Monster

Chapter 31

"Citizen creep," said Milo, looking at the circled name.

"G.W. Orson got licensed twenty-two months ago," I said. "That's about all I could get except for the address he put on his application form."

He studied the address slip. "South Shenandoah Street… around Eighteenth. West L.A. territory… only a few blocks from the shopping center where Claire was dumped."

"The center's far from Claire's house, so why would she shop there? Unless she went with someone else."

"Crimmins? They had a relationship?"

"Why not?" I said. "Let's assume Orson-and Wark-are both Crimmins aliases. We have no employment records yet, but Crimmins is a psych tech, so it's not much of a leap to assume he works at Starkweather, or did in the past. He ran into Claire. Something developed. Because they had two common interests: the movies and Ardis Peake. When Claire told Crimmins she'd picked Peake as a project, he decided to find out more. When Crimmins learned Claire was uncovering information potentially threatening to him, he decided to cast hex in Blood Walk."

"Kills her, films her, dumps her," he said. "It holds together logically; now all I have to do is prove it. I canvassed the shopping center, showed her picture to every clerk who'd been working the day she was killed. No one remembered seeing her, alone or with anyone else. That doesn't mean much, it's a huge place, and if I can get a picture of Crimmins, I'll go back. But maybe we can get a look at him in person."

He waved the address slip. "This helps big-time. First let's see if he registered his 'Vette."

The call to DMV left him shaking his head. "No G.W. Orson cars anywhere in the state."

"Lives in L.A., but no legal car," I said. "That alone tells us he's dirty. Try another scrambled director's name."

"Later," he said, pocketing the address. "This is something real. Let's go for it."

The block was quiet, intermittently treed, filled with plain-wrap, single-story houses set on vest-pocket lots that ranged from compulsively tended to ragged. Birds chirped, dogs barked. A man in an undershirt pushed a lawn mower in slo-mo. A dark-skinned woman strolling a baby looked up as we passed. Apprehension, then relief; the unmarked was anything but inconspicuous.

Years ago, the neighborhood had been ravaged by crime and white flight. Rising real estate prices had reversed some of that, and the result was a mixed-race district that resonated with tense, tentative pride.

The place G.W. Orson had called home twenty-two months ago was a pale green Spanish bungalow with a neatly edged lawn and no other landscaping. A FOR LEASE sign was staked dead center in the grass. In the driveway was a late-model Oldsmobile Cutlass. Milo drove halfway down the block and ran the plates. "TBL Properties, address on Wilshire near La Brea."

He U-turned, parked in front of the green house. A stunted old magnolia tree planted in the parkway next door cast some shade upon the Olds. Nailed to the trunk was a poster. Cloudy picture of a dog with some Rottweiler in it. Eager canine grin. "Have You Seen Buddy?" over a phone number and a typed message: Buddy had been missing for a week and needed daily thyroid medication. Finding him would bring a hundred-dollar reward. For no reason I could think of, Buddy looked strangely familiar. Everything was starting to remind me of something.

We walked to the front of the green house, stepping around a low, chipped stucco wall that created a small patio. The front door was glossy and sharp-smelling-fresh varnish. White curtains blocked the front window. Shiny brass door knocker. Milo lifted it and let it drop.

Footsteps. An Asian man opened the door. Sixties, angular, and tanned, he wore a beige work shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, matching cotton pants, white sneakers. Creepily close to Starkweather inmate duds. I felt my hands ball and forced them to loosen.

"Yes?" His hair was sparse and white, his eyes a pair of surgical incisions. In one hand was a crumpled gray rag.

Milo flashed the badge. "We're here about George Orson."

"Him." Weary smile. "No surprise. Come on in."

We followed him into a small, empty living room. Next door was a kitchen, also empty, except for a six-pack of paper towel rolls on the brown tile counter. A mop and a broom were propped in a corner, looking like exhausted marathon dancers. The house echoed of vacancy, but stale odors- cooked meat, must, tobacco-lingered, battling for domir nance with soap, ammonia, varnish from the door.

