A Song for the Asking Page 13

  The victim appeared to have been in his late teens or early twenties. A good-looking boy with long black hair and thin, prominent cheekbones, he had on a pair of gray slacks with pleats in both front and back. A four-inch strip of fabric on the left calf was torn, the skin underneath smeared with a dark smudge of what looked like grease. Not touching the body, Kane leaned closer, noticing a purplish discoloration on the upper portion of the neck and shoulder. Postmortem lividity, caused by the action of gravity on blood after the heart stops pumping. At average room temperature it becomes too thick to move, or “fixes,” in about eight hours; after that, subsequent change in body position has no effect on the characteristic port-wine staining of the skin. Because lividity was visible on the upper portion of the body—as opposed to underneath, where it should be—Kane already felt certain of one thing: The body had been moved.

  Deep ligature marks circled the boy’s wrists. His fingers were callused, his nails dirty. No signs of defensive wounds. A crust of blood covered the side of his face, appearing to have flowed from either his nose or ear. A black fuzz seemed to be growing from the surface of the clotted blood near the cheek, like mold on stale bread.

  Fibers? Have SID check it out.

  On further inspection Kane noticed stippling and burn marks on the exterior tissue of the left ear, and the unmistakable muzzle print resulting from a gun being discharged within inches of the skin. In addition, the characteristic star-shaped pattern of tears in the skin indicated the barrel had actually been pressed against the ear when fired. From the size and depth of the rips Kane judged the gun had probably been a small-caliber weapon. He couldn’t check for an exit wound on the other side of the head without moving the body, which would have to wait until the coroner’s investigator arrived. Kane leaned even closer, noticing someone had crammed a red scarf into the kid’s mouth.

  A do-rag. The kid’s colors?

  There was plenty of room for the scarf, because the boy’s tongue had been pulled out through a gaping slash in his neck. Kane recognized the significance of the wound, colloquially termed a “Columbian necktie.”

  Had someone thought Angelo was an informant?

  After withdrawing a pair of thin plastic gloves from his pocket, Kane pulled them on and checked the wallet lying beside the body—comparing the face on the driver’s license to that of the body’s. Satisfied it was Angelo Martin, he replaced the wallet, then carefully lifted the boy’s chin to view the neck. A ragged cut ran from beneath the left ear to the thick cord of muscle on the other side.

  Not enough blood present for the kid to have bled out here. Shirt looks clean, too, except for a grease stain on the back. Should’ve been messy, unless it happened afterward.

  Kane felt the stiffness in the boy’s jaw and neck as he lowered his face, noting that the body had already tightened in full rigor. He looked at the boy’s eyes. Milky. He glanced at the sun, feeling its heat already beginning to rise from the asphalt. Although the Santa Ana winds had died, the city still felt the lingering effects. The variables were difficult to judge, but Kane estimated that death had to have occurred sometime during the previous eight to twelve hours.

  After Sylvia Martin got a phone call and clammed up? Or before?

  A few minutes later the Scientific Investigative Division wagon arrived, along with a second patrol unit. After organizing a widened canvass of the neighborhood, Kane spent the next hour with the three-man crime-scene unit—double checking the SID forensic technicians as they made formal sketches and recorded measurements, directing the photographer, and overseeing the criminalist’s procurement of scrapings, samples, and any other evidence Kane deemed pertinent. During this time he occasionally glanced at the crowd across the alley. Haggerty was taking statements, but Kane suspected the probable presence of gang members in the onlookers made it unlikely anyone would talk.

  “Kane! You ready for me?”

  Kane turned, smiling as he saw a small, smooth-headed man stepping from a late-model Ford across the street. Art Walters, a retired LAPD homicide detective, had been an investigator for the medical examiner’s office almost as long as Kane had been on the force. Walters was one of the best.

  “Be a couple minutes, Art. Why don’t you pick us all up some coffee and doughnuts while you’re waiting?”

