by Robert Crais
"I already know who the victims are, how they were murdered, and when. By the end of the day I'll have their life histories. I know you're sitting on Dersh, though I don't know why. I know Robbery-Homicide has been running a Task
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Force, that the FBI is involved, and that you've got the lid clamped."
Dolan watched me as I said it, and something like a smile played on her lips. Not the bad-girl smile; more like she appreciated what I was saying.
When I finished she said, "Jesus."
"No. But almost."
"I guess you're a pretty good investigator, Cole. I guess you're pretty good."
I spread my hands and tried to look modest. No easy task. "The world's—"
"—greatest. Yeah, I know." She took a breath, and suddenly I liked her smile a great deal. "Maybe you are. You've been a busy boy."
"So talk to me, Dolan. Tell me what's going on." , "You know what kind of spot you're putting me in? "
"I know. I don't want to come on like an adversary, Dolan, but Frank Garcia is going to ask me what's happening, and I have to decide whether or not to lie to him. You don't know me, and you probably think nothing of me, but let me tell you, I don't view that lightly. I don't like lying, I like lying to a client even less, and I will not do so unless there's a compelling reason. Understand this, Dolan, my obligation here isn't to you or Krantz or the sanctity of your investigation. It's to Frank Garcia, and later today he's going to ask. I'm sitting here right now so you can tell me why I shouldn't give this to him."
"What if you don't like what I tell you? "
"We'll take it a step at a time."
A sharp vertical line appeared between her eyebrows in a kind of scowl as she thought about what to tell me. I hadn't seen many women who looked good scowling, but she did.
"Remember David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam? "
"Sure. Shot people in parked cars back in New York."
"Berkowitz just walked up to cars, shot whoever was inside—male, female, it didn't matter—then walked away. He got off on shooting people, and it didn't matter who. The
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Feebs call guys like that 'random assassin killers,' and they're the hardest type of killer to catch. You see why?"
"No connection to the victims. No way to predict who he might go for next."
"Right.
"Most killers kill people they know, and that's how they're caught. Husband kills wife. Junkie kills dealer. Like that. Most murders aren't solved by clues like you see on Murder, She Wrote, or forensics like you read about in a Patricia Corn-well novel. The easy truth of it is that almost all murders are solved when somebody rats out somebody else, when some guy says, 'Elmo said he was gonna shoot him,' and the cops go to Elmo's place and find the murder weapon hidden under Elmo's bed. It's that cut-and-dried. And when there isn't anyone to point the finger at Elmo, Elmo gets away.
"That's what we've got here, Cole. Julio Munoz was the only one of the vies with a sheet. He was a former prostitute who'd cleaned up his act and was working as a counselor in a halfway house in Bellflower. Semple was a roofing contractor who lived in Altadena. Totally unlike Munoz. No record, deacon in his church, the wife, the kids, the whole nine yards. Vivian Trainor was a nurse, a real straight arrow like Semple. Keech, a retired City Parks custodian, lived in a retirement home in Hacienda Heights. Now Karen Garcia. So we're talking about a street hustler, a Sunday-school teacher, a nurse, a retired custodian, and a wealthy college student. Two Hispanics, two Anglos, and a black, all from different parts of the city. We've gone to each of the families and floated the names of the other vies, but we haven't been able to link them. We're trying to tie in Garcia, but we're coming up empty there, too. Maybe you can help with that."
"How?"
"Krantz is scared to press the girl's father, but we need to talk to him. Krantz keeps saying to let him cool down, but I don't think we can afford to wait. I want to run the names past him. I want to look through the girl's things."
"You go through her apartment yet?"
"Of course. We didn't need his permission for that. But she
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might've left things at her father's house. I did, when I moved out."
"What do you want to find?"
"Something that puts her with one of the other vies. Anything like that, and we're not talking random anymore. That makes this asshole a lot easier to catch."
"I'll talk to Pike. We can make that happen."
"This guy's smart. Five head shots, all with a .22, and none of the bullets match. That means he's using a different gun each time. He probably chucks them, so we won't find the murder weapons in his possession. Each shooting takes place in an isolated location, three of the five at night, so we have no wits. We've recovered two .22 caliber shell casings. No prints, both fired from different semiautomatics, and different brands. We've found shoe prints at three of the murder scenes, but, get this, three different shoe sizes, ten, ten and a half, and eleven. He's playing mix and match with us."
"So he probably dumps the shoes, too."
The scowl deepened, but now it wasn't because of me.
"Probably, but who knows. A nut like this, he might videotape his goddamned murders. Jesus, I wanna bust this scumbag."
We sat there a while, neither of us saying anything until Dolan glanced at her watch.
