Three rapid drags on the fresh smoke. He held his breath, closed his eyes, broke out into a ragged coughing fit. Seemed comforted by the spasm. “We’re the musical Wasa. If China hadn’t been murdered, we would’ve been Aerosmith, ha-ha-ha.”
“What else can you tell me about China?”
“She could’ve used you. Mentally unstable. We all were. I’m on lithium and antidepressants for bipolar. Four screwed-up personalities, and then we augmented it with endless dope.”
Rib-tickling situations.
I said, “Christian Bangsley, too?”
“Mr. Corporate? Especially Chris. He was more thrashed than the rest of us. Had a very rich family and no moral fiber. As opposed to us, who merely had weak moral fiber.”
“He sold out?”
“He didn’t sell out,” said Brancusi. “That’s an asinine concept. What’s the difference how you make your way through life— playing music or being a CPA or building warehouses or whatever? It’s all one gray death march. Chris shifted gears, that’s all.”
“Where’s Squirt?”
“Dead,” he said, as if that made perfect sense. “Went over to Europe and OD’d on heroin. Some park in Switzerland. Living like a bum, it took weeks before they identified him.”
“You’re not surprised.”
“Squirt was riding the needle pretty hard before China got killed. Afterward, he just started shoveling the stuff in.”
“Traumatized by China’s death.”
“Probably. He was the most intense. Not counting China.”
“Apart from China’s general abrasiveness, was there anyone she had a run-in with during the week or so before her murder?”
“Not that I know about, but it wouldn’t surprise me. She was just instinctually unpleasant, would get into this Greta Garbo mode—’I vant to be alone and fuck you for trying to relate to me.’ “
“What about a stalker?”
He threw up his hands. “I don’t think you get it. We weren’t stars, no one cared. That’s what really got to China. For all her talk about alienation, all that hermit posturing, she was a Palos Verdes princess who’d gotten tons of attention as a kid and still craved it. That’s why it was monumentally stupid for her to blow off Gittleson. Ms. Schizo. One minute, she’d be seething because the band wasn’t getting the respect it deserved, the next she’d be cussing out anyone who actually wanted to focus on the band— like journalists. She went out of her way to alienate them, called them butthole lickers, imposed a strict no-interview policy.”
Out came the pack of Rothmans. Another chain light. “I’ll give you an example: There was this zine, dinky little rag that wanted to do a story on us. China told him to fuck himself. They did the piece anyway, without talking to us. So what does China do? She phones the editor and gives it to him.”
He shook his head. “I was there, listening to her end. ‘Your mother fucks scabrous Nazi dicks and drinks Hitler’s cum.’ Granted she’d told them no, but what was the logic behind that?”
“Remember the name of the zine?” I said.
“You think some journalist type murdered China because she talked mean to him? Give me a break.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “But if the editor was a fan, maybe he’s got some ideas.”
“Whatever,” he said. “You’ve obviously got plenty of spare time . . . Groove something—GrooveRut or GrooveRat. He sent us a copy, and we chucked it. Cheap little desktop deal, probably out of business by now.”
“What was the gist of the article?”
“We were geniuses.”
“Did you keep a clipping?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “Along with my Grammys and my platinum records.”
He shot to his feet, smoked and coughed and walked, hunch-shouldered to the grape-jelly door. Shoved it hard and went back to work.
14
I drove to a magazine stand on Selma Avenue off Hollywood Boulevard, and looked for GrooveRat. Fifty feet of stand, containing plenty of alternative publications and newspapers in two dozen languages, but no sign of the zine. I asked the turbaned Sikh proprietor, and he said he’d never heard of it but I might have some luck at the comics store/piercing parlor three blocks up the boulevard.
I cruised by the shop, found a CLOSED sign barely visible behind an accordion-grated front, and returned home wondering if Paul Brancusi’s comment about too much leisure time had been on target.
The more I thought about it, the weaker the links between the cases seemed. I considered the three other murders I’d found Web-surfing.
The only other L.A. killing was the old saxophonist, Wilfred Reedy, and there’d been no suggestion he’d been on the verge of a comeback or career-climb. The killer of Valerie Brusco, the Oregon potter, had been caught and jailed, and Angelique Bernet, the ballet dancer— a young woman who had been offered a potential career boost— had died three thousand miles away in Massachusetts.
Subtotal: zero. Still no reason to bother Milo; he had his hands full investigating Everett Kipper— by my own reckoning the best bet for Julie’s murderer.
