Killer Ambition Page 11

  The shallow grave was discovered by a biker, and the first responding officer, having heard about Hayley, had the good sense to call Bailey—a phone call that sent us screaming down the freeway and winding up the Santa Monica Mountains within the hour. Those steep, narrow roads would’ve made me nervous on a clear day, but on a day that was still dark with the threat of another downpour, and asphalt that was slick with rain and oil—not to mention the occasional patches of thick mud—my heart jackhammered so hard I had to remind myself to breathe. Each hairpin turn gave me a view of the thousands of feet I’d be falling to my death if Bailey made one wrong move. By the time she pulled in behind the patrol cars parked against the side of the mountain, my stomach was in my throat and I had to get out and take several deep breaths to keep from puking.

  “Where the hell are we?” I asked when I felt like I could pass for normal.

  A tall, dark-haired uni with a runner’s body who’d come out to escort us answered, “God’s Seat, on Boney Mountain.” He leaned down and peered at me. “You okay?”

  Apparently I was wrong about passing for normal. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s a tough ride. Especially for the passenger.”

  And especially when the driver ignores the brake. I appreciated his kindness. And as we followed him down the trail, I also appreciated the fact that I’d been at home when Bailey called, which gave me the chance to change into jeans and hiking boots. We were easily two thousand feet up, and the torrential rain had left the path slippery as ice.

  We paused at a split in the mountain that afforded a view stretching from the ocean to the valley. It was almost eight p.m., but there was still some daylight left and it was peeking through the heavy cloud bank. I could see why they called it God’s Seat. Even under dark, cloudy skies it was breathtakingly beautiful. After a few moments, our guide moved on and we eventually came to a small clearing encircled by crime scene tape. In the center of the taped-off area was a partially washed-out mound of dirt; the rain was still trickling across the path it had forged. Protruding from the earth was a waxy forehead and nose and an outstretched arm. But I couldn’t see enough to make out a face.

  As I stood on my tiptoes to get a better look, a deep, gravelly voice that sounded vaguely familiar drew my attention.

  “How long you gonna keep me here? You know, I got work to do, just like you guys.”

  On the far side of the taped-off circle, I saw a big guy wearing a black bandanna around his head Hulk Hogan–style. Even from twenty feet away, I recognized Dominic Rostoni, highly successful custom motorcycle dealer and white supremacist gang leader. Bailey and I had run into him on our last case, and I knew he lived just off Mulholland in Calabasas—not all that far from this place. This mountain was probably a great ride for bikers.

  Bailey was conferring with the officer who made the first response. I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to Dominic.

  “What’re the odds?” she asked.

  “Pretty good, when you think about it.”

  Bailey did, for about a second, then nodded. We made our way over to his side of the crime scene.

  “Hey, Dominic,” I said. “Long time no see.” I didn’t offer to shake hands.

  He looked up with a frown, then his expression cleared. “Yeah, I remember you. Hey, can you tell these guys to let me go? You know where to find me.”

  “You found the body?” I replied.

  “Yeah. Came up for a smoke.”

  I further assumed he didn’t mean cigarettes. Just the thought of navigating these roads on a motorcycle while high on…anything, gave me vertigo.

  “You touch anything?” I asked.

  He looked offended. “What you take me for? An idiot?”

  The true answer was “Yes, you neo-Nazi asshole.” But sometimes the truth does not set you free. I did believe he was smart enough not to mess with a dead body unless he was the reason it was in that condition. And, obviously, he must’ve called the cops as soon as he found it, because I doubted they’d be doing routine patrol here in this weather.

  “What were you really doing out here, Dominic?”

  “Really, I was just out for a ride.”

  “Right after a storm like this.” I raised an eyebrow.

  Dominic sighed and looked away for a moment. “Wife and I had a fight. I needed some cooling-off time. Soon as the rain stopped, I went out for a ride. Didn’t expect to wind up here, tell you the truth…”

  “And you called the cops?”

  He nodded and glanced toward the mound of dirt. “Poor kid. Got one of my own, you know.”

