by Rick Mofina
“It’s early in the investigation. But given what we know about the scene, the highly ritualistic nature, it’s definitely organized. Very planned, ceremonial, almost requiem-like. You’ve got to look at his victim selection, his likely use of a con to gain control. Control fits with his organization and planning. The mutilation likely has little to do with hampering her identification, because he left her car, her fingerprints. The display magnifies his desire to have her found, have the world know. He’s fulfilling a fantasy. His annihilation of her face is his way of depersonalizing her. Could be he’s physically disfigured himself, or suffering deep psychological wounding. He wants to amplify or signal his pain. Obliterating her face could be linked to his ritualistic behavior, which probably arises from a traumatic event involving women. Possibly this woman, or this ‘type’ of woman. He’s likely done this before. Something inside him is raging. Possible anger that he’s not been noticed. I agree with Inspector Sydowski, he’ll likely do this again.”
A couple of moments passed while everyone digested Boyd’s preliminary take and the potential magnitude of the case. Detectives handling the bridal shop aspects told Gonzales that so far they had not found any link between Iris Wood and Forever & Ever, nor any association with the Carruthers woman whose wedding dress she was wearing at the time of her murder.
“Fine,” Gonzales said, “so how did he manage to gain entry to the shop? Did any security cameras from businesses in the area record anything?”
That was Ben Wyatt’s assignment. Eyes went around the table. No Wyatt. Missing a status meeting was a dangerous thing. Sydowski clenched his teeth, glaring at Gonzales, who deflected Sydowski’s heat.
“I’ll catch up with Inspector Wyatt later,” Gonzales said. “Walt, how did you do at her apartment?”
“Crime Scene said it was clean. Her computer could be significant. “Seems she spent a lot of time with on-line singles, chat rooms.”
Karen Noletto, an FBI agent assisting on the case, noted that on-line dating had led to some tragic cases of cyber-stalking.
“Sure.” Sydowski nodded. “I’d like some expert help on it to get into her stuff, see who she’s been communicating with. The FBI is on top of this sort of thing.”
“But you’ve got an expert on the case already.”
“Who?” Sydowski said.
“Wyatt’s the guy for that,” Noletto said.
“And do you see him here? That guy can’t even make the damn meetings. If you think for one second that I would trust him --”
Gonzales raised his hand. “Step back, Walter. I know Wyatt’s got experience.”
“He did a lot of work with our Computer Intrusion Squad in Hayward,” Noletto said. “And IE stuff at Palo Alto, some early trial work with Carnivore.”
“That computer surveillance thing?”
“Yes,” Noletto said. “Did a lot of research on his own time. We assumed he was put on the case as your computer crimes person.”
“We’ll take your recommendation under advisement,” Gonzales said, then began making assignments on the case.
The meeting was nearly over when Wyatt arrived.
“Case status meetings are a priority, Inspector,” Gonzales said.
“I was checking something. Sorry.”
“How did our guy gain entry without triggering the alarm?”
“I think it was from outside the system.”
Sydowski shook his head. “We know most guys can bypass a system at the keypad. How exactly did our guy do it? If we knew, it might be a lead.”
“Some kind of intrusion from outside. I still need more time to work on it. And I’d like to look at her computer, so we can determine the last sites she visited, the last people she communicated with.”
“I’d like the FBI to look at her computer, Wyatt,” Sydowski said. “I want you to check the cameras from the businesses nearby.”
Gonzales stepped in. “We’ll talk about this later. We’re wrapped up until next time.”
As the meeting broke up, the secretary from the homicide detail called from the door for Turgeon.
“Linda, a Penny Dumay here for you.”
She was sitting in a chair in the reception area of the squad room, an attractive well-dressed twenty-something, twisting the straps of her purse, when Turgeon and Sydowski greeted her.
“Walt, Penny was the last person to see Iris. She’s the one waving to her in the campus parking lot.”
“Thanks for coming down, Penny,” Sydowski said.
They moved to an interview room.
“You left town the morning after your class?” Turgeon said.
“Yes. I’m a flight attendant. Dallas to Miami and back. I hurried down here as soon as I got your message on my machine; then I connected it with the news reports. It’s so terrible. We walked to our cars together just the other night.”
“Yes, we’re going to get your statement. But off the top, can you remember anything that stands out from the people in the class or the parking lot?”
“There’s one thing, I thought about this on the way down, after I’d read the news reports, because I didn’t see any mention of it.”
“What’s that?”
“When she drove off, a dark car drove off.”
“Routine parking lot movement, maybe?”
“Not really. This car was parked in the shadows, at the edge of the lot.”
“Wouldn’t have showed up on our tape, Walt,” Turgeon said.
“Remember a plate, or markings, color, anything, Penny?” Sydowski said.
“Nothing like that. It was dark.”
“Big car? Small?”
“Not small. Midsize maybe.”
“What about occupants?”
“One. Yes, only one. A man. He was looking in our direction, like he was waiting. I’m certain he was waiting.”
“How can you be certain?”
“I heard him start his motor when Iris started hers. Then he followed her.”
