WHITE

by Neal Arbic

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “The victims, man, they were into satanic shit! Vodoo! The orgy scene…it’s in the fuckin’ papers. They got what they had coming.” Ray shook his head. “Live freaky, man, die freaky.” Ray’s squat face sweated. His dark eyes darted. “Hell, the papers know more than I do. I ain’t lying!”

  “Good. Then tell me what you know.”

  Ray shrugged. “Nada. I mind my own business. I didn’t see shit happening up there. I told you.”

  “Fine. Tell me again.”

  “Jesus! Really? I told you and every cop a dozen times now.” He protested, “Even thinking about that night makes me piss my pants!” Ray rubbed his wrists. “It’s a miracle I wasn’t killed with the rest of them!”

  The last vestiges of Dirk’s friendly demeanor vanished. He eyed Ray. Ray got the message.

  Ray slumped back and threw up his hands. “I was smoking reefer.”

  “Start earlier.”

  Ray dropped his head and answered in fatigued monotones. “I went down to the strip to get some smokes, and a TV dinner, you see? I got back about ten. I eat.”

  “Then?”

  “Then, I smoked a few reefer, listened to Hendrix on my earphones. My cat starts jumping around, acting crazy and making this strange sound, like crying. I took off my earphones to check it out. It was after midnight and it seemed quiet…very quiet. But then I hear music from the house, scary-like, like when you hear music from far away…and the cat, she’s jumping like a maniac. Then I hear something.”

  “What?”

  Ray started to sweat. “The popping sound. I thought some jerk was setting off firecrackers, so I looked out the window. It was very dark, but then I see ‘em -‘cause they’re running in front of the lit windows. People on the lawn. Well, I opened the door and the cat just scrammed straight into the woods. Then I heard screaming. Lots of screaming. And swearing. Someone yelling, ‘Oh god, please don’t kill me.’”

  Ray’s eyes were wide with a hypnotic horror. “I stepped out and around the side of the house.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing, so I keep walking towards the house.” He clasped his trembling hands and looked like he might piss himself.

  “So what did you do?”

  “I go across the lawn. I was so stoned, I thought I might just be really high, man. But as I go near the house…I got scared. I mean, the screaming was inside and around me and it was very dark. Freaking me out. I got to the porch step and just froze. I hear like people swearing and things getting knocked over inside. I just stood there, like too afraid, I couldn’t move. Then... then the door opened and there’s a girl standing there. Her face covered in blood. Her arms all cut up…her dress full of blood, man. She just stood there, like trying to scream, but no sound came out.

  Ray’s face was beading with sweat. “Then she collapsed right in the doorway, like dead. I hear this sound behind me. People running. I turned and I can’t see too good ‘cause it’s…black, but there out on the lawn - this guy falls and like three other people just stabbing him, but there was one tall dude with a baseball bat or something, he’s just beating the guy. They didn’t see me, I was being very quiet. I got back to my place and just ran, that’s when I heard the gunshot. It was really loud. I turned and this guy on his knees was now down on the ground… and the tall dude stood over him with a gun.”

  “That’s the last thing you saw before you ran into the woods?”

  Ray nodded.

  “There was a bloody female footprint found that didn’t match any of the victims. Did you see anyone get away?”

  Ray shook his head. “No, man.”

  Dirk leaned in. “And why didn’t you call the police?”

  “‘Cause of my warrants. I just didn’t want to go back to jail. And I thought the killers might be hunting me! I just ran and ran for miles into the hills, you know, like they were following me. Then I hid. About three in the morning, I saw the police sirens down at the house. I just took off. That’s all. I only saw shadows, didn’t see nothing, not one face. And the police were already there. So I took off.”

  “You can’t give a better description?”

  “I told you, I only saw shadows.”

  “You didn’t recognize any voices.”

  Ray shook his head.

  Dirk asked, “Why you run to Mexico?”

  “I heard the police were looking for me, then saw the paper saying I did it. I got afraid, man.”

  “So you bought a bus ticket to Mexico?”

  Ray nodded. “Yeah.”

  ********

  Delware wandered away from the crowded hallway. It was still sinking in: his close brush with death. The gun at his head left him stunned and just grateful to be alive. Leaving the interrogation rooms, he found himself looking for his partner. Jack wasn’t on the third floor, or the second. Delware found him on the first floor at the end of a quiet marble hallway. He sat on an old wooden bench near the exit, looking like an old man in a church pew, staring off into nothing. His grizzled head nodding in deep thought.

  Quiet and humble, as if attending a funeral, Delware sat beside him. Jack didn’t notice.

  Delware dropped his head and spoke in a whisper, “You know, you called me ‘coon.’”

  Jack turned surprised and raised an eyebrow.

  Delware quoted, “Don’t shoot the coon.”

  Jack spoke softly, “I was trying to save you from getting your damn head blown off.”

