The initial forensic work at Marvin Redbone’s townhouse had turned up zip, nada. No prints, other than the dead guys’. No other DNA or fibers. Nothing to hang our hats on. O’Hara had briefed us days earlier.
“It’s like the crook wiped everything down, but we found no evidence that he did so—no trace of cleaner, no bleach, no cloth marks. No shoe impressions were found inside the bungalow either. We found no blood trace on the outside, and we found no prints on the point of entry. Fact is, boys, we got shit for evidence here—just two slaughtered homos.”
All the blood evidence they found preliminarily pointed to coming from the two bloody victims alone, no outside DNA markers. It was a homicide investigator’s nightmare: no direct physical evidence found at the murder scene to identify our killer. Will’s discovery in the trash bin looked like a big change to that. Finally, a break!
Nothing of value was found in the trash bin other than the large, black plastic trash bag. It was impossible to lift any prints from the layer of dirt and grime on the lid or sides of the stinky-ass container. Ron’s forensics crew painstakingly dissected the contents of the bag in sterile conditions back at the lab. No prints had been left on the trash bag. They found a bloody pair of yellow Playtex rubber gloves, a large-size zippered paper-fabric jumpsuit, and a pair of green surgical paper shoe coverings (you know, the kind of things doctors and nurses wear during surgery). Some blood castoff could be seen on the bootie tops, and the white paper jumpsuit contained similar blood stains. Who was this fucking guy? I began to wonder if the killings of Redbone and Diaz were contract murders. Or could it actually be a stranger or serial killer methodically covering his tracks? I didn’t even want to think that word, serial, but as of this point, we had found absolutely no one with a motive to kill either of these dudes. As Ted and I conferred, after seeing this evidence for the first time, we were both worried. We needed to expand our strategy to cover more angles now. The discovery of this new evidence raised even more questions than we had before. Our excitement had a lot of anxiety mixed in with it. We felt like we had a winning lottery ticket, but we didn’t know how much it was worth.
Back at TriCorp, we managed to find the digital video recording taken from the company’s outside cameras on the morning of the murders. TriCorp was the only business in the area with cameras, and they were not low-lux (low-light) ones. All of the images taken of that corner of the parking lot were very dim and grainy. The equipment was a bit outdated, but it was all we had to work with. Lighting at that corner of the lot was almost nonexistent, but we managed to see a shadowy figure walk around the corner from the trash can at around 4:33 a.m. the morning of the murders. Judging from the height of the container compared to the figure as it passed by, we estimated the killer’s height as between five foot ten and six feet. It looked like the suspect was wearing a hooded jacket or some kind of sweatshirt, and we couldn’t see any facial features. It was just too damn dark. The person glided through the frames like a goddamned phantom. Every good murder case gets a name. From that day on, we named this one “The Phantom.”
We were still at TriCorp when two news crews showed up, boom microphones and cameras in hand. They had heard enough sheriff radio chatter to know something was up. We had managed to string some crime scene tape up, but now they were like a pack of rabid dogs, nipping at our pants legs. Rachael Storm was a local television newsie, and her station seemed to be trying to morph her into an investigative reporter. Shit, she reported on a talking dog story last week, for Christ’s sake. Now she’s Geraldo Rivera? I recognized her from our chitchat that first morning at the townhouse (honestly, she was hard to forget). She quickly shuffled up to me as I stood with Will Phillips a distance from where the forensics team was at work behind the tape. A microphone was again stuck directly into my face.
“Detective, we understand you found some evidence on the murder case here. Can you tell us what you’ve located?”
Using my official voice, I retorted, “I’m sorry, but I can’t comment on anything at this time, Ms. Storm. We’re in the process of collecting the evidence, and you know about as much as I do at this point.”
Storm immediately rebuffed me, “You must admit, Detective, that you haven’t been able to identify the killer of Dr. Redbone and Mr. Diaz. Just admit it, the sheriff’s department is stumped here. You don’t have a clue as to who is stalking this community, do you?”