Vacant, but more lived-in than Claire's place.

The man held out his hand. "Len Itatani."

"You work for the owner, sir?" said Milo.

Itatani smiled. "I am the owner." He produced a couple of business cards.

TBL Properties, Inc.

LEONARD J. ITATANI, PRES.

"Named it after my kids. Tom, Beverly, Linda. So what did Orson do?"

"Sounds like you had problems with him, sir," said Milo.

"Nothing but," said Itatani. He glanced around the room. "Sorry there's no place to sit. There's some bottled water, if you're thirsty. Too hot to be cleaning up, but summer's prime rental time and I want to get this place squared away."

"No thanks," said Milo. "What did Orson do?"

Itatani pulled a square of tissue paper from his shirt pocket and dabbed a clear, broad forehead. No moisture on the bronze skin that I'd noticed. "Orson was a bum. Always late with his rent; then he stopped paying at all. Neighbor complained he was selling drugs, but I don't know about that, there was nothing I could do. She said all kinds of cars would show up at night, be here a short time, and leave. I told her to call the police."

"Did she?"

"You'd have to ask her."

"Which neighbor?"

"Right next door." Itatani pointed south.

Milo's pad was out. "So you never talked to Orson about selling drugs?"

"I was going to, eventually," said Itatani. "What I did try to talk to him about was the rent. Left messages under the door-he never gave me a phone listing, said he hadn't bothered to get one. That shouldI've warned me." Another swipe at the dry brow. "Didn't want to scare him off with any drug talk until he paid the rent he owed me. Was this close to posting notice. But he moved out, middle of the night. Stole furniture. I had his first and last and damage deposit in cash, but he trashed more than was covered by the deposit-cigarette burns on the nightstands, cracked tiles in the bathroom, gouges in the wood floors, probably from dragging cameras around."

"Cameras?"

"Movie cameras-big, heavy stuff. All sorts of stuff in boxes, too. I warned him about the floors; he said he'd be careful." He grimaced. "Had to refinish a hundred square feet of oak board, replace some of it totally. I told him no filming in the house, didn't want any funny business."

"Like what?"

"You know," said Itatani. "A guy like that, says he's making movies but he's living here. My first thought was something X-rated. I didn't want that going on here, so I made it clear: this was a residence, not a budget studio. Orson said he had no intention of working here, had some kind of arrangement with one of the studios, he just needed to store some equipment. I never really believed that-you get a studio contract, you don't live here. I had a bad feeling about him from the beginning-no references, he said he'd been freelancing for a while, working on his own projects. When I asked him what kind of projects, he just said short films, changed the subject. But he showed me cash. It was the middle of the year, the place had been vacant for a long time, I figured a bird in the hand."

"When did he start renting, sir?"

"Eleven months ago," said Itatani. "He stayed for six months, stiffed me for the last two."

"So it's been five months since he left," said Milo. "Have you had other tenants since?"

"Sure," said Itatani. "First two students, then a hairdresser. Not much better, had to evict them both."

"Did Orson live alone?"

"Far as I know. I saw him with a couple of women; whether or not he moved them in, I don't know. So what'd he do to get you down here?"

"A few things," said Milo. "What did the women look like?"

"One was one of those rock-and-roll types-blond hair, all spiky, lots of makeup. She was here when I showed up to ask about the overdue rent. Said she was a friend of Orson's, he was out on location, she'd give him the message."

"How old?"

"Twenties, thirties, hard to tell with all that makeup. She wasn't tough or anything-kind of polite, actually. Promised to tell Orson. Nothing happened for a week, I stopped by again but no one was here. I left a note, another week passed, Orson sent me a check. It bounced."

"Remember what bank it was from?"

"Santa Monica Bank, Pico Boulevard," said Itatani. "Closed account, he'd only had it for a week. I came over a third time, looked through the window, saw he still had his stuff here. I could've posted right there, but all that does is cost money for filing. Even if you win in Small Claims, try collecting. So I left more messages. He'd call back, but always late at night when he knew I wasn't in." He ticked his ringers. " 'Sorry, been traveling.' 'There must be a bank mixup.' 'I'll get you a cashier's check.' By the next month, I'd had it, but he was gone."

