Part 7: Enjoy the Silence

Chapter 19

Saturday, March 16th, 2002

Police lights lit up the otherwise dark road as a fire truck sat off to the side of the hill. They had to extract Gil from the car once the EMT's checked his vitals. He was unconscious. There was a cut to the left side of his head. They needed to stabilize his neck just in case. Catherine was already out of the car, sitting in the back of an ambulance. She was on her cell phone trying to do anything she could in finding her daughter.

Sara took in the road, all the angles, and pieced together what had happened. It was a sharp curve around the bluff. Hillside to the left, trees and a drop down into a backyard and roof of a house to the right. There was no guardrail there. The red Buick had gotten in front of them at least a mile before the right turn. They passed the merger of Coldwater Canyon into Mulholland, which had to have been where the Buick made the illegal pass on the left to cut in front of them.

She remembered passing the turnoff for the fire station. Then the trees. She turned as she followed the road around the sweeping sharp right turn. From the fire station cutoff to where she stood was only a one minute drive. One minute from the time the Buick passed them to the collision. Her eyes had been focused out the window but she remembered red brake lights.

It was a blind turn. The moment Gil rounded the turn, the car was already stopped. Brake lights. Gil braked to keep from hitting the car, but the truck didn't. It rammed into the back of the car. They spun right. Gil was already in the middle of the right turn, he would've had the steering wheel going to the right. The car hit the curb and flipped, rolled, and landed on the driver's side in the trees.

They were lucky it wasn't a sharp drop off the side of the cliff, but a steady decline or else they would've dropped down about twenty feet. Killing them wasn't the goal. Taking Lindsey was the goal. This was planned. The perfect spot. Blind turn, two lanes, and nowhere to go to avoid the stopped car.

She felt the chills run up her arms at the thought. Gil's tuxedo jacket was wrapped around her body, she got it from the car before the tow truck arrived. Her left wrist was bandaged with a splint. It'd been sprained. Her right palm had a laceration across it, but nothing a few stitches couldn't fix. Her neck was going to be killing her tomorrow once the adrenaline faded. Right then, she felt fine. She was standing on both her legs, breathing air.

Gil was being taken to the hospital in the back of an ambulance. She heard the words concussion and possible cranial swelling. His left arm could've been broken, along with his ribs and a fractured femur. They didn't know yet.

She let out a breath as she fought to stay calm. Catherine was freaking out enough for the both of them. Granted, her daughter was taken and missing. It was just too much. The lights, the panic, the screaming that still pierced her ears. Everything was too sharp and jagged, stabbing her at every turn.

"I don't need to go to the hospital," Catherine was saying. "I need to find my daughter!"

Going over to Catherine who was standing beside an ambulance, she told her, "You're bleeding, Catherine. You need stitches. You need to get checked out. We both do. We could have internal bleeding, a concussion. You can't help Lindsey if you drop dead."

Catherine looked ready to swing on her before she swayed slightly and caught herself on the side of the ambulance. An EMT was at her side, ready to catch her if she fell. "Whoa," she said as she rubbed her head. "Yeah, maybe you're right. I'm dizzy."

"You have a concussion," the EMT was saying. "We need to get you to the hospital."

As she watched the EMT get Catherine up into the back of the ambulance, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning around, she saw her dad. Brass's eyes were worried but relieved once he saw her.

"You okay?"

She wanted to hug him but instead pulled the jacket tighter around her body. "Yeah." Then she shook her head. "I don't know what to do here."

"Go to the hospital."

"We need—"

"Sara," he said as he placed his hand on her shoulder once again. "Go to the hospital. We'll talk there, after you get evaluated. Amber Alert has been put out. BOLO is out for the red Buick and a truck with frontal damage…Did you get the license plates?"

"No," she said as she shook her head. "It happened too fast and my eyes weren't entirely on the road. Gil could've gotten it. But he's—"

"Enroute already to the hospital." Brass glanced around as he dropped his hand from her shoulder. "Look, until we know what's going on, you still have a cover to preserve, and so does he. Okay? No special treatments. You're a civilian here. There's nothing you can do."

"It was planned," she told him. "I think it was planned. They picked the perfect spot for the ambush. It's a blind turn. The car stopped here on purpose. There wasn't anything on the road, no reason for it to stop. There's no other road or driveway—"

"Sara, calm down."