That pissed me off. I turned toward the KCMP news reporter and shot back, “Stalking the community? Don’t you people have better things to do than stir up the public to get ratings? You have no idea how much work is going on here, and we don’t want people worried about things that aren’t factual. Someone targeted these two particular victims. It is just that simple. No further comment!” I walked off, feeling good about my comeback. My mood changed when I saw the story on TV.
KCMP edited the video/audio, and the interview played like this:
Storm still stated, “You must admit, Detective, that you haven’t been able to identify the killer of Dr. Redbone and Mr. Diaz. Just admit it, the sheriff’s department is stumped here. You don’t have a clue as to who is stalking this community, do you?”
My convenient and only reply was an angry “No further comment!”
God, I hated reporters almost as much as I hated asshole attorneys.
Later that day, we circled the wagons for a case meeting in Santa Barbara, and Ron O’Hara had the floor.
“We know that this large-size jumpsuit is made of MicroGuard, a clean-room material, as were the large-size surgical-style booties.”
Ted chipped in, “OK, Ronny, what the hell is MicroGuard?”
O’Hara explained that the material the suit was made of was designed to be sterile, and it had a barrier that would not allow fluids to penetrate through to the clothing beneath it. Surgeons commonly used it as well as the manufacturers of computer chips and other sensitive materials. The suit’s manufacturer couldn’t be readily identified because this type of outfit was not currently under patent, and its form and material makeup was frequently used by as many as ten companies. It had no markings on it—nothing that could help us. Ron had already checked, and no local hospitals or labs used this type of MicroGuard suit, and the distributors claimed they only sold to large businesses.
Another door slammed shut in our faces. It would have been nice to know the manufacturer, so we could acquire a purchase record to help identify this creep. Ron said the yellow Playtex gloves were available virtually anywhere, too, and were medium in size. Our killer had the hand of a kid?
Ted queried Ron. “Medium? Are you sure? This guy is maybe six feet tall, and physically able to pull a person up off a bed to slaughter him. Are you sure they are medium, not large or even extra large?”
Ron showed us a picture of the inside cuff of the glove. Bold letters were stamped: MEDIUM. Then O’Hara got quiet.
“We…actually I…I gotta admit that I fucked up a little, too. I never figured the killer had something covering his shoes. Along with the MicroGuard suit, he had his shoes covered with these booties. We thought we didn’t find any shoe impressions in the house, but I now know that I did. I thought my lifts had come up empty for our suspect. He wore shoe coverings, all right, along with the suit, and they were different from the ones we use. We use flat-bottom shoe coverings. The murderer’s booties have a seam running right down the middle of the soles. I missed that.”
We learned from Ron that after Ted and I had walked in, wearing our flat-soled cloth booties, he did electrostatic lifts on the floors to find shoe impressions. A thin metallic sheet was placed on the floor, and low-voltage current was then run through the sheet. Any dust or static from the floor underneath the sheet, not discernible by the naked eye, was then imprinted on the sheet. Then he photographed the sheet and lifted the impressions with tape.
O’Hara said he found two types of cloth shoe-covering prints on the floor, some flat-bottomed and some seamed, and that the seamed-shoe impressio
n traveled one time from the back door to the master bedroom and then back to the same door. That print had the victim’s trace blood evidence on it. Ron admitted that he had assumed that either Ted or I had that style of bootie on, and that we must have traipsed a bit of blood evidence with us as we walked to and from that area. He later realized the department had gone to all flat-bottomed shoe coverings some time ago. The killer wore the seam type, and we had them as evidence now.
Well, I reminded him that when he assumes something, he makes an ass out of himself and me! Lesson learned, and it was a mistake anyone could have made. Ted and I were a little miffed, nonetheless. We still had our ace in the hole. The inside of those Playtex rubber gloves would have our killer’s fingerprints on them. We at least had that.
