Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 02

by Twisted

Petra said, “Makes total sense, though. Long as you’re out there, avoid the drive back.”

  “Yeah,” said Ovid Arnaz. “And I know my equipment’s safe.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  Mac Dilbeck looked at the photo of Marcella Douquette. “Our victim.”

  Petra said, “Maybe our main victim. She’s got no record but was living with a member of a known criminal enterprise. Could be the other kids just happened to be in the parking lot at the wrong time.”

  The two of them were having coffee at Musso and Frank, the front room, one of the stiff-backed booths. Hollywood oldsters and retro types Petra’s age loped in and out. Petra was having apple pie and Mac had chosen rhubarb with vanilla ice cream. Luc Montoya, occupied with his new case, a Selma Avenue stabbing, was off the Paradiso case permanently.

  Mac forked loose an equilateral triangle of pie and guided it smoothly into his mouth. It was five P.M. and he’d been on for a day and a half, but his gray sharkskin suit was immaculate and his white shirt looked freshly pressed. Petra had left a message with Isaac at USC, canceling their P.M. meet. She felt exhilarated by the I.D. on Douquette but on the verge of letdown because of all the whodunit that remained.

  Eleven days till June 28, but this was more important, this was now.

  Mac said, “You did great work.” He wiped an already clean mouth with a linen napkin. “Out of nowhere you pull an I.D.”

  “Abracadabra,” said Petra. She waved an imaginary wand.

  Mac smiled. “So, you’re thinking this Lyle character’s the one.”

  “He and Sandra Leon lived with Marcella in Venice. The landlord said Leon paid six months rent in advance, hard cash. Gave the name Lewis Tiger.”

  “Leon means ‘lion’ in Spanish right?” said Mac. “Lion, Tiger. Cute.”

  “If he did this he’s a damned snake,” said Petra. “The Players have no rep for violence but maybe internally it’s different. Maybe Robert Leon rules with an iron fist from his cell in Lompoc. Sandra never visited him but Marcella did, last year. And guess what, she’s the only female who did.”

  “You’re thinking she offended the boss.”

  “The coroner said she’d had a recent abortion. Maybe that broke some kind of rule.”

  “Getting pregnant or having the abortion?”

  “Could be either,” said Petra. “Maybe the father was an outsider. Or Lyle. He was living with both girls in a very small house, anything could’ve happened. For all we know, getting pregnant was the ideal—the females’ role in the group is to breed—and by terminating she committed a big-time no-no.”

  “Providing young’uns for the clan,” said Mac. “Sounds like a cult. What about Sandra?”

  “Sandra’s sick. Hepatitis A. That could’ve prevented her from conceiving, or Lyle knew about it and stayed away. Or he was the one who gave it to her.” She repeated what Katzman had told her about unsanitary sex.

  Mac excised and ate a smaller triangle of pie. “Kind of ironic, her trying to fake out like she had cancer and she’s sick with something else.”

  “Maybe the group knew all along she was sick and has been taking advantage of it to pull off medical scams.”

  “Dangerous game, no? I assume viral hepatitis is pretty serious.”

  “Type A goes away by itself, usually by six months.”

  Mac put his fork down and ran his index finger along the border of the postmortem photo. “Assuming Marcella was hit by Lyle or another Player, you think Sandra knew about it?”

  “When I interviewed her she wasn’t shocked. She was edgy, that’s why I noticed her. Maybe she’s learned to keep things to herself.”

  “The Players,” said Mac. “Never heard of them.”

  “They mostly work the north end of the state and Nevada.”

  “Isaac got you all this?”

  Petra nodded.

  “The Genius,” said Mac. He pushed his plate away, the pie a half-eaten polygon. “It’s progress, but I’m not sure it’s good enough to keep the downtown boys at bay.”

  “We hand them the I.D. and the probable cause and they chase it down?”

  “You know how it works, Petra. Maybe it’s best that way. D’Ambrosio’s their captain. He wants five guys, he gets five. He asks for ten, he gets ten. That kind of coverage could be what the case needs.”

