MOSAICS: A Thriller Read online

  I closed the murder book. The clean surface of my desk looked as desolate as an empty fridge on a Friday evening. I opened the first drawer and a small paperclip rattled inside—a last remnant of my presence there. I picked it up and stuck it between my teeth. “Nobody’s claimed this spot yet?”

  Satish smiled. “It’s your desk, Track. Besides, we’ll all be moving soon.”

  I propped up my feet and grinned. “It’s finally happening, huh? The new Parker Center, all shiny and sleek.”

  They had promised us a new Police Administration Building for years, as the current one was outdated and didn’t even comply with seismic regulations. They finally approved the project in 2006 and broke ground on First Street in 2007, right across from the City Hall. I hadn’t been inside yet, but old owls like Detective Oscar Guerra claimed it was as beautiful and new as a first wife. Since he’d been married five times, I figured he would know.

  Satish cocked his head to the side. “How would you like to clutter up one of those brand new desks, Track? You’ll even get your own overhead cabinet.”

  “Nah, not for me. Got my PI license and everything. I’m the Glendale Philip Marlowe now. Lotsa perks. Gotta try Armenian food, Satish.”

  I kept my grin up for as long as I could until it miserably dissolved under Satish’s hard stare. Who the hell was I lying to? I missed my job. Hell, I even missed him, my partner. I missed his old man’s stories he’d drop whenever I needed them the least, only to wake up the next morning slapping my forehead and thinking, “That’s what the hell it meant!”

  Satish wobbled his head, an Indian custom carved on African American features. He looked thinner than I remembered, his temples whiter. Other than that, he was just the same, his part Indian part African American heritage well mingled in his gestures and inflection. The bullet that skewered his right lung last fall had dented his reflexes, not his wordiness. I hated to admit, but my days felt empty without his stories.

  “We’re swimming in hot water again, Track.”

  I made a face. “Sat. That Lazarus woman will be on trial, not the LAPD. This ain’t another Rampart. She screwed up and she’s gonna pay for it.”

  “That Lazarus detective, Track. A seasoned detective, one of our own. This ain’t another Rampart, and yet the names Javier Ovando and Suzie Peña are coming up all over again. People are throwing pitchforks at us. This is a test case.”

  I shrugged, feigning indifference.

  He tilted his head and stared at me. “Come on, Track. You know you want to nail the bastard. Look at what he did to her.”

  I pushed the murder book away. “Not my problem.”

  I dropped my feet to the floor and stood up. I adjusted the holster hooked on my waistband and for once felt cocky in my shorts and T-shirt. To hell with the LAPD monkey suits.

  I patted my partner on the shoulder and walked off.

  I expected another couple of words. None came.

  I slowed the pace.

  He still said nothing.

  Come on, was he giving up so easily? What happened to all the prep talks about us being the good guys, getting paid to play cops and robbers with real robbers, and making the world a safer place?

  I got to the door, wrapped a hand around the jamb, and turned around. “Okay, Sat. What aren’t you telling me now?”

  He smiled, the Indian way, his profile outlined by a shaft of sun poking through the blinds. “Why, Track. I thought you’d never ask.”

  He hopped off my desk, hooked his jacket over his shoulder and walked with me to the elevator lobby. “We think he tossed the acid while she was still alive this time. No sign of forced entry. He probably attacked her as she opened the door. Oh, and you’ll love what he left behind.”

  “Did you say, ‘This time’?” I said as the elevator doors closed on us. “Was there another time?”

  * * *

  The sun was setting when Satish parked in the driveway of 453 Santa Fe Terrace. The first city lights blinked through the sunset, a loud Latino pop song poured down the valley.

  I got out of the car and studied the neighborhood. Montecito Heights was an oasis of green rising above the expanse of suburban L.A. Purple jacaranda trees, frazzled palm tops, and red roofs speckled the wavy profile of the hills. The air was cool and it bore the scents of early summer: wisteria, freshly mowed grass, and barbecues.

