Killer

CHAPTER 32

Two days after the attempted murder of Boris Chamberlain, the case hit the news.

The L.A. Times devoted two paragraphs to “what LAPD sources describe as the emotional fallout from a heated guardianship battle.” Focus on the Sykes sisters, no mention of Chamberlain or Melandrano. TV offered similar content in the usual short-attention-span spurts, along with a DMV photo of Ree Sykes.

The newspaper byline was Kelly LeMasters, once a Times staff reporter, now a freelancer and writing a book. That volume was based on the movie-star homicides Milo and I had worked on last year. After a rocky beginning, LeMasters and Milo had forged a working relationship; no mystery about the identity of her “sources.”

Milo’s motivation was obvious: a woman that dangerous on the lam, going public was the logical step. No reason to feel sorry for Ree. Still …

I’d been struggling to accept her as a multiple murderer but maybe the real issue was that she’d fooled me completely. I knew that mental health pros were no better than anyone predicting violence, emphasized that when teaching forensic psych to gung-ho grad students.

In the case of Sykes v. Sykes, I’d manage to convince myself I was different.

Delusions were everywhere.

I took a punishing run up Mulholland and two miles beyond, staggered home drenched, aching, wheezing like a chain smoker.

After showering and dressing, I checked my messages. Perfect time for there to be none.

Three in ninety minutes, the joys of success.

A judge I respected far less than Marv Applebaum wanted to discuss — big surprise — an “unpleasant” custody case. A “professional career consultant” offered to “grow your practice beyond your wildest dreams, Doctor!” A Clara Fellows had left a call-back number.

I decoded the operator’s error: Kiara Fallows. The clerk who’d taken leave from Marv’s court. Wondering why she’d called, I tried her first.

A soft, whispery voice said, “This is Kiara.”

“Dr. Delaware returning your call.”

“Who?” she said. “Oh. Yes. Deputy Wattlesburg said you needed to talk to me?”

I’d told Lionel not to bother. The old courtroom vet being helpful?

“Nothing urgent,” I said. “I was just curious how you knew about the Sykes case.”

“The what?”

“Deputy Wattlesburg said you’d mentioned a guardianship suit in probate court—”

“Oh,” she said. “The two sisters. I guess I did — he’s annoyed with me. Lionel. For quitting. When he told me you called he also let me know I’d blown a big opportunity, working for the county, the benefits, the pension.”

“Did the Sykes case have something to do with your leaving?”

“It did kind of freak me out,” she said. “Someone getting killed over a child? But no, the main reason was it’s too far for me to drive. The gas mileage, I wanted something closer to home.”

“Where’d you hear about the murder?”

“People talking.”

“At the courthouse?”

“They’re always going on about something there.”

“Okay, thanks for clarifying.”

“That’s it?” she said. “You were just curious?”

“I was involved in the case as an expert witness, am still trying to make sense of it.”

“That’s scary,” she said. “Being a part of it, I mean. Someone going nuts and you could never tell they were dangerous. Like that workplace violence you hear about, no way to predict who’s going to go off the deep end. Hey, could I ask you a favor? Being a doctor, you wouldn’t happen to know of anyone who needs an office manager or something like that? I’m real good at planning and organizing.”

“If I think of anyone I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks. And good luck to you. Figuring out the craziness, I mean.”

I was tackling Joe Pass guitar solos, doing damage to “Satin Doll,” when Milo rang in.

“Looks like we got her, Alex. Skid Row, walking distance from the damn courthouse. I was right about her never leaving town. She parked her car at Union, somehow got another set of wheels that she used to drive-by Chamberlain, maybe ditched that, too.”

I said, “Criminal mastermind.”

“You know as well as I do, amigo. It ain’t that hard to be bad.”

“How’d you find her?”

“The tipoff was the kid,” he said. “How many healthy-looking women with well-nourished toddlers you gonna see at an SRO flophouse? Minutes after her face hit the tube we got three separate sightings. I’m outside the building right now.”

“Congratulations.”

“Listen, I know this isn’t the news you wanted so if you turn me down, I won’t blame you. But with the kid involved, the possibility of this turning into a hostage situation is bugging me. Your knowing what makes Mama tick — I could use you here.”

