Cold Shoulder

by Lynda La Plante

  Bickerstaff carefully wiped a crumb from his lips with his paper napkin. He was getting irritated, but he listened—he felt obliged to. “Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, Lorraine, I’m quite capable of interrogating a suspect.” Finally, he asked her if she felt that Janklow was the killer.

  “Yes, I do,” she stated. “He has the motive, heavy blackmail and possibly over a long period of time.”

  “But you don’t have any proof of that, it’s just supposition and we don’t have a motive for each of these women.”

  Lorraine looked at Bickerstaff, her head on one side. “What about Kophch? He’s not as tough as I expected—he seems to be taking a backseat. Couple of times he could have gotten Janklow off the hook but he let it ride. Why?”

  Bickerstaff grinned. “We got him. Here, read this. That retired cop has spilled the beans, and that hot-shit lawyer’s in it up to his neck.” He waved a neatly typed statement in Lorraine’s direction, and said triumphantly, “Steven Janklow had been arrested for soliciting in a red-light district. He was given a warning, but three nights later was arrested again in the same area. This time they took him down to the station to book him. His lawyer subsequently bought off the vice charges against Janklow and paid the cop to pull his arrest sheet. Kophch would be disbarred if it was known that the client he bought out went on to kill eight women. But don’t let his understated style fool you, he’s a vicious little shark. His prowess is in court—you’d be surprised what he’s like and what he can do. For the moment he’s nervous—but don’t think he’s a pussy, because he’s got razor-sharp claws.”

  The break was over. Janklow was being led back into the interview room. The session began again. Bickerstaff repeated almost every question he had asked earlier, and Janklow repeated himself virtually word for word. He denied any knowledge of the victims and confidently repeated the same alibis. It was only when he was asked about his sexuality that he became hesitant. He was quiet, subdued; then he admitted that he was homosexual but was now celibate; he had not had a relationship with any man for ten years. He was near tears when he admitted that he did, on occasion, wear women’s clothes, but only his mother’s. He had never been outside his home dressed as a woman. The photographs Lorraine had found were taken a long time ago.

  “Who took these photographs, Mr. Janklow?”

  Janklow became distressed. He sniffed, then took out a freshly laundered handkerchief and blew his nose. “Art Mathews, or one of his assistants.”

  “Where, Mr. Janklow?”

  Again he sniffed, wiping his nose. “Santa Monica.”

  “Are you or were you being blackmailed by Mathews, Mr. Janklow?”

  “No, and I haven’t seen that wretched man since that session.”

  “Who did the hair and makeup for it?” Bickerstaff pressed, repeating the question.

  Janklow wriggled in his seat. “It might have been David.”

  “David?”

  “Oh, stop this! You know who I mean. That David Burrows—Didi.”

  “So was David ‘Didi’ Burrows blackmailing you, Mr. Janklow?”

  “No. Why do you keep asking me this? I’ve told you I’m not being blackmailed. Not by that Art, or Burrows, or anybody. I haven’t seen them since that session years ago.”

  Bickerstaff doodled with his pencil. “And you have not dressed as a woman for, as you said, many years?”

  “That is correct,” he snapped back.

  Bickerstaff now placed onto the table a brown manila envelope. He took his time opening it and with a slightly triumphant little smile, he withdrew the photograph from the envelope. Janklow was now confronted with Rosie’s photograph. He stared at it, pursing his lips. He seemed disgusted by it. “That isn’t me.”

  “Please look more closely, Mr. Janklow. Is that person in the photograph you?”

  “No, it is not. It’s my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  Janklow blew his nose again. His eyes watering, he moved his body restlessly, constantly entwining his fingers and licking his lips. He let out a short gasp of breath, and then whispered, “It’s me.” He had already lied—and under oath. Bickerstaff started in on him again, demanding to know just how deeply entrenched he was in the world of transvestites and transsexuals, swinging his questioning around to prostitutes—whether Janklow had ever picked up transsexual prostitutes. “No, I have not.”

  “You sure about that, Steven? You never picked up other men like yourself, dressed like this …” He pushed the photo of Janklow forward again.

  “I do not pick up any of the filth from the streets.”