  “Fine,” said Petra.

  “It isn’t, but . . .” Mac folded his napkin into a rectangle. “I’ll do my best to see you get credit for developing the lead.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

  “Fair is fair.”

  “On what planet?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Wish there was a choice.”

  “I understand,” she said. But she was thinking: Maybe there is a choice.

  CHAPTER

  25

  The gun didn’t weigh that much, but Isaac felt the difference in his briefcase.

  He’d swaddled the twenty-two in a cheap blue bandanna purchased at a ninety-nine-cent outlet a few blocks from Cantina Nueva, stuffed the package in the bottom of the case, under his laptop.

  Tools of the trade.

  USC was a short bus ride from the bar and he made it on time for his appointment with Dr. Leibowitz.

  Avuncular Dr. Leibowitz. At their first meeting, Isaac had thought, “Too good to be true.” Later, he’d seen that Leibowitz was supportive of all his students. A year from retirement, a man at peace.

  The meeting went well, as always, Leibowitz smiling and fooling with an empty briar pipe. He’d been off tobacco for years but kept the pipes and a collection of smoking accoutrements as props. “How’re those multivariates coming along?”

  “Some of my initial hypotheses seem to be panning out. Though the process seems to be infinite. Each new finding engenders another hypothesis.”

  In truth, he hadn’t looked at his calculations for over a week. Caught up with June 28. The rhythm of the detectives’ room, all that noise and anger and frustration.

  Petra.

  Leibowitz nodded sagely. “Such is science.”

  Fortified by Leibowitz’s strong tea, Isaac headed straight for a seldom-used men’s room at the end of the hall. Pressing his back against the door, he placed the briefcase on the floor, removed the gun, unwrapped it. Hefted it.

  Pointed it at the mirror and scowled.

  Tough guy.

  Ludicrous.

  Footsteps in the hallway caused him to panic. He dropped the gun and the bandanna back in the case. The weapon landed with a thud.

  The footsteps continued on and he stooped and rewrapped the twenty-two. Added another layer of concealment—the brown paper bag from the lunch Mama had fixed him today.

  If anyone looked inside, they’d see a grease-specked care package redolent of chili and cornmeal.

  Mother love.

  Getting the gun into the station was no problem. Since nine-eleven, front security at the Wilcox Station had been tighter but inconsistent. On most days, eyeball scrutiny of incoming traffic sufficed. When the terror alert rose to a warm color, a portable metal detector was wheeled in and all the cops entered through the rear door on the south side of the building.

  Isaac’s political connection had gotten him an official-looking clip-on LAPD badge and a 999 key that unlocked the rear door. He rarely needed to use the key. The station was old, with an inefficient cooling system, and the door was generally left open for circulation.

  He climbed the stairs filled with pleasant expectations of his meeting with Petra.

  Four male detectives were there but she wasn’t.

  An hour later, he finally accepted the fact she wasn’t going to show. Packing up, he descended to the ground floor, made his way to the rear door. Closed, now. He opened it on the overly lit expanse of asphalt. All those black-and-whites and unmarked sedans.

  Warm night. He wondered why she’d stood him up. She’d seemed to be taking June 28 seriously.

  It’s not a stand-up, stupid. She
’s a working detective, something came up.

  He’d go home, arrive in time for dinner, make Mama happy. Tomorrow morning, he’d head straight to campus. Hide away at his corner table in the far reaches of Doheny Library’s third subbasement. Cosseted by yellow walls, red floors, dusty stacks of old botany books.

  He’d sit. Think.

  Needing to produce.

  Needing something to show Petra.

  CHAPTER

  26

  TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2:02 P.M., CAPTAIN SCHOELKOPF’S OFFICE

  When the bastard called Petra in, she was ready. Knowing full well what she’d done and ready to take the heat.

