Self-Defence

26

I reached Milo at work and told him what had just happened. "Didn't have a chance to get to Karen. Just talking about the Sheas- how they made their money- upset her."

"Jealous?"

"There was some kind of hostility there. She wasn't sympathetic about their having a kid with CP. What if she and the Sheas all got paid off to keep quiet about Karen, but the Sheas used it to build up a personal fortune and she blew it? I know it's a big jump, but she did say she worked catering gigs for Gwen. If the Sanctum party was one of them, she could very well have been there."

"Huge jump," he said, "but I'll see what I can find out about her. Meanwhile, stay away from there."

"Something else: Lucy and I did hypnosis again, and this time there was no resistance. I age-regressed her back to four years old, and she was able to make out more details of the dream. Definitely two other men besides Lowell. One's back was to her the whole time; the other had what she called a hairy lip, which I assume is a mustache. Trafficant wore a mustache and goatee, back then. Anything come up on him yet?"

"Haven't learned a damn thing except he stopped filing tax returns the year he vanished. As far as I can tell, he hasn't shown up in any major penal institutions. No death records either, but a guy like that would know how to work the system."

"I tried to trace him through his publisher. No one seemed to remember him at all. I didn't get the feeling they were trying to stonewall, just that he'd really faded from the scene."

"Yeah. Well, for all we know he's in Algeria or Cuba or something, still getting his royalty checks. Meanwhile, I've got something more immediate to deal with. Another copycat, discovered this morning. We've kept the media at bay, but you'll see it on the eleven o'clock news. Fourteen-year-old kid named Nicolette Verdugo. Walking home from school yesterday, never showed up. Cal Trans crew found her at daybreak in a drainage ditch out in Diamond Bar, near the Orange County border."

"Fourteen," I said. "Oh, Jesus."

He coughed and cleared his throat. "So now it's a new task force, the FBI's probably going to be called in, and guess who's representing Angel City? When Shwandt's lawyers find out about this, I promise you it's war. But the whole thing stinks. Keep this confidential: Both Shannon and Nicolette were defecated on, but neither had any semen in or on or near them. Ejaculation was a major thing for Shwandt; sometimes he did it more than once on a victim. In fact, the only time he didn't ejaculate was with Barbara Pryor, because he was too stoned to get an erection. Now why would someone pull off a first-rate copycat, cover all the details, and leave that out?"

"Someone who can't ejaculate," I said. "A woman? You think the Bogettes really could be behind it?"

"Who the hell knows? It's pretty hard to imagine women butchering another woman that way, but Manson's hags were pretty good with forks and knives. Problem is, how do we get close to them? There's absolutely no grounds for warrants; all we can do is try to interview them, and if they say fuck you, as they did today, we say thank you, ladies, and go home. That leaves surveillance, and with their level of paranoia they'll probably burrow deep underground. Anyway, it means eighteen-hour days for me. So do me a favor and keep an eye on Lucy. I'm not going to be much of a guardian angel."

"Anything specific I should do?"

"Keep her away from her own apartment till I clear up that goddamn note. Given this new murder, I'd rather err by being too cautious. The turds, by the way, were of Rattus rattus origin- our little black scurrying pal. And speaking of rats, all I've been able to learn about Brother Puck was that he had some dealings a few years ago with a dope group from Montebello. Small-time buys and sells; then they handed him thirty grand to peddle to other junkies, and he got busted. After that they cut him off, and he's been going to East L.A. for bits and pieces."

"Who paid for his defense?"

"Haven't found that out yet. If he comes back to town, I'll have a little talk with him. Meanwhile, give Lucy my best."

"One more thing," I said. "I showed Karen's picture to Lucy, and she's sure Karen was the girl in the dream. It's possible she's confabulating- wishful thinking because she hates her father and is on a mission to learn the truth- but her reaction was pretty extreme: She went white, started shaking."

"Your intuition tells you it's genuine?"

"My intuition's been rather quiet recently."

"Mine, too, when it comes to her."

"Maybe we can get corroboration of Karen's presence at the party from someone who worked that night."

"Someone who wasn't paid off? You know, Alex, the more I think about it, the whole idea of payoffs doesn't really cut it, logically. All you've got on the Sheas is that Best doesn't like the look in their eyes and they were lucky enough to make some money over a twenty-year period. All you've got on Doris is she doesn't like the Sheas. No indication of any collusion. If something happened that the three of them and Felix Barnard found out about, what's the theory? The whole bunch of them put the arm on Lowell or Trafficant or whoever had something to hide? And if Barnard's death was tied in with blackmail, why would the others be allowed to live?"

"They didn't break the rules; Barnard did."

"Still, to leave all those loose ends for so long? People living down the road from you knowing you were involved in killing a girl?"

"Maybe they didn't know the gory details. Just that Karen was last seen at the party. Lowell could have told them she had a bad drug trip and left early, something like that."

"So why pay them off?"

"To avoid bad publicity for Sanctum. Trafficant's presence had already created controversy. Trafficant killing Karen would have finished Lowell off."

"So who's our corroborator, some other server? What do we have here, a whole platoon of people who knew Karen had worked the party? With Best looking for her obsessively, all those fliers he put up, cornering people at the shopping center, you mean to tell me no one came forward?"

"They might not have if they really didn't believe she'd been harmed. What if the other servers were told she'd run off with a boyfriend and didn't want to be found? Or that Best was an abusive father and Karen was scared to death of him? Maybe spinning that yarn was what the Sheas got paid for. Which would make them collaborators and help ensure their silence."

"A yarn," he said.

"Convincing young people it was true wouldn't have been too hard. Remember the times: Don't trust anyone over thirty."

"Maybe," he said doubtfully.

"Locating the other servers would help," I said. "Especially those other women from the Dollar- Andreas and Billings."

"Nothing on them yet, and I can't promise you I'll have time to do a comprehensive in the near future. So do me a favor and don't launch Lucy on any trajectory you can't control. Keep yourself safe, too. I've got enough to worry about."