Cold Shoulder

by Lynda La Plante

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Bill.”

  “At least I should have a chance to talk to this guy they brought in with them.”

  The chief coughed. “They’re with him now, but I’m sure they’ll let you talk to him later.”

  Rooney knew they’d all been aware of the possibility he’d be replaced, but his men seemed taken aback that it was happening so quickly. For all his bad-tempered ways, he was well liked. Bean, too, felt sorry for him; he hadn’t been the easiest captain to work for but he liked him. If Rooney was being moved, it meant that everyone on the case would be scrutinized. He repeated Rooney’s request to the team that until the FBI formally took over, they must all work double time.

  No one attached to the case had yet had access to Brendan Murphy or had seen him brought in. Bean gave a rueful half smile.

  “Be just our luck if they walk in with a suspect and pin the whole string on him. They’ll get all the glory and we’ll be made to look like assholes.”

  “No, son, there’ll just be one of us with egg on his face and you’re looking at him, so before it congeals let’s get moving. We just have to find the suspect first. How did you make out at the shoe store?”

  “It was closed, sign said it’d be open later in the day. Seems they stay open half the night. No phone number of the people that run it, so we’ll go back.”

  Rooney jerked his head at the pictures of the last victim, already being pinned up, and plodded out of the incident room. He had decided to have one more crack at Mrs. Hastings. The link between her husband, victim and cross-dresser, and the latest victim was too much of a coincidence.

  “Captain, should I take what we’ve got over to Andrew Fellows?” Bean called after Rooney. “See if he can help us out at all?”

  “Sure. I’ll be interested to hear what Big Ears has to say, and get on to the shoes, or get someone on to ’em, get anyone on to something, for fuck’s sake!”

  While Bean went off in search of Fellows, the rest of the team split up to make inquiries with known transsexuals, shoe and clothing stores that might recall the victim. Rooney sat in his office, resting his head in his hands. He knew they’d all be talking about him being retired earlier than anticipated and it gnawed at him. He downed a good belt of bourbon, replacing the bottle in his drawer before he forced himself to get up and moving as he had instructed Bean. He barked out and assigned two men to run checks on the employees at the S & A vintage car garage in Santa Monica, then crooked his finger for them to come close, telling them to keep it low-key. They could smell the booze on his breath but went off as instructed to the garage without comment.

  Rooney stepped into the elevator and went down to the basement. He could see his reflection in the highly polished chrome cab of the elevator; he looked as beat as he felt. He proceeded along the brightly lit corridor toward the holding cells, or the famous “pods” as they were nicknamed. He had to pass through innumerable security doors and left his weapon in the locker outside the last main security section before he took the key. He was aware of the cameras monitoring his every move, knowing up in the control room they would be following his journey, corridor by corridor, section by section, and more than likely, as they had to know the FBI was here questioning a suspect, they were all gassing about his demise.

  Rooney eventually joined the duty sergeant at his computerized board, which not only indicated every corridor but every occupied cell on a maze of small red and green lights. Microphones could if desired be upped so conversations taking place between officers and suspects or simply between prisoners held in the cells could be overheard.

  “Where they got the suspect?”

  The sergeant indicated cell fourteen’s monitor.

  “Any way I can hear what’s going on?” he muttered, knowing the answer.

  The sergeant gave him a sidelong look and flicked a switch. “FBI been with him for hours.”

  Rooney crossed to the bank of screens and gazed at the one showing the occupant of cell fourteen. Brendan Murphy was sitting on the bunk bed, his hands held loosely in front of him. He was wearing a denim jacket and a stained T-shirt. His shoes had been removed. His beer gut, even larger than Rooney’s, hung over his baggy ancient jeans. Rooney could not see who was in the cell with him but he heard the soft voice asking him to start from the beginning again and to take his time. Murphy seemed to stare directly into the camera and then ran his thick stubby hand over his unshaven jaw.

