The Beast

by Faye Kellerman

  By the time Decker had arrived, the frozen fingers should have been thawed out and ready to be printed. The fingernails needed to be clipped for trace evidence and studied for foreign DNA. Decker had acclimated to the underground life of a pathologist. His duties today put him inside one of the lab rooms rather than in the autopsy chambers, the closed door attenuating the stench ever so slightly. The examination space was long and narrow. If Decker held out his arms, he could span the width palm to palm with barely enough room to walk between the steel countertops covered by equipment and specimen jars.

  The pathologist was a woman named Elsie Spar who by most accounts was around a hundred. Her shoulders were hunched, her hair was sparse and white, and when she talked, her dentures clacked. Decker had dealt with her before. The body may be stooped and bent, but the brain was thoroughly intact: vital and sharp with a keen intelligence and photographic recollection. She sat on a stool while Decker stood.

  Elsie wasn’t one who bothered with niceties. “You got all gray.”

  “Not all gray. If you squint, you can still see the orange streaks.” Elsie adjusted her Coke-bottle lenses. Her white lab coat swallowed up her small frame. “Nope. Just see gray. The mustache is still red. Do you dye it?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good to hear. More and more men are dyeing their hair—like little wusses afraid to get old. A man should look like a man, not a gender-neutralized manikin. I suppose you want to talk about the fingers.”

  “I do. Can I sit down?”

  “Of course. You want something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, she poured some water into a glass beaker and took a gulp. “Don’t look so sick. It’s Evian or Fiji—something overpriced. If someone had predicted that people would pay for water when I was a little girl, I would have figured him plum nuts. Would you like a glass?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Suit yourself. Anyway, the fingers. I sent over a dozen down to be printed. After we do that, we’ll take some tissue samples for slides and DNA testing. But even without the microscopes, I’ll tell you what I think, if you want to hear.”

  “That’s why I’m sitting here.”

  “To me, most of the fingers look on the old side. A few may be fresher than that. Some look disarticulated postmortem.”

  “Okay.” Decker was momentarily muddled. “By postmortem, do you mean corpses in cemeteries or people who were killed and then the fingers were taken off?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Why do you think they’re old?”

  “Freezer burn.” Elsie took a sip of water. “I’ll get a better idea once I start with the microscopic examination.”

  “So why are you leaning in the direction of postmortem?”

  “We defrosted the digits very slowly. You know what happens when things defrost, you get a collection of blood and water and cells and lots of other things. I would have expected to see more blood in the fluid if the fingers had been immediately severed from the bodies and flash frozen.”

  “Got it. Did you see any presence of embalming solution?”

  “Not in the fluid. When I check the tissue samples, I should be able to tell if the cells had been fixed. Couldn’t smell any formaldehyde, which is what the mortuary might have used a while back. There are newer and better solutions these days. Until I check the microscope, I can’t tell you anything more.”

  “Okay.” His mind was still flipping through all the possibilities. “I suppose that it’s a little more palatable to deal with fingers taken from corpses than fingers taken while the victim was alive. Maybe I should contact funeral homes for missing bodies.”

  “Whatever you think. That’s your domain.”

  “Why would someone save a package of fingers from dead bodies?”

  “No idea, Lieutenant. I don’t work with living people. The working brain is much too complicated for me.”

  “I’m more or less talking to myself.”

  “I do that all the time. That way I get intelligent conversation.”

  Decker’s mind was still whirling. “Did you get a chance to look at any of the meat packages?”

  “Everything I checked under the scope was domestic beef or hog. If you’re going to mix human flesh in with the beef, it’s not going to look the same. And unless the guy is a professional, it wouldn’t be butchered so cleanly. But . . .” She raised a finger. “But I haven’t checked everything. It’s going to take me a while to go through the packages.”

  “Understood. Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Not right now.”

  “When will the fingerprinting be done?”

  “Within the hour. Stick around.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that. Do you think someone might have a spare computer?”

  “You want to work here or upstairs?”

