by Dianne Emley
The officer on horseback could go no farther, stymied by the tents, but officers on foot entered the alley from both ends.
The pale man was fast and agile. Heading beneath the tents, he zigzagged in and out, jostling tables and people, causing mayhem and spilled drinks. Officer Chase remained maddeningly a few steps behind, growing angrier by the second. He stepped it up, scattering the team from a local gym, not even noticing the scantily clad female members.
Chase pulled closer. Finally, he was close enough. He flung himself headlong, latching onto the man’s legs, sending them both flying into the work area of the Golden Oldies team from the local Kiwanis club. They’d just dumped crushed tomatoes from twenty-four-ounce cans into their lucky cast-iron pot, completing the first of three timed phases of potent secret ingredients, and were bringing up the heat on the portable range.
Over went the table, range, chili, and nearly the Kiwanians, most of whom hadn’t moved that fast in years. The officer and the streaker slid facedown into the chili, skidding, drenching them both in lukewarm red-hot.
Chase and the streaker grappled on the ground, each struggling for purchase on the chili-smeared asphalt. Chase got his knee against the streaker’s back and wrenched one of his slippery arms behind him.
“Why were you running, man?”
Another officer pulled off the backpack, which had stayed in place throughout it all. “Anything in here gonna stick or hurt me?” He shoved aside heads of garlic and assorted produce and meat on a table before unzipping the pack and dumping the contents onto it.
The streaker, his face half submerged in chili where his cheek was pressed against the ground, stared straight ahead and said nothing.
Officers arrived on scene, some of them just to check it out and laugh.
Chase snapped on handcuffs and hauled the man to his feet with another officer’s assistance. “What’s your name?”
The streaker just looked at the officers, squinting at chili that ran into his eyes, shrinking from an officer who tried to wipe his face with napkins.
“I asked you a question.” Chase ran a towel that one of the Kiwanians handed him over his own face. “What’s your name?”
The Golden Oldies team from the Kiwanis kept its distance except for one angry man. “That’s our Nitro in a Pot,” he cried. “It’s ruined.”
Officers razzed Chase.
“The Chaser. My man!”
“Looks like a dangerous criminal you got there, Chase.”
Chase ignored them, not letting up. “Why were you running? Why did you take your clothes off?”
A citizen came forward with a beach towel that an officer wrapped around the streaker’s waist. He passively endured the attention.
“What are you going to do about the Nitro?” The Golden Oldie wouldn’t let up. Except for his sour disposition, his long white beard and round belly made him a natural to play Santa Claus at Christmas events.
An officer asked the older man, “Sir, what’s the problem here?”
“Our chili. Nitro in a Pot.” Santa held one arm out to indicate the spilled mess. “We were a shoo-in to win this year until you cops busted through.”
“I’m not finding any I.D. in here,” said an officer who was looking through the streaker’s backpack. “He’s got about forty bucks in cash.” Searching his pants pockets, he found the card with the fortune from Swami. “Journey of a thousand miles? You’re taking a journey, all right. To the Big G.” He used the station jargon for L.A. County-USC Medical Center in East L.A., commonly known as General Hospital.
Sergeant Terrence Folke arrived. “What the hell, Chase? What have you got all over you?”
“Nitro in a Pot,” a Golden Oldie offered.
“It’s chili, Sarge.” Chase drew his finger through a blob of the concoction on his uniform and tasted it. “Good stuff.”
“Thanks,” the Golden Oldie said. “It’s our prizewinner.”
Santa pushed his big belly into the discussion. “And we would have won this year too. Sergeant, I want to know what you’re going to do about the behavior of your officers here today. They chased this man through here with total disregard for private property.”
“My officers did what they needed to do to apprehend this man and to maintain public safety.”
“Public safety? Keeping us safe from him?” Santa gestured to indicate the streaker, who had the beach towel wrapped around his skinny frame, the hair on one side of his head matted with chili, and his head hanging. “He looks about as dangerous as a canary.”
