L a Requiem (1999) (40 page)

Krantz put away his gun and jabbed me with his finger. "I'm going to have your ass for this, too. You, and her. Stan, you're a witness."

The three of us were still off to the side when Dolan touched the knob. "Hey, I think it's open."

I said, "Dolan. Don't."

Samantha Dolan eased open the door just far enough to peek inside, but she probably couldn't see anything.

Dolan relaxed.

"We're clear, Krantz. Looks like I've done your job again."

Then she pushed the door open and something kicked her backward with a sound like a thunderclap.

Stan Watts yelled, "Gun!" and hit the ground, but I didn't hear him.

I pushed low through the door, firing at a smoking double-barrel shotgun even before I knew what it was. I think I was screaming.

I fired all six rounds before the hammer clicked on nothing, and then I was running back into the yard, where Watts was trying to stop the bleeding, but it was already too late.

The point-blank double load from the shotgun had blown through her vest like it wasn't there.

Samantha Dolan's beautiful hazel eyes stared sightlessly toward heaven.

She was dead.

Chapter 36

As Detective Samantha Dolan's blood seeps into Los Angeles' dry earth, Laurence Sobek parks his red Cherokee in the next victim's drive. He no longer carries the little .22 with his homemade Clorox suppressors; he carries a full-blown .357 magnum loaded with light, fast hollow points. When he shoots his victims now, they will blow apart like overripe avocados, with no chance for survival.

Sobek has the gun in his waist, his hand tight on its grip as he goes to the door. He knocks, but no one answers, and, after knocking again, walks around to the back, where he tries the sliding glass doors. He considers forcing the doors, but sees a Westec alarm light blinking from its control panel.

Sobek is ready to kill. He is ready to do murder, and wants to with such a ferocity that his palm is slick on the pistol's wood grip.

He goes back to the Jeep, and drives up the hill until he finds a parking place with an unobstructed view of the house.

He waits for the child.

Krantz said, "Oh, holy Jesus. Oh, Christ."

He dry-heaved, and turned to lean against an avocado tree. Williams and Bruly came around the corner, guns out and eyes wild, the four uniforms following with their shotguns. Someone shouted from one of the surrounding houses. The yellow dog howled.

Bruly yelled, "Is she dead? Jesus, is she dead?"

Watts's hands were red with Samantha Dolan's blood. "Krantz, clear the house. Williams, clear the house, goddamnit."

No one was paying any attention to the house. If Sobek had been in there, he could've shot the rest of us.

I said, "It's clear."

Watts was still shouting. "Williams, secure the evidence. Wake up, goddamnit, and be careful in there. Do not contaminate the evidence."

Williams crept to the door, gun out and ready. Watts went over to a garden spigot, washed his hands, then took out his radio and made a call.

I draped my jacket over Dolan's face, not knowing what else to do. My eyes filled with tears, but I shook my head and turned away. Williams had stopped outside the door and was staring at her. He was crying, too.

I felt her wrist, but it was silent. I rested the flat of my hand on her belly. She was warm. I blinked hard at the tears, then put Samantha Dolan and everything I was feeling out of my head to concentrate on Joe.

I went to Sobek's garage.

Krantz saw me from the tree and said, "Stay out of there. It's a crime scene. Williams, stop him, goddamnit."

"Fuck you, Krantz. He could be out there killing someone else right now."

Williams went back to staring at Dolan. "She's really dead."

"She's dead."

He cried harder.

Watts called, "Cole, be careful. He could have the whole fucking thing booby-trapped."

I went inside without stopping, and Krantz came in behind me. Bruly came to the door, but stopped there.

The air was layered with drifting gun smoke. It was intensely hot and dark, with the only light coming through the open door. I turned on the lights with my knuckle.

Sobek didn't have furniture; he had weights. A weight lifter's bench sat squat and ugly in the center of the room, black weight disks stacked on the floor around it like iron toadstools. No one walked in front of the shotgun even though smoke still drifted from both barrels. Residual fear. Articles from the Times about the killings and Dersh and Pike were pinned to the wall, along with a Marine Corps recruiting poster and another poster depicting LAPD SWAT snipers.

Bruly said, "Jesus, look at this shit. You think he's coming back?"

I didn't look at him; I was looking for trip wires and pressure plates, and trying to smell gasoline, because I was scared that Sobek had rigged the garage to explode. "You don't rig a booby trap the way he's rigged this place and expect to come back. He's abandoned it."

Krantz said, "We don't know that, Cole. If we can get Dolan cleaned up fast enough, we can secure the area and wait for him."

Even Bruly shook his head.

I said, "You're really something, Krantz."

Bruly took a small book from a cardboard box, then a couple more. "He's got the Marine Corps Sniper Manual in here. Check it out: The Force Recon Training Syllabus, Hand-to-Hand Combat. Man, this turd is the ultimate wannabe."

Krantz opened the fridge and took out a glass vial. "It's filled with drugs. Steroid products. The guy's a juicer."

It wasn't much of an apartment, just one large room divided by a counter from a kitchenette, with a bath and closet. All I cared about and wanted was to find a slip with Dersh's address, or the clothes that Sobek used to dress as Pike -- anything at all that would tie Sobek to Dersh and clear Joe.

"Over here, Lieutenant."

Bruly found seven empty Clorox bottles in the closet, along with three .22 pistols and some ammunition. Two of the Clorox bottles had been reinforced with duct tape.

Krantz slammed Bruly on the back. "We got the sonofa-bitch!"

I said, "Dolan got him. You just came along for the ride."

Krantz started to say something, then thought better of it, and went to the door. He spoke to Stan Watts. Outside, a siren approached.

