by Rex Burns
“Did the blade have the flat sides to the ribs?”
“Yeah.”
“And the tip was moved inside?”
Shaughnessy, eyes hooded, nodded.
“So someone knew what they were doing.”
“And walked right up to her without a struggle.”
Which didn’t sound like a burglar. “Any evidence of dope?”
“Nothing recent. There was a little marijuana trace, a few days old, but nothing heavier.”
I asked, “Do you go along with Finch? That it was a burglar?”
The detective took a moment before replying. “Evidence is what’s there. Not what isn’t.”
I agreed. “Still, it’s odd. Nothing tying her to the Kabbal, no pictures of her boyfriend. No old letters, no address book. Nothing that shows she had a personal life. It’s odd.”
“Yeah. But it’s also not my case.”
We both knew there were ways of working around that.
Shaughnessy cleared his throat. “I transferred into the department four years ago as a sergeant. Finch has been in the department twelve years. He just made sergeant last February.”
I understood what the detective was saying. More, I realized he was breaching the line that separated cops from civilians, a line that usually enclosed and hid family squabbles from the eyes of outsiders. “He’d be upset if you nosed around his case.”
“He’d pop a gasket. And if I mention Satanism, he’ll scream burglary all the louder.”
“There’s no law prohibiting me from talking to the girl’s parents, is there?”
“Reporters do it all the time.” He grinned sourly. “They got easier access to a victim’s relatives than I do. They’re not officers of the court.” But he wasn’t entirely easy about a civilian nosing into police business. “What are you going to ask them?”
“Who her closest friends were. And how close.”
“Finch has talked to them already and interviewed the friends. I can find out when he files his report.”
“He was interested in their alibis. I want to know if she was as much a loner as her apartment implies.”
Shaughnessy studied the wall somewhere over my head. “Let me know what you find out.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll do what I can about Vengley. Call you at the same number?”
The clutch of real estate sales people waiting at the show home’s entry looked hopefully at me as I pulled to a raw and unscuffed curb. Sprinklers threw a mist over the new sod where brown lines showed seams. Spindly saplings anchored by wires bent under a steady, hot wind from the canyon. I asked an eager face for Steven Glover; the face lost its welcoming grin. “Inside.”
“Hi, there—good to see you again! Be right with you.” Glover looked up to smile and nod toward a coffee urn. “Help yourself.”
I did. Maybe it came out of Glover’s commission. I waited until the man had totted up figures on a calculator and then entered them on the long and detailed sheets. He shut the file and stood to shake hands.
“Closing another sale this afternoon—one more satisfied customer, and they’re really moving fast. But we’re already planning additional units in an area that hasn’t been developed yet. You’ve got a chance to buy early and get a really choice location.”
“I’m here to talk about Shelley Aguirre.”
The wide smile hesitated and he peered at me with sudden recognition. “Let’s step outside where we won’t bother these other folks, okay?”
I followed the tall, slender man around the side of the house. As we walked slowly, Glover pointed at different corners of the development that spread cloned condos across the mesa toward the rim of steep canyon walls. I was told about the clubhouse, the swimming pool, the recreation park and tennis courts still to be installed. Maybe he was covering with his boss who might overhear us, maybe he was talking to give himself time to think. I didn’t believe he was trying to sell me. “Californians live for the outdoors, you know? I mean with a climate like this, you want to take advantage of it, right?”
“You know Shelley’s dead?”
We stopped well out of earshot from the show home. A string of fluttering plastic pennants rose from a stake in the yard’s corner to the roof of the condo. “I heard about it. On TV. It’s terrible.”
“I understand you and she were dating.”
“Well, we went out a few times. But just friends, you know?”
“And that you two were in the same Kabbal.”
The pennants crackled. Glover’s tongue wiped across his lower lip. “What’s that mean?”
“It means you were in the same Satanist cult. I talked to Shelley before she died. She told me.”