"You've given me a lot of background, Dolan, but so far you haven't told me why I shouldn't level with Frank."
"A lot of times, these guys will initiate contact, like Son of Sam with his letters, you see?"
"I'm listening."
"Here was Berkowitz, getting away with murder, and he felt powerful because of it. He wanted to flaunt the fact that the cops couldn't catch him, so he started sending notes to the newspapers."
"Okay."
"Well, our guy hasn't done that. The Feebs say our guy doesn't want publicity, and may even be scared of it. That's one of the reasons we decided to keep this thing boxed. If we go public, maybe this guy changes his MO, or maybe he even
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moves to another town and starts all over again. You see what I'm saying?"
"But maybe if you go public, somebody feeds you a tip that lets you nail this guy."
Her eyes hardened, irritated. She had nice eyes. Hazel.
"Well, shit, World's Greatest, that's the problem here, isn't it? There's no goddamned rule book on how to catch a shooter like this. You make it up as you go along, and hope you're doing the right thing. Don't you think we've talked about this?"
"Yeah, I guess you've talked about it."
I thought about the change I'd seen up in Robbery-Homicide, how everyone was suddenly more relaxed, about the smiles and high fives, and even the grinning Feebs, and suddenly I knew there was more.
"Who's your suspect, Dolan?"
She stared at me as if she was deciding something, then wet her lips. "Dersh."
"Eugene Dersh?" That's why the cops were on him.
"Nuts like this, they can't stand not knowing what you know. They like to get up close and find out what you're saying about them. One of the ways they do it is to claim some connection to the crime. They pretend to be a witness or they say they overheard something in a bar, like that. The feds said we might get a break that way, and Krantz thinks Dersh is our break."
"Because Dersh found this body."
"It isn't just that. Krantz and a couple of Feebs flew back to Quantico to talk with one of their behavioral science people. They built a profile based on the evidence we had, and Dersh pretty much matches up with it."
I frowned. "You're talking the talk, Dolan, but you don't seem all that convinced to me."
She didn't say anything.
"Okay, if it's Dersh, how does Riley Ward fit in?"
"If the Feebs are right, he was just Dersh's cover for finding the body. You read their statements. Ward suggested that Dersh was d
irective in finding the body. When Dersh tells the story, he puts a different spin on how they went down to the
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lake. It makes everybody wonder which story is correct and why there are two stories."
"In other words, you've got nothing. There's no physical evidence, and you guys are trying to hang it on Dersh because of an FBI profile."
The hazel eyes stayed with me, but she shrugged. "No, we're trying to hang it on Dersh because Krantz is feeling heat from upstairs. Bishop gave him the Task Force a year ago, but he doesn't have anything to show for it. The brass are screaming a shitstorm, and that means Bishop can't carry Krantz forever. If another body drops, and Krantz doesn't have a suspect, he'll be out of the job."
"Maybe they'll give it to you, Dolan."
"Yeah. Right." She looked away.
I thought about Dersh and his Kenyan coffee. Dersh, with the bright paintings and his house smelling of Marks-a-lots. "What about you? Do you think it's Dersh?"
"Krantz thinks Dersh is the shooter. I think Dersh is a legitimate suspect. There's a difference."
I took a breath and nodded, still trying to figure out what to do. "The criminalist's report suggests the shooter was driving an off-road vehicle or an SUV Remember the homeless guy I told you about?"
"Krantz may be a dud, Cole, but not all of us got into Robbery-Homicide on a pass. I took a ride up there yesterday, but couldn't find Mr. Deege. Hollywood Division uniforms have been told to keep an eye out."
I suddenly felt better about Frank Garcia and what I would tell him.
"Well, okay, Dolan. I'm going to sit on it."
"You're not going to tell Garcia?"
"No. The only person I'll tell is my partner."
"Pike." Her eyes suddenly sparkled, and the bad girl was back. "Christ, wouldn't Krantz love that. Joe Pike knows his big secret."
I held out my hand. "Nice doing business with you, Dolan. I'll give you a call later about talking to Frank."
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Her hand was cool and dry and strong. I liked the way it felt, and felt a faraway stab of guilt that I liked it a little too much.
She squeezed once, and then I opened the door to get out.
"Hey, Cole."
I stopped.
"I didn't like passing you those bum reports."
"I know. I could tell."
"That's good work you did, putting all this together. You would've made a good cop."
I let myself out of her Beemer. She watched as I walked away.
14
I reached my office just after seven, but I did not stay there. I gathered the interviews with Dersh and Ward, then walked across the street to a bagel place I like. I ordered Nova lox on a cinnamon-raisin bagel, then took a seat at a window table. An older woman at the next table smiled a good morning. I wished her a good morning back. The older man with her was reading a paper, and didn't bother with either of us. He looked snotty.
