Murder Season

Bosco. They were passing a changing room and entering a large bathing area that included a massage table, an open shower, and a spa.

Lena’s eyes sprinted across the tiled floor until she hit pay dirt. The two dead bodies in Hollywood. She looked at the blood pooling on the floor-there was a lot of it-her hands instinctively digging into her pocket for a pair of vinyl gloves.

Two dead men. Two heavyweights. One faced down in a fetal position. The other, all bloodied up and leaning against the far wall.

Ramsey kept his eyes on her. “Everything remains the way we found it, Detective. As far as we know, nothing has been touched.”

As far as we know …

Lena took in a deep breath, pushing the air out of her lungs as if it was smoke. She noted the open windows by the spa. The cocaine piled on a marble slab-at least 10K’s worth-and the razor blade that went with it. The dead man in the silk suit had been shot in the back, a plume of blood oozing through his jacket just below his left shoulder. She checked the floor, stepping over the blood for a look at the man’s face. He was about forty-five, with wide shoulders, short brown hair, and a strong chin. Until a few hours ago, he had been the kind of man people like to look at. But not now. One eye remained open-his capped teeth jutting out-and Lena could see a double load of white powder still lodged in his flared nostrils.

No doubt about it, Johnny Bosco had been killed before the thrill and never saw the grim reaper coming. The bullet in his back-his last hit of hits-had been a complete surprise.

Lena glanced at the second corpse, taking in the view quickly just to make sure. The district attorney would have been a barrel-chested man in his mid-fifties with silver, overgroomed hair. The dead man propped against the wall with the bloody face was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and obviously much leaner and younger than that. Late twenties, early thirties at best. District Attorney Jimmy J. Higgins may have lost one of his celebrity friends tonight in Johnny Bosco, but he himself was alive and well, and still loose somewhere in the city.

She turned back to Barrera and Ramsey, feeling a certain degree of relief. But both men remained by the door, studying her like just maybe there would be no relief. Not tonight. Not with this crime scene.

“Body number two is who?” she said. “An actor? A dealer? A VIP’s son?”

Ramsey’s sharp gaze faltered as it shifted to the corpse. When he didn’t respond, her mind started churning. Why had she been the last call? Why the oppressive silence? It felt like they were playing her. Testing her. Bullshitting her when everyone in the room knew that a homicide investigation thrived on a quick start.

But there was something else going on. Something extra.

Johnny Bosco had been a player in this city. His murder would easily make the front page of The Times. His friendship with the district attorney, along with that pile of nose candy on the counter, would ensure that the story appeared above the fold and make things complicated for everyone. But Higgins was already damaged goods, particularly with the LAPD. According to The Times, his reelection next year was in trouble. Lena wondered if the politician really had enough clout with the department to insist on a division callout. Enough power to bring Deputy Chief Ramsey to a crime scene in the middle of the night. Even more unsettling, what about anything at this crime scene could create fear in two of the most seasoned police officers she knew?

She crossed the room and knelt before the second body, her heart pounding in her ears. The dead man was hard to look at. Although he had been shot in the stomach, it was the wounds to his face that made things difficult. His lights had been blown out. Even through all the blood, Lena could see the burned flesh and scorched eyebrows. The shooter had pressed the muzzle into the man’s eyes and pulled the trigger. Both rounds had punched through the back of his skull, drawing brain matter out like a vacuum and splashing it against the wall.

Worse still, he was a lot younger than she first thought. She could see it now. Low to mid twenties.

She leaned closer and checked his nostrils, but found no visible sign of white powder. As her eyes drifted off his face, she noticed a large bruise on his neck. Similar bruises tattooed both arms. When she spotted the scabs on his knuckles and his clean fingernails, she took a moment to think it over. The kid had been in a fight sometime within the past week or two, the cuts and bruises in various stages of healing. But nothing she saw indicated that he had a chance to defend himself tonight. The shot he took in the stomach knocked him to the floor. From the amount of blood puddling around him, the round struck an artery. The two shots in the eyes came after that. He would have been alive, maybe even conscious when the killer approached. But he would have been bleeding out. He would have been docile and unable to fight back.

The shot in the stomach was enough to ensure the kid’s death. The shots to the eyes were about something more than the murder. Something psychotic. A killer overdosing on rage.

A memory surfaced-a movie she had seen more than ten years ago. A western. The Comanches believed that without eyes a victim couldn’t enter the spirit world. Without eyes, the victim would be forced to wander between the winds forever. She thought the scene might be from John Ford’s The Searchers, but wasn’t sure. It was too far back in her history and too late at night. Still, as she forced herself to take a second look at the kid’s broken face, she couldn’t help but wonder if his soul was lost between the winds.

After a long moment, the wonder vanished and she finally lowered her gaze. She didn’t recognize him. Not without his eyes and through all the blood masking his face. She doubted anyone could.

She climbed to her feet, checking the floor for shell casings but not finding any. When she looked up, she saw Sanchez and Rhodes standing beside Barrera. She hadn’t heard them enter, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, Barrera seemed to be holding them back. It didn’t really matter. Both detectives looked spent, their eyes glassy from working two days without sleep and topping the night off at her place.

Lena turned to the deputy chief. “Tell me what’s going on,” she said.

Ramsey broke open a roll of Tums, choosing his words carefully. “Escabar found the bodies, but didn’t call it in until after he cleared the place out. Hollywood detectives got here around one-thirty. They identified Bosco and passed the case up to Robbery-Homicide. When two of your colleagues arrived, they made an ID on the kid and called your supervisor. Frank called me, and then I briefed the chief at his hotel in Philadelphia. Once we got here and everything checked out, I called the chief back and we made a decision. Then Frank called you.”

She wondered if Ramsey had any idea that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. Nothing about who called who or even why was important anymore. Body number two was the main event, not Bosco. She was sure of it now.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“A motherfucker,” Ramsey said. “A real asshole. As much trouble to us dead as he was alive. That’s why you got the call on your day off. The department needs you now. The people you work with, Gamble.”

Lena watched Ramsey dig an evidence bag out of his jacket. He held it up, displaying a pair of wallets, then passed it over.

“They found them over there in the trash,” he said. “The shooter took the cash, but left their credit cards. Johnny Bosco was known to carry a lot of cash, and there’s a fire escape right outside those open windows. His partner, Dante Escabar, believes that this was a robbery. That the mess we’re looking at was done by a pro. What’s your take?”

Lena glanced at the corpse, then turned back to the deputy chief. She lowered her voice because it seemed obvious that Ramsey already knew what she was about to say. She didn’t understand the play. Why was he running this out in slow motion?

“Number two was the target, not Bosco,” she said.

“You sure about that?”

She nodded. “The killer knew him. And whatever happened here tonight was payback. You don’t blow somebody’s eyes out if he’s a friend. And you don’t waste time shooting a dead man if he’s a stranger. You run.”

Ramsey stared at her for a moment. His eyes felt like needles.

“How long have you worked homicide, Gamble?”

“Long enough to know that this wasn’t a robbery, and that the killer wasn’t a pro. This was about something more personal than that. Something between the two.”

“I’m with you on that,” he said. “But I know the identity of the victim and you don’t. Tell me why you think it’s personal, Detective. I need to hear you say it.”

“If tonight was about a robbery, the coke wouldn’t be here. And if this was done by a pro, these wallets