NINETEEN
South of Los Angeles in Santa Ana, on the edge of the old Civic Center Barrio, Maggie Nox finished sweeping the floor of a community hall.
Her steps echoed as she shut off every light, except the spotlight over the piano, an ancient upright Baldwin with a fancy carved walnut finish.
Maggie sat on the bench and began a soft ballad, the strains wafting in the dark, empty building. She was a community volunteer who came twice a week to clean the hall, which was used for meetings and the occasional wedding reception. Playing the piano after cleaning was Maggie’s private reward. It had become a small pleasure in her life.
Tonight as she played, Maggie wondered if she had the courage to make a change. In the last year or so, she had begun to examine her situation. A shy self-conscious thirty-three-year-old who never went to college because she had stayed home to care for her sick mother, who died in her sleep a few years ago. Maggie was unmarried. She lived in a small apartment a few blocks away. Six days a week she took the bus to her job as a department store clerk in the Red Hills Mall east of Fifty-five. Every day was the same: old ladies complaining about shoes and underwear.
A noise. She stopped playing.
Had someone entered the building?
“Hello?” Maggie said to the darkness.
Nothing. She resumed her ballad.
Maggie was feeling increasingly restless about her life. Nearly a year ago, she had volunteered with an international emergency aid charity which told her about a two-year posting in Africa, teaching music in developing countries. Maggie was interested but the opportunity fell through after the agency’s staff changed at its Los Angeles office.
Then an old high school friend offered her a job with a music store in Cleveland. Maggie was uncertain about moving, about changing anything in her humble existence. Maybe she needed to meet a guy?
She laughed at how she now had “virtual boyfriends” after she had read a cool story a few months ago in the Register. The article said shy people w
ere meeting each other on-line. Some dated. Some even got married. Maggie decided to give it a try, figuring it was quite harmless if you were careful and didn’t give out private information.
She stopped the music.
Sounded like a chair scraping.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Anybody there?”
Nothing.
Maggie shrugged. The old building was probably settling after last week’s tiny trembler. Little aftershocks. Happened all the time. As she resumed playing, she reflected on some of the new friends she made on-line among the discussion groups, chat rooms, e-mail exchanges. It made her realize many people were living solitary lives, yearning for someone to talk to. Like that guy aching to change his life, the way he keeps asking if the right man came along would she forgive all the sins of his past life.
Maggie’s heart went out to him and she had recently responded: I could forgive all of his sins only if he could forgive mine.
He had responded the other day: You could be The One for me.
Maggie froze.
The stage floor creaked. That’s close. A curtain swayed at the edge of the darkness.
“This isn’t funny.”
Silence.
“Did you hear me?”
A switch-clicking like a tool or instrument being adjusted. Maggie swallowed.
Someone was definitely behind the curtain.
A car alarm next to the hall exploded with deafening whelping and horn honking. Then it sounded like a rear door of the hall thudding. Maggie hurried to the lights, hit them all. She went to the hall’s side door. A handful of laughing young boys were a few feet away, gathered around a new car which looked a little too nice for the neighborhood. The loud alarm was causing a commotion. A Santa Ana police car appeared, lights flashing, screeched to a halt. Two officers stepped out, talked to a man in dark glasses who was having trouble shutting off the alarm. Maggie heard the stranger say: “It’s a new rental, sorry.”
One of the officers helped him kill the noise before the stranger got in and drove off.
His partner asked Maggie: “Everything all right in the hall there, ma’am?”
Maggie thought for a moment, then nodded.
Later, after locking up the hall, she walked home quicker than she usually did, wishing she had asked the police officers for a ride.
It was a warm night but Maggie couldn’t stop the icy chills running up and down her spine. She was convinced someone had been in the hall.
Watching her from the darkness.
TWENTY
In the San Francisco Star’s newsroom, Reed was putting the final touches on his short news article on Iris Wood’s murder for the first edition.
He had some color from her landlord. “What sort of monster would do this to such a gentle soul?” He was a retired chemist. The Star took a nice photo of him holding Jack, Iris’s cat outside her apartment.
Reed had a few quotes from the news conference at American Eagle Federated Insurance, where she had worked and where no one really knew her. But Tim Fairfield, the company executive handling press questions, refused to put it in those terms. “We respected her privacy, as I hope you will respect ours.” He asked the press to refrain from pursuing American’s employees for more information. “They are coping as well as can be expected.”
Yeah, right. Judging from the calls Reed made into the place, much of the staff did not even know she existed. “Iris who? What? That woman murdered in the bride shop worked for us?” The switchboard was still putting calls through to her extension.
Reed had worked through lunch and got a bag of potato chips from the newsroom vending machine. His stomach was growling when he returned to his desk, opening his bag, reaching in for the first big chip when his phone rang.
“Reed.”
“Just read your story,” Brader said. “Tells me nothing I didn’t already know.”
Reed swiveled in his chair catching a glimpse of Brader in his glass-walled office at his computer, phone to his ear. Reed began crunching his chips, making a point of smacking his lips.
