Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 12 - Survival of the Fittest

by Survival Of The Fittest(Lit)

  'No boyfriend,' said McLaren.

  'Not to my knowledge.'

  'No gangsters in her social life at all?'

  'The brother's all I know. You'd have to ask her grandmother.'

  'We'll do that,' said Hooks. 'What's the home address?'

  'Don't know the exact number but it's on Thirty-ninth a couple of blocks east of here. Green house, old, one of those big wooden ones converted to rooms, chain-link fence in front and cement instead of grass. I know because I took her home one time when she had a short dress and no panties. The wind was blowing the dress up and I just wanted to get her inside.' She blinked. 'Grandmother's on the second floor.'

  'When Latvinia was busted,' said Hooks, 'were you the arresting officer?'

  'Me and my partner, Kretzer. We pulled her twice for soliciting. Both times she was out late, over on Hoover near the freeway on-ramp, getting in the way of traffic'

  'East ramp or west?'

  'West'

  'Trying to snag a Beverly Hills guy, maybe,' said McLaren.

  Rinaldo shrugged.

  'When was this?' said Hooks.

  'Last year. December, I think. It was cold and she had on a quilted jacket but no top underneath.'

  Hooks wrote. 'So I can get her personal info from the files.'

  'Probably not, it was a juvey bust, sealed. She was just short of eighteen and I told her she was a lucky girl. If it's just the home address you need, I can take you there.'

  'The address is a good place to start,' said Hooks. He looked at McLaren. 'You want?'

  The younger man said, 'Sure.'

  He and Rinaldo walked away, got into a black-and-white, and drove toward the south gate.

  'See any dramatic parallels yet?' Hooks asked Milo.

  'Not really.'

  'Yours was a diplomat's kid?'

  'Israeli diplomat.'

  'Nothing in the news on anything like that?'

  'They hushed it up.' Milo told him Carmeli's rationale.

  'Well,' said Hooks, 'he could be right, but I don't know. Sounds like a fun one.'

  'Yeah. Where you going with this, Willis?'

  'The usual. If we get lucky it'll be some dirt lives next door. If not, who knows? She didn't exactly lead a sheltered life.'

  Milo glanced across the yard. 'Those kids are looking at the body.'

  'Would have been worse if the janitor didn't get here and they saw it swinging.'

  'Interesting reaction, his cutting her down.'

  Four parallel lines in Hooks's forehead deepened. 'Civic volunteerism. Maybe he listens to the mayor's speeches. Hold on.' He made his way halfway to the crowd in a quick, rolling gait, caught the eye of the man in the gray uniform, and motioned him over.

  The janitor came over licking his lips.

  'If you got a minute again, sir,' said Hooks. 'This here is Mr Montez.'

  The custodian nodded. Up close, I saw he was closer to sixty with a prizefighter's battered face and coarse gray beard. Five seven and broad-shouldered, with thick, stubby hands and oversized feet.

  'Detective Sturgis,' said Milo, holding out his hand. Montez shook it. His eyes were bloodshot.

  'I know you told your story, sir,' said Milo, 'but if you don't mind, I'd like to hear it again.'

  Montez looked up at him and put his hands in his pockets. 'I come to work at seven o'clock,' he said, in clear but accented English. 'I clean the main building and bungalow B, like always, then I come out to sweep, like

  always. I sweep early 'cause sometimes people leave shi - things on the yard. I don't want the kids they should see.'

  'What kinds of things?'

  'Liquor bottles, crack vials. Sometimes condoms, needles. Even used toilet paper. You know.'

  'So people get into the schoolyard at night.'

  'All the time.' Montez's voice rose. 'They get in, do parties, do dope, shootings. Three months ago, three guys got shot dead. Last year, two guys. Terrible for the kids.'

  'Who got shot?' said Milo.

  'Gangsters, I dunno.'

  Hooks said, 'Wallace and SanGiorgio's case. Drive-by, through the fence.' Turning back to Montez: 'What do they usually do, cut through the lock?'

  'The chain. Or they just climb over. All the time.'

  'Any idea the last time the chain was cut?' said Milo.

  'Who knows,' said Montez. 'We used to change the locks all the time. Now... the school they don't have money for books. My grandchildren go here.'

  'You live around here, sir?'

  'No, I live in Willowbrook. My daughter and her husband, they live here, on Thirty-fourth. The husband, he work over at the Sports Arena. They got three kids - the two here and one baby.'

  Milo nodded. 'So you came out and started sweeping and saw her.'

  'Right away I see her,' said Montez. 'Hanging there.' He shook his head and pain danced across his face. 'The tongue...' Shaking his head again.

  'Did you realize she was dead right away?' said Milo.

  'That tongue? Sure, what else?'

  'So you cut her down.'

  'Sure, why not? I figure maybe...'

  'Maybe what?'