It was an ideal place in which to consider multiple homicide.
I went to the pay phone by the rest rooms, and called Joe Pike. He answered on the second ring.
"I'm at the bagel place across from the office. Karen Garcia was the fifth victim in a string of homicides going back nineteen months. The police know that, and they have a suspect." If you're going to say it, you just have to say it.
Pike didn't respond.
"Joe?"
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
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I reread Dersh's and Ward's interviews while I waited, all the while thinking about Eugene Dersh. Dersh didn't seem like a homicidal maniac to me, but maybe they said that about Ted Bundy and Andrew Cunanan, too.
Both Dersh's and Ward's versions of events agreed that it was Dersh who had suggested the hike at Lake Hollywood, but differed importantly about why they had left the trail to hike along the shoreline. Ward stated that it was Dersh's idea to walk along the shore, and that Dersh picked the spot where they left the trail. The police called this being "directive," as if Dersh was directing the course of events that led to their finding the body. But where Dersh was clear and decisive in describing their actions, Ward seemed inconsistent and uncertain, and I wondered why.
The elderly woman was watching me. We traded another smile. The elderly man was still lost in the paper, neither of them having shared a word in the entire time I had been there. Maybe they had said everything they had to say to each other years ago. But maybe not. Maybe their silence wasn't two people each living separate lives, but two people who fit so perfectly that love and communication could be derived by simple proximity. In a world where people kill other people for no reason at all, you want to believe in things like that.
When Joe Pike walked in, the old man glanced up from his paper and frowned. There goes the neighborhood.
I said, "Let's walk. I don't want to talk about it here."
We walked along the south side of Santa Monica Boulevard, heading east into the sun. I gave Pike the sheet with the five names.
"You recognize any of these names?"
"Only Karen. These the other vies?"
"Yeah. Munoz was first." I went through the others, giving him everything that I'd learned from both Samantha Dolan and Jerry Swetaggen. "The cops've been trying to connect these people together, but they haven't been able to do it. Now they're thinking the guy picks his victims at random."
"You said there's a suspect."
"Krantz thinks it's Dersh."
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Pike stopped walking, and looked at me with all the expression of a dinner plate. The morning rush-hour traffic was heavy, and I wondered how many thousands of people passed us in just those few minutes of walking.
"The man who discovered the body?"
"Krantz is under the gun to make a collar. He wants to think that it's Dersh, but they don't have any physical evidence putting Dersh to the killings. AH they have is some kind of FBI profile, so Krantz has a twenty-four-hour watch on the guy. That's how they picked me up when I went over there."
"Mm."
The passing traffic was reflected in Pike's glasses.
"This thing has been top secret since the beginning, Joe, and the cops want to keep it that way. The deal I made with Dolan is that we'll respect that. We can't tell Frank."
Pike's chest expanded as he watched the traffic. His only movement. "Big thing not to tell, Elvis."
"Krantz may be a turd, but Dolan is a top cop, and so is Watts. Hell, most of those guys are aces. That's why they're in Robbery-Homicide. So even if Krantz is half-cocked, the rest of them are still going to work a righteous case. I think we have to give them time to work it, and that means keeping quiet about what's going on."
Pike made a quiet snort. "Me, helping Krantz."
"Dolan needs to ask Frank about the four other vies and look through Karen's things. Will you talk to him?"
Pike nodded, but I'm not sure the nod was meant for me.
We walked again, neither of us speaking, and pretty soon we came to Pike's Jeep. He opened the door, but didn't get in.
"Elvis?"
"Yeah?"
"Could I see those?" He wanted the interview transcripts.
"Sure." I gave them to him.
"You think it was Dersh?" Like if it was, you wouldn't want to be Dersh.
"I don't know, Joe. The always reliable but overworked hunch says no, but I just don't know."
Pike's jaw flexed once, then that, too, was gone.
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"I'll talk to Frank and let you know." Joe Pike climbed into his Jeep, pulled the door shut, and in that moment I would've given anything to see into his heart.
Pike wanted to see Eugene Dersh.
He wanted to witness him in his own environment, and see if he thought Dersh had murdered Karen Garcia. If it was possible that Dersh was the killer, then Pike would ponder what to do with that.
Pike knew from the police interview transcripts that Der
sh worked at home. All LAPD interviews started that way. State your name and address for the record, please. State your occupation. Pike's instructor at the academy said that you started this way because it put the subject in the mood to answer your questions. Later, Pike had been amazed to learn how often it put the subject in the mood to lie. Even innocent people would lie. Make up a name and address that, when you tried to contact them weeks later, you would find to be an auto parts store, or an apartment building packed with illegals, none of whom spoke English.
