“What's the big deal? What's up with Karen Garcia that has everybody so weird?”
“Get the coffee.”
I put two dollars on the table and followed him out. A warm breeze had come up, pinging us with tiny bits of grit.
“I didn't get a copy for you, but I read it.”
“Reading it won't help. I wanted to compare it with another copy I have.”
“You already got a copy? Then why'd I have to risk my ass?”
“The copy I got might have been doctored. Maybe something was left out, and I want to know what. Might just be a little thing, but I don't like it that somebody's jerking me around.”
Now he was disappointed. “Well, Jesus. You want numbers? You want charts and graphs? I can't remember all the shit in Lewis's report.”
“What I want is to know if there was anything about her murder that the cops would want to hide.”
Jerry Swetaggen's eyebrows arched in surprise. “You don't know?”
“Know what?”
“I figured you were already on to this, coming after Garcia. Rusty owes me, man. You owe me, too.”
“You've said that. What do we owe you for?”
“The skin section identified fourteen separate particulates at the entry wound. They're running a spec analysis now—it takes forty-eight hours to cook through the process—so Dr. Lewis won't have the results until tomorrow. But everybody already knows they're gonna find the bleach.”
“The bleach?” Like I was supposed to know what that meant.
“The plastic gives them that. It's always on the plastic.”
I stared at him. “White plastic.”
“Yeah.”
“They found white plastic in her wound.” There was no mention of plastic particulates in the autopsy report I'd read. No mention of bleach.
“The plastic comes from a bleach bottle that the shooter used as a makeshift silencer. They'll probably find adhesive from duct tape on it, too.”
“How do you know what they're going to find?”
Jerry started for the lapel again, but the two uniformed cops came out. He pretended to brush at something, turning away.
“They don't even know we're alive, Jerry.”
“Hey, it's not your ass on the line.”
The shorter cop shook himself to settle his gear, then the two of them walked up the street away from us. Off to fight crime.
When the cops were well down the street, Jerry brought out a sheet of paper that had been folded in thirds. “You want to know what they're hiding, Cole? You want to know why it's so big?”
He shook open the page and held it out like he was about to blow my socks off. He did.
“Karen Garcia is the fifth vic murdered this way in the past nineteen months.”
I looked at the paper. Five names had been typed there, along with a brief description of each. The fifth was Karen Garcia. Five names, five dates.
I said, “Five?”
“That's right. All done with a .22 in the head, all showing the white plastic and bleach and sometimes little bits of duct tape. These dates here are the dates of death.” Jerry smacked his hands together as if we were back East someplace where the temperature was in the thirties, instead of here in the eighties. “I couldn't sneak out the report because they're kept together in the Special Files section, but I copied the names and this other stuff. I thought that's what you'd want.”
“What's the Special Files section?”
“Whenever the cops want the MEs to keep the lid on something, that's where they seal the files. You can only get in there by special order.”
I stared at the names. Five murders, not one murder. Julio Munoz, Walter Semple, Vivian Trainor, Davis Keech, and Karen Garcia.
“You're sure about this, Jerry? This isn't bogus?”
“Fuckin'-A, I'm sure.”
“That's why Robbery-Homicide has the case. That's why they came down so fast.”
“Sure. They've had a Task Force on this thing for over a year.”
“Is there any way I can get a copy of the file?”
“Hell, no. I just told you.”
“Can I get in to read the reports?”
He showed me his palms and backed away. “No way, man. And I don't care how much Rusty threatens. Anybody finds out I've said this much, it's my ass. I'm out of it.”
I watched him walking away, and called to stop him.
“Jerry.”
“What?”
Something with hundreds of sticky feet crawled along my spine.
“Are the five vics connected?”
Jerry Swetaggen smiled, and now his smile was scared. The smirk was gone, replaced by something fearful. “No, man. The cops say they're random. Totally unconnected.”
I nodded.
Jerry Swetaggen disappeared into the murky light that precedes dawn. I put the sheet in my pocket, then took it out and looked at the names again.
“The cops were keeping secrets, all right.”
I guess I just needed to hear a human voice, and even my own would do.
I put away the sheet, then tried to figure out what to do. The sheer size of it was as impossible to grasp as it is to put your arms around the Goodyear blimp. This explained why the FBI were involved, and why the police didn't want me around. If the cops were keeping their Task Force secret, they probably had good reasons, but Frank Garcia would still ask what the police were doing about his daughter's murder, and I would still have to answer. I didn't want to tell him that everything was fine if it wasn't. If I told him what Jerry Swetaggen had just told me, nothing would be secret anymore, and that might hurt the police efforts to nail the shooter. On the other hand, Krantz had kept the truth from me, so I didn't know what they had, or where they were in the investigation. I could take their efforts on faith, but Frank Garcia wasn't looking for faith.
And it was his daughter who had been killed.
I went back into the diner, found a pay phone at the rear by the bathrooms, and called Samantha Dolan's office number. Sometimes the day-shift people come on early, but you never know.
On the fourth ring a guy with a smoker's voice said, “Robbery-Homicide. Taylor.”
“Is Samantha Dolan in yet?”
