Jon Stanton 08 - Run Away Read online

  “No, she’s not like that. She grew up rich and doesn’t know what people are capable of. Nothing really bad’s ever happened to her. She won’t see you coming at all.”

  The cigarette came back to Tate, and he let it dangle between his lips. The burnt-rubber smell was still there, and Richard wondered what was in the cigarette.

  Tate leaned back in the seat, squinting against the smoke from the cigarette. “And we just do it there, huh?”

  “No,” Richard said, pulling out a set of keys. He placed them in the center of the table. “An RV. Take her in that. There’s an RV park across the island near the North Shore. Brand-new, bought under a fake name. You can leave her and the RV there. No one will even notice for a few weeks. Maybe months.”

  Tate looked to Hiapo, who shrugged. “What about the money?”

  Richard took out a slip of paper and slid it to him. “This is the escrow account number at the bank. You can go to the bank anytime and ask them how much is in there and what the details are. Basically, it will be released to you two weeks from today. The only way it won’t be released is if I don’t call in the day before for final authorization. And the only way I wouldn’t do that is if the job isn’t done.”

  “How do I know you won’t just cancel it anyway?”

  “Gentlemen,” he said, glancing at each of them, “all of you know what I look like and my name. You could look me up in the phone book and get my address. I’m not risking crossing you over money that doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ll have more money than I know what to do with once she’s gone. So I’m not looking to cross anybody here. I just want it done and over with and to move on with my life.”

  The three men looked at each other before Tate said, “Okay. When’s she at yoga next?”

  Sharon Miller sat in the back of the club, where the lighting was a dim red. Cut off from the rest of the club and certainly the bar, the room was used almost exclusively for sex, though sometimes, it was used for ingesting enormous amounts of drugs—coke, mostly. She lay on a couch, watching as two of her friends had sex with a native guy covered in tattoos. Both her friends were married, and their husbands were at the club somewhere, though she didn’t see them at the moment.

  Sharon hadn’t been laid the entire night. She didn’t feel into it. Something about the way she and Richard had left off nagged at her. He was right. At one time, they had been inseparable. They were so in love, it hurt. She remembered how he’d smiled whenever she entered a room. One of the saddest things about the situation was that he still smiled when he saw her, though there was nothing between them any longer.

  She took a shot of tequila from a glass on the side table next to her then rose. She would have told her friends she was leaving, but they had their hands full.

  The night air was warm, and she glanced at the moon. It was nearly full, just a little tip of it covered with the blackness of night. Her phone buzzed as she walked to her car. Her daughter, Eliza, had texted, asking when she would be home. She didn’t reply. Instead, she got into the car, and decided to drive to her boyfriend’s house.

  The home was situated on a full acre near the beach. White with deep-blue trim, it reminded her of the princess castles she’d seen on cartoons as a child. A perfect fairy tale. But if that were true, she guessed she wouldn’t have felt that gnawing sensation in her gut every time she pulled up to his house.

  She parked in the driveway and slowly paced around the lawn, taking in the starlit sky. She didn’t want to be inside just yet.

  “I thought that was you.”

  Her boyfriend, Jorge, was seated on a second-floor balcony overlooking the lawn. He smiled at her as he took a sip of wine.

  “I didn’t want to go home just yet,” she said.

  “This is your home. Whenever you want it to be.”

  “I’m not ready for that yet.”

  “Up to you. I just want you to know I’m here whenever you want me.”

  She sat down on the lawn and leaned back on her hands. Jorge was handsome, young, and strong in a way Richard never had been. Jorge took what he wanted out of life and fought like hell when he didn’t get it. Richard was passive and seemed happy with whatever scraps were given to him. The fact that her husband and lover were polar opposites wasn’t lost on her.

  “Do you get jealous?” she asked.

  “Of what?”

  “Knowing I’m with other men.”

  “Like your husband?”

