Troubleshooter (19 page)

Bear's exhale breezed over Tim's shoulder. "I'd say there's our probable cause."

Tim leaned on the window, which had been paint-welded to the sill. It gave with a creak. As Tim pried it open, Bear called for backup, requesting an ambulance and advising a stealth approach in case the suspects were still inside when the units rolled up. Guerrera took rear cover, his eyes darting nervously around the empty parking lot and neighboring buildings as Tim climbed over the sill.

Once he was in, Bear followed suit, then Guerrera. The air was dank, sweetened with the faint smell of mold. Tim tapped his knuckles to the Harley's craggy engine--faintly warm. He recognized the pan-head engine and the checkerboard skull pattern on the stretched tank from the surveillance shots of Goat they'd found at Meat Marquez's.

Weapons drawn, they followed the blood trail. Tim led the way, his wrists crossed to keep the barrel of his .357 nearly parallel with the beam of the flashlight.

Outside the office an embalming table gleamed, a stainless-steel anomaly among the industrial equipment. Tim paused beside it, Bear and Guerrera halting behind him. What looked like oil rippled in the table's gutters. Tim didn't require a closer look to know, but Guerrera's flashlight beam proved the liquid crimson. A puddle on the far side, then a wider path snaked back into the warehouse interior.

He heard Guerrera take a gulp of a breath, his own stomach knotting with the certainty of more ugliness ahead. Few noncombat experiences were more hideous than the slow-motion unfolding of a crime scene.

They wound through heaps of dilapidated machinery. A faint glow up ahead. A rumble from the interior announced footsteps. The sound of cheery whistling.

They eased around a partition. In the sole stroke of light cutting through the warehouse gloom, Goat tugged a woman's partially disemboweled body. He shuffled backward, hands gaffed into the front of her so they disappeared in the folds of her armpits. Her head lolled, hidden beneath a mask of tangled hair.

A desktop lamp, set on the concrete floor, provided meager illumination and funhouse effects. It threw Goat's pitted face into fierce relief and stretched his shadow up the wall, bending it across the ceiling. Between blinks the etched skull stared out from his glass eye.

Tim gestured for Bear and Guerrera to spread out along the perimeter of the darkness, then stepped into view, light falling across him like a sheet. "Hands up! Hands up!"

Goat jumped a bit at the intruding voice. He released the woman, smiling almost sheepishly, and raised his arms. The body didn't flop back to the concrete; her shoulders and upper back remained banana-curved, rigor mortis defying the laws of physics and propriety.

Both hands steadying the .357, Tim walked forward. A rectangular flap had been laid open in the woman's gut. A loop of intestine waggled from the gap, hanging like an ankh between her legs. Her face remained invisible behind a scraggly wall of orange-tinted brown hair. A few feet beyond them, a floor hatch angled back on its hinges, revealing a black square of crawl space.

Tim stopped a couple of yards from Goat, sights aligned on his upper sternum. The smell of the corpse reached him--a battlefield stench, the odor of Ginny on the coroner's table--and he looked up into Goat's marred face, feeling the cool air tingle across the band of sweat dampening the back of his neck. He thought of Dray drifting a few feet above the shoulder of the highway, hair on end from the impact.

The crisp report of a gunshot jarred him back into the present.

For an instant Tim thought he himself had fired, but then Guerrera's boots pounded behind him, Tim hit the ground, and Goat flashed into the darkness. Tim twisted to look over a shoulder, picked up Guerrera at the edge of the shadows, gun now pointed down, standing over a sprawled form. Bear charged past Tim after Goat, and Tim leaped up and followed him into a maze of modular partitions.

The whine of a bullet past Tim's cheek broadcast that Goat had located a gun. Tim and Bear split the aisle, backs to the partitions, stalking forward. A gooseneck in the path dumped them in the corner of the warehouse. The muzzle flashes of Goat's gun--pistol, semiauto, poking blindly around the corner--revealed a backdrop of concrete wall.

The slide of Goat's gun locked to the rear. The gun disappeared, and Tim heard the click of the mag dropping. He crossed the open space, shoulder-slapping the far partition, now within feet of Goat's position. Bear held down the wall just before the turn. Tim heard Goat's mag click into place.

