I didn’t respond, letting her think some more until she shrugged again. “Blue Suburban goin’ like a bat out of hell, left turn, that’s all I really know for sure. That’s my final answer.”
The fact that she wasn’t inclined to fill in details actually boosted my confidence in her. It’s incredible how many people do the opposite, sometimes just to please the interviewer. A few minutes later, I thanked Bettina for her time and help, and let her go.
Then I found Jeanne Galletta to tell her my thoughts. We met in an unused guest room on the second floor. Jeanne told me that another hotel patron had corroborated the story.
“Around two o’clock, he saw a large, dark-blue SUV tearing out of the parking lot from his room on the third floor. He couldn’t see too much, but he said it might have been a woman driver.”
“That doesn’t mean it was Mary Smith,” I said. “But if it was, this would be huge for us. At least two people saw the same vehicle leaving in a hurry.”
Jeanne nodded silently, weighing the idea. “So then the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question remains: How big do we go with this?”
There were risks either way, and I puzzled it out loud, partly for her and partly for myself.
“Time’s not on our side. Mary Smith hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. Just the opposite, in fact. She seems to be evolving. This is a chance to use the press to our advantage and speed up the search—if that’s what you want.
“On the other hand, people are already scared, and they’re going to react to every blue Suburban they see, probably to every blue SUV. If this blows up in your face, then it’s one more reason for the public not to trust the Department. But if it gets you Mary Smith, then everything’s okay and you’re a hero.”
“Russian roulette,” she said dryly.
“Name of the game,” I said.
“By the way, I don’t want to be a hero.”
“Goes with the territory.”
She finally smiled. “America’s Sherlock Holmes. Didn’t I read that somewhere about you?”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
I could almost hear the clock ticking inside Jeanne’s head, but maybe it was her heartbeat.
“All right,” she said, looking at her watch. “Let’s do it up. I’m going to have to clear this with the Department, but if I go now, we can get in a press conference before the early news.”
She paused at the door. “Jesus, I hope this isn’t a mistake I’m making.”
“Just go,” I said.
“Come with me, Alex. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “In spite of the Sherlock Holmes remark.”
Chapter 66
THIS WAS BIG, no doubt about that, anyway. Even James Truscott was on hand. The news conference on the blue Suburban got covered by everybody and their big brother, and was sure to be the lead item on every report until something else even more dramatic turned up on the L.A. murder case. Hopefully, it would be the capture of the Suburban, and then Mary Smith, male or female.
I didn’t appear in the small group on camera with Detective Jeanne Galletta, but I met up with her minutes afterward. She was getting attagirls all around, but she broke away to come over and see me.
“Thanks for the help. The wise counsel,” she said. “So did I look like a fricking raccoon on national TV?”
“No, you didn’t. Well, yeah, you did.” Then I smiled. “I remember you saying one time, you have to eat, right? You still interested?”
Jeanne’s worried look returned suddenly. “Oh, Alex, not tonight.” Then she winked and grinned. “Gotcha. Yeah, we could eat, I guess. What are you in the mood for? Actually, I’m starving now. Italian sound good?”
“Italian always sounds good to me.”
Jeanne’s apartment was on the way to the restaurant, and she insisted we stop. “I need to check out my face in my own mirror, with lighting I trust and know,” she explained. “This will only take five minutes, maybe seven minutes tops. Come up. I won’t jump your bones, I promise.”
I laughed and followed her into a redbrick building somewhere off of Santa Monica.
“Maybe I will jump your bones,” she said as we walked up the stairs to her apartment.
Which is exactly what happened as soon as she shut the door behind us. She spun around fast, grabbed me, kissed me, and then let me go again.
“Hmmm. That was kind of nice. But I’m just messing with you, Doctor. Ten minutes, just like I promised.”
“Seven.”
And then Jeanne scooted down the hall to her bedroom and the lighting she could trust. I’d never seen her so loose and lively; it was almost as if she was a different person away from the job.
It took her a little more than seven minutes, but the wait was worth it, the transformation kind of startling, actually. She’d always struck me as attractive, but she looked kind of tough at work, and definitely all-business. Now she wore a silk T-shirt with jeans and sandals, her hair was still wet from a quick shower, and Detective Jeanne Galletta seemed softer, another side of her revealed.
“I know, I know, I look like hell,” she said, only we both knew different.
She hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I forgot to offer you a drink. Oh, God, what is it with me?”
“We only had five minutes,” I said.
“Right. Good point. You always, usually, say just the right thing. Okay then, let’s go. The night awaits us.”
The thing of it was, I could still feel the impression of Jeanne’s body against mine, and her lips. Also, I was unattached now, wasn’t I? Was I? To be honest, I was starting to get a little confused myself. But she was herding me out the door into the hallway—and then Jeanne whirled around on me again. This time I was ready for her and took her in my arms. We kissed, and it was longer and more satisfying than the first time. She smelled terrific, felt even better, and her brown eyes were beautiful up close like this.
Jeanne took my hand, and she started to pull me back into her apartment.