The dinner hour was approaching, but I had no appetite. Another human voice would be palliative, but Allison was working at the hospice tonight.
I might do well by following her example: do some gut-wrenching clinical work that drew me miles from my own self— the kind of work I’d done years ago on the cancer wards of Western Pediatric Hospital.
I’d spent nearly a decade on those wards, a too-young, newly minted psychologist, pretending to know what he was doing. Seeing too much, too soon, feeling like nothing but an impostor.
Paying dues. But that was rubbish; oncologists and oncology nurses devote entire lives to the cause, so who the hell was I to self-aggrandize?
Allison’s husband had died of cancer, and she spent one night a week with the terminally ill.
Not a comforting line of thinking. I returned to pondering China Maranga’s death. Her verbal assault had been business as usual, but some people don’t take well to abuse. And when I’d asked Robin to speculate about the case, her first instinct had been that China had run into someone on the street, accepted a ride, shot her mouth off one time too many.
Despite Paul Brancusi’s dismissal, the stalker element couldn’t be ignored. You didn’t have to be famous to incite irrational attachment. And alternative zines were sometimes little more than glorified fan-club bulletins. Fanatic-club bulletins.
Had the editor adored China from afar? Had the way she’d treated him twisted his passions into rage she’d been ill equipped to handle?
I let my imagination run. Maybe he’d agreed to give China one last chance. Watching, waiting, outside the studio. China, stoned, unstable, angry at her band, leaves, and he follows her.
Pleased to be with someone who appreciated her, she accompanies him.
Then things turn.
China reverting to type.
And he’s had enough.
Thin speculation, but it was that or introspection.
I booted up the computer and searched for GrooveRat. Not a single hit.
That surprised me. Every self-deluded purveyor of triviality has a Web site. So the zine had been beyond obscure. And, as Brancusi predicted, long out of circulation.
Already on-line, I set out to convince myself that there was nothing more to be learned about the other three murders.
Wilfred Reedy’s name came up nearly a hundred times, mostly in discographies and laudatory reviews. Two references to his “tragic murder.” No speculation. Neither Valerie Brusco nor Angelique Bernet merited notice beyond the hits I’d found initially.
I exited the virtual world, phoned Central Division, and asked for the detective who’d handled Reedy’s case. The clerk had no idea what I was talking about and transferred me to a sergeant who said, “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m a consultant to the department—”
“What kind of consultant?”
“Psychologis
t. I work with Lieutenant Milo Sturgis in West L.A. Division.”
“Then have him call.”
“All I’m asking for is the name of the detective.”
“You have a case number?”
“No.” I repeated Reedy’s name, gave him the date.
“That’s four years ago,” he said. “You got to call Records, downtown.”
Dial tone.
I knew Records wouldn’t give me the time of day and moved on to the Cambridge, Mass., police and Angelique Bernet. A Southie-accented man instructed me this was the new age of Homeland Security and there were forms to be filled out, requirements to be met. When he asked me for my Social Security number, I gave it to him. He said he’d get back to me and cut the connection.
A phone call to the Oregon State Penitentiary, where I inquired about the status of inmate Tom Blascovitch, Valerie Brusco’s ex-boyfriend, evoked similar suspicion and resistance.
I put the phone down. Enough of amateur hour. Let Milo do his thing with Everett Kipper, and if he hit a brick wall, maybe I’d bring up the rest of it.
I was about to scavenge some dinner from the fridge when the phone rang.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” said Allison, “but guess what, so is tonight. The hospice is bringing in entertainment— a comedian and a bluegrass band. What’s your schedule?”
• • •
I was waiting out in front of my house as she drove up in her Jag. She’d kept the top down and her hair was wild. When she got out I took her in my arms and kissed her hard.
“Wow,” she said, laughing. “Good to see you, too.”
She slid her arm around my waist and I looped mine over her shoulder as we climbed the stairs to the house.
Inside, she said, “Any of that Bordeaux left?”
“Whatever we didn’t drink last time is still there.”
We went into the kitchen, and I found the wine.
“Oh, my,” she said, looking me over. “You really are happy to see me.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
• • •
Lying in darkness, I heard the sharp intake of Allison’s breath.
“Everything okay?”
“Sure,” she said, too quickly. Curled under the covers, her back to me.
I reached over and touched her face. Felt moisture on her cheek.
“What is it?” I said.
“Nothing.” She began crying.
When the tears stopped, she said, “Are we at a point where it’s safe to tell you anything?”
“Of course.”
“I hope so,” she said.
