The Sleeping and the Dead (28 page)

“Your wife took some of these photos before she died,” I explained. “These are from the camera's internal memory. It looks like she photographed the killer before he caught her.” It also looked like someone else photographed Endo arranging her body. Question was, who?

He slid to the floor, his mind in shock.
Buddy, you have no idea. Wait until I tell you she's still here, still inside this camera, trying to take a picture of the freak who murdered her.
Although I could see James was becoming overwhelmed, I still had too many questions. Questions that needed answers. “Why did Ashley go to the Playhouse? The building was supposed to be closed.”

“Monday night, she met some friends at Bosco's after photographing a party at Donovan Enterprises.” His words sounded practiced, almost robotic, as though he had recited them over and over searching for the same answers I sought. “She left alone about ten o'clock.” His story confirmed what Jenny had told me.

I tried to fill in those blanks, outlining the storyboard of her last moments. “Bosco's is behind Playhouse on the Square. Richard Buntyn's Explorer was found in the parking lot outside. She had taken Buntyn's picture before. She probably didn't think anything about walking up to him to say hello. She told her friends she was going to say hello to a friend before heading home. Instead, she found Endo in the Playhouse doing his thing. She took some pictures.” It occurred to me then how incredibly brave this woman had been, but her bravery hadn't saved her. It had cost her everything. She should have run, but she didn't know what she was up against. “Then Endo spotted her. Maybe he heard the shutter. My guess is he murdered her inside the theater.”

James was shaking now, worse than I ever had, even in my worst withdrawals. He looked like he would fly apart. So much must have rushed through his mind—anger, hate, fear, remorse. Guilt. The inescapable guilt of not being there to protect her, drawn away by his meaningless job as a glorified overpaid delivery boy. “So why didn't she call the cops? She had her cell phone!” he cried in anguish. He'd probably asked himself that question a thousand times, and there never was a good answer.

And here I was, dissecting the murder of the woman he obviously still loved more than life itself, because I had to know. I couldn't let her go now, and I couldn't go to him and comfort him in his hour of despair. I had to fit the pieces together. It was an addiction worse than smack, and I was made a monster by my need. I had used heroin to dull that need, make it recede into the brown fuzzy edges of existence, so I wouldn't lie there torturing myself with the faces of the ghosts whose murders I couldn't solve.

“By the time she knew what was happening, she may not have had a chance to call the cops.” My words not only made her last moments hopeless, they made them inevitable.

“Christ,” he whispered. Death came at her too fast to avoid. She had screamed and nobody but her killer heard it. She had struggled bravely and lost bravely. She never had a chance.

“After that, Endo drove her home,” I finished.

James struggled to his feet. He stared at the blank television. His chest rose and fell in shuddering gasps. He took a couple of steps, staggered and caught himself on the arm of the couch. I knew something was about to pop. He lurched another step and froze, a look of panic on his face.

I pointed to the bathroom. He dove for it and slammed the door behind him. I waited for the inevitable noises but it was several minutes before they came. Then they wouldn't stop.

 

39

I
T WAS BEGINNING
TO THUNDER
outside, a distant rumbling like an old man talking to himself in the next room. I drank my beer and scrolled through the photos of Endo's victims. Adam rang while James was still in the bathroom. I'd been dreading this call, but I answered. “I can't believe you're with him, Jack.” He called me by Sean's pet name again. That didn't make this any easier.

“With who?”

“James St. Michael. I know you're with him. Waters ran his plates.”

“You can send Waters away. I don't need protection,” I said.

“He killed his own wife!” He sounded utterly exasperated. He must have thought I had a death wish, fraternizing with a wife killer and blowing off protection from a serial murderer. At least he hadn't found the photos yet.

I said, “He didn't kill his wife.” I couldn't do anything about Endo, but I was ready to walk through fire to clear James.

“You sound so fucking sure.”

“I am sure.”

“Why?”

