Jessica stood on her balcony and stared down at the vehicles banking up at the traffic lights on Alameda, panhandlers ducking between cars with their cardboard signs. She could see a helicopter circling the streets south of Downtown, its blue-white spotlight stabbing down, stirring, looking for someone in the murk. She had taken a flight with one of the bird crews once, just out of curiosity. She’d sat rigid in her seat, gripping the frame of the shuddering aircraft, sweat rolling down her belly under her uniform. They’d flown over one of Johnny Depp’s houses, so low they’d rustled the treetops. The unbroken view of the glittering city had been ruined when her pilot started up with a story about how the chopper had been shot at as it flew over Compton once. A bullet had pinged off the left landing skid. Another half an inch and it would have hit the fuel tank, turning the machine into a fireball rocketing towards the earth. She’d thrown up for fifteen minutes straight after her feet hit solid ground.
The time had come. Jessica held her phone in one hand and a piece of paper with a number on it in the other. A phone number for Kristi Zea had been difficult to obtain. She filtered her calls through a website that specialised in masked numbers – generic phone numbers with an area code of the client’s choosing. According to the piece of paper, Jessica would be dialling Missouri. However, she would bet that the call would be diverted through the website’s algorithms and back to Los Angeles, where Kristi Zea was still living. People were creatures of habit, and trauma tied them to a location. She dialled the number and waited with little hope that the woman would pick up.
Someone did. There was a shuffling, as if the phone was dropped and retrieved. ‘Yeah?’
‘Kristi?’
A pause. Jessica gripped her balcony rail and watched the night, listening hard.
‘She’s not here,’ the woman on the line said. ‘You can leave a message.’
‘I’m Jessica Sanchez. West LA. I was hoping to talk to Kristi about a case she was involved in some years ago. In 2009. Adrian Orlov.’
‘She doesn’t talk to any journalists,’ the voice said. ‘Bye.’
‘Wait. I’m not a reporter. It’s Jessica Sanchez – Detective Jessica Sanchez. West LA Homicide.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you remember me?’
‘I . . . Look, Kristi already knows that the woman got out. The shooter. She doesn’t care.’
‘I’m not calling about Blair Harbour’s release,’ Jessica said. ‘I want to ask you some questions about the case itself.’
More silence. Jessica tapped the balcony rail, chewed her lip, bracing for the disconnect tone. She heard a dog barking in the background of the call, close.
‘Kristi’s not—’
‘I know it’s you, Kristi.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk about it,’ Kristi snapped. ‘And I don’t have to.’
‘I just have a couple of things to clear up, and I hoped we could meet,’ Jessica said. ‘It’s nothing official.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’ Jessica was surprised by the sudden desperation in Kristi’s voice, which had gone up in pitch. ‘I mean – what – clear up what things? The case is closed. Adrian is dead. That Harbour bitch did her time and she’s out now. It’s over. What the fuck could you possibly want to know?’
‘Can I just meet you for a drink?’
‘You said it was nothing official. Does that . . . What does that even mean?’
‘I don’t want to cause you any distress,’ Jessica said carefully. ‘I just want to talk.’
‘Well, I don’t want to talk, okay?’ Jessica heard a glass clunk onto a firm surface on the other end of the line. Kristi swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know why the hell you would think I’d want to talk about my dead boyfriend who got shot right in front of my eyes.’
‘It’s just that—’
‘Don’t call this number again,’ Kristi said. ‘I’m changing this number. This number is dead now. Don’t call me. Ever.’
The line clicked off. Jessica looked at the screen, the red circle with the ‘X’ emblazoned on it, and felt the last dregs of hope draining out of her.