Lena watched two cops handcuff Tremell, read him his rights, and lead him away from his son’s body in the grass. Tremell stared at the ground as they passed through the darkness. His lips were quivering, his shoulders hunched. Dean Tremell had been ruined, so there was no real reason for anyone to say anything to him. No reason to call him a piece of shit. But someone from the crime scene team muttered it anyway. Lena doubted that he heard it though.
She looked up the hill and saw Rhodes interviewing Tremell’s driver, then turned back to Barrera. They were standing by the ambulance while the EMTs prepared Jennifer Bloom for the ride to the hospital. Lena had bummed a cigarette from one of the paramedics. She couldn’t help it.
“I knew that it was a bad idea,” Barrera said. “I knew that when you saw the chief in the car, you’d think the worst.”
“You were right,” she said. “I did.”
“I knew that you’d never believe me. That you wouldn’t pick up your cell. It was a mistake, but he wanted to be there. He insisted on it.”
“Where is he?”
“On his way downtown for the press conference.”
She checked her watch. It felt like four or five in the morning. When she saw that it was only 10:30 p.m. it threw her until she remembered that she hadn’t caught a decent night’s sleep in three days.
“The chief wanted to be the one who told you,” Barrera said. “He wanted you to hear it from him.”
“Hear what?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter anymore.”
She took a drag on the cigarette. “What did he want to say?”
Barrera flashed a wry smile, then pulled back on it. “He wanted to warn you about Klinger. He thought that you were in danger if you went home. Like I said, Lena, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“I guess it doesn’t,” she said. “Who was the guy in the passenger seat?”
“His new adjutant.”
“Hand picked from Internal Affairs?”
“No. Abe Hernandez from Pacific Division. I’ve known him for ten years. He’s a good man.”
Barrera’s cell started ringing and he stepped away to take the call. Lena turned back to Jennifer Bloom. She was strapped down on the gurney and about to be lifted into the ambulance. She reached out for Lena’s hand and held it. Bloom didn’t say anything. Just met her eyes.
“It’s okay,” Lena said. “Everything’s good now. I’ll stop by tomorrow so we can talk. You want me to call your brother?”
“It might be a shock if he hears my voice. He’s been through a lot.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Bloom released her hand. Lena stayed until the ambulance drove off. Then she walked halfway up the hill and sat down in the grass. She was watching the criminalists from SID swarm the crime scene and trying not to think about what a hot shower might feel like. Trying not to think too much about climbing into bed. Her ears were still ringing from all the gunshots. Her body was so sore it felt like someone had tossed her out of a moving car.
The investigator from the coroner’s office hadn’t arrived yet and the bodies were still laid out the way they fell. Justin Tremell was too far off to really make out, his corpse muted by the fog. But she could see Dobbs and Ragetti clear enough. One face up, the other, face down.
She took another drag on the cigarette, the body count preying on her mind. As she got to her feet and looked up the hill, she saw the coroner’s van backing into position at the edge of the parking lot. Ed Gainer hopped out and spotted her in the haze, then motioned her up to the van.
“What’s with your cell, Lena?”
She pulled the phone out of her pocket and checked it. The battery was dead.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Madina was trying to reach you,” he said. “He had something he wanted you to see.”
She followed Gainer to the back of the van and watched him open up. It looked like he had made a stop before this one. A single body bag was already onboard.
“What’s he want me to see?”
Gainer shrugged. “I don’t know. He said that when you saw it, you’d understand what it meant. You know what Madina’s like, Lena. Sometimes he goes cryptic on you like just maybe he did one too many autopsies that day. After a while it would have to get to anyone. All those dead bodies. It sure as hell gets to me.”
He laughed, then rolled the body bag closer to the rear doors.
“What are you doing, Ed?”
He turned and gave her a look. “He wants you to see this. It’s Denny Ramira. He got started on the autopsy, then stopped and said you needed to take a look first.”
Lena tried to pull herself together. She had already seen enough. She needed the day to end and needed it bad. Taking another look at Denny Ramira’s corpse felt like it was pushing her over some psychological edge. She watched Gainer unzip the bag, then pull the plastic open. Saw Denny’s battered face and eyes. That meat thermometer still in his chest. But even worse, she caught the odor venting out of the plastic and thought that she might lose it.
Gainer reached inside the bag and fished out Denny’s left arm. Then he switched on his flashlight and turned over the dead reporter’s hand. All of a sudden, Lena was wide awake. Her mind, clear as a day with the man in the moon.
“Do you know if they took a picture, Ed?”
Gainer nodded. “It’s documented. It’s a matter of record. After they got the shot, Madina stopped the autopsy and loaded him in my van. What is it?”
Lena zeroed in on the pin stuck in Denny Ramira’s left palm. The palm that she couldn’t see when she found his body in the kitchen because he had clenched his fist in a death grip. Denny had been a crime-beat reporter and a good one. He would have known from experience that by clenching his fist at the time of his death he was unleashing a chemical reaction in his body. That his fingers would be locked like a bank vault until rigor mortis set his body and finally released it. That he could keep his secret for more than a day. And that he could buy enough time to tell Lena exactly who murdered him by jabbing the pin into his own palm and holding on to it for the rest of his life.
Just the sight of it cut to the bone.
She parted the body bag and gazed at Ramira’s face for a long time. Her doubts about his murder had begun the moment she set eyes on that meat thermometer. She had known from the lack of blood that it had been an afterthought. A play that followed the murder but had nothing to do with it. Ever since that moment she had suspected that Cava probably wasn’t good for it any more than Klinger could have been. Over the past hour she had come to the conclusion that Dobbs and Ragetti made the kill. The two bruisers seemed to fit the bill. The two ex-cops with a history of physical violence. The two thugs whom Tremell had said were listening to Ramira’s phone calls.
But now she knew with certainty that it was none of the above. That the play had been a weak attempt to link Ramira’s murder to the rest and let Cava take the fall for everything. After all, the play explained why Cava spent so much time staring at the picture of Ramira’s dead dog during their interview. He was looking at the photograph the same way anyone would have if they were seeing it for the first time. But even more, it explained why Cava had needed time to think her offer over. And it explained why he had called her on the phone. The things he had said to her and his reasons for saying them.
Nathan G. Cava had seen it, too.