Cal thought for a moment, and then leaned forward on the edge of his desk. "I agree. We're not gonna take this last kill out of the Fingertip case because no matter how we rig it, it's still only a theory with nothing to back it up. But I also agree with you that all this background is starting to make this last kill look shaky, so I'll put a little weight on the Russian angle. Hibbs and DeMarco are freed up right now. I'll send them down to Russian Town with the dead guy's photo. Have them show it around, see if anybody knows him. But until something tells us for sure, like a positive ID or a witness, this last guy stays in the Fingertip case." He got up and opened his office door. "Stay in touch with DeMarco and Hibbs, but keep this on the DL. It leaks and you two humps will be workin' Saturday traffic at the Coliseum."
"Yes, sir," I muttered.
Zack and I turned and started out of the office. But Cal stopped us.
"And one more thing. If this investigation doesn't get a whole lot better before the next body drops, I'm gonna have to make a move."
"What's that mean?" I asked him.
"It means you guys better hurry up and clear these murders."
We nodded and exited the office.
"Thanks for the backup," I muttered. "Motherfucker's about to replace us," Zack growled.
errell Bell has lousy footwork," Chooch said. "He doesn't set up good at all. Remember the Montebello game? Three picks. If he goes to USC, I'll smoke him. I can't believe Coach Carroll would be recruiting that guy."
Chooch had been going on like that since we all arrived at Toritos, our favorite Mexican restaurant near the Pier in Venice. It was 6:30 and Alexa, Delfina, and I had barely been able to find an opening in his wall of braggadocio.
"Okay, you want to know who's pretty good?" he conceded. "Andre Davis from Servite. He's not what you'd exactly call overpowering as a runner, but the guy has an okay gun. His problem is he's slow. You gotta be able to run the naked bootleg and have enough mobility so when Coach Sarkisian wants to move the pocket, you can get out there. Davis probably can't break five flat in the forty."
"Anybody want to order?" Alexa said, shooting me a hooded look that said, what's gotten into this boy?
"Maybe you ought to wait and see if they even offer you a scholarship before you do all this brilliant hatchet work on the competition," I said.
"Si, Querido," Delfina agreed. "It is not good to criticize others to make yourself strong."
"I'm just saying. . if Coach Kiffen saw two of my games, then he's gotta know I have great mobility. That's a big plus running the USC offense." Then, without taking a breath: "If I can get rid of my last Spanish language requirement, which I should be able to test out of, maybe I can graduate early, get out of spring term at Harvard Westlake and enroll at SC for spring football. If I got a jump on those two guys, I know I'd be ahead on the depth chart by fall. Whatta ya think, Dad?"
I didn't know what I thought beyond being put off by his attitude.
Our waitress came to the table and everybody ordered the combination plate.
"Anything for dessert?" our waitress asked. "If you want the Mexican pie, I have to put the order in now." "The Mexican pie is good," I said. "But what we could really use at this table is some humble pie." The waitress smiled and left.
"Come on, Dad, I'm just saying. ."
"You sound like a blowhard, Chooch. We taught you better than this. Del's right. You need to concentrate on your own game, and stop running everybody else down. Want my opinion? We were lucky to beat Montebello. That wasn't your best performance either."
"Sometimes I think you guys don't have a clue what it takes to win in football. You have to be confrontational and believe in yourself to win."
"Might be right," I said. "But you don't sound much like a winner tonight."
Right in the middle of this awkward moment, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out and pried it open. "Detective Scully?" a woman's voice asked. "Yeah."
"Homicide Special Dispatch. You've got a one-eighty-seven in the L. A. River at De Soto Avenue in Canoga Park, near John Quimby."
My heart sank. This was it. Five bodies and no clearances. I was about to get the hook. "Okay. Notify patrol that I'm on my way. Should be about twenty to thirty minutes, depending on traffic." I hung up without even asking if they'd been able to reach Zack. Deep in my heart I was hoping they couldn't find him.
"Another one?" Alexa said, concerned.
I nodded and stood. "Gotta roll. It's in Canoga Park."
