’s work before?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“But I’ve been your partner since you transferred in. That means I’d have seen it, too.”

“Except that this is from before.”

His eyes narrowed. “You mean in Washington?”

Allen nodded.

Mazzucco arched an eyebrow. A bicoastal killer? “When?”

“Two years back. Two and a half, actually.”

“Who was she? The victim?”

Allen couldn’t resist a little smile as the interrogator slipped up with an assumption. “That’s just it, Mazzucco. She was a he.”

“Go on.”

“Gender wasn’t the only point of difference,” she said. “Age, race, socioeconomic status . . . even the disposal method was different.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Mazzucco said.

“The victim in DC was a black male, at least fifty, homeless and destitute. He was dragged out of the Potomac. He’d been in the water at least a week, so at first it wasn’t even clear it was a murder. We never did identify the body. He was one of those ones that nobody missed, I guess.”

“Was he tortured?”

Allen shrugged. “Yeah, but even that didn’t quite match up. The girl here was cut up. The man in DC was burned.”

“You mean set on fire?”

Allen shook her head. “Not like that. He had wounds all over, but they were all cauterized burns. Like somebody had tied him up and used a hot knife on him. Like I said, everything was different. All except one thing.”

“Cause of death?”

Allen nodded.

“Throat cut? Ragged wound pattern?”

“Yeah. Exactly the same cause of death. I’ve never seen a cut like that before or since. He must have used some kind of special blade. Different from the one he used for the torture.”

Mazzucco took another bite out of his sandwich and chewed. He looked doubtful. “So you have two murder cases, two years and two thousand miles apart. Similar cause of death, sure, but . . .”

“You’ve seen a cut throat before, Mazzucco.”

“Sure.”

“Ever see one exactly like that? Ever see photographs of one like that?”

“No. No, I haven’t. But all that means is that two killers used a similar blade. Other than that, you have a completely different victim profile, tortured in a different way, disposed of in a different way, and murdered on the other side of the country.”

“I know. Logically, you’re right, but this is the same guy. It’s not just the throat wound; it’s everything. When you take out specifics, there’s a lot that’s similar. Vulnerable victims, probably kidnapped, tortured, finished off, and then dumped. It’s like everything else is window dressing, but the broad strokes are the same.”

Mazzucco still looked like he needed time to process this. “You’re a Tarantino fan, right?” he said after some thought. At first, Allen thought he was changing the subject.

“I prefer the early stuff, but yeah, sure. What’s your point?”

“Tarantino makes gangster movies and kung fu movies and westerns, but they’re all Tarantino movies, right?”

Allen grinned. “Exactly. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“The style beneath the form,” Mazzucco said, nodding. “Okay, I get you. But you know nobody else will, right? Not without something more.”

Allen cleared her throat and looked down at her own sandwich, mostly uneaten.

“Allen?” he prompted.

“There is more. A lot more.”

30

It took Allen another ten minutes to bring Mazzucco up to speed. He listened without interrupting too much, and she was glad he didn’t seem angry that she’d held this back. When she finished, he thought for a minute.

“You know we have to tell Lawrence, right?”

Allen sighed and agreed. He was right, of course, but she knew all that would entail. They left the remains of their lunch and got back into the Ford. Mazzucco made it to the driver’s side first, adjusting the seat way back. Allen didn’t object for a change. As they pulled around the corner, Allen saw a blue Chevrolet parked at the curbside. As they drove past, she saw a man in the driver’s seat wearing dark glasses. He didn’t turn his head as they passed by.

“You know, in a way this doesn’t actually change anything,” Mazzucco said. “This fucker’s doing the grand tour, but we still need to stop him here in LA. We still need to work the fresh leads.”

Allen nodded, but she was focused on the wing mirror, trying to get a fix on a car she thought was a couple of positions back. The blue Chevy she thought had pulled into the stream of traffic a moment after them.

They rounded a corner and continued east on Sunset, headed for the 101. The two cars behind them stayed on Vine. The blue Chevy made the right onto Sunset a couple of seconds later.

“Take this left.”

“What?”

“Just do it. I’ll explain in a minute.”

Mazzucco braked sharply and swung the Ford down a side street. Allen told him to take another couple of turns until she saw a vacant lot up ahead with a chain-link fence flanking an open gate.

“Pull in here,” she said quickly, pointing at the gap in the fence.

Mazzucco complied, pulling through the gap and steering around on the gravel to bring them back facing the road.

“What . . . ?”

“Wait a second,” Allen said. “Watch out for a blue Chevy.”

Twenty seconds later, the Chevrolet flashed by. The driver, still wearing dark glasses, didn’t turn to look this time either.

Mazzucco glanced at Allen, the question obvious. She nodded and he tore out of the lot, the tires kicking up gravel as they pulled back through the gate and out onto the street. The Chevy was a car ahead now, moving at the pace of the traffic.

