They ran across the street into the garage. Rhodes pointed at the Crown Vic backed into a space beside the guard shack. The car looked like it had been to the body shop and returned before the job was done. It was primed, but not painted-the color of dusk, the color of junk-gun-metal gray.
“I’ll drive down,” he shouted. “You can bring us back.”
They jumped in, and he fired up the engine. Hitting the strobes on the dash, he pulled onto the street and accelerated through the red light. Ten minutes later, they were rolling down the Santa Monica Freeway at a ragged eighty-five miles an hour. Bobbing and weaving their way through heavy traffic directly into the winter sun.
Lena lowered her visor. As she watched the city go by at high speed, her mind began to drift and she looked back over at Rhodes. He hadn’t said a word since they left Parker Center. She could see him thinking something over. She could see the sadness in his eyes. Rhodes was a detective-three with ten years more experience than her. But he was more than that. If the timing had been different, they easily could have become lovers.
“You okay?” she asked.
He turned and glanced at her.
“You were on the phone when I walked in. Was it your sister?”
He nodded. “They’ve set a date. Her operation’s on Monday.”
“You going up?”
“Tomorrow night,” he said. “I’ve been talking to her off and on all morning. I left a message on your machine at home. You just haven’t gotten it yet.”
He grinned at her, then turned back to the road. Lena knew his sister was all that he had left. His parents were gone and there were no other siblings. Like Lena, if his sister’s health failed, Rhodes would be the last one standing.
“What did she say?”
He shrugged. “She was talking about bees.”
“What do mean, bees?”
“Honeybees,” he said. “The kind that fly around in the air.”
“Okay. So why was she talking about honeybees?”
“She says they’re dying. It won’t affect her place because they grow lettuce. But her neighbor keeps orange groves. If all the bees die, then there’s no way to pollinate the trees. She’s not worried about her surgery on Monday. She’s worried about her neighbor losing his farm. Kids growing up without knowing what an orange is. I guess that’s why I love her so much.”
Another smile spread across his face-warm, and quiet, and bittersweet. Turning back to the road, he took the Lincoln Boulevard exit, made a right on Ocean Park and a left on Main. They were driving through Venice now, two blocks from the beach. When they finally reached Navy, Rhodes killed the strobes and idled slowly down the narrow street. Jennifer McBride’s apartment was in the middle of the second block on the right-a three-story brick building that had the look and feel of a halfway house.
He pulled in front of the entrance. As they got out, Lena gazed at the place and suddenly felt uneasy. She looked at the other apartment buildings pressing against the sidewalk. She could see the ocean at the end of the street. A single palm tree swaying in the cold and breezy air.
“You sure you really want to park there?”
She heard the voice but didn’t see anyone on the sidewalk. It had been a man’s voice-abrupt, verging on rude-the direction camouflaged by the wind. As Rhodes moved in beside her, he pointed to a window on the first floor. It was open but remained blank, everything inside concealed by a rusty screen.
“Is there a problem?” Rhodes said.
“You can read the signs better than I can,” the man said. “That’s a no parking zone.”
“We’re cops.”
“Yeah, right. Driving a piece of shit car like that. Gives new meaning to the phrase L.A.’s Finest.”
They moved closer to the window. Although the man remained hidden behind the screen, Lena could see the light from a large TV in the living room. The man was watching cartoons.
Rhodes grit his teeth. “What’s your name?”
“Lovely Rita, the meter maid.”
“The one on your driver’s license, I mean.”
“Ted Jones. What’s yours, champ?”
“Come closer so we can see you, Mr. Jones.”
Rhodes opened his ID and held it up. After a moment, the man moved into the window light and that feeling inside Lena’s gut began to glow a little. Jones was a burnout and anything but lovely. A small, troll-like man, about forty years old, who hadn’t bothered to get dressed today. All he had on were a pair of boxer shorts and an old tank top. By all appearances he hadn’t showered or shaved in a week. Although he was balding, thick waves of greasy black hair hung over his ears. His arms and back were carpeted with body hair as well. But it was his eyes that gave Lena pause. There was something wrong with them. His irises looked as if they were fading, like a rogue wave that washes up on the beach and dissolves into dry sand. She couldn’t get a read on the color because it was slipping away.
She traded looks with Rhodes, then cleared her throat.
“You the manager?” she asked.
“No, I’m not the manager. I own the place.”
“You spend a lot of time by this window?”
“What’s with the fifty questions, lady?”
“We want to take a look inside Jennifer McBride’s apartment,” she said.
