Trail of Echoes (5 page)

“What about the paperwork?” Luke asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Colin usually handled the bulk of incident reports and warrant requests. He was the Mark Spitz of Paperwork. But since he was now collapsed in bed with a temperature of 133, someone else had to do the job … and Luke could barely spell “homicide.”

I groaned. “I'll handle the reports while I'm waiting for the autopsy to—”

Boom!

Thunder.

One … two …

A light whiter and far more dangerous than the halogens filled the sky.

As a three-person team maneuvered the girl into a protective bag, Brooks came to stand beside me. “I know this took longer than what you wanted, but I needed to take my time.”

“You think it's Trina?”

He let out a long breath, then shrugged. “I'll be working on her. Whoever she is.”

“Good cuz this could turn—”

“Political? Don't most homicides turn political?”

“But we have an especially shitty record right now serving and protecting young black females. And speaking on behalf of young black females, I'm sick to hell of it and when are the fucking cops gonna do something about it?”

“How many missing kids this year?” he asked.

“Stranger, family, suspicious, or unknown missing?”

Brooks said, “Surprise me.”

“Right now,” I said, “there are about 450 kids missing in LA County.”

“And murders?”

“About forty. Only six females, but four of those six were black.”

“Doesn't sound too bad in a city of 9.9 million people.”

“Six is too many.”

“But how many of those missing children will be found alive?” he asked. “And how many girls get home safely after school each day and live happily ever after?”

Optimism. For cutters like Brooks and murder police like me, optimism was a condition as rare as hens' teeth.
Happy endings?
What were those? If I was standing anywhere near you, that meant shit had just gone left, your life had changed forever, and there'd be no happy ending.

 

8

Happy endings.
That myth stayed with me as I fought my way through “LA in the Rain” traffic. Accidents—cars against cars, cars against bikes, cars wrapped around light poles—peppered every third mile, and so it took an hour to reach Syeeda's Miracle Mile neighborhood. Since the divorce, I had squatted here, walking distance from the Farmers' Market, the Grove outdoor mall, and CBS Studios. I finally pulled into the driveway next to Lena's Range Rover and climbed out of my SUV. Rain fell like liquid silk on my face.

Lena snored in the armchair as Syeeda, on the couch, played
Mass Effect
on the Xbox. Crust from brie-filled sourdough bread sat beside wineglasses stained from Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Looks like you and your herd of goats just crawled from beneath a bridge,” Syeeda said, pausing the game. “Either you and Sam hit it in the backseat of the Porsche, or…”

I clomped over to the love seat and collapsed into the deep cushions. “I feel like sunshine.” I reached for the wine bottle, then took a long pull. I plucked
Midnight Rendezvous,
my latest bad romance, from between two sofa cushions
.
On the book's cover, a woman with long blond tresses rode a dark-haired centaur wielding his giant … wand.

“I can't believe you like that shit,” Syeeda said.

I found a page, then read, “Daemon sought to quench their loving lusts on that eve, nay that dark, dark night. It was clear that she was just a virgin, a perfect goddess to carry his centaur seed.” I whooped and kicked my feet in the air. “Centaur seed! C'mon, that's awesome.”

Lena groaned, then turned over in the chair. “Must you cackle so loudly as I lay here, passed out?” Mascara and eyeliner ringed her eyes, but the diamonds in her ears gleamed as bright as Venus.

“So, what did I miss?” I asked, shoving the book back between the cushions.

Syeeda turned her attention back to the game. “Fitz or Jake? Huck be crazy. Melly be schemin'. And Olivia wore this bad-ass coat I want to buy, like, yesterday. And…” She paused the game again, and this time, she placed the controller on the cushion beside her.

“Uh oh,” I said. “Gimme a minute.” In one last pull, I finished the wine. “Tell me.”

“Who gave him my address?” Syeeda asked, eyebrow cocked.

I frowned. “He showed up
here
?”

“Yep,” Lena said. “He didn't believe us when we told him you weren't here.”