"I am calm!" she snapped. "What if it was the Sinclair's?"

"We don't know that. Catherine's also going through a divorce—"

"Eddie didn't do this. He wouldn't hire a team to kidnap his own daughter—"

"You don't know that. We've seen it all before during domestic disputes and nasty divorces. People have murdered their spouses to keep from getting a divorce. Kidnapping their child isn't off limits."

Sara let out a breath as she said, "Just don't rule out the Sinclair's."

"And I won't. We'll look into it. Don't worry. Hey!" Brass waved the EMT who was helping Catherine over. "She's going too."

"I want to help—"

Brass cut her off, telling her, "You can't. Not right now. Go. That's an order."

She knew he was right, but it was hard to walk away when all her instincts told her to stay. This was what she did. She helped to solve the case, not get sidelined from it. But her hand needed stitches. Her head hurt, and there was a growing pain in her neck. "Yeah, okay."

Sitting across from Catherine, Sara told her once the doors were shut and they were on their way to the hospital, "Amber Alert is out. They're on the lookout for the Buick, and um…They'll find her, Catherine."

Black mascara was smeared all over Catherine's face as tears dried and new ones fell. "Who could've done this? Why Lindsey—"

"We'll chase all avenues. There's many different—"

"She's done nothing. There's no reason for anyone to take her—"

"Maybe it has nothing to do with her—"

Catherine stared at her as she said, "You think this is my fault?"

"I didn't say that—"

"This isn't my fault!"

Sara snapped her mouth shut at the anger coming for the grieving mother. There was nothing she could say or do to calm her down. She was in panic mode. Catherine was also looking for someone to blame and to be mad at so she could lash out. There must have been so much guilt inside of her.

She gave a nod as she leaned back against the side of the ambulance and let out a breath. Catherine turned her heard away, resting it on her tightly closed fist that clenched the cell phone. Sara really hoped that Gil was okay. Once she was done getting evaluated, she would go see him.

Tuesday, March 16th, 1982

My head was hurting. It throbbed in the lights as a sharp pain stabbed through the left hemisphere of my brain, sending waves of glass-like shards of pain into my eyes. There was nothing I could do about it. The migraine wasn't going anywhere. I wanted to put my sunglasses on but thought it would draw attention. I didn't want anyone to notice me, especially Harvey Lee Booker.

I'd been following them all day. They had lunch at a burger place called 'Time Out' before retreating back into the church. There they stayed until nearly an hour ago. I tailed the Chevy Impala into Koreatown in Los Angeles where it parked in a parking garage. I watched as Booker got out of the car first before opening the door for Abigail. He was wearing a blue jean jacket and khakis pants. Abigail had on a flower dress and yellow raincoat. Hand-in-hand, they walked through the garage and out a door.

A moment later, I did the same. Passing through the door, I walked out into an alleyway between the concrete parking garage and a brick building. Neon blue and pink glistened off the wet ground. It had been drizzling rain all day. Their shadows moved across the walls as they exited out onto the street. Mine followed.

Koreatown wasn't unlike Chinatown. There was street vendors set up along the sidewalks with handwritten signs advertising what they were selling. A lot of seafood markets and bags of rice piled on tables. Bags and tins of teas and coffee for purchase. And crates of fresh fruits and vegetables.

I walked under awnings with Korean symbols that lit up the entire street in a neon orange, pink, and blue until I got to the end of the sidewalk. Booker and Abigail were crossing the street to the opposite corner. She held his hand very much like how Sara had once held mine, except she wasn't skipping. She wasn't even smiling.

I made sure to look both ways before stepping off the curb. On the opposite corner I side-stepped a puddle and passed several older Korean women holding colorful umbrellas. A man walking his dog was between me and them. The dog walker wore a cap and raincoat. As I zigged and zagged around the hordes of bodies on the sidewalk, I kept my eyes on the man in the blue jean jacket. I smelt the food and spices in the air as I walked past a walkup pojangmacha, or pocha, stand that served up hotteok, skewered eomuk, and tteokbokki with rice cake and eggs.

