Compulsion

CHAPTER 12

Ella Mancusi’s murder didn’t make the six o’clock news but it was the final segment at eleven p.m., complete with pompous baritone narration and close-ups of a blood-soaked knife blade taken from stock footage.

The toll-free tip line flashed for a second, but that was enough. When I called Milo ’s office the next morning, I got a brand-new message.

“This is Lieutenant Sturgis. If you’re calling about the Mancusi homicide, please leave your name and phone number. Talk slowly and clearly. Thank you.”

I phoned Wilson Good, hoping a chat with his wife, bed rest, and civic duty might have loosened his tongue. No one answered.

Blanche was up for a walk and bounced along happily as we headed down the glen. Squirrels, birds, and cars amused her. Trees amused her. Rocks were hilarious.

A sinewy woman jogger paused to pet her. “That’s the prettiest dog I’ve ever seen.”

Blanche agreed.

At one p.m., Robin and I drove to Sherman Oaks and ate spaghetti at Antonio’s. Afterward, I asked if she could spare some time and we headed over to Katrina Shonsky’s address in Van Nuys.

Big-box complex on a treeless block. The air smelled of construction dust though no projects were in sight. All the charm of a heat rash.

Robin said, “I can see why she’d want to get away from this. Not that living in thirty rooms on twenty acres helps, if you’re lonely.”

“Thinking of someone in particular?”

She nodded. “He’s coming to town on business in a week or so. In between appointments, he intends to drop by to ‘visit my commission.’ It’s not that big of a deal but if you could be there, I wouldn’t mind.”

“He was inappropriate?”

“No, but when he talks to me he sounds so needy. Like he wants to get close – know what I mean?”

“An agenda behind the commission.”

“Maybe it’s silly,” she said.

“Conceited girl.”

She smiled. “So you’ll be there?”

She returned to her studio and I thought awhile about Ella Mancusi and Kat Shonsky. Could see no solid link beyond big black stolen cars.

I played with search engines, pairing variants of homicide and luxury car. When that came up empty, I substituted murder. Still, zero.

I began combining murder with specific automobile marques, went through Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, and BMW, with no luck.

Lamborghini and Cadillac pulled up a pair of shootings, one in L.A., the other in New York. Two gangsta rappers gunned down leaving late-night recording sessions, one alone in his Murciélago, the other caravanning with an entourage in a tricked-out Escalade. Officially, both cases were unsolved. But everyone in the hip-hop world knew whodunit.

Bentley and Aston Martin came up empty. Mercedes elicited nothing about Ella Mancusi, probably because of the lack of media coverage – and that made me question the value of the search. Benz produced photos of Hitler in both of his massive 770Ks and a rant from a Qatar-based blogger who believed Der Fuhrer had been a misunderstood “cool guy everyone thinks is a murder.”

I typed in Lincoln, not expecting much.

So much for my powers of prediction.

Double homicide, nine years ago, in Ojo Negro, a struggling agricultural hamlet north and inland of Santa Barbara. The case had been logged on DarkVisions.net, a borderline-literate Web site that delighted in listing gruesome, unsolved killings and posted crude cartoons and grainy photos cribbed from true-crime books.

The facts, as recounted by the site’s “soal author and webmaster, DV Zapper,” were spare and brutal: Leonora Bright, owner of the only beauty parlor in Ojo Negro, and Vicki Tranh, her resident manicurist, had been murdered sometime after closing the shop, their bodies found the following morning “multipally stabbed,” and “maybe disamenbered.”

A black Lincoln Town Car had been parked near the shop just before dusk. A tall man in a floor-length canvas duster and ten-gallon hat had been seen earlier in the day. Exiting the car, walking past the salon, driving off.

The car was later identified as a rental, stolen from a hotel parking lot in Santa Barbara.

Cowboys were no novelty in Ojo Negro; several nearby cattle ranches struggled against Big Agribusiness. But the stranger’s swagger and the costume-like getup attracted glances.

“Pale Rider,” the site tagged him. “And in Wilde West days, the Detroit beast could probably a been a cole-black stalleon.”

The morning after the sighting, a parcel-service driver delivering nail polish and “other cosmetic items made a stomach chorning discovery.”

“What I wonder,” mused DV Zapper, “is was Leona was married and maybe Vicki also and if yeah why didn’t there husbands go looking for them the hole time?”

I ran a search using the victims’ names.

Only one story, printed in The Santa Barbara Express a week after the murder. Two new facts: The car had been stolen at the Wharf Inn. And: “Sheriff Wendell Salmey is currently talking to Santa Barbara detectives.”

Googling Salmey evoked zero hits and the computer’s suggestion that I really meant Wendell Salmon. Just to be safe, I said I did and got connected to the Web site of a Washington State Fish and Game booklet for children.

I printed the newspaper text, returned to DarkVisions, clicked the bloody knife contact icon, and inquired if anything new had come up on the case.