  Across the street, still wounded from last spring’s heavy rains, the hillside spilled over a row of shattered wood planks and into the curb. A dog barked in the distance. A pick-up truck rattled by, spilling out the fragment of an old rock-and-roll tune. All around, homes were nestled in the folds of the landscape, hidden by firs, oaks, and evergreens.

  Blooming rosebushes crawled along the yellow walls of Amy Liu’s house, a one-story ranch-style faced in red brick. A magnolia tree shaded its east side. Flanked by birds-of-paradise flowers, redwood stairs climbed up to the front door. It was all very peaceful and cozy, had it not been for the yellow crime scene tape crossing the garden gate. Satish lifted it and motioned toward the back of the house. “Let me show it to you now, before it gets too dark.”

  The backyard consisted of a nicely sized lawn hemmed in by a metal chain-link fence.

  I donned a pair of gloves, smacking the latex against my wrist. “Any wits?”

  “Only if you count the nine-one-one caller. Some joe who didn’t ID himself. He must’ve had some really good reason to be in her house at one a.m. and not be the killer.”

  “Some killers are nice enough to call nine-one-one.”

  Satish shrugged. “That’ll soften the prosecutor once we catch him.” He pointed to the patio, a square of gray paving stones set around a circular mosaic pattern. Concentric rows of blue and aquamarine tiles framed a red and yellow sun, its jagged rays cut out of stained glass. Satish pulled a transparent evidence bag out of his pocket, crouched, and dropped it next to the sun pattern.

  “He left them by the body,” he said, tilting his chin toward the bag.

  I crouched opposite to him and emptied the content of the bag in my hand: four small glass tiles, each half an inch in size. Except for the green one, the other three colors—red, orange and aquamarine—matched the ones in the sun pattern. Not the shapes, though. The tiles in my hand were regular squares, all identical. The sun mosaic instead was made of unevenly cut bits and pieces with jagged edges.

  I aligned the squares in two rows, orange and green at the top, and red and aquamarine at the bottom. “That how you guys found them?”

  Sat nodded. “They’re called tesserae. Square glass tiles used for decorations. Most common in patios, decorative benches, bistro tables, swimming pools—anything with a mosaic pattern. As you can see.”

  “Maybe some kind of artist?”

  Satish gave me a lopsided smile. “Crime’s an art, Track. I thought you’d come to appreciate that.”

  “Yeah. And crime fighting is the shit that happens after that.”

  Satish sighed, his smile gone. “No tiles missing here, and the shapes are all irregular. Turns out, they all come in squares. They’re cut on the spot as needed. Vic’s mom told us she had this done pretty recently—couple of months ago.”

  I raised a brow. “Do we know by whom?”

  “Katie’s been looking into that.”

  I picked up the green tile, stood up, brought it to my nose.

  Tesserae.

  Aluminum dust was the first thing my nostrils detected. The forensic team had left it, attempting to catch the faintest smudge of a fingerprint. Their effort had not been rewarded—the tiles were clean. There were other smells, mingled, vaguely sweet, and vaguely acidic, a distant memory of being sick, the foul taste of medicine in my mouth—

  Satish squeezed my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go take a look inside.”

  We walked back to the front. Satish unlocked the door and pushed it open. It had a peephole.

  She stares through the hole, recognizes the face—familiar enough to feel safe. She opens
the door. Does she smile, murmur a greeting? A moment of disbelief and then the agonizing pain, flesh burning off her face. She tries to scream, blinded, but acid is scorching her from the inside, seeping down her throat…

  I waved away the crime scene sketches Satish offered, stepped inside and inhaled.

  The olfactory landscape changed abruptly. The place was cold, the air stale. Summer evening smells gave way to ninhydrin and fingerprint powder. New scents enveloped me—alcohol, food, expensive perfumes—all fading, swallowed by the sting of death and abandonment.

  I paced into the open-space area. Right off the foyer, fluorescent cards had been taped to the floor to mark where the body—and the rug she’d been lying on—had been found.

  The kitchen was straight ahead, with its lingering scent of fried foods and Asian spices, separated from the living area by a long, curving breakfast counter. The sink was cluttered with dirty dishes and trays, the counter crowded with cocktail glasses. A trash bin under the sink had been emptied.

