Three women murdered in the Los Angeles area could be the victims of a serial killer, with suspicion centring on Garrison 41, the People’s Liberation Army base in the city, according to the families of the dead.
The LA Times has learned that Abigail Webb, who was found dead this week in North Hollywood, Rosario Padilla and Eveline Plaats all died the same way – of an unexplained drug overdose, described in each case as utterly out of character for the women involved – and all had close links with the garrison. A spokesperson for the Webb family insisted the similarities amounted to a distinct pattern. ‘We demand that the Los Angeles Police Department now pursue this lead. The evidence is too clear to be ignored.’
While Webb had worked as a dancer at the Opium Den nightspot, a favourite nightspot of young Chinese officers from the base, Padilla’s last known …
She read the story one more time, making the occasional tweak. She did not want to give herself any time to change her mind. She tapped out Howard’s email address – and pressed ‘Send’.
They were in a rowing boat on a bright summer’s day. Abigail was turning her face towards the sun, trailing her fingers in the water. Quincy was rowing, while their mother was at the other end, fussing over a bag, producing an endless supply of sandwiches. Maddy was sitting on the cross-bench in the middle, facing towards Abigail and her mom, her back to her older sister. She was enjoying the weather too, until she became aware that her ankles were becoming wet. She looked down to see water coming through. At first she thought it was a puddle, but now she understood that there was a hole in the boat. It was getting wider and wider, so wide she could see the ocean. The water had reached her knees and was getting higher. And now there was a knocking sound, as if a paddle were banging against the side of the boat. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock …
She woke with a jolt, lifting her head from the desk. It was dark but the clock in front of her said it was five forty am. Was that right? She had no recollection of the night or of when she fell asleep. And there it was again. Knock, knock, knock.
It was coming from close by. And now there was a voice, an urgent stage whisper. ‘Maddy, open this door now. This minute.’
She recognized it, though it took several long, slow seconds to process this information, to understand what she had heard and what it meant. The voice belonged to Howard Burke, news editor of the LA Times. He had never, ever come anywhere near her home. It surprised her that he even knew where she lived. And it was not yet six in the morning. In journalist terms, it was the middle of the night. What the hell was he doing here?
She looked down at her feet, expecting to see her jeans soaked from the water in the boat. It took another second to compute that this was not a dream, but she was now awake. The way her clothes felt on her skin, her temperature, made her suspect she had not been asleep all that long. But she had gone down very deep. And now she was coming back to the surface too fast.
‘Maddy. You must open the door.’ The phone on the desk was vibrating, the name ‘Howard’ flashing across its screen. His urgency scared her.
She looked at her computer screen and her desk, scanning for anything she might not want to be seen. The rest of the room was a mess, but there was nothing she could do about that. She scooped up a pile of discarded clothes, including underwear, and shoved it into the nearest available space which at this moment turned out to be the oven. She called out, hearing the croak of just-interrupted sleep in her voice: ‘Coming.’
She turned the latch and Howard surged in, as if the door had been holding back a tidal wave of water. The language of his body, tense and coiled, was anger. But his face, grey with tiredness and too much computer light, revealed desperation. And, she decided on an instinct, fear.
He didn’t wait to sit down or be asked to sit down or even to adjust to being in the room. He spoke as if he were continuing a conversation that had been unspooling in his own head for a while. ‘Maddy, there is no way in the world we can publish this.’ He was pointing at his phone, breathless, as if he had run up the stairs to get here. Perhaps he had. ‘I don’t know what the hell you were thinking but this …’ He tapped the phone again, to indicate its contents. ‘There’s no way. No way.’
Now it came into sharper focus, Maddy’s last move before she had finally faded – what, an hour or two ago? She remembered writing the story but until now had been hazy about what she had done next.
Howard took her silence to be resistance. Now his voice rose. ‘Every word of it is speculation. There’s no evidence at all. Just blogosphere, conspiracy wingnut speculation. OK, a few crumbs – but they’re all circumstantial. In other words, bullshit.’ He leaned in closer, so his face was just inches from hers. ‘Bullshit, Maddy.’
She noticed that Burke, usually clean-shaven, had stubble – a few white whiskers which belied the dark, reddish hair on top. He smelled of toothpaste, a scent struggling to cover the fact that he had obviously had no breakfast. Maddy felt an unexpected sympathy for her boss. She was used to being awake at ungodly hours at both ends of the day. This man clearly was not.
He turned his back to her, as if he needed to regroup. He walked a few paces across the studio apartment, the strangeness of seeing him here, by her couch, inches from her bed, close to her kitchen, struck her again. This was her sanctuary and he had intruded upon it.
‘Listen, Howard. Just think about the facts for a second.’
‘Facts! What facts? There’s not a hard fact in there.’
‘One, three women who have never injected drugs in their lives suddenly OD. Think about that. Not one of them was a drug user. Second, all three women have a direct connection with the garrison.’
‘Oh no they don’t, Maddy. That was you having two and then another two and making six. One of the women went to meet friends who were working at Terminal Island. Big deal. She then went to an Italian restaurant. What, we gonna say there’s an Italian serial killer on the loose? The spaghetti strangler?’