"What about the second woman?" said Milo.

"Her I didn't meet, I just saw her with him. Getting into his car-that's another thing. His car. Yellow Corvette. Flashy. That he had money for. The time I saw the second woman was around the same time-five, six months ago. I'd come by to get the rent, no one was home. I left a note, drove away, got halfway up the block, saw Orson's car, turned around. Orson parked and got out. But then he must've seen me, because he got back in and drove off. Fast, we passed each other. I waved but he kept going. She was on the passenger side. Brunette. I'd already met the blonde, remember thinking He can 'tpay the rent but he can afford two girlfriends."

"You figured the brunette was his girlfriend."

"She was with him, middle of the day. They were about to go into the house."

"What else can you tell me about her?"

"I didn't get much of a look at her. Older than the blonde, I think. Nothing unusual. When she passed me, she was looking out the window. Right at me. Not smiling or anything. I remember thinking she looked confused-like why was Orson making a getaway, but… I really can't say much about her. Brunette, that's about it."

"How about a description of Orson?"

"Tall, skinny. Every time I saw him he wore nothing but black. He had these black boots with big heels that made him even taller. And that shaved head-real Hollywood."

"Shaved head," said Milo.

"Clean as a cueball," said Itatani.

"How old?"

"Thirties, maybe forty."

"Eye color?"

"That I couldn't tell you. He always reminded me of a vulture. Big nose, little eyes-I think they were brown, but I wouldn't swear to it."

"How old was the brunette in the car?"

Itatani shrugged. "Like I said, we passed for two seconds."

"But probably older than the blonde," said Milo.

"I guess."

Milo produced Claire's County Hospital staffphoto.

Itatani studied the picture, returned it, shaking his head. "No reason it couldn 't be her, but that's as much as I can say. Who is she?"

"Possibly an associate of Orson. So you saw the brunette with Orson five, six months ago."

"Let me think… I'd say closer to five. Not long before he moved out." Itatani dabbed his face again. "All these questions, he must've done something really bad."

"Why's that, sir?"

"For you to be spending all this time. I get burglaries at some of my other properties, robberies, it's all I can do to get the police to come out and write a report. I knew that guy was wrong."

Milo pressed Itatani for more details without success; then we walked through the house. Two bedrooms, one bath, everything redolent of soap. Fresh paint; new carpeting in the hallway. The replaced floorboards were in the smaller bedroom. Milo rubbed his face. Any physical evidence of Wark's presence had long vanished.

He said, "Did Orson keep any tools here-power tools?"

"In the garage," said Itatani. "He set up a whole shop. He kept more movie stuff in there, too. Lights, cables, all kinds of things."

"What kind of tools did he have in the shop?"

"The usual," said Itatani. "Power drill, hand tools, power saws. He said he sometimes built his own sets."

The garage was flat-roofed and double-width, taking up a third of the tiny backyard. Outsized for the house. I remarked on that.

Itatani unlocked the sliding metal door and shoved it up. "I enlarged it years ago, figured it would make the place easier to rent."

Inside were walls paneled in cheap fake oak, a cement floor, an open-beam ceiling with a fluorescent fixture dangling from a header. The smell of disinfectant burned my nose.

"You've cleaned this, too," said Milo.

"First thing I cleaned," said Itatani. "The hairdresser brought cats in. Against the rules-he had a no-pets lease. Litter boxes and those scratch things all over the place. Took days to air out the stink." He sniffed. "Finally."

Milo paced the garage, examined the walls, then the floor. He stopped at the rear left-hand corner, beckoned me over. Itatani came, too.

Faint mocha-colored splotch, amoebic, eight or nine inches square.

Milo knelt and put his face close to the wall, pointed. Specks of the same hue dotted the paneling. Brown on brown, barely visible.

