Night Moves

Chapter 50

By nine p.m. Milo and I were sitting in his unmarked, four properties north of the house on Marquette. The street was lit intermittently but the moon was well nourished and we had a decent view.

As Reed had described, the block was mostly apartment buildings. The exceptions were an acre of land, fenced, weed-choked, waiting for development, and the plain, little box Herbert McClain had lived in for six decades before dying without a will.

You see throwbacks like that in L.A. — people holding on, undeterred by real estate values as they seek the comfort of the familiar. Upkeep often suffers, and the house where Paul Mearsheim squatted looked unloved. The front yard was flat dirt and thistly stuff, the shingle roof checkered by bare spots. An old TV aerial perched on the peak. Drapes covered windows whose frames sagged and splintered.

All that was missing was a dented, dusty sedan with original blue plates.

In another city, the attached double garage might be deemed overbuilt for the puny structure. In L.A., built around the car, it made sense.

Lights dimmed by heavy curtains illuminated the right side of the house but so far, no signs of habitation. Same situation at Evada Lane, per Biro’s half-hour call-ins.

Milo said, “If they’ve rabbited, I’m cooked.”

I thought that had a culinary ring to it but didn’t comment. Situations like this, the less said, the better.

Per usual, I had no role other than “observer.” Last year, that had expanded to witness. Subpoenaed on the police shooting, I’d spent unbilled time answering pre-cooked questions.

Time passed. An itch developed over my left nipple. When it didn’t go away, I unbuttoned my shirt, managed to get a finger under the vest, and scratched.

Milo said, “They put something in the fabric. Next time be careful what you ask for.”

I rebuttoned my shirt. “I’m content.”

“Foreplay.” He laughed. Phoned Moe Reed, parked down the block, south of the squat. Binchy was up a ways, on the opposite side of the street. Both young detectives were in civvies: brown shirt and jeans for Binchy, black sweats, sneakers, and a knit cap for Reed, his weight lifter’s chest swelled ridiculously by the vest.

Milo had told him, “Lose the hat, you look like the McBurglar.”

Reed said, “And I was going for Secret Agent.” Now, he said, “Nothing, L.T.”

Same message from Binchy.

The plan that had culminated with the suspect shooting had been a major production, featuring a day of serial surveillance by several vehicles and Reed impersonating a parcel driver. Tonight would be Milo knocking politely on the front door and, if spoken to, identifying himself truthfully.

Keeping his voice light and unthreatening, calling Mearsheim “Mr. Weyland,” and explaining that he had a few questions to ask about Trevor Bitt.

That might throw Mearsheim off but chances were the door-knock would be immediately threatening. If Mearsheim tried to escape through the back, Reed and Binchy would be there, waiting. If things went really south and he barricaded himself in, everything would change.

If that happened and Trisha Bowker was in there with Mearsheim, hopefully she wouldn’t end up a hostage. Or, worse, a co-combatant.

High risk but the rationale for doing it this way — and I’d supplied part of it — was criminal predictability.

Psychopaths are, at the core, boring creatures of habit. What we knew about Paul Mearsheim suggested he was a high-functioning psychopath, a lifelong con, and a murderer who’d never been arrested because he operated with finesse. His performance the night of the Braun murder had been Oscar-quality.

My best guess was that, certain he could talk his way out of anything, he’d avoid impulsive violence and opt for cool, calm, and outwardly harmless.

But that was only a guess.

At nine thirty-two, headlights appeared from the south, reaching Binchy first. He called: “Not sure but I think so.”

Cars had been coming and going on Marquette at a thin pace. This car turned up the driveway of the McClain house and parked in front of the right-hand garage.

Silver Taurus. Milo pulled out the night-binoculars he’d cadged from a detective assigned to protecting dignitaries.

The Taurus’s driver’s door opened. A smallish man got out and walked to the front door.

Easy gait, no backward glances as he unlocked and stepped in.

I said, “Like he owns the place.”

Milo called Binchy and Reed. “It’s him. Leave your vehicles in place and proceed on foot. You know the rest.”

Within moments, both detectives had snuck around to the back of the house.

No movement from inside the house. Milo waited fifteen minutes, checking his watch every five.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s ten ten, in Asia double numbers are good luck.”

He got out of the car, smoothed his jacket over his holster, and proceeded toward the house.

I found a spot we’d agreed on: shadowy niche of a neighboring apartment building, mostly blocked by a huge rubber tree.

He’d wanted me to stay in the car; I’d negotiated. The tree clinched it: overgrown, a vegetative umbrella.

I watched as he reached the house’s front door. Knocked. Waited a few seconds and knocked again. His big form tightened up as a crack of light appeared between door and jamb.

Talking to someone. Tensing up.

He pulled the door open. Gun out as he rushed in.

Seconds later Binchy and Reed were out front, following him inside.

Guns but no gunfire. I took that as everything going smoothly, waited a few moments, and made my way over.

Paul Mearsheim, newly bearded, his head shaved clean, lay on his back, one arm folded beneath his body.

His mouth was agape, his eyes dull. A black hilt plus an inch of butcher knife blade protruded from his chest.