‘Don’t joke about this, Howard.’ She spoke quietly, but his anger was unleashed now. It had its own momentum.
‘And the other one, the cleaner? OK, her last job was at the garrison but where did she go after that?’
‘That’s the last place she was seen alive.’
‘That’s the last place you know about, you mean. Come on, Maddy. This is beneath—’
‘And my sister. What about my sister?’
That slowed him down, but it did not stop him. He replied, his voice deeper than before, the volume dropped a notch. ‘She danced at a nightclub that was popular with Chinese people. That’s it. That’s what you’ve got. Can you imagine what you’d say if this was any other story? You’d laugh in my face. If you saw that in the Times, you’d march over to my desk, tell me I’m a pussy and threaten your resignation for the fiftieth time this year. On principle.’
He was trying to lighten the mood, but she didn’t feel like lightening it. ‘What do you mean “any other story”?’
‘Come on, Maddy. Don’t make me say it. Everyone is in pieces over what happened to your sister. It’s just horrible. But …’
She felt her teeth clench. ‘And when you say “what happened to your sister” so confidently like that, perhaps you can tell me: what did happen to my sister? I mean, you seem to know. So tell me. What happened to her? Exactly?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Maddy.’ He sighed, allowing a gentleness into his tone. ‘I wish I knew. That’s what the police are doing—’
‘The police? Are you kidding?’ Now it was her turn to get angry, as if the energy that had drained away from him had flowed into her. ‘The police are doing jack shit, Howard. They are miles behind me. They haven’t even begun to look at past cases, they haven’t seen the pattern. There’s a pattern here, Howard. Three deaths, almost identical.’
‘Almost? Since when is “almost” good enough, Madison?’
‘Look,’ she said, stepping closer towards him so that she was intruding d
irectly on his space. ‘“There’s no such thing as a triple coincidence.” Remember that? You should. Because that’s one of yours. “Two can be a coincidence, three’s a trend.” That’s another. There are three women who never do drugs who are found with a vat of heroin in their veins. They’re all pale-skinned, pretty and blonde. Which just happens to be the look of choice for the boys over there in Garrison 41. In my book, that’s a story. Maybe I’d have called it a fluke when it was just the first two. No one else noticed it then, did they? No one wrote a word about Eveline or Rosario. But the third one made all the difference. Especially to me.’
Burke walked the two paces to the couch and slumped into it, letting his elbows rest on his knees. A middle-aged paunch spilled over his belt. He exhaled and then spoke quietly, barely above a whisper. ‘This makes no sense, Maddy. No sense at all. We can’t edit this like it’s a regular story. It isn’t. This is your sister. A death in the family.’
She turned away from him, heading to the kitchen to get a glass of water. And then, as an afterthought, another one for her guest. She could hear him throughout.
‘You shouldn’t be writing, Maddy. Not about this, not about anything. Of course you can’t think straight, you—’
‘How dare—’
‘Sorry, sorry. That came out wrong. What I mean is, no one can work after a shock like this. No one could do it. And you shouldn’t even try.’
‘What would you have me do then, Howard?’
He smiled a weary smile. ‘You’re asking for life advice from a guy who’s this close to his second divorce and who sees the security guy at the office more than he sees his own kids. What do I know, Maddy? You’re in grief. So grieve.’
There was plenty she could say to that. The sentences formed in her head. I would grieve if I could but I don’t know how. Or, But if I start that, then who knows where it’d end? She thought of telling him what she had told herself: Once I know what happened, and who did this to Abigail, then I’ll start mourning. But not before.
Instead she gave a little shrug and said nothing. It was weird enough having the news editor in her house without attempting some intimate chat unlike any they had had before. She wanted this conversation over.
He picked up her cue and stretched himself out of the couch, his knees creaking as he got up. She hovered by the front door, just so there could be no doubt that she was concluding proceedings. As he shook her hand, as awkward as ever in dealing with a young woman, she asked the question that, had she been more awake at the start, she would have asked then.
‘Howard. You came here at quarter of six in the morning. You didn’t need to do that.’
‘Don’t mention it, Maddy. We may have had our differences, but I care about all our—’
‘No. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not thanking you. I mean it literally. You didn’t need to come here. You could have called. You could have replied to my email. You could have told me to come into the office – you know, summoning me to … what do you call it when you’re mad at a reporter? “A chat without coffee.” But you came all the way here. All but banging on the door.’
‘I didn’t bang on the door.’
‘All but, I said. I caveated the statement – just like you taught me to.’
‘I wanted to do this in person. Given the context.’
‘What context?’
‘You. Grieving. Thought it better to do it face to face.’
‘All right, Howard. “I hear you.”’ She smiled. ‘Thanks for coming over.’
She watched him head for the staircase – impressed that he would be considerate enough to avoid a noisy elevator while the neighbours were asleep – and closed the door behind him. He was a decent enough man, she reflected. Thorough, rigorous and protective of his reporters. But on this particular matter, she concluded, he was full of shit.
