Cold Hit

Chapter 34

I didn't have to talk to Doc Pepper because the floor nurse remembered me and let me in without an argument.

Zack was lying on top of the bedspread staring at the ceiling of his sterile, white box room at Queen of Angels Hospital. He was dressed in a polo shirt, tan slacks, and flip-flops. Fran, or one of his boys, must have brought him fresh clothes. His hands were laced behind his neck, and as I was buzzed through the security door, he looked over at me with heavy lidded eyes. His face had returned to its normal shape but the discoloration had darkened to an ugly bruise.

"Look who's come to visit," he said, slowly. "The career monster."

"You sound tranqed. You on something?"

"Hey, if you're gonna make a buncha bullshit judgments, then take it on down the road, Bubba."

He struggled into a sitting position and hugged his fat knees. "Fran had me committed. Now I can't get out. Can you believe that? The bitch is divorcing me, but since we're still technically married, she can do it. My joint custody of the boys will be dust after this bullshit."

"I'm sorry I suggested this, Zack. I thought you were about to commit suicide."

He waved it off and changed the subject. "So how's the book club? You humps got a line on our unsub yet?"

"I'm not down there anymore. Like I told you, I'm working this stand-alone murder now. Davide Andrazack."

His face showed nothing.

"So you ain't gonna be able to give me any updates?" "Nope. That circus moved on without me."

His eyes suddenly seemed feral, his mouth set in a hard, straight line.

"Too bad," he said. "I was hoping to catch up with that."

"I can tell you this much. We finally made the first vic. John Doe Number One."

"Yeah?" He pulled his eyes into sharper focus. "Turns out his name was Vaughn Rolaine. Vietnam vet."

I watched closely as he processed it.

"No kidding." He looked puzzled.

"You ever hear that name?" I asked.

He seemed to be searching his memory, then said, "Should I?"

"Didn't you have an open homicide before we teamed up? A woman? Arden Rolaine?"

"Jesus. You're right. Vaughn was the brother. Shit. These tranqs they're giving me really maim my brain. How'd I forget that?"

"Doesn't it strike you as a little cozy that Vaughn Rolaine, our first Fingertip kill, turns out to be the brother of one of your uncleared one-eighty-sevens from last summer?"

He sat for a long moment trying to pull it together. "It is a tad close," he finally said. "How do you suppose?" "I was hoping you'd tell me."

He got up, lumbered over to the sink, and turned on the tap. Then he jammed his head under the faucet. Water blasted off the back of his head and splattered onto the concrete floor. After a minute, he stood up, turned off the spigot, and dried his face and hair with a towel.

"Hang on a minute. My brain's oatmeal."

Then he began doing jumping jacks. His huge belly flopped up and down as his rubber-soled flip-flops slapped the concrete floor. After doing about thirty, he dropped and did fifteen pushups, rolling into a sitting position out of breath when he finished.

"Better?" I asked.

"Not much."

"We need to talk about Arden Rolaine. Can you remember the details of that case, or should I go to the Glass House, pick up your murder book, and bring it back here?"

"I haven't really worked on it in five months, but I remember."

"Let's hear."

He got up off the floor and sat on the bed. Then he rubbed his eyes as if to clear his vision before starting.

"Okay. My old partner, Van Kelsey, and I caught the case last June. Arden Rolaine was this sixty-one-yearold widow. Husband died in Nam thirty-odd years ago. Never remarried. She lived alone in Van Nuys. Little cracker box nothing of a house. Spring of last year, a pizza delivery kid saw some street freak jimmying her window, trying to get into the place. The kid didn't call it in and didn't come forward till he saw the story about her murder on TV. The way me and Van figured it, she musta come home and surprised the peril goin' through her place. He turns and bludgeons her to death. Used a brass candlestick from her mantle. A real blitz kill. The ME stopped counting at a hundred blows."

"Why did Homicide Special get the case?"

"Arden Rolaine was part of an old singing group in the sixties. The Lamp Street Singers. Folk music and love songs, mostly. They had three or four albums. Had one chart-topping single."

"Yeah. . 'Lemon Tree,' I think."

"That was the Limelighters. The Lamp Street Singers had that drippy ballad, 'Don't Look Away.' They were gone in about a nanosecond, but somebody in dispatch was a fan and it got kicked over to Homicide Special because it was a quote, Celebrity Case, unquote. Fact is, hardly nobody even remembered her or the folk group. But Arden had saved her money and had enough squirreled away to make it to the finish line until this asshole climbed through the window and clipped her."

