Date With the Devil

by Don Lasseter

  Mahler reluctantly handed his bank card to King and instructed him to find an ATM, withdraw $700, and bring it back.

  During the tempestuous day and night, Mahler made frequent calls from his cell phone. His whispered conversations puzzled King. After several attempts, Mahler reached Stacy Tipton in Visalia, told her that he had a serious problem, and asked if she could come to Hollywood and meet him.

  When they checked out just before noon on Monday, Mahler used a credit card to pay a bill for over $3,706! During the wild night, the occupants had destroyed an expensive plasma television set. He gave the angry prostitute $700, and promised to pay her the balance later. She and King left together.

  Mahler headed back to Sunset Boulevard and the Standard Hotel, where Stacy waited for him. Of course, during their two-night stay, they argued frequently. Mahler accused Stacy of standing him up on Saturday, and ignored her explanations about having work done on her new car, and that she had repeatedly tried to contact him. His nervous, erratic behavior, much more intense than usual, shocked her.

  On that same Monday, they paid a brief visit to the house on Cole Crest. Later discussing it, Stacy said she did not go inside with him. In Mahler’s recollection, he contradicted her. “We stopped at my house on Monday, for all of about two minutes because I needed to grab my computer. Things looked normal inside, other than there was some blood. That freaked me out, but Stacy freaked out more than me. I said, ‘Stacy, we’ll deal with this later.’ The blood was in my bedroom, where Edmund was slapping Kristi.”

  Back at the Standard Hotel, said Mahler, Stacy was still upset and absolutely refused to go back to the house. She departed on Wednesday for Visalia.

  By Thursday, May 31, Memorial Day, Mahler returned to his home. The presence of detergents and cleansers in Mahler’s bedroom suggested that he attempted to clean up the blood from the crime scene.

  In neighboring Orange County, Karl Norvik also thought about the blood in Mahler’s house. He had agonized over a decision, crushed by fear and anguish every minute of the last four days and nights. Unable to eat, sleep, or even think clearly, he had lost weight from his slim five-nine frame. Should I call the police? Will I endanger my own life or the lives of people I love? Will this man I’ve regarded as a close friend take violent revenge?

  The final week of May 2007 had not been particularly warm in Southern California, but Norvik found himself soaked with perspiration brought on by anxiety. His stomach had wrenched itself into painful knots. Damn! What to do?

  In his work and his social life, Karl had found serenity, something he valued above everything else. Had that all crashed? Norvik couldn’t believe the stunning events that had turned his life upside down. Would he ever be able to resume working among the glitterati of Hollywood? For more than twenty years, he had been involved in production, sound mixing, and even film editing for what he preferred to call “top industry names.” Now, a man he had trusted completely had potentially destroyed everything. How could he ever have regarded David Mahler as his best friend?

  Since the early-morning hours of Sunday, May 27, Karl had avoided returning to the house on Cole Crest Drive. For several years while he had managed the home built on a sloping canyon wall, the upper floor had been his domain; while renters lived in the lower levels. But David Mahler had changed all of that when he took over.

  For six years, they had enjoyed a friendly coexistence. Norvik had even trusted Mahler with investing his money, and a relative’s life savings. They shared personal insights, and enjoyed the ambience of residing atop an elevated ridge among neighbors from all levels of the entertainment industry. The wannabe actors, struggling screenwriters, musicians, camera operators, artists, all the way to studio executives, lived in every conceivable type of structure from cabins to castles speckling the Hollywood Hills.

  In recognition of Karl’s intelligence, David had said to him more than once, “You have a mind like a steel trap. If you had chosen to become a lawyer, I wouldn’t ever want to oppose you in court.”

  During these last five days of living hell, Karl Norvik had endured the most troubling period of his life while staying with a relative fifty miles from Cole Crest Drive. He could only ask himself, “What was I thinking?”

  The incident seemed at first like some goofy misinterpretation. Piecing events together in his mind, Norvik still couldn’t believe he might be personally involved in a murder. The whole thing sounded to him like a film noir script or a complex murder novel.