If he cared so much for her wellbeing, he’d have come over yesterday. And no one makes a condolence call at five forty am. Nor do they bang on the door and call you on your cell at the same time, bursting into the room with a desperate look in their eyes. If he wanted to talk her off the story he could do that the way he’d done it a thousand times: on the phone, by text or email. No, he had been in a hurry to see her because he was worried. The story she had written had scared him rigid.
They both knew why. It was an insult to her intelligence to pretend otherwise, as he had done at the door just now. The problem was that she had pointed the finger in her story and where she’d pointed it had terrified him.
If he had told the truth, she would have listened to him. Sure, she argued with him day and night in the office, often over the tiniest point (they once debated the placing of a comma for a full twenty minutes before Jane Goldstein promised to sack them both if they did not release the page). But that was a mark of respect on her part. If she did not admire his mind, she would never try to change it.
Instead he had spun her a bullshit yarn about bereavement and impaired judgement. Well, they would soon see about that.
She brought the screen back to life, the story she had written during the night – perhaps only a couple of hours ago – still up where she left it. She opened her browser and, with a few keystrokes, entered the back-end of the Times system, thanks to access privileges granted to all specialist correspondents back when Goldstein’s predecessor was determined that all reporters cut, edit and post their own stories. Maddy was old school, knowing that she needed at least one pair of eyes to read whatever she had written before it was unleashed upon the world. Not least because sleeplessness often resulted in wild departures from accepted grammar. Maddy hardly ever used the codes she had just typed in. But she had not forgotten them.
She read the words one last time, attempting to address some of the points Howard had raised, making a tweak here and there. She knocked out a headline – Victims’ families fear an LA serial killer, with Garrison 41 in their sights – let her finger hover for just a second or two and then pressed the button marked ‘Publish’.
Chapter 25
Jeff was not too hot on social media – for a cop, it was tricky knowing what you could or couldn’t say, so the whole thing was easiest avoided. That meant he missed Maddy’s 6.13 am weib, which in a few, terse words announced her story:
Latest on murder of Abigail Webb, possible China connection?
Nor did he see the flurry of weibs that followed, including several which said ‘Hey, that link is broken’ or similar, and several more after that, which confirmed that Madison Webb’s story had been taken down from the LA Times site. It had been up less than fifteen minutes.
He knew none of this until a call from Barbara Miller, whose new partner Steve – and ‘new’ he would remain, in Jeff’s eyes at least, for several years to come – was quite the Weibo fiend. He had spotted the weib-storm brewing over Maddy. He had alerted Barbara who alerted Jeff. And now the detective was staring at his phone, scrolling down as he read what Madison had written. Handily, several bloggers had cached the piece from the Times site and reposted versions of it, which were now replicating themselves at viral rates, too fast for the Times or anyone else to keep up, let alone take down. As Barbara had put it when they spoke, ‘The story’s out there.’
He remained unsure as to the purpose of Miller’s call throughout their conversation and even after it. Was she seeking to enlist his help in reining in Maddy, bringing her to heel? Unlikely, given Barbara’s fairly accurate assessment of the relationship: she knew that Jeff’s interest in Madison Webb was unrequited and that the chances of him persuading her to do anything she didn’t want to were slim, typified by her consistent refusal to become his girlfriend. Or was Barbara simply on a fishing expedition, to see what he knew about Maddy and, most pertinently, whether he could shed any light on where, and from whom, she was getting her information? On this point, he insisted he had nothing, that Maddy was very definitely not keeping him in the loop. Miller’s reply – ‘Hmm’ – suggested she was not convinced.
&n
bsp; A clue to his colleague’s motives came later, at around seven thirty am. In between scanning Weibo, talking to Barbara and watching the local TV news – which hadn’t touched Maddy’s story – he had not yet showered. He was about to when the phone rang again. It was his commander, Eric Sutcliffe.
‘Jeff, tough call to make so I’m just going to get this over with. I need you to come downtown.’
‘What’s going on?’
His boss cleared his throat, telling Jeff all he needed to know. The commander said the words all the same. ‘We need to reassign you. Traffic duties. Starting right away.’
‘Traffic duties? Are you kidding me? What the—’
‘Don’t make this harder than it already is, Jeff.’
‘Harder for you, you mean. What the fuck is this about?’
‘We both know. You want me to spell it out?’
‘Yes. Spell it out.’
‘A certain story appeared on the Times website today.’
‘I had nothing to do with that.’
‘Well, the feeling is—’
‘I don’t care what the feeling is, Eric. I had nothing to do with that. First I knew of it was when—’
‘Well, that girlfriend of yours didn’t get all that information from nowhere, did she? Come on, Jeff. Don’t be an asshole.’
‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
‘All right, all right. I’m not going to delve into your underwear, Jeff. To be honest, I couldn’t care less who you’re banging. But you don’t leak operationally sensitive information to—’
‘For the last time, I did not leak!’
‘Whatever, Jeff. Whatever.’ Then, as if unable to resist, ‘You’re telling me she starts pointing the finger at the PLA all by herself?’
‘Yes!’
The 3rd Woman Page 19
