Nora said, “Mr. Crocker, I apologize again for the injuries you sustained, but you understand, we thought you had a gun in the front seat.”
“Right. But I didn’t have a gun, and we’re going to sue you for unlawfully assaulting me, right, Beri? We’re going for millions.”
“Rudy, let the lieutenant talk. We’re just listening to what she has to say.”
“It’s Rude,” said Crocker. “My nickname.”
“You also understand, don’t you, Mr. Crocker,” Nora continued as if Rude hadn’t spoken, “that once we were inside that van, we saw some very disturbing decor.”
“Nothing in that van is admissible,” said the attorney. “My client was not armed. And you had no cause to search the vehicle. What else have you got?”
“Let’s talk about the van, okay, Ms. Hunt? It was lined with construction-grade black plastic, and the toolbox we found inside there was full of electrodes and clamps. So we’ve gotta ask what those tools were for.
“Any reasonable person, especially one who has seen the bodies of thirteen dead girls and has seen how they were killed, might think that the van was lined with plastic so as not to get any bodily fluids on the interior when your client tortured and killed another young girl.”
“I just like to keep the van in mint condition for resale,” Crocker said, but his smile was gone, at least temporarily.
“Don’t say anything,” Hunt said. “This detective is firing blanks in the dark.”
“Well, I have some live ammo now,” said Nora. “And it’s getting nice and bright in here.”
She opened the folder in front of her and turned the top sheet around so that Hunt and Crocker could see the report from Private’s lab.
Hunt put on her glasses. “This is a DNA analysis,” she said.
“That’s correct,” said Nora Cronin. “You don’t have to answer any questions, Mr. Crocker, because I’m not asking a question. I’m letting your attorney know what we have so she can defend you from the charges we will be making against you.
“This report positively matches your DNA to the DNA found on Wendy Borman’s shirt.”
“I’m sorry,” said Hunt. “Who is Wendy Borman?”
“Tell her, Mr. Crocker. Never mind. I’ll do it. In 2006, a seventeen-year-old girl named Wendy Borman was Tasered on the street. After that, Mr. Crocker held her under the arms and his friend Mr. Fitzhugh took her by the ankles, and they swung her into a van.
“A day later, Wendy Borman turned up dead. Her clothing was properly stored, and the DNA left behind on her socks and her shirt was matched conclusively to Mr. Fitzhugh and to your dirtbag client.
“The kidnapping of Wendy Borman was witnessed,” Nora continued. “The witness can positively identify your client, and she will testify.”
The lawyer said, “Do you have any proof that my client had anything to do with her death, Lieutenant? Touching and killing are two different things entirely.”
Nora turned to Justine and said, “Dr. Smith. Want to clue Ms. Hunt in?”
Chapter 115
JUSTINE SAT DOWN at the table next to Nora, across from Crocker and his famous attorney. It felt like her pulse was beating in the low hundreds, but she thought she had her game face under control. She’d been looking forward to this.
She opened the folder and took out the wonderful photo of Wendy Borman standing between her two parents, taller than both of them, arms around their shoulders.
Wendy had been more than just beautiful. She’d looked like she was all set to win at life.
The pendant hanging from Wendy’s necklace was circled with a marker pen, and Justine produced a close-up of that pendant.
It was an unusual gold star, almost like a starfish, with the points waving at the ends. It looked custom-made, one of a kind, and it was. The jeweler in Santa Monica was still in business and could identify the piece.
The lawyer stared at the picture, then looked up with a question on her face.
Justine reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small glassine bag with Wendy Borman’s necklace inside.
“Your client was using this as a light pull, Ms. Hunt,” she said. “Mr. Crocker’s fingerprints are on it—and so is Ms. Borman’s blood. It’s engraved on the back: ‘To Wendy with Love, M and D.’
“I photographed this charm hanging in Mr. Crocker’s closet. Lieutenant Cronin witnessed it. We’ve got more than enough to hold your client on suspicion of murder while we negotiate with Mr. Fitzhugh.”
