No sign of any vehicles.
I kept driving.
He said, “Where now?”
“Maybe nowhere.”
“Then why bother?”
“Got anything better to do?”
Continuing south to Burbank, I hooked a left and traversed the southern border of the reserve. Lots of trees here. Signs pointed toward the dam. No more birds than we’d seen in Soledad Canyon. Maybe they knew something.
We both saw it at the same time.
White Jeep, on the far end of a small parking lot on Burbank.
The only vehicle in the lot. Signs said legal parking had ended an hour ago.
Milo said, “Right out in the open. Take that and stick it in your BOLO. Where are the parking nazis when you need them?”
I pulled behind the Jeep.
He said, “Sitting right here and no one notices.”
I said, “There’s your invitation to search.”
Out came another set of plastic gloves. How many did he carry? He walked around the Jeep, checked the underbody, then the windows. The doors were locked and the interior was empty. Clear view of the rear storage area through the hatchback window. Nothing.
Milo said, “In the mood for a hike?”
A dirt trail capped the top of the dam. Thicker trees- more eucalyptus, gnarled sycamore, wild oak that enjoyed the drought, evergreens that didn’t. Plenty of opportunity to exit at paved paths feeding to Burbank and Victory but we stayed on the dirt. Twenty yards in, the planting thickened even further and the trail blackened and Milo ’s penlight cast a sickly beam that died three feet in front of us.
Rocks and dirt and scampering bugs.
“You came well-prepared,” I said.
“Boy Scout days,” he said. “Made it all the way to Eagle. If they’d only known.”
We’d traipsed halfway through the reserve, finding nothing. The excitement that had pinged my chest when we’d found the Jeep began to fade.
We were just about to turn back when the sound gave it away.
Low, insistent buzzing, nearly drowned out by freeway roar.
Flies.
Milo made use of his long legs and was there within seconds.
When I caught up, the penlight was focused on a forty-foot sycamore tree.
Stout-trunked thing, with spavined, mottled branches. Unlike the surrounding evergreens and wild oaks, bare of all but a few desiccated brown leaves.
Drew Daney, dressed in dark sweats and sneakers, hung from a low branch, feet dangling two inches off the ground. His head was twisted to the side, his eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets, and his tongue was a Japanese eggplant protruding from a lopsided mouth.
Milo aimed the light at his head. Single gunshot to the left temple. Stellate entry wound. Larger exit. Tiny, hyperkinetic ants crawled in and out of both openings. The flies seemed to favor the exit.
It took awhile, but he found the hole in the tree where the slug had lodged.
Daney’s eyes and tongue said he’d been hung first. I said, “Overkill.” Thinking about Daney dangling, just short of safety. Clutching at the rope, trying to hoist himself up.
Using his big upper body. Maybe he’d managed for seconds, even minutes.
Failing, inevitably. Feeling the life force slip away.
Milo lowered the beam. “Look at this.”
Daney’s crotch was a busy place. Mangled cavity, ragged around the edges where the cotton of the sweatpants had been blasted away.
Here the flies ruled supreme.
Milo got closer and inspected. A few of the insects scattered but most of them stayed on-task. “Looks liked gunshots… a bunch of them.” He stooped and checked the tree trunk, lower down. “Yeah, here we go, looks like… four, no five slugs… yeah, five.”
“Emptying the six-shooter,” I said. “A cowboy gun.”
“Something else in there.” He lit and peered and pointed. “Couple of rings.”
I stepped in and saw two white gold bands specked with tiny blue gems. Same rings I’d seen at the jail eight years ago.
Thumbtacked to what was left of Daney’s organ.
“Drew’s and Cherish’s wedding bands,” I said. “She made her statement.”
He stepped away from the corpse. Looked it up and down. Expressionless.
Whipping out his phone he called the Van Nuys station. “This is Lieutenant Sturgis. Cancel the BOLO on missing fugitive Daney. Daney. I’ll spell it for you.”
CHAPTER 45
Milo and I moved away from the body and waited.
“Hang ’em high,” he said. “More like hang ’em low.”
He was restless, went over and examined Daney’s sneakers. The fatal two inches. “Couldn’t have been comfortable. Think they used Drew’s gun or Barnett dipped into his arsenal?”
“I’d guess Drew’s. The temptation of poetic justice.”
“Cherish got that along with the money. If you’re already going for the irony, why hold back?”
Considering the need to proceed on foot up the dirt path, it didn’t take long for the six uniforms to arrive. Then four detectives, and a white coroner’s van bearing two investigators.
Milo briefed one of the D’s very quickly, then came over to where I sat, just outside the tape.
“Ready for dinner?”
“That’s it?”
“It’s someone else’s problem now.”
We had pasta and wine at Octavio’s, on Ventura Boulevard, in Sherman Oaks.
No conversation until Milo had finished half his linguini with clams. Then: “These rolls are great.”
“Yes, they are.”
A glass of Chianti later, I said, “Cherish may not have intended to, but she helped set Rand up to be killed. Maybe all she wanted was for him to rat out Drew, but it was a sloppy plan. She should’ve known he wasn’t smart enough to conceal his anxiety. Her hatred for Drew overrode that.”
“Sloppiness ain’t an indictable offense.” He broke off a piece of bread, sopped up sauce. “Delicious.”
“You’re really through with it.”
“Don’t see any reason not to be.”
“What about Cherish and Barnett stringing up Daney and blasting his balls off?”
“Wild West kinda thing,” he said, spooling linguine around his fork. Some of it dropped and he retrieved it, ate, got sauce on his chin. “And I ain’t the sheriff of Dodge.”
“Okay,” I said.
“We don’t know for a fact that Malley and Cherish were behind it, do we? Guy like Drew could make all sorts of enemies.”
I stared at him.
He wiped his chin with a napkin. “In any case, the Valley boys will pursue it to its logical end.”
“If you say so.”
“What, you’re not finished with it?”
“Guess I am. Except for therapy for the girls. If Detective Weisvogel calls.”
“That surprised me,” he said. “Given your attitude about long-term commitment. What, she catch you off guard?”
“That must’ve been it.”
He dove into his food again, came up for breath. “Sorry if I’m disillusioning you, Alex, but I’m tired.”
“Don’t blame you.”
“I’m talking serious tired. As in waking up and not wanting to get out of bed and dragging myself through the day.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He picked up a strand of linguini. Sucked it into his mouth the way little kids do. “I’ll be fine.”
Two days later, he called.
“Daney mighta wiped his Jeep down, but it’s a forensic trove. Pubic hairs, semen, tiny specks of blood in the ribbing underneath the door. Also, I just got a call from downtown. My request for DNA has been approved and will be sent to Cellmark expeditiously. If I don’t hear back within ninety days, give a call.”
“Any word on Cherish and Barnett?”
“Not that I’ve heard, but I might not hear.”