Itatani said, "Cat pee. I was able to scrub some of it off."

"What did it look like before you cleaned it?"

"A little darker."

Milo got up and walked along the back wall very slowly. Stopped a few feet down, wrote in his pad. Another splotch, smaller.

"What?" said Itatani.

Milo didn't answer.

"What?" Itatani repeated. "Oh-you don't- Oh, no…" For the first time, he was sweating.

Milo cell-phoned the crime-scene team, apologized to Itatani for the impending disruption, and asked him to stay clear of the garage. Then he got some yellow tape from the unmarked and stretched it across the driveway.

Itatani said, "Still looks like cat dirt to me," and went to sit in his Oldsmobile.

Milo and I walked over to the south-side neighbor. Another Spanish house, bright white. The mat in front of the door said

GO AWAY. Very loud classical music pounded through the walls. No response to the doorbell. Several hard knocks finally opened the door two inches, revealing one bright blue eye, a slice of white skin, a smudge of red mouth.

"What?" a cracked voice screeched.

Milo shouted back, "Police, ma'am!"

"Show me some I.D."

Milo held out the badge. The blue eye moved closer, pupil contracting as it confronted daylight.

"Closer," the voice demanded.

Milo put the badge right up against the crack. The blue eye blinked. Several seconds passed. The door opened.

The woman was short, skinny, at least eighty, with hair dyed crow-feather black and curled in Marie Antoinette ringlets that reminded me of blood sausages. A face powdered chalky added to the aging-courtesan look. She wore a black silk dressing gown spattered with gold stars, three strings of heavy amber beads around her neck, giant pearl drop earrings. The music in the background was assertive and heavy-Wagner or Bruckner or someone else a goose-stepper would've enjoyed. Cymbals crashed. The woman glared. Behind her was a huge white grand piano piled high with books.

"What do you want?" she screamed over a crescendo. Her voice was as pleasing as grit on glass.

"George Orson," said Milo. "Is it possible to turn the music down?"

Cursing under her breath, the woman slammed the door, opened it a minute later. The music was several notches lower, but still loud.

"Orson," she said. "Scumbag. What'd he do, kill someone?" Glancing to the left. Itatani had come out of his car and was standing on the lawn of the green house.

"Goddamn absentee landlords. Don't care who they rent to. So what'd that scumbag do?"

"That's what we're trying to find out, ma'am."

"That's a load of double-talk crap. What'd he doT' She slapped her hands against her hips. Silk whistled and the dressing gown parted at her neckline, revealing powdered wattle, a few inches of scrawny white chest, shiny sternal knobs protruding like ivory handles. Her lipstick was the color of arterial blood. "You want info from me, don't hand me any crap."

"Mr. Orson's suspected in some drug thefts, Mrs.-"

"Ms.," she said. "Sinclair. Ms. Marie Sinclair. Drugs. Big boo-hoo surprise. It's about time you guys caught on. The whole time that lowlife was here there'd be cars in and out, in and out, all hours of the night."

"Did you ever call the police?"

Marie Sinclair looked ready to hit him. "Jesus Almighty- only six times. Your so-called officers said they'd drive by. If they did, lot of good it accomplished."

Milo wrote. "What else did Orson do to disturb you, Ms. Sinclair?"

"Cars in and out, in and out wasn't enough. I'm trying to practice, and the headlights keep shining through the drapes. Right there." She pointed to her front window, covered with lace.

"Practice what, ma'am?" said Milo.

"Piano. I teach, give recitals." She flexed ten spidery white fingers. The nails were a matching red, but clipped short.

"I used to do radio work," she said. "Live radio-the old RKO studios. I knew Oscar Levant, what a lunatic-another dope fiend, but a genius. I was the first girl pianist for the Co-coanut Grove, played the Mocambo, did a party at Ira Gershwin's up on Roxbury Drive. Talk about stage fright- George and Ira listening. There were giants back then; now it's only mental midgets and-"

"Orson told Mr. Itatani he was a film director."

