Morbid Curiosity: Erter & Dobbs Book 3

by Nick Keller

  The hacker group Anonymous had done it first. Then came globalHell and TeaMp0ison. Then a dozen others. Heck, it was kind of common. So, why shouldn’t Jacky do it, too? It was a good living. He never demanded much. He wanted to stay off their top ten list. A few thousand bucks here, a few thousand bucks there wouldn’t catch many eyeballs, especially not with the big boys hacking around in the world. The corporate funds were all directly deposited into a privately classified account, washed and cleaned like a baby’s ass. Then it was basking in the California sun.

  Jacky brought up the LinkTech security service window that he’d back ended into, securing a secret pipeline to his old professor. He jerked back, immediately. Holy shit—Professor Erter had obviously gotten out of the nuthouse.

  And he’d sent the most interesting request.

  19

  Mission Received

  William read the correspondence with burning eyes. He was pleased—the kid had responded, already. It made him grin. Jacky was the eager one, always wanting to be involved. And, as expected, Jacky had penetrated Central Division again, this time with a Dark app, skipping his data worms from online port to online port, looking for amassed data chunks and labeling them as ‘like’ or ‘unlike’. What he’d found laid out an “ongoing Investigation” on a missing officer.

  Mark Neiman.

  That was it. Perfect.

  William started opening files, arranging them accordingly and began reading, hungry to learn. Police reports had been entered into the system as pdfs. There was a case file launched on a murdered woman. Mark’s name was attached, he and one other. A Detective Nia Helms. A body had been found. Young female. There were coroner’s reports, signed off by a Douglas Olday. The victim was Angela Newman. A protocol form listed out their initial observations—height, weight, ethnicity, etc. Nothing unusual. Then, the coroner report turned macabre.

  Cause of death was ambiguous. There were multiple possibilities. Strangulation, electrocution, poisoning, cardiac arrest, signs of others. Even without a firm conclusion, the death was ruled a homicide. The only certainty was that of torture. Ultimately, William assumed, it was the torture that killed her.

  He shuffled it away, opened another file. Detectives Neiman and Helms had reported visiting the Newman residence and followed a trail of breadcrumbs to the Scott Goldman residence, then reported an interview with a Dr. Whitman, which led them to a Dr. Hugh Graves’s home. No piece of evidence was benign, yet nothing was overly malignant, either.

  William settled back into his chair, eyes gazing left, then right, following his thoughts. That was the last time Mark Neiman had been heard from. Four days ago. Something had happened on that night, but what?

  That was the question the police department started asking the following morning. Mark Neiman was a no-show—no call, no message, no nothing. Everything became a scrambled mess of half communications, unreturned emails, unanswered phone calls. It became an investigation of a whole different nature, and department lead Captain Heller was heading it.

  They first investigated Mark’s home. There had been activity, but no struggle. The door was locked, but the bed was unmade. There were used dishes in the sink, a tumbler glass with melted ice in it set on the coffee table. A floor lamp was canted over leaning on the entertainment center. Otherwise, there was nothing broken and nothing stolen.

  Whoever had broken in, if anyone at all, had one target on their mind. Mark Neiman. The L.A.P.D. was taking no chances. The investigation went from a missing person to a kidnapping. They were treating this like a crime scene.

  Scott Goldman, a.k.a. Cory T., and Dr. Whitman had both been sequestered for questioning. They corroborated both Neiman’s and Helms’s police reports and were released. There was no lying on their parts—just a bunch of posturing by Cory T. No suspects had yet been declared.

  The Graves house was next. It had been surrounded. The authorities had no legal cause for a search or seizure, so no warrant was issued. But the grounds were locked down, being watched on a twenty-four hour basis. They’d been waiting for Graves to return home. They had questions, but so far, nothing. Other than that, they knew everything William did.

  And that was it. That was all there was on Mark Neiman’s disappearance.