After our team meeting, I got read the riot act by Bruce Farnsworth, our CID commander for making a “press release.” He had watched the conveniently edited afternoon news. He yelled, “So, Rhinehardt, you want to be the PIO? I can arrange that. You might do a better job in that position. Get out of my office and catch this asshole!”
You can’t unring a bell, and Rachael Storm had rung my bell, all right. Loud and clear, lady. Loud and clear.
We waited two days for the state lab to examine the gloves to retrieve the Phantom’s fingerprints. Once again, the blood found on the jumpsuit and booties belonged solely to the two victims. Our knife-wielding killer hadn’t nicked himself during the slaughter. The state lab had all this evidence to do secondary testing on the inside of each piece, but their preliminary exams only showed minute clothing fibers, devoid of any DNA evidence. If we had any DNA evidence, we could have checked it against the national DNA database, and we could have at least gotten a DNA warrant for our suspect. Most people would have asked, “What the hell is a DNA warrant?” If we had an unknown DNA profile on a suspect, we could obtain a warrant for anyone matching that DNA profile. So if (or when) we found a match, we simply arrested that person on the warrant for the crime. It would give us a starting point—a tangible piece of evidence toward the solving of the case.
Two days later, we got the preliminary report from the California State Crime Laboratory on the gloves. It was short and to the point: “Examination of the exterior and inside of each yellow rubber glove—right hand and left hand (Playtex manufacturer)—reveal no latent fingerprint or DNA evidence.“
No DNA—not even a damn partial print. The Phantom had kicked our ass again. Who the fuck was this guy who was the current bane of my career?
Chapter Five
Hitting Bottom
“What, if anything, have you got going on in this case, Detective? You actually don’t have a clue on this one, do you?” Chief Deputy Samuel Walters pontificated from behind his large oak desk.
“You don’t have any real leads, do you? I wanted to see some movement on this Phantom case. And frankly, I’m very disappointed.”
No one, not even the commanders, liked Sam Walters. He had been a decent enough sergeant, right up to the point when Lt. Todd Billingsly ran for sheriff. Walters and Billingsly were friends, and Walters stumped hard for his pal. He even coordinated a fundraiser, which raised lots of dollars for the then-lieutenant’s campaign. After Billingsly won, it seemed like Walters’s star just shot into the sky. Within four years, he went from sergeant to commander, and then to chief deputy two years afterward. Hell, he didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree when he made chief. Walters then led by terror; everyone knew the type. Some leaders were born; he was manufactured.
Standing alone and feeling very small in his expansive office, I responded, “Chief, I can assure you we are doing everything we can to solve this one. This guy is good. He did his homework. He left us very little to work with at the scene. We thought we had a break after finding the clothes in the Dumpster, but that door got shut on us, too. He is not in the circle of close acquaintances Dr. Redbone had as far as we can tell, and we just don’t have a suspect or a motive yet here. We’ll solve this one; we just need more time.”
“Why should I continue to allow you to be lead on this one, Rhinehardt? I had reservations from the beginning when Roberts said you were the lead. Maybe Ted or Biff should take over.”
I continued to plead my case. “Chief, I eat and breathe this case. You can do what you want, but if you ask them, Sarge, Ted, and Biff will tell you to leave it with me.”
He finished our conversation with an angry outburst. “Well, Detective, I did. They all back you up, but you have a month or two to come up with something here—no more. Understood?” Walters then leaned into his desk, his eyes narrowing. “One more thing: if you ever as much as fart in front of a television camera again, I will pull you out quicker than a freckle-faced teenager screwing on prom night. You got that?”
All I could do was stare nervously in his direction and say, “I understand.”
The chief was crystal clear. I could feel the heat rising in my face as I retreated from his office.
If you got on Walters’s bad side, your career was basically over. He loved conflict, and deputies as well as supervisors thought he tried to create it every chance he got. As I said, even the commanders didn’t like him, but they knew it was fruitless to try and change things, because the sheriff wanted him there. It was a catch-22 we had to live with.