"Mr. Itawhosis"-she sneered-"doesn't give a damn who he rents to. After the scumbag moved out, I got stuck with two sloppy kids-real pigs-then a fag cosmetologist. Back when I bought this house-"

"When Orson lived here, did you ever see any filming next door?" said Milo.

"Yeah, he was Cecil B. DeMille-no, never. Just cars, in and out. I'm trying to practice and the damn headlights are glaring through like some kind of-"

"You practice at night, ma'am?"

"So what?" said Marie Sinclair. "That's against the law?"

"No, ma'am, I was just-"

"Look," she said. Her hands separated from her hips, clamped down again. "I'm a night person, as if it's any of your business. Just woke up, if it's any of your business. Comes from all those years of clubbing." She stepped onto the porch, advanced on Milo. "Nighttime's when it comes alive. Morning's for suckers. Morning people should be lined up and shot."

"So your basic complaint against Orson was all the traffic."

"Dope traffic. Those kinds of lowlifes, what was to stop someone from pulling out a gun? None of those idiots can shoot straight, you hear about all those colored and Mexican kids getting shot in drive-bys by accident. I could've been sitting in there playing Chopin, andpow!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, punched her forehead, jerked her head back. Black ringlets danced. When her eyes opened, they were hotter, brighter.

Milo said, "Did you ever get a good look at any of Orson's visitors?"

"Visitors. Hah. No, I didn't look. Didn't want to see, didn't want to know. The headlights were bad enough. You guys never did a damn thing about them. And don't tell me to turn the piano around, because it's a seven-foot-long Steinway and it won't fit in the room any other way."

"How many cars would there be on an average night, Ms. Sinclair?"

"Five, six, ten, who knows, I never counted. At least he was gone a lot."

"How often, ma'am?"

"A lot. Half the time. Maybe more. Thank God for small blessings."

"Did you ever talk to him directly about the headlights?"

"What?" she screeched. "And have him pull out a gun?

We're talking scumbag. That's your job. I called you. Lot of good it did."

"Mr. Itatani said Orson had a machine shop out in the garage. Did you ever hear sawing or drilling?"

"No," she said. "Why? You think he was manufacturing the dope back there? Or cutting it, whatever it is they do to that crap?"

"Anything's possible, ma'am."

"No, it's not," she snapped. "Very few things are possible. Oscar Levant will not rise from the dead. That cancer in George Gershwin's genius brain will not- Never mind, why am I wasting my time. No, I never heard drilling or sawing. I never heard a damn thing, because during the day, when I sleep, I keep the music on-got one of those programmable CD players, six discs that keep repeating. It's the only way I can go to sleep, block out the damn birds, cars, all that daytime crap. It was when I was up that he bothered me. The lights. Trying to get through my scales and the damn headlights are shining right on the keyboard."

Milo nodded. "I understand, ma'am."

"Sure you do," she said. "Too late, too little."

"Anything else you can tell us?"

"That's it. Didn't know I was going to be tested."

Milo showed her Claire's picture. "Ever see her with Orson?"

"Nope," she said. "She looks like a schoolteacher. Is she the one he killed?"

The crime-scene crew arrived ten minutes later. Itatani sat in his Oldsmobile, looking miserable. Marie Sinclair had gone back inside her house, but a few other neighbors had emerged. Milo asked them questions. I followed as he walked up and down the block, knocking on doors. No new revelations. If George Orson had been running a dope house, Marie Sinclair had been the only one to notice.

A pleasant old woman named Mrs. Leiber turned out to be the owner of Buddy, the missing dog. She seemed addled, disappointed that we weren't here to investigate the theft.-

Convinced Buddy had been dognapped, though an open gate at the side of her house indicated other possibilities.

Milo told her he'd keep his eyes open.

"He's such a sweetie," Mrs. Leiber said. "Got the courage but not any meanness."

We returned to the green house. The criminalists were still unpacking their gear. Milo showed the stains in the garage to the head tech, a black man named Merriweather, who got down and put his nose to it.