  William leaned back, eyes dancing back and forth, thinking. Mark Neiman’s disappearance was no coincidence. The man had dived further into the case of the dead girl than even he’d realized, got too close to somebody. The only way to find him was to continue Mark’s investigation, follow the breadcrumbs he’d already uncovered. But the L.A.P.D. was already on that trail. There was too much activity to stay unseen. William would have to lurk in the shadows, find the blank spots no one else could see. It made him smile steely-eyed. He couldn’t squelch his excitement. His blood ran fast and hot. He started to perspire. This is what he was meant to do. There was a killer out there, and William was on to him.

  He looked back at his computer screen. A bank of windows showed coroner’s photos of the dead girl from every angle, at every focal length from wide shots to close-ups. That’s where he’d start.

  An hour later, his family portrait wall had been redecorated. Full color printouts of the dead girl had been slathered across the wall in tiled categories—ligature mark photos here. Full body pics there. Throat and rib cage bruises below. Let Dr. Oaks invade his space now, let her make her judgments and place her phone calls now. He paced before the pictures with a voice recorder held to his lips.

  “We’ll start with the puncture wound. Inside of the elbow. Large gage needle. Bruising and premortem swelling indicates prolonged stasis. Plus, considering the situation, this was no single-use, disposable syringe.” He paused, thinking, and said, “Intravenous setup. Probably tripod with drip. It would explain this.” He moved past his desk, took the paper printouts of the coroner’s report, and flapped them in the air, “the amount of medical sugar in her body was astounding. Someone took their time with her—someone with an uncanny knowledge of medical scenarios, probably an M.D. of sorts.”

  He moved to the pictures of the throat wound, mottled purpling across the neck. Then he scanned the pics of the cardiac muscle laying naked in its bowl. “Multiple death causes. That requires,” he cringed with deep thought, continued, “resuscitation equipment, crash cart, defibrillator, echo-cardio machine, probable circulatory machine.”

  He looked at an extreme close up of Angela Newman’s eyes. Someone’s rubber-gloved fingertips held the eyelids apart while the picture was taken. The whites were bloodshot putting her baby blues inside a bowl of red. The eyes were ruptured. That could mean one thing. “Electrocution equipment also present, probably two-horse generator with AC/DC harness,” he whispered more to himself than the recorder, “Plus this.”

  He stepped toward the pictures of her wrists and ankles with deep, crusted wounds encircling them. “These ligatures are deep enough to resemble a prolonged struggle. She was bound flat, probably a table or makeshift bed—an operation table.” His lips pursed, figuring something out. “This wasn’t just a kill room. This was some sort of crackpot surgeon’s setup, a sadistic hospital room. Hmm—all this takes space, an abundance of space. Minimum, eight hundred square feet, possibly more.”

  Her kill room was no bedroom. L.A. bedrooms were typically tiny. As for basements, that was unlikely as well. He tilted his head—she could have died in someone’s garage, but that was unlikely. Keeping a live torture victim for days or weeks in merely a garage was too risky, especially for someone clever enough to outthink Mark Neiman. This perpetrator was too smart for that. She died somewhere big, spacious.

  But where, dammit?

  William froze, a huge smile of realization slipping across his face. He looked up at his ceiling twenty feet over his head, then made a slow three-sixty turn eyeballing his own living space. His loft was a renovated warehouse, full of huge negative spaces. He brought the recorder up to his lips and said, “Abandoned warehouse.”

  The entry buzzer went off
like a thundercrack in William’s ears. It spun him around like a startled cat and the recorder slipped from his hand. He stood looking at his front entryway, frozen. Seconds later, the rattle of a diesel engine cranked over outside his apartment, then there was the sound of a big truck tooling away. He glanced curiously at his entry door and whispered, “UPS delivery.”

  William went cautiously to his door and peeked out into the hallway toward the entrance. No one was there. He moved quickly to the gated entry door and looked out the peephole. There was only a parking lot, no visitor. He opened the door and looked out. The UPS truck had made its way to the exit gate at the end of the parking lot, turned onto the street and disappeared. William looked down at his feet.