  I didn’t know. And I wasn’t thrilled to hear that these cretins procreated. I restrained the impulse to ask what his kid was doing with his life. I didn’t want to hear he’d joined the “club.”

  “You come here pretty often?”

  “Maybe once a month.”

  “You happen to notice anything else unusual?”

  Dominic shook his head. “Even if there was, with this weather it’d be long gone anyways.”

  Anyways. Didn’t he say that last time too? This stuff made me nuts. “Anyway, Dominic. There’s only one. Right?”

  He snickered briefly. Guess I had mentioned it last time.

  “Yeah. Anyway, I didn’t see nothin’ out of the norm.”

  I wondered if he was smart enough to use the double negative on purpose, just to mess with me, but decided that was probably giving him too much credit. Besides, bad grammar was the least of his deficits. I looked at Bailey, who was suppressing a smile with only partial success.

  “Your information still the same?” she asked him.

  “Yeah. ’Course.”

  Bailey gave the officer next to Dominic the high sign. “You can let him go. And thanks.”

  The coroner’s wagon pulled up as Dominic’s bike gave a throaty growl. He steered out to the road and touched two fingers to his forehead in a salute, then roared off. I didn’t recognize the coroner’s investigator who jumped out of the wagon. He was a smallish black man with a neat mustache and goatee.

  Bailey and I introduced ourselves as he stood outside the tape and gloved up.

  “George Harrison.”

  I wanted to say “You’re kidding, right?” but his serious expression gave me the answer. Without another word, he ducked under the tape, and Bailey and I followed him. He immediately turned back and frowned at us.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to stay back until I’m done.”

  “Mr. Harrison, how long have you been with the coroner’s office?” Bailey asked, her tone on the borderline between irritation and genuine pissitivity.

  “With this office, four months. In Seattle for five years, and in New York for ten.” He said it without a hint of self-importance; it was just a statement of fact. That itinerary explained his accent—as in, he had none whatsoever. That was a lot of years on the job for someone who looked like he was in his twenties. Our skepticism must’ve shown, because he added, “Black don’t crack.”

  The slang was so out of place in his King’s English voice, I chuckled in spite of myself and I saw that Bailey did too. George gave us a little smile and unwound a bit. “You can watch from over there right now. When I get ready to wrap him up, I’ll let you in for a closer look.”

  Bailey and I stood back and watched. George was one hell of a thorough worker—calm, careful, slow, and steady. After what felt like hours, he gestured to us. “Take a look, but stay back.” He left to get the body bag and gurney.

  I scanned the area around us briefly and imagined what it would be like to be alone up here in the dead of night. Scary, desolate…and worst of all, isolated. No one would ever hear you scream. Bailey and I picked our way carefully across the river of loose rocks and mud that had streamed from the grave. As our steps brought us closer, I steeled myself for a sight that was likely to be gruesome. But nothing could have prepared me for what lay inside the crime scene tape. The body of Brian Shandling, né Maher.

 
; 20

  As I stared at the pale, wet face, body frozen in rigor, his aunt’s words repeated in my head: “gentle soul,” “sweet boy.” Her words had fallen on cynical ears at the time. Now, I was more inclined to believe they were true. And if they were, this was yet another child who’d been ripped from the world before he even had a chance to live. I wasn’t ready to deal with the tragedy of another young death this soon. My only path of escape was to focus on the evidence.

  “George, can you give me an estimate for time of death?” I asked.

  “Just a very rough one. I’d say he’s been dead for about three days now.”

  Three days. That would put his death very close in time to Hayley’s. We’d get a tighter frame when the autopsy was done for both of them—though, contrary to popular belief, it wouldn’t be down to the minute, or even the hour. Usually, the best a coroner can do is narrow the time of death down to a window of a few hours. Even then, an estimate as narrow as a couple of hours requires more information than a pathologist can gather on his own. For example, stomach contents can be helpful, but without certain information like a witness who can say when the victim last ate, or how fast that victim digests, or how much physical activity the victim engaged in after the meal, and so on—the coroner can’t give a precise time of death. Since no one we’d spoken to so far had seen Brian after Iris Stavros had a glimpse of him on Monday, we weren’t likely to find anyone who could say when he last ate. We’d need other information to prove conclusively that he’d died shortly before or after Hayley. I motioned for Bailey to join me and we moved outside the crime scene tape to a spot where we could talk.

