Billy Straight

70

Saddlewax Road was a quarter mile in from the Palos Verdes turnoff. Along the way, Petra saw two little girls in full equestrian dress riding gorgeous brown horses. A woman on a black steed trailed them, scrutinizing their posture or the horses', or both.

Balch's house was three-quarters up the shady street, a one-story apricot stucco ranch atop a high bed of devil ivy. That same white corral fencing cordoned the property and all its neighbors. Boys shot baskets; a man in a bright green polo shirt hosed down a vintage Corvette. The neighborhood had that aura of families with bright futures.

Strange place for a man living alone. Maybe the remnant of one of the marriages.

There was a basketball hoop atop Balch's garage, too. No cars parked outside. The few roses planted next to the house were leggy and browning, and the roof shakes were warped. Bound stacks of mail- four days' worth- sat in front of the screen door. A very small notice stapled to the screen said the local sheriffs had assumed jurisdiction over the property; no one was to trespass. The locals hadn't taken in the mail.

Wil phoned them, and they said it was okay to enter; if he and Petra removed anything, make a list and send a copy. He got evidence bags and recording forms from the trunk of his car, Petra picked up the mail, and they went in.

The living room was dark, rancid, littered with unfolded newspapers, dirty clothes, empty cans of beer and Pepsi, bottles of orange juice and vodka. A screwdriver man.

A sty, just like the office. Unlike the Lexus. As Petra read the mail, Wil got to work on the sofas, removing cushions, unzipping them, yanking out the foam.

Four days of post yielded utility bills, junk ads, coupons. Three days ago, he'd been spotted at Montecito switching cars, after burying Estrella Flores. Where had he cut the maid's throat? Probably somewhere in the hills above RanchHaven. Petra's best guess was he'd overpowered Flores in the house, driven her out through the fire road, found some nice quiet kill spot. Then, wrapping the body in plastic, stashing her in the trunk, he made the forty-five-minute drive to Montecito, entombed the body, left the Lexus behind- because he thought it was clean, and why would the cops check out Ramsey's weekend house?

Picking up the Jeep because that had been Lisa's murder vehicle and he wanted to make sure it was clean?

She recalled his demeanor during the interview. A little downbeat, self-effacing. No edginess, but if he was that psychopathic, why would there be?

Slipping in Lisa's bad temper, how she took it out on Cart. Brand-new running shoes. A clever bastard, Mr. Gregory Balch. So why had he stayed a lackey all his life?

Embezzling cash from the boss, waiting for the right moment to bolt? Original plans to do it with Lisa, but something had gone wrong… was Balch somewhere in Brazil with suitcases of cash, the satisfaction of having destroyed Ramsey's life in more ways than one?

She went into the kitchen. The food in the fridge was sad bachelor fare: beer, wine, more orange juice and Smirnoff, more takeout cartons. Beef lo mein and ribs from a Chinese place on Hawthorne Boulevard; KFC crispy chicken bucket- no address, but she'd seen an outlet along the way, on Hawthorne. Half a gigantic pizza from a place called DeMona's in Studio City. Ventura Boulevard, just a few blocks from the office. All the food was long past edibility. The pizza looked petrified.

In the living room, Wil worked grimly and silently, upending couches, slitting burlap bottoms, pulling a clock off the wall and shaking it hard enough to do serious damage, peering up the fireplace.

She decided to get an overview of the house, found three bedrooms, two bone-empty, one a disgusting mess, a pair of bathrooms, a dining area off the kitchen, and, next to the living room, a paneled den that looked out to the backyard, nothing in it but a brown leather recliner and a sixty-inch TV. An illegal black box sat atop the television. Petra switched on the set and was assaulted by five feet of penis entering vagina, a lazy synthesizer score, moans and grunts.

“Oh, those men,” said Wil, laughing.

She turned off the TV, opened the curtains. The yard was nice-sized, with several mature trees and an oval swimming pool, but the grass was ten inches of hay; the pool, a sump of algae-streaked soup. High block walls and shrubbery blocked the neighbors' views. Lucky for the neighbors.

Light-years from Ramsey's princely lifestyle. All those years of being nothing like Ramsey.

She decided to tackle the disgusting bedroom first. It smelled like the bottom of a laundry basket. King-size bed, cheap headboard, black sheets and pillowcases flecked with oily gray stains. Gloving up, she bagged the linens. The mattress was a mildewed ruin. Even protected by surgical rubber, she found handling Balch's linens repulsive.

Facing the bed was another TV, same size, and a second black box. Same porn station. Wadded tissues and stroke books in a nightstand added to the picture of Balch's solitary sexual life. She flipped through the magazines, hoping for some really nasty S &M to build up the bad-guy psyche, but most of it was straight hetero male fantasy; the worst, some lightweight bondage.

The porn went into a bag, duly noted.

Piles of dirty underwear and socks created a lumpy rug between the wall and the left side of the bed. Balch probably slept on the right side, tossed his junk across. The closet was crammed with sweat suits in varying colors, drawstring lounging pants, jeans, shirts, all with Macy's labels. A plastic bag with a ticket from a dry cleaner- on Hawthorne Boulevard- contained two pairs of pants and three shirts, including the bright blue silk he'd been wearing the day of the notification call.

