by Twisted
5. 2001: 12:01 a.m. Jewell Janis Blank, 14, single white female, runaway, found in Griffith Park, near Fern Dell, by rangers. Depressed skull fracture.
6. 2002: 12:28 a.m. Curtis Marc Hoffey, 20, single white male, known gay hustler, found in alley, Highland near Sunset. Depressed skull fracture.
Petra looked up. “There doesn’t seem to be any pattern victim-wise.”
“I know,” said Isaac, “but still.”
“I have a friend, a psychologist, who says people are walking prisms. We see with our brains, not our eyes. And what we see depends on context.”
Now she was pontificating. Isaac sat back. He looked crushed.
“My point is,” she said, “that it all depends on how you look at it. You’ve raised some interesting points—more than interesting . . . provocative.” She pointed to the list, ran her finger down the names. “These people are all over the place in terms of sex, age . . . social class. We’ve got urban and semirural dumpsites. If this is some kind of serial thing, there’d most likely be a sexual angle, and I can’t see what a sixty-three-year-old man and a fourteen-year-old girl would have in common as sexual targets.”
“All that’s true,” said Isaac. “But don’t you think the other factors are too blatant to be ignored?”
Petra’s head began hurting. “You’ve obviously put a lot of time into this and I’m not dismissing it, but—”
“Why,” he interrupted, “does there have to be a sexual angle?”
“That’s the way it tends to shake out.”
“The FBI profile. Yes, yes, I know about all of that. Their basic thesis is that what they call organized killers—really just a dumbed-down version of what psychologists call psychopaths—are motivated by a combination of sexuality and violence. I’m sure that typically there’s some truth to that. But as you said, Detective, reality depends on which prism you’re using. The FBI interviewed imprisoned killers and compiled data banks. But data are only as good as the sample, and who says killers who get caught are similar to those who don’t? Maybe the FBI’s bad guys got caught because they were psychologically rigid. Maybe it was their predictability that tripped them up.”
His voice had climbed. Heat in the brown eyes made them something quite other than liquid. “All I’m saying is that sometimes exceptions are more important than rules.”
“What motive are you proposing for these killings?” said Petra.
Long pause. “I don’t know.”
Neither of them spoke. Isaac slumped. “Okay, thanks for your time.” He scooped up the list and stashed it in the shiny brown briefcase he carried around. Petra had seen detectives smile disparagingly at the case. She’d heard the comments behind Isaac’s back. Brainiac. Boy wonder. Petra’s little day-care project. When she felt assertive, she silenced the noise with an icy stare.
Now she found herself feeling protective of the kid but annoyed. The last thing she needed was some theory that got her dredging up six years of cold cases. Not with four victims down at the Paradiso, one of them a girl she couldn’t even identify.
On the other hand, Isaac was smarter than she was, much smarter. Dismissing him out of hand could turn out to be one of those big mistakes. And what if he went over her head to Schoelkopf—to Councilman Reyes. If that happened and he turned out to be right . . .
Headlines danced in her head. Young Wizard Uncovers Unsolved Killings. The text: LAPD detective failed to investigate . . .
Isaac got to his feet. “Sorry for wasting your time. Is there something I can do for you? On your main case?”
“My main case?”
“The Paradiso. I’ve heard it’s been tough going.”
“Have you?” she said. Hearing the chill in her voice, she coerced her lips to form a smile of her own. Stratospheric I.Q. or not, he was a kid. An overly enthusiastic, pain-in-the-butt politically connected kid. “It’s been a tough one,” she agreed. “All those kids mowed down, no one willing to talk. What could you do for me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe look at the data.” Now he was blushing again. “That was totally presumptuous of me. You’re the professional, what do I know? Sorry, I won’t bother you again—”
“Do you know anything about pink Kmart sneakers?”
“Pardon?”
She told him about the unidentified girl.
His posture relaxed. Thinking—analyzing—did that to him. “You’re thinking she might’ve been the intended victim and the others were innocent bystanders?”