“Nah. You wanna leave a message?”
“I'll call back. Thanks.”
I bought a cup of coffee to go, then drove over to Parker Center, where I parked across from the entrance in the coral light of the approaching dawn.
I tried again to figure out what I could do and how I would do it, but my thoughts were jumbled and uneasy, and left little room for solutions.
Someone had been stalking people in the streets of Los Angeles for almost two years. If the vics are connected, you call the shooter a hit man. If they're random, there's another name.
Serial killer.
13
• • •
Little by little, the night shift drifted away, and the day shift arrived. Samantha Dolan turned in driving a dark blue Beemer. Her license plate frame read I WANNA BE BARBIE, THAT BITCH HAS EVERYTHING. Most of the other cops were driving American sedans or pickup trucks, and almost all of their vehicles had a trailer hitch because cops like boats. It's genetic. Dolan didn't have a trailer hitch, but none of the other cops had Beemers. Maybe that made them even.
I followed her down, and parked next to her. She saw me as I parked, and raised her eyebrows, watching me as I got out of my car, then climbed into hers. The Black Forest leather went nicely with her Piaget watch. “Guess the TV series wasn't so bad, Dolan. Nice car.”
“What are you doing here this early, for chrissake? I thought you private guys slept in.”
“I wanted to talk to you without Krantz around.”
She smiled, and suddenly looked very pretty. Like the bad girl next door.
“You're not going to talk dirty to me, are you? I might blush.”
“Not this time. I read through those reports you gave me and saw that some facts are missing, lik
e the little bit of plastic the criminalist found and the white particulates that the ME IDed in Karen Garcia's wound. I was hoping maybe you could help get me the real reports.”
Dolan stopped smiling. A maroon leather daybook was in her lap, along with a briefcase and a Sig Sauer 9-millimeter. The Sig was in a clip holster, and had probably been under her front seat. Most cops carry Berettas, but the Sig is an easy gun to shoot, and very accurate. Hers had glow-in-the-dark sights.
I said, “Do us both a favor and don't say you don't know what I'm talking about. It would make you look ordinary.”
Dolan abruptly took a cell phone from the center console and put it in her purse. “I gave you the reports Krantz gave me. If you've got a problem with that, you should talk to him. You may not remember this, but I work for him.”
“And who does Krantz work for, the FBI?”
She continued gathering things.
“I followed the guy with the white crew cut, Dolan. I know he's FBI. I know why they're on the case, and I know what you're covering up.”
“You've been watching too much of The X-Files. Get out. I've got to get in to work.”
I took out the sheet of paper with the five names and gave it to her.
“If I'm Mulder, are you Scully?”
Dolan stared at the five names, then searched my face. “Where did you get this?”
“I'm the world's greatest detective, Dolan. This isn't early for me. I never sleep.”
Dolan handed back the sheet as if she didn't believe this was happening, and by handing it back could pretend she hadn't seen it.
“Why did you come to me with this? Krantz is the lead.”
“I figure you and I can do this off the record.”
“Do what?”
“You guys have been feeding me bullshit. I want to know what's really going on with this investigation.”
Dolan was shaking her head before I finished, raising her hands. “Absolutely not. I won't have anything to do with this.”
“I already know who the victims are, how they were murdered, and when. By the end of the day I'll have their life histories. I know you're sitting on Dersh, though I don't know why. I know Robbery-Homicide has been running a Task Force, that the FBI is involved, and that you've got the lid clamped.”
Dolan watched me as I said it, and something like a smile played on her lips. Not the bad-girl smile; more like she appreciated what I was saying.
When I finished she said, “Jesus.”
“No. But almost.”
“I guess you're a pretty good investigator, Cole. I guess you're pretty good.”
I spread my hands and tried to look modest. No easy task. “The world's—”
“—greatest. Yeah, I know.” She took a breath, and suddenly I liked her smile a great deal. “Maybe you are. You've been a busy boy.”
“So talk to me, Dolan. Tell me what's going on.”
“You know what kind of spot you're putting me in?”
“I know. I don't want to come on like an adversary, Dolan, but Frank Garcia is going to ask me what's happening, and I have to decide whether or not to lie to him. You don't know me, and you probably think nothing of me, but let me tell you, I don't view that lightly. I don't like lying, I like lying to a client even less, and I will not do so unless there's a compelling reason. Understand this, Dolan, my obligation here isn't to you or Krantz or the sanctity of your investigation. It's to Frank Garcia, and later today he's going to ask. I'm sitting here right now so you can tell me why I shouldn't give this to him.”
“What if you don't like what I tell you?”
“We'll take it a step at a time.”
A sharp vertical line appeared between her eyebrows in a kind of scowl as she thought about what to tell me. I hadn't seen many women who looked good scowling, but she did.
“Remember David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam?”
“Sure. Shot people in parked cars back in New York.”
“Berkowitz just walked up to cars, shot whoever was inside—male, female, it didn't matter—then walked away. He got off on shooting people, and it didn't matter who. The Feebs call guys like that ‘random assassin killers,’ and they're the hardest type of killer to catch. You see why?”