A short distance later, they entered a building with blue and red neon trim and a white sign with yellow letters. A bright neon sign illuminated a bowl with steam above the door. Through the blinds on the second floor, I saw red lights. White curtains were in the front windows. Entering the building, I smelt coffee and tea. Customers were seated on brown leather sofas in front of a hand-carved wood table surrounded by slats of wood paneling. The clock on the wall above a tall plant said it was 9:42 pm.

The place was called a 'dabang' in Korea. It was a teahouse. Adorning the walls and shelves were images and postcards from Korea, local artists' artwork, and bundles of books. On a stage along the far wall, a man and woman were playing instruments, one a string and the other a wind. A 'dabang' was a place for artists and intellectuals to gather, drink tea or coffee, and have conversation. There were no typical tables and chairs, or booths to sit at. Only couches and sofas and a low wooden coffee table.

Booker and Abigail got a table in the back by the hall that led to the restrooms. I got a table by the front windows with a view of the back table. From where I sat, I could see Booker's face. Abigail sat with her back to me. A woman approached as I took out my pen and notepad. I ordered tea. Then, I waited.

Not long after, a white teapot was placed on the table along with a small white bowl which was actually the cup. I thanked the woman who served it by showing her a note and signing, /Thank you./

She just smiled, nodded, and stepped away to help other customers.

The tea was called Soojung gwa, a Korean cinnamon tea, which was a traditional drink. It was sweet and spicy made from cinnamon, ginger, and sugar. I blew onto it to cool it down before taking a sip. It was very hot, but also very good.

Years ago, my mother taught me how to tell the difference between a bone China tea set and one made from porcelain or earthenware. I already knew the cup was earthenware, but it gave me something to do and think about while I waited.

First was translucency. Bone China was made from bone ash, usually from cattle, and had a lower iron content which contributed to its translucency. Holding the cup up to the light that stung my eyes, I couldn't see light through the top edges of the cup. It also had a stark white color. The cup was also heavy. The last thing to check was sound.

Using my spoon, I tapped the edge of the cup but didn't hear a thing. The sound didn't vibrate up into my ears. There was no high-pitched, clear ring. Granted, I knew there wouldn't be seeing how Korean teacups weren't tested for a fine musical note. Instead, a good cup was based on naturalness of form, emotion, and coloring. For these cups with no handles, both hands were used to lift it up. The point was to sip it evenly, taking time to relax and enjoy the moment. I read that for Korean Buddhists, teas were prized if they evoked four kinds of thought: peacefulness, respectfulness, purity, and quietness.

The tea wasn't helping me to relax, and what was on my mind weren't those four thoughts. It wasn't even quiet inside my head. I honestly wouldn't know what that sounded like. Just as I didn't know what the instruments sounded like being played on the small stage in the room.

Or what Mr. Red Shirt, aka Harvey Lee Booker, sounded like while ordering his tea. Or how his victims sounded when he raped and tortured them before killing them. I didn't have to know. I didn't need to hear pain to feel it. I also didn't need to hear it to see it.

Abigail Abernathy was seated across from Harvey. She was in pain. I could see it in her tense shoulders as she kept her head bowed. Booker had ordered for her, but she wasn't eating or drinking her tea. I wondered if this was supposed to be her last meal because it was close. The timeline was growing near, and I knew the repeating pattern. He killed and disposed of the old girl before leaving port with the new. The new girl he had was Sara.

I had yet to see Sara. I honestly didn't know if I wanted to see her pain. I wondered if it'd break me. And if it broke me, what would that mean for Mr. Harvey Lee Booker? It wasn't like I hadn't killed before, but I never pre-planned a homicide. I always hoped it wouldn't happen right up until the moment it had to happen. Level heads would prevail, and I'd walk away clean. It never happened that way. I always walked away with blood coating my hands.

It seemed as if I'd been reprogrammed to act on my violent tendencies the moment it struck me to do so because right now all I wanted was to see Harvey Lee Booker dead. But my head was supposed to be level. I was supposed to be stoic, robotic, and thought through a problem. Yet, staring at the man who'd taken Sara, who'd taken so many lives and hurt so many people, all I saw was blood coating my hands once again.

To quote Lord of the Flies, "The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away." Should I give into savagery? There was always a choice. I figured I could let someone else make it for me. At the moment all I felt like I was, was a vessel there to do someone else's bidding.