“You knew her cat’s name was Jack? You knew she was a researcher who wrote bereavement guides? You knew all this but never told anyone? Have police talked to you? Because you’re scaring me, Clyde.” Reed reached for another chip. “What do you do in your spare time, when you’re not clawing your way to the top?”
“I’m warning you, Reed. I want an exclusive in-depth profile for the weekend.”
“I’m working on it as we speak.” Reed continued crunching until Brader hung up.
Reed opened a soda, glad he never told Brader, or anyone, about his tip from Slim. Not at this point. He needed to develop it, verify it, parlay it. He had tried. Oh, how he tried. Working sources in traffic, California Highway Patrol, the counties, feds like the FBI, DEA, the city, every law enforcement agency where he trusted somebody, carefully and delicately asking what they were hearing on the Stern Grove scene, if anyone had heard of any leads on how or why Iris Wood’s car came to be there. He never once gave up his information, sniffing peripherally to see if anything out there substantiated Slim’s story. Of course, Sydowski was the primary and the key. All day long Reed had tried in vain to reach him. Left messages on his phone in the Hall, on his cell phone. No response. As if on cue, Reed’s line rang. Maybe it was Sydowski. Come on, Walt.
“Tom Reed,” he answered like someone awaiting confirmation of a lottery win.
“It’s me,” his wife said.
“Oh. Hi.”
“My voice bring you down, Tom?”
“Ann. No. Hi. No. I was just expecting another call.”
“Well, are you going to ask me?”
“What? I’m sorry, what?”
“About Zach. I went to the specialist today, who sent us to another one.”
“Yeah, I was going to call you. How did it go?” Reed’s cell phone trilled. Damn. That could be Sydowski. “Ann, just wait, please, I got another call.” Why did this always happen when he was talking to Ann? He answered the cell.
“Thomas,” Reed recognized the voice of a justice source who always called him by that name.
“Hey, what did you find?”
“From the details you gave me, this Slim is real, right down to the tattoo and earring. He’s one of ours. Small-time thief stealing for his monkey.”
“Thanks.”
The source gave Reed Slim’s full name.
“So, you going to tell me what’s up, Reed? Slim got himself jammed? You never told me anything more.”
“No. At this point he could be a hero.”
“Right.”
“Leave him alone now.”
“My plate’s full with real trouble.”
“Thanks.”
Reed went back to Ann.
“So what did the doctor say?”
“He’s having some kind of environmental reaction.”
“Is it serious? Does he have to go into the hospital?”
“No, but --”
Reed’s other line rang.
“Hang on, Ann.”
It was a copy editor with a question on his story. “Tom, is the cat’s name really ‘Jack Jack’ or is that a typo?”
Reed called up his copy. “One Jack.”
“The cat’s name is One Jack?”
“Jack. The cat’s name is Jack.”
Reed went back to Ann.
“Trying to talk like this is ridiculous, Tom.”
“Ann, you know it’s deadline time.”
“We should talk at home. Are you going to be late tonight?”
“Well --” His cell phone rang. “Darn. Just a minute.”
Reed grabbed his phone.
“Reed, Sydowski.”
“Walt! I know you’re busy, but we should meet right away. I’ve come across something.”
“No time.”
“It’s on Wood.”
“Tom, tell me now.”
“A witness called me.�
�
“Witness to what?”
“We should meet.”
“I am not playing games with you, Reed.”
‘Walter, you told me to ‘stay with this one.’ Trust me, we should meet.”
“What’s this pertain to?”
“Stern Grove.”
Sydowski sighed. “I’ll be at the diner I go to in North Beach. One hour.”
“Thanks.”
Reed went to Ann who had heard Reed’s end of the conversation. “Try not to be late, Tom.”
TWENTY-ONE
The Oasis was slivered between a head-shop and mystic bookstore about mid-hill on a narrow North Beach side street around the block from where Sydowski’s old man used to cut hair.
It had eight high-backed booths, twelve stools at the counter, and walls darkened by time. Its menu had changed little since the cook from a Greek freighter opened the place in the 1920s, passing it to his sons who passed it to their sons.
Guys who had built the Golden Gate had been regulars, along with blue-collar types who kept the city moving then and now.
Sydowski did not come here as much as he used to, but he liked it. The greasy smells alone were enough to take him back to when he was a kid, clutching the money his old man gave him on Saturdays to pick up cheeseburgers and french fries, rushing back to the barbershop where beat cops had dropped by. Usually, to provide the details that were absent from the latest crime stories reported in the Examiner, Chronicle and Star.
So long ago, Sydowski thought, sitting there in the back booth with his mushroom soup and slabs of garlic toast. They were good days. He was lucky to have Louise. He managed to call her today. She had gone to his house in the Parkside to check on his birds. “I know you’re busy with your case, Walter. Tomorrow, I’ll drive to Pacifica and pay your dad a little visit.” Louise was an incredible woman. He had told her about his concern for Reggie Pope, the history with Wyatt, how Wyatt had joined the investigation. She had let him vent.
