The guys sat in stony silence.
I said, “Who can move around like they were invisible, leave no trace and then vanish into the night?” I looked out on a sea of blank faces. “Any ideas ya have just throw ’em out, no matter how stupid, there are no wrong answers.”
“A vampire?” suggested Milo.
I sighed heavily. “Correction, there are wrong answers and some that are beyond stupid.”
“Hey?”
“How can it be a vampire? They’re not real.”
“You said anything no matter how stupid.”
“Not that stupid.” He gave me the ‘bird’ secretly as I turned my back, but I caught it reflected in my computer screen. “I saw that,” I said. He looked amazed and I saw him mouth, ‘spooky’.
“Vampires are real,” he said quietly to himself.
“Any other ideas, shout ’em out. Anything, almost anything. No one from the cast of True Blood.” I glared at Milo. “They must be real, as in a human, alive, not dead . . . or, undead. Currently residing in California. We’ve run all known perpetrators through the fingerprint machine –”
“Do you mean,” Ferdy interrupted from the doorway, “the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System? Otherwise known as IAFIS?”
“Er, yah. That and the DNA database.”
“CODIS,” Ferdy said cheerfully, not knowing how much I wanted to punch him in the face right now. “Combined DNA Index System,” he added.
“There’s not a male convicted criminal fitting the profile,” I said.
Candy suggested, “Could it be a woman?”
The guys sniggered, but it stopped when I said, “That’s more like it.”
Candy looked pleased.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” George said. “A woman wouldn’t do that – it’s impossible.”
“Candy, that was a good thought-process – no man in the system had done it, so why not a woman? We’ll run it through the computer.”
“That’s so dumb,” George grumbled.
The captain said, “I don’t think a woman would have the physical strength to hang another person or do some of the other things we’ve mentioned.”
“It was a good example of lateral thought. We’ve done this case to death in the past. We need new thinking.”
“It’s to that end that I want to introduce you to a new member of the team.” He indicated the slim brunette and then turned to me, “Your new partner, Spooky.”
“Whoa!” Everyone appeared surprised by this. I don’t have partners. Well, I did, but as I said earlier, they had a habit of dying.
I glanced at her. She has great bone structure, but a bit thin for my liking. She smiled stiffly. The captain pointed to her. “This is Detective Rage.”
Rage? I love it.
She said, “Call me Mia, please.”
The captain continued. “Mia has just qualified as a detective, formally with Child Protection and Missing Persons. She is now joining us at Robbery-Homicide.”
“Congratulations,” I said.
“She’s to be your new partner.”
“Look, ya know I don’t play well with others.”
“Spooky –”
“I don’t want no rookie. I don’t want no partner.”
“It’s a deal-breaker, Spooky. If I reinstate you, I’m not just going to cut you loose like before, you must partner up.”
“I don’t work well like that.”
I’d made Mia uncomfortable. I felt sorry for her but not as strongly as I felt about working alone. It just didn’t work for me. “Gimme an experienced partner, then,” I suggested.
“No one else will work with you,” the captain pointed out.
“That’s the way I like it.”
“In fact,” he said, “Mia requested to be your partner.”
I looked her up and down and noticed she had an athletic build, bordering on anorexic. She smiled warmly and I thought, there’s no point fighting it and if I’ve gotta spend my working day with someone, then it might as well be her. “Ya have heard what happens to my partners?”
The captain attempted to shush me. “It’s merely a coincidence –”
“Ya know they’ve all died, right?” I asked her.
She smiled sweetly. “I’m not superstitious.”
I threw my arms in the air. “Okay, you’re on.” I stared at her for a long moment. “This case is gruesome. You’re gonna hear things ya wish ya hadn’t. See things that’ll keep ya awake at night.”
“Try me.”
“You can’t unring a bell.”
“I’ll be fine. Seriously, in Child Protection, I saw many horrific sights.”
I conceded. She was right. Terrible things happened to kids. Somehow, it seemed worse. Their innocence stolen, or their lives snuffed out before they had even begun. “Any questions?”
