CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 3 page

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Veronica. She held her glass halfway to her lips, glancing back and forth between them.

Instead of answering, Keith and Cliff both turned to face Weevil.

“Eli,” said Keith. “What do you think about bringing a lawsuit against the Balboa County Sheriff’s Department?”

Weevil gave a little start, blinking rapidly.

“I don’t know if you realize, but I just got out of a lawsuit with them. I’m kind of happy it’s over, you know?”

“This would be different,” Cliff said. “We’d be on the offense this time. We’d be looking to prove that the deputy who arrived on the scene planted that gun on you.”

Veronica drew in a breath. “You could use all the evidence the judge threw out. All those other people who claim evidence was planted? You could publicly rake Lamb over the coals. If we do this right, the worst-case scenario is that his career is over.”

“And what’s the best case?” Weevil asked, smiling as he anticipated her reply.

“The civil case leads to a criminal one, and Dan Lamb goes to prison for five, maybe up to ten years.”

The energy in the room surged. Keith let himself imagine the look on Lamb’s face as he sat on the stand, proof of his own corruption on public display.

“This would help recoup at least some of what you’ve lost, Eli,” Cliff said. “At risk of sounding like a daytime-TV commercial, you could claim medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering. And I wouldn’t be shocked if it opened the door for other individual lawsuits. Your kid could grow up in a very different Neptune than you did.”

Weevil leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He was starting to look excited. “You really think we’d have a shot?”

Keith grinned. “I’ve already done most of the dirty work. We’ve got almost thirty witnesses who claim the Sheriff’s Department has planted evidence. Some of them might even get their records expunged if Lamb gets enough of a black eye on this.”

“And the media is already hammering Lamb with questions about that disappearing Glock,” Cliff added. “We just have to make sure they don’t let it drop.”

Eli looked down at his feet, motionless for a few long seconds. When he finally looked up, it was with a crooked grin.

“All right,” he said. “I’m in.”

CHAPTER SIX

Veronica, Keith, Weevil, Cliff, and Mac polished off the Scotch, discussing strategy for hours. It was agreed that Keith would take point on any further legwork, since, as he put it, “the resident big-shot has her own case to deal with.” Veronica noted the wink with which her father delivered this jab. She smiled wanly, but she was grateful.

It was after ten when they finally dispersed. Keith and Cliff went off in search of greasy, gluten-rich food—they’d invited Veronica but she declined—and Mac was meeting with some old Sun Microsystems colleagues at a bar. Veronica was ready to go home. She’d spent the last week in knots of anxiety. Now, with Weevil exonerated, she just wanted to sleep.

The silver RAV4 she’d purchased after the Hayley Dewalt case was parked on the street below the office. She’d opted for the little crossover to help with surveillance. Dearly as she missed streaking up the coastal highway in Logan Echolls’s BMW convertible, the SUV made it easier to see over and around traffic. She pulled away from the curb, still chewing over the details of the new case, and headed south.

Most of Neptune’s sparkling shoreline belonged to the city’s elite. Movie stars and captains of industry had mansions looking out over the Pacific. Yacht clubs, private beaches, and five-star resorts took up the rest. But Dog Beach, a four-mile stretch of golden sand and crashing surf, had always belonged to the hoi polloi. It had long been home to the oddball assortment that gravitate to any public beach: surf bums, earth mothers, buskers, carnies, bikers, burnouts, and street artists, along with the rest of Neptune’s trust-fund-impaired. And now it was home to Veronica. Once the doctors had finally given Keith a clean bill of health, she’d moved out of his little bungalow and into an apartment just a quarter-mile walk from the shoreline, in a fading beauty of a building with a Spanish tile roof and deep casement windows.

She parked her car and started up the open stairs. Moths batted stupidly at the porch lights as she passed. Behind one door she heard the low murmur of a TV. Faintly, she caught the sharp salt smell of the ocean from a few blocks away.

The air in her third-floor apartment was close and heavy as she opened the door. The little window-unit AC just blew dust through the rooms, so she usually didn’t bother with it. When she was home she left the windows open wide for the Pacific coast breeze to move through. Now she turned on the ceiling fan and a lamp, stepping gratefully out of her heels and onto the hardwood floor.