One of Glover’s shoulders bobbed. “Hey, everybody’s got a right to their religion, you know?”
“Do these people know you’re a Satanist?”
“I don’t brag about it, if that’s what you mean. But then none of them come up and tell me they’re Catholics or Mormons or whatever. Religion’s not something we talk about.”
“What rank are you in the Kabbal?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I found Dorcas Wilcox.”
“Yeah? Good—that’s fine. Makes her folks happy, right?”
I shook my head. “Not so fine. She’s in a commune in Denver and doesn’t want to come home.”
“Yeah? Good ol’ Dori. Sounds like something she’d do.”
“Dwayne belongs to it, too. The Temple of the Shining Spirit.”
The tongue wiped again and then Glover shrugged. “Don’t know anything about it.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
“No.”
“Dori said he came back to San Diego.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Is Dwayne planning on becoming a High Priest soon?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“I’m trying to find him.”
“Good luck. I don’t know where he is.”
“When’s the last time you saw Shelley?”
“Three days ago,” he said promptly. “We took in a movie.”
“Have the police talked to you yet about her death?”
He nodded. “A cop asked me some questions. When was the last time I saw her, what I was doing when she was killed.” He added, “I’ve got an alibi and if you’re interested in what it is, ask the cop.”
“Did he know what good friends you were? And that you belonged to the same Kabbal?”
“It didn’t come up.”
“Do you think the cop would be interested in finding out?”
Glover’s blue eyes narrowed. “I don’t care. I didn’t have anything to do with Shelley’s death and I got a good alibi.”
“You say your employer doesn’t care about your religion. Do you think he’ll care about your being linked to a homicide?” I gave him a sample news item: “ ‘Steven Glover, employee of … ’ ”—I read one of the “For Sale” signs—“ ‘Bracken Realty, was questioned in the murder of a young woman. Both Glover and the woman were members of a satanic cult. …’ Think that might sell a few houses?”
“Just what the hell are you after?”
“Dwayne Vengley.”
“I told you, goddamn it, I don’t know where he is!”
“But you can get in touch with him through the Kabbal.” I handed him another slip of paper with my telephone number and reminded myself to invest in business cards. “Tell him to call me. It’s important—for me, for him, for you.” I left the man standing in the sun; the hot wind tugged at his regimental tie and slapped it against his white shirt.
CHAPTER 22
WHAT WOULD I say to Vengley when I found him? Any attempt to separate Dorcas from the Temple would require some kind of leverage. And an appeal to the man’s kinder nature didn’t seem too promising. Perhaps some sort of quid pro quo. But the only quid I had was Vengley’s involvement in David Gates’s death. That would take someone willing to testify
that it wasn’t an accident. So far the only one who had hinted at that was Dorcas, and to use her against Vengley would place her in even greater danger. Perhaps I might offer to stop looking into that death if Vengley told Dorcas to return home. I didn’t like that idea. As an actual success, it had the same probability as divine intervention. But maybe if Vengley was worried enough … and if I could attribute testimony to someone other than Dorcas. And if Vengley believed me at all.
And now there was Shelley’s murder. No evidence, but I had suspicions. Certainly, Glover had bent a little under the pressure of being linked to Aguirre. Which was all I could tell Shaughnessy when the policeman called later that afternoon.
“Here’s Vengley’s address.” He gave me the apartment number on Island Street.
“He’s not there. I checked. The woman he shared the apartment with said he moved out a couple months ago—owing rent.”
“That’s all the DMV has. And no recent arrests, so no update of his records.” Shaughnessy paused. “How about his work address. Have you tried that?”
“No. What is it?”
“Alef Distributing Company. It’s down in National City.” He gave me the street and number. “That’s the best I can do so far. I’ll keep working on it.”