“Sir, I’m not going to debate this with you. If you feel our actions were out of line, you can file a complaint with the police department.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Lighten up, Frank. They’re just doing their jobs.” A Golden Oldie handed Santa a beer. “Vera and Marge went to buy more fixin’s. We have time to make another pot of Nitro. Have a drink and relax.”
“Dangerous.” Santa was not appeased. “Doesn’t look dangerous to me.”
“That’s what Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbors said about him,” Sergeant Folke couldn’t resist adding. He turned his attention to the streaker. “You have a name?”
“He won’t talk.” Chase was still wiping chili off himself. “Doesn’t have any I.D.”
Folke got in the streaker’s face. “What’s your name?”
The pale man cringed, stepping back into Officer Chase, who gave him an angry shove.
“Can he talk?” Folke asked Chase.
“He was making noise when I had him on the ground. Grunting.”
Folke tried again. “What’s your name?”
The streaker rapidly blinked like a dog that had been rapped on the snout too many times with a rolled-up newspaper.
“What else did he do besides resisting arrest?” Folke asked Chase.
“From what I understand, he stripped off his clothes and ran down Colorado Boulevard.”
“Through traffic.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s what I understand right now, Sarge, without having interviewed witnesses.”
“Looks like we’ve got a fifty-one and a half here,” Folke said.
A Golden Oldie said, “Right now, he looks like Nitro in a Pot.”
Folke leaned toward the streaker, causing him to rear back again. “Nitro in a pot. Since you won’t tell us your name, that’s what we’ll call you: Nitro.” He lifted the chili-smeared necklace that the streaker still wore around his neck. “Where did you get this, Nitro?”
Chase laughed. “Got no clothes but he didn’t forget to wear his pearls.”
TEN
Kissick’s briefing in the detective’s section conference room was cutting into lunchtime. Vining’s stomach had started to rumble, inaudibly so far, but that wouldn’t last. She knew that some in the meeting could go all day without eating. Not her, but she wasn’t going to be the first to suggest lunch. They should be breaking soon since Lieutenant George Beltran was scheduled to give a press conference in half an hour on the steps of the PPD.
The location was Beltran’s favorite, as it provided a nice view of the Mission Revival–style police station and Beltran a podium suitably above the fray. The blow-dried breeziness of his black-to-silver locks betrayed a visit to the hairstylist that morning in preparation. He carried a year-round tan, but playing golf during the waning days of summer had turned his skin a warm chestnut hue, making his broad white smile stand out all the more. Rumor was, he slept in molds custom-made for his teeth filled with dental bleach. He’d recently shaved his mustache. He liked being in the glare of the media, and everyone else at the PPD was happy to let him stand there.
Vining had been neutral about Beltran until he’d interfered in her last homicide investigation. While he could be a strong ally, she’d learned that his ambitions too often colored his decisions. He also sought notoriety beyond his law-enforcement career. He had been shopping around his screenplay, Death in a Blue
Uniform, for months and reported interest among Hollywood’s power brokers. The gossipmongers sneered that he better not quit his day job.
Kissick outlined what they knew so far. “The knock-and-talks in the neighborhood turned up zilch. None of Mercer’s neighbors saw anyone coming or going. The autopsy showed that Mercer died from knife wounds to his chest. The dismemberment was done postmortem. Richards died immediately from a broken neck. Time of death is estimated between eighteen hundred and twenty-one hundred hours.
“Dillon Somerset, Mrs. Richards’s stalker, has no alibi. He claims he was at his apartment alone reading a book during the time frame of the murders. Mercer’s business partner, Scoville, was having a dinner party. His alibi is solid, but there’s a possibility of murder-for-hire, and we’re uncovering business dealings that might provide a motive. The style of the murders doesn’t suggest the work of a hit man, but maybe they were purposefully done in such a grotesque manner to throw us off. The poisoning of Mercer’s dog argues for premeditation. Could be a coincidence, but the little hairs on the back of my neck tell me it isn’t.