  There was a brown box, not even as big as a shoebox. He hadn’t ordered anything online; he hadn’t even been home for forty-eight hours. Yet someone had made a delivery. He stood there looking down at it sitting between his feet, pondering. It had an ISB sticker on it, so it had been ordered and shipped. Thinking twice, he bent down and picked it up. No sender, no return address. And with an alarming suddenness, it began vibrating in his hands.

  A bomb!

  He made a shocked, pathetic noise and dropped it back down on instinct, then realizing its closeness, kicked it sharply away and dove headfirst back into the hallway. He slammed his eyes closed holding his breath. Several seconds went by. No explosion.

  Falling curious, William rose slowly looking back over his shoulder. His pulse screamed in his ears, the hairs on his neck standing like the hackles of a dog. The package vibrated again making him gasp and duck back down. He listened, hardly breathing. Nothing happened.

  This wasn’t a bomb.

  He came back up, pondering the package. Maybe it was a phone.

  Jacky!

  William bolted to the box, jabbed a finger into the lid ripping up the packaging tape and opened it. An AT&T temp phone spilled out. He picked it up, flipped it open and said, “Uh, hello?”

  “Professor!” Jacky shouted full of glee.

  William rolled his head back on his shoulders in both relief and infuriation and said, “Jacky—what are you doing?”

  “Hey, are you outside your apartment?”

  “Yes, I am,” he said.

  “Whoa, don’t say my name out loud. Go inside, go inside, Prof.”

  William went down the entry hall and into his unit. Once inside he said, “Jacky, what’s going on?”

  “Well first, how’s things going? Hey—how was the Napa Institute? Man, I was afraid they stuck you in with the loonies, man, the real psychos. Are you okay?”

  With the initial shock of the last thirty seconds subsiding, William inhaled big and said, “It was an experience.”

  “Yeah, I bet. Did you see the Colorado shooter? Oh, and the Cali guy—they’re both doing time there, you know, rubber room kind of stuff. Did you see them? Did you talk to them?”

  “Jacky,” William said sharply, “what’s this all about?”

  “Oh okay. So, you’re casing Mark Neiman, right? I just thought this would be a better way to communicate, you know, in case you need something. I mean, we could meet up, but it’d have to be some serious incognito stuff—like disguises and stuff. But don’t worry, I got all that stuff if you …”

  William cut him off, “Jacky, this is a cellular signal.”

  “Oh no, don’t worry. I got the IP’s. Linked them to a private hotspot. Trust me, no one can hear.”

  “Mmm,” William groaned, collecting his thoughts. “Jacky, I don’t know if I want you any more involved than you already …”

  “Oh, no way, Prof,” Jacky cried, cutting him off. “This is my decision. I’m a grown man, you know. By the way, I turned twenty-one last month. I can even drink. And besides, you called me, remember?”

  “Jacky.”

  “I want to help,” he said, sounding almost angry.

  Silence followed. William glanced around his apartment. His old life was over. No teaching career. No credibility. No friends. He looked to his north-facing wall. Even his father’s portraits had been confiscated by the state, replaced by printouts of a new murder. His place was even more lifeless now than it was before. And now, he was all alone on this case. There was no Bernie Dobbs to lean on, no big impulsive, jaw-busting buddy to balance out his neurosis. Jacky might just be all he had left in the world. Fine—it was time to investigate the last place Neiman and his partner Helms had visited.

  “Okay, Jacky, I could use some information. Doctor Hugh Graves. I’m going to investigate him. But I want you to find out everything you can about him. Reference his PD files. Look for past associations. Dig deep.”

  Jacky snickered, all fired up, and said, “Hellz yeah, Prof!”

  20

  Amanuensis

  William drove out to the Century City District after looking up the Lyman Sorgensen and Rowe Clinic, formerly Lyman Graves & Sorgensen. He wasn’t sure how his private investigation would commence without encountering the authorities and having to duck and run, until, that is, he pulled up into the parking area of the clinic building with its black glass windows, and saw a woman dressed in a curve hugging business gown and net hosiery come strutting out to her car in a pair of power pumps. She had Beverly Hills beauty clinic receptionist written all over her. He grinned to himself. This girl was the unseen witness, the beautiful girl behind the desk, always overlooked by a world eyeballing the top of the totem pole. He pulled up next to her car, a silver Mercedes, as she unlocked the driver door.