  Montez stared at him. Licked his lips, again. 'Maybe it's stupid, but I dunno, maybe I figure I help her - I dunno, guess it was... the way she was hanging, I didn't want no kids to see it... my grandchildren. And she was always a nice kid, I wanted her to look nice.'

  'You knew her?' said Hooks.

  'Latvinia? Sure. Everyone know her, she crazy.'

  'She came round here a lot?'

  'Not inside, on the street.' He tapped his temple. 'She live on Thirty-ninth, few blocks from my daughter. Everyone see her walking around, no clothes. A little... not right.'

  'No clothes at all?' said Hooks. When Montez looked confused, he added, 'She walked around totally naked?'

  'No, no,' said Montez. 'A little clothes but not enough, you know?' Another tap. 'Not right - you know? But happy all the time.'

  'Happy?'

  'Yeah. Laughing.' Montez's eyes hardened. 'I do something wrong, cutting her down?'

  'No, sir-'

  'I go out, I see her up there, think the kids see that. My grandchildren. Go get a knife from the supply closet.'

  He slashed empty space.

  'How long have you been working here, sir?' said Milo.

  'Nine years. Before that, I worked over at Dorsey High, twelve years. Used to be a good school, there. Same problems now.'

  Milo hooked a thumb at the body. 'When you saw Latvinia hanging, were her clothes the way they are now?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Were her pants up when you saw her hanging?'

  'Yeah - what, you think I-'

  'No, sir, we're just trying to find out what she looked like when you saw her.'

  'The same,' said Montez, angrily. "Zactly the same, pants up, the same. I get a knife, cut her down, and put her on the ground. Maybe a miracle, she not dead. But she dead. I call 911.'

  'The way you placed her,' said Milo.

  Montez's eyes were uncomprehending.

  'Arms at her side,' said Hooks. 'Like you wanted her to look nice.'

  'Sure,' said Montez. 'Why not? Why shouldn't she look nice?'

  Hooks let him go and we watched as he returned to the school's main building.

  'What do you think?' he asked Milo.

  'Any reason to doubt his story?'

  'Not really, but I'm going to do a background on him and if the girl was raped I'll try to get some body fluids.' He smiled. 'Some thanks for the good Samaritan, huh? But we seen plenty of those turn out not so good, right? Thing is, though, if he's the bad guy, why would he do her right here where he works, focus attention on himself.'

  'Bloodshot eyes,' said Milo. 'Maybe he was up late.'

  'Yeah,' said Hooks. 'But no booze on his breath and he said he works two jobs. This during the day, part-time at a liquor store on Vermont at night. Says he was at the store last night, that should be checkable. Did he look hinky to you? If
he's dirty, he's ready for the Oscar.'

  He gazed through the fence at Twenty-eighth Street, then took in the traffic on Western. 'Somebody driving or walking by could very well have seen her swinging, but you heard what he said about all the crap goes down on the

  schoolyard. Unlike Mr Montez, people around here don't volunteer much.'

  'If it was some dirt next door,' said Milo, 'wonder why he'd take the trouble to hang her here.'

  'Who knows?' said Hooks. 'Maybe they ran into each other around the corner, made a date, headed over here to consummate. Montez said he finds condoms all the time.'

  'Techs have any idea when the chain was cut?'

  'Just that it wasn't fresh, which is also consistent with Montez.'

  'The school keeps using a broken chain 'cause the minute they put a new one on, someone slices it.'

  'Yeah,' said Hooks. 'Nothing like security for our youngsters.' He looked at the body again. 'Maybe it does mean something, bringing her here, the bad guy making some kind of statement.'

  'Such as?'

  'I hate school.' Hooks smiled. 'That narrows it down, huh? Pull in all the bad students.'

  Milo gave a short, hard detective laugh and Hooks laughed, too, fleshy jowls undulating. The four wrinkles smoothed.

  'Put your hands up, punk,' he said, making a finger-gun. 'Lemme see your grade-point average. Two D's and an F? Off to the lineup.'

  He chuckled some more, exhaled. 'Anyway, except for strangulation and both being retarded, I still don't see any parallels with your case.'

  'Strangulation, retarded, and no rape,' said Milo.

  'We don't know for sure if there was no rape,' said Hooks.

  'But if there wasn't any - no assault at all - that's interesting, right, Willis? How many sex fiends don't do anything to the body?'

  'Maybe. But who knows what goes on in assholes' heads? Maybe hanging her got him off, he watched her dangle, came in his pants, went home, had sweet dreams. I remember one, few years back, guy got off on playing with their feet. Killed 'em first, set 'em up on their beds, played with their feet. That was enough to get him off - what do you think of that, Doctor?'

  'Something for everyone,' I said.

  'This guy, the foot guy, he didn't even have to yank the monkey. Just playing with the toes did it for him.'

  'I had a foot guy, too,' said Milo. 'But he didn't kill, just tied 'em up and played.'

  'Probably woulda killed if he'd kept on.'

  'Probably.'

