Bloodthirsty

by Marshall Karp

  “I’m hoping if I learn enough Jewish words your father might not hate me so much.” Like Eli, Diana’s father is also a rabbi. Only he’s strictly kosher. He wasn’t happy when she married an Italian Catholic, and he’s just as unhappy with me.

  “My father doesn’t hate you. He likes you. He’s just not as demonstrative as your father.”

  “Honey, nobody is as demonstrative as my father. It’s the cross you have to bear for falling in love with his son.”

  We finished our dinner and a bottle of chianti. Diana made espresso and put out a plate of biscotti.

  “I saw a ghost today,” I said.

  “Joanie?”

  “Yeah.” I told Diana about my visit to Damian’s trailer.

  “What did you feel?” she said.

  “Guilty. All she wanted was a baby, and I couldn’t give her one.”

  “How happy do you think that baby would be, growing up without a mother?” Diana said. “What happened to Joanie is tragic, but for me, it’s a little less sad knowing she didn’t leave any children behind.”

  “I guess you’re right. Look what a piss-poor job I did with Andre.” I gave her my most serious look. “Do you mind if I change the subject? There’s something important that I need to ask you.”

  “You look like you’re either going to dump me or ask me to make some kind of long-term commitment, neither of which I can deal with two weeks before my birthday. Can’t it wait?”

  “Sorry. It’s gotta be now.”

  She picked up a biscotti, took a bite, and braced herself.

  “Here goes,” I said. “What do you know about bleeding someone to death?”

  She threw the rest of the biscotti at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “All that dead-wife talk. I needed to make you laugh.”

  “It wasn’t that funny,” she said, “but at least I got to remind you about my birthday. So who bled to death?”

  I gave her the details of Barry Gerber’s autopsy.

  She was fascinated. “I draw blood every day. Who would have ever thought that you could…Oh, Mike, that’s horrible.”

  “Eli says anyone can learn to do it. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, it’s simple to stick a needle in someone’s vein, but I can’t imagine what kind of person could just leave it in and drain another person’s blood.”

  “Me either. Everybody wanted this guy dead, but I keep wondering why the person who actually did it went to all that trouble.”

  “If you wanted to kill someone,” she said, “how would you do it?”

  “I’d send him on a cross-country trip with my father. The poor bastard would probably blow his brains out before they got to Nebraska.”

  We turned in early. One of the key responsibilities of a homicide team is creating a Murder Book. It’s a detailed report of everything connected with the case. The only way to do it right is to document everything as you go along. The longer you wait to write it all down, the more stuff will slip through the cracks.

  We were only two days into Barry Gerber’s murder, but Terry and I had already fallen behind. He was picking me up at six so we could spend a few hours catching up on paperwork, instead of catching Barry’s killer.

  I set the clock for 5:30. Another pre-dawn wake-up call.

  Panning for gold was starting to sound better and better every day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I had a rotten night’s sleep. It was either that second cup of espresso, the pressure of a high-profile homicide, or the middle-of-the-night visit I had from the Ghost of Mrs. Lomax Past.

  From 4:49 on, I just lay in bed, watching the numbers on the digital clock change. At 5:25 I turned off the alarm so it wouldn’t wake Diana.

  I was showered, dressed, and ready to go out the door when the phone rang.

  “Mike?”

  It was my father. He sounded like shit. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

  “They took Damian.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was picking Damian up at his house. I put him in the car, and this pickup pulled up, and they knocked me out. A stun gun. When I came to, Damian was gone. They kidnapped him.”

  “Did you call 911?”

  “No, you’re on my speed dial. It was faster.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Damian’s house on Wyton Drive, just west of Beverly Glen. I figure if you’re at Diana’s, you’re only about three minutes away.”

  “I am. Where’s Dennis?”

  “I gave him the day off. He needed a break.”

  “You mean you needed to stick your nose in my case.”

  “I’m having trouble understanding you,” he said. “Did you hear the part about your poor old father who has a bad heart getting zapped with a stun gun?”

