Billy Straight

20

Petra stayed at her desk, calling her phone com- pany contact about Lisa's records and being assured they'd arrive today. She began the preliminary paperwork on the court order for the extended records, phoned the coroner and the criminalists. No medical findings yet, no prints retrieved from Lisa's clothes or body or jewelry. Maybe a glove, the tech opined. Fortified by vending-machine coffee, Petra checked all the approved police tow yards and consulted rosters of found autos. Lisa's Porsche wasn't listed.

Time to go back on Schoelkopf's scut line. She'd already talked to dozens of detectives, covering the day watch from Van Nuys to Devonshire, then West L.A. Now she started in on Pacific.

Each time the same reaction: You've got to be kidding.

Everyone knew who the bad guy was on this one. But they also understood brass-generated busywork, and after the laughter died down, she had their immediate sympathy.

The end result: no similars. Meanwhile, Cart Ramsey got to hit golf balls, soak in the hot tub, enjoy the chrome and polish of his little car museum while his ex-wife was laid out on the coroner's table getting her face peeled off.

The Mercedes was probably scrubbed and steamed and vacuumed cleaner than an operating room.

She thought about Lisa's body, that gaping blood-filled hole in the abdomen, protruding entrails, what had been done to the young woman's face, and wondered what it took to turn love to that.

Could it happen anytime passions ran high, or did the guy have to be twisted?

Domestic bliss, domestic blood. There'd been one moment- an eye-blink instant- when she'd been capable of murder.

Why was she thinking about the past?

Deal with it, kid.

She tortured herself with memories.

A twenty-five-year-old art student pretending cool but so blindly, dumbly in love she'd have been willing to shed her skin for Nick. That rush of feeling, passion like she'd never felt before. Lovemaking till she couldn't walk. Postcoital pillow talk, lying flank to flank, her vagina still humming.

Nick had seemed such a good listener. It was only later she figured out it was phony. He kept quiet because he refused to give her anything of himself.

She told him everything: growing up motherless, the irrational guilt she felt about causing her mother's death, driving her father crazy to the point where boarding schools were the only solution, half of her adolescence spent in musty shared rooms, the other girls giggling and smoking, talking about guys, sometimes masturbating, Petra could tell by the rustle of comforters.

Petra, the weird, silent girl from Arizona, just lying there, thinking about killing her mother.

She'd entrusted Nick with the secret because this was true love.

Then one night she told him a new secret: Guess what, honey? Patting her tummy.

She'd expected surprise, maybe some initial resentment, knew he'd melt eventually because he loved her.

His eyes froze and he turned white. The fury. Glaring at her across the dinner table with contempt she'd never imagined. The special meal she'd prepared just sitting there, his favorites- ostensibly to celebrate, but maybe deep down she'd known he wouldn't be pleased, maybe the veal and the gnocchi, the twenty-dollar Chianti classico, had been nothing more than bribes.

He just sat there, not moving, not talking, those thin lips she'd once thought aristocratic so bloodless, the hateful mouth of an old, nasty man.

Nick-

How could you, Petra!

Nick, honey-

You, of all people! How could you be so stupid- you know what childbirth does!

Nick-

Fuck you!

If she'd had a gun then…

She opened her eyes, realized for the first time that they'd been closed. Squad room noise blew back at her, the other detectives busy doing their jobs.

What she needed to do.

She got back on the phone, prepared to waste more time.

But four Pacific detectives later, something did come up.

A three-year-old unsolved cutting of a pretty blond girl on the southern tip of Venice, near the marina, handled by a D-II named Phil Sorensen, who said, “You know, when I heard about the Ramsey girl, it struck me, but ours was a German girl, Lufthansa stewardess on vacation, and our leads pointed to an Austrian boyfriend, baggage handler, returned to Europe before we could talk to him. We put wants out with the Austrian police, Interpol, all that good stuff, never found him.”

“What made him a suspect?” said Petra.

