Nathan G. Cava was thirty years old, stood five feet ten inches off the ground, and weighed one hundred and eighty-seven pounds. He had blue eyes and blond hair-cropped short but not buzzed-and a tan complexion. From the width of his neck, he looked rugged. From the slope of his shoulders, more than just sturdy. Unfortunately, the information was ten years old. Everything after that read like a blank sheet of paper. Another black hole.
It was 7:00 a.m., Thursday morning, five days before Christmas. They had spent the night working out of the captain’s office with Barrera and Sanchez. Rhodes had a call into his contact over at the DMV and was sitting at his desk on the floor. Barrera was waiting on his friends in Washington, but hadn’t heard back and was snoozing in his chair. In another three hours, they would lose Sanchez because he was still locked into testifying in court.
Lena took a sip of coffee, comparing her notes with the interviews Ramira had conducted. Any doubt about the track they were on was completely gone now. The motive for the murders, ultra clear.
Joseph Fontaine had supervised the clinical trials for Formula D. The problem was that he had a financial interest in the outcome. According to Fontaine, both he and Tremell knew that the drug was dangerous before they won FDA approval and launched the advertising campaign. Jennifer Bloom had used her body to get close to Tremell and proved more than convincing. When she put the pieces together and ended the affair, she confronted Fontaine and threatened to expose the doctor with what she knew. Fontaine realized that he would be ruined either way and decided to talk. It seemed clear to Lena as she read his interview that Fontaine was looking for a deal somewhere down the road. That he thought he would be better off if it looked like he was cooperating and felt some degree of remorse for the things he had done.
But it would have been an upward climb for the wealthy pediatrician. Had he survived, the rock he was pushing never would have made it to the top of the hill.
Fontaine had run more than one clinical trial, yet only presented the FDA with the results from a single study that turned out positive. Everything real had been buried. Articles were written and published in medical journals that amounted to pure fiction. Key members of the FDA motivated by politics and religion were paid off with cash and the withdrawal of a new morning-after pill that Anders Dahl Pharmaceuticals had been developing. Fontaine admitted that he had lied for the money. And that Tremell knew that he was selling poison, but thought that he could fix the formula while he raked in even more cash. Kids were dying, but that didn’t seem to matter. From what Lena could tell, Tremell had been more concerned about his investor’s expectations that the new drug would be delivered on time.
She turned back to her notes. A few hours ago Rhodes had pulled an article published yesterday in The Times. Apparently, Tremell was at odds with several board members from his company over his annual bonus. The board had already agreed to give Tremell seventy-five million dollars for a job well done. According to the newspaper, Tremell thought he deserved a hundred million.
Lena tried to imagine what it must have been like when Tremell learned that Jennifer Bloom had played him for a fool. That it had been Tremell himself who gave her the goods. That she had seduced the old man and won him over until she could prove that he had killed her son.
The woman who cast spells.
The words had been resurrected. Flushed with new meaning and an overwhelming power that burned clean and true.
They had their hands on the motive. But Lena knew that they still didn’t have a case.
She gazed across the table, letting the reality soak in. Sanchez was sorting through the ATM and surveillance pictures of the witness. As he spread them out, Lena eyed the photos and noted the leather jacket and Dodger cap. The dark circles under the kid’s eyes and the wasted expression on his face. Avadar hadn’t checked in yesterday from the bank. That could only mean that their witness hadn’t made another try with Bloom’s ATM card. That he was still missing. Still lost-or maybe worse.
“You need to call the coroner’s office,” she said.
Sanchez looked up. “You think he’s dead?”
“You need to make the call,” she said. “Get them copies of these pictures and ask them to go through the list of ODs they’ve picked up over the last three days.”
Sanchez agreed. Before he could say anything more, Rhodes burst into the room.
“Anyone here ever heard of Vinny Bing, the Cadillac King?”
Barrera shrugged. Lena shook her head.
“He’s got a show on cable,” Sanchez said. “It sucks.”
