His flat, obsidian eyes were on her, eyes that seemed to follow her and see everything, like in those spooky portraits of Jesus her grandmother had hanging all over her house. “Open that champagne and tell me how you like living in the Valley. You were in Echo Park before, right?”
“Right.” She peeled the foil from the top of the bottle and wasn’t sure what to do about the metal cage around the cork. How pathetic. She was in her third decade and didn’t know how to open a bottle of champagne. He graciously spared her further humiliation by taking the bottle and deftly freeing the cork. Not with a dramatic pop but with the faintest hiss of escaping gas.
When you open a bottle of champagne, it should sound like a French man’s fart.
Where the hell had she heard that?
He poured, then lifted his glass to hers. “Cheers to a change of venue.”
She gulped down half the glass, then reminded herself of the virtue of temperance. “I guess we’re finally having that drink.”
“This is coercion, it doesn’t count. You didn’t tell me how you like the Valley.”
“It’s nice. Quiet.” Another sip. The bubbles were entering her bloodstream and it felt fantastic. “Any breaks on your cases?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“I’m sorry. Have some cheese,” she said, as if cheese was an antidote to a serial killer.
Remy broke off a piece of Roquefort and wandered back to the living room. “It’s got a good vibe, very global.”
“I’m a very global person from a very global family.”
“There’s a story behind everything, then.” Like a raptor eyeing a rodent, Remy picked out the most hidden, vulnerable thing: the far corner table that held her brother’s memorial. Silver urn with her share of his ashes; a photo of them together before his final deployment to Afghanistan; another vase of freesias, a flower he loved and the reason she always kept them around.
“This is much better than visiting a tombstone and leaving flowers to die on a grave. People we’ve loved should always be honored like this.” His eyes lifted to the window. “Al’s here.”
She followed Remy’s gaze and saw Al trundling up the front walk with a cellophane-wrapped basket. He wasn’t wearing a suit either. The blue polo shirt was a little tight around his soft, middle-aged gut, and his khaki slacks were slung low on his waist, a woven belt holding them up. Even though she adored him, she definitely wasn’t thinking about him naked. She’d leave that to his lovely, devoted wife, Corinne. He smiled and waved at her, then fumbled in his pants pocket for his phone.
She knew the look. Dispatch. Another dead body, and they were next on the roster. She slammed the rest of her champagne and bolted a large bite of Burgundian cheese with a name she couldn’t pronounce.
Party over.
Chapter Three
NOLAN STOOD JUST INSIDE THE MOTEL room’s doorway. She always liked to take things in at a distance first; but in this case, she had no choice. The blood splatters radiated so far from the victim on the sagging bed that they created a biohazard crime scene boundary. The walls were splashed with it, and the filthy carpet looked like it had been sprinkled with reddish brown confetti. The aftermath of a butcher, a madman. Jackson Pollock couldn’t have done any better.
She was sickened. Enraged. And very, very sad. The environment where a homicide took place said volumes about the killer and the victim. It also determined how depressed she would be for the next several days. When they took place in lovely settings, she attempted self-succor by rationalizing that as atrocious as any murder was, the victim had at least enjoyed some comfort or pleasure in life.
But this poor woman, a resident of Aqua Travel Lodge—a rancid boil in the most squalid part of central Los Angeles—certainly hadn’t enjoyed much comfort before death. According to Ray Lovell, the vacuous motel clerk with meth teeth who had found her, she’d been a junkie who sometimes turned tricks, sometimes tended bar at the Kitty Corral, a topless dive across the street that catered to the very bottom layer of human sediment. It all cheapened her violent, sorry demise.
The additional insult was the fact that nobody in this piece of shit, room-by-the-hour flophouse knew her name, not even Ray, who was apprised of a few things about her personal habits, probably because they’d had a sex and drugs association. He wouldn’t be shedding any tears tonight.
She desperately wanted to burn the Aqua down, along with everybody in it, because it would certainly be a charitable act for the betterment of humankind. She would never confide to anybody, not even her partner, how she viewed crime scenes or how they sometimes made her feel homicidal, so she endured the anger and depressions in stony, bleak silence.
Al was standing next to her, taking shallow breaths through his mouth to fend against the reek of ripening death. “It’s him. It’s got to be. Same MO, same hunting ground.”
“No question. This is Remy’s game, the task force’s game. If we’d known this an hour ago, we’d still be at my place drinking his champagne.”
“Trust me, the champagne would be gone by now. So this freak mutilates women in public places and keeps walking away without any witnesses. Even if he was wearing a space suit, he’d still be covered in blood just from stripping down, so what’s his magic?”
“No magic, he picks motel rooms so he can wash up. Motels like this, where nobody cares what goes on, and where there’s probably a decade’s worth of blood and hair and body fluid everywhere. It hides the trace.”
“You’re thinking like a smart killer.”
“I’m thinking like a smart detective.”
“Maybe the killer is a smart detective.”
“Not the right time for stupid syllogisms or jokes, Al.”
“It was a partially serious comment. This guy is savvy and slippery.”
“He’s a shadow dweller, all serials are. Nobody notices them, just like nobody notices their victims until they’re dead. If there’s any magic, that’s it.”
“LAPD better figure it out soon. He’s got us by the balls right now, and the press is going to go ballistic. Just wait for the morning paper. They’re going to make us look like a bunch of diddling troglodytes who can’t put their pants on in the morning.”
“Since when do you worry about the press?”
“Never, but Remy is heading up the task force, and he’s a good guy and a great detective who’s going to get smeared unless he has somebody in shackles soon.”
“Remy can take care of himself and his task force.” She turned away and breathed into the collar of her shirt, hoping the enthusiastically touted “spring fresh scent!” of her laundry detergent would mitigate the rank miasma hanging in the room. More likely, she would always associate clean clothes with a ravaged woman and the stench of death. That’s why the coroner warned you never to put mentholated ointment under your nose when you entered the morgue like the cops on TV. If you did, Vicks VapoRub would never soothe a cold or clear your sinuses again; it would just fill them with olfactory memories of decomposition.
Nolan focused on the victim’s jeans: bloody, torn at the knees, frayed at the cuffs, but still buttoned and zipped. “He doesn’t rape them,” she finally said. “Why? Serial killers are almost always psychosexual.”