  “Dirty plastic cups and plates from the party,” Satish said. “Trace Unit tested everything. Plenty of DNA and fingerprints—enough work for a year. All prints analyzed so far go back to either the victim or her guests. No extraneous sets found.”

  I opened the fridge, took a peek inside, inhaled, closed it back. “How many people?”

  “Six, all co-workers from UTech. Last ones to leave the scene swear she was alive and well when they drove off.”

  I smelled the cabinet doors and knobs. “Do we have statements from all of them?”

  “We do. A few agreed to be polygraphed, too.”

  “And I bet all the polys were inconclusive.” I’ve never been fond of polygraphs. I trust my nose better. “You said the other one—the man found in Silver Lake—he’d been strangled first, then scarred with acid?”

  Satish had filled me in during our ride to Montecito Heights: there had been another victim, a young homosexual from Silver Lake. The similarities between the two murders had put the brass on edge and motivated the case transfer to the RHD. The rumor spreading through the agency was that a new serial killer was on the prowl.

  Behind the breakfast counter was the dining area, which extended into the living area and foyer. An abstract painting hung above the mantelpiece, one of those pictures a two-year-old could draw, yet it came with a six-figure price tag in snobbish art galleries where it’s legal to rip you off and make you feel good about it.

  Satish stood by the door, hands deep in his pockets. “Track, there’s general dissent on whether we’re dealing with a serial or not. Could be a copycat. Could be that Amy Liu’s ex finally wanted payback and found it convenient to follow on the footsteps of another killer. Whatever this is, it’s heinous, and nobody wants another heinous offender on the loose. Especially one that targets nice neighborhoods, if you know what I mean. But yeah, the M.O. is different in this one.”

  Yes, I knew what he meant. A homicide in a place like Montecito Heights weighed more than ten slayings in South Central. Always had.

  The coffee table was cluttered with used glasses, dried up wine spatters, and tortilla chip crumbs. The sofa, buried in a wide assortment of pillows, smelled of a cat that no longer lived there. I stuck my nose everywhere, picked up everything and sniffed. A dirty plate on a chair, an open book, the TV remote. A bunch of keys and a row of coins on the console in the foyer, the glass top sprayed with fingerprinting powder.

  She staggers back and clings to the wall, one hand on the console, the other one on her face.

  “Traces of acid have been found on her fingertips,” Satish said. “Both victims were strangled from behind. Both were found in or near their homes with their faces mauled by acid. The victim in Silver Lake, though, had bits of his own skin underneath his fingernails.”

  I came back to the foyer, got on my hands and knees, and perused the ground where Amy’s body had been found. “He tried to pry the ligature away,” I said.

  “Correct, and that’s how his own skin ended up under his fingernails. Also, the acid spilled down the sides of his neck, erasing the ligature marks. That would be consistent with liquid poured on him while he was lying down, not standing up, as in Amy’s case. At the autopsy, the M.E. concluded the acid had been poured on the Silver Lake victim after his death. There were no traces of acid in his airways. On the other hand, there were droplets of splashed liquid on Amy Liu’s neck and chest—at least on prelim—and inside her throat.”

  “The attacker splashed her while she was standing by the door?”

  “That’s our hypothesis so far, yes. Her finger pads were burnt, most likely from touching her face. Definitely alive when she was attacked.”

  Satish shook his head. “If it is the same killer, his hunting grounds are quite broad, the cooling off time is less than a year, and the violence is escalating—which makes him very dangerous. If, on the other hand, it’s a copy cat, the motive is unclear: why copy the mode and manner of death, and then take the time to remove the skin flaps?”

  “What kind of MD was she?” I asked.

  “Internal medicine at UTech university hospital in Boyle Heights.”

  “Family practice?”

  “No, HIV specialist. They have a large clinic affiliated with the medical school.”

  Satish watched me sniff the floor with vague interest. We’d been partners for almost six years now and my modus operandi no longer surprised him. I inhaled, followed the vic’s path from the door back to the console, where the killer pounced on her, wrapped the ligature around her neck and pulled, leaving a smooth, almost anonymous indentation. No telltale of rope, chain, fibers—none visible to the naked eye at least.