“The girlfriend the vic was traveling with- another stew- said he showed up unannounced at their hotel all upset because the vic- Ilse Eggermann's her name- had left Vienna without telling him. Ilse told the friend they'd fought a lot, the boyfriend had a bad temper, roughed her up, she dumped him. The last straw was having to work in first class with a black eye. Still, when the boyfriend showed up in L.A., he was able to convince her to go out with him. They left at nine P.M. She was found at four A.M., body dumped in a parking lot near Ballona Creek. We traced the boyfriend's flight- he'd come in on Lufthansa the previous morning, employee discount. No checked-in luggage, and he never registered at any hotels or motels here in L.A.”

“So he intended it to be a short trip,” said Petra. “Accomplished what he wanted and split.”

“That's what it looked like.” Sorensen sounded like an older man. Gentle voice, slow talker, slightly hesitant. Stew, not flight attendant.

“How was Ilse dressed when you found her?” said Petra.

“A nice dress, dark- blue or black. Black, I think. Very pretty girl; she looked very nice. Considering.” Sorensen coughed. “No sexual assault. We didn't need to sherlock to establish her being with the boyfriend- Karlheinz Lauch- that night. The waiter who served them dinner, Antoine's on the pier at Redondo Beach, he remembered them, because they didn't eat or talk much. Or tip. We figured Lauch was angling for reconciliation, it didn't work, he got upset, drove her somewhere, killed her, and dumped her. What he drove, I don't know, because we could never trace a rental car and he had no known associates in California.”

Sorensen's voice had risen a bit. Lots of details at his fingertips for a three-year-old crime. This one had stayed with him.

“She was found at four,” said Petra. “Any idea when she was killed?”

“The guesstimate was two, two-thirty.”

Early morning, just like Lisa. Dumped in a parking lot. And the Ballona Creek marshlands were a county park, like Griffith. “Lots of stab wounds?”

“Twenty-nine- clear overkill, which would also fit the boyfriend. Add the domestic-violence history, and it seemed pretty clear. Sound at all like yours?”

“There are definite points of similarity, Detective Sorensen,” said Petra, keeping her voice steady. Looked at a certain way, it was a damn Xerox.

“Well, you know these guys,” he said. “The woman-haters. Tend to fall into patterns.”

“True,” she said. “Where did this Lauch handle baggage?”

“Vienna airport, but he had family in Germany. After the crime, he didn't return to work or to his hometown. We checked with other airlines too, but no dice. He could have changed his name or just rabbited to some other country. Would have been nice to go over there and nose around personally, but you know the chance of prying a European trip out of the budget. So we had to rely on the Austrian police and the Germans, and they weren't all that interested, because the crime took place here.”

“If Lauch is working baggage under another name, he's eligible for an employee discount,” said Petra. “Maybe he's still flying back and forth.”

“And ended up in L.A. again and did a repeat?”

“I sure hope not, Phil, but with what you've told me, it looks like we're going to have to check him out all over again. Could you please fax me his data?”

“Give me an hour,” said Sorensen. “Wouldn't that be something, the guy having that kind of nerve. Of course, first you'd have to establish Lauch was here when the Ramsey girl was killed, then you'd have to connect him with her- meanwhile, you've got DV on the husband. Sounds like fun.”

“Big fun. Thanks for your help, Phil.”

“Hey,” he said, “if by some miracle it ends up helping you, it'll help me, too. It always bothered me, not being able to close that one. She was a nice-looking girl, and he turned her into something horrible.”

It was 1 P.M., time to start looking for Darrell/Darren the film editor, but now she wanted to wait around until Karlheinz Lauch's data came through the fax.

The Ilse Eggermann news was a surprise, but Sorensen was right: The points of similarity could be explained by domestic-violence patterns, the same old tragedies, all the way back to Othello.

Or statistical fluke- seek and ye shall find something. Over a three-year-period, L.A. saw well over three thousand homicides. One similar in all that time wasn't the stuff of the Guinness Book.