It took me a while to find the street and then the address. Decades ago the area had been metal shops, steel fabricators, chemical plants. They supplied goods and materials to the once active navy yard where the mothballed fleet now rode at anchor. I vaguely remembered some of the old companies. I had sought work among them during the summers of high school. One job had been the gritty aching labor of lifting steel blanks from one die onto a dolly to be carried to another cutter. It was a job soon to be replaced by another machine. Its greatest profit had been to convince me of the benefits of college. I could still see the gleam of amusement in my stepfather’s eye as, worn with eight hours of heavy lifting, I dragged home to check another day off the summer vacation.
Now much of the heavy industry had gone to Japan and Korea, and other factories across the border to Mexico. Electronics and biotech had replaced it, along with wholesalers, trucking depots, warehouses, shops for repairing or salvaging auto parts. The occasional welding shop could still be found, and a few of the steel fabricators had shifted to construction beams or ornamental ironwork.
It was between two large metalware storage yards fenced off with sheets of rusty galvanized roofing that I found Alef Distributing. A sand-colored Quonset hut; the arched end-wall held two doors, one large that said “Do Not Block,” and a smaller one that said “Office” and held the only window. Tires crackling on the gravel, I pulled into the parking apron where a new and gleaming sport truck was the only other car. The office area was boxed in by plywood walls and a waist-high counter, all painted institutional green. Two desks, empty but used, were behind the counter. A small bell sat beside a hand-lettered sign that said “Push for Service.” I thumped the plunger and leaned on the shelf to wait. The ring echoed against the silence of the rest of the building. A few seconds later, a door leading to the back opened and a young man in a flowered sport shirt and cutoff jeans leaned through. “Man! I thought I heard that bell—just a minute.”
It was a bit longer than that. But he came back smiling politely and scratching his chest. “What can we do for you?”
“Are you Dwayne?”
“No. I can take a message for him, though.”
“I’d like to talk with him. Do you know where he is?”
The man shook his head. A narrow plume of hair hung down his nape and wagged. “He’s in and out a lot.”
“Can you tell me what his job is here?”
The smile went and caution took its place. “You—ah—you looking for Dwayne for something special?”
“What’s that mean?”
“I mean like are you a cop or something, man?”
“No. I’m trying to get a message to him. About a mutual friend.”
“Oh.” He studied me as if he intended to remember my face.
“What’s his job here?”
“Marketing director. That’s why he’s gone all the time—on the road, like.”
“Who’s the owner?”
He hesitated. “Mr. Lyles.”
“He around?”
“Not now. He’ll be in tomorrow morning.”
“You run the place yourself?”
“Well, pretty much. I mean there’s not that much to it.”
“What do you distribute?”
Another pause, this one longer. “Novelties, mostly. Advertising flyers. Whatever people want distributed. Look, man, I got to get back to work. You want to come back tomorrow, you can talk to Mr. Lyles. Okay?”
Nervous, the young man didn’t wait for me to say I would. He nodded good-bye and quickly shut the partition door behind him. I heard the latch click and then lock.
There wasn’t much to see down either side of the corrugated steel building. The neighboring fences ran to the edge of the property line and blocked my view. A slow tour down the alley behind showed only a square of weedy lot protected by a chain-link fence topped with spirals of razor wire. The empty lot seemed unused, but the wire looked new. I pulled my car to the side of the alley and waited for a truck to lumber by. Then I walked back to the dumpster that had splashed on its side the same street number as the Alef building. The back of the Quonset had a small fire door and a large window protected on the outside by heavy mesh and on the inside by whitewash across the glass. I tried to keep the iron lid of the dumpster between me and the building as I rifled through the trash. Most of it was shipping debris: plastic peanuts, air bubbles, strapping. Wads of perforated strips showed a lot of computer printing. I did find some boxes with address labels and I tore those free. Empty bottles and cans of toner and fix, wrappings from photography paper as well as plastic shipping guards for videotape boxes. Some broken glass—bottles, light bulbs, an incandescent tube—and some rags and empty cleaning-powder cans.
