chapter twenty-three

Thick morning fog still blanketed the coast as I headed towards the Clara Vista police station.

The road brought on flashbacks of Frank: cases we’d worked, things he’d said over the years. But all the good memories ended with the crash and my visit to his house yesterday. I kept seeing Ruth’s broad grateful face on every mile marker. Her gratitude made me feel even worse. Only pulling into the station pushed the pause button on the recriminations.

The Clara Vista police were housed in a small one-story station built in the Spanish colonial style. After checking in with the desk sergeant, I was escorted back to Detective Rubinov’s office.

Rubinov was a thin, hawk-nosed man. He rose to his full height of five foot eight as he shook my hand. Gesturing me to a seat, he settled back once more behind his desk. With his hat off, Rubinov’s balding pate reflected the overhead light, and his brows were wiry tufts of gray that framed hooded hazel eyes.

Rubinov hit the privacy screen before I was seated. The windows darkened and dampened the sound to the outside.

“Never expected to host a detective from the Glass House up here,” he said.

I gave him a slight nod.

The Glass House had been the nickname for Parker Center, L.A. police headquarters, in the way back when. Parker Center had been torn down and replaced with the new headquarters in 2010, but the nickname was resurrected after the terrorist bombing of 2025 shattered the windows of the new building in a rain of glass. These days the newly renovated headquarters, which housed Robbery-Homicide, was more concrete bunker than glass, so the old name was resurrected—an ironic touch. Cue the emojis.

“Sorry to hear about your partner, Detective Piedmont,” Rubinov said. “That’s a tough break.”

I nodded and stared at my feet.

Rubinov tapped the cursor on his wall screen, and the public service screen saver disappeared as the holographic recreation of the accident site appeared, floating in front of us. With fingertip sensors Rubinov detailed the trajectories of the three vehicles. Blue for Frank, green for Lee, black for my Porsche: he painted the light trails of the three vehicles from the start of the accident to their final positions. Then Rubinov clicked through some additional frames. They had a shot of me after the accident standing by the side of the road looking like I’d just taken a sucker punch to the gut.

“This is just a formality,” Rubinov said. “Lee’s precipitating use of the taser, and the forensic reconstruction of all vehicle trajectories, have cleared you of fault. No charges have been filed. The widow’s letting it go. Bottom line: it’s officially ruled an accident.”

The skin on my face was suddenly cold and clammy.

“What?” Detective Rubinov said, leaning back in his chair. “I thought you’d be relieved. This—”

“—wasn’t an accident.” I pointed to the wake of that spilled fluid on the screen. Pink like transmission fluid.

“Lee’s car was leaking fluid,” I said. “And there was a small explosion before Lee pulled the taser. Something that turned the leak into a gusher.”

I pointed to the line of leaked fluid on asphalt. It was harder to see after all the fireworks, but definitely there. The trail got darker and thicker—as if a kid with a black crayon had traced over a thin ink line.

“Did you get samples of the trail to forensics?”

“Transmission fluid.” Rubinov tipped his head to the side like an elderly kestrel. “Tech said it’s probably due to pre-collision features on his Lexus.”

Rubinov was referring to the millimeter wave radar and stereo cameras. The features sound an alarm to warn the driver when they sensed an imminent collision, automatically putting on the brakes and tightening the seatbelts in case the driver was incapacitated, or just slow to react.

I glanced at Rubinov’s report. Tony Gomez was listed as automotive tech advisor. I made a mental note of the number.

Rubinov looked down at his report. “His seat belts retracted like they’re supposed to. But Lee didn’t have his belt on, so it didn’t matter.”

“What about the brakes?” I asked. “ECB?”

“Yeah,” Rubinov said. “Brake calipers on electrically controlled brakes are aluminum. The taser probably shorted them out too. Like they did Frank’s arm and his Toyota’s steering. That taser on cloth and aluminum could also explain the smoke you saw.”

It was almost a reasonable theory. Almost.

“Tasers don’t have enough juice to short out that much. Besides, Lee was already losing control before he used the taser,” I reiterated. “Any sign of tampering?” I peered more closely at the image floating before my eyes, tracing the lines through the scorch marks back down the highway. I could just make out the faintest trail of black, thin as a hair stuck on the lens. The trail seemed to connect Lee’s car and mine like beads on a string.