  “Tell me about David Burrows.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Didi. Come on, Steven, you’ve admitted he made you up, fixed your hair for the photographs, and now you’re saying you didn’t know him. You’re lying.”

  Janklow looked helplessly to Kophch, who examined his nails, refusing to meet Janklow’s eye.

  Bickerstaff leaned back. “Okay, Steven, you didn’t know Didi, you didn’t know Art Mathews. So tell me about the jewelry you’ve been selling off. It’s a lot of money and it belongs to your mother.”

  “You leave her out of this.” He was now on the defensive.

  “But, Steven, if you’ve been selling it without her permission, then we’ll have to discuss it with her.”

  “Leave her alone. She’s not well.”

  “I can’t do that, Steven, because she’s also your alibi for the night of the assault and the night of Norman Hastings’s murder. We’re going to have to bring her in, you must know that.”

  Janklow slapped the table next to Kophch, who had no choice but to look up at him. “Tell them they can’t do that.”

  “They can, Steven.”

  Janklow put his head in his hands. When Bickerstaff asked him again about the jewelry, he began to sob. This was not what Bickerstaff wanted: if he became too distressed, by law Kophch could take a break. Bickerstaff switched the subject away from Mrs. Thorburn.

  Lorraine was furious. “What the hell is he doing? He’s got him sobbing his heart out. Why doesn’t he push for more about the jewelry? I don’t believe it.”

  Rooney walked in and saw her angry face. “Mrs. Thorburn has just told us that she gave her son permission to sell all her jewelry and that he was, on the night he was supposed to have attacked you, with her.… I got to tell Bickerstaff.”

  “Shit.” Lorraine looked at him. “Somebody must have gotten to her—like Brad.”

  “According to the nursing staff she’s had no visitors, just one phone call. Late last night. From Kophch. But as her legal adviser he has every right to call her, and I’m telling you, she’s a tough old broad and she’s got all her marbles—told me to get the hell out.” He leaned against the wall stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets. “She’s in that old movie stars’ home. I wouldn’t mind movin’ in there, supposed to be pretty cushy.” Lorraine gave him a scathing look.

  “Just making conversation. D’ya notice it’s gone pretty quiet in there?”

  There had been a long, almost ominous silence as Bickerstaff thumbed through his file, but now he was back on the subject of Janklow’s relationship with Norman Hastings, asking him how close they were, and when was the last time they’d seen each other. Janklow seemed to ignore the questions and then he shrugged, becoming petulant. They had no relationship, he said, absolutely none, it was ridiculous. Bickerstaff sighed, looked to Kophch.

  “Please answer the questions, Steven,” Kophch said.

  “He was a fool, a stupid idiot.” Janklow was no longer tearful. He was getting angry, and both Lorraine and Rooney listened intently. It was eerie watching him, his face twisted, his lips wetter and shinier. “Stupid, boring, fat, bloated fool.” Kophch gave a warning touch to Janklow’s arm. “Get off me, don’t you touch me, you’re a useless waste of money. This is your fault, all your fault—you should never have brought me in here. I’d be better off on my own. I don’t want
you here anymore.”

  Bickerstaff continued, determined to push Janklow to the limit, now swinging the questions around to sound on familiar terms with him, asking Janklow why he didn’t like Hastings, a man he had said he hardly knew. Janklow half rose out of his chair and pointed at Bickerstaff. Kophch attempted to calm him but he swiped him aside. “You have nothing to keep me here! You’ve been fishing around for hours and I know you have not one shred of evidence against me.”

  “What about a witness, Steven?”

  “Lies. There was never any witness.” Janklow sat back down. Pulling at his jacket and smirking now, he began rocking back and forth in his chair.

  “We have a witness, Steven, someone you attacked on the same day Norman Hastings was killed.”

  Janklow laughed. “Oh, yes? You think I don’t know who she is? She’d never stand a chance coming up against me. She’s an ex-cop, ex-drunkard with a string of vice charges against her. She killed a kid when she was on duty. I know who you’re protecting! I know—and it’s a joke.”

  Kophch was white, his face rigid with anger as he watched his client blowing it. It was fatal for him to have admitted what he knew about Lorraine. Kophch rose to his feet. “I insist we take a break now.”

