Bury the Past Read online

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY JAMES L’ETOILE:

  At What Cost

  BURY THE PAST

  A Detective Penley Mystery

  James L’Etoile

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by James L’Etoile

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-442-4

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-443-1

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-444-8

  Cover design by Andy Ruggirello

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First Edition: December 2017

  We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

  Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense, 1946

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  ONE

  Larry Burger was a night shift worker by choice. Evenings at the truck stop didn’t require people skills beyond handing a shower key to a tired long-haul driver. Tonight was no exception. Larry ended work minutes before the morning commute that would require making small talk with the truckers coming in for coffee and amphetamines.

  It wasn’t that Larry felt superior to the pill poppers. In truth, he was one of them. The two dozen white OxyContin pills in his pocket promised to deaden his senses, a welcome relief from the cesspool life had become. That was the plan the minute he got home: pop a couple Oxys and disappear for a few hours. He felt the outline of the pills in his pocket, and they gave a warm reassurance that something better waited for him. He told himself he wasn’t an addict. Larry could quit anytime he wanted to—and he would, just not right now.

  The door lock on his Corolla had been drilled out months ago, the remnants of a bad repossession job. The upside was that Larry didn’t need to worry about locking his car anymore. The engine coughed to life when he turned the key. A bill from the power company with red letters proclaiming this was a final notice sat on the seat next to him. It was either the electric bill or the Oxy, and the pills had won out—again.

  Fifteen minutes from home, he took the Garden Highway exit and chewed on one of the pills, thinking it would start to mellow him out by the time he got home. An unexpected hassle from a cop during his shift justified a second Oxy to tamp down the anxiety and old paranoia. The riverside road was dark and deserted in the predawn, leaving him alone with his demons. He wasn’t always like this, popping pills to forget the pain. Next to the warning from the power company was a card reminding him to meet with his probation officer. He was supposed to give a urine sample. The bitter Oxy taste in his mouth said that wasn’t going to happen today.

  A sudden roar erupted from under his car. The entire front of the small import shuddered. The rearview mirror didn’t show an animal carcass in his wake, and the steering wheel’s violent jerk didn’t let up. He limped the car to the shoulder.

  “Damn it all. I don’t need this.”

  The door screeched against rusty hinges when Larry kicked it open. He went down on a knee and inspected the underside of the front wheel well. Something was caught up in the wheels and had made a mess of his tire, brake lines, and God knows what else. Fluid leaked from severed hydraulic lines, and the smell of hot oil and radiator coolant wafted from under the car.

  A blur shot past Larry, accompanied by footsteps in the loose gravel. His reactions were dulled by the opiate, and when he turned, a boot caught him on the forehead. The jolt sent Larry sprawling to the gravel shoulder. He raised his arms to ward off another blow as he crawled backward, until his back hit the car’s fender.

  “Someone tells me you’ve been a bad boy.”

  Larry struggled to focus on the man standing above him. Dazed from the blow to the head, he couldn’t make out his attacker’s face. A slick sheen reflected moonlight off of the man’s steel-capped boots. It took Larry a moment to realize it was his blood. The boot tip shot out again and caught Larry on the temple. The impact bounced his head off the fender, and pain blossomed behind his eyes despite the Oxy kicking in.

  “What do you want? I don’t have anything.” Larry held a hand up to protect himself and dug in his pocket for the baggies of pills. He tossed them to the ground in front him. “Here, take these.”

  A gloved hand retrieved the pills and stuffed them into a pocket. “That’s not what I’m here for. You’ve been talking. You were supposed to keep your mouth shut.” The other hand gripped a yellow-handled hammer.

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  The attacker shuffled forward, and Larry curled up in a ball against the car.

  “You were supposed to do the right thing. We trusted you, and now you’re a damned junkie, shooting your mouth off.” The cold metal claw hammer pressed against Larry’s cheek.

  “No. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  When Larry didn’t instantly respond, the tool snapped at his head, the metal claw tip tearin
g a ragged gash is his cheek.

  “Who?”

  “It’s not supposed to go down like this. I did what I had to do. I lived up to my end.”

  “Who did you talk to?” The hammer pulled back.

  “Wait, wait! Newberry! It was Detective Newberry.”

