The Collector (5 page)

“Where is he?” David asked now, not touching the drink.

Meredith kept staring straight ahead. “I don’t know.”

“Hiding. Like a coward.”

Her head snapped around. She gave him a venomous look. Only for Owen did she ever dare put up a fight. “Owen is working. You should know—he does work for you, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t keep track of every
employee,
Meredith.”

Of course he’d called the Newport Beach offices. It was the first thing he’d done on the drive home. According to his assistant, Owen was conveniently out. An art opening for some friend down in Laguna.

David remembered throwing the cell against the dashboard, losing it. He could still see that image of Mimi in his head, her photo in the paper bringing back thoughts of Michelle and her death.

When they’d first started taking Owen to Dr. Friedman, he’d explained how Owen had somehow gotten it all mixed up in his head, the collection thing. Because of the stories David had shared with his son. Apparently, the world of the occult did not make for good bedtime conversation.

Owen had been too young to understand where his dad was coming from. In his sessions, he kept talking about the Moon Fairy. When Dr. Friedman asked David what that meant, he’d feigned ignorance. But he knew.

The Moon Fairy was one of several bedtime stories that David had shared with his son. Like Gilgamesh, the Moon Fairy was about a man’s quest for immortality. In the tale, a magician offers to make an elixir for the king that will make him immortal. For his potion to work, the magician would need 999 of the youngest and most beautiful children of the kingdom. The magician assures the king of the elixir’s success if the king also includes his own daughter. But the girl’s mother, the Moon Fairy, saves her by turning the girl into a rabbit and taking her to the moon.

David didn’t have a clue what the big deal was, but he’d kept quiet, knowing that Dr. Friedman would probably start blaming him again for all the kid’s problems. Like it was some kind of child abuse to tell Owen a story?

David knew he’d made mistakes, sure. Losing his temper and punishing Owen. And maybe he had kept the kid a little on edge with his tales about the occult, sometimes using his knowledge as leverage to put Owen in his place. How was that any different than the stories parents told about the Bogeyman? But Dr. Friedman explained how that, too, had messed with Owen’s psyche. Funny thing, how it was always the parents’ fault.

That’s when David realized Dr. Friedman was just like everyone else, completely full of shit. Back then, they hadn’t made the connection between Owen’s eyes and any psychological condition. Still, David had his own theories about his son’s twisted behavior and how to handle it.

Up until this morning, he’d thought he’d done just that. Neutralized the threat. David clenched his jaw. How could Rocket have let him down?

“Don’t you want the drink?” Meredith asked.

For a moment, he’d actually forgotten she was there. He took a long, hard look at her, the mother of his child.

He tried to remember who she’d been all those years ago. A feisty and elegant woman educated at Smith College back East, she was the consummate diva, the only child of Judge Martin Wescott, a man who held more than a little influence in this town.

David had never loved Meredith, true, but he’d respected her. Back then, he’d believed she was a great choice as a life partner, someone who could reign supreme among the pseudo society of Orange County, the famed OC.

Well, he couldn’t have been more wrong. And God, did he hate her for it.

He picked up the martini and ceremoniously placed it in front of his teetotaler wife. “You drink it,” he said, leaning forward menacingly. “You’re going to need it, darling.”

It was all he had to say. Almost a silent
boo!
Meredith jumped to her sensible Cole Haan loafers and slid the martini glass back onto the tray. She sloshed vodka over the sides of the glass the whole way to the door.

“My wife,” he said, almost laughing out loud. How many other things had she fucked up in his life?

He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted to the core. He needed to regroup, call Rocket, his right-hand man, and get him back on the job with Owen. David didn’t have the luxury to sit here and feel sorry for himself.

He stood and punched the code into the remote once again. He walked back inside the vault as the door whooshed open. Maybe he’d always known Owen wasn’t cured. That it was all an act, Owen showing up from his travels abroad all repentant and asking for another chance.

With a sigh, David braced himself over the opened drawer, staring at the tablet and necklace housed there with such loving care, realizing that he’d need to start over now that Mimi was dead. Which meant calling Sam.

“Shit.”

He was about to close the drawer, lock up tight and take Meredith up on that martini, when something caught his eye. The pattern of the beads circling the Eye, the central crystal…he hadn’t realized it before.

He looked closer now, his heart stopping, just stopping.