  “Jesus Christ, I’m gettin’ confused, I’m hungry, I want some cigarettes. I dunno how many more times I can tell you I ain’t seen my wife for almost ten months. I didn’t meet the other woman more’n once or twice and that was fucking years ago. You got the wrong man.”

  Rooney dragged on his cigarette. Murphy did not resemble the only description they had of the killer—no one could be more different. He was thickset, overweight, looked over six feet, and by the look of him, had never worn a jacket in his life. Murphy listed plaintively where he had been on the night of the murder and then stood up, angrily swinging his fist. “I wasn’t even in Los Angeles, for chrissakes. I told you all this in Detroit. You’re gonna make me lose my job. Shit, I dunno what date it is today, how am I supposed to remember where I was in May?”

  The soft voice told Murphy it was the fifth of August and could he be more explicit. He would not be released until they knew his exact whereabouts on the dates in question, starting with the seventeenth of May.

  Rooney had seen enough. He did not believe for a minute that Murphy was their man, so let the FBI question him. The longer they were out of his hair the better.

  Rosie was woken by Lorraine presenting her with a cup of tea. She was dressed for a workout. “I’ll be back for some brunch,” she said brightly. Rosie yawned and squinted at the bedside clock, she couldn’t believe the time.

  “Yeah, we overslept, it’s after eleven.” She hesitated a moment before she bent forward and kissed Rosie’s cheek. “Thanks for last night.”

  She pushed herself at the gym and Hector monitored her weights. She also did a full step-aerobic class. Then she had a sauna and an ice-cold shower and felt fit and sharp. She even ran from the bus back to the apartment—long, slow, steady strides, not pushing herself but working up a sweat, it was in the mid-nineties, another blistering August day.

  Rosie had laid out all her vitamins, the protein drink, cereal, fruit and yogurt, frying up eggs and bacon for herself. Lorraine ate hungrily. After all her exertion she didn’t feel tired, it was good to have had a long sleep for a change. She was feeling like the old Lorraine Page used to feel before she hit the bottle.

  “I met this guy called Brad Thorburn last night,” she said to Rosie. “He knew the professor I went to see at UCLA, Andrew Fellows. They were playing squash and …” Lorraine stared into space, seeing him again, his handsome face, his athletic body. “He lives at that house in Beverly Glen. He owns it. And that vintage car garage.”

  Rosie pulled out a chair and sat down as Lorraine sifted through her photographs. She looked closely at the Mercedes, then at the man they presumed was Steven Janklow. All they had in focus was his chin and part of his nose. She drew the clearer photograph of the blond woman beside it. “I think you’re right—this is the same person.”

  Lorraine flipped through the files, looking for paperwork on Norman Hastings. “I want to go and talk to Hastings’s wife. I’ll have another shower, change, and go over to Arden Avenue. While I’m doing that, I want you to rent another car and pick me up there in a couple of hours. But first see if you can get a section of this picture of the woman blown up so we get to see more of his or her face.” Lorraine counted out some cash. It was running low again.

  “Any chance you can get that friend of yours to pay us some more?”

  “I’ll try, but I doubt it.” Lorraine handed out sixty dollars, plus Mrs. Hastings’s address.

  “You going to tell him about those photos?” Rosie asked.

  “Not yet. We need more, I
don’t want to foul this up.” Rosie picked up the newspaper from the steps outside and tossed it to Lorraine. “See you later.”

  As the screen door slammed after Rosie, Lorraine opened the paper. She couldn’t miss the blazing headline: HAMMER KILLER STRIKES AGAIN. She laid the paper out flat on the table: no name for the victim, just that she was white, aged between late thirties and early forties, and found in the trunk of a stolen vehicle. The murder had taken place the previous evening, the license plate number of the vehicle was given and the location where it had been found, along with a request to the public for any information that would assist the police inquiry. A suspect was being held.

  Lorraine called Rooney but was told that he was not at the station. She checked her watch. It was too late to change her plans because Rosie had already left.