He snapped his fingers at Bear, holding up his hand. Bear tossed his Remington across the four-foot span, the walnut forearm slapping Tim's raised palm. Goat's pistol poked back around the corner as Tim raised the shotgun and fired at the wall a yard away. The double-aught buck tore at the concrete, ricocheting around the corner.

As the thirty-five pounds of recoil shuddered Tim's torso, he registered Goat's scream. Bear rolled around the turn first, disappearing into the haze of concrete powder. Goat groped at his head, shrieking. He'd taken most of the pellets in the face. His glass eye was missing, lost somewhere in the darkness; fluid streamed from the socket and from his good eye. Bear kicked the gun from its loose dangle in Goat's hand and put him down on his chest. A knee in the back, a quick frisk--Bear was unparalleled at escort control--then the flex-cuffs cinched tight. Bear tried to hoist Goat to his feet, but Goat kicked and thrashed violently. Bear deep-grabbed the hair at the base of Goat's skull and pulled back and down hard, forcing his chin up. He kept the leverage firm and steady, forcing Goat to ride his chin up to his feet. As Bear steered him back toward the light, Goat babbled and sputtered, streams of blood matting his face. He was a fearsome sight.

Shoulders slumped, gun drawn but at his side, Guerrera stood over a body.

Diamond Dog Phillips.

Approaching, Tim noticed Guerrera's boot pinning down a .45; he'd secured Diamond Dog's gun but not picked it up. Tim called out, "Did you clear the area?"

Guerrera snapped into motion. Bear cuffed Goat to a forklift and left him whimpering. Tim shined his Mag-Lite at the banks of overheads, checking that they weren't rigged, then found a switch panel. Section by section, the warehouse flickered into light.

After a quick search, the three met up again in the open area. Bear followed up with backup--two-minute ETA. Goat had mercifully passed out, cuffed arm dangling over his head. The deep rumble of his breathing and his pulse--when Tim checked--showed strong vitals.

It did not surprise him when Dray weighed in.

So I neglected to mention maiming.

I didn't kill him.

Maybe not, but this is a pretty close second. Doubt he'll be talking much with his face blown off. Next time don't take me so literally.

Don't second-guess me on this one, Dray. If I don't put him down, he shoots me or Bear or both of us. My options were limited.

I guess you're right. And believe me, we don't want you ending up where I am. It's really dull, and the food sucks.

Goat shifted onto his back, mumbling.

Can't say I'm torn up inside. I mean, the guy's biggest contribution to society is putting a tourniquet on his arm when he masturbates so it feels like someone else is yanking him off.

Really?

Check his case file. At least he gets points for originality.

Tim crouched over the woman next. Her hands had contracted into claws, the finger webs already opaque. Not wanting to compromise the crime scene, he used a pocketknife to lift her snarled hair away from her features. It took some maneuvering, but he finally did. Bear, at his back, heaved a sigh. Tim looked at the familiar face, feeling a dead weight tugging on his insides. "Damn it," he said softly. He wanted to cover her but knew he had to leave her there for CSI, bare on the concrete.

Guerrera looked down blankly at Diamond Dog, his gun still at his side. He made a fist around his bangs, his mouth pulsing. Tim gently grasped his elbow and wrist and guided his Glock back into his hip holster, Guerrera barely noting his presence.

Fine lacings of blood, erupted from the chest wound, had stained Diamond Dog's T-shirt.

"He was gonna pick you off from the shadows. Guerrera spotted him first." Bear frowned down at the centered bullet hole, nodding approval at the shot placement. His eyes lifted to the girl, and Tim saw a glimmer of sorrow cut through the toughness. "Why the hell would you kidnap a girl from Chatsworth and cut out her stomach?"

Torture? Satanic ritual? Diversion? Tim shook his head. "That's what we have to figure out."

Guerrera's face had gone gray. Bear returned Tim's glance, catching his drift and nodding--get the kid some air.

"Rey," Tim said. "Come with me and wait for backup."

Once outside, Guerrera took a few hard breaths and gestured at the step. "Okay if I take a seat?"

"Of course."