Rubinov shrugged, the corners of his mouth tugged down into a frown. He gave me the dead eye stare. “Just this on the underside of the Lexus.” Rubinov plunked a burned and twisted hunk of metal on the desk. “Looks like a tracker. Yours?”

I nodded. “We were tracking the Lexus, like I said. Nothing else?”

“Not that we found,” Rubinov replied, running his hand over his balding pate. “Unfortunately, both Lee’s Lexus and Frank’s Toyota are completely incinerated. There’s no way to find the leak itself—let alone prove whether it was caused by tampering or just a fluke break.”

I started to say something. Rubinov stopped me.

“This is courtesy visit, Detective Piedmont. You mind if I ask the questions? Seeing as how it’s my jurisdiction and all?”

I sat back in my chair with a shrug.

“Tell me again why you and your partner were tailing Lee in the first place?”

I recapped what I’d told Rubinov yesterday—about the stripper’s blackmail scheme that Lee had confirmed after the crash. I added the news about the calls to Lee and his thumbprint found in her apartment.

“And the microbial cloud,” Rubinov said. “I spoke to the pathologist too. As I see it, if Lee killed the girl, he got what was coming to him.”

“Yes and no.” I told him how Lee had said “they” were after him. Rubinov looked skeptical as I laid out the dying scientist’s cryptic words about Fuentes.

“He was bleeding out, detective. People say weird shit at the end. You know that.”

“They also truth-tell,” I said.

“What are you saying? You think somebody tried to kill him as well as the girl?”

“Tried? Last time I checked both were dead.”

“Look, if this girl was blackmailing him,” Rubinov said, “I get why you wanted to talk to Lee about her death. And why he might have offed her. But who would have wanted to kill him?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe the same person who videotaped a traffic accident before it happened? Let’s start with his wife. Maybe she has a reason for not filing charges.”

Rubinov laughed. He pushed away from the desk and started to rock back and forth in his chair. “What, this Palisades housewife with no priors rigged some high-tech gizmo to turn her husband’s car into a fireball and filmed the whole thing? What is she—ex-special forces?”

“I’m not making accusations,” I said. “I just want to ask her a few questions. You do too, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t have checked her priors.”

“And found nothing, detective.” Rubinov’s bushy brows arched now. “His boss said you knew Lee was on sabbatical for stress. Maybe he was so preoccupied he forgot to take his car in for servicing. Suddenly he finds police on his tail. He panics and his bad transmission springs a leak.”

I let Rubinov talk.

When he finished, Rubinov leaned forward, elbows planted on the desk, chin cradled in his hands. “What I don’t get is why you’re fighting this? It’s ruled an accident. You’re in the clear.”

“Because it wasn’t an accident. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it look like one.”

“Maybe you’re not the best judge of that right now.” Rubinov switched off the hologram.

I looked at him, at his face bland with controlled concern.

“Don’t tell me you buy the media spin?” I said.

“No.” Rubinov didn’t elaborate, but his face spoke volumes.

“What did Captain Tatum tell you?”

“What everybody but you already knows,” he said. “God knows the job takes its toll on us all. It’s easy to blame yourself for things that go sour—even things you weren’t responsible for.”

I blinked. “Now you’re my therapist?”

Rubinov sighed, massaging his temples with gnarled fingers. “Look, I’m doing you a favor,” he snapped. “Your partner’s dead. You’re not gonna bring him back. Drop this crazy talk before IAC starts asking whether you concocted these wild allegations to cover your own sorry ass.”

My turn to stare at him. Rubinov had done his homework on me. Too bad he hadn’t been as thorough on the crash.

“You’re free to go,” Rubinov continued in a softer tone, “but you should take that vacation for real. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah.” I stood up and jammed my hat back on my head. “Desk duty for a righteous shoot. A routine call on an overdose turns into three homicides. Now Frank’s dead and I’m facing possible forced retirement without pension. Everybody thinks I’m a whack job and there are no answers to anything. I’m lucky all right.” I headed for the door. “I should head to Vegas and bet the house.”