Meanwhile, she'd reach the rest of the Pacific detectives, do follow-up on some Valley D's she'd missed the first time around, maybe pay another telephonic condolence call to Lisa's family in Chagrin Falls, see if Mrs. Boehlinger was available, find out when the parents were coming out to see what was left of their daughter.

Did Mrs. B. feel as strongly about Ramsey as her husband?

Petra sorted out her own feelings about the guy: providing an alibi right off, letting them know about Lisa's drug problems, going over their heads to Schoelkopf. The subtle Don Juan stuff he'd thrown her way.

It smelled of ego, real narcissism. Did that make him someone who'd go berserk if a woman angered or rejected him?

Hard to say, but in her mind, Ramsey had done nothing to dispel suspicion. Despite Ilse Eggermann, the actor was clearly the main man.

She played out a scenario in her head: Lisa, like Ilse Eggermann- like so many battered women- had somehow allowed her ex to talk her into a date. Renewal of old passions, or maybe Ramsey'd tossed her the ultimate female bait: the chance to talk things out.

Because once upon a time there'd been chemistry between them, and chemicals didn't disappear, they just faded. Because memories could be selective, and women kept hoping men would change.

A date… where? Not at a restaurant- somewhere private. Romantic. Secluded.

Not the Calabasas house, too risky. Even if Greg Balch was lying for his boss, someone else could have taken note- the guard, a neighbor. The maid.

Petra remembered how squirrelly Estrella Flores had been. Definitely worth a recontact, but how to do it without alerting Ramsey? And something basic needed to be added to the list: talk to the night-shift guard at RanchHaven. A glaring omission. The hands-off policy was really mucking things up.

So many things to do… she returned to her last-date melodrama. Where would Ramsey have taken Lisa?

Did he have another home, a weekend hideaway? Didn't actors always have weekend places?

The beach? The mountains? Arrowhead, Big Bear? Or up north- Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez. Lots of industry folks had gotten into the ranch thing…

The beach would probably be Malibu. Waves crashing, smooth sand, what could be more romantic?

She made a note to search records for every real estate parcel Ramsey owned.

Go with the beach, for the moment. She pictured it: Ramsey and Lisa on an overstuffed sofa in some wood-and-glass thing on the sand. The three c's: champagne, caviar, coke. Maybe a nicely hissing fireplace. Ramsey turning on the charm.

Lisa responding? That sexy little black dress riding up on her thighs? Chemistry… helped along by fish eggs, Moët & Chandon, and Medellín's finest? Or another kind of incentive: money. Lisa had a job, but Ramsey still provided the bulk of her income.

The purchase of love? Same old story? Petra felt sad, then reminded herself not to judge. If her own phone rang on a particularly lonely and/or horny night and it was Nick on the other end, saying, “Hey, Pet,” what would she do?

Hang up on the selfish fuck and wish she could make his ears bleed.

Back to Malibu. Tides crashing, tender reminiscence, the nudge toward intimacy.

Ramsey makes his move.

But Lisa changes her mind, resists, shuts him down.

Ramsey seethes, feels like slugging her. But remembering the way she went public, he keeps his rage to himself.

Stays cool, drives her home.

Malibu to Doheny Drive Hills would mean Pacific Coast Highway to Sunset or the freeway through the Valley, then down one of the canyons. But instead of hooking south, he continues east, maybe Laurel Canyon down Hollywood Boulevard, up Western to Los Feliz, then over to Griffith Park.

That hour, not much traffic. He drives to the parking lot. Lisa knows something's wrong, tries to escape.

He holds out for one last embrace.

Then a steel kiss.

No sexual assault, because he'd had a blood orgasm.

It felt right to Petra.

It also depended on Gregory Balch lying straight-facedly about Ramsey's alibi.

She'd have to learn more about Balch, too. Eventually.