  “Hello,” he said, breaking the ice.

  She stopped and looked over having to duck down to see him. The look on her face dispelled a woman constantly avoiding catcallers. “Yes?” she said.

  “Are you at Lyman Sorgensen and Rowe?”

  She looked back at the building and said reticently, “Maybe.”

  “Would you have a moment?”

  “Is this about the police?” she asked.

  “The investigation—yes,” he said.

  Her demeanor switched to one of interest. “Oh, sure.”

  William got out and looked at her over the top of his car. “My name’s Erter. I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”

  “You want to talk to me?” she said.

  Her words confirmed it in his mind. He’d been right about his assumption. She’d been ignored by the authorities. Perfect. “Yes, I would.”

  She said, “Heh. It’s weird you’d come to me.”

  He gave her a quizzical frown. “It is?”

  “Sure. The amanuensis.”

  “The—” he’d never heard this word. “I’m sorry?”

  She rolled her eyes tapping a cigarette out of its chrome case and said, “Exactly. What the hell is an amanuensis, right? It means receptionist. It means me.”

  “Ah. I see. Why is it weird?”

  She lit up with the seasoning of a movie starlet and said, “I’m the one that’s always here. I’m here more than the doctors. They go out, do nine holes at lunch, yadda yadda, their clients come in, sit and wait, talk to me, tell me their whole life stories. I know their clients better than they do.” She dragged waving her hand gracefully. “All of a sudden this happens, everybody has questions, so, the inspectors, detectives, whatever they are, come in, ask to speak with doctor this or doctor that, walk right by me. Hello—you want answers, I’m right here. But, whatever.”

  He grinned at her. “Oh, I see. I tend to conduct a more objective investigation.” He spied her, testing. “I like to hear from the eyes that no one sees.”

  She squinted, took his meaning and grinned. “Huh. That’s me.”

  “So, what can you tell me?” William asked.

  She put her elbows on his car leaning on it. “Angela Newman, right? I remember the girl. She was in and out of the office, periodically. She left an impression.”

  “How so?”

  She dragged, blew out. “She was like this gorgeous girl, and I mean gorgeous—very hot, young Hollywood, only with
an edge, the rap video type.” She made an exaggerated, doubtful face. “And she wanted beauty surgery? Come on.” She dragged again. “I couldn’t understand why. They never asked me, though. I’m just the amanuensis, right? I don’t know, maybe that’s common around here. You see it all the time with celebs, you know?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know. You’ve seen it. They’re never beautiful enough or young enough or firm enough. They pound beauty on top of beauty. It doesn’t work. Look at the tabloids. Look at the internet. All those ducky-lipped, eyes-back, stretchy-face jobs. It’s just bad. Of course, I can’t say that; I’d lose my job, right?” She sucked on her cigarette.

  “Mmm. What about Doctor Graves, what was his opinion?”

  “That’s the thing. I kind of got that from him. It was his philosophy. He often talked his patients out of beauty surgery. Isn’t that weird? I guess he considered himself more of a purist.” She cocked her head curiously and asked, “Is this whole thing really about him?”

  “We’re kind of at a loss. Just pursuing all angles, really. What can you tell me about him?”

  She inhaled a big breath putting her thoughts together and said, “Yeah, that was weird. I mean, it’s not like he just wasn’t there one day. We did have a retirement party and all that. It was a big deal. Real expensive, too. And he was so young. Like fifty or something. Young to be retiring. It’s what happened later.”

  “What happened?”

  “Look, I’ve been around doctors my whole life,” she said, moving around the front of his car, and stopped before him leaning a hip into his fender. “They’re like a fraternity. Retirement is never the end. They publicize. They socialize. In this town, they consult on the next big TV show drama, or whatever. Once an L.A. doc, always an L.A. doc, right? It’s for life. But Doctor Graves, he just … he wasn’t there anymore.”