  “Oh shit,” I said. Jim has atrial fibrillation, which means his heart can suddenly go out of rhythm. He has to get it back on track or he’s a candidate for a stroke.

  The first time it happened he wound up in the hospital. The cardiologist put the defibrillator paddles to his chest and shocked his heart right back into its normal rhythm. They kept him twenty-four hours, then sent him home. The second time, Jim simply went out to the barn, fired up his tractor, licked his fingers, and touched the spark plugs.

  I went ballistic. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Hey, it worked,” he said. “I didn’t have to waste a day in the hospital and there’s no co-pay. Don’t tell an old trucker how to get something jump-started.”

  His doctor suggested a pacemaker, but Jim is afraid of surgery, so he has pills to take if he feels his heart start to flutter. I can’t think of anything that would knock it out of whack faster than a stun gun.

  “Do you have your meds with you?”

  “They’re at home. I wasn’t expecting a prob—”

  “Listen to me,” I said. “Can you call Angel and Frankie?”

  “Of course I can call them. It’s my heart that’s screwed up, not my dialing finger.”

  “Dad, I’m calling for paramedics. The closest hospital is UCLA Medical. Have Frankie and Angel meet you there in the ER.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m on my way. Stay where you are.”

  I hung up and called Wendy Burns at the station for backup and EMS. Then I called Terry.

  “I’m just getting off the 405,” he said. “I’ll be there in two minutes. What’s your take on this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Damian is our prime suspect,” Terry said. “Suddenly he gets kidnapped. It could be a publicity stunt.”

  “Some scumbag stun-gunned my father and knocked his heart out of whack,” I said. “If this kidnapping is a scam, that arrogant son-of-a-bitch Damian Hedge is going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Terry said. “Of course if it’s for real, he’s in a hell of a lot more.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  God love Wendy. It only took a few minutes for us to get to the scene, but she had a patrol car with two uniforms pulling in just as we showed up.

  “Dispatch said we got an abduction,” the older cop said.

  “Limo driver called it in,” I said. “Pickup truck, possibly two perps, no descriptions. Victim is Damian Hedge.”

  “The movie star?” the younger cop said.

  “Yeah, so it’s gonna get ugly. Give me a double perimeter. I want an inner circle around this vehicle. Crime lab only. Then lock up Wyton from Beverly Glen to Loring and rope off a section for the brass, the press, and the adoring fans.”

  “My fiancée is one of them,” the young cop said. “Me, I think he’s a jerk.”

  “Well, now he’s our jerk. Get moving.”

  They started stringing yellow crime scene tape, and Terry and I went over to the limo. Jim was sitting in the driver’s seat with his door open and his feet on the ground. He looked a little shaky, but nothing a trip to the ER couldn’t cure. I was relieved and pissed at the same time. Part of me wa
nted to hug him; part of me wanted to throttle him for meddling in my case.

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t get up on our account.”

  “Man,” he said. “I was so suckered.”

  “Shut up,” I said. I put my fingers on his pulse. I gave it twenty seconds.

  “How’s he doing?” Terry said.

  “His heart rate is perfect,” I said. “For a twenty-two-year-old who just finished a triathlon. But for a 300-pound old fart who eats an entire box of Krispy Kremes in a single sitting—”

  “Two eighty-seven,” Jim said. “I told you I lost—”

  “The two of you, cut it out,” Terry said. “Jim, tell us what happened.”

  “Thank you, Detective Biggs. At least one cop isn’t blaming the victim. Let me think…I got here at 5:45. I sat in the car about ten minutes, then Damian comes out of the house. He’s yakking on his cell phone. He’s got a coffee mug in the other hand. I jump out, open the back door, he gets in the car.”

  “Do you know who he was on the phone with?” Terry asked.

  “I only picked up a few seconds of it, but it didn’t sound like business. I heard something like, ‘I love it when you do that baby,’ so I’m guessing he was talking to some tomato he was banging.”