His throat had been slashed, flesh separating in a wet, ruby grin.

Milo and Binchy and Reed stood around the body. They’d holstered their weapons, and looked stunned. The woman between the young detectives shook and wept and clutched her sides with bloody hands. Each of them maintained a hold on her arm.

Forties, average build, short blond hair, a pleasant face.

Donna Weyland had lost weight since posing with her school district co-workers. She wore blue jeans, a white top, pink running shoes. Everything splotched and speckled with red.

Blood acned the wall behind Mearsheim’s body. Folds in his shirtfront created opportunities for the blood pooling.

Crimson arterial blood. Some of it, commandeered by gravity, trickled over his narrow chest and spread on the floor, purpling old, gray carpeting.

Fresh kill.

Donna Weyland’s hands clenched. She began to hyperventilate.

Milo said, “Breathe slowly.”

She shut her eyes and sucked in air. Began forcing words out between gasps. “He... said... he... was... kill me... I...”

Pointing to a shotgun lying six or so feet from Mearsheim’s right hand. “He... I... had... to...”

Bringing a knife to a gunfight had worked. Somehow.

My brain became a fast-shutter camera.

Sobs racking her body.

But no tears.

Walking around the four of them, I peered at Mearsheim’s corpse.

No way to get a look at the hand pinned under his body but the one I could see bore no defense wounds.

The throat slash had smooth borders.

No hesitation marks. A massive wound that screamed murderous confidence.

Lopsided, beginning with an upward swoop that began at the left side of Mearsheim’s skinny gullet and climbed to just under his right ear.

Right-handed slasher.

Coming from behind.

No sign of a struggle.

The shotgun. Too far to have been dropped by a mortally wounded man.

Placed there.

Donna Weyland was looking at me. Everyone was.

The house had gone silent.

For a split second, her face changed, theatrical terror given way to cold analysis.

A face I’d seen before. Cold-eyed, flat, barely suppressed hostility.

Portrait on a collection of mugshots.

I said, “Hi, Trisha.”

Her shoulders jerked as she resisted reflexively. That elicited Reed and Binchy’s reflexes: gripping her harder.

Milo took his cuffs out.

Like a virus taking hold, cop suspicion had set in and everyone knew it.

Four sets of eyes settled on Donna Weyland a.k.a. Trisha Bowker.

She was inert for a moment, shuffling through a mental Rolodex for the right facial expression.

First came a pout, bizarrely girlish. Even as it settled, she knew it wouldn’t work and switched the channel to a pathetic mewl.

Milo cuffed her. She sagged as if trying to slip the restraints. Reed and Binchy held her fast.

Milo turned his back on her and assessed Mearsheim’s body.

He spieled the Miranda warning, not even trying to sound interested.

With nowhere to go, but it’s either fight or flight. Donna/Trisha was in no position to fight.

“It... was... I’m... so... sorry... please.”

That didn’t work. She spat in Milo’s face.

Once it’s over, some criminals check out mentally. Trisha/Donna cursed and kicked and screamed as Reed and Binchy removed her.

Milo allowed himself some rapid breathing.

When he stopped, new sounds asserted themselves through the thin walls of the cheesy little house.

Low-pitched barks. Muffled but insistent.

What might’ve passed as an asthmatic dog protesting.

Then the noise began to sound human. Binchy came back, saying, “Moe took her in.”

Milo and I were already moving toward the sound. Front of the house, the south side.

The garage.

The space was accessible through an empty service porch that reeked of bug killer and sported small heaps of dead roaches. No bolt on the interior door: a turn lever that Milo’s gloved hand flipped.

Dim garage.

One bare bulb screwed to a socket in the rafters.

Parked side by side, a black Ford pickup and a black Camaro.

A chair was positioned between the vehicles. Moth-eaten love seat from another era.

The figure in the chair bucked and screamed through a duct-taped mouth. Body and limbs were pinioned to the chair by more tape.

The eyes above the gag were flickers of terror.

Male captive, barely able to see through swollen lids, unsure, now, if life had gotten better or worse.

Pipe-stem arms. Stringy hair, blond, matted, greasy. His gray T-shirt was blood-caked. Brown stains on his jeans coexisted with more blood — amoebic blotches of red. A crusted yellow circle marked the concrete near his bare feet where urine had settled and dried. The garage stank of gasoline and cleaning fluid and more insect poison and shit.

Several feet in front of the chair, near the rear bumper of the Camaro, lay a bloody ball-peen hammer.

The captive’s right hand was a mangled blob.

Milo rushed toward him. “Police, it’s okay, it’s okay.” He began removing the tape-gag as the boy in the chair convulsed.

Binchy’s eyes had shifted to a corner of the garage. He pointed. “Oh, Lord.”

A band saw, just beyond the nose of the pickup.

As Cory Thurber’s parched, swollen lips were liberated, he made a gagging sound and drooled and struggled to speak. As Milo began freeing his arms, he managed a whimper that began feebly and continued to lose power.

Barely audible: “Heheh-hehehllllp me!”

Milo said, “It’s okay, son, you’re safe, just hold on.”