The unit was small but cozy, decorated with a combination of secondhand finds and one or two things she’d pilfered from her dad’s house. A gray-and-white striped sofa sat across from a low walnut bookcase, flanked by floor lamps with vintage-store shades. The walls were lined with reprints of WPA travel posters, advertising Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Crater Lake in bright blocky colors. Half-melted candles sat on an end table, between a phrenological head and a framed photo of her half brother, Hunter.

When she’d been living in her father’s house, it had been inevitable that she’d feel in some vague way like a teenager again, as if she’d been tugged backward in time toward everything she’d tried to walk away from. But here was the evidence that she’d chosen this town, this lifestyle, this career. It didn’t hurt that the apartment was better than anything she could have afforded in New York. The entire Brooklyn studio she’d had through law school would have fit in the bedroom here.

The kitchen, tiled in white and cherry red, was visible on the other side of a high counter lined with stools. She opened the fridge and grabbed last night’s take-out. She didn’t even bother heating it. Grabbing a fork, she took it back to the bedroom. A single light shone under the door.

“You’re still awake?” she said softly, pushing the door open.

Logan sat up against the headboard, bare chested, the blankets pulled up across his lap. The TV on the top of the dresser was tuned to The Daily Show. The sight of his military-grade biceps sent a flutter through her sternum.

Okay, what first? Binge-eat sesame chicken, change into pajamas, or jump straight into bed with the half-naked boyfriend? She compromised by taking a bite and then setting down the container to undress while she chewed. The half-naked boyfriend, after all, would be a lot more enjoyable if she took the time to get out of her suit.

“You’re home late,” Logan said, and she could feel his eyes on her as she wiggled out of her skirt and hung it carefully back on its hanger. “But I should have guessed. Your family throws the best after-acquittal parties.”

“We still had some leftover balloons from yours, so we just reused them. Weevil didn’t seem to mind.” She turned around, still in her camisole and underwear. His eyes tracked her closely, but she picked up the take-out container and took another bite, standing just out of reach and feigning obliviousness to his gaze. “What’d you get up to tonight?”

“Not much. I got home late myself.”

“Another homoerotic-beach-volleyball emergency?” She put a hand on her hip. He smirked.

“Whatever it takes to keep Am’urca safe,” he said, saluting smartly.

“I thank you for your service.”

The novelty of seeing him there in her bed still gave her a little thrill, even though he’d been more or less living with her since he’d returned from his naval tour in the Persian Gulf two months earlier. Before that, they’d been apart for six months. And that was nothing to the nine years they’d been apart before that. It was no wonder she was constantly startled by the simple, shocking pleasure of waking up to find him within arm’s reach, of coming home to find him there. The domestic bliss was…well, blissful. Neither of them had been prepared for that, lifelong adrenaline junkies that they were.

Logan had been reassigned to San Diego for his shore rotation, where he flew F/A-18 Hornets for the Fleet Readiness Center, helping them run diagnostics. “Basically, I try to help them find out what’s busted before it’s too late to fix it,” he’d told her. Veronica didn’t love that job description, but it was definitely better than picturing him running missions over enemy territory. Definitely better than trying to grab snippets of conversation with him long distance, never knowing if the connection would be good enough, or if he’d be called away and unable to meet her online.

For a moment she almost blurted out the details of the new case—leaving them sketchy to keep the girl’s privacy, of course, but filling him in on the basics. Instead, she set down the take-out box and went to the adjoining bathroom to brush her teeth. They had a no-cases-in-the-bedroom policy. Too often her jobs involved other peoples’ infidelities—not the best pillow talk. But it became especially necessary in cases like these, when she was looking into something truly ugly. She already had a habit of carrying her work around with her, lodged in her mind. She wanted at least this boundary.

After she washed up, she went back into the bedroom. Logan had turned off the TV. He leaned back against the pillows, hands behind his head, watching as she crossed the room. She slid under the covers next to him.

“You could have joined us,” she said.

“Sure. That wouldn’t have been awkward at all.” Logan slid his arm around Veronica and pulled her toward him. She caught a whiff of the cedar and sandalwood of his aftershave as she rested her head against his shoulder.