  “So you got him in the car,” Terry said. “Then what?”

  “I close the back door and I start to come around to my side. I heard this pickup truck come up behind me, but there was plenty of room, so I figured it was passing. I open my door and the pickup stops. My back is to him, but I hear a guy jump out of the passenger side.”

  “So there were at least two of them in the pickup.”

  “Had to be,” Jim said. “The truck was still rolling when the guy got out. Next thing I know, I feel this incredible pain in my back, like a million needles shooting into me, and I fall face-down on the driver’s seat. I’m seeing all these flashing colors behind my eyes, and I think I hear Damian yelling, but I’m paralyzed. I can’t move. Then the pain starts to lift, and I hear a door slam, and then another voice says, ‘Shoot him again.’ I knew it was coming, and this time it was worse. It’s like somebody ripping you open and touching every nerve in your body. I blacked out. By the time I could move, they were gone.”

  “I got a question for the victim,” I said. “Why don’t you keep your heart medication in the glove box?”

  “Which glove box? I got at least fifty of them.”

  The ambulance and two more squad cars pulled up.

  “He’s in A-fib,” I said to the paramedics.

  One of them took his vitals while the other rattled off questions, which Big Jim answered reluctantly.

  “Mr. Lomax,” the paramedic said, “you’re going for a ride in our limo. We need to get your heart back to normal sinus rhythm.”

  “If you open the hood of this Lincoln,” Jim said, “I can do it myself.”

  “Why don’t you just stick your tongue in the cigarette lighter?” I said.

  “I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m the only living witness you got. You’re better off if I stay here and answer questions.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Answer this: how come you were driving Damian Hedge? And don’t tell me Dennis needed the day off.”

  “I don’t feel well enough to answer stupid questions,” Jim said.

  “Gentlemen,” I said to the paramedics. “I’m the detective in charge. Take this man to the ER. If he doesn’t go willingly, I’ll cuff him.”

  They helped Jim stand up. “I’m calling my lawyer,” he said to me.

  “You charging me with police brutality?”

  “No, I’m writing you out of my will.”

  By the time Jim was carted off to the hospital, the area had filled up with cop cars, media vans, and gawkers. Unlike the scene on El Contento, there wasn’t much to gawk at. An empty limo and a bunch of cops looking for clues.

  There was a broken coffee mug just outside the limo door. But the young guy whose fiancée was a fan of Damian’s came up the big winner. He found a cell phone in a flower patch about thirty feet from the car.

  “Looks like he tried to run,” Terry said. “But he didn’t get far.”

  Terry had just put Damian’s cell phone in an evidence bag when Lt. Kilcullen showed up.

  “And you boys thought you were overworked before,” he said.

  “We’re homicide, Loo,” Terry said. “Won’t it be spreading us a little thin if you pile on a kidnapping?”

  “Kidnapping, my fat Irish ass. It looks more like Damian Hedge is a viable murder suspect, and he took it on the lam. I already spoke to the Deputy Chief. There are no jurisdictional issues. This is all part of your case. What have you got so far?”

  We caught him up on the session in Damian’s trailer.

  “So this guy Hedge hated the victim, has motive up the wazoo, is trained to draw blood, and has no alibi,” Kilcullen said. “A good prosecutor could go pretty far with that.”

  “And lose,” I said. “Everybody hated the victim, and drawing blood ain’t brain surgery. A good defense lawyer would win with a two-word summation. Reasonable doubt.”

  “Yeah, well I got some reasonable doubt of my own,” Kilcullen said. “The day after Hedge gets grilled by the cops, someone drives by his house, knocks out his limo driver, and kidnaps him? Pretty convenient, if you ask me. Kind of like a bad movie. This guy isn’t kidnapped. He’s skipping town. Find him.”