She removed the plastic-wrapped garments. He leaves dirty laundry on the floor for days but chooses to clean these.

Probably the stuff he'd worn while murdering Lisa. Two pants, three shirts.

If they were bloodstained, why hadn't the cleaner noticed? She tagged and bagged, moved on to the shelf above the closet. Thirteen file boxes up there. Balch's tax records. She took her time with them.

His salary from Ramsey was his sole income. Ramsey'd started him off twenty-five years ago at $25,000. Regular raises had brought him to $160,000. Nice, but nothing compared to the boss's millions.

The forms listed little by way of investment. He'd deducted depreciation on the Saddlewax house, which had been purchased fourteen years ago, and his car leases- Buicks, then Caddies, now the Lexus- but no other real estate. For thirteen years, alimony had been paid monthly to Helen Balch, of Duluth, Minnesota. For the last nine, he'd also divvied up to Amber Leigh Balch.

Helen's name conjured up a middle-aged woman, the dutiful first wife. The house bought fourteen years ago- right after the marriage? If so, dissolution had taken place one year later.

Amber Leigh sounded like an industry pseudonym. Petra saw a homewrecker with big hair, long legs- probably blond, because Lisa and Ilse said he liked blondes. Big-chested bimbo, a face not quite pretty enough. That hadn't lasted long, either.

Two thousand a month to Helen; fifteen hundred to Amber.

His take-home was a little over eight thou a month. Lease payments on the Lexus were six hundred. Take away that and spousal support, and he cleared thirty-nine hundred a month. For the last few years, he'd received tax refunds of twenty grand or so. Not poverty, but chicken feed by industry standards. By Ramsey standards.

No obvious signs of big-ticket hobbies or conspicuous expenditures. Did he play the track? Sniff coke? Had he accumulated a money stash? Augmented it with skim?

She searched every corner of the room, found no bankbooks or investment material. Unlike Lisa, no plans. Had she been his launderer?

Then she'd demanded more. Or tried to blackmail Balch. Money and passion; had to be.

A door slammed. She looked out the window and saw Wil heading for the garage. He pushed a remote and the door slid open. No car that she could see. She returned to the tax files, labeling each carton. Onward.

The first of the empty bedrooms was just that. In the second, though, she found more booty on the closet shelf: three shoe boxes of loose photos. First came thirty-year-old professional shots of football teams, high school and college, the faces too small to make out, then home-camera jobs showing Ramsey and Balch in full athletic gear, giant padded shoulders, tight waists.

Tall, Dark, and Handsome and his flaxen-haired buddy, both grinning, cocky, ready to take on the world.

After that came wedding snaps, Balch still lean and tan, wearing a powder-blue tux, a ruffled shirt, and an unsure expression. Helen turned out to be slender, attractive, with short dark hair and a prim mouth. Later photos showed her aging well, staying slim, sometimes wearing glasses. Holding a baby.

Wrapped in pink. A daughter. Balch had never mentioned a child during the interview, but why would he, they'd been focusing on other people's lives. Petra remembered how he punted away personal questions. At the time, it had seemed aw-shucks. Now she understood.

Twenty or so pictures of the child, no name on the back of any of the pictures. A pretty dark-haired girl who favored her mother. Snapshots up till age eight or so, then nothing.

The divorce, or had it been worse- a death? Yet another loss in Balch's miserable life?

Box number two contained smaller versions of the celeb shots Petra had seen on Balch's office wall. Mostly Ramsey, a few of Balch. Various photographers, Hollywood and the Valley.

The last box was nearly empty. Just a wedding portrait, photographer's stamp from Las Vegas- a Vegas connection. Balch in a dark suit and white banded-collar shirt, pink-faced, puffy, slightly off-kilter, towering over Amber Leigh, who was tiny and Asian, with incredible cheekbones and breasts that screamed augmentation. Not what Petra had pictured, but definitely bimboistic.

He married dark-haired women but killed blondes.

Beneath the photo was an envelope dated three years ago.

Loopy childish handwriting addressed to Mr. G. Balch at the Saddlewax address. On the return side, Caitlin Balch, no address; Duluth, Minnesota, postmark.

The same handwriting on a single sheet of lined notepaper.

Dear Dad,

Well, Im graduating from Junior High and I won an award for band, but I don't think you care about that. You never call or come here anymore and you never send the alemoney on time and with Mom being sick that makes it really hard for us. Im only writing this because Mom said I should, you should know when your daughter graduates.

You don't care. Right?

Your daughter (I guess)

Caitlin Lauren Balch

Pathetic. Had he ever answered? No further correspondence said probably not.

No shots of Lisa. Or Ilse Eggermann. That would have been too much to hope for.

If he'd been obsessed with either of the dead women, he'd probably destroyed the evidence. Or taken it with him to play with.

Petra bound all the shoe boxes with rubber bands and was carrying them out when she heard Wil shout.

He'd laid it all out on the floor of the garage.

Six handguns- two revolvers and four automatics- three rifles, two shotguns, one an expensive Mossler. Boxes of ammo for everything. The garage smelled of gun oil.