  Rooney drove to Mrs. Hastings’s house on Arden Avenue. It was as it had been before when he questioned her—neat, orderly, not even dog crap on the sidewalk or the manicured green lawns. Rooney had stopped on the way to buy some bourbon and a pack of mints. He pulled over and put the car in park but left the engine running. He took three heavy slugs from the bottle but it didn’t give him the energy to get up out of the cool, air-conditioned car, so he had another drink. He’d hold off on the mints for a while. He sat back, closing his eyes, trying to face the prospect of being shafted out to pasture, and knowing there would be no bonus or golden handshake.

  He sighed, unwrapped a peppermint to hide the smell of booze, and eased his bulk out of the cool car into a wall of heat. With his weight he felt every degree of the mid-nineties afternoon.

  Fifteen minutes later Rooney was still waiting outside Mrs. Hastings’s house. She was not in but, according to a neighbor, was probably taking her daughters back to school as they came home each day for lunch, so she would not be long. He took another few swigs of bourbon, screwed on the cap tightly, then unwrapped another peppermint. He settled back, reached for one of the newspapers he had bought, and broke wind loudly as he glared at the front page. A few cars passed by him but there was little or no traffic as this area was also a no-parking day- and nighttime zone unless resident, and all the neater than neat, well-kept orderly houses had their own garages inside the white-painted picket fences or neat, low-clipped hedges. Mrs. Hastings finally returned. She parked her car in the driveway and carried a bag of groceries inside. Rooney figured he’d wait a while longer before paying his visit. He glanced into his side mirror and saw Lorraine walking up the sidewalk. She paused as if checking she had the correct address. As she walked past his car, Rooney lowered the window. “Afternoon,” he said loudly.

  When she saw it was Rooney, Lorraine said without a pause, “Hi, I was going to talk to Mrs. Hastings.”

  “I’ll come in with you.”

  Rooney saw her hesitate, then say, “Fine, but maybe I can get more out of her without you.”

  “You seen this late edition of the local paper? It’s not public yet but it wasn’t a she, it was a he—or an it, according to the pathologist. That’s why I came here, thought I’d give Mrs. Hastings another shot.”

  Lorraine didn’t react to the information. This was the moment she should have discussed Janklow but she didn’t.

  “Says they got a suspect in custody.”

  “Brendan Murphy, husband of one of the victims. The suits have arrived. They brought him in from Detroit. I haven’t even had access to him yet, but …”

  “But?”

  “It’s not him, I know it. Let’s talk to Mrs. Hastings.”

  “Let me try before you, Bill. You been checking out that vintage car garage?”

  “I got two guys on it this morning.”

  She could smell liquor on his breath. “You okay?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, they gave me the fucking kiss-off this morning. Well, until the FBI is ready to roll. They want me for a briefing later today.”

  Lorraine straightened. “You mind if I say something, Bill? It’s just that I can smell the booze—that and peppermints. If I were you, I’d grab a cup of coffee. Mrs. Hastings sounds like the type of woman who’d report you and you don’t want to give the FBI any excuse to ditch you …”

  Rooney swore and cupped his hands around his mouth, blowing into them. His jowled face wobbled childishly. “Okay, I’ll be back in fifteen. I’ll grab a bite to eat. If you’re through wait for me on the sidewalk. You know a place around here?”

  Lorraine frowned and then told Rooney there wasn’t a place that close, but if he went a few miles down, crossing the main intersection on Colorado, there was a grocery store with a deli attached. He nodded. “Yeah, I know it, just thought maybe there’d be a place closer. Never mind, you wait for me.”

  Rooney parked the car and went into the deli. As he waited for his order he thought how incongruous it was for Lorraine to be telling him to sober up. He’d always been a heavy drinker but now he was drinking more during working hours than he ever had. He wondered if that was the way Lorraine had started. She’d had marital problems, but then so did all the men. He dreaded the thought of being retired and at home with his wife. It gave him nightmares while she chattered away excitedly about them getting a trailer and traveling around the country. He could think of nothing worse. He couldn’t recall the last time he had taken his wife out to dinner, or, for that matter, when he had taken her anywhere. He became more and more despondent as he plowed through his lunch. Everything he did revolved around his station, his men, and now it was going to end.