“Well, he just called and said he’s got Cava’s Hummer.”
Lena spotted the Hummer from a block away. It was hard to miss because it was parked in front of the dealership’s showroom door. But even worse, two guys were outside setting up movie lights.
She glanced at Rhodes and took another hit of coffee. She hadn’t slept in two nights. She was grinding now. On the move and feeling the furies in her gut. They didn’t have time for this.
Rhodes pulled up to the showroom. As Lena jumped out, she turned to one of the lighting techs.
“Where’s Vinny Bing?” she said.
“Inside the deal tent.”
Rhodes closed in on the man. “What the fuck’s a deal tent?”
The guy gave him a look. “It’s inside,” he said. “You can’t miss it, dude.”
They entered the showroom and heard Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song” over the PA system. It was still early and no one was around. Lena spotted the neon sign over the tent’s entrance and pointed at it. let’s do da deal. Pushing the curtains away, she entered with Rhodes.
A kid wearing jeans and a T-shirt dropped a legal pad on the table and looked up. When some weird guy standing behind the desk in his boxer shorts turned, his eyes got big and he grabbed his costume off the chair.
“What’s up with all this,” the guy was saying. “The cops are already here.”
Lena watched him step into his king costume, noting the diamond necklace and the rings on his fingers. His face was pale, his eyes swollen. The king looked like he had a hangover.
“Are you Vinny Bing?” she said.
The kid in the T-shirt answered for him. “Who do you think he is? And why’d you get here so early? We need more time to set up.”
“Set what up?” Rhodes said.
“The lights. The shots. You’re blowing it, man. Don’t you want to be on TV?”
Rhodes glared at the kid. “No,” he said. “We don’t want to be on TV. Now get out of here.”
“What are you talking about? We need to shoot this, man. This’ll be the climax for our whole season. This’ll make the King of Caddies the King of cable TV.”
“You heard the detective,” Lena said. “Police business. Get out.”
The kid looked at Bing for help. After a moment Bing snapped his fingers and pointed at the door.
“Later, Mr. Hollywood. We’ll do our deal. You do yours in B mode.”
The kid grimaced, then grabbed his legal pad and stormed out. Lena turned back to Bing. He was still getting into his costume. When he opened a box and clipped on a wireless microphone, Lena thought she understood what B mode meant. Tape was rolling. She glanced over at Rhodes and caught the look in his eyes. He had made the connection as well, but there wasn’t time to care.
“Tell us about the Hummer,” she said.
Bing smiled through a yawn. “Customer Cava shows up here last Saturday. The dude wants to do business and trade up to an SRX Crossover. Says he wants the V-8. Says he wants the rocket ship.”
“Were you guys shooting video?” Rhodes asked.
“ ’Course we were. Customer Cava sat in that chair and showed me the cash.”
Lena paused a moment, thinking about the man in the window she had seen in Venice the other night. The man who walked out of the next building and raced off.
“What color was the Crossover?” she asked.
“Radiant Bronze,” he said. “One of our best.”
The news settled in. Lena had seen Cava. Not his face, but the way he moved. The way he carried himself and walked away from her into the fog. Cava was the one keeping an eye on the apartment. He was looking for the witness and having the same luck they were. As she tossed it over, she made a mental note to check in with the coroner’s office and see if the witness’s body had turned up. Her hunch had more kick to it now.
“Tell us about Cava,” she said.
Bing clipped the wireless transmitter to his belt and starting buttoning up his costume.
“The man’s got the shakes,” he said.
“You mean that he was nervous because of the cameras.”
“No, ma’am. Customer Cava’s got the shakes. The dude’s a user. A space man. That’s why he wanted the rocket ship.”
Lena traded looks with Rhodes. Bing picked up on it, then yanked open a desk drawer and tossed a Taser in front them.
“The guys found it underneath the driver’s seat when they were detailing the car,” Bing said. “At first we thought it was a toy. You know, a Christmas toy for kids. Then I start think’n it’s some kind of ray gun, man. An electric gun. I put two and two together. Customer Cava’s into something weird. The parallel universe so to speak. I got up this morning and made the call. Time for the king to do his best.”