“Where’s here?”

“The King William Hotel, Los Angeles and Fifth. We’ll go in as soon as I decide to. Your arrival will help clarify that decision.”

The return trip to downtown was brain-sapping, the usual rush-hour slog turned toxic by morons texting and vicious reactions to vehicular slights, actual or otherwise. After witnessing countless one-finger salutes, window-muted snarls, red faces, and bulging eyes, I wondered what it would take for a traffic jam to turn into a terrible headline. No way to predict.

Had the world grown meaner? I’d spent most of my adult life dealing with worst-case scenarios, was probably the last guy to ask.

By the time I made my way through the box canyons created by darkened downtown office buildings, the sun had set. As I crossed the western border of Skid Row at Main, the sky was the color of sputum and the streets were strips of lint pied by inkblot shadows and animated by the lurch and stagger of impaired human beings.

The homeless shelters were as fully booked as Oscar after-parties. Piles of trash, makeshift tents fashioned from garbage bags, and shopping carts teeming with scabrous treasure landmarked pockets of improvisation.

I turned onto Los Angeles Street, spotted Milo two buildings north of the King William Hotel. The flop was a seven-story clot of gray brick, once grand, now soft around the edges and scarred by grime. A private security guard who looked ready to enter middle school stood out front, rendered superfluous by Milo’s presence and the four Central Division squad cars positioned twenty yards north. Just beyond the cruisers sat a large, square-edged dark shape.

One of the armored Lenco BearCats used by SWAT as a “rescue vehicle.” “BearCat” was a fittingly macho moniker but its true meaning was Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck. Lovely hunk of military hardware affording safe transport for officers. Also, an armory on wheels. I pictured the King William’s struggling frame shuddering under a barrage of high-tech killing power. Seven stories collapsing as easily as any gunshot victim.

The department owned a fleet of SWAT trucks. Only one had been dispatched to tonight’s gig. I tried to see that as a promising sign.

Milo saw me. His finger-wave lacked energy and his posture was bad.

When I reached him, he said, “You made decent time,” and waved a key. “She’s up on the seventh floor. I figured I’d keep it maximally mellow by leaving the shock troops down here and knocking on her door myself. She opens up, she’s unarmed, it’s over. She resists or ignores, it gets complicated, but still it’s just a single woman and hopefully being with the kid will prevent her doing anything stupid. My question to you is should I use a ruse on her — building manager checking out a pipe — or play it straight?”

I thought about that. Shook my head.

His eyebrows rose. “Nothing in her psyche says one or the other?”

“Apparently, her psyche’s virgin territory for me, but if I had to guess, I’d say fool her. Anything to keep her relaxed and avoid confrontation.”

“You figure she’ll come to the door packing?”

“Who knows? But even if she doesn’t, a gun’s likely to be in the room. And we’re talking a small room, if it’s a typical SRO. That could mean easy reach.”

“True,” he said. “Had a look at similar rooms, they’re all the same according to the desk clerk. Eight by eight … Mommy with a .25 and a 9mm, wonderful. Anything else you think would be helpful?”

“If she doesn’t buy the ruse and stonewalls, I’d be happy to talk to her.”

“You read my mind,” he said. Twitchy smile. “Then again, they trained you to do that.”

The final plan was the SWAT truck would glide past the King William and position itself closer to the building but remain shielded from view by a neighboring ten-story flop named the Pegasus. All officers to remain inside.

Four of the Central uniforms would keep the area free of gawkers, though given the nature of the residents, unpredictability was a more serious factor than usual. A fifth cop would replace the guard out front, three others would keep an eye on the back of the long-incapacitated fire escapes that traced a theoretical escape route down the back of King William to a putrid alley. The hotel’s elevators were already on lockdown.

“Those mofos are always broken anyway, rez-dents use the stairs,” said the desk clerk from behind his Lexan window. Milo and I were the only ones who’d entered the building, both of us in Kevlar vests. The lobby was large but empty, high-ceilinged and blue-gray, reeking of industrial-strength bug spray, chronic disease, scorched tobacco.