I kissed Alexa, squeezed Delfina's hand, and was about to hug Chooch, when my son stood up with me. "Can I walk you out?" he asked.
"Sure."
We walked through the crowded two-room restaurant without speaking. Outside, I gave the valet the ticket for my car. Since joining Homicide Special, I'd begun following Alexa on family outings so I'd have a car if I got called out. The wind off the water was still cold, and was energetically flapping the red awning over us.
"Listen, Dad, I know you think I was spouting off in there, but I wasn't," Chooch said.
"It's okay to be frightened," I said, finally picking the way I wanted to deal with this.
"I'm not frightened. Whatta you talking about, frightened? Who says I'm frightened?"
"In police work, courage is a career commodity. You learn pretty quick that the loudest talkers on the job are usually the last ones through the door. You see a cop with a big bore magnum in some fancy quick-draw holster, you're probably looking at a wuss. I hear a guy going on like you were in there, it just tells me one thing. He doesn't believe a word he's saying and he's scared to death somebody's gonna find out he's a fraud. I was only with Coach Carroll for an hour, but that was long enough for me to know he's a guy who understands what motivates people. You go running off at the mouth like that around him, and he's gonna know you don't think you're very good. I wouldn't let him see that if I were you."
I could see from the look on his face that I had read him right. He was scared to death, looking down at his feet.
"It's a big step, a Division One school like USC," he finally said.
"I know it is. But whether you go there, UCLA, or Penn State; or whether you go and sell clothes at The Gap, you gotta be yourself. The way to impress people is through actions, not words. You want Coach to play you, work on your game and be a good teammate. Help the other guy, even if it means he plays and you don't. Somewhere down the road it's going to bring success."
I could see that Chooch wanted to keep talking, but my car was delivered to the curb and I tipped the valet. It always amazes me how life chooses times when you can't linger to deliver up defining moments.
"We gotta pick this up later, son. I've got somebody important waiting for me."
I gave Chooch a hug, climbed into the Acura, and pulled out seeing my son in the rearview mirror, looking after me.
As I got on the freeway I tried to get my mind off Chooch and what I needed to tell him. I ran the case again in my head. It had been six days since we found Forrest. However, if you removed him from the Fingertip case, it put the killings back on a two-week clock.
I exited the 101 at Desoto. Old haunts beckoned me-bars and liquor stores where I'd once tried to eliminate the hollow feeling inside myself by drowning the ache with booze.
Being back in this part of the West Valley put me emotionally closer to Zack. I had a weird flashback Zack and I were on the mid-watch and had just heard a SHOTS FIRED OFFICER NEEDS ASSISTANCE call on the scanner. We raced to the scene, breaking red lights, going Code Two. Zack always chased adrenaline rides, always made a tire-smoking run at any Shots Fired situation. I was drunk in the passenger seat and the wild ride made me sick.
We hit the call ahead of the designated unit and Zack took off running into the apartment, leaving me sitting in our unit, still nauseous and dizzy. I remembered hearing gunfire inside the apartment and stumbled out of the patrol car, fumbling for my weapon. I dropped it in the flowing gutter water and fell in face first after it. While I fished for my p
istol in the sewer drain, Zack was in a deadly shootout, dropped two assholes, both with long yellow sheets, and saved a wounded officer. He also kept me away from our watch commander, sending me back to the station with another officer before our field supervisor arrived on the scene. At the time, I'd been grateful. But now I was confused. Were these rages I was witnessing now, a new development, or had Zack always had them? Was I the perfect partner for a cop prone to violence-too useless to even be a witness? I didn't know. My memory of that period was an alcoholic haze.
By the time I arrived at the address in Canoga Park, the crime scene was already filling up with news teams and looky-loos. Zack was not on the scene. This time I decided not to wait for him. I had a hunch he would be a no-show. A lot of civilians and neighborhood kids were milling around near the edge of the concrete levee. Fortunately, there were enough cops this time to hold them back.