“At this point, Isaac, I’m not thinking anything. I just think it’s odd that no one’s come forth to I.D. her.”
“Hmm . . . yes, that would imply some kind of . . . turmoil in her background. . . . It sounds as if you took the shoe-thing as far as you could. . . . I’ll give it some thought. I’m sure I won’t come up with anything, but I’ll give it a try.”
“I’d appreciate it,” she said. Not meaning a word but keeping the damn smile on high-beam.
Nearly nine P.M. The kid was working late, too. And not getting paid for it.
She said, “How about some dinner—a burger, whatever.”
“Thanks, but I need to get home. My mother made dinner and it’s a big deal to her if we don’t all show up.”
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe another time.” The genius still lived with his folks . . . the Union District, she recalled. Probably some shabby little apartment. Huge contrast to the green lawns and towering trees at USC. Getting all that attention as boy-genius. Working here, his own desk in the detectives’ room. No reason not to stay late.
“Make me a copy of that list,” she said.
“You’re not dismissing it?”
“Let me think about it some more.”
Biiiiig smile. “Will do. Have a nice evening, Detective Connor.”
“You, too.” Professor Gomez.
He left and Petra’s mind shifted back to the Paradiso slaughter.
Gun as “weapon of choice.” At least in that way it was typical.
Which, for some reason, made her feel worse.
CHAPTER
6
A copy of the list was on Petra’s desk the following afternoon.
Yellow Post-it in the upper right-hand corner: “Detective C: Thanks. I. G.”
She put it aside and spent the next two days talking to Missing Persons cops throughout California, faxing morgue shots of the girl in the pink shoes, getting a few callbacks but no leads. She thought about expanding to neighboring states. The chubby girl appeared Hispanic, so the Southwest seemed a good bet.
Phoning her way through Arizona and Nevada took another full day, then she moved on to New Mexico, where a Santa Fe P.D. detective named Darrel Two Moons said, “She might be a girl who went missing from the San Ildefonso pueblo last year.”
“Our vic had a recent abortion.”
“Even better,” said Two Moons. “There was a rumor of an unwanted pregnancy. A married man, not a good guy. We’ve been wondering if he got rid of her, but so far no body. It’s the tribal police’s case but they called us in. Send the photo.”
“The father,” said Petra. “Is he the kind of guy who’d drive to L.A. to shoot her?”
“In terms of amorality, sure. Would he work that hard? Can’t say.”
Twenty minutes later, Two Moons’s partner, a guy named Steve Katz, called back and said, “I know Darrel talked to you about Cheryl Ruiz. Sorry, the picture’s not her. Also, the tribal police didn’t think to tell us they found Cheryl. She took Greyhound to Minnesota, had a baby, has been living with her aunt all this time.”
“Interagency cooperation. So what else is new?” said Petra.
“Yeah,” said Katz. “L.A., huh? I used to be NYPD, worked midtown Manhattan. I remember what it’s like to be busy.”
“Miss it?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On how long the night stretches. On what else I’ve got going on in my life.”
Ano
ther shift full of nothing made her grouchy. Some nice, athletic sex with a touch of romance wouldn’t have hurt, but it had been a week since Eric’s last call, she wasn’t even sure where he was.
Time to pack it in; go home; take a long, hot, gel-lubed bath; maybe actually cook herself something decent and healthy. That meant stopping off to buy veggies and whatever and she decided she just wasn’t up to cold, fluorescent supermarket aisles and other lonely people. She’d snarf whatever was in the fridge, hopefully have the energy to take a stab at her O’Keeffe project.
Big, tall New York buildings that turned the city into a shady warren.
Buildings, no people. Painted long before tall New York buildings meant target.
What a world.
Just as she locked up her desk, her cell phone squawked from inside her purse. She fumbled past her gun, tissues, makeup, caught it on the third ring.
“Hi,” said a voice she’d once thought flat, mechanical, freakishly unemotional.