Along with Ilse Eggermann and Karlheinz Lauch. A similar- unbelievable. She imagined Schoelkopf's grin, the disgusted look on Stu's face. When she'd left, he hadn't looked up, just muttered a halfhearted good-bye.

The library-book thing, so out of the blue. Stu was compulsive, mega-organized. Maybe it wasn't his marriage; maybe it was career anxiety- the chance to apply for lieutenant suddenly coming up and he found himself stuck with a big-time loser whodunit? For Petra, just another case. For him, do or die?

Would he bail on her? Sacrifice her if he needed to?

For eight months, they'd ridden together, eaten together, worked side by side, Stu spending as much time with her as he did with Kathy, sometimes more, and he'd never laid a hand on her, never made a suggestive comment, not even the slightest hint of double entendre.

She'd thought she knew him, but eight months wasn't very long, was it?

She and Nick had been together over two years. About the same as Lisa and Ramsey.

Men and women…

Once, when she was fifteen, home for summer vacation, she'd woken up at 1 A.M. on a long night in Arizona, hearing imaginary things, finally realizing it was the hot desert wind scraping the side of the house. Itchy, jumpy, she'd walked out to the hallway, spied the familiar splinter of light under the door of her father's office, knocked, entered the tiny, dim, detritus-clogged room.

Dad was sitting low in his oak chair facing his Royal manual, blank sheet in the roller. He saw her, gave a slack smile, and when she came closer, she smelled the Scotch on his breath, saw the dullness in his eyes, and took advantage of it as only a teenager can. Getting him to talk about what he hated talking about- the woman who'd died birthing her.

Aware that it would cause him pain, but damnit, she had a right to know!

And talk he did, in a low, slurred voice.

Anecdotes, remembrances, how gawky Kenneth Connor and gorgeous Maureen McIlwaine had met on the Long Island Ferry and found true love. The same old stories, but she thirsted for them, could never get enough.

That night she sat at his feet on the warped hardwood floor, motionless, silent, afraid any distraction would cause him to stop.

Finally, he did grow quiet, staring down at her, then slapping his hands over his face and holding them there.

“Daddy-”

The hands dropped into his lap. He looked so sad. “That's all I remember, sweetheart. Mother was a wonderful woman, but…”

Then he began crying, and had to hide from her again.

Men hid when they cried.

Petra came over and hugged his broad, bony shoulders. “Oh, Daddy, I'm so-”

“She was wonderful, baby. One in a million, but it wasn't perfect, Pet. It was no storybook situation.”

He opened a desk drawer and peered down at what had to be the bottle.

When he turned back to Petra, his eyes were dry and he was smiling, but it wasn't any of the smiles Petra knew- not the warm, protective one or the wry, sarcastic one or even the soft-around-the-edges drunk one that used to bother her but no longer did.

This was different- flat, hollow, frozen as statuary. In her tenth grade English class they had learned about tragedy, and she was sure this was it.

Defeated, that smile. As terrifying as a glimpse of eternity.

“Daddy…”

He scratched his scalp, shook his head, hiked a droopy sock up a pale ankle. “The thing is, Pet, no matter what… I guess what I'm saying, sweetheart, is men and women are really two separate species. Maybe that's the anthropology talking, but it's no less true. One little scrap of DNA separates us- here's something funny: The X chromosome's really the one that counts, Petra. The Y doesn't seem to do much but cause problems- aggression- understand what I'm getting at, sweetheart? We men aren't really worth that much.”

“Oh, Daddy-”

“Mom and I had our problems. Most were my fault. You need to know that so you don't romanticize things, expect too much out of… demand too much from yourself. Understand, baby? Am I making sense here?”

Taking hold of her shoulders, the light in his eyes almost maniacal.

“You are, Daddy. Yes.”

He let go. Now the smile was okay. Human.

“The point is, Petra, there are big questions out there, cosmic questions that have nothing to do with stars and galaxies.”