“What’s interesting is how Scoville’s gone dicey on us. When Nan and I interviewed him yesterday, he was cooperative through the whole thing. Even volunteered to take a polygraph, which we set up for this morning. At the end of the interview, Nan asked him whether he knew anyone who might want to do the victims harm. Then he suddenly changed. Got real quiet and insisted he had to leave. Later that night, he left a message on my voice mail that he couldn’t do the polygraph. Can’t say I was surprised. We haven’t been able to get ahold of him since.”
“Guilty knowledge?” suggested Sergeant Kendra Early. She was the second-highest-ranking officer there.
“That’s my guess,” Kissick said. “He didn’t commit the murders, but he has information about them. I think our interrogation jogged a memory loose.”
“You can’t jump to conclusions,” Ruiz interjected. “He probably just had his fill of questions. Went home and his wife, the reporter, told him not to take a polygraph as a matter of policy. She’d be savvy about things like that.”
“That’s one theory,” Kissick said.
“Do you still suspect a lone killer did the job?” Beltran asked.
“Yes, one guy. He didn’t leave fingerprints, so he wore gloves. Also, it looks like he wore women’s clothing—size eleven high heels, a wig of long blond synthetic hair, and a garment of blue rayon, based on the fibers we found beneath Mercer’s fingernails. Given the strength required to overpower the victims, it’s unlikely we’re looking for a woman, but probably a man who dressed as a woman either as a disguise or lifestyle. A mark on Mercer’s front door matches the bloody high-heeled footprints in and outside the house. Indicates that Mercer or Richards opened the door, only to have it kicked open the rest of the way by their assailant. Mercer’s right hand, likely bearing his USC class ring, is missing. Who knows why that was done, but the killer’s rage was directed toward Mercer.”
Near Vining was a photograph of Lauren Richards and her two children, Sierra, age seven, and Shane, age nine. Richards’s parents had released it to the media. The photo had been taken at the garden wedding of Richards’s brother that spring. Richards was wearing a not-so-awful bridesmaid’s dress, and her two children were adorable as flower girl and ring bearer. Lauren Richards’s smile was fitting for the Rose Parade Princess she’d been as a senior at South Pasadena High School.
Ruiz and Caspers had made the notification visit to Richards’s parents, accompanied by a member of PPD’s volunteer clergy. Even though Vining and Ruiz had had their differences, she felt for him and Caspers having to do that job. Looking at the photograph of Richards’s children, she sensed their grief, that hollow emptiness, as if it were a vapor released into the atmosphere, available to be absorbed into the skin of the vulnerable. Vining was vulnerable. It was not a stretch to transpose her and Emily into the photograph. Richards had been thirty-six. Vining was thirty-four.
While she had leaped on the investigation of female police officer Frankie Lynde three months before, she was happy to let Ruiz and Caspers handle the Lauren Richards component of this new saga.
Lieutenant Beltran asked, “We haven’t brought up the issue of cross-dressing with either of the suspects, correct?”
“Correct,” Kissick said. “I want to keep that in our back pocket for now. Once we even ask the question, it’ll be in the wind, and size eleven heels will disappear from our bad guy’s closet. However, word of the writing in blood on the wall has already leaked out.” He grimaced.
“People are afraid there’s another Manson-style murderer out there.” Beltran looked at his watch and stood. “I’m saying little at the press conference other than releasing the tip-line number and trying to put our citizens at ease.”
“What about that message, anyway?” Sergeant Early asked. “All work. No play. What’s he trying to tell us?” African American and in her mid-forties, Early wore no makeup. Her round face gave her a cherubic look that was undone by dark circles beneath careworn eyes. She had the sage demeanor of a kindly family elder. Standing barely 5 foot 4 inches, with short-cropped curly hair and a waistline giving way to middle age, it was easy for the uninformed to assume she was soft.
“I don’t think we should read much into it,” Kissick said. “Just like the Manson family’s ‘Helter Skelter’ message, we may not learn the meaning until we apprehend the guy.”