Within seconds, I had a reply.

hey alex jason blasco here aka DV ZAPPER aka the mannnn. no there is shit the cops don’t wanna talk maybe its prejustice or something tranh was veetnamise you know????? if you hear something you can post with me

Googling Jason Blasco brought up a similarly misspelled MySpace page.

I’d just corresponded with a gawky, dark-haired, fourteen-year-old, self-described “genius wizard gore-geek” who lived in Minneapolis and liked AC/DC “even tho theyr older then anteeks and have shit drumming.”

I asked him how he’d heard about the Ojo Negro case.

they were in a magzine one a those thrilling detectives or some shit is in a big pile

ebay???

don do that shit this is slo lets im

sorry no buddy list

kidding

sorry

sucks dude

so that magazine…

you like that shit????

if the stories are good

i like it when they find the guy and xecute

yeah that’s better

got tons a that shit you can buy it if you want thrilling det shocking det

how much

five bucks each

think about it

take or leaf

take

send cash dude no paypal yet

I asked for an address. He was ready with a P.O.B.

Ah, enterprising youth.

where are you alex geographic i mean

l.a.

cool manson nightstalker original and ramirez skid row slasher maybe even zodiac went down there not just san francsco

yeah hows minnesota

sucks send cash if you want fedex give me a number

snail mails ok

if you don mine slime trail gotta go

Milo phoned at seven p.m.

“Lots of tips?” I said.

“Think Noah looking out the window of the ark. One anonymous caller claims Tony Mancusi is ‘kinky.’ The rest is psychics and psychotics. I’m halfway through the pile and Gordon Beverly drops by. Nice man, he tried the friends himself, no luck. You do any better with Good?”

I described my meeting with Andrea and Indy.

He said, “Gets rattled and nearly strangles the dog. Interesting.”

“I thought so.”

“So now we have to look at respectable Mr. Good more closely.” He laughed. “You’d think people would get smart. Open the door, smile, lie pleasantly, we all move on.”

“Criminals think that way,” I said. “Average folk can get spooked.”

“Average folk with something to hide. Okay, I’ll pursue Mr. Good once I make some headway on Mancusi.”

“Want me to go back to Good’s house tonight?”

“No, big game coming up, guy’s not going anywhere. Let him simmer for a while. Even if I wanted to bug him, my night’s spoken for. One of my rookies was pulled off surveillance, I’ll be the one eyeballing Tony Mancusi in an hour.”

“Time for strong coffee.”

“Strong and bitter. Like moi. Talk to you tomorrow, Alex.”

“One more thing.”

“Is this gonna make me smile or cringe?”

“Could go either way.” I told him about the Ojo Negro murders and the DarkVisions Web site.

He said, “Fourteen-year-old gore freak. And a child shall lead.”

“Maybe this child led us to something serious. Stolen black luxury wheels lifted from a rental lot, a suspect in cowboy gear. Which is all anyone noticed about him. Dusting your hair with white powder, wearing a garish plaid cap, and shuffling would accomplish the same thing. So would driving a flashy car, for that matter.”

“Costumes,” he said. “Art of the misdirect. Ojo Negro, huh? Never heard of the place. Nine years ago… talk about your extended run, you know what I’m thinking.”

“If it’s connected, there could be more in between. No other black-car murders came up but Ella’s not logged in, so the Web’s far from perfect.”

“True. I’m not sure what this does for my mood… okay, first things first, gotta pack my mule, get over to 7-Eleven, stock up on grub and caffeine. You up for some bucolic travel? With time and mileage reimbursed, as granted by The Supreme Being?”

“God wants to pay me?”

“The chief,” he said. “Same difference.”

“How’d your meeting go?”

“Steely eyes, firm grip, he pumped me for progress, pretended not to be pissed when I told him there was none. But that Irish face of his gets all rosy around the edges. Then, out of the blue, he asks me if you’re consulting to any of it. I say all of it, when you’ve got time. He says what does that mean. I say given what the department pays, you’ve got other fish to fry. He goes real rosy. Embarks on a tirade about how the department’s stuck somewhere between Mesozoic and Jurassic, it’s time to modernize, we need serious psychological input not whore-shrinks out to stigmatize officers. I try to get a word in edgewise about the financial end but when he gets like that, there’s no interrupting. So basically, the meeting ended up being about you.”

“Gee,” I said. “Better soak my head in ice before it swells out of control.”

“For that, all you need is to see the salary scale he proposed. Thirty percent additional allowance for gas and mileage but the hourly’s still penury. I’m supposed to set up a billing account, you’re supposed to keep meticulous records. Neither of which will be done because we’ve got real work. But can you see clear to hit the road anyway?”

“Hmm,” I said.

“Thanks. And don’t forget to eat. Thirty percent more gets you to 1965 prices.”

“Twinkies and Flavo-straws it is.”

“There you go,” he said. “Brain food.”