  It began after a Saturday evening business meeting with a colleague in the upper-floor office that Mahler and Norvik sometimes shared. At one point, while Karl and his guest studied data on two computers, David had walked in, accompanied by another man whom Norvik had never before seen. The duo lingered only a few minutes and then vanished into a separate part of the house. After another half hour, and conclusion of their transactions, Karl’s guest said good night and left. Karl descended an interior staircase to his bedroom, treated himself to a couple of drinks, and took off the clothing he had adopted almost as a uniform; slim-fit black slacks and a black T-shirt. He collapsed on his bed at about eleven thirty that night and fell asleep.

  Sometime in the early-morning hours of Sunday, shrill, piercing voices snapped him into full consciousness. He later described it as “loud, screaming profanities, which basically escalated to a much more vitriolic and heated level. I heard a woman screaming and Mahler’s very recognizable loud voice.” Reluctant to repeat the exact language, Norvik described it as including “the B word, the C word, and the F word ... just a string of very, very hateful profanities.” At first, Karl wondered if the stranger he had seen with Mahler was involved, but finally decided that only two people were yelling at each other. Most of the shouted invectives, he realized, came from David Mahler. He could not recognize the woman’s voice.

  This scenario had been played out more than once in recent months. “I had heard, in past occasions, when a woman had been over at the house in the company of Mahler, very heated arguments and it almost seemed as if ‘here we go again,’ to put it bluntly.”

  Even though Norvik attempted to block out the annoying clamor by hugging a pillow over his head, he clearly heard another noise interrupt the barrage of yelling and cursing. He interpreted it as a loud thump. “It first sounded like a heavy piece of furniture had been thrown.” With his own bedroom situated below Mahler’s sleeping quarters, the sound came from overhead. He visualized either someone jumping on someone else, or perhaps a chest of drawers toppled to the floor.

  A welcome period of calm followed, almost allowing Karl to exhale and go back to sleep. But before ten minutes elapsed, another audible thud resonated from the floor above. This one, he later recalled, “sounded more like a body thump ... something that weighed well over one hundred pounds.” It seemed to emanate from near a fireplace in the bedroom above.

  Another brief period of quiet ended with something that brought to Karl’s mind images of movement. “I heard a dragging noise, as if furniture, or possibly a body, was being pulled across the floor.” It came intermittently, “Like a pull and a stop, another dragging, and stop.”

  This noise, too, came to an end. At last, Karl thought, It’s all over. Never in his life had he been more mistaken. Just as he closed his eyes, a thunderous pounding on his door tensed every muscle in his body. “It was very, very insistent and nonstop banging.” He leaped out of bed and slipped into his trousers and shirt. Glancing at his cell phone display, he noted the time: 6:25 A.M. Nerves taut, he opened the door a crack and peered out onto the stairway landing. David Mahler stood there, dressed in a dark suit.

  “What’s going on?” Karl asked, trying to sound impatient but managing only a nervous whisper.

  David bellowed, “I have a major emergency!”

  “What is it?”

  With no hesitation, David Mahler spit the words out in a loud slur: “I need to dispose of a dead body.”

  Norvik felt himself start to tre
mble. Not from the chill morning air, but from shock. To him, Mahler’s indistinct speech, dilated pupils, and face drained of color made him appear to be drunk. “Even his eyes looked gray rather than their usual brown.”

  By now, Karl Norvik’s mind had developed a scenario. The thump he had heard overhead must have been the woman who had been screaming at Mahler. If there was a dead body up there, it had to be her. From his years of friendship with Mahler, Norvik knew that drugs were commonly used when female visitors came, so the possibility of a drug-induced death flitted through his mind. He asked Mahler, point-blank, “Did she overdose?”

  Mahler’s mute answer came only in the negative shaking of his head.

  Stepping over to a staircase, Karl asked, “What happened?”

  Both men moved tentatively up a couple of steps. Before they reached the entry to David’s rooms, Mahler announced, “I shot her near the balcony.”

