Skies of Ash Read online

  “I screwed up a little,” Colin admitted. “The abuse thing. Oops.”

  “Can’t show your cards like that,” I told him. “Defense attorneys would argue that we went in there suspecting Christopher or Cody Chatman.”

  He swiped at his mouth, then slowly exhaled.

  “It’s all BS, this happy, perfect family,” I said.

  He nodded at the Chatman house. “Happy, perfect families don’t buy guns and write cryptic letters. Happy boys don’t burn up their sister’s Wetty Betty or lock them out of the house. Someone’s lying. I know it.”

  “It’s Betsy Wetsy, Colin.” I yawned. “And it’s been a long day.”

  Colin stretched and his muscles bulged against his tired T-shirt. “Let’s grab a beer.”

  “Can’t. So Melissa Kemper.”

  “What about her?” He ruffled his spiky blond hair.

  “We need to figure out how she’s connected to this,” I said, pulling out my cell phone.

  “We need to figure out a whole bunch of things.”

  Having no voice-mail messages from Greg made my shoulders slump.

  “What did you tell me when I caught my first murder in this city?” Colin asked, watching the phone slip back into my jacket pocket.

  “You eat an elephant one bite at a time.” Lieutenant Rodriguez had told me the same thing on my first murder.

  “We’re at the tail right now,” Colin said.

  “The ass is next.”

  “I don’t mind eatin’ ass,” he said, cracking a bright smile.

  I groaned. “TMI, Taggert. TMI.”

  “All I’m sayin’ is, we’ll get through it.”

  “ ‘Vanity of vanities,’ ” I said. “ ‘All is vanity.’ ”

  Our life is a lie. It will be over soon and what we are will no longer be.

  What was vanity?

  What was a lie?

  And what would be over soon?

  12

  THE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PSYCHOLOGIST JULIAN JAYNES ONCE SAID, “Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size that everyone does not know everyone else.” And this thought stayed with me, like a stone tumbling around my belly, long after leaving that living room klatch with the residents of Don Mateo Drive. Jaynes had been right: Ruby and Nora and the rest didn’t know jack about the Chatmans. Worse: they didn’t know that they didn’t know jack.

  As a rookie detective, I had worked one case in which a gardener for an apartment complex had smelled something dead wafting from unit 4F. The gardener knocked on the door but no one answered. He retreated to the landlord’s office, and the landlord used a master key to enter 4F. There, on the brown-stained living room carpet, lay the tenant, Mario Lewis, still clutching a .38, his head blasted open, dried brains and splintered bone splattered on the couch and television.

  The gardener and landlord closed the front door, ran back to the office, and called 911.

  Twenty minutes later, I stepped past Mario Lewis and crept down the short hallway to the bathroom. There, I found his girlfriend, Lisa Ferguson, dead in the bloody bathtub and the couple’s three-year-old daughter, Sasha, lying beside her, just as cold and blue. The trio had been dead for five days. No one had seen the murders or suicide coming—not Mario’s family, not Lisa’s family, not the couple’s neighbors. And over the course of the investigation, each person kept telling me, “Mario woulda never killed his baby. Mario woulda never killed himself. Nuh uh. Not Mario.”

  Two weeks before the killings, Mario Lewis had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. A month before that, Mario had assaulted a female coworker. And according to Lisa Ferguson’s hairdresser, Mario had threatened to kill his girlfriend twice before.

  I told all of this to Mario’s people.

  “Not Mario,” his mother had cried. “That ain’t the boy I raised. That ain’t the boy I know.”

  Well, she didn’t know Mario.

  * * *

  Back behind the wheel of the Crown Vic, I zigged and zagged, revved and roared west on Jefferson Boulevard at breakneck speeds, hoping that Greg held a doctor’s note in his hand and was tense and eager to do bad, sexy things to me.

  But at almost nine o’clock, all the lights were off in the condo.

  Still, my lustful heart thumped wildly as I zoomed into my parking space.

  His Ducati wasn’t parked in its spot.

  I rushed through the garage door and into the house.

  Quiet. Darkness.