Tool rack on a wall above an empty workbench, two large toolboxes full of assorted gizmos, a pair of fishing-tackle boxes, six fishing rods, seven reels.

“Deep-sea and lake,” said Wil, appreciatively. “Good lures, too. Hand-tied. And look at this.”

Knives. Petra counted thirty-two.

Bucks, fighting daggers, long-bladed boning knives Wil said he'd taken from the tackle boxes.

“The man likes to shoot and cut, Petra. There's blood on the boning blade. Might be trout; then again, maybe not.”

“Fishing and hunting,” said Petra. “Maybe he's got himself a little cabin up in the woods.”

“That's all we need, one of those nature boy-survivalist deals. Better take our time with all this. I'm gonna put on fresh gloves, get my video cam.”

It was 8:14 when they finished. The house had grown almost unbearably hot, and Petra's nose had gotten accustomed to the smell.

Wil said, “We earned our keep,” and clicked the TV on, again, switching channels from an oral-sex pretzel to local news. “Just in case something broke. It seems to be the way we find out anything.”

The news was all crime- a nine-year-old girl abducted in Willow Glen, a drive-by in Florence, and another db out in Angeles Crest, but nothing on Lisa or William Bradley Straight.

“Work, work, work,” said Wil, yawning and pulling down his sleeves. He'd folded his linen jacket and placed it on the mantel, over a protective layer of LAPD plastic. He looked as tired as Petra felt.

He yawned again, and she said, “I know we're supposed to start casting the net on Balch, but I for one need some food-”

He held up a silencing finger. Something on the TV had turned him wide-awake.

“… white male,” the reporter was saying. “No name has been released yet, but sheriff's deputies have described the victim as unusually large, over six feet and three hundred pounds or more. The body parts were separated, but hadn't yet been scattered in this remote area of the forest. The Boy Scouts who may have disturbed the killer report seeing a car drive off quickly, with its lights off. That's it for now, Chuck. We'll keep you posted.”

Fournier gunned the remote, speeding through channels. Three other news shows, but either the dismemberment had already been covered or only one station had the story so far.

“What?” said Petra.

“Six feet, three hundred pounds,” he said. “Maybe it's a coincidence, but that's real damn close to the size of Buell Moran, the fool who was looking for the Straight kid. The one who probably killed the kid's mother. I mean, I know this country's got an obesity problem, but… We were figuring he'd heard about the beach tip and headed west. If he did, maybe he met someone he thought could help him but didn't. I'm not saying it is him- lots of bikers get dumped in Angeles Crest, plenty of them are big- but it's too cute to ignore.”

“Much too cute,” said Petra. “Enter it in a baby contest.”

“And here's another thing, Petra. Dismemberment and Angeles Crest reminds me of something I dealt with years ago, working on those Russian cases. Russians loved to cut up the bodies. We walked in on one of them doing it. They concentrate on the head and the fingertips, think it screws up IDs. And they were using Angeles Crest, had just discovered it. The guy who gave me the tip on the kid is Russian. First time I met him, I had a feeling about him. Con eyes.”

“Why would he kill Moran?”

“How about competition for the twenty-five? Let's say both of them got a serious case of the greeds, both are lowlifes, no impulse control. The Russian- Zhukanov's his name- sees Moran showing the kid's picture around, gets worried. Or maybe Moran approaches him, tells Zhukanov he's the kid's father, has some rights here. Zhukanov says, Enough of this noise. Those Russians are mean, Petra. The guy we caught playing human jigsaw had been paid two hundred bucks. Imagine what twenty-five thou would motivate.”

“If Zhukanov was threatened enough to kill Moran,” said Petra, “it might mean he learned something new about the Straight boy's whereabouts, more than he told you. Let me phone in to see if any new messages came in on that.”

The clerk said, “You've got messages, but it's crazy; can't go up to check.” No one answered in the squad room. She hung up, and Wil took his jacket off the mantel. His forehead was as dark and slick as licorice and he wiped it and dialed the phone. A number she recognized: Downtown Sheriff's. Ron's HQ.

“Good old tans again,” he said. “Their solve rate's about twice ours, but they don't have to deal with the gangbanger-no-witness bullshi- Hello, this is Detective Fournier, Hollywood LAPD. Could you please-”

Petra took the shoe boxes out to her car. In the dark, Balch's street was silent and peaceful, happy families cozy in front of the big screen. If they only knew. She filled her nose with warm, piney air. What was the weather like in Duluth, Minnesota? What would Helen Balch think when the ex's face was all over the tube?

When she got back, Wil was smiling.

“No ID on the body, but they've got the head- thank you, Boy Scouts- and the description fits Moran to a T. I know we've been cranking up the overtime, and I was looking forward to some shut-eye, Petra, but I think we need at least to check this Russian out. Maybe we can't solve Lisa right away, but wouldn't it be nice to solve something?”

“It would be loverly,” said Petra. “Do you mind if we stop on the way for some grub? There's a Chinese place on Hawthorne that Mr. Balch patronized. I doubt he's got good taste, but who knows?”