There, at the back of the necklace. Was a bead missing?

He looked closer, counting quickly. He knew exactly how many beads should be circling the Eye: twelve. Only, no matter how many times he counted, he came up one short.

Shit. Shit!

He couldn’t catch his breath. He thought of Mimi Tran’s last prediction. All that crap about the danger of invisible things or something like that. He hadn’t paid the least attention, focused only on that slight glimmer of life she could bring to the Eye when she held it.

Like a blind man, he patted the black velvet liner, as if indeed the missing bead had somehow become invisible. It had to still be there, safe and waiting.

The floor seemed to drop out from under him. His knees hit the carpet as he grabbed for the open drawer to stop himself from careening face-first to the ground. His chest felt tight and hard and heavy, like cement. He thought he might be having a heart attack.

That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

Those had been Mimi’s last words to him, he was almost certain of it. Like all of her prophecies, it was cryptic, something that would require careful interpretation.

That’s what he’d paid Mimi to do. See the future. Help him in his quest to find that precious path to immortality.

Only, Mimi was dead now and a precious piece of the Eye was missing. Soon enough, the police would come a-knocking, a deadly distraction when he needed all his concentration.

The fact was, David Gospel didn’t fear anything as mundane as the police arriving with a search warrant.

If only….

T
he precinct in Westminster wasn’t much. After the clock tower and its Tudor splendor—a tribute to the city’s English namesake—the landscape degraded into utilitarian government offices. Seven and Erika worked for the Crimes Against Persons unit.

With a population just under ninety thousand—nearly forty percent Asian—the city averaged two murders a year. Seven and Erika were the only homicide-robbery detectives. Given the city’s budget, they didn’t have the luxury of limiting their caseload to murders like Mimi Tran’s. Homicide-robbery shared space with family protection and the gang enforcement unit, the idea being that, during major investigations, everyone came together to work as a team.

Which didn’t usually include the mayor. Unless, of course, the case landed on the front page, with the potential of being there for a nice, long stay.

Currently, the post of mayor was held by a woman with the unfortunate name of Ruth Condum-Cox—Dr. Ruth (with a nice long roll of the
R,
just like the sex therapist and talk-show personality), but only when she wasn’t around to hear that quaint little sobriquet.

Seven had often thought that if your name was Condum, you should probably have the presence of mind to steer clear of a man named Cox. But not Dr. Ruth. She’d taken it to the next level and hyphenated.

But then what did he know? Memorable name like that? It might just work on a campaign poster.

Ruth Condum-Cox had a face that said she should lay off the plastic surgery. Hard to tell her real age, but she was simulating her late fifties pretty well. She’d made her money in real estate and favored power suits. She’d run on a tough-on-crime platform, giving her more than a few friends on the force, including the chief of police. Chief Flagler now hovered over Seven, acting like the Tran case was one hot potato he wanted served on someone else’s plate.

“The last thing we need is to let a case like this put Westminster on the map,” Condum-Cox said, jabbing her finger at the newspaper. “Look what Scott Petersen did to Modesto, for Christ’s sake. Not to mention Michael Jackson and that fiasco. Jesus, the overtime alone will kill us.”

Seven looked over at Erika. Day two into the Tran investigation and they were already getting heat from the brass to wrap things up?

“Mimi Tran had no gang affiliations that we know of.”

This scintillating piece of good cheer was provided by Detective Harold Pham, a new face to the family protection unit. Pham was half American, half Vietnamese, and liked playing Johnny on the spot. Given the audience, he wasn’t likely to miss his shot.

Condum-Cox jumped on it. “We need to follow up on just that sort of thing. What else do we have?”

Seven looked at the chief, wondering how long he was going to let the game of Let’s Play Detective roll along. Since when did the mayor’s office lead an investigation?

“No weapon, no motive…nada,” Erika said, flipping through the file. “The autopsy is scheduled for later today.”

Condum-Cox frowned—or at least she made an attempt. Not much got past the Botox. “Autopsy? But I thought the cause of death was obvious. She was stabbed, right?”

“Multiple times. But we still need the medical examiner to confirm she bled out,” the chief said.

Condum-Cox nodded. Suddenly, she stiffened. She turned a wide-eyed stare on Seven, as if just realizing something.