“Because I just found a photo of the killer standing over Ashley St. Michael's body. It was Endo. Endo killed Ashley St. Michael.” He didn't respond. Silence. It was like the call had dropped. Finally, I said, “Hello?”

“I heard you,” Adam said. “Where did you find the photo?”

I told him about the pictures in the Leica's internal memory. He was quiet again for a long time.

“Ashley was with friends at Bosco's that night, the same night Richard Buntyn was killed. Bosco's is behind the Playhouse on the Square. My guess is while she was leaving, she spotted Buntyn's car in the parking lot. Since she was a society photographer, she probably knew the guy. He was big in art circles, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. I wondered if Endo was out there, maybe driving by at this very moment, looking up at me. I backed into the shadow by my bed, just in case.

“Or maybe she knew Endo. He's in some of the other photos I found on her camera. There's one with Endo, Richard Buntyn and Cole Ritter at the governor's mansion, if you can believe it. So maybe she sees the backstage door open, she pops in to see what's up, say hello, whatever, but when she gets there, she finds Endo doing his thing with Buntyn's body. She worked a big party earlier that evening, so maybe her camera's memory card was full, because she used the internal memory to shoot the photos. She gets three or four shots before Endo hears the camera's shutter. He chases her down, they fight, and eventually he strangles her with whatever is handy, puts her in the trunk of her own car and drives her home. He sets up her body in the bedroom to make it look like somebody strangled her with her own shoes, then he gets the bright idea to lock the doors and make it look like the husband did it.”

Adam chuckled. “Bullshit, Jackie. How did he lock the door? Her keys were on the bed, inside the locked house.” That was the puzzle he had been trying to solve, and I finally had the answer.

“He found a spare key outside.”

“Outside, where?”

“In the flower box behind the garage.”

“Shit,” he swore. I couldn't tell whether he believed me or not. It was still pretty flimsy, evidence-wise, but it provided reasonable doubt. Not enough to convince a cop, but certainly enough for a jury. “How do you know that?”

“Because I found the key holder,” I said. “It's a fake frog. It was hidden in the flower box, but there's no key in it. Why hide a keyholder if there's no key?”

Adam didn't answer. The bathroom was quiet, too, not even any running water. I sat on the edge of the bed and felt for my baseball bat. It wasn't under the covers where I had left it.

Finally, Adam asked, “Who took the photo of Endo standing over the body?”

I didn't have a logical answer to that question. Pictures had a way of showing up in the Leica's memory all of their own accord. I couldn't tell him what I really believed. “This camera's kind of touchy. Sometimes it takes photos by itself.”

“Or maybe her husband took the photo,” Adam offered.

“From San Diego?”

“OK. His alibi is airtight. That's why he's still walking around. You've done some good work and surprised me a couple of times. Now let me tell you a story maybe you don't know. James and Ashley St. Michael were the hot new thing in town. Ashley had a free pass to every society event. She was gorgeous, and as you know, James is no slouch. He's a Goddamn Adonis, right?” I didn't need Adam to tell me that.

“Half the golf widows in town were plotting to get him in the sack. They tried and failed, numerous times. I have their depositions on file. He seemed utterly devoted to his wife, beyond reproach, too monogamous if you ask me. His story was just too good to be true. People were started to think he was gay. In any case, this whole time he's losing his shirt at the casinos and private poker games, playing against people who can afford to lose in one night what he makes in a year. Ashley's people are rich as the pope, and she had taken out a fat life insurance policy, but he can't get at that money if he kills her. Somewhere along the line, James meets Endo. Maybe he hires Endo to whack his wife so he can collect the life insurance…”

“Only he never collected it,” I interrupted.

Adam didn't break stride. “… or maybe he and Endo become lovers, and maybe after a couple of times together he drops Endo like nobody's business and Endo decides to get back at him, kill his wife and frame him for it. After what he did to Dave, you have to admit it fits his pattern.”