The clerk was an immensely fat man in his fifties named DeWayne Smart whose bulk threatened to spill out of his bulletproof booth. His shift was two to ten p.m. His job consisted of collecting cash and vouchers for daily to weekly stays, handing out keys, squinting with suspicion. He’d been one of the three tipsters who’d called in on Ree Sykes, had just re-confirmed her identity after viewing her DMV shot.

“Yope, thas her,” he said, slipping the photo back through the slot.

“She checked in two days ago.”

“Yope. There a cash reward?”

“We’ll see,” said Milo, looking at the key. “No number on this, you’re sure it’s 709?”

Smart exposed a maw of broken, brown teeth. “That’s the Presidential Suite. She got a nice view.”

“You have no central phone line.”

“I told you,” said Smart, peeved. “All the rez-dents get is what they bring with ’em.”

“She bring a cell phone?”

“How should I know?”

I said, “What’s she been like?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s her attitude, has she said or done anything unusual?”

“I never seen her since she checked in,” said Smart. “She went up, never came down. How long’s this gonna last?”

Milo said, “Till it’s over.”

I said, “Residents have what they bring. What did she bring?”

“No idea,” said Smart.

“She have luggage?”

“Louise Veeton — I’m in here, don’t go out to examine, they pay, they go to their rooms.” Smart laughed. “Maybe she come out at night, like a bat.” He flapped his arms. Shoulder fat rippled.

Milo said, “Okay, we’re going up.”

Smart crossed himself.

Milo laughed. “There’s a vote of confidence.”

“Huh?”

Milo copied the gesture.

Smart said, “Yope, whatever it takes.”

A brown door, so overpainted it resembled a melting chocolate bar, led to the stairs. The stairwell walls were pea-green plaster, much of it corroded to warped lath and specked with black mold. The steps were marble, once white, now splashed gray and brown and yellow and colors I couldn’t categorize. Wooden banisters had long given way to vandals, the sole evidence of their presence an occasional splintered post.

We climbed.

Odors varied from floor to floor but the predominant strains were stale piss, ripe vomit, burning sulfur, and more of the nose-stinging bug spray. Clumps of belly-up roaches, water bugs, silverfish, and horseflies attested to the efficacy of the spray. What had finished off the rats moldering on levels 3, 4, and 6 was hard to ascertain. One of the rodent corpses was still fresh and bloody and oozing and some opportunistic creature had ripped open its belly and feasted on the entrails. Maybe a cat. Maybe a who-knows-what.

The mess caught Milo’s attention and he stopped for a moment and swabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and tried to even out his breathing.

He’d been panting since level 2, pores working overtime, hair plastered to his skull as if he’d just showered.

I remained dry. Maybe the run up the Glen had leached me of body fluid, maybe I was in decent shape. Fitness didn’t account for a mouth full of cotton and eye sockets that ached each time my attention shifted.

When we reached the door to the seventh-floor corridor, Milo un-snapped his holster and used the handkerchief to glove his hand as he turned the doorknob.

The knob came loose, clattered down the stairs. Milo stuck his finger in the hole that remained, managed to slide the bolt, pushed.

The hallway on the other side was long enough for an LAX arrival terminal. More rotting walls and acrid stench. A runner of perforated red rubber carpet padding traced the center of a floor paved with tiny white hexagonal tiles. The doors were black slabs, scores of them, numerically identified by stick-on labels.

One of them opened and a man in a soiled wife-beater and boxer shorts emerged, smoking, clutching a pint bottle. Shaved head, prison tattoos, long chin beard tied in several knots, zits where ink didn’t dominate. Smoke rose around him and settled like a cloud; no ventilation.

Milo flashed the badge and waved him back inside.

The man gave the thumbs-up and complied.

We kept walking, stopped two doors short of 709. Swabbing his brow again, Milo motioned me to stand back and moved forward on crepe soles. He put one hand on his Glock, used the other to knock lightly.

A dull thud resulted. Under the black paint, the door was solid timber, installed when wood was cheap and the hotel hosted residents who mattered.

Repeat knock. No answer.

He tried again. Music filtered from someone else’s room. Mariachi remixed to hip-hop.