  “Screw you, hotshot,” Walters retorted, crossing the street. “The last thing you need is another doughnut. What’ve we got here?”

  “Male Hispanic. Driver’s license says he’s Angelo Martin. We’ve been waiting till you arrived before trying for latents on the neck and the inside of his wrists. We would like to print Angelo here, too. I have a hunch he’s on file.”

  “Wouldn’t be a shocker.”

  “What’s the backlog at the morgue? Think we can set this one up for tomorrow?”

  “Why the rush?” Walters asked, looking quizzically at Kane.

  Kane hesitated. Then, “Keep this quiet, okay? There may be a connection to the Bradley kidnapping. The faster we move on this, the better.”

  “I’ll talk to Chang,” Walters advised, referring to one of the senior county coroners. “For some reason he seems to like you. If anyone can get you an early post, it’s him. In the meantime, lemme get to work.”

  Kane assisted Walters and the SID print technician in an abortive attempt to procure skin prints from the body, then remained at Walter’s side as the coroner’s investigator slowly and methodically examined the corpse—poking, prodding, recording everything. Forty minutes later, as Walters started logging his final observations, Kane directed the crime team to place paper bags over the victim’s hands. He knew he was doing everything right, but contrary to the Sherlock Holmes school of sleuthing seen on late-night reruns of Columbo and Kojak, he also knew in a case like this that forensic evidence—nail clippings and scrapings, tissue samples, blood typing, hair and fiber analysis, fingerprints and ballistic results—rarely led to the arrest of a suspect. Although forensics evidence could tie someone to a murder and ultimately lead to a conviction, first one needed a suspect, and that usually meant finding an informant or a witness. Kane glanced again at the crowd across the alley, deciding from the look on Haggerty’s face that he wasn’t getting much in the way of either.

  Leaving the SID technicians to finish up, Kane made his way back to his car. On impulse he called to the young officer who had been there when he’d first arrived. “Hey, Street.”

  Street looked up from his notebook, into which he had religiously been making entries with every new arrival. “Yes, sir?” he said, hurrying over.

  “I’m going to get a second detail from the p.m. watch out here to recanvass the neighborhood tonight, starting around six. “Want to be on it?”

  “Yes, sir! I’m off then, but I’ll—”

  “I’ll talk to your sergeant and get the OT approved,” Kane interrupted. “What about your partner?”

  “Haggerty? He doesn’t like to work overtime, but I’ll ask him.”

  “I’ll ask him myself. One more thing, Street. Come here, I want to show you something.” Kane walked to the edge of the chain-link fence and kicked aside some trash piled against the corner. Low down, where it could easily go unnoticed, a portion of fencing had been cut and then resecured with a coat hanger. The weeds on the other side had been trampled down. “I’m fairly certain we have one of our many homeless citizens camping out over there in the bushes,” Kane said, pointing to the cardboard box in the oleanders. “He probably won’t be back till after dark, but there’s a chance he may have seen something. You handle it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Satisfied, Kane turned on his heel and returned to his car, thinking the kid was doing a good job and deciding to make sure his sergeant heard about it. Then, after sliding behind the wheel, he picked up the radio mike and contacted detective Albert Moro from the CRASH Unit—the LAPD gang unit whose unlikely acronym stood for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums. “Moro, this is Kane,” he said once the switchboard had pat
ched him through.

  “Morning, Dan,” Moro’s voice came back. “What’s up?”

  “We have one of your homeboys down here drawing flies. Execution-style killing. Can you help me out?”

  “Got an ID yet?”

  “Yeah. The kid’s name is Angelo Martin. Ring any bells?”

  “Hold on, I’ll check.” A pause, then, “Angelo Martin, street name Digger. A member in good standing of our very own Sotels. He’s probably the latest in a series of retaliation gang killings that have been going on for the past several months.”

  “Retaliation killings? By who?” asked Kane doubtfully, deciding not to mention the Bradley connection.

