“On his nightstand.”
“He could’ve seen nothing. Lyle spots him, considers killing him, realizes Abbot’s no direct threat, and comes up with a better idea: plant the gun near or in Abbot’s hand and leave quietly. He might’ve even pressed Abbot’s finger on the trigger and fired and that’s where the hole in the wall came from. Even if Abbot’s head does clear and he recalls some details, who’s going to believe him? What’s his story? A mystery intruder with no signs of forced entry? A bogeyman who leaves his weapon behind? But I’ll wager Abbot comes up with nothing. He’s out of it. A few days in the prison ward at County and he’ll probably be completely vegetative.”
A door slammed at the front of the house. We stepped forward to see the paramedics trundle Abbot out. The old man lay strapped on the stretcher, eyes closed, mouth agape. As the EMTs carried him across the motor court, they chatted and seemed relaxed. No threat from the cargo. Neighborly necks craned as Abbot was loaded into the ambulance. Siren sonata as the uniform at the gate cleared an exit path and the ambulance sped away. Two vans drove up. One white, with the coroner’s logo on the door, was allowed through the gates. The silver one with a network affiliate’s call letters on the roof next to a satellite antenna was waved to the curb.
“The party begins,” said Milo. “At least it’s Ruiz and Gallardo’s bash.”
“I can just hear tonight’s broadcast,” I said, as a young redhead in a yellow pantsuit stepped out of the news van. “‘A Sherman Oaks man was arrested today on suspicion of murdering his wife. Neighbors described Melville Abbot as friendly but feeble—'”
“That’s still where the facts point, Alex.”
“Guess so,” I said. “And Ruiz and Gallardo do seem like nice guys. Why complicate their lives?”
“Oh, my,” he said. “What the hell went down during your childhood to make you enjoy complications?”
“When my mother was pregnant with me she got startled by an obsessive-compulsive pit bull.”
The woman in yellow approached with a cameraman and a soundman in tow. The boom hovered over her coiffure as she flirted with the uniform at the gate. Smiles all around, then the cop shook his head and the reporter pouted and the news crew drifted toward the growing clot of suburban observers.
Milo said, “Let’s get the hell out of here. Just walk straight through and don’t make eye contact. If Ms. Bubblehead chirps, remember she’s a vulture, not a canary.”
“You heading home?”
He laughed harshly. “You kidding? I love the goddamn Valley—hey, how about a nice little jaunt to Reseda.”
The commuter rush. Ventura Boulevard was constipated, and a glance at the freeway overpass revealed a chromium still life. Milo stayed on surface streets, sitting too straight in the driver’s seat, jaw muscles pumping, lips twisting, one big hand shoving aside the hair lick that shadowed his brow—repeating the futile gesture over and over.
Silent, talking to himself. Assessing the possibilities I’d inflicted upon him.
I might’ve felt guilty, but my mental camera was working overtime too, flashing images of Jane Abbot’s gray-green corpse. Then: the trussed bundle of ruin that had been Lauren’s final pose.
I tried to switch channels, but the alternative fare wasn’t any prettier. Michelle and Lance, burned to cinders. Shawna Yeager brutalized un-thinkably, then kicked into a hidden grave. Agnes Yeager probably still pictured her only child’s beautiful face, but by now Shawna would be nothing more than bones. Mothers and daughters. Entire families, disappeared … Past Haseltine the traffic eased up. Milo said, “Finally.”
The same soil-and-paint smell, the same irate dogs.
When we reached the chain-link around Lyle Teague’s property, the sun was a brick-colored skullcap on a flat, gray pate of horizon, and the smear of illumination in the lower sky had dulled to excremental brown.
Grimy chemical light revealed the shabby neighborhood at its worst. A few kids with shaved heads lounged in front of the apartments across the street, slouching and drinking, enjoying delusions of immortality. Their grins shifted to fear and distrust as we pulled up. When Milo parked a bottle shattered against the curb. By the time we got out of the car, the kids were gone.