  The approved way to get what she wanted would’ve been to notify the shift lieutenant, receive his permission to talk to the captain, obtain his permission to contact the department’s public affairs office, make a phone request to the P.A. desk jockeys, follow up with a tedious written application that gave away too many facts of the case, and then wait for approval.

  Her way had been to call up five reporters she knew—newshounds with whom she’d accumulated brownie points by trading “anonymous” info for discretion.

  Patricia Glass at the Times and four TV field correspondents. No radio folk because they were of no use to her on this.

  All five were interested and she faxed the cleanest photo she had of Marcella Douquette along with Lyle Leon’s mug shot. Spicing up the package with intimations of mysterious “crime cabals” and pleas not to “say too much.”

  “A cabal, huh? Kind of like Manson?” said Leticia Gomez from Channel Five.

  Burt Knutsen from On The Spot News made an almost identical comment.

  The recent college grad who worked for ABC said, “Kabbalah like Madonna’s into?”

  Petra hedged, didn’t deny. At this point, whatever got the photos on the air was good.

  All four local news broadcasts aired them at eleven P.M., repeated it on today’s morning broadcast. Nothing in the Times, but that was a massive bureaucracy so maybe tomorrow.

  At two P.M., Schoelkopf ordered her into his office.

  She expected hell, got only lackluster purgatory. Schoelkopf leaning back in his Naugahyde desk chair, tossing out all the appropriately hostile utterances. But not with his usual vitriol, more of a formal recitation. Distracted, as if none of this really mattered.

  She kind of missed the old way. Was he feeling all right?

  When he paused to take a breath, she actually said, “Are you okay, sir?”

  He sprang forward, glared, smoothed his gelled black hair. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You look a little . . . fatigued.”

  “I’m in training for the marathon, never felt better. Cut the bullshit, Connor. Stop trying to change the subject. The facts are you fucked up by not going through channels and wasted everyone’s time and quite probably fucked up a case.”

  “I admit I was a little hasty, sir, but in terms of wasted—”

  “Wasted,” he reiterated. “HOMSPEC’s taking it off your hands.”

  “First I’ve heard about that,” she lied. “Is—”

  He cut her off with a wave. His nails, usually manicured and buffed, were too long. His beige designer imitation suit was wrinkled and his shirt collar looked too large. Weight loss due to marathon training?

  He definitely looked tired.

  Then Petra noticed another discrepancy. The framed photo of him and his third wife vacationing in Mazatlan was gone from his desk. Empty space where the picture had sat.

  Problems at home?

  She said, “I’m sorry, sir—”

  Another wave. “Don’t fuck up again or there’ll be repercussions. There’s a limit to how far your status can carry you.”

  “My status?”

  Schoelkopf smirked. “Speaking of special treatment, what’s your pet genius doing?”

  “His research.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He works on his doctoral dissertation and keeps out of trouble.”

  Schoelkopf’s eyes hyphened. “No problems on that end?”

  “None, sir. Why?”

  “I don’t need a ‘why,’ Connor.”

  “That’s true, sir.”

  “Are you keeping a close eye on Alberto Einstein?”

  “I didn’t know I was suppo—”

  “You’re on babysitting duty, Connor. Get it? Don’t fuck that up.” Schoelkopf adjusted himself in his chair. “So what did all your media hype accomplish?”

  “We’ve had calls—”

  “Cut the crap.”

  “Nothing yet, sir, but the calls are still—”

  To Petra’s astonishment, Schoelkopf nodded, said, “Who the hell knows, maybe something’ll actually happen because of your fuckup. If not, you just fucked up.”

  By four P.M., she’d fielded thirty-five messages resulting from the broadcasts, all duds. At four thirty-two, Patricia Glass from the Times phoned and said, “You obviously don’t need us anymore.”

  Petra said, “We need all the help we can get.”

  “Then you should’ve waited,” snapped Glass. “I had the article all written up and ready to go. Then my editor saw it last night on Four and killed it. We don’t rehash old stories.”