Sergeant Roberts called for a meeting of the team immediately after his own “little chat” with the tyrant. If I thought I got my butt chewed, I had a lot more ass cheek left than Bob did. He looked tired, red-faced, and a little pissed. After all, shit always flowed downhill.
Bob Roberts was a good guy. He had been around for almost thirty years, and he had a line etched in his face for each one of those years. He was a cop’s cop: hardworking and cared about his troops. We all loved working for him. He led by example, which was an attribute Walters could never possess.
Looking exhausted, Bob said, “Rhino, we need a full-court press here. Ideas?”
We had accomplished dozens of interviews by this point in the investigation. Anyone remotely connected to Redbone or Diaz had been located and quizzed. No scorned or jilted lovers had fallen out of the trees when we shook them. Neither of them had bookies or drug dealers lurking in the shadows, waiting to butcher them over bad debts. Our inner-circle approach had run its course. We were convinced that our Phantom was not someone who was close to either one of our dead guys.
“Sarge, we know that Redbone had roughly thirty active clients in his orthopedic practice and that he had testified in a civil case about a month before his murder. I know it will take a lot of work, but I think we need to start checking every single one of his patients and whoever he was involved with in the court case. Diaz has been in the United States for only five years, but we need to speak to all his relatives, including those from El Salvador, where he was born. I really don’t think he was the target, but we got to do what we got to do.”
Ted nodded as I spoke. Biff and Louie chuckled. Louie mumbled, “Great. I get to interview every friggin’ wetback from Santa Barbara to the border, right?”
I heard the remark. Turning to Ocampo, I said, “While you’re at it, Luis, when you get the chance, check with immigration to find anyone else he ever knew.”
Louie gave me the look—you know, the kind that can kill.
I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon reviewing my case notes, reading all the interviews again, and struggling to find something, anything we had missed. Chief Walters’s morning rebuke rang in my head like a loud ship’s bell. You have a month or two to come up with something here—no more. Understood? All I understood was that the weight of this case, and the world, seemed to be on my shoulders. I was dead-tired, and my eyes looked like two piss holes in the snow. This case and my inability to sleep without having nightmares were really beating me down. I knew it in my heart, but my head kept telling me that to admit it would be akin to failure. Failure was never an option with Kevin Rhinehardt.
At around four thirty, Luis Ocampo walked up to
me as I sat slumped over at my desk. “Hey, Kevin, whatcha you doing tonight?”
“Same shit as always, Louie—thinking about this case. Always…”
Smiling, my Mexican cohort said, “Well, little Rhino, this is your lucky night. You’ll be treated to an all-expenses-paid tour du jour of Santa Barbara, all courtesy of the Ocampo tour company! Get some street clothes on, ’cause we’re doing the town tonight. I want you to forget about this shit for a while.”
Promptly at five o’clock, Louie motioned for me to come out back with him, and we got into his beat-up, old, faded-red AMC Pacer. Yes, Luis was the only person I ever knew who owned one, and to my surprise, it actually ran pretty well. It was his burnt-orange wonder sled. I had never been inside a Pacer, and quite frankly, the antique was rather comfortable, even roomy. I did detect a bit of a clack, clack…tacka, tacka when he fired it up, though. He maneuvered the boat out of the parking lot. Sitting shotgun, I wondered what the hell I’d gotten into.
I soon found out. We began hitting every bar in Santa Barbara, and I mean every damn bar. Nice ones, seedy ones—just as long as they had a liquor license and a barstool, we found them. I knew Louie drank, but holy shit. Luckily for me, after we finished the second dive, he called for an Uber cab, which remained our stagecoach for the remainder of our spirit quest. My friend had a bit of a reputation, which I was now verifying firsthand, of drinking a wee bit too much on occasion. Apparently, this was one of those occasions. Despite his obvious penchant for hooch, he was a generous boozehound and paid for every one of my drinks. By the time we reached The Office Bar, number seven on the Ocampo tour, I was almost blind.
Slice of Greed: A Kevin Rhinehardt Mystery (BOL Mysteries Book 1) Page 4