“Come on. They wouldn’t have minded.”

“Oh, yeah? Is Mac still calling me ‘Not-Piz’?”

“That was just a joke. Besides, you and Weevil are cool, right? I thought you guys had some kind of edgy-outlaw-mutual-respect thing going on after all was said and done.”

“Right…” Logan said. “That was his verbatim comment when I friended him on Facebook.”

“I’ll bet you favorite all his Tweets too,” Veronica replied, propping herself up on her elbow and looking at him.

“Favorite? I retweet every word that man posts.”

Their tone was light, but the conversation wasn’t a new one. Veronica had no doubts about Logan’s place in her life, but there was still so much awkwardness between him and the other people she cared about. He’d spent half his high school career as a cynical, entitled jackass, which hadn’t endeared him to her father or her friends. Since she’d moved back to Neptune and gotten back together with Logan, everyone had made a sincere effort at acceptance. Logan and Veronica went to Keith’s once a week for dinner, and Logan had taken them both to a Padres’ game for Father’s Day. Among her friends, there’d been some cordially awkward get-togethers. Everyone got an A for effort, but she still sometimes found herself wondering if it’d always be this hard—if Logan could ever sync smoothly with her other relationships.

He smiled, tracing the line of her cheek with a fingertip. She went quiet then, all thoughts of the case and her friends and her father, all the vague anxieties she had about making this relationship work, in spite of all the differences between them, banished. How could any of it matter, when he was here, when they were together? She leaned up and kissed him.

His arms tightened gently around her.

“Welcome home,” he whispered.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Preuss’s evidence had already arrived when Veronica got to the office at nine the next morning. It was crowded around her desk, a dozen cardboard bankers boxes labeled in black Sharpie. The sight made her feel slightly claustrophobic.

“They said a few boxes,” she said incredulously.

Behind her, Mac stood cradling her coffee mug. She smirked knowingly.

“Please. Endless stacks of evidence and unsorted information to sift through? You’re thrilled. This is Veronica Mars catnip.”

“Yeah, better get your spray bottle at the ready in case I start rolling on a pile of carpet-fiber spectrographs,” Veronica said with a mock scowl. “This is why you shouldn’t hire your friends. It’s all nice and professional until the insubordination starts.” She sighed. “Well, you know where I’ll be.”

“I’ll poke some food under the door at lunchtime,” Mac said, giving a jaunty little wave.

Once she’d shut her office door, Veronica just stood for a moment, looking around the cramped office. One box was labeled MEDICAL in a barely legible scrawl; another said CRIME SCENE. Several others were unlabeled. A few seemed to be packed past capacity, bulging ominously.

One of the first lessons Keith Mars had taught his daughter about solving crimes was that their most important tool was organization. That didn’t necessarily mean keeping an immaculate system of files and notes and evidence. Keith’s own notepad was indecipherable and incomplete, his corkboard a fluttering mess of scrap paper. But his mind was a Euclidean engine of perfect order and universal recall. He had his way; she had hers. But both understood that, without some way of sorting and cataloging facts, there was no way to see patterns. No way to change scope from forest to trees and back again. Her first job was to get a sense of how the case hung together, piece by awful piece.

She pried the lid off a box and started to unpack.

The first few folders contained schematic maps and photos of the place where the victim had been discovered—a field halfway to Pan Valley, more than twelve miles from the Neptune Grand. It had been raining on the night of the attack, and dark puddles mottled the landscape in the pictures. The rain seemed to have washed any evidence away; the only boot prints they had found belonged to the man who found the victim, an antiques dealer named Frank Kozlowski. The cops had found a tire print fifty yards away, on the road above the empty lot, and had identified it as a Firestone belonging to a midsized car, but there was no way to know if that print was connected to the crime.

Behind that folder, Veronica found another file crammed with photos. At first, she couldn’t quite tell what she was looking at: a bloodied mass of flesh; a shapeless form, black-and-blue and pink. Then the image resolved and she saw that it was a girl lying in a hospital bed.