  “I’ll work here if I have to, but upstairs is my preference.”

  Elsie smiled with plastic teeth. “Smell is a little strong if you’re not used to it.”

  “How do you get used to it?”

  “It’s just something that I equate with work—neither good nor bad.” Elsie shrugged. “As soon as I entered medical school, that first semester with my bone box, I knew I was going to be a pathologist. The science just fascinated me. The dead tell both of us their secrets.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “Pathologists, like homicide detectives, have to be inquisitive people. We’re both curious and nosy, Lieutenant, and dare I say it, just a little bit ghoulish.”

  FINGERPRINTS IN TOW, Decker returned to the station house by two in the afternoon. Lee Wang, dressed in a crewneck red sweater and black jeans, was conferring with Marge and Oliver. Decker motioned the trio into his office and then shut the door.

  “New developments.” He recapped his morning with Dr. Spar and handed Wang the envelopes. “Put these through AFIS. If we get any hits, call up an expert to see if we can come up with a definitive identification.”

  Marge was taking notes. “Can I backtrack?”

  “Sure.”

  “So the fingers came off postmortem.”

  “She thinks that some of them did.”

  “From dead bodies in cemeteries or recent murder victims?”

  “Could be either. She did say that the fingers didn’t contain a lot of blood in the residual fluid.”

  “So if it was a murder victim, the body could have bled out,” Oliver said.

  “Yep.” Decker pulled out a stack of papers and passed them out. “While I was waiting for her to look at the tissue and for the fingers to be printed, I made a list of the local cemeteries. The biggest one is right in our own backyard. We’ve got about ten more in the L.A. area. I’ve included phone numbers and the head mortician. Just give them a call and find out if they’ve had problems with stolen bodies in the past. And we are talking about the past.”

  Lee Wang said, “I’ll do it.”

  Decker said, “We know Penny’s a freak. He may be a homicidal freak and these are trophies.”

  “That’s as good an explanation as anything,” Marge said.

  Decker said, “Find out anything on the computer about Bruce Havert, Lee?”

  “I found about a half dozen Bruce Haverts under forty. I’ve listed them all with phone numbers and I have pictures for four of them.” He passed around his printouts. “I haven’t made any calls so I don’t know if any of these are the Bruce Havert.”

  Oliver said, “We can take these pictures over to Ki, the chicken lady, and to the landlord for ID.”

  “Yeah, Anwar Mahadi,” Marge said. “Wish we would have had these when we checked out the dealerships. Maybe a face would have jogged a memory.”

  “Yeah, what happened with that?” Decker asked.

  Oliver said, “None of the dealers remember Bruce Havert leasing Priuses. He could have been using a different name, though.”

  “What about the color? Powder blue is unusual, no?”

  “Not for Priuses.”

&nb
sp; Marge said, “Even if Havert was using his own name, we can’t get the dealers to divulge information about their customers without proper papers.”

  Oliver said, “We’ll keep at them. Now that we have pictures, it’ll help.”

  “If you don’t get anywhere, check powder blue Priuses with DMV on Monday morning,” Decker said. “It’s one of the few leads we have. Plus, George Paxton says that he saw women with massage tables going in and out of Penny’s apartment. Now we have women’s fingers. The arrow is pointing in a direction that isn’t looking good.”

  “Still, the murder may be orthogonal to the package of fingers,” Marge said.

  “I agree we can’t get tunnel vision, but it adds to Penny’s weird quotient.” Decker leaned back in his desk chair and turned to Marge. “What’s left on our checklist?”

  “Wanda and Drew are interviewing the neighbors . . . not all of them are home because the building is scheduled for fumigation on Tuesday. You also wanted me to look up exotic pet dealerships. You’re interviewing the Shoops tomorrow.”

  “Who are the Shoops?” Oliver asked.

  “Neighbors of Hobart Penny who complained about noise coming from one of his apartments.”

  “What kind of noises?”

  “Growls. I’m going to talk with them Sunday afternoon.”

