by R. G. Oram
‘When you find the guy tell me everything,’ Peal registering a look of uncomforted disappointment.
If this was lecturer or a speaker addressing a crowd of people there would have been applause at the end – not in this situation. Cheering and clapping would be considered downright redundant and Damian Peal knew this; throwing them the stoning truth. The prospect of an early resolution had become no brighter for Lewelyn and Forsythe. Their eyes dulled and they nodded a grudging acceptance. His input created another path, or more paths for the investigation to take, with the addition of the heavy reality of pressure pushing down on them.
Chapter 28
Before leaving, Special Agent Peal offered Lewelyn and Forsythe some advice. The profile he had offered them was good, but sometimes it doesn’t match the subject’s real life appearance. With little evidence he could only craft a ‘silhouette’ of the offender – a basic profile, not remotely pointing to a specific individual.
Lewelyn had been surprised to hear that the FBI offered this kind of service to law enforcement. He always assumed they only joined cases that interested the Bureau. Their procedures allowed an officer working a case to send the case file to the Bureau. Then a profile could possibly be constructed, depending on the amount of facts and the workload of the profilers.
Coming to eleven o’clock in the morning, Lewelyn patiently waited for Forsythe’s plan of action. Needing to act fast, otherwise another person will die, not knowing when, acting on assumption that he, or she, will take someone today.
He knew it wasn’t healthy to heap this amount of stress on himself, though did he have a say in the matter?
Forsythe on the move, car keys hanging out of the clenched hand.
‘Where?’ Lewelyn asked.
‘Malcolm Harris.’
Malcolm Harris lived in Mulholland Drive. It was outside the city, where the commercial buildings started to get smaller, and the homes and hills get taller.
Forsythe and Lewelyn had not conversed for the entire car journey. Forsythe had multitasked – talking on the phone and driving. Now, parked up, he began to talk about a phone call with a Mrs Joan Harris earlier; lawyering up, giving ‘you can talk to my attorney’ line. The strange thing was, why she needed the lawyer?
She lived in Palm Springs, which was quite a distance from her son. Sounding clipped and dry on the phone as if she was a performing ventriloquist. Forsythe didn’t think she was involved but thought somebody had told her to keep her mouth shut.
The homicide detective discussed Jerome Harris’s involvement; no way was it chance that the actor’s son just happened to be there at the right time and place where the murder happened. The DNA or behavioural profile might not match him, but time and location did. Not enough for a court order – called for a talk though.
Lewelyn’s first impression of Mulholland was mountainous, desert and vegetation, a vast oasis providing solitude to the land owners. Coming up to houses overlooking the faded city of Los Angeles, Forsythe stopped the sedan in a driveway, blocking a sleek sports car parked higher up.
Not needing any instructions or warnings, Lewelyn followed Forsythe to the front door. The doorbell rang. Minutes passed without any footsteps or a swinging door. Forsythe pressed the buzzer again, this time holding his finger on for longer. Lewelyn wondered if the detective thought that the continuous tone of the vowel-less ring would cause the glass doors to shatter.
Seconds to minutes, Forsythe was about to knock with a long raised arm when footsteps finally proceeded – they grew louder by each step.
The door opened, a clean shaven man who looked to be in his forties came to see the outside world. He slid long fingers through his greased blonde hair to pull back any tracks that might have slipped out of their combed area. Sporting black pants and a shirt with a red and blue tie.
‘Sorry about that. I was watching some TV with the volume on high. Only heard you when I muted it for the commercials.’
‘Are you Mr Malcolm Harris?’ Forsythe routinely asked.
‘Yes I am. Have we met before?’ Malcolm Harris replied.
‘We’ve spoken before,’ Forsythe correcting him. ‘Detective Thomas Forsythe. We spoke on the phone yesterday.’
‘Of course that’s right. Well what brings you out here detective? If I’m not mistaken my son answered all your questions,’ Malcolm Harris’s hands covered both sides of the doorway.
‘It’s not your son I wish to speak to, sir, it’s you.’
Malcolm deliberated his predicament by moving his jaw in a sideways motion.
‘Well okay, well Jerome isn’t here anyway and I don’t know how I can help you.’
Forsythe put a foot forward, ‘All the same is there somewhere we can talk?’
Harris breathed heavily, ‘Fine, follow me. Will your colleague be joining us?’ He looked at Lewelyn.
‘Yes, if you don’t mind.’
‘Very well,’ the actor said smugly.
They followed Malcolm Harris down a couple of steps, the end of which came to a large sitting area with a plasma screen on the wall that had ‘mute’ digitally printed in one corner of the animated screen. The home had oceanic painted walls and an imperfect grey stone floor. If it wasn’t for the light blue walls the living room could have been mistaken for a dungeon. The room had very little lighting, mainly wall-mounted lamps with only an arm’s reach glare. The furniture, other than the table, matched the colouring of the desolate flooring.
‘Sit wherever you like.’
Centred among the furniture was a wide wooden table, with a notepad and scrunched balls of paper carelessly scattered upon it.