But she didn’t speak.
“Allison?”
“Forget it. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
Moment later: “Here I was, feeling so good, thinking what could be better than this, and Grant’s face floated into my head. He looked happy— benevolent, happy for me. God, how I need to think of him as being happy.”
“Of course.”
“And then the thoughts came— all he’d missed, how I’d felt about him, how young he was. Alex, I miss him so much! And sometimes the way you touch me— the way you’re tender with me when I need that— it makes me think about him.”
She flipped onto her back. Covered her face with both hands. “I feel so unfaithful. To him, to you. It’s been years, why can’t I let go?”
“You loved him. You never stopped loving him.”
“I never did,” she said. “Maybe I never will— can you deal with that? Because it has nothing to do with you.”
“I’m okay with it.”
“You mean that?”
“I do.”
“I understand your holding on to your feelings about Robin.”
“My feelings,” I said.
“Am I wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
“You had years together,” she said. “You’d have to be shallow to just toss it aside.”
“Everything takes time,” I said.
She let her hands drop from her face. Stared up at the ceiling. “Well, folks, I may just have made a giant goof.”
“No,” I said.
“I wish I could be sure of that.”
I rolled closer and held her.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“I’m going to believe that,” she said. “Given the alternative.”
15
Ten days later, I heard from Milo. In the interim, I’d persisted with the Cambridge police and managed to talk to a detective named Ernest Fiorelle. He began by scoping me out, and we went through the old security bit. Finally, I satisfied his curiosity by faxing a copy of an old LAPD consultant’s contract and a couple of pages of my deposition on the Ingalls case. Despite all that, Fiorelle ended up asking more questions than he answered about Angelique Bernet.
No serious leads had developed, and the case remained unsolved.
“My guess is some nut,” said Fiorelle. “You’re the shrink, you tell me.”
“A sexual psychopath?” I said. “Was there evidence of rape?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Dead air.
I said, “What was crazy about it?”
“Cutting up a beautiful young girl and dumping her in an alley seems pretty crazy to me, Doc. Out there in L.A. does that pass for nahmul?”
“Depends on the day of the week.”
His laughter was brief and harsh.
I said, “So none of Bernet’s fellow dancers or musicians came under suspicion?”
“Nah, wimpy bunch, mostly females and gays. Scared witless. Everyone claimed to love the girl.”
“Even though she’d been promoted.”
“So what?” he said.
“I was wondering about jealousy.”
“Doc, if you’da been to the crime scene, you wouldn’t be wondering. This wasn’t some . . . spat. This was ugly.”
Still thinking about China’s possible encounter with a stalking fan, I asked him about music conventions at the time of the murder.
“You kidding?” he said. “This is College-Town, Hahvuhd, the rest of them. We’ve got nothing but conventions going on all the time.”
“Anything to do with the music business, specifically? A group of critics, journalists, fans.”
“Nah, don’t remember anything like that. And frankly, Doc, I don’t know why you’re bahkun up this tree.”
“Nothing better to bark up.”
“Well, maybe you should find something. And keep all that nutty stuff on the Left Coast. Nah, doesn’t sound like any matches between the girl and your cases. Fact is, I found a better match in Baltimore, and that didn’t pan out either.”
“Who was the victim in Baltimore?”
“Some secretary cut up like Ms. Bernet. What’s the difference, I just told you it didn’t pan, Baltimore busted a lunatic and he hung himself. Gotta run, Doc. Have a nice warm L.A. day.”
I searched for Baltimore homicides on the net but came up with nothing remotely familiar to Angelique Bernet or the other killings.
Nothing seemed to be the operative word.
• • •
During the same ten days, a few other things happened.
Tim Plachette called me one evening, and said, “Apologies for that ridiculous little mano-a-mano thing the other day.”
“No big deal,” I said. “You weren’t out of line.”
“Whether I was or not, I should’ve held my peace . . . I really care about her, Alex.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“You don’t want to have this conversation,” he said.
Something in his voice— desperation, anxiety that came from deep love, flipped my mood.
“I do appreciate your calling, Tim. And I won’t get in the way.”
“I’m not trying to be a censor, it’s a free country. If you want to drop by, that’s fine.”
I flipped again: Gee, thanks for permission, buddy. But I knew he was right. Life would be a lot easi
er for all of us if I kept my distance.
“We all need to move on, Tim.”
“It’s good of you to say that. . . . Robin . . . and then there’s Spike— I’m making an ass out of myself.”
A Cold Heart Page 12