Waited for her response. She didn't know what to say and he went on:

“Questions like, can men and women ever really know each other or is it always going to be one stupid, clumsy dance around the interpersonal ballroom?”

He flinched, suppressed a belch, sprang up, went into his bedroom, and closed the door, and she could hear the latch turn and knew he'd locked himself in.

The next morning her brother Glenn, the only one still living at home, got to the breakfast table first and said, “What's with Dad?”

“What do you mean?”

“He's gone, went out on a field trip, must have been before sunrise. Left me this.” Waving a piece of notebook paper that said, Out to the desert, kids.

“Just one of his bone hunts,” said Petra.

Glenn said, “Well, he took his camping stuff- that means a long one. Did he mention anything to you? 'Cause yesterday we were talking about going over to the Big Five and getting some hockey stuff.”

“Actually, he did,” she lied.

“Great,” said Glenn. “That's just great. He tells you but never mentions it to me.”

“I'm sure he meant to, Glenn.”

“Yeah, right, great- fuck, I really need a new stick. Do you have any money I can borrow?”

She phoned seven more detectives, endured seven more you've-got-to-be-kiddings, no more similars.

From the far end of the room, the fax machine started humming and she jumped up and was there in a second, snatching papers out of the bin. Moving so quickly, a couple of the other D's looked up. But not for long; they were busy, too. This room, this city- the blood never stopped.

Karlheinz Lauch was big- six-foot-four- and ugly. Small, dark, squinty eyes popped like raisins in a pasty, misshapen crêpe of a face. The merest comma of a lopsided mouth, a mustache that looked like a grease squirt. Straight, fair hair- the stats called it brown, so probably dishwater- styled in that modified shag some Europeans still wore.

To Petra, he appeared a grubby loser.

The photo was from a four-year-old Vienna mug shot, lots of fifty-letter German words and umlauts. Sorensen's typed note said Lauch had been busted for assault in Austria the year before Ilse Eggermann's murder- barroom brawl, no time served.

In the photos, Lauch looked mean enough for anything. Wouldn't it be something if the bastard had come to L.A., cruising for good-looking blondes, somehow connected with Lisa?

Wouldn't it be amazing if Lauch stuck around so they could pick him up? A nice easy solve so Stu could get his promotion and she could add brownie points to her file.

Fantasies, kid.

She studied Lauch's face some more and wondered how someone like him could get Lisa to put on a little black dress and diamonds.

On the other hand, he had gotten close to Ilse Eggermann, who, by Phil Sorensen's account, was also a looker. But a stewardess wasn't the ex-wife of a TV star who'd experienced the good life.

Then again, Lisa had opted out of the good life. And some women, even beautiful women, liked to bottom-fish, turned on by whatever was crude and brutish, a man below them on the social ladder.

Beauty and the beastly? Lisa taking risks with rough trade and paying for it?

Petra kept staring at Lauch's photo. The thought of allowing his flesh to come into contact with hers turned her stomach.

She liked her men intelligent, considerate, conventionally handsome.

Probably because her father was an intelligent, nice-looking, gentle man. For the most part, a gentleman.

What was Ilse Eggermann's father like?

What was Dr. John Everett Boehlinger like when he wasn't crazed with grief?

Enough with the psychoanalysis. She'd taken it as far as she could for the moment.

She inserted the Eggermann-Lauch data in Lisa's murder book, crossed the room to the Nehi-orange lockers, opened hers, and took a Snickers bar from the bag she kept on the top shelf, above her gym shoes and sweats and the cheap black sweaters she kept handy for cold nights and messy corpses.

Death mops, she called them.

Acrylic that looked like acrylic. Attention, Kmart shoppers, our full-style cardigans now on sale for $13.95 in a wide range of colors. She bought five at a time, always black, threw them out the moment they got gory.

In eight months, she'd been through ten.

She hadn't worn one to Lisa's crime scene because the call had been an off-schedule surprise.

She hadn't been stained by Lisa's corpse.

Hadn't gotten close enough.