  Kilcullen is a giant pain in the ass, but he’s a smart cop. Maybe his theory wasn’t as dumb as it sounded. Maybe the whole kidnapping scenario was just an act. I remembered what Halsey said Monday night at the restaurant: If it has a little mystery to it…a little drama…I’d suspect someone with a sense of theater. Damian Hedge comes to mind.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Wake him up,” Roger said

  Aggie held the ammonium carbonate ampule under Damian’s nostrils and snapped it between her fingers.

  “Fuck me,” Damian screamed as his brain was jolted into consciousness.

  “Language, please,” Roger said.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Roger. This here’s my wife, Aggie.”

  Damian tried to sit up. His chest pressed hard against the strap, but it didn’t budge. He tried to raise his arms, his legs, but they, too, were lashed down tight. “What the fuck,” he yelled. “Untie me.”

  Roger held the sickly-sweet-smelling bandana a few feet from Damian’s nose. “Chloroform,” he said. “No more yelling, no more cussing, or you go back to dreamland.”

  Damian twisted his head a few inches to the left to get away from the smell. He clamped his mouth shut. But inside he was screaming, Who are these people? Where am I? What do they want? How long have I been here?

  “That’s better,” Roger said, tossing the red bandana to the side. “Relax for a few minutes. Aggie and I are still prepping.”

  Damian was flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling. The halogen light was harsh, so he cast his eyes down. There was a sheet draped over his body. He pressed down and felt the smooth metal surface under his butt. He was stripped naked and strapped to a metal table.

  “Why are you doing this?” he said.

  “Don’t speak until you’re spoken to,” Roger said.

  Damian squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think. Stalkers. Crazies, holding me for ransom. That’s probably what happened to Barry, but he was too stubborn to pay. I’ll pay, they’ll let me go, then I’ll identify them. The idiot gave me his name. Roger. Probably a fake. But you can’t fake a description. White guy, mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, about six foot, jeans, cowboy shirt. The woman is five-four, gray hair, bony hands, looks like a bad casting director’s idea of a farm wife. Well, you can kiss the farm good-bye, lady. When I get out of here, I will hire every private detective in LA. You and your cowboy husband are dead.

  “How much ransom money do you want?” Damian said.

  “You just don’t listen, do you?” Rog
er said. He picked up the bandana.

  Damian strained to turn his head away. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was just trying to make it easy on you.”

  Roger laughed. “You hear that, Aggie? He’s just trying to make it easy on us.” He put the bandana back down. “Go ahead, Mr. Hedge. Tell me how you’re gonna make my life easy.”

  “Money,” Damian said. “It’s always about money. You kidnapped me. Naturally you expect the studio to pay ransom. But that’s the thing about studios. Some tight-fisted, hook-nosed accountant does a cost analysis, and says this ain’t worth the money. That’s why so many movies suck. The money people cut the budgets.”

  “You’re making no sense boy,” Roger said. “We ain’t making no movie.”

  “Okay, what I’m saying is, you can’t count on the studio to pay the ransom. So I’ll pay it. How much are we talking about here? A million bucks? That’s the classic Hollywood ransom number. But, what the hell, what with inflation and the high price of gas, I’ll give you two million.”

  “Save your money, Mr. Hedge. I ain’t interested.”

  “Fine. What does it take? We all have a price. How much do you want?”

  “You don’t have enough money, boy.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Damian said. “I make more money for one picture than you two Beverly Hillbillies could spend in a lifetime.”

  “Roger, I’m all ready.” It was the woman.

  “Ready for what?” Damian said. “Tell her we’re in negotiation here.”

  “Negotiations are over,” Roger said, pulling the sheet off Damian’s body.

  Damian strained against the straps. “Is this how you get your kicks? You sick perverts. What the hell is that in her hand?”

  “Needle,” Roger said. “But it won’t hurt. Aggie knows what she’s doing. She’s a professional.”

  “I’ll get you ten million, twenty million.” Damian was whimpering now. “Please.”

  “You might feel a little prick,” Roger said.

  Aggie reached down between Damian’s legs and rubbed an alcohol swab on his femoral vein. “You talking to him,” she said, laughing, “or me?”