“No connection to the victims. No way to predict who he might go for next.”
“Right.
“Most killers kill people they know, and that's how they're caught. Husband kills wife. Junkie kills dealer. Like that. Most murders aren't solved by clues like you see on Murder, She Wrote, or forensics like you read about in a Patricia Corn-well novel. The easy truth of it is that almost all murders are solved when somebody rats out somebody else, when some guy says, ‘Elmo said he was gonna shoot him,’ and the cops go to Elmo's place and find the murder weapon hidden under Elmo's bed. It's that cut-and-dried. And when there isn't anyone to point the finger at Elmo, Elmo gets away.
“That's what we've got here, Cole. Julio Munoz was the only one of the vics with a sheet. He was a former prostitute who'd cleaned up his act and was working as a counselor in a halfway house in Bellflower. Semple was a roofing contractor who lived in Altadena. Totally unlike Munoz. No record, deacon in his church, the wife, the kids, the whole nine yards. Vivian Trainor was a nurse, a real straight arrow like Semple. Keech, a retired City Parks custodian, lived in a retirement home in Hacienda Heights. Now Karen Garcia. So we're talking about a street hustler, a Sunday-school teacher, a nurse, a retired custodian, and a wealthy college student. Two Hispanics, two Anglos, and a black, all from different parts of the city. We've gone to each of the families and floated the names of the other vics, but we haven't been able to link them. We're trying to tie in Garcia, but we're coming up empty there, too. Maybe you can help with that.”
“How?”
“Krantz is scared to press the girl's father, but we need to talk to him. Krantz keeps saying to let him cool down, but I don't think we can afford to wait. I want to run the names past him. I want to look through the girl's things.”
“You go through her apartment yet?”
“Of course. We didn't need his permission for that. But she might've left things at her father's house. I did, when I moved out.”
“What do you want to find?”
“Something that puts her with one of the other vics. Anything like that, and we're not talking random anymore. That makes this asshole a lot easier to catch.”
“I'll talk to Pike. We can make that happen.”
“This guy's smart. Five head shots, all with a .22, and none of the bullets match. That means he's using a different gun each time. He probably chucks them, so we won't find the murder weapons in his possession. Each shooting takes place in an isolated location, three of the five at night, so we have no wits. We've recovered two .22 caliber shell casings. No prints, both fired from different semiautomatics, and different brands. We've found shoe prints at three of the murder scenes, but, get this, three different shoe sizes, ten, ten and a half, and eleven. He's playing mix and match with us.”
“So he probably dumps the shoes, too.”
The scowl deepened, but now it wasn't because of me.
“Probably, but who knows. A nut like this, he might videotape his goddamned murders. Jesus, I wanna bust this scumbag.”
We sat there a while, neither of us saying anything until Dolan glanced at her watch.
“You've given me a lot of background, Dolan, but so far you haven't told me why I shouldn't level with Frank.”
“A lot of times, these guys will initiate contact, like Son of Sam with his letters, you see?”
“I'm listening.”
“Here was Berkowitz, getting away with murder, and he felt powerful because of it. He wanted to flaunt the fact that the cops couldn't catch him, so he started sending notes to the newspapers.”
“Okay.”
“Well, our guy hasn't done that. The Feebs say our guy doesn't want publicity, and may even be scared of it. That's one of the reasons we decided to keep th
is thing boxed. If we go public, maybe this guy changes his MO, or maybe he even moves to another town and starts all over again. You see what I'm saying?”
“But maybe if you go public, somebody feeds you a tip that lets you nail this guy.”
Her eyes hardened, irritated. She had nice eyes. Hazel.
“Well, shit, World's Greatest, that's the problem here, isn't it? There's no goddamned rule book on how to catch a shooter like this. You make it up as you go along, and hope you're doing the right thing. Don't you think we've talked about this?”
“Yeah, I guess you've talked about it.”
I thought about the change I'd seen up in Robbery-Homicide, how everyone was suddenly more relaxed, about the smiles and high fives, and even the grinning Feebs, and suddenly I knew there was more.
“Who's your suspect, Dolan?”
She stared at me as if she was deciding something, then wet her lips. “Dersh.”
“Eugene Dersh?” That's why the cops were on him.
“Nuts like this, they can't stand not knowing what you know. They like to get up close and find out what you're saying about them. One of the ways they do it is to claim some connection to the crime. They pretend to be a witness or they say they overheard something in a bar, like that. The feds said we might get a break that way, and Krantz thinks Dersh is our break.”
“Because Dersh found this body.”
“It isn't just that. Krantz and a couple of Feebs flew back to Quantico to talk with one of their behavioral science people. They built a profile based on the evidence we had, and Dersh pretty much matches up with it.”
I frowned. “You're talking the talk, Dolan, but you don't seem all that convinced to me.”
She didn't say anything.
“Okay, if it's Dersh, how does Riley Ward fit in?”
“If the Feebs are right, he was just Dersh's cover for finding the body. You read their statements. Ward suggested that Dersh was directive in finding the body. When Dersh tells the story, he puts a different spin on how they went down to the lake. It makes everybody wonder which story is correct and why there are two stories.”