  “You said we don’t have telltale marks on the first victim?”

  “Only partials, nothing conclusive. The damage done by the acid in that case was too extensive.”

  “Why erase the ligature marks on victim number one but not on victim number two?”

  “Maybe he found a better ligature, one he felt confident it wouldn’t give him away. I tell you Track, if it’s the same guy, he’s getting better at this.”

  I sniffed the floor where her body had been found. “What were the M.E.’s thoughts on the skin carvings?”

  “Smooth blade, firm hand. He knew what he wanted.”

  A med, I thought, impulsively. And then I remembered the care with which I dress my game when I go hunting.

  Or a butcher.

  Anyone with some practice with animals could do that.

  I let my thoughts wander back to the night of the murder. The clatter of conversation, the laughter, the music from the stereo. Did one of her guests come back after the party was over? Or maybe they never left? I could only imagine the bedlam of fingerprints, fibers, and what-have-you the Field Unit must have collected from this scene. Six guests, plus the victim, plus—or including—the assassin. Or assassins.

  I said, “Did you listen to the nine-one-one tape?”

  Sat crossed his arms and looked down at the tip of his shoes. “Fairly calm voice, given what he was supposedly looking at. One word he said, though—abraded. About the face.”

  “Interesting word choice.”

  “Agreed. We got a couple of blue suits trying to trace this guy.”

  “And six likely candidates.”

  “We’re keeping tabs on each one of them. We taped their voices and sent them off to Electronics. They’re all some kind of medical professionals.”

  “All quite familiar with the word abraded.”

  He shook his head sideways. “Suppose Joe Party Guest forgets something. A pair of reading glasses, a salad bowl, or maybe a question. Joe comes back, finds her dead and makes an anonymous call because—”

  “Because he’s got something to hide. Either he did it or he’s holding back.”

  Satish’s phone buzzed. “Gomez,” he mouthed, taking the call. “Yeah, we’re at the scene.”

  I took the chance to explore the rest of the house.

 
; A dark hallway with no windows opened to the right from the foyer. The smells changed—the staleness of a vacant place and the victim’s scent—feminine, ambitious, seductive. The wall displayed wrought-iron sconces and a collection of photos of Amy: Amy in her graduation gown, Amy with friends, Amy with her cat.

  Her bedroom was orderly. There was a half-empty birth control kit in her nightstand drawer, but no boyfriend in her life, according to the friends and relatives interviewed, only an ex-husband who now lived in Oregon. Toiletries on her vanity table, regular clothes in her closet, a few garments in her drawers that told me she was no nun, but no distinctive masculine scent anywhere. If she shared her bed with somebody, she’d done a good job at hiding it. The sheets smelled freshly washed.

  The next door led to her home office, a small carpeted room with a couple of white bookcases, a table with a desktop and printer, a metal chair, and, on the opposite side, a futon, a laundry basket, and an ironing table folded against the wall. Through the window, the hills of Montecito Heights glowed against the evening sky, a wavy fabric of glimmering lights.

  I inhaled. The bookshelves were crammed with medical books, the desk buried under stacks of papers.

  The sweet, foul smell of the tiles…

  I sat at the desk, checked the drawers, sniffed the keyboard, then the computer screen.

  Not here. Close, though.

  The papers. He went through the pile of papers.

  I rummaged through the folders not knowing what to look for, just tailgating a smell. Gloved fingers had brushed through printouts and graphs, tables, essays, research proposals…

  Did he find what he was looking for? And if so, what?

  Article after article of scientific jargon, each title some random permutation of the words immunodeficiency, vaccine, study design, therapy, antiretroviral.

  “What are you gonna see in the dark?”

  By the office door, Satish flipped the light switch.

  “Smells.”

  “On paper?”

  “Yeah. And patterns, too,” I said. I sniffed the top right corner of every paper in the pile. I could follow the gloved fingers searching through the stack, most likely a left thumb holding up the top ones so he could read the titles, and a right index flipping through. Until the trace stopped.