I located the officer in charge; a forty-year-old sergeant with blond hair, a Wyatt Earp stash, and three service stripes-nine years on the job. His nameplate read: P. RUCKER.
"Come on, we got a trail marked over here," Rucker said.
I followed him along the lip of the embankment while news crews tracked us from across the street and shot our progress. Rucker led me down through tangled sage, old McDonald's cups and Burger King boxes, into the concrete riverbed. There were three young cops standing near the body. Ray Tsu was already leaning over the guest of honor looking at the wounds, but was waiting to move him until I got there. A ratty old blanket, which probably belonged to the victim, covered the corpse's face.
"Thanks for waiting," I said.
Ray nodded and lifted the blanket. This vic, like all the others, was mid-fifties to mid-sixties, and had been shot in the temple. The bullet was gone-another through and through. I kneeled down and studied the body. He was bald, sun-weathered, and dressed in rags. His teeth were a tobacco-stained mess. I named him Quimby-a comedy name, but I was getting frustrated.
"John Doe Number Five," Ray said, looking up at me. "No wallet. Somebody in those apartments probably called it in. Anonymous call, so we don't have a respondent."
"Let's clear this crowd of uniforms out," I said to Rucker, not wanting any of the cops to see the symbol if there was one. Rucker moved the officers away while Ray and I kneeled down on opposite sides of the body and pulled up his ratty shirt.
The now-familiar emblem was carved crudely on his chest.
An hour later we were ready to carry the deceased up to the coroner's wagon. I was up on the street wondering where my partner was, when I heard a voice behind me.
"Detective?"
I turned to see a young patrolman whose nameplate read: OFFICER F. MELLON.
"Yes?"
"I think I might know this guy."
I pulled him away from the swarming press and walked him fifty yards up to my car, opened the door, and sat him inside. Then I got behind the wheel, turned on my tape recorder, and set it on the dash in front of him.
"Where do you know him from?" I asked.
"Well, not know him, exactly. I mean, I never talked to him or anything, but if it's the same guy, I used to see him all the time, a couple of miles from here, standing by the freeway off-ramp at De Soto holding a sign." "Panhandling."
"Yeah. His sign read: HELP ME. VIETNAM VET. CORPSMAN. Or something like that. I remember thinking I'd never before seen a sign where the vet put down what he did in Nam. Maybe he figured vets who'd been hit and saved by a corpsman would stop and give him money."
"Officer Mellon, I want you to go back to the station and get some guys together. I'll get a picture of this victim over there in an hour. I want you to start talking to homeless people near that off-ramp. Show 'em the picture. I'll square it with your watch commander. Get me a name to go with this guy. Can you do that?"
"I can try."
I handed him my card and took his numbers.
After he got out of the car, I put it in gear, and drove Code Two down to the lab on Ramirez Street. On the way, I called the WC in Canoga Park and told him I needed everybody he could spare to go out and show the new vic's picture around.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the basement garage at the crime lab and ran for the elevator. I had just remembered where I'd seen that symbol before. It was when I was in the Marines. The carving was so crude and lacking in detail that everyone, including me, had missed it.
When I got to Symbols and Hieroglyphics, everybody was gone. I found a secretary to help me. She took me to the stacks where I pulled out a book on military emblems. I started flipping pages until I found it.
The badge for the Combat Medical Corps.
Chapter 12
It was almost 10 P. M. when I arrived at the Glass House. I had to fight my way through a downstairs corridor crowded with news crews, staff rank officers, and press relations. A network news team had actually brought in their own coffee trolley. On the way into the elevator, Carmen Rodriguez of Channel Whatever found me and nodded to her cameraman, Gar. With no preamble, it was all Lights, Camera, Action. No Hello. No How's it going? Just shove the old mike under my nose and start asking questions. I'm not good at this. When I see myself on TV, I always look pissed and dangerous. My annoyance with the press comes across.
"What do you think of the Fingertip task force being formed?" was her opening question.
"Carmen, do you think it's possible that you and I might ever have even one conversation without that damn camera in my face?"