My face burned. “I'm sorry, Sy. Maybe Mom gave him … or Greg … Shit.”

Syeeda stared at me, then said, “You need to figure this Victor Starr thing out.”

I sighed, then stood. “I will. As that great philosopher Dan Quayle once said, ‘The future will be a better tomorrow.' Tonight, though, I need to take a long, hot shower. Fall into bed and close my eyes for three hours. And then wake up and see a man about a dead body.”

 

Thursday, March 20

 

9

A pile of sixty missing children reports sat on the wobbly desk near Brooks's file cabinets located in the bowels of the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. At almost seven in the morning, I plopped into the raggedy chair and plucked a report from the pile
.

Quida Chisholm, born February 7, 2003 … I, the mother, returned from work on March 16 to find Quida missing … eighth grade home school …
Quida was the same race as my Jane Doe. Probably around the same age, too. But Quida was shorter, had darker hair, and was about fifteen pounds heavier.

Quida's report went into the no pile.

The next five reports involved three boys and two Hispanic girls.

No, five times.

A yes pile did not exist yet, but there were six reports in maybe.

I stood from the workstation and stretched until every bone in my body clicked. The asteroid-colored rash on my chest still burned, but a soft LAPD T-shirt and hydrocortisone cream had contained the blaze. I grabbed the reports and lumbered down the hallway to the autopsy suites. Someone had microwaved oatmeal for breakfast—the scent of warm brown sugar wafted along the corridors, only to be lost in the clinical stink of formaldehyde and death. The blisters on my feet still made me wince, but the Nikes' memory foam treated them better than yesterday's fancy boots. Little acts of kindness.

I ducked into the dimly lit antechamber. On the other side of the double doors, Brooks was scrubbing his hands in the stainless steel sink. Two of the exam tables hosted bodies covered in white sheets, with one of those patients so obese that parts of it slopped off the table. Brooks's assistant, Big Reuben, a giant in cornrows, was removing a soup ladle from one of the cabinet drawers. No rush. Just another day at LACCO.

This early in the morning, I thought that I would've been sleeping off too many glasses of red wine. Waking up next to Sam Seward in his bed. My hand drifting down his happy trail to claim his early-morning gift to me. Thought I'd be foggy-headed, deliciously sore, bursting with a story to tell Lena and Syeeda. Giggling, gasping, and shrieking. Being a Girl.

I
was
foggy-headed—no restful sleep.

And I
was
sore, though not deliciously, from tromping in mud, falling in mud, and bending over to examine mud.

I certainly had a story to tell—but not the one I wanted to share over Moscow mules and jalapeño poppers.

My cell phone vibrated in my bag.

A text from Sam.

Had a great time. Had hoped to still be talking about GOT. But death happens. What if we had dinner @ home tonight?

My fingers hovered over the phone's keyboard as stainless steel appliances of death clinked around me and called me to work. I typed my response:
I cram to understand you, Sam.

A few seconds passed before he texted back.
What's confusing?

You still hanging around.

I'm like a cat. Feed me once …

Shame on you,
I typed.

Feed me twice …

Magic?

U not skeered, is you?

I chuckled.
Hell yeah, I'm skeered.

A pause, then:
Don't be.

The saw's high-pitched whir pulled me out of Sweet Valley High and back into the autopsy antechamber. Sober now, I tapped
SETTINGS
on my phone and assigned the “
Star Wars
Theme Music” ringtone to Sam's number. Then, I saw that two voice-mail messages had been left as I'd arrived at the coroner's office. The first message had been my ex, Greg. Something-something … condo selling … real estate … something.

I deleted the message, then listened to the message from my mother.

Georgia Starr's voice, bourbon and pecans, drifted through the speaker. “You're still avoiding him. And so he keeps calling
me
to make
you
talk to him. I remind him that although he left you when you were eight, you continued to grow, and today you are an adult.”

“What the
hell,
Mom?” I muttered.