Nothing about the tone and timbre had changed, but he meant something different to her now. We hear with our brains, not our ears.
She said, “Hi. Where’d they send you now?”
“I sent myself. I’m down in the parking lot.”
Her heart leapt. One sentence could do that to her?
“The parking lot? Here?”
“Right here.”
She said, “I’m coming down.”
Eric stood next to Petra’s Accord, half-concealed in the shadows. Arms at his side, looking in her direction, not moving. He had on a black nylon windbreaker, half-zipped over a white T-shirt, pipestem black jeans. Those black, crepe-soled shoes he liked for stakeouts.
He looked even thinner than usual. Pale and hollow-cheeked, eyes so dark and deep set they receded into the evening. Dark hair cropped even shorter—back to the military cut.
A middle-sized, skinny guy with the pallor of a seminary student. No attempt to posture, but still the James Dean thing amped big-time, filling Petra’s head.
How could she ever have thought him anything but sexy?
She hurried to him and they embraced. He pulled away first, touched her face. Buried his face in her hair, held her tight—the pressure of a needy child.
She said, “You okay?”
“Now, I am.”
“Why didn’t you come upstairs?”
“Technically, I’m not here.”
She took his face in her hands, kissed his eyelids, held him at arm’s length.
“Where are you supposed to be?”
“Jerusalem.”
“What, you went AWOL?”
“Technically.”
“Meaning?”
“The Israelis took a break because they’ve got business to take care of in Jenin. A chance came up to hitch a ride on a plane.”
“A plane.”
His smile was fleeting, barely perceptible. “You know. With wings.”
“How long can you stay?”
“I need to leave tomorrow P.M.”
“One night,” said Petra.
“Is that okay?”
“Of course.” She kissed his nose. “You have a car?”
He shook his head. “Took a taxi.”
They got into the Accord. Petra started up the engine and noticed the dark smudges under his eyes. “How long have you been in transit?”
“Twenty-three hours.”
“Some hitch.”
“Part of it was a hitch. I flew commercial from Heathrow. Old ladies in wheelchairs were getting frisked while guys who look like Usama’s favorite swimming sperm walked right through. You hungry?”
Petra wanted to play house but no food in the apartment meant dinner out.
They went to an Italian place on Third near La Brea, an old-fashioned chianti-bottles-dangling-from-the ceiling taverna, ordered veal marsala and spaghetti with clams and slices of spumoni for dessert. No wine; Eric never drank.
She asked him about Jerusalem.
He said, “I was there years ago, back during Riyadh. I thought it was beautiful then. It’s more complicated now. Assholes wearing bomb-packs kind of ruin the ambience.”
He coiled pasta on his fork, paused midair. “I met a guy who knows you. Superintendent Sharavi.”
“Daniel,” said Petra. “We worked a case together. He and Milo and me.”
“That’s what he said.” Eric put the fork down, took her hand in his, played with her fingers.
“You really have to go back tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Through London?”
He hesitated. The instinctive secrecy. “I’m booked on Jet Blue out of Long Beach to New York.”
“One night,” she said.
“I wanted to see you.”
Back in Petra’s apartment, they sat on the couch, listened to a Diana Krall CD, and made out.
Eric started off gently, the way he had since their first few encounters. Usually it turned Petra on—the slow simmer, all the erotic ballet. Tonight she was impatient, but she slowed herself down. Then she didn’t. Stripping him down to pale, bony nakedness, then ripping off her own clothes so hastily she nearly tripped on a pants leg.
Cool move, Detective Klutz.
Eric hadn’t noticed. His eyes were closed and his flat chest heaved. In the flesh, he looked younger. Vulnerable.
She touched him and he opened his eyes, took hold of her shoulders, trailed his hands down her hips and cupped her ass. Lifted her adroitly and settled her on him. Taking his own initiative: moving her up and down, slowly, then faster. Kissing her nipples, biting down gently. Throwing his head back and letting out a long, deep-in-the throat sigh. Clenching his face as he held back.