"Cut, Gar," she said to her cameraman who turned off the sun-gun that was mounted on the nose of his state-of-the-art HD 24 camera.
"Much better," I said. "What task force?"
"Chief Filosiani is naming a Fingertip task force. The news conference is in a few minutes."
"A task force ought to be a big help." I smiled. "Nice chatting."
I turned and ducked into a closing elevator before she could stop me and headed straight for six. The sea-foam green carpet and light-wood paneling on the command floor were a stark contrast to the overpopulated steel desk clutter of my space on four. I found Alexa in her office going over some notes. She had changed into a tailored suit since leaving the restaurant, and was putting on her flats with one hand while holding up a protesting palm with the other.
"Don't start up with me," she said as I came busting through the door.
"You've gotta stop this. Shut this task force down. I finally have something. One of the Blues thinks he remembers this last guy in Canoga Park holding up a panhandling sign at De Soto and the One-Oh-One."
"It's too late, Shane. Tony contacted the FBI two days ago and since all the homicide detectives in HS have full, high-priority caseloads, the manpower assignments are coming from the five city Homicide Divisions and have already been made. He was all set yesterday and pulled the trigger two hours ago when the new body was found. I told you this was about to happen. All that's left is to announce."
"But I've finally got a lead-a good one." I handed her a Xerox of the Combat Medical Badge I'd made from the book.
"What's this?"
"Combat Medic's insignia. That's what the unsub's been carving on all the vics."
She picked it up and looked at it, then reached into her top desk drawer for a photo of the carved symbol. She compared the two. "It's not very exact."
"Hey, it's a very intricate badge. To get it exact, he'd have to use a tattoo needle or a pen, not a knife. It's close enough," I said. "If I'm right, this sets up a course for our investigation."
"Look, Shane, I "
"Lemme run it for you." She hesitated, but then nodded.
"Somebody is killing vics who are fifty to sixty years old. That makes all our DB's Vietnam vintage guys. They're homeless and they all have this medic's symbol carved on their chests."
"So you think the unsub was in Nam?" She leaned back in her swivel and studied me skeptically. "The mean age of serial killers is twenty-five. If you're right and the killer was in Nam, that makes this guy way ove
r the target age."
She was right about the mean age. But that was just a computer-generated statistic achieved by taking all of the serial killers ever caught, adding their ages and dividing that by their total number. But serial murder, like bad fashion, often defies rationale, and when dealing with aberrant psychology, it's a mistake to marry computer generated facts.
"Maybe the unsub is a slow starter," I said. "Or maybe he's the son of a medic, was abused by his father and is killing him over and over. Maybe he's a current vet who was screwed up by a medic. Maybe all the victims were medics. Maybe he's a medic himself. Shit, come on. . I don't know what the connection is, but this mutilation is a part of his signature, and it damn sure means something. This medic thing is the first angle I've had in seven weeks that I can work.
"I've got all the Blues the watch commander in Canoga can spare, showing this new vies picture to homeless people around the De Soto off-ramp. If I get a name, I've got my first real foothold. I can start assembling possible motives, look for witnesses." I leaned toward her. "Give me and Zack another day."
"It's done. The FBI is sending us a profiling expert. Some ASAC from the local office named Judd Underwood. We're wheels up, babe. It's airborne."
"Shit." I turned and headed out of the office. "Don't go away mad," she called after me.
I looked back at her.
"I tried to stop this," she said softly. "I really did. And Tony almost bit my head off for it. Wanta see the teeth marks?" She started to pull down her turtleneck. "Look." She exposed her beautiful neck. There were no tooth marks on her ivory skin, but hey, every defense can't be bulletproof.
"Maybe with more people on this, we can run down your Vietnam angle quicker," she said hopefully. "You know it's gonna be a huge job going through a military hospital V. A. check."
"I don't want any help. Zack and I should have been able to do this ourselves." Then I felt the cold breath of political anticipation. "By the way, who did Tony put in charge of this cluster-fuck?"
"Deputy Chief Michael Ramsey," she said softly, knowing I'd hate it.
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