Why hadn't she blocked Victor Starr's calls? Why did she keep talking to him? I'd told her a zillion times: you don't have to pick up the phone.

“So I don't know what to say,” she continued. “And honestly, I don't even know why I'm calling you. Because I understand. This is
your
relationship, not mine. But whatever you do, do it. And soon.
Please.
I love you, okay? Call me later.”

Your relationship.

A “relationship” meant that the involvement was two-way, mutual,
existing.

I had a relationship with Greg. Antagonistic. Nostalgic.

I had a relationship with Sam. Fledgling. Tentative. Exciting.

What I had with Victor Starr was neither tentative nor antagonistic. Since our so-called reunion in December, he kept trying to see me. I had not returned his phone calls. And when he returned to knock on the front door of the condo, I hadn't answered. In the last twenty-four hours, he had invaded the station and Syeeda's front porch.

All because
he
wanted to talk to me.

So? We all
wanted
something.

And he didn't deserve to get what he wanted. At least not from me.

He had written me three letters and had mailed them to the station.
Sorry … please … let me explain …
I'm guessing here since I never opened those letters and chose instead to shove them into the mail room's shred bin. No more stupid Jedi mind tricks with Victor Starr. I wanted no apology. I wanted no explanation. I wanted nothing from him—except to be left alone. And up until last December, he had been very good at doing that, leaving me alone.

A Jedi, he was.

 

10

God bless the dead. Not all of them are mourned.

Almost five thousand unclaimed bodies were listed on the Los Angeles County Coroner's books. More than 750 would be cremated and their remains stored in small black boxes. They would remain at the county's crematorium for two years, waiting for family members to step forward and claim them. Alas, not enough families did.

“Ready?” Brooks asked me.

Now covered in a smock and a face mask, I stood across from the medical examiner. Jane Doe lay between us. “I'm ready.” A small lie: what regular person could properly prepare herself for bone cracking and blood scooping? I wasn't a regular person—this was my way of life—and yet that “about to faint” feeling stayed with me.

I should've been accustomed to the scalpel's glint and the saw's whir, Brooks's muffled breathing, and Big Reuben's dead-eyed gaze. I should've especially been accustomed to the ordered chaos of a dead body. Most times, I cracked jokes (
a monster and a zombie walk into a mortuary
) and pried into county drama (who was caught
where
doing
what
to dead Mrs. Feingold?). Not this morning, though.

“Detective Norton,” Brooks said.

I jerked out of my fugue—both Brooks and Big Reuben were staring at me. “I was just…”

Brooks's eyes softened as he gazed at the girl. “It would be a wonderful thing if we could ID her today. Don't want to see her unclaimed.” He sighed, then said, “Here we go.”

He then pressed a foot pedal and the overhead microphone clicked. “Thursday, March twenty, seven fifteen
A.M
.” He stared at the scale's blinking numbers. “She's … 45.3 kilograms.”

One hundred pounds.

“And 154.9 centimeters.”

Five feet, one inch.

Her face, legs, and abdomen had swollen with gasses. Her skin was mottled and black in some places, green and blistery in others.

Brooks peered into the girl's eyes. “Pupils are fully dilated. Eyes are hazel or green.” He stepped on the pedal to turn off the mic. “Really, Lou: there should be a
lot
of bug activity right now. Blowflies and houseflies in every opening of her body and…” He sniffed, cocked his head, then sniffed again.

I chuckled. “You smell something?”

“Funny. Not sure.” He clicked on the mic. “No bruising around the neck…”

A weird-colored fluid—black, emerald, crimson, peach—sluiced down the side canals of the exam table.

I swayed a bit, then squeezed shut my eyes. Once the wooziness passed, I glanced at the digital clock above the entryway. Almost seven thirty.

“Birthmark,” Brooks said, “on her right hip, two and a half centimeters. And bruises on her hips and thighs.” He counted five bruises on her left calf alone, then measured each. He clicked on the penlight clamped to his face mask, then bent closer to peer at something. “Two injection marks on her left thigh.”