  “Sit down,” Janklow leered. “I’m beginning to enjoy myself. This is fascinating. Go on, ask me anything you want.”

  Bickerstaff said evenly, “Listen to me, I don’t care if we scooped a witness off the streets. All that matters to me is that she’s a witness, you tried to kill her, you used a claw hammer. We have ascertained that there are a number of similar hammers to be found in your workplace, at S and A garage. I am quite prepared to let you go, Mr. Janklow, but I will need a blood test. You see, you made a big mistake with the assault. She attacked you as well, didn’t she? She made you bleed, didn’t she? And, Mr. Janklow, we have a sample of blood taken from the vehicle, the same vehicle into which you stuffed Norman Hastings’s body. We have what I think is your blood. And now would you open your shirt.”

  Janklow had become still, his face drawn, his hands clenched in front of him.

  “Unbutton your collar and remove your tie.”

  Lorraine clutched Rooney as Janklow slowly loosened his tie, slipping it away from his neck, and undid his shirt, one button after the next. It was horribly sexual—he was flicking glances to each of the men in the room and then he pulled away his shirt, revealing his white neck.

  Bickerstaff got up, hiding Janklow from Lorraine and Rooney as he peered at the man’s neck. He stepped back. “You’ve got a mark on the right side of your neck. Where did you get it?”

  Janklow shrugged his shoulders. “I have a German shepherd. He bit me a few weeks ago, maybe a couple of months. You can ask my brother, he was there, he saw it.”

  Bickerstaff returned to his seat. He asked the other officer to contact Brad Thorburn. Janklow did up his shirt.

  “Did you ever use Norman Hastings’s car, Mr. Janklow?”

  “Oh, I might have—yes, I did … well, not drive it. I sat in it once, and—oh, I remember it very well. I was sitting talking to Norman, and I had a dreadful nosebleed because I have a weak septum.”

  “What date would that be?”

  “I borrowed his handkerchief to stem the blood flow. Brad saw it, because I looked dreadful, very white and shaking. So I have a witness to that as well.”

  Janklow buttoned up his shirt and then unbelted his trousers as he tucked in the shirttails, giving more flirtatious glances around the room. “I did not kill anyone, I did not attack anyone, I am an innocent man, and now I would like to go home. I’m tired.”

  Bickerstaff would not let up. He asked again where exactly Janklow had had the nosebleed, and on what date. Janklow yawned and said in the front seat of Hastings’s car—he’d been parking it for him in the garage.

  “What date would that have been?”

  “I have no idea, around the sixteenth of May, I suppose. That was why I didn’t come into work the following day, the seventeenth, because I didn’t feel well. I spent the day with my mother instead.”

  Bickerstaff began to collect his files. “I think, Mr. Janklow, you can leave. We will, of course, have to check all this information, make inquiries to verify your alibis, both with Mr. Brad Thorburn and Mrs. Thorburn. I would also like you to furnish us with further details of your whereabouts on the other dates you were unable to recall where you were.”

  Janklow gave a triumphant smile to Kophch as if to say he hadn’t even needed him there. He stood up. “Yes, of course. I’ll check back in my diaries, give the relevant information to Mr. Kophch, and, as they say in the movies, I’ll get back to you.”

  Lorraine looked at Rooney in disbelief. “He’s going to walk! They’re going to let him walk out of here.”

  “Looks like it,” Rooney said bluntly.

  “But it’s obviously him! You know it, they must know it.”

  “We’re not through with him yet.”

  Lorraine slapped the table with the flat of her hand. “What about me? Don’t I count? I’ve said it was him, I know it was him—he did this to me!” She showed Rooney the scar at the back of her head and then slumped deep in her chair. “Jesus Christ, I even feel like some of the women I used to take statements from, the whores beaten within an inch of their lives. They always used to say to me, ‘Nothing will happen, nobody cares about us, nobody cares if they beat us to a pulp, because we don’t matter.’ Are all those dead women of no consequence? Because you know, Rooney, if he walks now he’ll never be brought back in.”