I stopped her. “You just got dressed to go out.”
She shook her head. “No, I got dressed for you.”
But then I gathered it together, got hold of my senses, and said, “Let’s go eat, Jeanne.”
She smiled and said, “Okay, let’s eat, Alex.”
Chapter 67
AT 4:00 IN THE MORNING, a twenty-two-year-old actress named Alicia Pitt left Las Vegas and headed for L.A. The open casting call started at 9:00, and she didn’t want to be blond chick number three hundred and five in line—the part would already be gone before she even got to read.
Her parents’ Suburban, which the highly imaginative Pitts called Big Blue, was a gas-guzzler without a conscience. Other than that it was a free ride, so all in all, the price was close to being right. Once Alicia got some kind of real work, maybe she could afford to actually live in L.A. Meanwhile, it was this endless back-and-forth for auditions and callbacks.
Alicia ran her lines as she drove west on I-10, trying not to glance too much at the dog-eared script on the seat next to her. The familiar ritual continued almost all the way to L.A.
“‘Don’t talk to me about pride. I’ve heard everything I need to from you. You can just—’”
Wait, that wasn’t it. She looked down at the script, and then up again at the road and passing traffic.
“‘Don’t talk to me about pride. I’ve heard it all before from you. There’s nothing you can tell me now that I’ll believe. You can just—’ Oh, shit! What are you doing, Alicia? You numbskull!”
Somehow, she had shuttled off the highway and then onto an exit ramp. It brought her down to a traffic light at an unfamiliar intersection.
She was in L.A., but this definitely wasn’t Wilshire Boulevard.
It wasn’t anywhere she’d ever been, from the look of it. Abandoned buildings mostly, and one burned-out car sitting on a far curb. A taxi, actually.
Then she saw the men, boys, whatever they were. Three of them, stand
ing on the corner and staring her way.
All right, all right, she thought. Don’t freak out, Alicia. Just get yourself turned around and back on the highway. You’re right as rain; everything is cool.
She willed the red light in front of her to change as she craned her neck, looking for the ramp back onto the highway.
One of the young guys had wandered out into the intersection now, his head tilted for a better view through her windshield. He wore baggy cargo pants and a sky-blue sweat jacket; he couldn’t have been more than sixteen, seventeen.
Then the two others came along slowly behind. By the time Alicia thought to run the red light, the boys were standing in front of the hood of her car, blocking the way. Oh, great. Now what?
Chapter 68
SHE SQUEEZED HER EYES SHUT for just a half second. What were you supposed to do in this situation? And why had she never gotten around to buying a cell phone? Um, maybe because she was almost dead broke.
When she opened her eyes again, the one in the blue jacket was at her side window, a menacing look on his face, a tattoo of a red dragon on his neck.
She screamed in spite of herself—just a small yelp, but enough for him to see how scared she was.
Then her panic level crept even higher. It took her a moment to realize the kid in blue was saying something. His hands were held up flat, in a “calm down” sort of gesture.
She cracked the window. “W-what?” she said, unable to keep her voice from quivering.
“I said, ‘you lost?’” he asked. “That’s all, lady—you lost? You look—lost.”
Alicia choked back a sob. “Yes. I’m so sorry.” It was a bad habit; she apologized for everything. “I’m just looking for—”
“’Cause I know you don’t live around here,” he said. His expression shifted, and hardened again. The others laughed at the joke. “This your car?”
Fear and confusion locked Alicia into subservience, which she hated. All she could think to do was answer his question. “It’s my parents’.”
The guy in blue rubbed his chin whiskers as if considering her answer. “Lotta people looking for a car just like this one,” he said. “Don’t you read the papers? Watch TV?”
“I’m just trying to get to Westwood. For an audition. A TV movie. I got off the highway before I was supposed to—”
He howled with laughter, turning away from the car to his group, and then back again. His movements were casual and slow. “She’s trying to get to Westwood to be in a movie. A film. Damn, that’s about exactly what I expected. ’Cause I know you ain’t got no interest in anything or anybody ’round here.”
“Nah, man,” said one of the other boys. “She do her killing in the rich neighborhoods.”
“I got no problem with that,” said another. “Kill the rich, eat the rich, whatever.”
“What are you saying?” She looked at each of them now, desperate for any kind of clarity, a clue about what she should say or do to get out of there. Her wild-eyed gaze fell on the rearview mirror. Could I back out of here? Fast? Really, really fast? Pedal-to-the-metal kind of thing?
The kid at her window lifted his jacket to show a pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “You don’t want to do that,” he said.
The idea that she could be murdered before she had her morning coffee came over Alicia with an ugly reckoning. “Please, I just . . . please. D-don’t h-hurt me,” she stammered.
She could hear the helplessness in her own voice. It was like listening to someone else, someone pathetic. God, she was supposed to be an actress.
The man in blue nodded slowly, in a way she couldn’t decipher. Then he stepped back from the car and put out his hand to let her pass.
“Highway’s that way,” he said. The other two moved off to the side, too.