“Just one. Why did you look up the victim’s skirt?”
Captain’s office. Homicide Special Section 100 W 1st St 5th, CA 90012 – 13:10.
The captain beckoned Mia and me into his office and closed the door, alienating the others further. He tossed me my gold shield and I clipped it onto my belt and it felt good. He looked at me firmly. “Have you seen Internal Affairs yet?”
“Er, nope.”
“What about the Shooting Review Board?”
“Nope, it’s the next thing on my to-do list, I –”
“Your shrink?”
“Not as such, no, but it’s also on my to-do list.”
“Do it, I won’t tell you again.”
We glared at each other for a long moment.
Mia broke the tension by asking, “About the skirt?”
The captain turned to her. “This is the one thing we’ve managed to keep under our hats,” he said. “It’s the Hangman’s signature. We’ve managed to keep it from the press and even from our colleagues. In this department, it’s only me, Spooky and now you that will know.”
The captain felt uncomfortable explaining to Mia so I took over. “Do you know what vajazzle is?”
The traditional heritage place of genital decoration and piercings appeared to be Southeast Asia, with piercings found in tribes ranging from India to Borneo, and has a long tradition with sources mentioning genital piercing as early as the 2nd century in the Kama Sutra. Uncommon in the Western world until the end of the 1980s and then confined to the body modification subculture. With the beginning of the 21st century, piercings became increasingly popular, with many celebrities claiming to have piercings or jewelry enhancements. I’d often wondered about what goes on behind closed doors. Statistically speaking, one person in a hundred would have genital piercing. But who? I guess that’s the fun of it. Not knowing who has had it done. It is their secret. It could even be that sweet old grandmother on our reception desk.
“I sure hope not,” Elvis said and I had to agree with him.
The captain said, “We’ve managed to keep it from the public and yes, we’ve questioned the artists at the tattoo parlors, who could have carried out the procedures but they all check out.”
I said, “The victims were normal people, from normal families, leading normal lives. The only thing that linked them was pierced genitals.”
That reminded me that Sharron didn’t have body piercings when I slept with her; sure, she had earrings, nose-rings and one through her eyebrow, but nowhere else on her body. I wondered when she had it done because somehow the Hangman knew.
The Tara Mansion, Mapleton Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90024 – 14:30.
The captain had given us a bona fide lead. A young girl’s body had been found in a dumpster, off the Hollywood Strip. It had been cleaned of any DNA evidence of the murderer, but we had a link to her last employer, who was a TV presenter I could not bear, he was like an over-the-top Liberace, therefore a massive hit with old ladies. Bruce Matherson had been a permanent fixture on our screens for as long as I can remember. The host of a cheesy game show. A one-time chat show host of the groveling kind.
He would let anyone on his show to publicize a book or movie or sugar-coat their version of a recent scandal, and he would fawn all over them, sucking up and simpering. I found him truly repellent, but once again I was out of sync, as he appeared on the top of most popularity polls, but I always thought that his extremely white gnashers and orange fake tan skin made him look as if he spent too much time near a nuclear plant.
We drove through Bel Air, trying not to be impressed, or horrified, by the architecture on display. Some of it reminded me of Disneyland, that none of the houses looked real. The various geographical styles all placed together, an English Tudor mansion next to a French château, next to a Tyrolean wooden monstrosity that would look out of place in the Alps, let alone in sun-soaked California. I downshifted as we turned off Club View Drive onto South Mapleton Drive, the premier address in L.A., if not the whole U.S.A., or indeed the world. Technically Holmby Hills, designed by the architect to be the most exclusive address ever. A nearby property recently sold for $95,000,000.
“Ninety-five million bucks, for one house!” Sheldon squawked indignantly.
We wound our way up into the Hills. Mia asked, “If you had to choose one of your known perverts still walking the streets, as a suspect, who would it be?”