She’d braced herself for the photos of the victim’s injuries—the insurance adjustor’s circumspect language told her the attack had been brutal—but she still stiffened at what she was seeing. The girl’s skin was a patchwork of contusions. Her nose was swollen, twice its normal size. Her eyes were blackened, lashes sticky with blood. One cheek was split jaggedly open. Her left arm was in a cast; her fingers were in splints. An ovoid pattern of bruises crisscrossed her throat.

Strangled, Veronica thought. She set the photos aside and picked up the medical report.

According to the medical examiner, the victim had suffered over twenty broken bones, including her nose, clavicle, three fingers, and the hyoid bone at the base of her neck. Her left shoulder had been dislocated. The cartilage in her throat had been torn and bruised, leaving her unable to speak for days after the attack. She had a severe concussion. On top of that, the examiner noted symptoms of cerebral hypoxia, meaning her attacker had choked her long enough to cut off her air supply. Semen evidence taken from her body had been entered into the DNA database, but had yielded no matches.

Veronica placed the ME’s report next to the toxicology panel. The victim had tested negative for everything except evidence of moderate alcohol consumption and traces of Xanax, for which she had a prescription. There was no sign of anything recreational—no meth, no heroin, no Oxy, no E. Not even cannabis. No Rohypnol or GHB either, meaning her memory loss was likely a result of her brain injuries and her trauma.

Or an act, Veronica thought. Though for the girl to cover for her attacker after what he had subjected her to? Not impossible, but definitely implausible.

She worked slowly, spreading files out across her desk and labeling them, rearranging and collating as she went. There were more photos, some showing further details of the girl’s injuries, others showing details of the field. One showed the dress she’d been wearing, filthy and torn, laid out on a metal exam table. A close-up of the tag revealed that it was Versace.

Finally, she found what she’d been looking for: the police report. It was dated March 9, two days after Grace had been found. Two deputies had signed it, a Tim Foss and a Jerrell Bundrick—neither familiar to her. In cramped type, they had detailed a living nightmare in flat, bureaucratic language.

Victim currently unable to speak as a result of her injuries, but was able to answer preliminary questions with pen and paper.

Victim arrived at Neptune Grand at approx. 10:30 p.m. on March 6, 2014. Victim claimed she was there to meet her boyfriend, but was unwilling to give his name. She waited for him in the rooftop bar, but according to victim he canceled their plans at 11:15; she stayed on and ordered more drinks. Victim says she remembers entering the stairwell, which she “always uses.” Victim remembers receiving blows to her face, head, and torso, but cannot describe her attacker. She also remembers having her air cut off by someone or something crushing her throat. She is unsure where the attack took place, and doesn’t remember leaving the hotel. At this time, victim is still disoriented and confused—the medical examiner’s official report is pending but according to the ICU doctor, memory loss and confusion are normal in cases of strangulation.

Veronica read on and stray words registered—blonde, shock, evidence. Then her eyes fell on the victim’s name. Grace Elizabeth Manning. Age nineteen.

It took a moment for the name to register.

Grace Elizabeth Manning.

It couldn’t be the same Grace Manning. It just couldn’t.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Even as Veronica fought the idea, she knew in her gut that it was true. The girl in the photos, beaten to the brink of death, was the same Grace Manning she’d last seen ten years ago, when she’d still been in high school. Their paths had crossed because of Veronica’s friendship with Grace’s older sister, Meg.

Meg had been an anomaly among the ’09ers; she was pretty and popular but also genuinely kind. She’d been one of the few friends who stuck with Veronica after Lilly Kane’s murder. The friendship lasted even after Meg started to date Veronica’s ex-boyfriend, Duncan Kane, but hit the rocks hard when he got back with Veronica.

The intensity of Meg’s spite had surprised even Veronica, who knew bitterness all too well. Then came the bus crash that killed eight of their classmates and severely injured Meg. Veronica soon learned the real reason for her hostility to Veronica and Duncan: She was pregnant with Duncan’s child.