  “You could’ve told me who the victim was,” I said, more than a little irritated at the way I’d been blindsided.

  “Sorry. It’s just that the cop wasn’t sure.” Bailey glanced at me. “It’s just…I didn’t want to jump the gun…”

  …given the way I’d reacted to Hayley’s death. “I get it.” I gave her a grim nod. “I’m going to step out on a limb here and say Brian didn’t buy that ticket to Paris.”

  Bailey nodded. “And it seems a lot less likely that he killed Hayley. But he was definitely in on the kidnapping—”

  “And we know he sent the ransom note, so there’s a good chance Hayley was in on the kidnap-ransom scheme.”

  “Agreed. But now we know someone else has to be involved—”

  “Someone who was trying to make it look as though Brian was still alive and planning to leave the country—”

  “So they could frame Brian for Hayley’s murder,” Bailey said. “Now we know why that ticket to Paris was purchased under Brian’s alias.”

  While Bailey and I were talking, I saw Dorian arrive. This time she started by taking soil samples from the area and collecting leaves from the shrubs. That reminded me of Fryman Canyon. I went over and greeted her.

  “Hey, Dorian. Glad it’s you out here.”

  “Makes one of us. What do you want?”

  Dorian’s gushing could be so embarrassing. “I was just thinking that we also had a scene at Fryman Canyon. I don’t know if you remember, that’s where the—”

  “—ransom was dropped. Of course I remember. I already took samples from there. Any other brilliant thoughts you’d like to share?”

  “Nope, all good.”

  Since Dorian didn’t seem in need of any further assistance, I looked around and noticed that George and his burly assistant had already loaded the body into the wagon and George was about to get into the driver’s seat. I walked over to him.

  “Can you give me some idea as to cause of death?”

  “There was an obvious puncture wound in the left side of the neck, and a deep slice across the carotid. Probably drew the knife from behind from left to right.”

  So cause of death for both Hayley and Brian was knife wounds. “Can we ask Steve to compare the wound tracks to another victim’s?”

  “Hayley Antonovich?”

  I nodded.

  “Good idea. I’ll put in the request. Steven testified in a case I had up in Seattle. Great witness.”

  Steven Diamond is the coroner’s criminalist who knows and does just about everything you can think of. One of those things is to determine what kind of blade created a wound. That’s a pretty unique skill that, as far as I know, no one can do as well as Steven, because he compiled a database of wounds that were known to have been made by specific knives. As a result, he might be able to get fairly precise about what kind of knife was used to inflict our fatal wounds. In this case, with two victims killed close in time, I was hoping Steven could tell us whether the same, or at least a very similar, weapon was used on both of them. And that would help to prove both kids—I couldn’t help but think of them that way—were murdered by the same person. It would never be as precise a match as bullets or casings would’ve given us, but it was a heck of a lot better than most criminalists could do with knife wounds.

  George got in, started the van, and slowly pulled out. I didn’t envy him having to maneuver that bulky vehicle on these wet, winding roads. Come to think of it, I wasn’t all that wild about doing it in a car. My thoughts wound back around to Fryman Canyon and the ransom money. I found Bailey talking to one of the unis and motioned her over.

  “Did anyone check Brian’s bank accounts? Or find out if he had a safe-deposit box?” I asked.

  “No safe-deposit box, and his bank account had twenty-seven bucks and some change. No ransom money anywhere. Until now, I just figured he had the money on him.”

  “So maybe our third party was in on the kidnapping plan and killed them both so he could grab the money—”

  Bailey nodded. “And get rid of the witnesses.” She gestured to the rest of the team, who were packing up to leave. “Let me wrap up here and we can take off.”