"Could be," he said. "If it is, it's pretty degraded. We'll scrape. If it is blood, should be able to get a basic HLA typing, but DNA's a whole other thing."

"Just tell me if it's blood."

"I can try that now."

We watched him work, wielding solvents and reagents, swabs and test tubes.

The answer came within minutes:

"O-positive."

"Richard Dada's type," said Milo.

"Forty-three percent of the population," said Merriweather. "Let me scrape around here and inside the house, it'll take us the best part of the day, but maybe we can find you something interesting."

Back in the unmarked, Milo phoned DMV again, cross-referencing vehicle registrations with the Shenandoah address. No match.

Gunning the engine, he pulled away from the curb, tires squealing. Less urgency than frustration. By the time we were back on Pico, he'd slowed down.

At Doheny, we stopped for a red light and he said, "Richard's blood type. Orson's cutting out on the rent could explain why Richard was cut in half and Claire wasn't. By the time he did her, he'd lost his machine shop, didn't have the time-or the place-to set up… All that stolen movie junk. He has to keep it somewhere. Time to check out storage outfits… Be nice if Itatani could've LD.'d Claire as the woman in the car."

"If she was, Itatani saw her shortly before she was murdered. Maybe she and Orson did go shopping at the center, and that's why he dumped her there. What stores are there?"

"Montgomery Ward, Toys 'R' Us, food joints, the Stereos Galore she was found behind."

"Stereos Galore," I said. "Might they sell cameras?" He looked in his rearview mirror, hung an illegal U-turn.

The front lot was jammed and we had to park on the far end, near La Cienega. Stereos Galore was two vast stories of gray rubber flooring and maroon plastic partitions. Scores of TV's projected soundlessly; blinking, throbbing entertainment centers spewed conflicting backbeats; salespeople in emerald-green vests pointed out the latest feature to stunned-looking customers. The camera section was at the rear of the second floor.

The manager was a small, dark-skinned, harried-looking man named Albert Mustafa with a precise black mustache and eyeglasses so thick his mild brown irises seemed miles away. He shepherded us into a relatively quiet corner, behind tall displays of film in colorful boxes. The cacophony from below filtered through the rubber tiles. Marie Sinclair would have felt at home.

Claire Argent's picture evoked a blank stare. Milo asked him about substantial video purchases.

"Six months ago?" he said.

"Five or six months ago," said Milo. "The name could be Wark or Crimmins or Orson. We're looking for a substantial purchase of video equipment or cameras."

"How much is substantial?" said Mustafa.

"What's your typical sale?"

"Nothing's typical. Still cameras range from fifty dollars to nearly a thousand. We can get you set up with basic video for under three hundred, but you can go high-tech and then you're talking serious money."

"Every sale is in the computer, right?"

"Supposed to be."

"Do you categorize your customers based upon how much they spend?"

"No, sir."

"Okay," said Milo. "How about checking video purchases over one thousand dollars, four to six months ago. Start with this date." He recited the day of Claire's murder.

Mustafa said, "I'm not sure this is legal, sir. I'd have to check with the home office."

"Where'sthat?"

"Minneapolis."

"And they're closed by now," said Milo.

"I'm afraid so, sir."

"How about just spooling back to that one day, Mr. Mustafa, see what comes up."

"I'd really rather not."

Milo stared at him.

"I don't want to lose my job," said Mustafa. "But the police help us… Just that day."

Eight credit-card purchases of video equipment that day, two of them over a thousand dollars. No Crimmins, Wark, or Orson, or Argent. Nothing that brought to mind a scrambled director's name. Milo copied down the names and the credit card numbers as Mustafa looked on nervously.

"What about cash sales? Would you have records of those?"

"If the customer purchased me extended warranty. If he gave us his address so we could put him on the mailing list."

Milo tapped the computer. "How about scrolling back a few days."

Mustafa said, "This isn't good," but he complied.

Nothing for the entire week.

Mustafa pushed a button and the screen went blank. By the time Milo thanked him, he'd walked away.