  Petra thought: Have you actually read your own paper? She said, “It’s not old, Patricia, the case is still unsolved.”

  “Once the airheads get it, it’s old. Next time, let me know if you’re going to them. Don’t waste my time.”

  “I’m sorry if it put you in a position, but—”

  “It did,” said Glass.

  Click.

  By five-thirty, twenty additional calls came in, five from alleged psychics, three from obvious psychotics, the rest from well-meaning citizens who had nothing to offer.

  She’d messed up and gotten nothing in return.

  She felt bad for a minute, then thought: In a world where fanatical idiots blow themselves up, big deal.

  But she had trouble rationalizing it away. Feeling low, she was about to call the day to a close when her phone rang and Eric’s voice said, “I’m at Kennedy, scheduled for an eight o’clock back to L.A. If it’s on time, I should be in by eleven.”

  “Back for good?” said Petra. “Or are you en route somewhere?”

  “No other plans.”

  “What happened to Morocco and Tunisia?”

  “Canceled.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re okay to travel? With your leg?”

  “I considered leaving the leg behind but decided to take it along.”

  “Funny,” she said. Then she realized it was. Also, the first time he’d ever tried to joke with her. And she’d killed it. Lord . . .

  She said, “I’ll pick you up. What airline?”

  “I’ll catch a cab.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll pick you up. What airline?”

  Eric hesitated.

  “Want me to circle the airport?” she said.

  “American.”

  She hung up with her heart pounding—what was that all about?—filed what needed to be filed, shut down her computer, collected her stuff, and left the dectectives’ room.

  Time to do something for herself before heading for LAX. A light dinner somewhere casual and quiet—that storefront Mongolian place on La Brea, the family that ran it always treated her like royalty. Followed by a soak in the tub, some of that girlie-stuff bath lotion one of her brothers had sent her for her birthday that she’d never used. Then, careful application of makeup—even mascara, which she detested because she could never apply it without getting grit in her eyes. A little blush—her cheekbones were still good. Her best feature, she’d always thought.

  Nick had always made a big deal about her cheekbones during the first years of their marriage, when he was still noticing things.

  Eric had never remarked upon them, or any other of her physical features. Never really complimented her except when they were
making love and all sorts of utterances flew out of his mouth like little birds.

  Afterward, sweat-coated and panting, they shared mutual silence . . .

  She never complimented him either.

  Would he notice the little touches? No matter, she’d feel the difference.

  Mascara and blush and a change into something feminine and—dare she say it—sexy?

  After a day like this, could she muster up sexy?

  We’ll just have to see about that.

  She took the stairs down to the rear exit, nearly bumped into Isaac in the stairwell. He’d just shoved the door open and was heading up.

  The kid didn’t drive. Why was he entering through the parking lot?

  Probably because that’s where she took him when they exited. He recovered from the surprise and said “Hi.” His back was erect, his shoulders high. Grinning at her with . . . bravado?

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I hoped I’d catch you,” he said. “You were working pretty late last night.”

  Last night? Their meeting. Oh, crap.

  “I’m sorry. Something just came up.”

  “On the Paradiso shootings?”

  “Yup,” she lied.

  He waited for elaboration. When none followed, he started swinging his briefcase against his leg. Little boy, disappointed. No more bravado.

  “And I’ve got to leave now,” she said.

  “Sure,” he said. “Whenever you have time.”

  The decent thing would be to go back upstairs and shmooze with him. She was just too tired.

  He said, “I’ve got someone, a librarian at Doheny, the university library, checking out historical references.”

  “What kind of references?”

  “Old crime stories, out-of-print books, papers. Anything related to June 28.”

  “You think someone’s studying history and reliving it?”

  “It’s all I could come up with,” he said, sounding anything but confident.

  Petra thought about that. Isaac must have taken it for skepticism because he blushed. “I didn’t tell her why I was asking, just asked her to focus on the date. She has access to the rare-book section, so if something bypassed the Internet, she’d be the one to find it.”