  Hoping to push these morose thoughts from his mind, he tried to concentrate on the case. He wondered why Lorraine had wanted him to check out the vintage car garage. Did she have something for him, something she’d held back? She hadn’t made it sound important, but in the old days Lorraine always kept her cards close to her chest. He’d reprimanded her about it, reminding her that she was not a one-woman agent but part of a team. He remembered her snapping back at him, saying when the men treated her as part of the team, she would work with them. She had put him down hard and fast because at that time she held a higher rank. It had always needled him, needled a lot of men, that she had gained her stripes before them.

  “You got a problem with the men?” He could see himself leaning against his old wooden desk as she stood straight-backed in front of him. “You want to make a complaint?”

  “No complaints, but if one of them sends me out on any more fucking wild-goose chases with that Merton, who wants to open fire on any kid he sees within ten yards of him, then I will. He’s a lousy backup. He’s in need of treatment and everyone on this unit knows it.”

  Rooney had promised to look into it but he never did. Even after the shootout when she was almost killed he had not given her anyone decent. Just suggested she take a refresher course at the pistol range.

  “I’m a crack shot, Bill. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t and neither would my partner. It’s him that needs the refresher course.”

  Lorraine had taken two weeks off for further training anyway, and her ex-partner died in a shootout the next time he was called out. Maybe she’d been right, but no one ever bothered to make an official inquiry. Officer Reginald Merton was given a posthumous medal for bravery and Lorraine a new partner. Lubrinski had actually filed a complaint a year or so back when he’d been partnered by a female on a stakeout, saying he had enough problems on the job without having to look out for a dumb broad, but when told Lorraine Page would be his new partner he’d said nothing. He didn’t tell Rooney he’d already met Lorraine at the pistol range and had liked what he saw. Rooney figured it was Lubrinski that had started Lorraine on her drinking sessions. He had a reputation as a hard drinker, and before long it was rumored that she was matching him. It was Lubrinski who nicknamed her Hollow Leg.

  They were partners for three years. When he was injured in some cross fire, she used her tights as a tourniquet for his leg. He’d taken three bullets: one in his thigh, one in his shoulder, and one in his stomach. It was the last one that
had killed him. She had returned to duty the next week and never spoke about Lubrinski until the internal investigation. He, too, received a posthumous award and she gained a commendation, which many of the men opposed, insinuating that, had Lubrinski had one of them as backup instead of a woman, he would still be alive. She had never complained or asked for an easier assignment or taken up the offer of a few weeks’ compassionate leave. She had gone straight back to work and remained on the same beat for another year. Rooney wondered if perhaps she had begun drinking alone. Then, at her own request, she was moved from Vice to the Drug Squad. Six months later she shot the kid. No one ever knew what she had felt on that night or why she had been drinking.

  Rooney pushed his half-eaten ham and eggs across the table. For the first time he felt guilty that he, like everyone else, had given Lorraine the cold shoulder. He decided that, even though it was too late, he would talk it through with her. Maybe because he himself felt as if he could finish his bottle of bourbon and not care that he was on duty. He was past caring and he wondered if she had felt that way all those years ago. Angry. In some ways they were similar because he had never complained; he was the man who had always drummed into his officers, get on with the job no matter how tough, never complain, complaints are for losers. It didn’t matter if they were male or female, nobody deserved any favors. If they couldn’t take it, then they weren’t tough enough to gain respect. Nobody respected him now, he concluded, and nobody had respected Lorraine Page.

  “My name is Lorraine Page,” she said to a nervous Mrs. Hastings.

  “I wonder if I could come in and talk to you for a few moments, to iron out a few things about the inquiry into your husband’s murder. It won’t take long.”

  Sitting in the living room, Lorraine was relaxed and complimentary about the neat house, calming Mrs. Hastings’s nerves.

  “I’ve told that Detective Rooney everything. I just can’t understand what more there is to discuss. This only makes it worse, these constant questions.”