  It was nearly ten o’clock now, and the darkness that had settled over the mountain was pierced only by the sliver of light from a crescent moon. The air temperature had dropped at least thirty degrees, and the hulking black hostility of the terrain was starting to get to me. I thought about Brian drawing his last breath in this harsh, lonely wilderness. Had he still been alive when the killer shoveled the dirt over him? The thought left me short of breath and achingly sad. My cell phone rang, breaking into my morbid reverie. Startled by the sound, I reflexively took the call.

  A voice cried out, “I j-just heard about Hayley!” Choking sobs intervened before the caller could continue. “It’s all my fault! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

  It took me a moment to identify the voice through the tears. “Mackenzie?”

  “She told me she’d be okay! And I believed her!”

  “Take a deep breath, Mackenzie.”

  A sharp, ragged intake of air, then, “Sh-she told me…she said everything would be okay—”

  “You mean Hayley?”

  “Y-yes.” Sniffling and a few hiccups. “She said she’d be gone for a while and I wouldn’t be able to reach her. I might hear something that sounded bad, but I shouldn’t worry, and I couldn’t tell anyone. She said don’t tell, just don’t tell. She said she and Brian had a plan and everything was going to be great. But she didn’t tell me—” The rest of the sentence was cut off by more racking sobs.

  “—what the plan was?”

  “No. She just said not to tell anyone. So I didn’t. She said not to…” Mackenzie trailed off.

  “Mackenzie, you are not to blame. Do you hear me? You didn’t know what she was planning.” But Mackenzie was now crying and hiccupping uncontrollably. “Mackenzie? Is your dad there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know about all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you please put him on the phone? And stay right there, okay?”

  “Okay.” Then, I heard her call out, “Dad!”

  Seconds later, a male voice said, “Yes?” We exchanged names and then I asked Mackenzie’s father to watch her closely and not to leave her alone. I’d talk to Mackenzie my
self, in person, and try to get her to understand she shouldn’t blame herself for any of this. He promised to stay at her side day and night and said he’d get her to her therapist tomorrow.

  If anyone understood survivor’s guilt, it was me, and thankfully, I could tell that Mackenzie’s father would do what had to be done. I didn’t know whether Mackenzie would do something crazy. I just knew I couldn’t take any chances. I wasn’t about to see yet another young life be destroyed by this nightmare of a case.

  21

  I pulled Bailey aside and told her what I’d just learned.

  “So Hayley and Brian were definitely in on it together,” she said.

  “And most likely were killed by the same person—”

  “Or persons—”

  “—who had to have known about their plan in time to grab the money and kill them,” I said. “No way any of Hayley’s buddies would’ve done it.”

  “No. We’ve got to dig into Brian’s life—find out who he was hanging with.”

  But whoever it was had deliberately laid a false trail for us. I decided two could play this game. “Do you think we could keep Brian’s death under wraps for a while?”

  “And hope our mystery man keeps dropping false clues?” Bailey asked. I nodded. “Brian’s aunt will keep for a little while. And I can warn these guys”—she tilted her head toward the officers on the scene—“but I can’t promise how long—”

  In a case like this, no secret was going to keep for long. And we couldn’t let Janice find out about her nephew from the press. “But it’s worth a try, right? With a little more time, our mystery man might poke his head above the radar—at least once more.” And with a little luck, he’d poke it up nice and high, where I could snap it off.

  Bailey gathered all the unis together and gave them the word not to file any reports or talk about what they’d seen until she gave the okay. They all nodded their agreement, though I noticed a couple of skeptical expressions.

  I was exhausted in a way that was as much emotional as physical. Bailey too seemed a lot worse for wear, which was unusual for her. Through many all-nighters, she was always the one who looked disgustingly fresh when the rest of us seemed ridden hard and put back wet. But now her eyes, her mouth, her shoulders, all sagged, as if pulled down by fifty-pound weights. She wrapped up with the remaining officers and we trudged down the muddy, rocky trail to her car.