“I want to speak with my client in private,” Hunt said.
“Great. Do that,” said Nora. “A couple of things you should know. We obtained a warrant for Mr. Crocker’s office computer and it’s being strip-searched right now. We’ve already found incriminating e-mails between Mr. Crocker and Mr. Fitzhugh saying where and when each of the thirteen girls was killed.”
Justine watched Crocker go from Cool Dude Rude to a kid who was about to shit his shorts.
“Something else you should both know,” Nora went on. “Mr. Fitzhugh is in the hospital under police protection. He hasn’t seen a lawyer, but we’ve explained to him what we’ve just explained to Mr. Crocker. Ms. Hunt, you know the drill.
“You can take a chance with a jury. Or. You have a very small window of time to get ahead of this before Mr. Fitzhugh flips on your client and makes his own deal.”
“I saw Mr. Fitzhugh this morning at the hospital,” Justine said. “He understands that picking up a fifteen-year-old girl with intent to kill isn’t going to play well with a jury.
“Professionally speaking, I don’t think Mr. Fitzhugh has the stomach to wait on death row for the needle. He’s a sensitive and very logical person. And logically, that’s too much stress for him. Frankly, he’s on the verge of cracking wide open. If he hasn’t already.”
Justine felt a little giddiness lifting her voice, but it didn’t matter, so she went on. “The district attorney wants to try both of you,” Justine said to Crocker. “But Michael Fescoe, my good friend and chief of police, wants to keep things simple. The first confession wins.
“So you decide,” Justine said, clasping her hands on the table in front of her. “Who gets life? Who gets death? Right now, it’s up to you, Rude.”
Chapter 116
JUSTINE FELT WIRED and almost high as she left her office for the meeting at city hall. She touched up her lipstick, took the elevator down to the street, and got into the backseat of the fleet car.
Jack was at the wheel, Cruz in the passenger seat.
“You okay, Justine?” Cruz asked her.
“Yeah. Why do you ask? Because the mayor wants to see us now and didn’t say why? Or because my brain has been permanently polluted by a serial killer?”
“Tell him, Justine,” Jack said with a big smile. “I haven’t had a chance.”
Cruz turned his head and grinned at her. “Yeah, Justine, tell me everything.”
“So okay. After Crocker fires his attorney, he tells us about killing Wendy Borman in this grandiose, halfway laughing, private-school voice of his.
“Here’s a quote, Emilio,” Justine went on. “‘It was a game, and I want credit. Why else would I have done all this planning and, you know, execution?’ ”
Cruz whistled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. He actually said that?”
“He was shooting for the top slot,” Jack said. “Or the bottom—depends on how you look at it.”
“Exactly. ‘Rude’ wants to be known as the most atrocious piece-of-crap serial killer in his ‘age bracket’ in the history of LA,” Justine said.
“Like it or not, I guess he’s going to have to share that honor with Fitzhugh. As for the fourteen victims we knew about? Crocker hints maybe there are more. He may even have some information for us on Jason Pilser’s so-called suicide. Then he asks to speak to the DA.”
Jack picked up the story from there. Justine put her head back and closed her eyes as Jack told Cruz that Bobby Petino had made a deal with Crocker: n
o death penalty for a full confession to the other killings, whatever number there were.
After that, Bobby had left the interrogation room as cool as ice. He didn’t care why the kid was a psycho-killer.
But Justine had to understand why these privileged kids had become monsters. Crocker and Fitzhugh reminded Justine of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, another pair of brilliant teenagers who killed a schoolmate in the early 1900s, to see if they could get away with it. Smart as they thought they were, they made a rookie mistake and were sent to prison for life. It came out later that those boys had had an acted-out but unacknowledged homosexual attachment.
Crocker and Fitzhugh had tortured their female victims, but none of the girls had been sexually assaulted. Were Crocker and Fitzhugh Leopold and Loeb all over again?