“Why don’t you try ringing the bell? If she’s home, I’ll bet she’ll answer.”
Lena moved closer to the window. “We’re from Robbery-Homicide,” she said. “Jennifer McBride’s not home. Now get some clothes on and open the door.”
Jones remained quiet, staring at her with those eyes. She watched them flick down to her waist and spot the gun. After a moment, the reason why they were here finally seemed to register on his face and he let out a gasp.
“She’s dead.”
“Open the door,” Lena said.
“Give me a second.”
Jones vanished into the room. When the door buzzed, Lena pushed it open and they entered a small lobby. The carpet was threadbare. The place, cheap and rundown. As she eyed the staircase, the door to apartment 1A opened and Jones walked out in a pair of tattered jeans. He was wearing eyeglasses now and jiggling a set of keys.
“Follow me,” he said.
They climbed up to the second floor, the steps creaking below their feet. When they reached the landing, Jones led them across the hall to apartment 2B and inserted the key.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Lena said.
“A couple of days ago, I guess.”
“Wednesday?”
Jones nodded. “She walked out, heading for the beach. Must have been around three in the afternoon.”
“How well did you know her?”
“She paid her rent on time.”
“Did she have a lot of friends?”
He turned and looked at her through his glasses. The lenses were scratched and dulled by fingerprints, yet still magnified his damaged eyes.
“I never saw her with anyone,” he said, pushing the door open. “Now what am I supposed to do? Rent’s due in a couple weeks. Who’s gonna pay for this?”
Lena suddenly became aware of the man’s body odor.
“We’ll let you know,” she said. “And we’ll need that key.”
“I’ve got half an idea to pack her shit up and move it down to the basement. I could have the place rented in an hour. This close to the beach, there’s a waiting list.”
Rhodes turned sharply. “You wouldn’t want to do that, Jones. You wouldn’t even want to walk inside this place until we say so.”
“But I own the building. I want my fucking money.”
“Forget about your fucking money,” Rhodes said.
He took a step toward Jones. Lena could see him sizing up the vile little man, trying to bridle his emotions. She was struck by the differences between the two. Rhodes towered over Jones by at least a foot and was dressed in a light brown suit, a crisp white shirt, and a patterned tie. His presence was raw and powerful, his voice, dark and quiet.
“How long has she lived here?” Rhodes was saying.
Jones paused a moment, his eyes shifting back and forth. “About a year,” he said.
“You run a credit check?”
“Nobody moves in without one.”
“Then give us the key and get McBride’s paperwork. Wait for us downstairs.”
Jones started to say something, but looked at Rhodes and stopped. He removed the key from the ring and handed it to Lena. When he was finally gone, they stepped into the apartment and closed the door.
A moment passed. Rhodes shot her a look, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Jones was a bottom-feeder. A lot of bottom-feeders migrated to Venice. As the silence began to settle in, Lena pocketed the key and tried to focus on the victim. Jennifer McBride’s presence.
They were standing in the foyer with a clear view of the entire apartment. She could see the living room and galley kitchen through a set of French doors. To her right, the bedroom and bath. She turned and noted the table beside the front door. One or two days’ worth of unopened mail sat in a basket next to a lamp and a copy of the LA. Weekly that had been folded in half. She turned back to the living room and calculated the floor plan: it couldn’t have added up to more than three hundred square feet. A small one-bedroom at the beach. But unlike the rundown building, the apartment was clean, the paint was fresh, and there was a certain peace here. An innocence that seemed to match the innocence she had seen in the victim’s eyes.
She held on to that image as she slipped on a pair of gloves and followed Rhodes into the living room. She glanced at the hardwood floors, taking in the couch and chair. Although the TV appeared new, everything else looked as if it had come from secondhand shops and yard sales.
“She lived modestly,” Rhodes said. “She didn’t have much money.”
Lena turned and noticed the shelves built into the near wall. While the top shelf remained empty, the bottom two shelves were stuffed with at least fifty paperbacks.
“And she was a reader,” Lena said.
She moved closer and scanned the titles, recognizing most of the authors. Every book on the shelf was a mystery published within the last year.
She glanced back at Rhodes and saw him moving toward the double set of windows on the other side of the couch. The curtains were drawn but were made of sheer lace and provided a soft, even light that filled the room. When he pulled them open, Lena looked past the fire escape at the close-up view of a brick wall and understood why the curtains had been closed.
