Milo’s obscene retort was obscured by the clank of a gurney on wheels, human voices, bright lights.
EMTs charging in with that bright-eyed, adrenalized look the good ones have.
The cop at the top of the stairs said, “Lieutenant’s right down there.”
Milo said, “Like it’s a mystery?
I started to descend the stairs, was halted by a strange whistling noise behind me.
Blaise De Paine’s eyes had opened.
His lips quivered. Another whistle, higher-pitched, just a teapot-squeak, emerged from between his lips.
Final air seeping out.
The lips formed a smile.
Nothing intentional, he had to be way past volition.
Then his eyes shifted quickly.
Toward me.
His head from the ground. Dropped down hard.
A seizure? Some terminal neurological burst-too much intention. He repeated the movement.
Watching me?
A third rise and fall of his head.
I hurried to his side, leaned in close.
His lips moved. Formed a smile.
I kneeled down next to him.
He croaked. Made eye contact. Laughed gutturally, or something awfully close to it.
I looked into his eyes.
He reared up.
Spat blood in my face.
Died.
As I wiped my face with my jacket, movement behind the door caught my eye. Tanya, standing behind the shattered panels, gazing out through the window that had, miraculously, remained intact.
The scene came together in my head.
De Paine blasting away at Milo, hearing something behind him, wheeling, shooting low.
Getting off one last round through the door before the opening he created allowed return fire and sudden pain burned through his hand and belly and the shotgun.
I waved at Tanya.
Maybe she didn’t see me. Or she did and it didn’t matter. She remained motionless. Staring at the corpse.
Kyle Bedard materialized behind her.
The cop who’d been at the top of the stairs returned and climbed halfway up.
“How’s he-”
“Gone.”
“You need to go, sir. Right now.”
“She’s my patient-”
“I don’t care, sir.”
“I’m stepping over him,” I said, still tasting blood.
And I did.
CHAPTER 44
Eruption, then excavation.
The way I saw it, Law Enforcement ended up with the light shovels.
A key found in the mess Blaise De Paine had left in Perry Moore’s house was traced to a rental storage bin in East Hollywood. Double unit, complete with fluorescent lighting, a sleeper sofa, and electrical hookup.
The refrigerator at the rear hummed nicely. Next to the cooler was a sealed box of heroin packets, a host of over-the-counter painkillers, and thirty-five soap-bar-sized chunks of hashish. Inside the fridge were six-packs of Jolt Cola, a nice variety of microbrewed beers, and a trash bag filled with human bones, some still dusted with desiccated flesh. The bones offered up four distinct DNA patterns, all female. Mitochondrial matches were eventually made to Brenda Hochlbeier and Renee Mittle, aka Brandee Vixen and Rocksi Roll. Those remains were sent back to Curney, North Dakota, where the girls’ families offered thanks for the chance to provide a proper Christian burial.
The other two samples remained Jane Does.
Benjamin Baranelli ran an ad in
Robert Fisk’s public defender offered to plead his client to obstruction of justice. The D.A.’s office proclaimed its “unalterable” intention to charge Fisk with multiple first-degree murders. The compromise reached four days later had Fisk plead to two counts of voluntary manslaughter with a fifteen-year sentence. The nugget Fisk offered up was the fact that De Paine had bragged about killing “two bitches from Compton.”
Further work on the unidentified bones confirmed likely African American heritage. Attempts to identify the sources continued.
Mary Whitbread was charged with nothing. Within a week of her son’s death, her ground-floor unit on Fourth Avenue was up for lease and she’d moved to parts unknown.
Whispers around town had Mario Fortuno incriminating a horde of Hollywood notables in illegal wiretapping, with indictments to come. East Coast papers covered the rumors with greater enthusiasm than the
Petra, Raul Biro, David Saunders, and Kevin Bouleau all received departmental commendations. Biro nudged up against a fast-track promotion to Detective II.
When Milo was wheeled into the Cedars E.R., Rick was there to greet him. The surgeon broke his own rule about treating relatives and dug the pellets out of Milo’s arm personally. The procedure turned out to be more complex than expected, with several small blood vessels requiring repair. Milo insisted on nothing stronger than local anesthesia. Conscious sedation made him loopy and he peppered the operating room with a barrage of obnoxious comments.
Days later, he claimed to be healed and threw away his sling, against medical advice. Rick was on call and not there to argue. I didn’t enter the debate, even after I caught Milo wincing when lifting a coffee cup.
My shovel weighed a ton.
I met with Tanya daily, sometimes for hours at a time. When called for, Kyle attended.
Getting therapy off on the right foot meant starting with a lie: Patty had never killed anyone, had merely been referring to the death of a drug-dealing friend of De Paine, at De Paine’s hand. The “terrible thing” was her guilt at not reporting the crime.
I built up Patty’s justification for keeping quiet. Others had already notified the police, with poor results; she’d felt compelled to escape so she could ensure Tanya’s safety. Years later, she’d run into De Paine and he’d smirked, threatened Tanya. Before Patty could do anything about it, she’d fallen ill, had been forced to “get her ducks in a row.”
The deathbed pronouncement, muddled by terminal disease, had been aimed at warning Tanya.
“I’m sure,” I said, “that had she lived she would’ve tried to fill in more details.”
Tanya sat there.
“She loved you so much,” I said. “It all traces back to that.”
“Yes,” she said, “I know. Thank you.”
Next topic: the fact that
The crime reconstruction confirmed the scene I’d imagined.