Ignoring the glances of workmen in the steel yards, I gathered the scraps with the addresses and sat in my car to thumb through them. Many were from local photography supply stores. A number of others were from Fantasy Products Ltd. on Imperial Highway in Inglewood, CA. One came from a computer supply firm—Data Documents—with a size marked “9 1/2 x 11,” which I took to be computer paper. A few from an outfit in Garden Grove, CA, called A & D Products, twenty-four to the carton, color white. There was no outgoing correspondence. The Age of Floppies had done away with carbon copies and discarded ribbons. I did find a couple of envelopes that looked as if they’d held bills. One was from CompuRepair in San Diego, another from Southland Photographic Supply Warehouse, also local.
I finally found a public telephone with its directory intact and flipped through the business section for the number. CompuRepair’s secretary was both friendly and helpful.
“I don’t know how it happened,” I said. “I must have torn part of the bill when I opened the envelope. If you could read it to me, I’ll get the payment in the mail.”
“That’s happened to me, too. Would you like a duplicate sent out?”
“Not necessary. I’ll just jot down what you tell me.”
She listed the items from her file: cleaning, adjusting, and routine maintenance. The big charge was to replace the head on the printer. Then she cited the total with tax. “That help?”
“Yes, it does. Thanks.”
But it didn’t. The computer repairs were generic and could apply to any business. The luck was a bit better with Southland Photographic Supplies. That order was primarily for videotape cartridges, color paper, and chemicals for developing and printing.
“It’s pretty much the same monthly order you always give us,” said the woman.
“I know. I just want to be sure it’s entered right.”
I thanked her and stood a few minutes in the telephone hood to let some ideas begin to congeal from what few facts I’d turned up. Then I headed toward dow
ntown and the harbor area.
The restaurant was almost empty at this time of the afternoon. Only the bar held people, and one or two occupied tables filled up the gap between lunch and dinner. Tommy was in his small office tucked into a corner near the kitchen. “Jack! I was just talking about you. I been calling around to some of the guys and they want to get together. So I’m setting up something in a couple weeks. A little chow, a few drinks, a lot of lies and laughs. How about it?”
“A couple weeks—sounds good.” I settled into the wooden arm chair placed in front of Tom’s desk. “It’ll be good to see them.”
“Aw, yeah. I told them you were back and everyone wanted a get-together.”
“Right—we always had a hard time getting a party going.”
“How about a luau? A little sand shark and rum?”
“Followed by a trip to TJ. It does sound familiar.”
“Man, those were the times.” Tom shoved back from the desk and grinned at the ceiling. “Remember when Cookie got caught at the border with that bottle of Bacardi under his front seat? Told the customs guy it was something his mother left there?”
“Didn’t do us much good.”
“Yeah. But you’d think the customs guy would give us credit for the day’s worst lie. Still funny! Every now and then I find something hidden away somewhere, I think of that: ‘Must have been something my mother left there.’ ” He shook his head. “Over twenty years ago. How the hell did we get so old so fast? And why in hell didn’t we get our asses slung more’n we did?”
“Luck.”
“Yeah. A lot of that. But Jack, I think times were different, too. A kid could do things, nobody would get too bent out of shape about it. Nowadays, I don’t know. Kids now, it seems the stakes are a lot higher, you know?”
There was some truth in that, though I was less convinced it was the changing times than our changing ages. Granted a lot of our survival had been luck, but not all. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything we’d done that was vicious. Wild at times, certainly careless, thoughtless, and often with the universal selfishness of youth. But nothing intentionally mean or predatory. Driven by the need to discover life and explore the rapidly widening boundaries of adolescence, we still knew there were things you did for others, not to them. There were rules you didn’t have to put into words. In fact, it seemed corny when somebody—usually an adult—did. Instead, they existed in the puzzled expressions, the wondering question when a violation did occur: “Now why would he go and do some dumb-ass thing like that?” And the usual answer: “Guy’s fucked up.”