She crossed the room, spotting the ashtray outside the window. The next building was so close it barely covered the width of the fire escape. She gazed at the rusty steps, following them down to the first floor and the narrow alley that ran between the buildings. As her eyes rose up the brick wall on the other side, they came to rest on a window. She hadn’t seen it until now because of the angle. There was a man in the window. Another deadbeat like Jones, only this one was wearing a wool cap and had a pair of binoculars. This one seemed to get off by peering into other people’s windows.
“Nice view,” Rhodes said.
“He’s staring at us. You think he’s waiting for Jennifer McBride to come back?”
“She’s not coming back,” he said. “And this is Venice. Let’s keep going.”
They moved into the kitchen. As Rhodes checked the cabinets and drawers, Lena examined the refrigerator and what was left in the coffeepot. When she didn’t find any mold beginning to collect on the coffee’s surface, her mind turned to Art Madina. The pathologist couldn’t give her an accurate time of death, but thought that the murder occurred the night before the body was found. Between this and what Jones had told them, Lena now had tangible evidence that the pathologist was right.
Jennifer McBride was murdered on Wednesday night.
Rhodes followed her out of the kitchen. They worked methodically, scouring the small apartment without talking. Lifting seat cushions, searching the foyer closet, sifting through the mail and finding a utility bill and three credit-card offers from a bank that advertised on television and got people hooked on high interest rates. Reaching the bathroom, Lena noted the shower curtain fastened to the wall and scanned the tile for blood spatter. When she knelt down to examine the tub, she found a thin film of soap residue and took a swipe with her gloved fingers. The fragrance matched the bar of soap set on the wall tray, not a detergent that might be used to clean up after dismembering a body.
Rhodes closed the medicine cabinet and they stepped into the bedroom. There was a window on the right, the curtains open. This time the view didn’t face a brick wall or some lowlife trying to sneak a peek. This time Lena could actually see the Pacific Ocean. Although much of the view was blocked by a condo in the distance, the bed appeared to be set at just the right angle so that McBride could wake up in the morning and see the beach.
As Rhodes started rifling through the chest of drawers, Lena stepped back and took in the rest of the room. She noted the iPod docking station on the bedside table. Another paperback was beside the clock radio and cordless telephone. When she went through the closet, she didn’t find anything but clothes.
Jennifer McBride had been abducted in a parking lot and taken somewhere before she was murdered and dumped in Hollywood. But this wasn’t the place. This wasn’t the crime scene.
Lena watched Rhodes search through the bottom drawer as she thought it over and tried to quiet her disappointment. They hadn’t found much. Jennifer McBride may have only been twenty-five-years old, but all she owned was a single set of sheets. A single set of towels. Her kitchen was stocked with minimal accessories, just enough to get by. She didn’t have a CD player and speakers. Instead, she relied on an iPod. She didn’t read hardcover books, but went through paperbacks at about one per week.
Money may have been an issue in her life, but there was something more here. Something trying to break through the surface. After a moment, it dawned on her.
Everything in the entire apartment was portable.
With the exception of the furniture that came from secondhand thrift shops and probably cost less than a couple hundred dollars, everything else could have fit into the trunk of a compact car.
But there was something else. Something more difficult to pin down.
Her eyes made another sweep through the room and stopped on the bedside table. There was a snow globe sitting beside the lamp and telephone. She hadn’t noticed it before.
“Is something wrong?” Rhodes asked.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to lose the thought. Instead, she moved around the bed and picked up the snow globe. Inside the heavy glass sphere was a detailed model of Las Vegas. When she shook the globe, a thick cloud of snow whirled around the Bellagio Hotel and Caesar’s Palace, then settled down to the bottom where the streets were painted a bright gold.
She looked over at Rhodes as that stray thought finally jelled.
Everything was portable. But even more important, there was nothing personal here. They had made a first pass through the entire apartment and found nothing personal at all.
Not a single photograph. Not a letter or postcard from a friend. Nothing that would point to the victim’s life. What she cared about or who she loved. Just the books she had read since moving in a year ago and this snow globe.
The phone began to ring from the bedside table. Lena glanced at it and realized that the message light was blinking. After two rings, the machine clicked and went silent. Thirty seconds later, the speaker lit up and the caller’s voice filled the room. It was a man’s voice, and he sounded old and more than a little nervous.
“This is Jim, uh, Dolson,” the man was saying. “I’m trying to reach Jennifer. I’m in town from Cincinnati and, uh, saw your ad in the LA. Weekly. I’m definitely interested in some of that massage therapy-if you know what I mean. I’ll be here for a couple more days. If you’re available on short notice, please call me back. I’m staying in Century City at the Plaza.”
The phone clicked. Then the room filled with dial tone, and all the innocence was gone.