Royal climbed into his Viper and turned the key, the ignition roaring to life. He peeled out of the parking lot and blew a kiss to Childs as he yelled something to him about impounding his car.
10
Stanton finished reading all the emails they had gathered from Tami’s account. She had had a MySpace page, never bothering to update to Facebook. There were photos of her with different groups of people, mostly at bars and on the beach. One of her at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A slow country song that Stanton didn’t recognize was playing on her page and he listened to it once and then muted his computer.
It was already afternoon and Stanton had been in the office for seven hours. He called Melissa to speak to the boys but there was no answer. The voicemail said to leave a message for Melissa and Lance Jarvis. He hung up.
Jessica walked by the office and glanced in. She stopped and took a step back, poking her head through the doorway.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
She came in to his office and collapsed on a chair with a loud sigh, looking out the windows. “Nice view.”
“It’s not bad. How’s Neary going?”
“Not good. Totally random from what I can tell. Talked to a girlfriend he had that said he wouldn’t’ve hurt anybody. No criminal history, no major debts, nothing.” She saw his PhD on the wall. “I heard you had a doctorate. What are you doing here?”
Stanton shrugged and lifted the Jacobs box and placed it on the floor. “Don’t let it shock you,” he said.
“What?”
“Neary. The randomness of it. Some people only want to add chaos without getting anything in return.”
“I’ve worked Robbery/Homicide in LA for two years. Randomness doesn’t shock me. It’s meaninglessness that does. Whoever did this did something horrific and against his interests that probably didn’t even bring him any pleasure. I don’t understand it. And you didn’t answer my question. Most cops daydream about an exit strategy and you’ve got one hanging on your wall.”
“It’s not as simple as-”
His phone rang. He answered it and heard the front desk receptionist’s voice tell him he had a call from a Tim at the Barbeque Pit.
“Send it through … Hello?”
“Hi, is this Jon?”
“Yeah.”
“Jon, Tim, from the Barbeque Pit.”
“What can I do for you, Tim?”
“I did have a schedule from back then. Must’ve hung on to it cause I thought you guys would want it and no one asked me for it.”
“I’ll send someone down to pick it up.”
“It’s an Excel spreadsheet. I just emailed it to you.”
“Thanks.”
“All right, man. You find that cocksucker you pop him once for me.”
He hung up and turned to his computer and then remembered he didn’t have a new password yet to log in to his email from his office. The administrator was on vacation.
“Do you mind if I check my email on your computer?”
“Sure,” Jessica said.
Her office was easily half the size of his with no windows. But the walls were covered in photos. There was one of a young boy in a soccer uniform, standing with his foot on a ball.
“Your boy?”
“Yup,” she said, closing a few windows on her screen. “All yours.”
Stanton logged into the San Diego PD server and went to his account. He had two hundred and thirty-seven unread messages. Most of them were updates, questions about holiday and over-time pay, announcements for birthdays and retirements … Tim’s was at the top of the list and he clicked on it.
In the body of the email was a name: Kelly Ann Madison. Next to that was a phone number. Stanton opened the attachment and saw the schedule. It covered a period of three months and Tami had only worked evenings. The day she had been killed was the only time she was scheduled for a morning shift. Kelly was scheduled to take her evening shift.
“My sister watches him during the day.”
“I’m sorry?” Stanton said, turning to her. She was sitting on the edge of her desk, staring at the boy’s photo.
“I was just thinking out loud.”
“Must be hard not to see him as much as you’d like.”
“It is. I think you said you had some.”
“Two boys.”
Stanton put Kelly’s phone number into his phone’s contact list and rose to leave. “Thanks for letting me use your computer.”
“No problem … hey, I’m starving. Do you want to grab something to eat? Maybe we can swap notes on our cases or something.”
“I can’t right now. How about a rain check?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking down to the floor. “I was just thinking we might both be hungry. No big deal.”
“Are you free tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Tomorrow then.”
“Sure, tomorrow.”
Stanton walked to his office and shut the door. He pulled up Kelly on his phone, and dialed the number.
11
Stanton sat in his car in the parking lot of the Westfield UTC mall. Night had fallen and it had quieted the city. The high-pitched squeal of a siren would break the silence and it would trail off and disappear, and the silence would return only to be broken again a little later.
His window was down and the air was warm and smelled slightly of exhaust, but a breeze was blowing and he leaned back and let it blow over his neck and down his collar.
A few people left the Nordstrom and walked to an Escalade parked near him. They were females, teenagers, white and rich with empty looks on their faces. Their boredom would drive them to do things that their parents thought their station in life had bought them out of.
The driver reminded him of a case from long ago. Another rich, young white girl that had began dating a Hispanic ex-con. She had met him through correspondence while he was incarcerated at the Los Angeles County California State Prison. When she was at a party at his house, he allowed all the party goers to gang rape her on the futon in the basement.
“Detective?”
Stanton turned to see a young girl standing by his car; far enough away that her face was only shadow and her hair glowed under the parking lot lamps.
“Yes.”
“Can I see your badge?”
“Sure.”
He reached into his pocket and brought out the shield, offering it to her through the window. She approached close enough to look at it.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He stepped outside of his car and shut the door. Leaning back against the driver’s side, he took out a small notepad and a pen. His ipad was far superior at organizing his notes, but there was something about the paper and pen that he needed. When he saw a full pad and had to go to another one, it told him that progress was being made. That the notes would, somehow, lead him to what he was looking for. Sometimes when he went through them again it felt like he had a map rather than just wandering aimlessly.
“So,” she said, “you wanted to talk about Tami?”
“Yes. Do you remember much about her?”
“Yeah, she was cool. She was real sweet, ya know? Like if I needed a ride or to borrow some money she would always do it. Even if I called her at like three in the morning she would gimme a ride.”
She pulled out a package of cigarettes and lit one, letting the tobacco burn and crinkle and moved a strand of hair away from her face with her pinkie.
“What would you guys talk about?”
“I dunno. Stuff. She really liked surfing so she was always talking about that. She really wanted to go to Australia and surf. She said she was saving money for it.”
“She had a boyfriend named James Arnold. The numbers we had for him are disconnected. You have any idea where he is?”
“Oh, yeah. You don’t know? Jimmy died.”
“When?”
“Like … maybe three months after those other detectives talked to me.”
Stanton’s pen stopped moving and he lowered the pad. “What other detectives?”
“The two that came and talked to me after she was … after she passed.”