‘You into politics Mr Harris?’ Forsythe said looking at the notepad.
Harris taken aback, mouth almost open, a fly could just make it through.
‘How did you know that, detective?’
Forsythe pointed at the tie and then at the table covered with books on public speaking, and various autobiographies of former political leaders.
‘The tie and, well, everything on this table. Also, the 2017 Los Angeles Mayoral elections being a year from now.’
‘Ah yes, I suppose it was obvious. Yes I intend to run for mayor.’
‘May I ask why?’ Forsythe queried.
‘I want to help my city. And the best approach to that I think is to become leader of this great city.’
‘Big career change.’
‘Reagan didn’t seem to think so,’ Harris spoke with confidence as if he had a crowd in front of him.
‘And the next term will be five and a half years, when in 2022 it’ll go back to four.’
‘You’re very knowledgeable, Detective Forsythe. Do you follow politics?’
‘No, I just read the newspaper every day.’
‘Ah,’ Harris, expressing his understanding and a level of disappointment.
Moving on, Forsythe asked, ‘Are you announcing your candidacy soon?’ He motioned with the end of his finger up and down the line of Malcolm Harris’s dark suit pants, white shirt and national coloured tie.
‘Not yet. If you’re wondering about my attire, I just put it on to help me think. When I was acting, I would always remain in character by staying in my wardrobe, wearing the same shoes and walking the same way as the person I was playing. I’d even talk like them too. Right now you could say I’m playing an ambitious, upcoming political candidate.’
‘Has your son’s arrest affected your campaign?’
Harris shook his head, ‘No. Fortunately, nobody knows about my political intentions yet and the press haven’t paid much attention to Jerome. They probably thought he was arrested for doing drugs or something of that nature. Happens a lot these days.’
Lewelyn noticed Harris senior always smiled when the man thought he had given an intelligent answer.
‘Do you know why your son was at Santa Ro
salia that night?’
‘He was looking for an apartment to buy.’
‘Late at night?’
‘Listen, my son is very shy about some things. Very self-conscious. He prefers to go out when there’s fewer people around, feels less nervous then. ’
‘Is he on any medication?’
‘No he is not.’
‘Does he see a psychiatrist?’
‘Again no. I don’t think he needs one. He’s young and lacks life experience. His confidence will grow over time.’
‘Were you with him that night Mr Harris. At the apartment?’
‘No. I. Was. Not.’
‘Where were you that night Mr Harris?’
‘Los Feliz. Doing some work with my campaign manager. Anything else?’
‘Would it be possible for me to use your bathroom?’ Lewelyn asked.
‘Sure right down there, third door on the right.’
Listening to both men talk, Lewelyn thought he had heard a sound somewhere else in the house. The two talking men couldn’t have heard it. Following the directions: ‘third door on the right.’ Opening the door, a light automatically came on. In the restroom, filtered water dribbled down the corners of the toilet and it made digesting sounds. Its dry sucking must have been what Lewelyn had latched on to moments ago. It was a big house with a ground floor as vast as a hotel’s lobby.
He closed the door with himself on the outside. The other doors were shut as well. Lewelyn wasn’t going to stray too far – the house was quiet and sound travelled freely.
Other inviting doors beckoned to him. All sported black gloss paint and gold handles. Lewelyn went to the one with the most shine. As he approached it, a clicking sound resonated and a door in front of him opened a fraction, just four inches, nothing clearly visible, but Lewelyn knew someone watched him through the space.
Unsure what to do. He considered saying something, but found no words to offer. The door moved more outward, stopping at what Lewelyn guessed to be ten inches of space. Suddenly, an incandescent white flash, temporary blindness, no vision for seconds.
Lewelyn painfully opened his eyes; nothing.
Now the door was firmly shut. Lewelyn’s eyes adjusted incrementally to that instant explosion of light. Voices behind, made him recall the illusory task at hand, not forgetting to press down the lever and initiate the flush. Returning to his seat, the consensus of the interview hadn’t changed much, each man with the similar sitting posture they had prior to his departure.
‘Find it okay?’ Harris asked him as if speaking to a child.
‘Yeah third door on the right.’
‘We’re nearing the end Mr Harris, just a few more questions,’ Forsythe said.
‘Fire away.’
‘Been watching much of the presidential elections?’
A shine came in Harris’s face.
‘I can’t wait for it to be over.’
A closed smile came over Forsythe, ‘I’m sure many people are wishing the same.’
Harris didn’t offer anything to the detective’s answer, letting him continue.
‘Okay, what’s your current relationship like with your ex-wife, Joan?’
Harris hesitated, frozen, almost like he had only just woken up, answering: ‘Fine.’
‘So you both are on good terms?’
‘We’re friendly. We get on.’
‘So she doesn’t resent you, dislike you – afraid of you?’ Forsythe uttered the last phrase slower than the others, ensuring it made its mark.