  The hammer dropped to the attacker’s side. “Now see, wasn’t that easier?”

  “I promise I won’t say anything more. I’ll go away; they’ll never find me again.”

  “I know, I know.” The man bent over Larry and cupped the injured man’s chin with one hand. The other snaked from his pocket with the bag of Oxy and dumped them into Larry’s mouth. Larry tried spitting them out, but the hand held his mouth closed. When he tried to take a breath, the attacker shoved the plastic bag with its pill residue down Larry’s throat.

  Larry resisted, attempting to push his attacker away, but a quick knee to his chest made Larry inhale sharply, lodging the torn bag of Oxy in his windpipe. His eyes widened, and he slapped at the man who held him down. Panic turned to resignation, and the last thing Larry felt before his world turned black was regret. Regret for so many things. Past sins welled up, and the promise of redemption crumbled to dust under their weight. Regret for trusting her.

  When Larry went limp, the attacker took another baggie from his jacket and opened it. He smeared a dark substance on the lifeless junkie. The empty bag went back into the killer’s pocket while he stood and considered moving the body into Larry’s beater of a Toyota. The body might go unnoticed for days, written off as a homeless guy sleeping in his car. That wasn’t the point. The sooner someone called in a dead guy on Garden Highway, the better.

  TWO

  Detective John Penley picked up his partner, Paula Newberry, at her midtown Sacramento home. The sharply renovated Victorian triggered an amused smile on Penley’s face every time he saw the place. Its perfectly manicured gardens and carefully restored gingerbread woodwork were a regular feature on the local home tour circuit. His amusement came from the fact that Paula was anything but neat, tidy, and all put together. Not that she wasn’t a good cop—she was. It was that Paula’s work persona was the polar opposite of the person who lived in this well-maintained home. On the job, Paula was spontaneous, almost to a fault. It was one of the things that made her an effective investigator, one unafraid to follow the evidence, wherever it led—and whoever it pissed off. Her disaster zone of a workspace reflected a brash, outspoken woman who didn’t waste time with decorative picture frames—or clearing empty coffee cups from her desk. Her perfectly ordered home was Paula’s refuge away from the daily toll of crimes, victims, and bloodshed.

  Paula saw John pull the city-issued Crown Vic to the curb and locked up after setting the alarm. Under five-and-a-half feet tall with her boots on, Paula more than made up for her small size with the grace of a bear fresh out of hibernation. She got in the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  “Well aren’t you a little ray of sunshine this morning,” John said.

  “Just drive.”

  John pulled the car from the curb and navigated around lines of trash cans that had been left out for collection. In another hour, the garbage trucks would be finished with their demolition derby through the neighborhood, leaving cans scattered halfway in the street.

  “What time did the watch commander call you?” Paula asked.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “I got my call twenty minutes ago.”

  “So?” John said.

  “Why do they always do this last-minute shit to me?”

  John turned north on Sixteenth heading toward the warehouses and adult bookstores that marked the city’s edge. “Marsden is a good guy, but not always the most organized. I wouldn’t read anything into it.”

  “It’s been over a year since I left internal affairs, and they still find subtle ways to fuck with me all the time. Last-minute calls, or forgetting to copy me on case files.”

  “You did your job, and that’s all it was—a job. Some people have a hard time seeing that.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.” She crossed her arms and looked at the morning homeless migration from the river to the shelter on North C Street.

  “No, it doesn’t. But it builds character.”

  “Well then, I’m motherfucking Joan of Arc.”

  John grinned, then decided it was time to switch subjects and go over the scene as it was described to him on the phone. “Our crime scene was called in by a woman on her way into work. On Garden Highway, a guy sitting outside his car. It didn’t look right to her, so she called nine-one-one. She stayed in her car and waited for the first officer to respond—about ten minutes. She’s still on scene, waiting for us to interview her. You wanna take her statement?”

  “Sure. Medical examiner called out, I take it?”

  “Yep, her people should be there by now. The watch commander said they were finishing up a drive-by shooting scene in Del Paso.”

  “Who caught that one?”

  “Turner and Shippman got that case, and we were next up in the rotation, so here we are.”