  With quickly depleting adrenaline, I wandered from room to room, turning on some lights while leaving others off.

  Envelopes and catalogs sat in the mail slot. A parcel sat on the porch—a new novel, probably sent by my buddy Lena Meadows. Morning dishes still sat in the kitchen sink. The tree standing in the middle of the living room still needed gem-colored balls and a few bars of “Deck the Halls” to transform it into a Christmas tree. (If the noble fir had been stolen that afternoon, my living room would have looked just as it did back in May.)

  I stood at the base of the stairs, surveying my empty home with tired eyes. “Oh well.”

  After storing my Glock in its case, I undressed and showered. Ten minutes later, I left the bathroom and called out, “Greg?”

  No answer.

  I slipped on boxer shorts and a T-shirt, then fell into the bed. I tore the parcel open and pulled out the novel. The cover was true art: a muscular blond, bare-chested man with a giant fin for legs was somehow carrying a cross-eyed brunette into the sea. The title: The Love of a Merman. Cheesy romance novels were my getaway, and so Lena sent me a new title each month. I flipped through the pages of Merman and landed on, “His tentacles wrapped around me, and one slithered into my slick walls to find my deep, slick pearl. I yelped in pleasure…”

  “Funny. A merman with tentacles.” I grabbed the phone from the nightstand.

  Greg answered on the third ring, in midsentence with Patrick, who was one of his level builders and one of the 150 people on his team.

  “You’re at work,” I said, relieved but disappointed.

  “Hey, babe. Yeah. Sorry. We hit a snag.” Then, he rambled on about Level Three glitches that included a zombie stuck in a bog. He chuckled, then said, “Bored yet?”

  I smiled. “Never. Did you get the zombie out of the bog, though?”

  “Nope. May have to kill it.”

  “Head shots are the best shots.”

  “You would know,” he said. “I’ll be home in… I don’t know.”

  “I called you earlier, left you a few messages.”

  “I know. Sorry again. Just been jammed up.”

  “I can bring you food,” I offered. “Sushi or—”

  “We’ve already ordered. Thanks, though.”

  I fluffed a pillow, then said, “I had a long—”

  “I gotta go, babe. Sorry. They’re waitin’ for me. The zombie’s waiting, too.”

  A hitch caught in my throat, but I managed to say, “Okay.”

  “I promise to be home before midnight.” He hung up.

  I stared at the receiver and listened to the beeping dial tone that told me that I had voice mail. I scrolled through missed calls and saw my mother’s number.

  Didn’t have the bandwidth to hear her voice live, so I did not call her back. Instead, I hit the button to hear her message.

  I guess you’re working today. I finally made the decision about Tori. I think you’ll be satisfied with it. Call me. I love you. Bye.

  Back in June, during the investigation of that murdered high school cheerleader, Monique Darson, we had found the remains of my sister, Victoria, buried in the storage basement of Crase Liquor Emporium. After more than twenty-five years, my sister was finally home—and Mom kept her ashes in a sapphire-blue urn on the mantel. She and I had talked about holding a small memorial service, but then the discussion took a left turn.

  How could you ask me to let her go again? Mom had asked in tears.

  You want to keep her on the mantel forever? I had countered.
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  You don’t understand.

  No, you don’t understand.

  Not ready to deal with Mom and Tori, I grabbed my iPhone from my bag and considered the Bust-a-Cheat app.

  Greg was at work—I had called his office number, and he had picked up his extension. I had heard Patrick talking in the background.

  What time had he gone to work?

  And how long had he been in the office?

  Did that Tokyo phone number really belong to a coworker?

  Or did that phone number belong to her?

  He lies. Don’t forget that he lies.

  I could never forget that. Ever. Because each time he lied, that lie built upon the other lies like polyps building coral reefs. And each time I caught him in a lie, I hurt. And he apologized. And I accepted his apology. Then, he lied again. And I hurt again. We were in syndication by now, with story arcs that wrote themselves.

  My trembling index finger hovered over the icon.

  Rule number 1 for a successful marriage: Trust Your Husband.

  Trust him.

