Murder Season
This book is dedicated to two friends.
Joe Drabyak and John Truby.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a great deal of gratitude to my editor, Kelley Ragland at Minotaur Books, for her brilliant effort in making this novel what it is.
I would also like to thank my agent, Scott Miller at Trident Media Group, for his support and enthusiasm for this book, and Eileen Hutton at Brilliance Audio, for the audio editions of my work featuring LAPD Detective Lena Gamble.
This novel wouldn’t ring true without the help and guidance of LAPD Detectives Mitzi Roberts and Rick Jackson from the Robbery-Homicide Division, Cold Case Homicide Unit, and from Harry Klann, Jr., DNA Technical Leader from the LAPD Scientific Investigation Division. I can’t thank you all enough.
I am also deeply grateful for the help I received from John Truby, H. Donald Widdoes, Pat Schrevelius, Peter B. Crabb, Peter & Terry Ellis, Robert & Ruth Ellis, Joe Drabyak & Reggie Painter, Michael Conway & Meghan Sadler Conway, and Debi Watson. Last, but even more, I’d like to thank Charlotte Conway for encouraging me and standing by me all this time.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Also by Robert Ellis
Copyright
Somehow there’s gotta be a thread that stretches across the whole universe.
A motherfucking life jacket.
Something that will pull my sorry soul out of this ditch and into the light.
—Jimmy the Dime, street poet Santa Monica, California
1
She could smell it in the pillow as she pulled it closer. On the sheets as she rolled over in the darkness and searched out cool spots that were not there.
Murder season.
She was floating, drifting. Cruising through an open seam between sleep and consciousness.
She glanced at the clock radio but didn’t really see it, then fell back into the stream and let go. It was somewhere after midnight, sometime before dawn. Early spring, and the air inside the house was already deadened from the oppressive heat. A steep, lifeless desert wave had swelled over Los Angeles two days ago, pushing the marine layer and the cool breezes out over the ocean where they could be burned up and erased without a witness.
The city that was left behind felt dusty and canned in. Vacuum-packed. The air perfumed with spent diesel fuel and gasoline.
Murder season would come early this year. It would roll in with the heat like they were best friends. Lovers.
She reached across the bed, probing gently for a warm body but finding only emptiness. Only her dreams. A smile worked its way through her body. The one that came with her dreams. She could feel it in her chest and between her legs. She could feel it spreading across her face and blistering through her skin before it rose up and faded away.
She had spent the night on the terrace drinking ice-cold Irish reds with Stan Rhodes and Tito Sanchez. Sanchez had brought over a flank steak, marinating the meat, and working the grill with mesquite the way his grandmother had taught him. After dinner they sat on the stone wall and gazed down the hill, the lights of the city caught in the dust and glowing like cotton balls from downtown all the way across the basin to the Pacific. They laughed and told stories in the eerie light, opened fresh bottles, and talked shop. Rhodes and Sanchez were deep in on a new murder case and had worked the last forty-eight hours straight out. Both detectives needed to regroup and get some sleep. Lena had tomorrow off and could afford to relax, maybe even get buzzed. When they left around ten, she popped open the last bottle of ale, stripped off her clothes, and slipped into the pool.
Murder season. Trouble ahead. When the streets get hot, business burns.
She rolled onto her back, her mind cutting a jagged path to the surface. She could hear something going on in the house—something in the background behind her thoughts. A noise pulsing through the still air.
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