Mary, Mary

Chapter 25

LAPD DISPATCH PUT OUT A CALL at 8:42 A.M., sending officers, backup, and emergency medical personnel to the Lowenstein-Bell address in Bel Air.

Two separate 911 calls on the same incident had come within a few minutes of each other. The first one was from the Los Angeles Times. The second came from the Lowenstein-Bell residence itself.

OfficersJeff Campbell and Patrick Beneke were first at the scene. Campbell suspected before they arrived that this was another celebrity murder. The address alone was unusual for this kind of call, but dispatch had mentioned a single adult female victim. And possible knife wounds. The couple who owned the house were both Hollywood types. It added up to trouble no matter what.

A short, dark-haired woman in a gray-and-white maid's uniform was waiting in the driveway She was wringing some kind of towel. As the patrolmen got closer, they could see that the woman was sobbing, and walking in circles.

“Great,” Beneke said. “Just what we need, some Carmelita who doesn't even speak English, bawling her eyes out and acting nitty loco.”

Campbell responded the way he always did to the younger officer's tiresome, racist cynicism. “Shut the hell up, Beneke. I don't want to hear it. She's terrified.”

As soon as they were out of the car, the maid went hysterical. “Aqui, aqui, aqull” she screeched, motioning them toward the front door. “Aqui! Aquif”

The residence was an ultramodern stone-and-glass structure high in the Santa Monica Mountains. As he approached, Officer Campbell could see straight through the green- glass entryway to the back patio and the sweeping coastal view beyond.

What was that on the front-d oor glass? It looked totally out of place. A label or a sticker of some kind. A kiddie decal? With a large A on it.

He had to practically pry the maid's grip from his forearm. "Ma'am, just please be calm.

Uno momento, por favor Corno te llamas?"

The woman may or may not have heard him. Her Spanish came much too quickly for him to understand. She pointed toward the house several more times.

“Let's just get in there,” Beneke insisted. “We're wasting time with her. She's living the vida coca.”

Two more cruisers and an ambulance pulled up. One of the paramedics spoke quickly, and more efficiently, with the maid.

“In the pool in the back,” he reported. “No one else is here - as far as she knows.”

“She don't know shit,” said Beneke.

“We'll go around,” Campbell said. He and Beneke took the north side of the house, their weapons drawn. The other teams went to the south, straight through a set of hedges.

Campbell felt the old rush of adrenaline as they worked their way through a dense cluster of hydrangea. Homicide calls used to be almost exhilarating. Now they just made him feel light-headed and weak in the legs.

He squinted through the thick brush as best he could. From what he knew of the Hollywood murders, there was no way the killer would still be around.

“You see anything?” he whispered to his partner, who was twenty-nine, a California cowboy, and a total asshole most of the time.

“Yeah, a bunch of flowers,” Beneke answered. “We were the first ones here. Why'd you let them go ahead of us like that?”

Campbell stifled his first response. “Just keep your eyes open,” he said. “The killer could still be here.”

“That's my hope, podjo.”

They emerged onto a sweeping black-slate patio in the back. It was dominated by an enormous dark-bottomed infinity pool. The water seemed to flow right up to and over the edge of the terrace.

“There she is.” Campbell groaned.

A woman's stark-white body floated facedown, arms perpendicular to the torso. She wore a lime-green one-piece. Her long blond hair was splayed gently over the surface of the water.

One of the paramedics jumped into the pooi and with some difficulty turned her over. He put a finger to her throat, but it was already obvious to Campbell there would be no pulse.

“Holy shit!” Campbell grimaced and looked away, then back again. He held his breath to keep everything down. Who the hell could do something like this? The poor woman was practically erased from the neck up. Her face was a tangle of cut flesh. The pool's water was tinted bright pink all around the body Beneke walked over to get a closer look. “Same killer. I'll bet you anything. Same crazy killer did this.” He leaned over to help pull the woman out.

“Wait,” Campbell barked. He pointed to the paramedic who was still in the water. "You.

Get out of the pool. Get out of the pool right now."

Stone-faced, they all looked at Campbell, but they knew he was right. Even Beneke didn't say a word. There was no sense putting any more of their stamp on the murder scene until an investigative team got there. They would have to leave the victim where she was.

“Hey! Hey, guys!”

Campbell looked up to see another officer, Jerry Tounley, calling down from an open window upstairs. “Office is completely trashed up here. There's broken pictures, stuff everywhere, glass. And get this - the computer's still on and open to a mail program! Looks like someone was sending an e-mail before they left.”