He flashed off, his jungle boots slapping the flagstone.
Chapter 35
Tim crouched over the blown-wide mass of flesh protruding from the neck. A chunk clung to a strip of seared electrical tape. 'We ain't getting a dental.'
Bear flipped back the tattered jacket, worked free a slim leather bill-fold, and laid it open. 'Ted Sands, if we believe this.'
They'd blocked off the street, but at the cordon the TV-crew lights made it look like dawn. The tux-and gown-clad guests had made a mass exodus, swarming the valets by the south gates like penguins jockeying for cliff position above shark-infested waters. Roped through metal eyelets to the gnarled oak overlooking the black- bottomed pool, a huge vinyl sign featuring the ubiquitous Vector V had commanded Tim and Bear's attention as they'd helped usher the guests from the backyard.
The connection between their fugitive and the biogenics firm looked clear, a line that ran through the ailing liver of a seven-year-old boy. Walker had clearly uncovered some link between Tess's murder and Vector. But how did the pregnancy fit, if at all? And the missing hard drive?
It had taken a few tries for Tim and Bear to find a Kagan underling able to forgo buzzwords and talk in layman's terms. The party had been a celebration for the filing of Vector's S-1, they'd learned, which meant that the SEC-required prospectus for the stock issuance had been approved, putting Vector on the fast track to going public. Dean remained holed up in the main house with his sons and security chief. Tim and Bear had yet to make his acquaintance.
Tannino headed up the front walk, still ruffled from running the media gauntlet at the cordon. Word of Walker's involvement had leaked. A high-profile murder by a high-profile fugitive at a high-sticker-price house in Bel Air-the incident combined all that was lurid and worth holding an audience's attention between commercials. The press explosion, Tim knew from experience, only heralded grander coverage to come. Tannino waved off Guerrera and Denley, both approaching with requests, and paused over Tim and Bear, taking in the remains of the day with the expression of irritated disgust he generally reserved for the inedible sack lunches his wife devoutly packed for him.
'Spitting distance from the Playboy mansion and Aaron Spelling's estate,' Tannino pronounced. 'Can you imagine the VIP phone calls I'm gonna have to field? For the love of Mary.' He debated spitting but caught himself, refocusing on the flesh-and-concrete sculpture that had been Ted Sands. 'That his jaw?'
'No,' Bear said. 'Here. I think.'
Tannino's dark eyes shifted to observe Tim. 'We jumped him to a Top Fifteen and set up a task force. Your command post is on the third floor. Say 'I told you so' and I'll stick you on court duty and put Thomas in charge.'
Tim raised a hand, a silent, appreciative wave, and Tannino headed back to the tungsten-halogen lights at the cordon, muttering to himself about vultures. Bear finished rooting through Ted Sands's wallet but came up with nothing except a stack of crisp twenties and a few credit cards.
Aaronson scurried over, gripping two chisels of different sizes. 'Please let us process that first, George.'
Bear sighed and dropped the wallet into Ted's concrete lap. 'Sure thing.'
Aaronson frowned, then peeled something off Tim's back and handed it to him. Tim looked at the familiar label-maker lettering-DEPUTY MARSHILL-and couldn't suppress a half grin.
Aaronson shrugged at him and returned his attention to the sullied wallet. LAPD's Homicide would catch the murderer, but, for consistency's sake, Tim had pulled some strings to grant Aaronson's team from Sheriff's the crime scene. Tim's first move back at the command post would be to assimilate Aaronson into the task force to get around any future jurisdictional jockeying. Tim touched the criminalist's thin arm and asked, 'Did you reprocess that evidence from Tess Jameson's suicide that wasn't a suicide?' Aaronson still seemed distracted by the wallet Bear had tainted, so Tim gave his arm a little shake.
'In the past two hours? Yeah, right after I repainted the Hollywood sign. Come on, Rack. We've obviously hooked into a whale on this one-we need time to do it right. Now, let me free Galatea here.' Aaronson settled down with his tools, ignoring Tim's questioning glance.
Tim crossed to Bear and Guerrera in a huddle on the shadowy fringe of the crime scene. 'Who's Galatea?'
'I think a midfielder for Real Madrid,' Guerrera said.
Bear watched the criminalists work, his lips rolled forward over his teeth. A chisel stroke went awry, landing wetly. 'He's got a base somewhere,' he said. 'This took planning and privacy. Equipment.'
'Looks like your boy found his cause,' Guerrera said.
Tim watched the bustle of deputies, the stressed-out house staff at the windows, the flying chips of concrete. 'He's gonna kill the shooter and anyone else-like maybe Sands-who was on scene to help. If it was a hit, he's gonna kill the guy who paid and the guy who transferred the money. Then he's gonna kill the guy who made the phone call and the guys in the room when he did it.'
Bear was regarding him warily. Guerrera asked, 'How do you know?'
Tim just looked at him.
'Right.' Guerrera bobbed his head in a faint nod.
'Thomas done with the guy who made the positive ID?' Tim asked.
'Yeah, he's holding him so we can firsthand it.' He rested a hand on Tim's back and steered him toward the front door.
One of the bartenders who'd gone to an upstairs balcony for a smoke had gotten a good look at Walker when he'd passed under the porch light to ring the doorbell. The witness couldn't see Sands because some branches blocked his view, but he'd heard the explosion.
'You keep him separate from everyone else?'
'Course, socio. Kagan's security man was playing Andy Sipowicz before you got here, so Thomas didn't let him near the witness.'
Due to all the foot traffic, the front door had been left unlocked. They passed into a grandiose foyer, and Tim took in the furnishings. A classic Bel Air Norma Desmond, complete with curving banister. California Spanish by way of old-line Boston-an odd, May-December relationship. He and Bear followed Guerrera up to the second floor, through a library and two gauzy curtains to a front-facing balcony that seemed to float among the tree branches. Under Thomas's watchful gaze, a kid worked his way through a cigarette before adding it to a mound on the coaster precariously balanced on the railing.
'This is Speedy,' Thomas said flatly.
In his early twenties, Speedy had dark blue eyes set in well-tanned skin-Caucasian with a flare of something darker. He was ridiculously handsome, no doubt the best-looking kid in the history of whatever high school he'd graduated from before heeding the siren call of Hollywood and running aground on the rocks of L.A.'s bloated service industry.
Eager to get to Dean Kagan, Tim spoke quickly. 'You're positive that's the guy.'
Speedy stared at the photo, dwarfed by Bear's hand. 'Hundred percent.'
'What'd you see?'
'Like I told him'-the head jerk indicated that Speedy and Thomas had not embarked on a cozy friendship in the past fifteen minutes-'just him jogging onto the porch and then away. He wore dark clothes, baggy, like army pants or something. T-shirt, too. I also saw him drive off through the patch in the trees there. An SUV, kinda jacked up-'
'A black Bronco, late eighties?'
Speedy studied Tim with surprise. 'Yeah, fits the description. How…?'
'There's one parked a half block that way, along the blind side of the house.' Tim pointed north from the balcony at a stretch of visible street. 'We passed it coming here. Thomas, can you run over and check a plate for us?'
Thomas gladly left the balcony, the curtains drifting around his vanishing form like a magic-trick effect.