  Like Lisa Ferguson had trusted Mario Lewis?

  I sat the iPhone on the nightstand—I was not Lisa Ferguson, and Greg would never hurt me. Not like that. Not in that way. Right?

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12

  13

  THE SCENT OF BACON, BURNED BREAD, AND FRESH-BREWED COFFEE PULLED ME from sleep. My muscles creaked as I sat up in bed. My eyes adjusted to my surroundings, barely lit by the weak light of a December morning. A pair of cargo shorts had been discarded near the hamper, and soap on steam wafted from the bathroom. My throat felt raspy, and my mouth tasted like I had eaten every cigarette butt in every ashtray in Reno.

  Must be Wednesday.

  My eyes rolled back in my head.

  Juliet.

  That name jolted me awake.

  Something, something kill me.

  Smith & Wesson revolver.

  Vanity of vanities.

  I glanced at the clock on the dresser.

  Almost eight thirty.

  “Damn it.” I kicked away the comforter and jumped out of bed.

  Death had a way of movin’ your ass.

  Greg had slipped into the house sometime after eleven o’clock to leave those shorts near (not in) the hamper. By then, I had been visiting REM dreamland, a place where no one got shot, stabbed, or killed.

  Out the window, I saw a heavy gray sky and rustling leaves on trees.

  So I dressed for fifty-five-degree weather and a possible trip back to the Chatman house—relaxed jeans, a T-shirt, and a gray V-neck cardigan that I was losing to moths. After retrieving my gun and slipping my feet into a pair of loafers, I popped a few ibuprofen just in case the raspy throat was a true thing.

  In the living room, the bare pine tree still held court.

  I pointed at the noble fir as I passed. “You’re gettin’ dressed today.”

  Greg sat at his drawing table in his office, lit only by two twenty-inch monitors. On the screens: three zombie marines. Discarded paper proofs piled around his chair like wood shavings. Patrick’s nasally voice blared from the speakerphone—something about the bog being an important quest location.

  “Hey,” I whispered from the doorway.

  He turned in his chair and waved at me.

  I came to stand beside him, and pointed at the newly turned marine on the monitor. “That’s good,” I whispered, then kissed the top of his head.

  Greg patted my ass, gave it a good squeeze, then scribbled on a sticky note, You were asleep when I got in. Didn’t want to wake you.

  I shrugged.

  He scribbled on another sticky, I’ll call you later.

  I nodded.

  One last note. Left you a little breakfast.

  Another kiss, another squeeze, and I left the office and entered a kitchen where the stainless steel appliances twinkled like daggers.

  On the breakfast bar was a small plate. There, Greg had left a yellow sticky. “EAT ME.” Two strips of bacon and a toasted English muffin. The yellow sticky on the half-full cup of coffee said, “DRINK ME.” A Target bag also sat on the bar, and one last sticky note had been slapped onto it. “WEAR ME.”

  I opened the bag. A new pair of massaging-gel shoe inserts. “Awww.” I tore open the package, plucked out the insoles, and stuck them in my loafers. I was now ready to do what detectives did all day: stand, walk, and stoop. I shoved bacon into my mouth, took a bite of muffin, gulped the coffee, then grabbed my cell phone from my bag. Meet you at LACCO, I texted Colin. The autopsies of the Chatmans were being performed today.

  Colin texted back, Been here since 7. Where you at??? Everything OK?

  Everything OK? Asking but not asking about Greg and me. I winced as I typed, Running late. Wiped out last night.

  Screwing up already and I hadn’t even been awake for an hour.

  14

  THE AUTOPSY CHAMBERS LOCATED WITHIN THE REDBRICK WALLS OF THE LOS Angeles County Department of Coroner have seen some of the world’s most famous celebrities who died questionable deaths. HSS detectives were thrown those cases—Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Natalie Wood. As a homicide detective with a beat in regular Los Angeles, I investigated everybody else’s deaths—the fans of the rich and famous. The coroner’s office had become another home away from home away from home for me. I had climbed those tall stone steps, sat in the lobby in those bloodred armchairs, and trudged down those hallways, shallow-breathed and fidgety, too many times to count.