Guerrera squeezed one hand in the other, both trembling slightly. It took Tim a few beats to recognize what he was muttering in Spanish as the Lord's Prayer. When Tim's shadow blocked the light across his face, Guerrera quieted abruptly, as if catching himself.

Tim crouched beside him, inhaling the crisp air. "You don't kill that guy, he kills me."

"I know."

Tim took note of his sick expression. "Remember this feeling. Don't get used to it."

Guerrera tilted his head, looking up at Tim. The streetlamp lighting smoothed out his skin, making him look like a college kid. He shifted his gaze quickly, embarrassed. "You have."

Tim rose. "That's why I'm telling you."

The cavalcade made a grand entrance--black-and-whites, unmarked cars, CSI van, two ambulances, Tannino's white Bronco bringing up the rear. Guerrera was on his feet instantly, puffing himself back up.

Tannino hopped out, animated and mouthy. "The warehouse clear? Then get every swinging dick outta there until CSI finishes its sweep." He took Guerrera's gun into evidence, talking past him at Miller. "Let's get him to the hospital. Simmer him down, maybe a sedative. And someone call the Hug Squad, get a counselor on the hook."

"I don't need to go to the hospital. Rack put a hole through Chief and didn't--"

"Rackley," Tannino said with undisguised ambivalence, "has been through this drill a time or two."

In the alley a garbage truck closed in on the Dumpster, forks sliding beneath the unit with a screech. Why was the loudest street work always conducted at 4:00 A.M.?

Bear jogged out, breathing hard, as if he'd just finished a 5k. "I took a turn through the office in there with CSI, looks to be whistle clean. Nothing in the drawers, the closet, trash can--" He stopped short, keyed to a sudden idea, and then ran across the lot, waving his arms. The Dumpster halted midrise. The trash-truck driver rolled down his window, talked to Bear, then lowered the unit back onto the ground and backed off it. Bear flipped up the top and hoisted himself, the unit nearly tipping over as he peered inside, the very image of his nickname.

The others watched with puzzlement.

"He looking for a late-night snack?" Jim asked.

Bear straddled the lip, the flashlight a yellow spray from his fist, then disappeared into the Dumpster. Tannino and Tim exchanged vaguely comic glances, and then Bear's around-the-fingers whistle split the air. Tim headed over, Aaronson and another criminalist instinctively pulling behind him. The Dumpster was nearly empty, though it reeked and the walls had rusted in patches. Three white trash bags gathered in the far corner like fat geese, branches and leaves poking through the plastic. Bear crouched, almost sitting on his heels, peering into the sole black bag.

Aaronson stiffened and offered the criminalists' refrain: "Don't touch anything."

Bear kept his head toward Tim, his flashlight bobbing as he clicked it back on--a variation of the no-look pool shot. Light shone into the cinched, fist-size mouth of the stuffed bag.

Bloody rags.

"Okay. We got it from here. Climb out over there. No, there. Thank you." The criminalists took over, prowling the unit, exchanging abbreviations and acronyms in the murmuring voices of lovers.

Tim and Bear arrived back at the warehouse as two fire-department medics wheeled Goat out. He'd regained consciousness, moaning quietly. Miller smirked. "Two down, three to go."

Jim lunged for the gurney as it passed, and it took Maybeck and Thomas to restrain him. "You piece of shit!" Shouting, he was still hoarse. "How you like it, motherfucker?"

Tannino glowered at Jim. "Shut the hell up, Denley. Back it down." He strode over, inserting himself between Jim and the departing gurney. To the others: "Let him go." The deputies released Jim, but Tannino stood before him, five feet seven inches of tough; even at a head's advantage, Jim didn't dare make a move past him.

The medics loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance. Scowling, the marshal looked from Guerrera and Miller to the cluster of deputies surrounding Jim--headaches all around. "Who wants to baby-sit Scarface?"

Malane appeared out of the tangle of personnel and vehicles. "Want me to take him for you? You guys have had a long day."

"Thank you, Jeff."

Bear shot Tim an irritated look behind Tannino's back. Malane climbed up into the rear of the vehicle, the doors slammed, and the ambulance pulled away.