  “When are Penny’s two children coming to L.A.?”

  “Monday night.”

  Wang took out a notebook. “What are their names?”

  “Darius Penny and Graciela Johannesbourgh.” Marge spelled it. “Sabrina Talbot is also coming in on Tuesday for the service.”

  Lee lifted the print cards. “I’ll take these to an examiner. Then I’ll start making cemetery calls.”

  Decker nodded, and Wang left the office. Marge stowed the Bruce Havert photocopies in her purse. “I’m off to see the chicken lady . . . maybe she can identify Bruce Havert. Even if she can’t, I’m starved.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Oliver said. “I’m hungry, too. You need something, Rabbi?”

  “No. I’m okay for now.”

  Alone and in silence, Decker heard his stomach growl. He was going to call up Vignette Garrison, but it was almost three and he hadn’t eaten all day. Like any good engine, he needed fuel, and since his house was only fifteen minutes away, it made sense for him to eat at home.

  Rina would have leftovers in the refrigerator.

  He loved his wife. He wished he were a better husband. Not that he was a bad husband, but he wasn’t around a lot. Rina never complained about his prolonged absences. She took care of herself. She liked to read and do puzzles. She liked to watch TV and listen to music. She exercised daily. She prayed daily. She learned Bible daily. She taught at the local Jewish high school. She kept in contact with all the kids, including Cindy. She called up her parents and often called up his parents. She spent time trying to help everyone else solve their problems. She had a very good capacity for solitude, but she was still very social. Even as he grumped, she dragged him to parties and affairs because it was “the right thing to do.” He always wound up having a good time. She seemed to know when to push him and when to hold back.

  She knew what was good for him—much better than he did.

  Their marriage was a successful one. It only seemed fair that he gave credit where credit was due.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SHUFFLING THROUGH THE photo array of the Bruce Haverts, Ki Park, better known to Marge and Oliver as the chicken lady, peered at each sheet with concentration and purpose. Neither detective rushed her, each one of them content to eat and wait.

  “This one he-ah,” Ki finally announced. “Next-door man . . . but older man now.” She tapped the picture. “Not like this.”

  Marge finished chewing a french fry. “The man next door . . . how old was he?”

  “Man next door?” Ki thought a moment. “Oh, forty, fifty.”

  Oliver looked at the photograph she had identified. “So this is the same man as next door, but in this picture, he’s much younger.”

  “Ye-ah. Much younga.”

  “You’re sure they are the same man?”

  “Same man. He like drumsticks—fried and baked. Always with onion ring. He put five dollars in tip jar.”

  “Thank you very much, Ki. You’ve been really helpful. Could you pack the rest of my lunch to go?”

  “Mine, too,” Oliver said.

  “Why you rush off?” Ki said. “Not good for stomach. You stay.”

  The woman was lonely. On weekends, the traffic in the strip mall was light and business was probably dead. The two detectives exchanged glances. Marge said, “You’re right. We’ll finish here.”

  Ki said, “I give you refill of soft drink.”

  “I’m fine,” Marge told her.

  “It free. You take it. You too skinny.”

  “Well, okay then.” Marge held back a smile. “Your chicken is delicious. You know? I’m having company over. Could I get a whole rotisserie chicken to go?”

  “Oh sure . . . right away.” Ki gave a hint of a smile, and then covered her mouth. “You take fries, you take coleslaw and I give you biscuit for free. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Marge pushed aside her plate. “I’m going to get a little air. I’ll be back in a minute to pick up my food.” She left and Oliver followed.

  He pulled out his cell. “Who’re you having over?”

  “No one. I’ll split it with you, and we’ll both have food in our refrigerators.”

  “Sounds good. The larder is pretty bare.” Oliver punched in some numbers and waited. “Hey, Lee, we have an identification on one of the Bruce Haverts you pulled up . . . the one who was a dealer in Vegas . . . Great. Tell Decker and we’ll be back in about ten minutes.” He hung up. “Lee said he’ll get right on it.”