Meg died from her injuries, but her baby survived and the Mannings got sole custody. A few weeks later, Veronica broke into the Manning house to investigate hints of child abuse. There she found Grace Manning, nine years old and terrified, crouched in a tiny compartment behind the wall in her closet. She’d been shut in by her parents, religious fanatics who didn’t believe in sparing the rod. Veronica and Duncan’s next move was the only viable one they could see: Duncan had kidnapped the baby, and Veronica had masterminded an escape to a safe home far away from Neptune. She hadn’t heard one word from Duncan since.

Veronica didn’t know what had happened in Grace’s life since that night. She didn’t know what triumphs she might have celebrated, what hopes and dreams she’d pursued. All she knew was that it wasn’t fucking fair. Sometimes lightning struck twice; sometimes, one person got more than their share of suffering.

But none of that mattered now. There were still boxes and boxes of information to comb through, and a hundred unanswered questions about the attack. Veronica picked up the file and continued reading. Deputies Bundrick and Foss kept going back to the girl’s bedside and asking the same questions, over and over. They’re trying to catch her in a lie, Veronica realized, staring down at the fourth such interview. She’s lying there in a hospital bed, unable to speak, barely able to move, and they’re trying to figure out how to get this case off their desk. Their frustration was palpable. So was Grace’s.

BUNDRICK: So you remember going into the stairwell. Do you remember going into one of the rooms on the way down?

VICTIM: No. I remember walking to the stairwell and starting down, but nothing’s clear from there on. I don’t know what happened.

BUNDRICK: But last time we were here you claimed to remember someone hitting you in the face.

VICTIM: I remember the sensation of someone hitting me in the face. I don’t remember what he looked like, or where I was. But I remember how it felt. I remember falling down. I remember someone hitting me again and again.

BUNDRICK: But you don’t actually remember being hit in the face, then. You remember getting hurt, but you don’t actually remember how it happened. Is that right? Now, now, there’s no need to cry, Miss Manning. We’re on your side.

Foss, on the other hand, was obsessed with finding out the identity of Grace’s boyfriend.

FOSS: Look, Grace, I’m going to be straight with you here. We can’t move forward on this investigation until you tell us more about this man you’re protecting. We really need to know more about him if we’re going to rule anyone out.

VICTIM: But he wasn’t even there that night.

FOSS: Grace, honey, you know who the perp is in 99.99 percent of cases like this? The boyfriend, that’s who. Are you afraid of him? Because we can protect you.

VICTIM: No! I’m not afraid of him. He didn’t do this to me—why would he do this to me? I already told you. He’s married. He’s got a reputation to protect. He’d lose everything if anyone found out. I can’t do that to him. But he wasn’t there that night.

FOSS: We’re going to find out who he is anyway. Trust me, it’ll be a lot better for you and your case if you just cooperate with us now.

By mid-April, there weren’t any more transcripts or notes. It seemed the case had stalled or been shunted aside. But suddenly in June there was another flurry of paperwork. New memories had surfaced as Grace recovered from her physical injuries. Veronica found an amended police report dated June 4, signed off by Deputy Foss.

Victim claims that she’s retrieved more memories of the night of March 6. She now recalls the features and build of the perpetrator and describes him as being Hispanic, about 5'11" and 170 lbs, wearing a red polo shirt with the Neptune Grand logo on the breast. However she still admits to no memory of the location of the attack, or the aftermath.

A police sketch was attached to this report: it showed a brooding man with an aquiline nose and a close-shaven bristle of hair. Veronica placed it next to the mug shot of Miguel Ramirez—the Neptune Grand laundry-room employee who’d been deported in late May. Ninety percent chance it’s the same guy in both images, she thought.

She kept reading all through the morning, taking in bits of information, making notes, sorting through the mess. A familiar, almost mechanical feeling was taking over, her focus sharpening, her mind clicking into gear. By the time she started watching the hotel surveillance footage, she was ready to give Mac her due for the catnip crack. There was a deep, rhythmic gratification to be found in scanning and organizing evidence; it was as close to high as Veronica got.

A couple of hours passed almost unnoticed, then a soft knock came at her door.

“Yeah?” Veronica said, jarred to reenter the physical world.

Mac opened the door and poked her head in. “We’re ordering sandwiches. You want one?”