Leonard DeVille's original case file was spread across the kitchen counter, along with yellowed clippings about Wozniak's death, the lead detective's witness complainant list, and notes and addresses on all six victims. Karen Garcia's address was there. Her habit of running at Lake Hollywood, and notes on her route were there, as were similar notes on Semple, Lorenzo, and the others. It was creepy; like getting a glimpse inside a cold and evil mind that was planning murder. He had watched some of these people and charted their lives for months.

Krantz said, "I've got to hand it to you, Cole. You and Dolan made a right call. That was good work."

"See if there's anything about Dersh."

Krantz's jaw jutted, but he didn't say anything. Maybe, just then, he thought it was possible.

We were still shuffling through Sobek's planning notes when we came to my listing in the yellow pages, and a DMV printout showing my home address and phone numbers. Dolan's home address was listed, also.

Bruly whistled. "He has you, dude. I don't know how, but he knew you and Dolan were on him."

Krantz fingered through the papers. "He was all over Parker Center every day. He could've heard anything. He could've asked damn near anyone anything, and no one would've thought anything of it."

The way Krantz said it made me think that he and Sobek had had more than one conversation.

Bruly spread more loose pages, exposing a snapshot that was so wrong to this place and moment that I almost didn't recognize it. A snapshot of three boys talking to a teenaged girl holding a tennis racket. The girl's back was to the camera, but I could see the boys. The boy on the right was Ben Chenier. Two other snapshots of Ben were mixed with the papers, all three taken from a distance at his tennis camp in Verdugo. Lucy's apartment address was scratched on a corner of the DMV printout.

Krantz saw the pictures, or maybe he saw the expression on my face. "Who's this boy?"

"My girlfriend's son. He's away at this tennis camp. Krantz, this address is my girlfriend's apartment, this one's my home. That's the television station where Lucy works."

Krantz cut me off to yell outside for Watts. Somewhere out on the street, the siren died, but more were coming.

"Stan, we've got a problem here. It looks like Sobek was going to shut down Cole. He might be on the girlfriend, or the girlfriend's son, or on Cole's home."

Something sharp and sour blossomed in the center of me, and spread through my arms and legs and across my skin. I felt myself shaking.

Watts looked through the papers and photographs as Krantz spoke, and turned away with his cell phone before Krantz finished. Watts read out the addresses into the phone, requesting patrol officers be dispatched code three. Code three meant fast. Sirens and lights. Watts cupped the phone to glance back at me. "We got the camp's name?"

I told him. I was shaking when I borrowed Bruly's phone to call Lucy.

When Lucy came on, she was hesitant and contained, but I cut through that, telling her where I was, and that officers were on their way to her, and why.

Krantz said, "Cole, do you need me to speak with her?"

When I told her that Laurence Sobek had snapped Ben's picture, her voice came back higher and strained.

"This man was watching Ben?"

"Yes. He took photographs. The police are on their way to the camp now. They've dispatched the Highway Patrol."

Krantz said, "Tell her we have officers on the way to her, too, Cole. She'll be safe."

Lucy said, "I'm going to Ben. I'm going to get him right now."

"I know. I'll come get you."

"There's no way I could wait. I'm leaving now."

"Luce, I'll meet you there."

"He's got to be safe, Elvis."

"We'll keep him safe. Stan Watts is talking to the camp, now."

When I said it, Watts looked over and gave me a thumbs-up.

I said, "Ben's okay, Luce. The camp people have him. He's with them right now, and we're on the way."

She hung up without another word.

I tossed the phone back to Bruly on my way out the door, trying to ignore the tinge of accusation I'd heard in her voice.

The Verdugo Tennis Camp was a good hour east of L.A. in the rural foothills of the Verdugo Mountains. Krantz used a bubble flasher, and knocked a hundred most of the way. He left Watts to co-ordinate the surveillance of my home and Lucy's apartment, and spent much of the drive on his cell phone talking to Bishop. Sobek's landlady provided a license number, and both the LAPD Traffic Division and the Highway Patrol were alerted. The make and model of Sobek's Jeep were identical to those of Pike's.

Williams sat ahead of me in the front seat, crying and muttering. "A fuckin' shotgun. He about cut her in half with that goddamned thing. Motherfucker. I'm gonna cap that sonofa-bitch. I swear to Christ I'm gonna cap his ass."

I said, "We're taking this guy alive, Williams."

"No one asked you, goddamnit."

"Krantz, we're taking this guy alive. If he's alive, he'll cop to Dersh."

Krantz patted Williams's leg. "Worry about yourself, Cole. My people can handle themselves, and we're bringing this asshole to trial. Right, Jerome?"

Jerome Williams stared out the window, jaw flexing.

"We're bringing this man to trial, right, Jerome?"

Williams twisted around so he could see me. "I ain't forgot what you said. When this is over, I'm gonna show you just how goddamned black I am."

The sheriffs were already there when we arrived, four radio cars parked on the camp's dirt-and-gravel lot The camp administrators were talking nervously with the sheriffs, as, behind them, horses snuffled in their stables. Ben had been right: It smelled of horse poop.

Krantz hoped to spot Sobek and capture him, so he had the sheriffs park their vehicles inside the camp's barn, then spoke with the senior sheriff about setting up surveillance positions. We did all this in the camp's dining hall, a screen-walled building with unfinished wood floors. The kids were being held together in the boy's dormitory.

Other parents arrived before Lucy, collecting their children and leaving as quickly as possible. Krantz was pissed that the camp administrator, a woman named Mrs. Willoman, had called the families, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. If the cops tell you that a multiple-homicide killer might be dropping around, there aren't many responsible alternatives.

Lucy arrived ten minutes later, her face strained when I went out to meet her. She took my hand, but didn't answer when I spoke to her, and didn't look at me. When I told her that we were in the dining hall, she walked so quickly that we broke into a trot.