  'You could probably sit down and dig up lots of stories about perverted stuff.' Hooks stiffened and shot Milo a quick, embarrassed look. Milo's face remained still. 'Anyway, if Mac and I come up with something, we'll let you know.'

  'Ditto, Willis.'

  'Yeah.'

  A young white cop jogged over.

  'Excuse me, Detective,' he said to Hooks. 'Coroner's driver wants to know if we can transport the vic'

  'You got anything more you want to do, Milo?'

  'Nope.'

  'Go ahead,' Hooks said. The officer hustled back, delivered the word, and two morgue attendants came forward with a gurney and a black body bag.

  I noticed movement from the north end of the playground. A few teachers had come closer to the tape and were watching while drinking coffee.

  'School days,' said Hooks. 'I was born on Thirty-second.

  We moved to Long Beach when I was three, otherwise I woulda gone here.'

  The attendants got the body into the bag and lifted it on the gurney. As they wheeled her away, the white cop turned his attention to the ground and called over another uniform, a tall black man, even darker than McLaren. Then he jogged back to us.

  'It's probably nothing, sir, but you might want to take a look.'

  'At what?' said Hooks, already moving.

  'Something under the body.'

  We followed him over. The black uniform had his arms folded and his eyes were aimed at a small scrap of white paper, maybe two inches square.

  'It's probably nothing,' the first cop repeated, 'but it was under her and there's something typed on it.'

  I saw the letters.

  Hooks squatted. 'D-V-L-L. That mean anything to anybody?'

  The cops looked at one another.

  'No, sir,' said the first.

  'Maybe the devil,' said the second.

  'Any gang using that moniker?'

  Shrugs all around.

  'And since when do gang bangers type,' muttered Hooks. 'Okay, you're the eagle eye, Officer... Bradbury. Do me a favor and check that graffiti on the school buildings over there, see if the same thing comes up anywhere.'

  'Yes, sir.' As Bradbury approached the yellow-tape border, the teachers backed away. But they watched as he scanned the graffiti.

  'DVLL,' said Hooks. 'Mean anything to you, Milo?'

  'Nope.'

  'Me, neither. And seeing as she was laid down by the janitor, it was probably just something lying there on the cement before she got here. Maybe a piece of school memo or something.'

  The paper remained motionless in the static, metallic air.

  'Should I not bother to tell the techs?' said the black cop.

  'No, tell them to bag it, take a picture,' said Hooks. 'We wouldn't want to be accused of shoddy police work by some scumbag lawyer, would we?'

  Milo drove out to the street and parked behind my Seville.

  'Ah,' he said, looking in the rearview mirror. 'Finally, the games begin.'

  Behind us, a TV van from a local station had just pulled up, disgorging a gear-toting crew that sprinted for the gate. As the uniform checked with Hooks, a small gray car pulled away from the curb and passed us. The driver, Hispanic and wearing the same institutional-gray Montez had on, glanced at us for an instant and continued to Western.

  'A diplomat's kid on the West Side and a crack-kid down here,' said Milo. 'What do you think?'

  'Some physical resemblance between Irit and Latvinia, both of them retarded, death by strangulation, no sexual assault on Irit, no evidence so far of an assault on Latvinia. And the position of the body. But Latvinia wasn't strangled with broad force and the janitor moved her.'

  'The janitor.'

  'You like him?'

  'Sure. Because he was there. And because he moved her.'

  'Sparing the grandchildren,' I said. 'Janitors clean up. Janitors use brooms.'

  'Something else, Alex: He cuts her down, arranges her respectfully but doesn't tuck the tongue back in her mouth? Hooks asked him about that and he said when he realized she was really dead he didn't want to mess things up. Make sense to you?'

  'The average person seeing a hanging body would probably run for the phone. But if Montez is action-oriented, a family man, with strong attachments to the school, it could fit. But so does another scenario: Montez has a date with Latvinia - he admitted knowing her. They meet on the schoolyard because it's his turf. He kills her, hangs her, then realizes students are going to show up soon, maybe there isn't enough time to get rid of the body. So instead he plays hero.'

  'Or it was colder: There was enough time to get rid of the body but he left her there because he got off on thumbing his nose at us. On being a hero - thinks he's smart, a pretender, just like you said. Like those firefighters who torch stuff and show up to hold the hose.'

  'Another thing,' I said. 'Montez wears a uniform. His is gray and the park worker I saw mowing at the conservancy was wearing beige, but someone else might not draw the distinction.'

  His eyes narrowed. 'Irit.'

  'To her it might have connoted someone official. Someone who belonged and could be trusted. Most people relate to uniforms that way.'

  'Montez,' he said. 'Well, if there's anything to learn about him, Hooks is as good a detective as any.'

  'That piece of paper,' I said. 'DVLL.'

  'Mean something to you?'

  'No. I'm sure it's nothing - what Hooks said, a scrap of school memo.'

  He turned to me. 'What, Alex?'

  'It
just seemed too cute. Move the body and there it is. Nothing like that was found near Irit. According to the files.'