  “I haven’t been with my husband in nearly two years. But you know I love sex.”

  He nodded. “I know. And no, I don’t get jealous.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have other women, as well. That would be quite hypocritical of me, wouldn’t it?”

  She looked up to the stars. “Do you think it’s wrong? The way I treat him?”

  “I think he puts up with what he’s willing to put up with.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  He sipped his wine and shrugged. “What the hell do I know? I’m drunk.”

  “I think… it might be time to leave him soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I don’t know. But this arrangement isn’t good for either one of us. I think it’d be better if we severed the ties cleanly. Hopefully, my father will get over it. He told me if I divorced and left them, I wouldn’t see a dime. But maybe when he sees it isn’t working and it’s better for Eliza that we be separated, he’ll change his mind.”

  He lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that.” Jorge finished the wine and rose. “Now get into my bed.”

  She smiled and stood up, her eyes never leaving his as she strolled into the house.

  6

  Stanton rolled to a stop at a scene he’d been to hundreds of times. The yellow police tape reflected the red and blues. The Crime Scene Unit—or as it was called in the Honolulu PD, the Scientific Investigation Section—had already set up and was surveying the scene. The camera flashes seemed just a little out of date. He’d been there before, in his dreams and in his waking hours.

  He stepped out of the car and saw Laka’s slender figure leaning against a white Ford Taurus. She was wearing suit pants and had her hands in her pockets. Her badge swung lightly on a lanyard around her neck.

  “I was waiting for you,” she said, walking up to him.

  “What do we have?”

  “Caucasian male, thrown from a second-story window. We found glass all around him.”

  A nude male lay flat in the street, blood pooled around him. He had a severe injury to the top of his skull, probably blunt-force trauma. Stanton looked up at the hotel building behind the body. A window had been broken out on the second floor.

  “Was the majority of the glass found outside?”

  “Yeah. Definitely thrown from the inside out.”

  “Who’s the vic?”

  “Steven Jay Fritts.”

  Stanton approached the body. Since he had no gloves or booties, he didn’t want to touch anything. Unlike the portrayal on television, contaminating crime scenes was a serious problem in every homicide. The wind, passersby, the weather, and an entire host of external factors had already contaminated the scene by the time the police arrived. Stanton was always careful not to add to that.

  “Who called it in?” Stanton asked.

  “Steven’s boyfriend. He’s over there.”

  The skinny man was wearing a jacket, though it wasn’t cold. Looking pale, he appeared shaken up, and his eyes were darting back and forth. Stanton approached him and noticed Laka stayed beside him.

  “I’m Detective Jon Stanton with the Honolulu PD. My understanding is you’re Steven’s boyfriend,” Stanton said.

  “Yeah… yeah, I am. I mean… I was.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “Yeah… well, yeah.”

  “So what did you see?”

  The man swallowed, unable to take his eyes off the body in the road. Stanton stepped between him and the body, blocking his view.

  “I got in around five, and… I don’t know. He was upset about something. So I left him. We got into a fight about it. I asked him why he was acting that way, and he wouldn’t tell me. So I just took a shower, and I hear this, like, crash. I came out, and he was on the street.”

  “Did you see anyone running away from the scene?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Was anyone else in the hotel room with you two?”

  “No, it was just us. And I checked the door after, and it was locked. I don’t… I don’t know what could’ve happened.”

  Stanton nodded and looked at the hotel. “I’ll be right back.”

  Laka followed him into the hotel. Stanton hadn’t had a partner for so long that having one felt uncomfortable, as though he’d been assigned a babysitter. But he didn’t say anything. Laka seemed friendly, and he didn’t wish to be aloof with her.

  “How long have you been with Homicide?” Stanton asked.

  “Um, about a week.”

  Stanton stopped and turned to her. “This is your first case?”

  “Yeah. I thought Kai told you.”

  “No, he didn’t mention that.”

  “Is it a problem?”