The woman was back with my check. I only ordered the tea that was served with nurungji; the crusty part of boiled rice made into a patty. The patty was to be eaten while drinking the tea. Taking my wallet out, I placed a twenty on top of the bill. The tea was only a few dollars. I took a bite of the nurungji as I watched Booker enjoying his tea while speaking to the girl.

He wasn't wearing his priest collar or black attire. Instead, he wore a plaid shirt. Catholic priests weren't supposed to have children. They were to remain celibate in order to dedicate themselves to servitude. The only exceptions were for priests who converted, or in Eastern Catholic Churches where priests could be married and have children before ordination.

I wondered if that was the lie Booker was selling, that Abigail was his daughter, and he'd converted to the church afterwards. But she wasn't his daughter. She'd been stolen.

Booker took one of the cups into his hand and emptied something from his pocket into it. Then he filled the cup with the tea he'd ordered. He placed it in front of Abigail and spoke to her. I read his lips. He said, "Now, be a good girl, and drink up. You want to be a good girl, don't you? Repeat after me, 'I want to be a good girl'."

Abigail picked up her cup and took a drink.

My jaw twitched. Booker was drugging her. He had to be preparing her to be killed. Maybe it was something to ease the pain, or it put her to sleep? I almost jumped out of my seat to go stop him, but I couldn't. I had to find Sara, and getting arrested for assaulting a priest wasn't going to help me find her.

I drank two cups of tea before Booker took Abigail by the hand and led her down the hallway towards the restrooms. I waited a few minutes and when they didn't return, I got up.

The hallway didn't just lead to the restrooms but a backdoor. I checked the men's room, and then the women's room, and then pushed open the door. It opened into a stairwell. The walls were spray painted and plastered with posters and flyers. There was a yellow railing that led up a flight of concrete steps. There was also a green EXIT sign lit up on the far back wall. I barely made out the edges of the door that was under it.

Making a decision, I took the stairs up. Getting to the second-floor landing, there was a red neon sign beside the door. It read: 빨간 방에 들어가

It was hot in the stairwell and my head and face were sweaty. I used my hand to wipe off the sweat then wiped it off on my jeans. Glancing around, I didn't see anyone else. The steps kept going up to the third floor and top floor.

My chest was hurting as I pushed out a breath. My head felt dizzy and light as I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. I was hesitating due to fear. I didn't know what was behind the door. I didn't know if I lost them. If Booker kept going up or if he'd left through the back exit.

With a steady hand, I opened the door. What greeted me was a long dark hallway. There were doors on each side of the hallway. Streaming out from under the closed doors was a red light. Above my head was another green EXIT sign.

At the end of the dark hallway, where it made a 'T', sat a man in a wooden chair. He wore a loud floral shirt and smoked a cigar. Mr. Loud Shirt's words were unreadable in the dim light. To my right was another long hallway heading towards the back of the building where more red lights poured out from under the doors. Most of those rooms were dark; they were unoccupied. One door was open, and the red light seemed to cut the hallway in half.

To my left was a shorter hallway with only two rooms, one on each side. The door was open to the room on the right. A soft pale light where shadows moved. I went to my left, towards the pale light. The unopened door on the left was the restroom.

Getting to the room on the right, I stopped just inside the door as a young woman greeted me. Her eyes were a deep brown but unfocused. She appeared dazed. Her skin an almond color except for the red blotches and a tint of yellow and green under her eyes, and her hair was long and as black as a raven.

She was young. Too young. All the girls in the room seated on sofas or laying across lounge chairs were too young. An older woman was seated behind a desk. Her mouth moved but I didn't care what she had to say. I turned and headed to the red room in the opposite direction.

Mr. Loud Shirt was in my way.

/Move/ I told him before shoving him back down into the wooden chair.

My head was no longer hurting from the migraine. It was on fire with anger as my hand balled into a fist as I approached the open door. Standing by the window of the room was a white man without a shirt on. His hand was around a young woman's throat. She was barely clothed. Her hand was touching his face as the other hand was in his pants.

Ignoring them, I went to the only other occupied room. It was at the end of the long dark hallway. Red seeped out from under the door and lit up the floor. Stopping in front of the door, my shadow fell across the wall as I was lit up in red as I kicked the door in.