You couldn’t fault Malcolm Harris’s acting, he didn’t let his emotional instincts get the better of him, except maybe in his pupils. Hearing Forsythe’s words forced them to shrink; a reaction generally caused by a feeling of major shock or distress. Lewelyn saw Harris shake his head.
‘No detective, like I said we’re friends. Is there anything else?’ Harris trying to control the high blood pressuring in his body, ripening his appearance similar to that of a red tomato.
‘I don’t think so. Thank you for your time,’ Forsythe threw his business card into the debris of balled paper.
Harris hadn’t followed them out, letting Lewelyn and Forsythe close the door behind them. Making his way to the car, and stopping in front of it, Forsythe turned slowly and whispered to Lewelyn, who was behind him, ‘I don’t like him.’
Chapter 29
Frank we need to talk.
His real name wasn’t Frank – it was just a formal identity he gave himself. The accent was false too. He spoke with it so that people would trust him. To understand a country, you first had to learn the language. He knew so many, taught to understand a language and speak like a local. People trusted their own countrymen before going with an outsider. Even if they found the word that came after Frank, all they would find is a dead child’s name acquired from a newspaper obituary, and a fake social security number.
The words of the message communicated their urgent desire to meet; unfortunately it didn’t work like that. He would make contact and decide on a place. Earlier today he’d received another message from the same person who addressed him as ‘Frank’ in the previous one. There seemed to be nerves clinging to the message, it read:
WE NEED TO TALK.
No use of the word Frank, they didn’t make it a normal habit to capitalise all the words and close them with a full stop, usually preferred short spellings of the word and omitting the sentence closer. Very little could alter a person’s habits – insecurity did.
He told them to meet him tomorrow, choosing an early morning start, where the City of Angels would be more appropriately referred to as the City of Ghosts.
Chapter 30
He had not expected to wake, checking the time – too early. A faint commotion erupted outside, a hand pressed heavily down on a horn and loud spirit shouts were clearly attributable to the verbal conflict – this being the trigger that woke him. He could almost imagine the amount of spit torpedoed between the collided motorists.
‘Instead of passing words to each other why don’t you settle your dispute in hand-to-hand combat you animals,’ he said to the walls.
Tyres burned on the tarmac, engines roared and the tempered drivers returned to their individual journeys.
To think I share a world with these weaklings, Frank thought.
Falling back to the mattress, he listened to a loose pipe tinkling in the distance.
‘Is there much point in going back to sleep?’ he asked himself quietly.
Smoke greeted one of his senses, reminding him of the barrel outside – flames dying before leaving behind a mountain of ash; the decayed remains of incriminating evidence.
Countless ideas irritated him, clearly unresolved thoughts. Sitting himself upright in the bed he let himself go back, to her.
It was pure chance she was chosen, she was seen one day and that was it. Downtown it had been, Grand Park, during the lunch hour, on her break. Frank just waiting, looking, choosing, and sitting, knowing what he wanted, patient on a stone bench letting the walkers go by.
Blonde hair. Happiness. Generous. Kind.
People read their phones, carried bags, ate their meals. A bowl centred in a pool of water everlastingly erupting, for white tempered water rose and plunged over the fountain’s rim. A few feet from him, someone owning a paper cup full of small silver and copper pennies had no chair, sat on the ground with a mat in between for comfort. Frank had considered moving.
A hand went to the homeless man. In it, a brown bag undoubtedly containing food. Generous. The woman with blonde hair was enthusiastically thanked by the man sitting in the street. Blonde Hair. Kind. She beamed and waved a polite goodbye and walked off. Happiness.
Hannah Miller unaware of her significance that day, living each day as she normally did; a simple act of charity making her the ideal choice. He found her place
by following her from DL Nonverbal that same day.
Watching the apartment in Santa Rosalia every day enabled him to generate a visualisation of the kind of people who inhabited the place. He didn’t stay too long when scouting. Watching it for days, weeks, different hours and different positions. No cameras visible to cause him any worry.
Friday morning, like any other week day, traffic, constant waiting, horns pressed, people cursing – morning in the concrete jungle. Waiting outside her place, away from any prying eye – digital or human. He wore the conventional outfit to make himself a fellow resident
Waiting for her to leave and walk briskly to her routine bus stop, he stayed in his place for some time, not letting a pattern emerge of him potentially being seen entering the apartment moments after her leaving it, should there be some surveillance equipment he had foolishly missed.
He chose a weekday because people’s habits were more organised and identifiable. On weekends they were erratic and harder to judge.
Wearing a suit, and with a shiny black leather dispatch case that most business men carried, he talked into his phone. He dipped his head slightly to suit the habits of a person walking and talking into it. He had his shades on too, to block out the sun and any sentries.
Pressing the six digit entry code, he heard the buzzing of the gate opening. He’d seen the numbers used many times. When he saw someone in front of the security gate during his observations he’d bring out his phone, turn on his video recorder, then zoom in on the target. It wasn’t the numbers he needed, only knowing which buttons had been pressed.
Most apartment owners were asleep or already at work. He didn’t know the apartment number but counted the number of doors she passed the days before to get to it – number 2F.
