A moment passed-utter silence-while both of them gazed through the glass at an endless ribbon of cars breezing down the Hollywood Freeway.
“I know what you’re saying,” Vaughan whispered. “And now I know why you didn’t want to say it over the phone. You want to take another look at Lily Hight’s murder. You want me to go through the trial and figure out how Bennett and Watson built their case.”
“And there’s no way to keep it a secret from anyone we work with.”
“I’ve got that press conference this afternoon. At least I can keep it from them.”
She nodded, but remained quiet.
“We sure caught a good one, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “We’re fucked.”
16
It was more than the number of loose ends. It was their size and scope and potential to ignite.
Lena sensed that she had found a new one the moment Dan Cobb walked out the door and greeted her in the lobby with his hands in his pockets. He settled back on his heels, staring at her with open suspicion.
Cobb had been the lead detective investigating Lily Hight’s murder. Lena had made the drive across town to the Pacific Station and walked in unannounced. He had asked to see her badge, which seemed unnecessary and ridiculous. He already knew who she was.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
The watch commander was on the phone behind the front desk. People were milling about within earshot. Lena glanced at the door leading to the homicide section.
“Any chance we could talk back there?”
He needed a moment to think it over. More time to stir the change in his pocket.
Cobb was a big, barrel-chested man in his mid-fifties. His hair was cropped short, a wild mix of gray on gray. His goatee was even shorter and could have just as easily passed as stubble lost within the creases of his leathery skin. Although he was staring at her, even measuring her at close range, she couldn’t tell what color his eyes were because he wore a pair of glasses that grew darker in sunlight. The lenses were set in clear plastic frames, the shape as outdated as his clothing. He must have been looking out the window about the time she arrived.
“I guess we can talk,” he said finally. “As long as it doesn’t take too long.”
He pulled open the door and walked off, letting her follow in his wake. His attitude was unmistakable. His contempt for her, his rudeness, was over the top.
Lena ignored his behavior because she knew that she had to. Her concerns for the case outweighed everything else and provided some degree of immunity. But even more, she wanted Cobb’s cooperation.
They crossed the section floor. Lena didn’t see a familiar face; the place was nearly empty. When they reached Cobb’s desk, he waved her off.
“Not here,” he said. “We’ll talk in one of the rooms.”
He grabbed a pad and started searching for a pen. There was nothing personal on his desk except for an old snapshot taped to the surface. Curiously, it wasn’t a picture of a person, but of a place. A discolored photo of the sun setting into an ocean behind a grove of palm trees.
“Where was this taken?” she asked.
Cobb didn’t look up, still rummaging through his drawer for a pen. “Hualalai,” he said without interest. “Fifteen years ago. I was working a case. I’ve been trying to get back ever since.” He finally spotted a pen and grabbed it. “Now let’s get this over with.”
He led her over to an interrogation room, flipped on the overhead lights, and pointed to a seat bolted to the floor. But as he started to sit down, he tested the pen on his legal pad and realized that it was out of ink.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
It seemed clear enough that Cobb was dogging it. That his act was intentional. Unless he’d been dead for the past twelve hours, he had to have some idea as to why she was here. She turned and looked through the doorway. The detective wasn’t at his desk. Just as she was about to get up, he reappeared from around the corner, breezed into the room, and kicked the door shut. She watched him take a seat on the other side of the table and test his new pen. Apparently, this one worked.
“Why are you here, Gamble?” he said.
“I’d like to see the murder book you kept on the Lily Hight case.”
“Why? It’s over. The man who killed her was shot last night. Case closed. He’s dead.”
“I met the girl’s father. I want to know how you cleared him.”
It had been a righteous request-one that any detective would have made no matter what questions they might have harbored about the case. Yet Cobb leaned back in his seat, chewing it over and giving her another hard look through those glasses. The lenses were beginning to fade, and she could see his eyeballs floating in the vanishing darkness.
“You’re it, aren’t you?” he said. “The new face of the LAPD’s PR machine. The new deal. I know who you are, Gamble. They’re using you to dig themselves out of the hole they’re in.”
“You’re in it just as deep as anyone else, Cobb. We’re in it together. Now, how did you clear Tim Hight?”
He shrugged, his eyes still pinned on her. “I already had the kid. Why would I have needed to clear Hight?”
Another warning beacon broke the surface. Lena took it in, but remained silent. Lily Hight had been murdered in the bedroom of her home. The investigation should have begun with her family-her parents-and continued until they were cleared one by one.
Cobb had been watching her put it together like a mind reader. When he laughed, it sounded raw and vicious and even crazy.
“I got it,” he said. “I see where you’re going now. You think Daddy diddled his little girl. That ought to go over well since he’s a hero now.”
He slammed his hand against the table in anger, then bounced to his feet and started pacing back and forth along the rear wall like an animal.
“If you’re gonna muddy things up,” he said, “if you’re looking for someone to blame because the jokers who fucked this up don’t want to admit they fucked it up-if that’s where it’s at, Gamble-then my memory’s just hit the skids. I can’t even remember what I ate for dinner last night. Was it steak, or was it lobster? Or maybe it was just a bowl of plain old bullshit.”
Lena shook her head. “Sit down, Cobb. You’re making me nervous.”
“Making you nervous. I love it. I dig it. I’m making you nervous. What do you think you’re doing to me? The kid killed her. There’s no
“Okay, Cobb. Take it easy and sit down. What happened when you put Gant through a polygraph?”
Cobb finally returned to the table. He seemed to need to inspect his seat. When he was satisfied, he sat down.
“Who said anything about a polygraph?”
“You didn’t put him in the box?” she said.
“I didn’t need to. The blood work came in. The DNA results. We got a hit and I made the arrest. Why risk a polygraph after that? The kid was a natural-born liar. I could see it. I know the type. What if the piece of shit beat it? What would Paladino have done after that? How fast would that asshole lawyer have blanketed the results all over the fucking city and poisoned the jury pool?”
Lena didn’t respond.
Cobb smiled at her in triumph. “Got you, didn’t I?” he said. “You wouldn’t have risked it, either. No one would.”
She was thinking about the year she decided that she wanted to become a police officer. She had written it down on a piece of paper. On one side, she listed what she hoped to accomplish, along with the reasons why. On