"You said it was a blitz attack?"

"Classic overkill. Lotta anger. The doer pounded her until her face was mush. Van and I figured with that much rage, it had to be somebody close to her. Somebody who maybe once even loved her."

Hate needs love to burn.

"Because of the blitz attack we started looking at old boyfriends and relatives," he continued. "Finally turned up her brother, Vaughn. I never could find him though, 'cause he moved around. Homeless bum. According to her neighbors and the guy who did her hair, Vaughn was this wine-soaked mistake in a tattered raincoat. He was always trying to hit Arden up for cash. She finally got tired of fending him off and told him to never come over again. My theory was after she said that, he got pissed, came back, climbed through the window to steal her money and little sis caught him. They argued and Arden got put down with extreme prejudice."

"So you never brought him in for questioning?"

"Like I said, I couldn't find the son-of-a-bitch. Homeless. No address. I had his picture up all over the place-liquor stores, bus stations. Nothing. It's a big city. Thousands of homeless. I figured eventually, I'd run him down."

"So Vaughn Rolaine was your lead suspect in Arden Rolaine's murder and he ends up being our first Fingertip victim," I said. "Pretty big coincidence."

Zack frowned. "What's the first thing they tell you in the Academy?"

"Never trust a coincidence in police work." "Exactly," Zack said. "So it can't be a coincidence.

Gotta be some logic to it. We just gotta find it." "So how does it fit?"

He sat for a long moment, thinking. "Okay. Remember when you said you thought that the Fingertip unsub was maybe another homeless guy with rage against his environment? Hating the other bums he had to live with, seeing himself in their misery and killing himself over and over again?"

"It was just a theory. I'm not even sure it's psychologically valid."

"Yeah, but I always kind of liked that."

Zack had snapped back to his old self. His mind seemed focused. For the first time in months he was sorting facts like the old days.

"What if Vaughn lets it slip to some other homeless bum that his sister has all this money?" Zack reasoned. "After Arden is murdered, this other bum thinks Vaughn's inherited his sister's scrilla and goes after it. Ends up killing Vaughn."

"With a single shot to the back of the head, execution style like the fucking mafia? That doesn't track. And what about the Medic's symbol on the chest, the mutilations, all of that other post-offense behavior?"

"We don't really have that much listed under victimology," Zack continued. "Just Vietnam vets. Rage. Father substitutes. So let's build on this a little. This rage-filled, homeless guy hates his father. Maybe he was sexually abused as a kid and he's a ticking bomb but hasn't gone postal yet. Vaughn told him about his sister's money and the unsub is hassling Vaughn, trying to get the dough. But Vaughn doesn't have it, because he was my number-one suspect in his sister's murder and couldn't exactly go to the probate hearing. But let's say the unsub doesn't believe him, starts working Vaughn over, maybe cutting fingers off, trying to get him to talk. It gets out of control and he eventually kills Vaughn."

"I guess it could have happened that way," I said.

"Damn right. And then comes all the other postmortem behavioral stuff we profiled-the latent rage against his father-everything is unleashed. Vaughn is dead, but this other bum, the unsub, carves the symbol on his chest anyway. A postmortem mutilation. Maybe the unsub's dad was a medic in Nam, or he hates all vets, sees his father in them. He cuts off the rest of Vaughn's fingers to frustrate identification, then dumps him in the river. After this first kill, our serial killer is born. He realizes he's got a taste for it. A blood lust. He keeps on killing. One bum after another."

I sat in the room thinking about it. A few things worked, but too much didn't.

"How's some homeless guy transport the body?" "Okay. Maybe the unsub's not all the way homeless yet. Maybe he's living in his car."

"Maybe." At least Zack was trying.

"I'm just coming up with some options here," he said.

"Yeah, I know, I know." I didn't want to discourage the first spark or interest he'd shown in months. "Listen, maybe you should pick up my murder book after all," he said. "Maybe there's old case stuff in there that would jog my memory. Van Kelsey retired four months ago to grow grapes in Napa. I'll call him and see if he remembers anything."

"Okay. I gotta tell the task force about this, so I'll swing by Parker Center on my way home. After I bring Underwood up to date, I'll pick up the murder book. Is it in your desk?"

"Yep."

I stood to go and Zack rose with me.

"I made a decision today," he said.

"What is it?"

"I don't want to be a drunk. I don't want my life to be fucked up like this anymore. I want to get better."

"That's great news, Zack," I said. For the first time in two months I was feeling hope.