There were more questions than answers about the nature of their psychoses, and many different bags to choose from: genetic predisposition, trauma, brain physiology, and the ever popular “who the hell knows, because we’re all different, right?”
As a potential witness against him, Justine couldn’t spend any more time with Crocker, but she wished she could. That reptile would have told her anything she wanted to know—as long as it was about him.
Jack pulled into the garage behind city hall, opened the door for Justine, and gave her a hand.
Justine got to her feet, lowered her sunglasses, and said, “I’m just warning you, Jack. If the mayor tries to kick our butts for roughing up those bastards, I’m gonna kick back.”
Chapter 117
MAYOR THOMAS HEFFERON was a wiry man with thick gray hair and a hanging left arm from an injury he’d taken in Desert Storm. Chief Fescoe, at a muscular six-three, looked like a bodyguard standing next to him, but Hefferon could handle himself just fine.
Hefferon motioned all of us—Justine, Cruz, Fescoe, Petino, Cronin, and myself—to join him at the glass conference table with its long view of the skyline.
He said, “I’m glad all of you could make it on such short notice. Chief Fescoe has news.”
Fescoe folded his hands on the table. “Eamon Fitzhugh made a deal with Bobby and confessed to his part in killing Wendy Borman. We’ve got his computer at the lab now. Turns out this sick SOB must have obsessive-compulsive disorder,” the police chief said. “He saved every file, every text message back to 2006. It’s going to take weeks to figure out the wireless eavesdropping program he used to bait the victims. That freak is kind of a genius, I’ve been told.”
Justine said, “That’s interesting, Mickey. Crocker thinks of himself as the genius. He calls Fitzhugh a tool.”
Cronin said, “Both of them are tools. So that’s it, huh? I get my life back after two years? Hey, now I don’t know what to do with myself.”
After the laughter stopped, Hefferon said, “You folks did a tremendous job. Chief, it took guts to bring Private in on the case. Jack, hope to see you again.
“Justine, Nora, all those hours, and years, more than paid off. You too, Emilio. I hear you scared the snot out of Fitzhugh. Fact is, LA is a safer place because of your dedication. Thank you.”
Damn, but that thanks felt good. Whatever brain chemical it released made my whole body happy. No amount of money could compare to the high of taking out the trash and slamming down the lid, knowing it was nailed shut for good.
We were sipping champagne and joking around as we had our pictures taken with the mayor, when my phone signaled me from my inside breast pocket.
It was a voice mail message transferred from my office phone and marked “urgent.” The caller was a Michael Donahue.
I knew the name but couldn’t place it—then it came to me like a punch to the face. Donahue was the owner of the Irish pub Colleen frequented.
I hit a button, listened to Donahue speaking gravely in his heavy Irish brogue. I replayed the message so I could be sure of what he had said.
“Jack. It’s bad. Colleen is at Glendale Memorial Hospital. Room four eleven. You need to come there quickly.”
Chapter 118
I TORE UP the freeway north, heading toward the hospital.
I tried to reach Donahue, but my calls went straight to voice mail.
I was scared, preoccupied, and the exit came up too fast.
I twisted the wheel hard and lost control. The car fishtailed, came to a stop, and stalled out five inches from a concrete divider.
Horns honked as freeway traffic flashed by me at seventy. My hands shook as I restarted the engine and finally made it safely down the off-ramp. Jeez, I’d almost totaled my car, and maybe myself.
Twenty-five minutes after getting Donahue’s call, I bulled my way through the lobby of Glendale Memorial and stabbed the elevator button until the doors opened and then closed behind me.
By some kind of blind bloodhound instinct, I found Colleen’s room on the first try.
I strong-armed the swinging door, and Donahue got up from the bedside chair, came toward me, and shook my hand.
“Take it easy on her, Jack. She’s not well.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll leave the two of you alone.”
Colleen’s cheeks were flushed. Her hair was damp at her temples. The white cotton blankets covered her to her chin.
She looked very small in the bed, like a feverish child.