The pain vibrated up my leg into my chest as I pushed through the door and into the room. On the bed were two people. An unknown man with his pants down and Abigail. Sitting in a chair, watching, was Harvey Lee Booker. In my head a quote from Sun Tzu who said that if you stand on the shore of a river long enough, the bodies of your enemy will float by...

My enemy had soulless eyes. We stared at one another for a long moment, neither able to move. Booker pushed up his glasses with his free hand. That small gesture shook me out of my shock.

...But those were brutal times, and so were these.

I went to pull my gun when my world shattered. I hit the wall and fell to the floor as white-hot electrical currents shot through my head. A thud was in my head. Images bent and swirled as my stomach lurched. I pressed my hand to my head and felt my ear and something warm and sticky. Pulling my hand away, I saw blood.

Standing above me, twisting in the mixture of fog and pain, was Mr. Loud Shirt. In his hand was a baseball bat. He swirled the bat around in his hand, a grin on his face, before he gripped it in both hands.

Before he could take another swing, I pulled my gun, rolled onto my back, and squeezed the trigger twice. The gun jerked in my hands as the muzzle flash cut through the red light. Mr. Loud Shirt staggered as the bat slipped from his hands. A darker red sprayed the wall and then pooled on the floor where he'd collapsed.

My body jerked as I pushed out the air that'd caught in my chest.

A body crashed into mine. I struggled against the tight, suffocating grip around my neck. A hand grabbed my wrist, keeping me from aiming the gun. A knee slammed into my gut as his head smacked into mine, causing the back of my head to hit the floor. I was dazed as the world spun but I kept a tight hold on the gun in my hand.

Booker ran from the room with Abigail in his arms. The man who'd attacked me picked up the bat. I shot towards him as he ran out the room. Bullet holes split the wood in the door.

I staggered to my feet and once I found my footing I was out the door. A warm wetness trickled down my right cheek as blood seeped from the wound in my head. The couple in the other room stood frozen in the hallway as I pushed past them. The barely clad girls were huddled in the hallway and their faces twisted as their mouths went wide. Their eyes full of crazed fear. Funny how they feared a man with a gun, but not the men who were raping them.

Pushing open the door I had entered through to get to this hellhole, I brought the gun up and swept it around the stairwell and then up towards the third floor. I had no idea where the man with the bat went. I ran down the steps with the yellow railing. There were two doors; the door that went to the 'dabang' and the door that was marked with the bright green EXIT sign. I may not have known where Booker lived, but I knew where he had parked his car.

The exit door took me into the back alleyway. As it drizzled rain over my head and down my face, smearing the blood down into my jacket and staining my shirt, I kept a look out for the man with the bat. My arm hung at my side as I gripped the gun tightly as blood dripped from my hand.

I needed to run as fast as I could towards the street where buses, cabs, and cars were moving at a steady pace. A shadow moved on the concrete wall. I turned and raised my left arm, catching the impact of the blow. A blinding pain ripped through my arm as I brought the gun around, aimed low, and fired.

The man's leg twisted out from under him, causing him to collapse to the pavement. His face contorted into horror as he grabbed his knee where blood sprayed out.

Leaving him on the ground, I ran as fast as I could down the alley, between the parked cars and across the street, barely missing the bumper of a town car. My legs were heavy as my lungs burned. Rain mixed with sweat as I neared the corner and kept running through the intersection where headlights blinded me. The parking garage was at the end of the block.

As I neared the concrete structure of the parking garage, I saw the Impala sitting at the exit waiting on the traffic to clear. In the driver's seat was Harvey Lee Booker, in the back was Abigail. Booker saw me coming. His eyes widened as he hit the gas. Booker sped between two passing cars, causing a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am to veer to the left and run up onto the curb right in front of me.

I jumped, trying to hurdle the car, which was impossible. My left foot clipped the fender as my other foot hit the slanted hood and my body went forwards. I slammed into the windshield and slid down the hood and fell to the wet ground. I stayed there as my chest heaved and heart pounded as the rain splashed over my face.

TBC…

PS: Though not used or mentioned in the chapter, I listened to "거리의 블루스 (Blues of Street)", "야만의 날들 (Days of Savagery)", and "살인의 기술 (Technology of Murder)" by Cho Young Wook from the Korean neo-noir film A Dirty Carnival while writing this chapter.