  Delware looked at the floor, remembering the gun’s nozzle just a few inches from his face. “It was close.”

  Jack sat back almost smiling. “Honestly, kid, I thought you were a goner. That rookie must have been an hour out of the academy. I’ve never saw a cop so scared. He was squeezing that trigger. I swear, if a squirrel had farted in Arizona, you wouldn’t be here now.”

  Delware nodded and silently thanked God he was alive.

  Jack eyed his partner. “You know, you get a wild look in your eye when you pull your gun. Hell, between the way you dress and that look - I would have taken you for a born-to-lose low rider.”

  Both men fell silent.

  Delware glanced up and tilted his head back down the hall. “So, why aren’t you in there?”

  Jack shrugged. “Wrong guy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, our psycho’s still out there…and more people are going to die.”

  “You don’t make Ray as the primary? How can you tell it’s not the right collar?”

  Jack looked down at his bloody knuckles. Delware guessed Ray’s blood, not Jack’s.

  Jack absentmindedly picked a thread from his wrinkled trousers. “I interrogated the kid on the way over. After thirty years, I can smell a lie like shit on my shoes. The kid’s clean, at least of our murders. I knew the moment I saw him. But I beat the shit out of him, just to make sure. I’ll know our killer, I’ll know him the moment I see him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Kid, I’ve seen it all…twice. Before you were born I was walking a beat, climbing up through Vice, Bunco and Narcotics; I’ve busted them all: con men, addicts, cheats, lying pimps, thieves, winos...bums with no address and whores who can't keep one.

  “The most frustrating part is being able to read someone. You just know ‘em - the type: that’s a thief, that’s a rapist. You stop seeing what makes them look normal to everyone else. You read the Braille of their character. I see a kid; I know there’s no hope. He’s going to murder someone someday as sure as other boys are gonna hit puberty. And there’s nothing you can do about it. They don’t even know they’re going to do it themselves.

  “I’ll spot our killer - in a glance. I just need to see him. I even know what he’ll say.”

  “Yeah?” Delware stared at Jack with doubting eyes. “What’s he going to say?”

  “Him? He’ll call me a pig.”

  Delware laughed, “Jack - every hippie calls cops pigs.”

  “
Yeah.” Jack nodded, then grinned at Delware. “But our guy’s going to mean it.”

  1:47 PM

  Shoving the back door of City Hall open, Jack winced in the bright parking lot. He headed for the Packard baking in the sun. Delware followed, shaking off another wasted day, another dead end.

  Jack felt his age, his knuckles hurt, his eyes burned, hunger gnawed at his stomach. “I’m so hungry right now I can’t even think straight.” He kicked at the ground. “It’s been nearly a month and I still don’t know Hell’s first whisper about our psycho. Maybe I’m dead wrong, kid.”

  “It might be we’re looking in the wrong direction. I mean Jack, I can see the holes in Dirk’s theory, but there’s one big hole in yours.”

  Cocking his head, Jack waited.

  Delware felt his full attention. “Just one thing that doesn’t lay right in your theory - the way they got in: through a window. Now that’s the choice of an experienced burglar. A bunch of crazed hippies would jimmy a back door or burst in the front door like amateurs. And if there were four, maybe five of them, they would all have to sneak around to the back of the residence, slit a screen, crawl through a small window, move all the way down the back of the house into the kitchen and pull knives from the drawers – all without anyone noticing or hearing them. Maybe a single experienced burglar could have done that, but four, five of them? So many showing such a high degree of experience? Jack, where would crazed hippies learn that type of controlled entry? Where would they gain that level of experience?”

  The question stopped Jack, but his stomach growled and he lost the train of thought. “Damn it, kid, not right now. You picked a bad time. I’m too hungry to even put two and two together.” He glanced at the Mel’s Drive-in across the street and headed towards it.

  Delware followed. “I can’t explain it, Jack. It seems more likely that they were professionals.” As he spoke, it dawned on him. That picture that had been forming on the horizon of his mind, the map he had almost grasped that night alone in Homicide at Dirk’s desk now became vividly clear. “We’ve been looking in the wrong direction!”

  Delware ran back into City Hall. Jack watched with his stomach growling.

  He yelled after him, “Kid!” Shaking his head, Jack laughed. “He must be high as a kite. They’re not going to let you into Homicide!” Jack headed towards Mel’s. “Ahhh, fuck him. Let him go earn his Junior G-man badge. Kid apprehends a single suspect, and now he thinks he’s Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes.”

  ***

  Mel’s Drive-in was a fifties-style diner: big plate glass windows, wrap-around booths, black and white checkerboard floor, steel stools along a drawn out counter. The place smelled of grease and was almost empty. It might look passable at night, but it was grimy in the bright afternoon. Jack grabbed a booth so he could look over the street. Halfway through a cheeseburger and a side order of fries, Jack saw Delware running across street. “Awww, Holy Christ. Here comes junior G-Man with some harebrained hunch.”