“Would you come look at something for me?” Veronica asked, not even looking up from where she sat staring at her computer.

She sensed Mac move silently in behind her. “What’s up?”

Veronica hit a key on her laptop. The Neptune Grand surveillance footage started to play.

“This is the night of the attack. The victim comes in through the main entrance of the hotel at ten twenty-seven.” The camera showed a sleek young woman walking briskly through the doors. Her long blonde hair was twisted up at the nape of her neck. She wore a tight blue dress that showed off a double take–worthy figure. The shoes were expensive-looking silver stilettos.

The lobby was busy for a Thursday night. Grace passed a cluster of women in flamboyant red hats—some kind of social club, it looked like—clustered around the reception desk. She cut between four tall college-age boys in matching team jackets, all of whom checked her out as she passed. A family of five got out of the elevator as she clambered on, then made their way arguing toward the front door.

“A series of cameras track her across the lobby. Then she takes the elevator up to the rooftop bar.” She clicked through different windows, marking the woman’s path. The camera in the elevator gave a closer and sharper view of her features than those in the lobby. “Oh you kid! Opal blue eyes, heart-shaped face, bee-stung lips—insert 1930s Variety prose here.”

Grace’s makeup was flawless and made her look older than she was. It gave Veronica a slight pang, imagining the shy child she’d met a decade ago as this chic sophisticate—and then imagining her again as the savaged figure on the hospital bed.

“Okay, now our young Jean Harlow gets out at the Eagle’s Nest.” Veronica pulled up a different file, showing the Neptune Grand’s rooftop bar. It wasn’t exactly new—it’d been there since Petra Landros’s renovations a few years ago—but it still gave Veronica a chill. The last time she’d been anywhere near the roof of the Neptune Grand, Cassidy Casablancas had been trying to force her to jump off of it at gunpoint.

Back then, the roof had just been a roof; now, it was a coolly lit pleasure garden with a view of the city below. Clusters of oversized chairs were arranged near the railings so patrons could take in the view. In the center of the rooftop a large open-flame fire pit flickered steadily, surrounded by low, curved benches. The clock in the corner of the screen registered the time as 10:31 p.m. when Grace Manning stepped out of the gleaming brass elevator.

“She hangs out at the bar for an hour or so,” Veronica said, hitting Fast Forward. The image picked up speed, the bartender—a young woman in a cummerbund and bow tie—darting erratically, like an agitated squirrel, while a handful of patrons zipped in and out. No one talked to Grace except for the bartender. “She has three drinks. She chats a few times with the bartender. Then she gets up at eleven thirty-seven. But instead of going back to the elevator, she goes into the stairwell.”

Mac leaned over her shoulder, frowning. “Why would she do that? It’s, like, fourteen stories. She’s wearing stilettos.”

Veronica shook her head. “No idea. But here’s the real question.” She opened up all of the lobby camera files and hit Fast Forward again so they all started to run at once. “Where did she go?”

They watched the video in silence. The clock in the corner of each screen ran up, minutes slipping by. 11:40. 11:45. 11:50. At midnight, there was a shift change, with several housekeepers and clerks leaving through the service exit. The bar closed down and the handful of stragglers left. After that there was very little movement except for graveyard-shift clerks fidgeting to keep themselves awake, and one or two employees moving up and down the service corridor.

At just after 5:13 a.m., a parade of sleepy-looking college guys in matching red jackets traipsed through the lobby. Another camera, positioned in the passenger loading area, filmed them outside, climbing groggily onto a charter bus waiting in the valet lane. It was still dark, and drops of rain speckled the camera’s lens. Veronica could just make out the letters on the backs of their coats: PSU BASKETBALL. After they left, no one else came through the lobby until the continental breakfast started up at six.

At no point did Grace reappear on the cameras.

She didn’t come out through the stairwell on the ground floor. She didn’t get on or off the elevator. She didn’t pass through the glass double doors at the front, or the service exit in back, or the parking garage.

“I’ve watched it all the way through to seven a.m.,” Veronica said, looking up at Mac. “That’s when the junk guy found the victim in the empty lot ten miles away. But I don’t see any sign of her leaving through any of the exits.”

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 693