  “Most likely the PBGs—the Playboy Gangster Crips from the Cadillac area over near La Cienega. Word is they’ve been moving drugs in what’s considered Sotel turf. Could have been the Rolling Sixties or the Shoreline Crips, though. They’ve been working West L.A. lately, too.”

  Kane thought a moment. “What I need right now are the names of the kid’s friends and associates—who he hung with, did he have any enemies, that kind of thing. And I may be calling you about rounding up some of the local gangbangers once we get going.”

  “No problem. Anything else?”

  “Later, maybe. Let’s see what develops.”

  9

  Monday afternoon, exhausted from his first day on the job, Travis pulled his mother’s Volvo into Alexander Petrinski’s driveway. After parking beside his teacher’s station wagon and shutting off the engine, he nervously gathered his music. He opened the car door, but instead of exiting, he sat for several seconds gazing pensively down at the Malibu coastline. Far below he could make out the sandy coves of Las Flores, La Costa, and Carbon Beach scalloping the shoreline to the Malibu pier, curving like polished bones in the afternoon sun. Farther north, a smaller pier at Paradise Cove jutted into the Pacific, dwarfed by the massive headlands at Point Dumé beyond.

  Following a quick shower after work, Travis had rushed up Carbon Canyon Road, making it to his music lesson with barely minutes to spare. Now, however, even though he knew Petrinski demanded punctuality, he hesitated, reluctant to enter the house. His body felt stiff and sore from the unaccustomed labor of his new job, and as he massaged the cramped knots in his hands and forearms, loosening them up for the lesson, he thought back over the events of the day. Smiling, he remembered the look of shock on Junior’s face when he’d kicked over the barrel. Unfortunately, his satisfaction was marred by the knowledge that only Tommy’s intervention had saved him. With a chill, he also recalled Junior’s threat afterward. Still, that wasn’t what was bothering him.

  All at once Travis realized he had been dreading this moment the entire day. As usual, he was well prepared. Nevertheless, over the past months he had grown to hate the inexplicable signals of dissatisfaction he’d increasingly sensed from his mentor, subtle things he couldn’t quite put a finger on: a scowl, a shake of Petrinski’s head, an impatient shifting in his chair—but telling.

  Fighting his apprehension, Travis finally stepped from the Volvo and made his way toward Petrinski’s ranch-style house, representative of the area with its red-tile roof, white stucco walls, and Mexican paver patio bordered by clumps of agaves and yuccas. As usual, he entered the front door without knocking.

  “Travis?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s me.”

  Travis closed the heavy oak door behind him. He paused in the entry to hang his jacket on an antique brass hook. As always, what he could see of the room beyond looked as though someone had used a stick to stir it up. Clean, but messy. Books, stacks of paper and sheet music, miscellaneous articles of clothing, and an eclectic assortment of coffee mugs, plates, silverware, magazines, and partially filled ashtrays covered every horizontal surface of the spacious chamber—with the notable exception of the Steinway concert grand sitting in the far corner. For as long as Travis had been taking lessons from Petrinski, the nine-foot piano had always been the single thing in his teacher’s house that had remained unadorned with the rich clutter and confusion of Petrinski’s life.

  “You’re late.”

  “No, sir. My watch says I’m right on time.” Travis hurried in, glancing at the older man sitting in a leather armchair across the room. Although over seventy, Petrinski had a leonine head of hair, whitened now but still thick and full, which he wore long and swept back from his forehead.

  Looking up from a book in his lap, Petrinski smiled. “Then your watch is wrong. Get it fixed.” Closing his book and setting it on the table beside him he asked, “Tell me, Travis. Have you ever read Steinbeck’s East of Eden?”

  Travis took his place at the Steinway. “I saw the movie. James Dean, Raymond Massey. Great flick.”