  By now, dead bodies didn’t bother me—the living ones, the violent ones, did.

  Dressed in blue scrubs darkened with sweat at the neck and underarms, the deputy medical examiner, Spencer Brooks, M.D., met me in the antechamber of the autopsy suite. I had arrived during a quiet time—no high-pitched squeal of drills. No threatening growls of Stryker saws. No bodies in various states of dead forming an assembly line outside the cutting room. Beyond Brooks and through the observation window, another pathologist quietly soup-ladled blood out of a dead soul’s chest cavity. Colin, dressed in blue scrubs and a face mask, stood nearby, arms crossed, legs set wide apart to keep from crumpling to the rust-colored tile.

  I had known Spencer Brooks for more than a decade—both professionally and personally. He was a good friend of my girl Syeeda McKay, and that meant Brooks and I had bonded over margaritas, baskets of onion strings, and gunshot wounds.

  On this morning, though, since neither of us smelled of tequila or grease, and since this building smelled of pine cleaner and formaldehyde, I addressed Brooks by his title—doctor—and he called me by mine—detective.

  “Almost ten o’clock,” he said to me. “You’re late.” He clutched a folder in one hand and swiped at his sweaty forehead with the other. “We started at seven this morning.”

  “Me being late is like Halley’s Comet streaking across the sky.”

  “A rare and precious thing,” he admitted. “However, you’ve missed out.”

  “Next time.” In our line of work, there was always a “next time.”

  “Colin’s finishing up with Chloe right now,” Brooks said. “And we’ll hold them until the family sends the hearses.”

  “How did he do today?”

  “Better. Kept his mouth shut, and when he opened it, I didn’t want to take a saw to him.” Brooks shrugged. “I hate him less than I did last week.”

  “He remember to show you the photos of the crime scene this time?”

  “Yep.”

  “He remember to bring you the preliminary report?”

  “Yep.”

  “Helpful?”

  “Finally.” He pushed back his silver wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “So what can you tell me?”

  “Sy called.”

  I twisted my lips, then said, “Already?”

  He nodded.

  “And you told her…?”

  “That I hadn’t even started the autopsies yet.”

  I narrowed my eyes and studi
ed him: Brooks had a crush on Syeeda, and sometimes he fed her tips for stories. “How did she take that?”

  He shrugged. “She thinks I’m conspiring with you to keep her in the dark.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So the Chatmans?”

  Brooks opened the folder and flipped to a page. “They ate dinner several hours before they died. Beef, asparagus, potatoes. I smelled dairy, too.”

  “There were milk shake glasses on the sink.”

  “That explains the strawberries.” He found another sheet. “We did a preliminary tox on all three. Juliet had alcohol in her system. But booze didn’t come up in all three screens.”

  “What did?”

  “Large amounts of Valium. But I found no pills—the drug had been fully absorbed before they died.”

  “No one got up,” I said, “because they were all knocked out.”

  “Perhaps. Usually diazepam won’t kill. There have been instances where people take forty pills and suffer nothing more than losing two days to sleep. Sometimes, the body goes into deep coma, and then you need medical intervention, like several doses of flumazenil. For the Chatmans, since there wasn’t an antidote around and oxygen became depleted by the fire…” He shook his head.

  “But Juliet came to,” I said. “She grabbed her gun, then made a 911 call saying that something was trying to kill her.”

  He scrunched his eyebrows. “What time was that?”

  “Don’t know. I’ll find out and get back to you.” I scribbled a reminder in my notepad. “So the Valium slowed them down and the carbon monoxide from the fire finished the job.”

  “Basically.”

  “Who had the Valium scrip?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. And you’ll need a court order to find out. But it certainly contributed to their unconscious state and, ultimately, to their deaths.”

  I added another to-do item to my growing list—so many things to do, so many things I didn’t know.

  “Speaking of CO2,” he said. “I measured levels in their blood.”

  “And?”

  “More in Juliet—she was breathing heavily before she died.”

  “Panicked, maybe. Or trying to escape.”