“No one. There are at least twenty who belong behind bars, but we ain’t got enough proof yet because they’re so lawyered up. But none of ’em feel right.”
“Feel?” she inquired inquisitively.
“Don’t tell her!” begged Elvis. “Please don’t tell her!”
“Yah, I can feel it. I tune in. I get a sense. Their guilt sorta comes off them in waves. I know it’s hard to believe.”
“You numbskull!”
I never used my reading as the only tool in the box, it’s more of a combination of things, it’s just my feeling gives me the extra edge but I concede – it’s not infallible.
She was unfazed by my admission. “Well, you must have exceptional intuition. Your arrest record alone speaks for itself,” she smiled, “along with the sickos you dispatch Wild West-style, you being judge, jury and executioner. We all admire your instant justice, by the way.”
“It ain’t deliberate, it just happened like that. Not that Internal Affairs will believe it.”
“I want to join you,” she said, all bright-eyed. “That’s why I requested to partner you.”
I didn’t like the way this conversation was going, “What are ya suggesting?”
“Let’s take out the worst of the worst.”
“You’re suggesting going after the sickos that think they’re beyond the law and swan around doing whatever?”
“Like this douchebag.” She cocked her thumb at Bruce Matherson’s palatial residence up ahead.
I parked up on the street outside. We took turns using the field glasses to watch him going about his business without a care in the world. “He’s cropped up several times over the decades,” I told her. “Could never get anything to stick, he was normally on the sidelines of a different investigation. He’s a bit of a hero down at the station. The guys think of him as a player – like Hef.”
“Huh!” she snorted. “He’s nothing like Hugh Hefner. Hef’s parties were tame in comparison.”
“You know this how?”
She pointed up at the mansion. “I’ve been to this house before,” she said with surprise in her voice, “when I was a young actress – years ago. His parties are weird. He likes them young; Lolita young.”
“I raided a brothel like that once,” I smirked at the memory, “when I was on Vice. A brothel that specialized in that sorta thing. They were all overage, but you know they’d be flat-chested and made to look younger and their johns would get ’em to call ’em daddy.”
“That’s so sick.” Her eyebrows knitted together. “They fantasize about sleeping with their own daughters?”
“It ain’t against the law.”
“Why the hell isn’t it?” She slapped the dashboard with such ferocity it made me jump. I glanced at her sideways. “What sort of world do we live in?”
I couldn’t answer that and shrugged. I’d given up on mankind many years ago; all I can do is arrest ’em, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I decided not to tell Mia this: she still has that rookie righteousness and I don’t want her to lose it too soon, although she would – there’s only so much depravity you can take. You have to compartmentalize. It’s the only way you can deal with it otherwise you’d go insane. I should know – that’s what happened to me and it certainly contributed to my breakdown.
“You know,” she said bringing me back, “this party was attended by all the movers and shakers in town, top producers, famous actors and household names like him, Bruce Matherson and that female producer, Sylvia Bateman. Yet they all turned a blind eye to the goings-on. It’s so widespread, this ‘as long as they make money, we’ll ignore their peccadilloes’: I was sickened by it. In fact, now that I think about it, I was recommended by my agent not to wear make-up; he said my ‘athletic build’ was what the producer was looking for in his next movie.” She whacked the dashboard again. “Damn it, what an idiot. He was just setting me up, hoping that a producer would sleep with me and look upon him favorably. Jesus! You can’t trust anybody.”
“The captain said we’re here to investigate the girl, nothing more. As far as we’re concerned, Bruce Matherson is untouchable. We can’t get him through the law.”
“Then we should get him another way,” she said darkly and smiled.
“What do ya mean?” I asked.
“You know what I mean,” she said firmly and held my eye contact.
* * *
I felt unsettled as we drove up the long driveway, to the plantation-style home. A stiff, arrogant blue blood in his sixties, met us at the imposing front door. He looked agitated to have his schedule interrupted. “I’m Marcus Eglin, Bruce Matherson’s lawyer.”