“Do whatever you need to get this asshole. Don’t worry about O.T. I’ll handle it with the people on the third floor.” Beltran was referring to the top floor of the building, where the chief and commanders had their offices. “Kendra, we need to get downstairs.”
Beltran and Early departed, taking the formality of the meeting with them. During the press conference, Early would stand to the side, ostensibly there to help Beltran field questions. The truth was, Beltran asked her to attend these events for P.R. She was a popular figure whenever she appeared on TV. The public liked her no-nonsense demeanor and droll sense of humor. She made him look good.
Left in the room were Vining, Kissick, Ruiz, Caspers, and Detectives Louis Jones and Doug Sproul, brought in from other desks under Early’s command to work the case.
“Helter Skelter?” Caspers shrugged. “What’s that?”
Ruiz was incredulous. “You don’t know what that is? Don’t you know about the Manson family murders?”
Caspers got defensive. “Hey, I wasn’t even born then.”
“Manson was inspired by the Beatles song ‘Helter Skelter.’ He had one of his family members write it at the home of the LaBiancas, who they murdered the night after Sharon Tate and her friends.” Kissick was a crime encyclopedia, especially concerning notorious murders and murderers.
“They wrote ‘Healter Skelter’ in blood on the refrigerator. Misspelled.”
“Healter”? Louis Jones shook his head. He was African American, not tall, but had a massive upper body from lifting weights every day in the station gym.
They all laughed at the supreme idiocy of criminals.
“So what about our cross-dressing psycho?” Vining mused.
“Does he like to dress as a woman or does he live as a woman?” Sproul asked. With red hair, glasses and a slight build, he looked more like a high school math teacher than a detective.
“To catch him, we’ll need to know where he is in the transgender process,” Kissick said. “Our guy may be a fetishist and dress as a woman for a sexual charge, but not as a lifestyle. Or he may be a man physiologically but living as a woman. He may be somewhere in between, with his male genitalia intact, but taking hormones to make his breasts grow and his beard shrink. He may have had a sex change operation and may be a female. We can’t restrict our thinking.”
The topic was making Caspers cringe. “That’s not something we see in Pasadena. That’s a West Hollywood deal.”
“Ya think?” Jones goaded him.
“What? Here? In Pasadena?”
> Ruiz chuckled at Caspers’s discomfort. “You have to be careful when you’re out on the town, Alex. You not only need to run a criminal background check on your dates, you really should run their DNA, too.”
“Please …” Caspers, a perpetual-motion machine, rocked his chair back and forth. “It wouldn’t get to ‘hello.’ ”
“How can you be so sure?” Vining couldn’t resist the logical follow-up.
Caspers retracted his upper lip. “That Crying Game thing? Unh-huh. Fuggeddaboutit.”
Kissick passed off a guess as knowledge, just to get Caspers going. “Some of them, I hear, you can’t distinguish from a natural-born woman even when having sex.”
“Come on.… No surgery could be that good.” Caspers pointed to himself. “I would know.”
“That brings up an interesting question,” Jones began. “If a man sleeps with a woman who used to be a man, does that make the man gay?”
“Why even go there, Louis?” Caspers looked as if he might punch somebody.
“I think we could use sensitivity training,” Vining joked.
Caspers leaped on the opening. “I’ll give you sensitivity training.”
That started them laughing more.
“Okay.” Kissick attempted to get back on track. “We want warrants for Scoville’s and Somerset’s phone records. We’ve got good probable cause for Somerset. Lots of witnesses to his stalking behavior. But with Scoville, we’ll face our friend catch-22. We can’t get warrants without probable cause, but we can’t build P.C. without the phone records, which we need to track down a murder-for-hire plot. Unless he was clever enough to never use his own phones.”
“Scoville doesn’t impress me as that kind of clever,” Vining said.
Ruiz pushed his chair back, as if he’d feasted enough at the dinner table. “I wouldn’t put too much effort into Scoville. He offered to take a polygraph straight out. Like I said before, his wife probably talked him out of it. Our time’s better spent building a case against Somerset.” He pressed his hand against his chest. “In my humble opinion.”