  Delware busted into the diner, spotted Jack and ran to his table. “Jack, you won’t believe this.”

  Jack calmly sipped his milkshake and gave Delware a doubtful stare.

  Delware eyes were wide with excitement. “Jack, I found-”

  Jack’s hand shot up. “Hold on, kid!”

  “What?”

  He smiled and held up his burger. “You know, there could be a bank robbery across the street right now and I might have to go over there and shoot it out with some shitbirds. But let me tell you something, I would take this burger with me. Between shots, I’d still be taking bites of this delicious cheeseburger.”

  Delware looked wild with bewilderment. “Jack! I found-”

  “Know why?”

  “Jack!”

  Jack shook his burger at Delware. “Do you know why, kid?!”

  Delware gave in. “Why!”

  Taking a bite, Jack talked with his mouth full. “‘Cause nothing bothers a cop while he’s eating.”

  ***

  They jaywalked across Spring. Jack dusted crumbs off his jacket with a hand still full of fries. He waved at cars to stop with his burger.

  Delware led the way. “I’ll bet you this is it!”

  Jack popped a load of fries in his mouth and gave a sarcastic, “You’re on, kid.”

  They entered the main hallway of LAPD headquarters. Jack made quick work of what was left of his cheeseburger

  Delware out paced him. “Jack, I thought about it, we’ve been looking for similar murders, but we should be looking for other crimes with similar MOs.”

  Jack stopped in the middle of the hallway. With distant eyes, he looked beyond the station: Delware was right. Crimes just didn’t happen. There was always a run up, early warning signs that needed to be looked for. Tracking the killers in his mind, Jack followed the marks they had left. For a second, Jack’s breath stopped in a moment of pure concentration. He saw four hippies in the dead of night silently slitting the screen, saw them quietly crawling through the window and creeping slowly through the darkened passages in the back of the Tate mansion, entering the kitchen and opening the drawers until they found…knives.

  Jack gasped. “They learned it! It was part of their plan!”

  Delware turned; shocked that Jack had read his mind.

  Jack’s eyes went wide. “They practiced before hand.”

  Delware jumped. “That’s right! We’ve been looking for similar murders. We went through the city and county files. There’s nothing like it.”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, but-”

  “But they learned in stages! Like predators – they practiced tracking their prey, before their first kill. Now, how would they practice something like that?!”

  Jack beamed. “Burglaries!”

  ***

  Lieutenant Rollins, a tall gray-haired Texan, leaned back in his chair, watching Jack and Delware enter Burglaries Division.

  Jack gave him a half salute and swallowed the last of his fries. “Hey Henry, you got something for us?”

  Rollins popped a stick of gum into his mouth and spoke in a drawl between chews. “Officer Hicks said he wanted anything strange. Well, this is as strange as you can get.”

  Jack wiped his greasy fingers on his pants. “Whatcha got?”

  “Break and Enters with nothing stolen.”

  “Nothing?”

  “They do everything a burglar does, but don’t take a thing. It’s plain and pointless.”

  “So just break and enter?”

  “Not exactly, I said nothing is taken, but everything is rearranged.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rollin’s tossed a file across his desk. “They move everything around in the house: furniture, whole living rooms, kitchen sets.”

  Jack picked up the file. “And how many of these do you have?”

  Rollins pointed to the wall behind the two detectives.

  Jack and Delware turned. The whole wall was a map: greater LA laid out before them. Pins and notes dotted the streets and neighborhood. Jack and Delware approached the wall.

  Rollins leaned farther back in this chair. “Red pins are house burglaries. Black pins are car thefts. White are store break-ins.”

  Delware noticed dried wads of gum stuck in one neighborhood. “What’s the gum mean?”

  Jack and Rollins laughed. Jack said, “I think those are ours.”

  Rollins piped in, “Yeah, gum means bullshit that ain’t worth a pin, but we still got to write reports on ‘em, anyways. B&Es where nothing is taken is bullshit. I don’t got enough pins for bullshit.”

  Jack grinned. But Delware stared at the near circle of dried gum. They were all in Bel Air and at the center of that circle was Ceilo Drive. Delware gasped under his breath. “Jesus. Jack, all of these are in the Hollywood Hills.”

  Jack saw it too. Without his eyes leaving the map, he spoke to Rollins. “I think we need those reports.”

  ***

  Rollins pulled a dozen manila files from a serie
s of gray metal cabinets. “Yeah, we didn’t know what the hell was going on. We thought it was pranksters, you know, college kids having a hoot. I mean, burglars usually break in when no one’s home. Well, all of these occur while the families are home – asleep, mind you.”

  He dropped the files. They spilled across the desk. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Goddamn mansions - can you believe it? Not a thing taken.”