“You want to pull him over?” Mazzucco said, eyeing the light on the dashboard.

“Let’s see where he takes us.”

They followed him for another six blocks; then he took a left and an immediate right. Mazzucco was able to keep at least one car between them at all times, but Allen knew they’d have been spotted if the driver in the sunglasses knew what he was looking for.

A block ahead, the lights changed from green to yellow at an intersection, and the Chevy’s brake lights lit up as he started to slow. Then, abruptly, its speed increased and the blue car darted off the road and took a turn against oncoming traffic into a multilevel parking structure on the left side of the road. Two or three of the oncoming cars leaned on their horns, and Mazzucco had to wait for them to pass before he could make the turn.

The entrance was covered by a barrier and a ticket kiosk. Mazzucco stopped at the barrier and badged the attendant. “We’re looking for the blue Chevrolet Malibu that just came in.”

The attendant pointed left and raised the barrier. Mazzucco told him not to let anybody out and drove under the barrier. As it slid back down behind them, he smiled at Allen. “He’s cornered now. Care to explain?”

“He’s been following us. I’d like to find out why.” She buzzed her window all the way down, removed her Beretta 92FS from her shoulder holster, clicked the safety off, and cocked it. She noticed Mazzucco grimacing at the disregard for strict firearm protocol, but he said nothing.

They made a slow circuit of the ground floor, paying attention to any dark blue cars, but not seeing the one they wanted. The circuit took them almost around to the barrier again before they hit the ramp to the next level. Mazzucco bumped up a level, the quiet squeals of rubber on concrete amplified by the walls. They made another slow circuit of the second level. Mazzucco’s head turned left to right as he drove. Allen’s hand tightened on her gun. She thought about asking Mazzucco why, if they had him cornered, did it feel a little like they were driving into a trap?

The second floor was clear.

They squealed up another ramp and onto the sunlit roof. Allen could hear the low rumble of an engine running around the corner of the line of parked cars. She tried to see between the vehicles and caught a flash of blue. It wasn’t moving. Mazzucco gunned the engine and they swung around the end of the line and along the right angle of the roof. The blue Chevy was at a standstill, nose to the parapet of the roof. Mazzucco hit the brakes and brought them to a halt twenty yards from the Chevy. Allen leaned out of the window, both hands on the gun, aiming at the back of the driver’s headrest. The angle of the car and its relative height made it impossible to tell if anyone was in it. She snapped her head to the left, then the right, keeping the gun trained on the car. Mazzucco got out on his side, and she heard his gun being cocked. Keeping her eyes on the car, Allen fumbled for the handle and got the door open, stepping out.

“LAPD,” she called out. “Remain in your vehicle and place your hands on the steering wheel.”

No response.

Mazzucco started to move toward the car, and Allen shook her head.

“I think it’s my turn. Cover me.”

He opened his mouth to protest, and she took her eyes off the car long enough to shoot him a glare that said,
You know better than to try that protective male bullshit on me
. He did, too, because he just shrugged and aimed his gun at the driver’s side of the Chevy.

Allen repeated the warning, louder this time, and moved toward the driver’s side, her finger tightening on the trigger, tensing for a sudden movement. She drew level with the car and saw that there was no one in the driver’s side. No one in the passenger side or the backseat, either. The engine thrummed away in neutral. She reached through the open window and twisted the keys to kill the noise. Then she opened the door.

“Allen!”

She whirled around, bringing her gun to bear. Mazzucco was facing the same way, his weapon trained on a man who’d somehow gotten between them and their car and was standing with his hands raised in a supremely relaxed pose of surrender. He wore a dark suit, a light blue shirt and the same sunglasses Allen had spotted twice on the driver of the blue Chevy.

“Identify yourself,” Mazzucco said, approaching the man, who did not flinch at the two guns pointing at his head.

“Good afternoon,” the man said, a thin smile on his lips. “Detectives Allen and Mazzucco, Homicide, right?”

No one said anything for a moment. Allen narrowed her eyes and kept her gun pointed at the spot where the bridge of the sunglasses crossed the man’s nose.

“That’s right. Now, would you mind telling us who the fuck you are?”

31

“You can call me Blake,” the man in the dark suit said.

“Blake what?” Allen asked.

“Carter Blake.”

“Okay,” she said, keeping her gun on him. “Now—how about telling us why you’re following two cops?”

“I might be able to help you with your investigation.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mazzucco said. “Which investigation’s that?”

The man called Blake looked at him as though genuinely confused. “To tell the truth, Detective, I kind of thought they’d have you on this Samaritan thing full-time. Maybe not.”

“What do you know about the Samaritan, smart-ass?” Allen said. “And start with a compelling reason why I shouldn’t assume you’re him.”