  As if to confirm what she was saying, the chairs were scraping back in the interview room, Kophch assisting Janklow to the door. They were chatting and joking now.

  Lorraine pushed past Rooney and made for the door. He grabbed her. “No, don’t do it, Lorraine, you don’t go out there.”

  She wrenched her arm free. “He’s walking out, Bill! I swear before God I’ll make a citizen’s arrest! I’m not going to let him get away with this—”

  “He just did. Now sit down.”

  When Janklow and Kophch had departed, the atmosphere in the interview room was of exhaustion and depression. Bickerstaff looked at Lorraine and lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat. Lorraine’s hands were on her hips. “Get me a wire—get me a setup. I’ll get him to incriminate himself. I swear to God I’ll bring that piece of shit in.”

  Bickerstaff was worn out, but he grinned at her. “That’s what I hoped you’d say. Go home and get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  Bean was instructed to once again drive her home and remain with her. He’d been expecting to spend the night sleeping in the patrol car, but Lorraine invited him in. She said he could sleep on the sofa and she would sleep with Rosie. Bean thanked her, but it was Bickerstaff who had warned Lorraine that she should be kept under watch day and night. Janklow knew who she was, maybe even knew her address. The following morning she was to get some decent clothes before Bean brought her back to the precinct. Now she was all they had and everything depended on her. Bean was not to let her out of his sight for a moment.

  Lorraine cuddled up to Rosie, resting her head against her shoulder, and Rosie gently stroked her head.

  “You okay, darlin’?”

  “Nope, it was a long long day and watching that piece of shit act up made my blood boil.”

  “You think he’ll get away with it? Do you? Because of who he is?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But I’m sure gonna fight it.” Lorraine sighed and rolled onto her back. “I’m going to be wired up tomorrow, to try and entrap Janklow …”

  “Oh, my God, that’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, could be.”

  “What’ll you do?”

  Lorraine laughed softly. “I know one thing I’m gonna do, and that is hit Rodeo Drive. Maybe take whatsit out there on the sofa to Armani. They’re paying for the clothes, so I’m not going to walk away with nothing. Plus new shoes, purse, blouse �
� mmm.”

  Rosie laughed softly. “That’s our girl, and if you can slip in a size eighteen or so for me, we’ll make a great show in court.”

  Lorraine fell silent, and then whispered, “You just pray, Rosie, that they never have to put me on the stand. They’ll destroy me.”

  Rosie felt Lorraine move away, only a few inches, but she somehow knew she didn’t want to be touched. She was scared, Rosie could feel it, and she whispered softly, “Goodnight, I’ll pray for you at the meeting tomorrow.”

  Lorraine closed her eyes and she prayed in silence. “Dear God, let me pull this off tomorrow, please …”

  Lorraine, accompanied by Bean and Rosie, set off early for Rodeo Drive. First they went to Saks, Bean trailing Lorraine from one makeup counter to the next; she was choosing perfume.

  “Er, Ms. Page, I dunno if the department said anythin’ about cosmetics and perfume, some of this stuff is expensive.”

  Lorraine went for Paloma Picasso: a good, strong, positive scent. She assured Bean it was all part of the plan; she didn’t just have to look good and exceptionally smart, she had to have all the accessories as well.

  Rosie sprayed herself with every available perfume tester. “She’s right, Josh. Can I call you Josh?”

  He nodded and blushed a bright pink when they went to the lingerie department; again he tried to halt the purchases.

  “Ms. Page, shouldn’t you just get some pantyhose? I mean, do you need all this?”

  Bean was referring to an array of lace panties, matching bra, garter belt, and fine pale stockings.

  “Josh, it’s all part of the scam. I mean, to get what I want you never know how far I have to go … understand?”

  His mouth opened and closed and he pulled at his tie. “If you say so, but all I was told was to get you a nice sort of outfit.”

  “Well, that is just what we are going to do, Josh. Next, the outfit, as you call it.”

  Josh Bean, carrying all the purchases, waited at a crowded crosswalk along Rodeo Drive. He was beginning to think he should call in to the station to check this all out, even more so when Lorraine and Rosie stopped to look into the window of Cartier. “Oh no, no, Ms. Page, you can’t go in there.”