  “No, not really. Let’s head up to the room.”

  Stanton had assumed altruistic motives behind Kai’s forcing him to accept Laka as a partner, but perhaps that wasn’t the case. She would have to be trained, and Kai apparently wanted Stanton to train her. At the San Diego PD, his captains and lieutenants wanted new detectives as far away from him as they could get.

  They took the elevator to the second floor, where a uniform was standing outside the hotel room. Stanton had met the young man before. They nodded to each other as he stepped inside th
e room.

  One large couch, a flat-screen television on the wall, a fridge, and almost nothing else. The room was sparse to the point of appearing unfinished. Stanton paced the room slowly. Nothing seemed out of place. His eyes moved to the bedroom, and he walked inside. The window was there, broken out. It was large, at least four foot by five foot. He peered through the hole and down at the pavement.

  “He could’ve fallen,” Laka offered.

  “When you fall, you fall straight down. If you’re thrown or jump, you fall in an arch. He’s far enough away from the building that he fell in an arch. So he was either thrown or jumped out of the window. Guessing from the massive wound on his head, I don’t think he jumped.”

  “The boyfriend?”

  “That would be my guess. Can you have one of the uniforms search the trash in the hotel? The dumpster outside, too. I want them to look for a blunt object that has any blood or hair on it. Maybe a statuette or a lamp, something you’d find in a hotel room.”

  “On it.”

  Stanton sat down on the edge of the bed. He stared out at the moon through the broken glass. His eyes led him down and around the room, then back to the bathroom. He went in and flipped on the light. The linoleum floors glistened from a recent cleaning. Stanton looked at himself in the mirror. More and more, he saw his father. And it frightened him.

  If the boyfriend was responsible, there was something there that would tell Stanton. No one could remember every detail. When covering up a crime, people panicked. Panic released a hormone called cortisol into the blood. It affected memory, adrenaline release, and blood sugar. With all of those things misfiring at once, thinking became more difficult. That’s why standardized tests in school were such a poor indicator of success or intelligence: The day of a test was the worst day to attempt to measure anyone’s abilities.

  Stanton opened the frosted glass door of the shower. Water glistened in the tub and on the tiled wall. He ran his eyes up to the showerhead and placed his finger on it. It was still damp. The boyfriend had either really been taking a shower or ran the shower after the argument and bludgeoning the victim, but probably before throwing him out the window. He needed time to try to clean up first.

  I strike him. I’m so angry. Just balled-up fury. I can’t believe he’s doing this to me. I grab the nearest thing available and bash his head with it. It surprises me how easy it is. The head caves like a melon, and I’m standing over this bleeding body. What have I done now? Everyone knows we’re here together. People have seen us. People know we’re here.

  The hotel has a camera in the lobby, so I can’t say I was out. But I can say I was in the hall or in the shower. The shower would be just enough that no one could contradict me. I turn on the shower in case anyone checks it. Then I take his body. I lift it in my arms. He’s so heavy. He’s never been this heavy before. I throw his body out the window, shattering it. Bits of glass fly over me. The body falls, and I quickly turn the shower off. I come out to the window, act shocked, and call the police… but I don’t…

  Stanton hadn’t even realized his eyes were closed. He opened them slowly, readjusting to the level of light in the bathroom. Then he ran his fingers over both towels hanging next to the shower. Bone dry. No one had used them to towel off.

  Stanton left the room and headed back downstairs. He didn’t want the boyfriend to run, so he motioned for two uniforms to join him. Signaling for them to go around to the front of the man, he went up behind the boyfriend. “Excuse me.”

  “Yes?” the man said.

  “Just some follow-up questions if it’s okay.”

  “Yeah… I mean, yeah. Yes, that’s fine.”

  “What was your name again?”

  “Russell. Um, Neal. Russell Neal.”

  “And you’re just visiting the island, I’m guessing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re from Los Angeles.”