  John turned onto Garden Highway—more of a high-banked levee road than a highway. A cluster of black-and-white patrol cars blocked a lane of the road, and an officer waved them through on the shoulder, to the ire of stacked-up morning commuters. One hundred feet from the road closure, Garden Highway dipped into a sweeping curve lined with tall grass at the base of the levee. A lone older-model Toyota Corolla sat on the edge of the asphalt.

  “An isolated spot for a breakdown,” Paula said.

  John parked the Crown Vic behind a patrol car at the edge of the road. Yellow crime scene tape ran from the patrol car to a thicket of blackberries across the highway. John and Paula approached an officer at the tape, who had them sign in before entering the crime scene. He lifted the tape for them, and the detectives ducked under.

  A uniformed officer stood off, watching one of the medical examiner’s people snap photos of the Toyota and the man sitting alongside.

  “Where’s our witness?” Paula asked.

  “She’s over there. Kinda shaken up.” The officer pointed to a silver Honda Accord parked on the opposite side of the road.

  Paula strode over to the Honda, and John walked closer to the Toyota and the dead man. From a distance, the man looked like he’d fallen asleep outside of his car, but as the detective approached, the cuts on his face and the gash on one cheek told another story.

  A crime scene investigator was in the car, collecting and cataloging the contents of the glove box. She looked up and smiled. “Hi, Detective.”

  “Karen, you hear from UC–San Diego yet?”

  “They should announce their acceptances this week.”

  “I like the sound of Dr. Baylor,” he said.

  “Me too, but until I get in, I’m running from one crime scene to another.” She stepped from the car and joined John near the victim.

  “Have you finished with him?” John asked.

  “Photos and prints. I’ve bagged his hands.” She motioned to the plastic bags attached to each hand to retain any fibers, blood, or particulate matter on the victim’s skin.

  “Looks like he didn’t just cut himself shaving.”

  “I’m not a pathologist—”

  “Yet.”

  Karen’s nose wrinkled for a moment before she went back into professional-mode. “From the lacerations on his face and the way his jaw is hanging—he was beaten and beaten hard.”

  John got down on one knee and inspected the facial damage. “These look like he was slashed with a straight razor.”

  “There’s too much bruising around the point of impact for that. Oh, and take a look at this . . .” Karen switched on a small flashlight and propped open the victim’s mouth.

  “What am I looking at? Plastic?”

  “Won’t know for certain until Dr. Kelly does her thing, but yeah, it looks like a plastic bag is caught in his throat.”

  Paula joined her
partner at the Toyota. “Hi, Karen.”

  “Good to see you, Detective.”

  “We have any identification for the guy or registration from the vehicle?” Paula asked.

  “Officer Miller has the vehicle registration. The guy’s wallet is missing.”

  Miller overheard his name and said, “The Toyota has expired tags, but it’s registered to a Lawrence Burger with an address in North Highlands.”

  Paula turned to the victim and stared at the dead man’s face. “Burger—Burger. I know that name from somewhere.”

  “Look familiar?” John asked.

  “No—wait.” She got down closer to the victim. “Shit. Larry Burger.”

  “You know him?”

  “Sort of. He was an informant on an old case.”

  “Drug dealer?” John said.

  “No. He was a cop involved in an investigation when I was in IA.”

  “This guy was a cop? I don’t remember him.”

  “From Solano County, on a task force, if I remember, but he got a couple of our guys dirty. He called me last week.”

  “Really? What’d he want?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You might want to take a look at this, guys,” Karen said. She cast the beam of her flashlight under the car.

  Oil and other caustic-smelling vehicle fluids cast a sheen on the mangled undercarriage and shredded tires.

  “He didn’t stop here because he wanted to,” John said.

  Paula knelt near the passenger-side door, donned a pair of gloves, and pulled at a chunk of metal impaled in the floorboard. A piece of the black steel clanged to the gravel.

  “You find what he ran over?”

  Paula yanked the twisted length of metal from under the car, tugging it from the tangled undercarriage. “Yeah, and it wasn’t random roadside debris.” She tossed the object in front of the car.

  “That’s a spike strip,” John said.

  “Yeah, it is. That property tag says it’s one of ours. And what are the chances that any of our patrol units were out here stopping a high-speed chase?”

  “Slim to none,” John said.

  “I’m going with none,” Paula replied.