“Then that clears James,” I said.

“No it doesn't. How did Endo know about that spare key, unless James told him about it? He wouldn't plot her murder and risk everything on the chance he might find a spare key.”

“I found the empty key frog because I was looking for it. A lot of people keep a spare key outside.”

“And people change the locks when they move into a new house.”

“They bought the house in an estate sale.”

“I know that.” He sounded tired, frustrated with the investigation, exasperated with me because I wouldn't stop arguing with him. If Endo got away now, Adam would be blamed for it, not Billet, and certainly not Wiley. And here I was, wasting his time when he should have been tracking down the killer. He went on, “All I'm saying is Endo is the link. We never connected him before because none of his victims had an obvious relationship with one another. He was the only common point in all their lives. And their deaths.”

The bathroom door opened. James stepped out and leaned against the doorjamb. He pressed a wet towel to his forehead. He looked into the bedroom and saw me talking on the phone, then staggered to the couch and sank into the ratty cushions.

“I don't think Endo is a typical serial killer,” Adam continued. “He knew all his victims. That's why we couldn't pin him down. He doesn't fit the profile. He killed them to punish them, for whatever reason. My guess is he felt betrayed.”

“Any sign of him yet?” Adam still hadn't mentioned the photos I'd sold to Michi. I hoped they would never find them.

Fat chance of that. Who was I kidding? It was only a matter of time. To build the case against Endo, they would tear Michi's house apart, brick by brick, just to make sure there weren't any bodies hidden in the walls. My pictures would show up eventually, and that would be that.

“Nobody has seen the Murano since you spotted it this afternoon.”

“It may not have been the same one.”

“That would've been a hell of a coincidence,” Adam said. “I don't believe in coincidences. I don't believe Ashley St. Michael just happened to stop by the Playhouse the night Richard Buntyn was killed. I don't believe Endo just happened to find that spare key outside her house. There's something bigger going on here, something we can't see because we're too close to it. Which is why you've got to drop this guy, Jackie. James St. Michael stinks. His story stinks. I don't want him there with you.”

I lowered my voice to keep from screaming into the phone. “
You don't want him here?
Who the fuck are you to tell me what you don't want? If you're so worried about who I'm seeing, why don't you just ask me out yourself?”

“First of all, I'm your NA sponsor. It wouldn't be right for us…”

“That's bullshit.”

He interrupted me. “Second, I'm gay.”

Now it was my turn to sit there with my chin in my lap. I'd always assumed Adam was straight, a good heterosexual boy of the standard cop mold. A little uptight, sure, married to his job, definitely, but that wasn't exactly unusual for a cop, especially one moving up so quickly through the ranks. He never talked about his personal life, people he was dating, anything. I never suspected it was because he was gay.

“I thought you knew,” he said when I didn't answer.

“I didn't.”

“Does it make a difference?”

“No. Well, it does, of course, but not like that.” How could it? I was floored by his revelation, still off balance by the suddenness of it, and still angry at him for trying to direct my personal life.

“I wish you would trust me on this guy, Jackie,” he said.

“You're wrong, Adam.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“James is a decent guy.”

“Jackie, you've never been right about a man in your whole life,” he said. The bastard was right. That's why it hurt so much.

“I thought I was right about you,” I said, and hung up.

 

40

I
TURNED THE RINGER
OFF
and dropped the phone on the bed. I didn't want to talk to Adam if he called back, and he would call back. Any minute now. He always called back when I hung up on him.

James was lying on the couch with his arm over his eyes. I checked the front door to make sure it was locked. James sat up and looked at me over the back of the couch. “That didn't sound good,” he said.

“Sorry. You weren't supposed to hear.”

“I tried not to listen. You should have closed your door. But I appreciate what you're doing.” He rubbed his face with both hands, going from his chin up and over the top of his head, like a swimmer getting out of the pool. His eyes were puffy and dim in the light.

“It's nothing,” I said.