  “So typical of our modern generation. ‘I saw the movie.’ It’s not even that anymore. Now it’s ‘I’ll wait for it to come out on DVD.’ I’ll tell you something, Trav. The movie was a classic. But the book has something to offer, too.”

  “What’s the point? If I already know—”

  “That’s just it. The film is but one interpretation of the story, a single crystallization of the diverse possibilities open to the imagination of a reader. When you read, there are no limits; with a book you can brings vistas and textures and emotions to life in a way that has meaning for you, and you alone. In that respect, reading is much like performing music. Do you understand what I’m driving at?”

  “I think so, sir,” Travis answered, not surprised that, as so often lately, even his teacher’s casual comments seemed to contain a hidden barb.

  “I’m not certain you do,” said Petrinski, watching Travis closely. Then, changing the subject, “I submitted your selections for the Bronislaw competition today.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Travis answered, feeling a renewed lurch of uneasiness as he reviewed the Bronislaw requirements in his mind. For the preliminary round, along with a short discretionary piece of the performer’s choosing, each competitor had been asked to prepare four longer selections, also of his or her choosing: a classical sonata, something from the romantic era, a twentieth-century work, and a final piece to be performed with an accompanist. After much deliberation Travis had decided on Schumann’s Aufshwung for the discretionary piece, a Haydn sonata for the classical requirement, the Liszt transcription of the “Liebestod” from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde for the romantic period work, and a Rachmaninoff prelude—Op.23, No. 5—as the twentieth-century piece.

  “How’s the Beethoven sonata coming?” asked Petrinski, referring to a work for cello and piano that Catheryn had offered to perform with Travis to fulfill the final competition requirement—a test of a pianist’s ability to coordinate his playing with that of another musician.

  “Fine. At least my mom thinks so.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I … I guess it’s going well.”

  “You guess?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean—”

  “Never mind, Travis. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s proceed with the ‘Liebestod.’” Petrinski rose and crossed to stand behind him. “Play. If we have time, we’ll go on to the Rachmaninoff prelude.”

  Travis knew the lesson had not begun well. After opening the music, he placed his hands on the keys, resolving to execute the strenuous Liszt piece as flawlessly as possible. And for the next few minutes he did, at least as far as he could tell.

  “Liebestod,” which means love-death, tells the story of two lovers and their ultimate, climactic destruction. Travis’s fingers slid expertly through the open bars of the difficult composition, running over the keys with precision. Not an advocate of passive instruction, Petrinski moved back and forth beside him like a taskmaster—sometimes pointing out a key section in the music, sometimes urging Travis on as he embarked on some particularly pivotal passage, sometimes clenching his fist in a curious grasping motion over the keyboard as if trying to pluck the complex sounds from the
boy’s flying fingers—all the while elucidating the rhythm, melody, and harmonic progression with a strangely atonal mix of humming and nonsense syllables and grunts.

  Relentless and driving, the music rose inexorably toward a climax. The motif that had come to represent Isolde’s joy at the thought of being reunited with Tristan underwent myriad harmonic contortions, constantly striving for fulfillment, struggling ever higher, at last resolving to an aching, infinitely fulfilling tonic chord as the lovers achieved in death and transfiguration the mystic union for which both had longed.

  As the final chord died away, Petrinski crossed the room and dropped into his chair. Travis hesitated, once again sensing his mentor’s dissatisfaction. Not knowing what to do, he sat quietly, hands folded in his lap.

  “Travis, it’s time we had a talk.”

  “Sir?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Uh … well, my lessons are scheduled—”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Petrinski, cutting him off. “It’s the same every week. You come; I listen to you play; I make suggestions; you return with the corrections mastered; we start something else. Is that what you want from me?”

  Travis shook his head resentfully but remained silent, not knowing what to say.

  “I’m going to tell you something, Travis. This may hurt, but I don’t see any way around it. As a technician, you’re extremely gifted. As a musician, an artist …” Petrinski’s voice trailed off.