  “I’ll get the chicken.”

  Oliver pulled out a twenty. “My treat. Tell her to keep the change.”

  “Why, Scott. You old softie.”

  “Not really. I just appreciate anything done correctly, and the lady makes a damn good chicken.”

  DECKER LOOKED AT the printout: Bruce Havert born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the year of his birth telling them he was forty-three. Not much in the way of biography. From the ages of twenty-six to forty-one, Havert worked as a blackjack dealer at Havana! in Las Vegas. During his sojourn in Vegas, the man had been arrested for two DUIs, one drunk and disorderly, one misdemeanor conviction of possession of marijuana. He had no current wants or warrants. For the last two years, he seemed to have walked off the face of the earth. “Not Mr. Joe Citizen, but for a Vegas dealer, it’s pretty clean.”

  Marge said, “Yeah, he did hold down a job for fifteen years.”

  Decker said to Lee, “Did you call up Havana!”

  “Yes, I did,” Wang said. “Someone’s supposed to get back to me, but as soon as I mentioned cop, I felt the brick wall come down. I’m not holding my breath for a callback.”

  “What’d you say that made them mute?” Decker asked.

  “All I asked for was a verification of his employment.”

  Oliver said, “From our last job in Vegas, that’s typical with the big casinos. The big guys are very private with their own policing and their own policies.”

  Marge said, “You know? We made contacts from the Adrianna Blanc/Garth Hammerling case. Rodney Major and Lonnie Silver. They work North Las Vegas, not the strip, but it’s something. I’ll give them a call.”

  Oliver said, “What brought Havert to L.A.?”

  Decker said, “And until last week, he owned or managed a massage company. Maybe he was pimping women while he was in Vegas and decided on a change of scenery. Or maybe he was run out of town.”

  “Or the Vegas market was saturated,” Marge said. “Less competition out here, or it’s more spread out.”

  Decker said, “Where is he?”

  “I’ve tried Facebook and LinkedIn, but struck out.” Wang stood up. “There are other networking Web sites. And
Casey’s Massage and Escort did have its own Web site at one time. I’ll backtrack . . . see if I can dig up some leads.”

  After Wang left, Decker took out a piece of paper and began to doodle. “Let’s think this through. What do we know?”

  Marge ticked off a list. “Penny had a single gunshot wound—a twenty-two—to the back, but more than one round was fired. We haven’t found the gun. Penny was also clubbed in the head. No weapon found with that either. He was a recluse who collected wild, poisonous, and venomous animals. He had a tiger. The only one that seemed to know anything about the tiger is Vignette Garrison.”

  “Yes, she is definitely still in the picture,” Decker said.

  “She admits visiting him a few days before he died and giving the tiger the shots, so she’s really in the picture. Plus, she’s the only person we’re aware of that could have done something to Penny and not have the tiger eat her alive.”

  “All true.”

  “But you don’t like her as a suspect.”

  “I still think that Penny was worth more to Vignette alive than dead.”

  Marge wasn’t so sure. “We also have a tape of two women with massage tables parked across the street from Penny’s apartment. The women were driving blue Priuses. The license plate of one of those cars was registered to Casey’s Escort and Massage—a business owned or managed by Havert.”

  Decker tried to keep a train of thought going. “And we like Casey’s because Penny had a thing for weird sex and also because George Paxton said that he had seen sexy women going into Hobart Penny’s apartment, some with massage tables.”

  Oliver said, “Plus Casey’s was cleaned out right after Hobart Penny’s murder and none of us are big ones for coincidences.”

  Marge said, “Which apartment did Penny use for his women? Obviously not the ones with the snakes and bugs.”

  “Who knows with that whack job?” Oliver said. “Did you talk to the shrink?”

  “Still waiting for a callback.” Decker checked over his notes. “Paxton said neighbors complained about noise from the apartment directly under him. It’s being processed by SID, just to make sure nothing was butchered there.”

  Oliver said, “So if SID is in the building, what’s going on with the fumigation?”