  Staggered by the frank admission, Norvik felt like he couldn’t breathe. Later speaking of it, he explained, “I was just floored, shocked, in awe beyond consciousness. I walked up about three or four more stairs so I could take a seat on the landing. I needed to sit down and speak with him.” But no conversation took place. Instead, Norvik glanced into the open doorway leading into Mahler’s bedroom, and felt sick. “I saw a corpse with a big bullet hole in the left side of her face, lying diagonally to the corner of his bed.”

  The image would stay with Karl Norvik forever. The woman lay on her back, with arms stretched out, palms up, and long blond hair extending from her head as if she had been dragged. He didn’t think he had ever seen her before, but couldn’t be certain. “It was rather hard to tell, especially when someone has been shot in the face. The hole was about the size of a quarter. Some of the blood had coagulated and there were streaks of it [that] had run over the nose to the other cheek. But it wasn’t flowing out. She wore what looked to be like a gold halter top, very small and skimpy, and it was kinda hiked up.” The garment’s odd position further convinced Karl Norvik that she had been dragged across the floor. “It looked like she was wearing some kind of white thin cotton pants, and I could see a panty line because they were that sheer.”

  Mahler interrupted Norvik’s observation. “So, are you going to help me?” he demanded rather than inquired.

  The world seemed to revolve faster for Norvik, in a dizzy spin. Recalling it, he said, “At that moment, I was just so shocked. The feeling of your-whole-life-passing-before-your-eyes kind of thing, and thinking about my family and personal safety and not knowing what to think. I have known this man for years and years—a longtime dear friend. And it was just a lot to absorb in a moment, emotionally impacted.”

  Despite his mental chaos, Karl Norvik managed a one word answer: “No!”

  Without even looking at Mahler, he lurched back down the stairway and entered his own room again. Just before he closed the door, he heard Mahler bark, “Well, don’t tell anyone.”

  Without pause, Karl kneeled in the bathroom and threw up. Thinking he had regained his composure, Norvik stood, but he had to drop down again, twice more, to heave out his guts.

  The advice, or demand, to keep his mouth shut had kept Norvik silent for four full days of terror and worry. He would later confide good reasons for his fear. Months earlier, during a driving trip to Las Vegas with Mahler, it had shocked him to learn that David was sending text-messaged death threats to Cheryl Lane. Also, said Norvik, David had “engaged some people” to plant drugs on her so she would be sent to prison.

  Worse yet, according to Norvik’s recollection, Edmund, who had been supplying meth to Mahler, had secretly informed him that Mahler had offered $100,000 to kill both Donnie and Karl. Edmund had rejected it. Whether or not it had been true, or a threat designed to ensure their silence, could never be proven.

  When he could stand it no longer, at about midnight on Thursday, May 31, Norvik made a tough decision. Driven by moral, legal, and ethical motives, he decided that he must do the right thing. First, though, he felt honor bound to notify Donnie Van Develde. Karl knew that Donnie also had knowledge of the shooting and had seen the victim’s body. He telephoned the other tenant and advised him, “Donnie, I’m going to call the police and report this. You might want to get out of the house.”

  In every Hollywood screenplay, a key character must make a life-changing choice, often a heroic action that brings about resolution and redemption. Karl Norvik took on that role.

  By dialing 911, Norvik set in motion the confusing chain of communication that relayed through the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, to a radio telephone operator, and finally to the night watch at the Hollywood Station. Before 1:00 A.M., Friday, June 1, information that someone named David Alan Mahler had shot a woman in the face reached night watch detective Ray Conboy. He notified Homicide Unit supervisor Wendi Berndt at her home, and she called out two top detectives, Vicki Bynum and Tom Small.