Lena drew a pen from her pocket and slid the Taser closer without touching it. It was an M-18. A third generation Taser used by special forces and SWAT teams that ran on eight AA batteries, yet hit the subject with fifty thousand volts. Lena checked the safety. She had seen the weapon used in a demonstration just a couple of months ago. The blast of electricity lasted for five seconds. Some people took the hit and were deluged with uncontrollable muscle spasms. Some froze in a standing position, while others tumbled over and hit the ground. But what interested Lena was the data port just below the battery indicator light. The M-18 had a microprocessor. A chip that recorded the time and date of every shot.
Her laptop was in the Crown Vic. She looked past Bing out the window and found the car in the lot. Hidden behind the Hummer she could see a man with a video camera pointed at them. When she glanced back at Bing, she saw his face turned toward the window slightly and realized that they were shooting through the glass. The king was playing to the camera.
She turned to Rhodes. “I’ll be right back.”
She ran outside for her briefcase, ignoring the video crew by the Hummer. Returning to the office, she found a place away from the window, slipped on a pair of gloves, and connected the Taser to her computer. As the information rendered on the screen, she listened to Rhodes warn Bing that Cava was dangerous, then ask for his paperwork. When Bing picked up the phone to call the finance department, Rhodes joined her.
The M-18 had been fired five times last Wednesday night.
Five bursts of fifty thousand volts at a young woman who weighed only one hundred and twenty-two pounds. The first occurred at 10:27 p.m. The second, four minutes after that. Then nothing until 11:15 p.m. Shots four and five were logged in at 11:38 and 12:01. According to the Andolinis, Cava showed up at the garage on Barton Avenue around eleven. That meant that the first two jolts went down in the parking lot at the Cock-a-doodle-do and were used to subdue the woman. The last three were fired in the garage for other reasons.
Lena slipped the Taser into her briefcase. By the time she packed up, a timid man with bleached blond hair and black roots entered with Cava’s file. They opened it on the table. As she read the contact information, she noticed Bing standing beside her in full costume. The king was pointing at the documents and pretending to be involved for his audience outside the window.
Lena turned back to the file. After a moment, the timid man with the bad dye job cleared his throat.
“That’s not his address,” he said. “He doesn’t live there anymore. He made a mistake and wrote the wrong one down.”
Lena didn’t say anything. When Rhodes flipped the page over, an envelope fell out. The letter had been sent by the dealership to Cava’s address and returned by the post office.
“It came back yesterday,” the timid man said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just a thank you letter we send out after every purchase.”
Lena glanced at the envelope. There was a bright yellow preprinted label beside the address. Beneath the words return to sender was an explanation. Cava’s application for a change of address had run out and the post office was no longer forwarding his mail. But what struck Lena was the label itself. Cava had used a real former address. At one time he had lived there.
She turned to Rhodes and caught the glint in his eye.
“He’s not hiding,” he said. “He lives here. He’s got a home in L.A.”
Rhodes gazed out the window at the Hummer. She could see him putting something together, and suddenly realized what it was.
“The navigation device.”
Rhodes rocked his head up and down and turned to Bing. “Are the keys in the Hummer?”
“Yeah, sure. We just moved it.”
Lena followed Rhodes out the showroom door. Ignoring the video camera, they rushed over to the Hummer and climbed in. Rhodes turned the key, then switched on the navigation device and began toggling through the menu until he reached a list of previous destinations Cava had programmed into the system. She saw Fontaine’s address. Then the victim’s apartment on Navy Street in Venice. But it was the list of options at the bottom of the screen that seemed the most important right now. The button marked home that would have been programmed by the dealership at the time of purchase for the original owner of the car.
Rhodes pressed the button. Lena’s eyes zeroed in on the text. They had him. Nathan G. Cava lived in Universal City.