I took Mike’s vacated chair, leaned over, and touched her shoulder. I was scared for her. She’d never been sick since I’d met her. Not a day.
“Colleen. It’s Jack.”
She opened her blue eyes and nodded when she saw me.
“Are you okay? What happened?” I asked.
Medication dragged at her voice. “I’m going home.”
“What are you saying? To Dublin?”
A terrible thought came to me—like a balled fist to the gut. “Were you pregnant? Did you lose the baby?”
Colleen’s blank expression became a smile. She laughed and then she was swept up in a kind of hysteria that turned to sobs. She put her hands up by her cheeks, and I saw shocking white bands of gauze and tape binding her wrists.
The gauze was striped with bright blood, which was seeping through.
What had she done?
“I told Mike not to call you. I’m mortified for you to see me like this…. I’ll be all right. Please go, Jack. I’m fine now.”
“What were you thinking, Colleen?”
I thought back over the past weeks and months. I hadn’t noticed that Colleen was depressed. How had I missed it? What the hell was wrong with me sometimes?
“I was completely daft,” she said. “I just hurt so much. You don’t have to tell me again. I know it’s over.”
“Colleen. Oh, Colleen,” I whispered.
She closed her eyes, and shame washed over me. Guilt and shame. I did care about Colleen, but she cared more. It had been selfish of me to stay with her for so long, when I knew we’d gone as far as we could go. I’d hurt this woman—and she’d done this to herself. What a terrible thing.
I don’t know how long the silence between us lasted. Maybe it was only a minute, but it was time enough to think about what Colleen meant to me and to try to imagine a future for the two of us. It was sad, but I just couldn’t see it.
“At least you won’t be having to listen to my queer way of talkin’,” she said.
“Don’t you know that I love to listen to your voice?”
“You were good to me, Jack. Always. I won’t forget that.”
“Damn it, Molloy. I want you to be happy.”
She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“You too,” she said. “I want that for you too.”
Neither of us said another word.
I kissed her good-bye, then I walked out, and I knew I would never see Colleen again, and that was my loss.
I had let another good woman get away, hadn’t I? What the hell was wrong with me?
Chapter 119
I HAD PLANNED a “wrap party” at the Pacific Dining Car to thank t
he guys in the lab as well as the primaries on the Schoolgirl case for a job extremely well done.
After seeing Colleen, I couldn’t celebrate and I couldn’t fake it.
I phoned Sci, told him I had a family emergency, and asked him to stand in for me as host. Then I did the unthinkable. I turned off my phone.
I drove to Forest Lawn, an old and sprawling cemetery where dozens of celebrities were buried. My sweet mom was buried there too.
She’d been taken down by a previously undiagnosed heart disease during the heat and ugliness of my father’s trial. It was a sharp, unexpected ending to an unfulfilled life. Maybe it was my mother and father’s bad relationship that kept me away from marriage.
I took off my jacket and sat on the grass near her simple stone, engraved with hands folded in prayer above an inscription: “Sandra Kreutzer Morgan is with God.”
A lawn mower hummed in the distance, and I saw the flash of Mylar balloons, probably hovering over the grave of some poor child buried nearby.
I didn’t talk to my mother’s bones or her spirit. I didn’t even pray until just before I left.
But I thought about the good times we’d had together: the rare picnics, a few tailgate parties after football games, watching Peter Sellers movies with her on late-night TV. She had probably seen The Pink Panther a hundred times. So had I. So had Tommy.
I grinned thinking about that, and after a while I rolled my jacket into a pillow and lay down. I got mesmerized by the slow shifting of the oak leaves in the branches overhead.
And then I fell off the planet for a while.
I must have slept long and deep, because I was awakened by a groundskeeper shaking my arm, saying, “Sir, we’re closing. You have to leave, sir.”
I touched Mom’s stone, found my car, and as the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, my car seemed to drive itself to a pretty carriage house I knew well in the flats of Beverly Hills.
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