  CHAPTER 11

  “THAT’S WHAT KEEPS IT INTERESTING”

  In Hollywood, art often imitates life. Detective Tom Small, who would partner with Vicki Bynum as lead investigators in the David Mahler case, had actually participated in the making of a movie. It happened when Paul Newman, James Garner, and Gene Hackman shot several scenes from their 1998 movie Twilight inside the Hollywood Station. Small not only met them, but he also had a short appearance in the film. Recalling the whole experience, he said, “Paul Newman seemed a little remote and intent on learning his part. But James Garner was very friendly and down-to-earth. I talked to him quite a bit.” During the filming, Small befriended the late actor John Spencer. They had coffee together frequently and shared experiences in lively conversations. “He was a great guy who could relate well to us because he had a police officer in his family, and a firefighter, both in New York.”

  Working with James Garner brought back memories for Small from a previous meeting with the star. “I had met him before when I was in Rampart Division. My boss there, Ron Dina, was a lieutenant who had been Garner’s bodyguard. One day he summoned me and my partner to Cedars-Sinai Hospital. We were thinking, ‘What did we do wrong?’ A little nervous, we arrived at the designated floor. Ron told us with kind of a stern look on his face to go into the coffee room and wait—just to stand by.

  “We thought we were really in trouble. A couple of minutes later, he walked in, followed by James Garner. Garner had undergone heart surgery recently, was recovering, and wanted to meet us. He even had an LAPD hat on. Dina had told him about an event my partner and I did—delivering a baby in the front seat of a car. That impressed Garner so much, he wanted to meet us. And then, years later, when they made that movie at the Hollywood Station, he remembered me. I thought he was really a friendly, decent man.”

  Other movies had been filmed inside the Hollywood Station. Small said, “One, in 2003, was called Hollywood Homicide, with Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett. We met with those guys for lunch and they picked our brains regarding homicide investigations.”

  According to the IMDb (Internet Movie Database), Harrison Ford’s role as Sergeant Joe Gavilan is based on Robert Souza, who was a homicide detective in the LAPD Hollywood Division and moonlighted as a real estate broker in his final ten years on the job. The scene where a handcuffed crook steals the gun from a patrol officer’s belt and starts shooting it off in the parking lot actually happened during Souza’s tenure.

  Small added, “Other actors have dropped by occasionally to research roles in police procedural films. They ride with us, see how we behave, how we dress, our mannerisms, and how we talk to people. Vicki actually does more of that than I do.”

  The personal history of Tom Small would fit a screenwriter’s concept of the perfect homicide detective. A native of Racine, Wisconsin, his father ran an electrical fixtures and contracting business, while his mother worked as a bank teller. With an older brother, a younger sister, and a kid brother, Tom admits to being a “little rascal” who wasn’t a
bad kid, but he enjoyed mischief. “We would hide underneath our house and plink people with a BB gun—shoot ’em in the butt, nonsense like that. We would go down and hop slow-moving freight trains. I almost got skinned alive when my parents found out about that. I guess they had spies everywhere.”

  As an athlete in Catholic school, Tom excelled in football—from the fourth through twelfth grades, and during a year of college—playing fullback and linebacker. Sometimes sports took precedence over classrooms, in which he earned a B average, fully aware of his capability to get A’s, with a bit more studying. During his teen years, he admired his cousin, a captain in the Racine Police Department with the Homicide Unit. “He hoped I might get into law enforcement, and always said the two best places to go would be the FBI or Los Angeles Police Department, which are the premier agencies in the country. So I had that in mind for a long time.”

  In 1972, the military draft system still existed and Small’s number came up that August. Instead, he chose to enlist in the U.S. Marines and follow a long family tradition. Nine relatives served in the Corps from pre-World War II to the Gulf War. After basic training, Small landed in Okinawa and crossed paths with his older brother, who was en route home at the end of his hitch.

  Looking back, Tom Small said, “When I got out in 1974, I joined a USMC reserve outfit in Milwaukee and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin. I had continued my football tradition in the marines and played some more in college.” As a marine reservist, he attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Quantico, Virginia, and earned second lieutenant bars. Graduation from college came in 1978, with a sociology major emphasizing law enforcement. “But what I really wanted to be was a football coach.” Instead, he served three more years in the U.S. Marine Corps as an officer.