Alicia felt as if she might faint from relief. She gave the men a watery smile. “Thank you. I’m so sorry,” she said again.
Her hands were shaking on the steering wheel, but at least she was safe.
The Suburban had barely inched forward when, with a sickening crack, the front windshield shattered into a spiderweb of about a million glass pieces.
An instant later, a heavy metal pipe smashed through the driver’s-side window.
Paralysis overtook Alicia. Her arms and legs wouldn’t function. She couldn’t even scream.
The impulse to floor the accelerator got to her brain a moment too late—about a second after her car door flew open and large, powerful hands dragged her out onto the street. Alicia landed on her back, the air rushing out of her lungs in a gasp.
“What kind of stupid are you?” she heard someone say—and then she felt a shock of pain on the side of her head. Then she saw a pipe rise up high and come down really fast, a blur aimed right at the center of her forehead.
Chapter 69
EVERYTHING HAD CHANGED suddenly and dramatically on Mary Smith. Jeanne Galletta was out; she was completely off the case. She’d been reassigned.
I tried going to bat for her, but within hours of Alicia Pitt’s murder, she was history on Mary Smith. That evening, Police Chief Shrewsbury announced that he would be personally overseeing the Hollywood Stalker murders, and that Detective Galletta was on temporary leave pending an investigation into the unfortunate murder of a young Las Vegas woman driving a blue Suburban.
Jeanne was inconsolable, but she was getting the full spectrum of experiences on the case, including a turn as sacrificial lamb. “The mayor of Las Vegas telling the mayor of L.A. to tell the chief of police how to run an investigation?” she ranted to me. “When did this stop being about professionals doing good work?”
“Somewhere around the dawn of time,” I said.
The two of us met for a drink around 8:00 that night. She picked the spot, and said she wanted to make sure I had everything I needed from her on the murder investigation. Of course, she also wanted to vent.
“I know Alicia Pitt’s my fault, but—”
“Jeanne, stop right there. You aren’t responsible for what happened to that woman. It might have come as a result of a decision you made, but that’s not the same thing. You made the best call you could. The rest is politics. You shouldn’t have been taken off the case, either.”
She didn’t speak for several seconds. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “That poor girl is dead.”
“Do you have any vacation time?” I asked her. “Maybe you should use it.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to leave town now,” she said. “I may be off the case, but—”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to. I had been in her position before. It’s best not to say out loud that you’re going to break the rules. Just go ahead and break them.
“Alex, I’m going to need my space,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to meet you here.”
“I understand completely. You know where to reach me,” I told her.
Jeanne finally cracked a half smile. “You’re a really good guy,” she said. “For FBI.”
“You’re okay for a cop. For LAPD.”
Then she reached across the table and put her hand on mine. But she quickly took her hand away.
“Awkward,” she said, and smiled again. “Sorry, if I’m being goofy.”
“You’re being human, Jeanne. That’s different, right? I wouldn’t apologize for it.”
“All right, I won’t apologize anymore. I have to go, though, before I cry or something incredibly embarrassing like that. You know where to reach me, if you need to.”
Then Jeanne got up from the table. She turned back before she got to the door. “I’m not off this case, though. I’ll be around.”
Chapter 70
WEIRD.
When I got back to my room that night, an envelope was waiting for me at the front desk.
It was from James Truscott.
I opened it on my way to my room, and I couldn’t stop reading the contents all the way there.
SUBJECT: WOMEN ON DEATH ROW I
N CALIF.
There were fifteen at the moment, and Truscott included a brief write-up on each of them.
The first woman was Cynthia Coffman. In 1986, she and her boyfriend robbed and strangled four women. She’d been sentenced in 1989 and was still waiting. Cynthia Coffman was forty-two years old now.
At the end of the long note, Truscott said that he planned to visit some of the women in prison. I was welcome to tag along if I thought it might be useful.
After I finished reading the pages, I leafed through them a second time.
What was with James Truscott? And why did he want to be my Boswell? I wished he would just leave me alone, but that wasn’t going to happen, was it?
Chapter 71
THE PHONE IN MY HOTEL ROOM woke me at just past 2:30 in the morning. I was having a dream about Little Alex and Christine, but I forgot most of it as soon as I heard the first ring.
My first coherent thought: James Truscott.
But it wasn’t him.
Around 3:00 A.M. I was driving through an unfamiliar Hollywood neighborhood looking for the Hillside condo complex. I might have found it sooner in daylight, and if my mind hadn’t been racing the whole way there.
Mary Smith’s game had changed again, and I was struggling to understand it. Why this murder? Why now? Why these two victims?
The condo complex, when I finally found it, looked to have been built in the seventies. The units were flat-roofed three-story structures in dark cedar, with fat columns for legs and open parking underneath. There was also parking on the street, I noticed, and that would offer an intruder privacy.
“Agent Cross! Alex!” I heard from across the lot.
I recognized Karl Page’s voice from somewhere in the dark. My watch read 3:05.
He caught up with me under a streetlight. “Over this way,” he said.
“How’d you hear about it?” I asked him. Page was the one who had called me in my hotel room.