“Lawyer already?” I made it sound like he was guilty as charged.
“I’m his right-hand man, lifelong friend and confidant. I also happen to be a lawyer.” He made a signal like our Vietnam soldiers did when they were watching something. He pointed at his own eyes and then at me.
“What a boner!” Elvis chuckled and I nodded my agreement. Eglin spotted this and cocked his head as if I was going to say something, but I didn’t and this unbalanced him, as I hoped. Eglin showed Mia and me into the gaudy, over-the-top entrance hall, which had a pair of matching sphinxes guarding the sweeping staircase, mixed with French Renaissance art and a dominating glass chandelier.
“Who was the decorator, Liberace or Michael Jackson?”
Eglin regarded me frostily.
“Do I detect a touch of Elvis, maybe the Jungle Room period?”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, man,” I said quietly to Elvis. Both Mia and Eglin turned toward me and I realized that I must have said it aloud. I kept my face neutral. I found that worked best in the given situation.
Marcus Eglin asked, “Did you say something?”
“Nope, not me. I’m just admiring the deco.” Then as he turned away, I mimed puking to Mia, who tried hard to contain a laugh.
He showed us into a bow-fronted room that overlooked the manicured lawn and oversized swimming pool that Bruce Matherson used as an office. Bruce stood and beamed as if I was his long-lost friend. The sunlight glinted off from his fake white teeth and I was tempted to put on my Ray-Bans. His teeth, the clashing of architectural styles and the mixing of decorations were giving me a headache.
I saw a whitewood baby grand piano and bashed out the introduction to ‘Great Balls of Fire’, a classic rock’n’roll number.
Bruce Matherson’s jaw dropped open. He acted as if I had taken a leak in his fireplace. “Do you mind? That cost over forty thousand dollars. It was once owned by John Lennon.”
“Imagine,” I quipped, but no one got it. I picked up a bronze cast of someone’s long-dead face.
“Please put that down,” said Egl
in. “Some of these items are very valuable.”
“Don’t mind me, Mister Eggplant,” I said, ignoring him, and saw from the corner of my eye that it had hit home.
“Can we get on?” he urged.
Bruce Matherson’s reptilian smile reminded me of an alligator I once saw down in Florida. “I’m a big fan of the police,” he said. “Anything I can do to help, anything at all.”
As I gave him the dead-eye glare I could see through all the work he’d had done, I could see his wrinkles, broken, discolored teeth, the balding head, beneath the finest toupee, but worse I could see into his soul, the evilness seeped from him, I saw maggots pour from both nostrils and the corners of his eyes. I’d never had a vision so strong. He was the worst I’d ever encountered. This man had evil in his heart and no compassion. The image cleared and his perma-tanned orange-hued skin and his fifty-thousand-dollar bright white dazzling smile returned.
He looked at me quizzically. I walked behind him and sniffed the air. “Is this about Willy?” he asked as he twisted in his seat, trying to keep me in his line of vision. “Hillbilly Willy?” He looked one way then the other, truly puzzled by my actions as I sniffed around. I like to wrong-foot suspects. It can cause them to make mistakes. “What’s he done now? Is he a suspect?”
“Well, he is now.” I nodded to Mia, who jotted down the name in a notebook. We were gonna have to follow that up.
I sniffed deeply as I passed behind him and caught a whiff of his awful cologne, or hair tonic, or possibly toupee adhesive, whatever it was, it really was disgusting.
“When did ya last see Jennifer Swanpool?” I fired at him.
“Who?” he faked badly.
“She’s been working here as a maid for the past few weeks,” I prompted.
“I, erm . . .” He looked to his right-hand man for assistance.
Marcus Eglin jumped in. “We can’t be expected to remember every employee that passes through here: many are from agencies, we couldn’t possibly keep track.”
“Do ya mind if I smoke?” I asked as I lit up a Marlboro.
“Yes, I do actually,” Bruce replied. “I demand you put it out.”
On The Edge Page 3