She said, “Do it, baby.” But he kept fighting it. So she sped up, ground against him. And when she came, panting and gasping, her hair over her face, he was bucking up at her and shouting “God!”
Later, in bed, snuggled under the covers, she pinched his butt and said, “Didn’t know you were religious.”
“Not the religion I was raised with.”
His dad was a minister. Reverend Bob Stahl, a kind and gentle man, determined to believe the best about people. Eric’s mom, Mary, was no less positive. Petra had come to know both of them in the E.R. waiting room. Petra benefiting from the disapproving glances the Stahls shot at the bimbo’s skimpy clothing.
Bonding some more when the bleeding crisis resolved and Eric was moved to a private room, still unconscious. The three of them sitting by Eric’s bed as he slept and healed. When Petra offered to leave to give them privacy, they insisted she stay.
Once, just before Eric woke up, Mary Stahl hugged Petra and told her, “You’re just the kind of girl I wish he’d bring home.”
If you only knew.
Eric began rubbing the twin soft spots just inside her shoulder blades. The places she’d told him always got sore.
“Oh, man,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m gonna let you out of here tomorrow.”
“You tie me up,” he said. “It would be an excuse.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
She tried to get him talking about work.
He said, “You don’t want to know.”
“That bad?”
He rolled over, stared at the ceiling.
“What?” she said.
“I look at the Israelis’ situation and it worries me. They’re up against September eleven every day, but they can’t do what they need to do. World opinion, diplomacy, all that good stuff.”
His mouth snapped shut and he flung his arm over his eyes. Petra was sure he was going to clam up. Instead, he said, “Politics can be poison. Too much politics and you can’t protect yourself.”
CHAPTER
7
Eric, the most taciturn of men, sometimes mumbled in his sleep. But what woke Petra in the middle of the night was her own, internal voice—some kind of warning. She turned, stared at his face, saw calm. The faint, contented smile of a well-nurtured k
id.
The second time she awoke it was just after noon and Eric was up and showering. By twelve-thirty Petra was cooking eggs. They ate and read the paper—Lord, wasn’t this domestic.
At one-thirty, Eric kissed her and headed for the door.
“I’ll drive you,” she said.
“I called a cab.”
He’d arrived with no luggage, was leaving the same way. Wearing pressed blue jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt, the same black windbreaker, the same crepe-soled shoes. Fresh duds selected from the clothing he’d left in her guest closet.
Zipping halfway across the world with nothing but a wallet. Like it was a jaunt to the market.
Here and back. To see her.
She said, “Cancel the taxi. I’m taking you.”
She hung with him in the cozy, turquoise, modern coffee shop above the Jet Blue terminal until a young man stuck his head in and announced the flight’s imminent departure.
Eric got up, shrugged, looked embarrassed. Petra gave him the most intense hug she could muster. One more kiss and he was gone. She left the terminal with aching eyes.
Traffic on the 405 was ominous and she didn’t arrive at the Hollywood station until six twenty-five P.M. Two D’s were at their desks—Kaplan and Salas—and greeted her with nods.
No messages from Mac Dilbeck or anyone else on the Paradiso case. She headed for a free computer and tried some national databases for missing kids that she’d already contacted, not really expecting anything. Not getting anything.
What to do, now?
A voice from across the room said, “Detective Connor.”
Isaac Gomez, wearing an olive suit, yellow shirt, green-and-red rep tie, hair parted and shiny and brushed flat to his scalp, toted his briefcase toward her desk.
“Very spiffy,” she said. “Heavy-duty meeting?”
The predictable blush darkened his neck. “Not really. Have you had a chance to consider my hypothesis?”
Changing the subject too quickly. That pushed Petra’s mischief button. “C’mon, tell me about it. You get honored again by Councilman Reyes?”
“Not hardly.” Mumbling. Tugging at his tie knot.