Milo cleared his throat and stepped close to the door. “This is Leon from downstairs. I need to check your heater.” He’d turned his voice gravelly. Louis Armstrong at his most jovial.

The look on his big pale face was anything but. Hello, Dolly, I come to bust you.

He stood tall, all traces of fatigue gone. Seconds passed. He ticked them off with a finger on a wrist. He was about to knock again when the door cracked. Thump-rattle. Held fast by a chain.

He grinned, “Hey there, can I come in?”

No answer that I could hear, but he must’ve sensed danger because he jammed one hand in the crack and kicked the door hard. The chain gave way with the sound of crepe paper ripping and he had to keep one hand on the door to prevent it from falling onto him. Awkward but he forged in, gun pointed.

A female cry — fear mixed with the shock of betrayal — was followed by a bleat of terror, high-pitched, horribly rhythmic.

Not an adult sound.

A baby wailing, ragged, terrified.

Then: scuffling, grunting. The slap of flesh on something hard.

Then, just the baby.

I went in.

Milo had her down on the ground, face to the scarred wooden floor of the cell-like room. The single bed was barely wide enough for one person. The baby lay on top of it, resting on a gray sheet, faceup. That was good, less chance of SIDS.

No crib, no other place to sleep. That was bad. Sleeping with an adult risked rollover suffocation.

The baby had good lungs, howling nonstop.

An angry little boy.

Milo hadn’t noticed. He brought the woman to her feet.

She was around Ree Sykes’s age and height but thinner than Ree and rawboned where Ree was soft. If you weren’t looking too closely, you might not notice the discrepancies. All I could see were the discrepancies: narrower hips, smaller chin, longer legs, larger hands.

Hair can always be modified and this woman had altered hers from whatever she’d been born with to shoe-polish black. Chopped brutally at the ends and half the length of Ree’s red-blond curls. I wondered what had led DeWayne Smart and two other people to be so sure.

The pulse in Milo’s neck raced as his error gut-punched him.

The woman remained still but low guttural warnings emerged from rapidly moving lips. She began grinding her jaws, setting off unnerving squeaks. Her lips curled into a terrible smile. She snarled. Looked ready to spit.

Milo tightened up and did nothing but watch her.

The woman laughed. Opened her mouth, revealing more gap than tooth, and let out a deep, sexless sound that ended with a high-pitched cackle.

That startled the baby. His tiny body quaked, he keened louder, began pummeling the sagging mattress with heels and fists. All that panic rolled him nearer to the edge of the bed but packages of disposable diapers were stacked tight between that side of the mattress and the wall, creating a safety berm. Or they’d ended up there because there was scant space anywhere else.

Milo said, “I’m sor—”

The woman said, “Fhh!” and tried to kick him.

“Ma’am—”

“Fhhh!”

Keeping my eye on the baby I scanned the room in fast-action spurts.

Gray, urine-stained walls, three-drawer raw-wood dresser with the bottom drawer missing. More diapers and a white plastic purse on top. Floor space taken up by stacks of formula and baby food. Adult nutrition in the form of generic canned goods: spaghetti, stew, soup, vegetables. A box of crackers served as a platform for a large, red, vinyl-bound Bible.

To the left of the dresser was a clear view into the doorless adjoining bathroom. The toilet lid hosted a small, foldable camper’s stove fueled by a cake of Sterno. A manual can opener sat on the rim of the sink.

The fuel in the stove was reduced to a thin sheet of purple wax. Cooking in here posed a serious risk of fire and carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe the latter explained why the bathroom window was propped open by two cans of chicken noodle soup. Or maybe that was just an attempt to air out the stench.

The baby continued to wail. The woman on the floor competed to fill the room with noise, cursing wordlessly, shaking her head and hissing each time Milo tried to apologize. That prolonged her confinement and every second of confinement kicked up her rage.

Plain woman, gorgeous child. Rosy-cheeked, towheaded, wearing a fuzzy blue one-piece.

Milo said, “Ma’am, please try to calm down so I can uncuff—” The woman screamed. The baby turned scarlet and began rolling in the opposite direction, toward the unguarded edge of the bed. I snatched him up. Solid little thing. He fought me, arching his back, retracting his head and thrusting it forward. Making contact with my cheek.