“Detective Bushard, your brother was recently convicted of murder.”

It wasn’t a question.

Seven felt himself flush. “He pled guilty to second degree, yes, your honor.”

Seven could see the gears turning in the mayor’s head. A lead detective with a colorful background like Seven’s wouldn’t help her cause, not if she wanted to keep the networks off their backs.

The look she gave the chief was priceless.

“Detective Bushard and Detective Cabral are our most seasoned investigators. They have a top-notch record,” the chief said, coming late to Seven’s defense.

Not to mention they were the only two detectives in homicide for the city of Westminster—with a caseload that made Seven more than once wish he could clone himself.

Of course, none of that mattered at the moment. The long hours he’d put in; the tremendous responsibility he’d shackled on like a ball and chain, costing him his marriage. Hell, what was personal happiness compared to bad publicity for the city? He could almost hear fifteen years on the force being flushed down the crapper.

“Chief, I hate to interrupt, but—” Erika tapped her watch “—Detective Bushard and I have an interview with a vital witness for the Tran murder.” She glanced anxiously at Seven. “No promises, but this could be the break we need.”

Suddenly, all worries of a
60 Minutes
segment vanished from the mayor’s porcelain face. “Well, goodness gracious.” Condum-Cox attempted a smile. “Proceed, of course.”

Seven grabbed his jacket, following Erika’s lead. “This might take a while.”

“Not a problem,” the mayor said. She waved them off, turning to the chief and the crestfallen Pham, who would be staying behind.

Outside, the sun felt warm on Seven’s face. “So,” he asked Erika, knowing full well she’d just bailed his ass. “What’s our hot date?”

She pulled on her Christian Dior sunglasses. They weren’t even fakes. She said spending money on shit like that made her
feel
rich.

“Starbucks.” Looking more like a starlet than a homicide detective, she headed for the car, a tan Crown Victoria. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a latte.”

Erika ordered a vanilla latte—nonfat, decaf, sugar-free.

“What’s the point?” Seven asked, grabbing his double espresso from the barista.

“A girl’s gotta watch her figure.”

“Right,” he said, holding the door open so that they could sit outside. “What are you, a size two?”

“Puhleeze!” She sat down at one of the cement benches. “Size four. That size two shit is for anorexic models with boob jobs.” She leaned forward, showing a hint of cleavage exposed by her button-down shirt beneath her jacket.

She cocked a single brow and lowered her voice to theatrical huskiness. “These babies are real.”

“No kidding?” He held back a smile, trying not to give her the satisfaction of cracking up.

She winked. “I figured you’d know the difference, cowboy.”

This time he did laugh. Ricky had been a plastic surgeon in Newport Beach before the AMA suspended his license. He’d had stories. The fact was, a boob job here was about as ubiquitous as a Lexus or a Mercedes on the 405 Freeway.

Seven took a sip of his espresso. “What’s going to happen when there’s no secret-weapon witness that we conveniently had to interview? Urgently? The chief is going to chew your ass.”

She rolled her eyes. “Give the man some credit. The chief knows what’s up. Dr. Rrrruth—” she rolled the German
R
“—may pull the strings, but that doesn’t mean the chief has to like it.”

Seven shook a finger at her. “You know, for someone who rocketed up the ranks by strategic ass-kissing, you sure don’t know what’s good for your career.”

“The key is
strategic.
I’m no Pham.” She wrapped her hands around the latte. “The sad fact is, he’d actually be a good cop if he wasn’t so busy climbing over bodies to score points.”

Seven took a minute, focused on the espresso, waiting for the levity to dissipate. Eventually, he told her, “I wish you hadn’t put it on the line like that with the mayor.”

Again, she gave a roll of her eyes. Erika had an arsenal of facial expressions, like a sexy raised brow or a killer smile. “But I did, so let’s forget it, okay? Now, help me come up with something the chief
will
like.”

He’d been thinking about the case all night, unable to get that image of Mimi Tran out of his head. He and Erika had been going over their notes from the witness interviews, the mother and daughter who had found the body, as well as neighbors. That’s when, like some celebrity evading her paparazzi, the mayor had made her entrance, the chief in tow.

“It’s a blank slate right now,” Seven said.

“Yeah?”

Erika grabbed a notebook from her purse, one of those mailbag types that could carry the kitchen sink if she needed. He’d seen smaller suitcases.