  Stanton nodded. He maintained eye contact during the silence, seeing how Russell would react. The young man began to fidget.

  “Well, I’m afraid the body was thrown from the window. He didn’t fall. And it looks like he took a nasty blow to the head before being thrown down. The blow is likely what killed him. We found something, though.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. But we think it was used to bash in his skull. It’s being tested for prints and DNA right now.”

  “Where did you…”

  “Find it? Yeah, we have our ways. So just hang tight. We’re running the prints through IAFIS right now and should get a hit soon. But if they cleaned it up, the DNA will still be there. The only thing that removes that is bleach, and we didn’t see any in the room.”

  The man swallowed. “But, I mean, if whoever did this isn’t in the system, you won’t find him. Will you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Everyone gets their fingerprints taken at birth, and those prints go into IAFIS. It’s the FBI’s database. So as long as they were born in the United States, we’ll have a hit in about ten minutes. Sit tight. We’ll know soon.”

  Stanton turned and saw Laka standing there with a grin. They sauntered up to the hotel entrance and took a seat on a wooden bench.

  “Nice touch,” she said. “About everybody’s prints being in IAFIS.”

  “Who knows? They could be. The NSA reads our emails, why not take our prints, too?”

  She was quiet a moment before she said, “I read about you. Kai told me I should read up on you a little. About how your partner almost killed you. Eli Sherman. I remember the news coming out about him, that a homicide detective was a serial killer. I was still at the academy. I wondered what that would do to his partner. How he must’ve felt knowing the person watching his back was the monster he was looking for.”

  Stanton stared at the pavement. At the mention of his former partner’s name, it all came rushing back to him as though it had just occurred. He was shot at Sherman’s house, flipped over the banister, and impacting with the floor. He had to crawl to his weapon, which was casually hanging in its holster slung over one of Sherman’s dining room chairs. Stanton hadn’t seen it. He had been completely fooled. Sherman had come to his home for Sunday dinners, spent time with his children, and taken them to Padres baseball games… Stanton had been so blinded that until the moment the hot slug entered his flesh, he hadn’t believed Sherman was capable of such great evil.

  “Didn’t feel good,” he said quietly.

  “I bet. But that’s what life is, right? A big learning experience.”

  Stanton didn’t move or blink. His eyes were fixed on a scrap of paper rustling in the breeze away from the hotel’s entrance. “Didn’t feel like much of a learning experience. Other than teaching me that anyone is capable of anything.” He looked at her. “Where were you before Homicide?”

  “Vice.”

  Stanton nodded. It made sense. Young, attractive officers were routinely recruited to the vice squad across departments to be used in prostitution and illegal pornography stings. “Why did you want to do this?”

  “Homicide? Other than a pay bump? It’s got everything I became a cop for. My dad was a cop, Kai’s brother. That’s how Kai got into it after he blew out his knee and couldn’t play football anymore. So it was never really a question for me. My dad was here twenty years ago. Then my uncle. Now me.”

  “Just following in your family’s footsteps? I don’t buy it. That gets you only so far. You have to want to transfer here. You specifically asked for Homicide.”

  “I think I can do some good. And I was sick of dressing in mini-skirts and heels.”

  He grinned. “Whatever the reason, make sure you remember it. Write it down somewhere. Because you’ll forget. The weight of it will start suffocating you. If you write down why you’re here, you can read it and keep going.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Stanton paused. Then he dipped his fingers into his breast pocket and pulled out a small laminated card about the size of a business card. He handed it to her, and she read it.

  “Know that God loves us and remember that if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare back into you,” she said aloud. “Huh.”

  “It’s what keeps me going. And it’s a warning. Our brains are very much like computers. Garbage in, garbage out. You’re going to see things you didn’t think possible. So you have to remember those two things.” She went to hand the card back to him, and he said, “Keep it. I have more. Keep it in your pocket whenever you start your shift. Just like your gun and badge.”