Two points for the little bruiser.

I said, “There, there.”

He screamed louder.

Maybe he’d reached the volume where his mother’s tolerance ended because suddenly she stopped fighting, said, “Cody. Be still!” Speaking softly in that special maternal rhythm. But the anger lingered in her voice and that did nothing to calm her child and he continued to twist violently in my arms.

I said, “Hey, little buddy.” His tears splashed onto my face. I wrapped my arms around his tiny torso, kept his arms safely pinned, began whispering in his ear. “ ’Sokay Cody, ’sokay Cody, ’sokay Cody.”

Matching the pitch and rhythm of his cries, over and over, my best reassuring drone.

With babies, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. He shuddered, his body stiffened. Finally he began yielding to the primal comfort of the hypnoidal mantra.

Milo said, “I’m going to take off the cuffs, but you need to remain calm, ma’am.”

The woman cursed silently.

He gave her a few more seconds. She said, “Free me, I’m doin’ your bidding, you bastard.”

Once liberated, she shot toward me, grabbed the baby from my arms.

Cody let out a single, forlorn cry of relief and buried his head in her bosom. Holding him close, she shrank back to the wall of diapers, pointed with her head. “Go! I shall be rid of you!”

Milo said, “I really am sorry, ma’am.”

The woman clutched Cody tighter. He mewled.

“Go, you are cursed!” Her eyes were blue, bloodshot, compressed by hatred.

“We’re going to leave, ma’am, I just want to make sure—”

“No! Don’t tell him!”

“Tell who?”

The woman smiled. “Like you don’t know, you bastard. He sent you!”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry for what happened but I really don’t—”

“Him!” she said. “He that would be blessed but is cursed. He that eats of the Paschal and sullies his maw with the blood of innocents.”

Milo looked at me.

The woman began growling again. On cue, Cody cried but this time she was able to still him with a steel-edged hiss. Freeing one hand, she lifted her blouse and I wondered if she’d begin nursing to flaunt her maternal rights. Instead, she stopped just short of the pendulous bottom of her right breast.

A scar, puckered and stitched as subtly as a baseball, rose diagonally from the outer left edge of her rib cage, wandering across her chest and ending mid-sternum.

I said, “He did that to you.”

The woman stuck her tongue out at me. Cody was transfixed by the gesture, staring at her, eyes wide and questioning. Extending his own pink bud and experimenting with a run across his lips.

His eyes were an identical blue hue to his mother’s. Other nuances of facial resemblance began cropping up: narrow chin, wide brow, large flat-to-the-skull ears. If he lived long enough, this chubby tot would end up a tall, rawboned man. Lord knew how his genetics and upbringing would affect his personality.

His mother turned back to Milo, keeping her scar in view. “He sent you. Be gone.”

Bitter and hostile, but relieved by suspicion confirmed. The corners of her mind tucked as neatly as her bedsheet.

Because surrender to uncertainty could be more frightening than death.

Milo said, “Ma’am, we were just following up on a—”

“Ma’am? I am She!”

Cody whimpered.

She rocked him. Spoke to his left ear. “Shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh shh.”

Miraculously, that quieted him down.

Milo spotted the white plastic purse and headed for it. “Ma’am, I’m just going to check your I.D. — no, no, don’t get upset, obviously he didn’t send us or I’d know who you are.”

The woman said, “Hmm,” contemplated that logic, continued to rock her child.

Milo opened the purse, found a black plastic wallet, shuffled through the contents, examined a driver’s license. Before he closed the purse he slipped in a couple of twenties.

The woman spat. “Cursed by thy blood money.”

Milo said, “Actually, it’s holy money, I got it at church.”

“Liar!”

“Save it for yourself or buy Cody a present.”

“No! Remove the filthy pelf! You bring the leprosy of the crumbling wall upon the flesh of the anointed!”

Milo removed the money. The woman’s eyes dropped to his gun. Her forehead grew smooth. Big smile.

Keeping his distance, he waved me to the door, backed toward it, saying, “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Just for good measure, the woman screamed louder.