“Blank slate,” she said, slapping down a pen on the notebook for good measure. “At your service.”

He shook his head and picked up the pen. That was the problem with him and Erika: their curious meeting of the minds. They were a good fit.

He gave her a hard stare. “I wasn’t kidding. I don’t want you going down with the ship, okay?”

Which was exactly what would happen. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Since Ricky hit the six o’clock news, Seven’s own life had gone upside down. And he wasn’t near getting his act together. Now, murder and the mayor had landed on his doorstep for good measure.

“I said forget it. Now here—” she placed a dot at the center of the page and wrote “Tran” over it like a label “—is our murder victim.”

She drew several lines radiating outward and labeled the first one “occupation—psychic.”

“We start with Mimi Tran’s client list.” She drew several more lines radiating from there, each presumably representing possible clients and suspects. “We have her laptop and her PDA.”

“There was also a desk calendar back at the crime scene.”

“Exactomundo.” Erika tapped the page. “So we find out who saw her last and why.”

Going back to the center, she drew another line. In capital letters, she wrote “BLACK ARTS.”

“The bird?” he asked.

“It wasn’t exactly a scene from a Disney movie, now was it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You ever see
Snow White?
” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “That queen.”

He drew his own line and wrote “Fucking Bizarre.”

She smiled. “That, too.”

“Maybe we look for someone who thinks Mimi Tran shouldn’t be dispensing doom and gloom.”

“She gives some really bad mojo to a client. They begin to think they can erase the prophecy by getting rid of Tran.”

“As good a motive as any,” he said.

Erika drew another line and put a big question mark at the end. “The bead inside the bird’s beak. It was weird. When I held it up to different light sources, incandescent or fluorescent, it changed color. Like somebody turned on a switch, blue to red. No blurry transition, like those mood rings in the seventies. And then there was this sharp white line down the center, making it look like a cat’s eye.”

“Remember the symbols on the wall?” Over her question mark he wrote “All-seeing Eye.”

Erika cocked her head. “Could be.”

Hurriedly, he drew another line radiating out from the question mark, now in the mode. “And those wooden idols on the desk, they looked old. Museum quality. Maybe the bead is some sort of artifact?” He wrote the word as he said it, in capital letters.

“Something looted from an archeological site? Maybe sold by dealers on the black market?”

“Like the Getty.”

Just recently, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles had hit the headlines. And not in a good way. There’d been quite a brouhaha concerning the Italian government’s claim that the Getty’s newest collection of masterpieces had been looted from ancient ruins and laundered—just like drug money. Most controversial were pieces like the
Morgantina Apollo.
The black market made it almost impossible to ascertain the history of these important pieces because, by necessity, the laundering process destroyed evidence about the origins of the artifact.

Museums like the Getty were credited with stimulating the illegal trade in antiquities. In an unprecedented move, the Italian government had filed criminal charges against one of the curators, claiming collusion with the dealers who’d sold the museum the collection.

Seven reached for his notebook and flipped to the hand-drawn symbols he’d copied from the crime-scene walls. He turned the notebook for Erika to look at.

“So there’s eyes painted on the wall, and the bead has a cat’s eye thing going.”

“And the victim is missing her eyes. Maybe it’s not so complicated,” he said. “Putting it in her mouth like that. Drawing the image with blood on the wall. Could be a warning of some kind. She was in on this looting deal and double-crossed someone?”

“Maybe.” Erika took a sip of her latte, looking out toward the street. “Ever heard of the evil eye?”

He finished his coffee and tossed the cup into a nearby trash can, making the rim shot. “The evil eye? Come on. I thought you said you didn’t believe in that stuff?”

She shrugged. “But I grew up with
that stuff
. From the day I was born, I didn’t go out in public without my
azabache
,” she said, holding up her wrist. She wore a gold bracelet from which hung a piece of jet.

Seven knew she wore the bracelet out of nostalgia. It had been a gift from her mother. Erika explained about how
el mal de ojo,
or the evil eye, was usually transmitted inadvertently by someone who was envious or jealous. The story would go that a mother would take her new baby into town and a childless woman would say something like, “Oh, what a pretty baby.” Next thing you know, the kid has a fever or is vomiting. An
azabache,
or piece of jet, protected its wearer from the evil eye.