the rate of healing clearly shows the fatal wound occurred some hours after the first injuries. And because the levels of blood loss at the scene, although substantial, are incompatible with the victim having been stabbed in the heart there,’ Jenny answered matter-of-factly.
‘No sexual assault?’ asked Goodman.
Jenny shook her head. ‘Nope.’
‘And she didn’t fight back?’ Johnson asked quietly.
‘Well,’ Jenny peeled off her latex gloves, allowing herself a small smile. ‘At first I thought she didn’t fight at all. Terrified, as I said. But right at the end of my examination I found a tiny – and I mean tiny – sample of tissue under one of her fingernails.’
Johnson’s brow furrowed. ‘Why so tiny?’ he asked. ‘If she scratched him, fighting for her life, wouldn’t there be more?’
‘Indeed there would.’ Jenny’s smile broadened. ‘Which is why I think her nails were cut and the fingers scrubbed. Post-mortem.’
‘Jesus.’ Goodman winced.
‘But he missed a spot?’ Johnson asked brightly. ‘Lucky for us.’
‘I hope it will be,’ said Jenny. ‘Like I say, the sample was tiny. It was also … strange.’
Both men waited for her to elaborate.
‘The cells were unlike anything I’ve seen before. They appeared to be from rotten flesh.’
Goodman raised an eyebrow. ‘Rotten?’
‘Yes, rotten.’ Jenny cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘From something … someone … dead.’
Detective Johnson’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think this chick was killed by a dead guy?’
‘No,’ Jenny replied, deadpan. ‘That would be impossible.’
‘So what are you saying?’ asked Goodman.
‘Simply that the cells I recovered were unusual. And that I can’t guarantee whether the quality or quantity of what we found under that nail will yield a meaningful DNA match to a possible suspect.’
‘Maybe our killer’s a zombie.’ Mick Johnson nudged the ME playfully in the ribs. ‘The living dead are among us!’
Jenny laughed. ‘I’d say you’re proof of that, Mickey. I’ll let you know when I have any more, but that’s all she wrote for the moment, boys. You take care now.’
Standing outside the Boyle Heights Coroner’s Office, the two detectives digested the ME’s bizarre findings in silence. Johnson’s zombie comment was obviously a joke. But exactly how had Lisa Flannagan wound up with a corpse’s flesh under her fingernails?
Realizing someone had to say something, Goodman tried to focus on the facts.
‘So, we’re looking for three sites,’ he observed. ‘Torture. Murder. Disposal.’
‘Uh huh,’ Johnson nodded. ‘Three sites.’
‘I guess we focus on that first.’
‘I guess we do,’ Johnson agreed.
There were a whole bunch of things that irritated him about his slick, young, ambitious partner. But Mick Johnson had to give Lou Goodman credit for an ordered mind, even in the craziest of circumstances.
They were back in their car and about to drive away when Jenny Foyle came rushing out the building towards them, flapping her arms like a lunatic.
Johnson wound down his window. ‘Did you forget something? What else you got for us, Jenny? Vampire teeth-marks on her neck?’ he quipped.
‘Ha ha.’ Panting from exertion, the ME shoved a single sheet of paper into Johnson’s hand. ‘Looks like you got lucky, Mick. DNA results just came back. Turns out your zombie has a name.’
Lou Goodman drove alone to Pacific Palisades. He and Johnson had agreed long ago to divide and conquer on their homicide cases. Goodman always handled the rich, high-class, educated types, while Johnson bonded with the ‘great unwashed’, as Lou only half-jokingly called the blue-collar witnesses. The system didn’t work perfectly. Johnson was great with low-income whites, and over his years in the drug squad had developed a decent working relationship in some of the rougher Latino communities. But he was old school LAPD when it came to black neighborhoods. He didn’t like them and they didn’t like him.
It was a problem.
But not today’s problem.
Today’s call was up in the wonder-bread-white community of Pacific Palisades. The wide streets and multimillion-dollar mansions were very much Lou Goodman’s territory. He was in his element.
‘Turn right on Capri Drive,’ Google Maps commanded. Goodman obeyed, cruising past homes so opulent it beggared belief. ‘Estate’ was an overused word among LA real estate brokers, but these houses were the real deal: ten-, fifteen-, twenty-bedroom palaces with sweeping driveways and idyllically manicured grounds. Uniformed maids, all of them Latina, darted in and out of side gates, some walking dogs, others taking out trash or directing deliveries. Goodman saw a bouquet of flowers as big as he was being delivered to one house, and to another an entire van’s worth of helium balloons emblazoned with the words ‘Ryan is 9!’
Lucky Ryan. Goodman thought back to his own ninth birthday, a trip to the ice rink in White Plains with his buddy Marco. What a great day that had been. One of the last completely happy days of his childhood, before his father went bankrupt and the Goodman family’s rapid descent into poverty, misery and loss began. By Lou Goodman’s tenth birthday, his father was dead. But he never thought about that any more. He’d trained himself only to remember the good times, the happy times. He’d also learned young that while money couldn’t always buy you happiness, a lack of money always brought anguish. Lou’s father barely understood what real wealth was. Greg Goodman had felt rich when he owned a business and a house with a garage and a big backyard. Losing those modest successes had destroyed him.
His son was different. Lou Goodman knew very well what real wealth was, and the terrible things men would do to obtain it and maintain it.
‘Your destination is ahead,’ Google informed him cheerfully. ‘You have arrived!’
Someone’s certainly arrived, thought Goodman, staring up at the vast, Greek classical mansion that was 19772 Capri Drive, aka the Grolsch Residence.
He’d skim-read the family information in the car on the long drive over from Boyle Heights: Nathan Grolsch had made a fortune in waste disposal way back in the 1980s. Dumped his first wife and two daughters and married again in his fifties to a barely legal beauty queen named Frances Denton. Nathan and Frances had one son together, Brandon. According to the file, the kid had turned nineteen three days ago, the same day Lisa Flannagan was murdered.
If
