Twisted

CHAPTER 35

The second meeting was worse for Petra.

Five minutes after it started a Valley Gang Unit rep arrived, a uniformed three-striper, a huge man with a shaved bullet-head, ice eyes, and all the charm of a virus. He kept inspecting his nails as Hotshot I gave more speeches about gang behavior.

The search for Omar Selden and associates was now an official task force.

Schoelkopf had decided to sit in.

Not that the captain said much. For the most part he looked sleepy and small, and Petra, knowing about his third wife, felt sorry for him. She started nodding off as Honcho droned on. Finally, the guy slapped his notepad shut and motioned for his buddy to collapse the easel.

“So,” he said, tightening the knot of his tie, “we’re all on the same page.”

Petra looked at the big gang sergeant and said, “One thing you might want to check out: Our boy Omar took college courses in photography and when I saw him in Venice he had camera equipment with him. He listed a phony address in NoHo, so maybe he’s got some kind of connection there.”

“It was a phony address,” Schoelkopf cut in. “That was the point of lying, Detective Connor. To throw you off.”

Which was utter nonsense. Criminals lacked imagination, made stupid mistakes all the time. If they didn’t, police work would be an exercise in futility.

No one backed her up.

She said, “Still, sir- ”

The gang guy stood to his full six-four and broke in: “Never seen any bangers in NoHo, except for a few straggling in when there’s a street fair. No street fairs till next month.”

He left the room.

The head Downtown guy said, “Onward.”

When Petra returned to the detectives’ room, Isaac was waiting for her. Now she did need to walk and she told him so. They left the station and headed south on Wilcox. Isaac was smart enough not to talk as she stomped her way toward Santa Monica. Eventually, she cooled down and noticed that he was keeping his distance from her. She was probably scaring him. Time to force a smile.

“So,” she said. “June 28. The date has to mean something- a birthday, an anniversary, something personal to the bad guy. Or some historical event that turns him on. I checked DMV stats on all the principals in the files. None of the vics were born that day. So maybe our boy is a history freak.”

She waited for him to comment. He didn’t.

“Any ideas?”

“Everything you’re saying sounds reasonable.”

Was he losing interest? Distracted by his other life?

“What keeps coming to me,” she said, “is an extremely seductive killer. Someone subtle, really careful about the way he sets things up. Marta Doebbler being called out of the theater, Geraldo Solis possibly being conned by a phony cable appointment. If the cable guy is our suspect, he was canny enough to case the house and come back later. Maybe he was also canny enough to use a dog as a lure.”

She told him about the two kinds of canine hair found on Coral Langdon, recounted her friendly neighborhood dog-walker scenario.

“The setups,” she said, “could be as much a turn-on as the kill.”

“A choreographer,” he said.

“That’s a good way to put it. So what do you think?”

“You’re right about the subtlety.”

“Until he blitz-attacks the victims from behind and bashes their brains out. That’s anything but subtle, Isaac. To me that says (a) cowardice- he’s afraid to look them in the eye so he avoids the usual sex-psycho strangulation thing- and (b) he’s got lots of rage beneath the surface that he’s able to control in everyday life. More than control. He functions well until he’s triggered. We know the date is one trigger, but there has to be something about the victims.”

They walked for a while before she said, “Anything you want to add is okay.”

He shook his head.

“You okay?”

He startled. She’d shaken him out of some sort of reverie. “Sure.”

“You seem a bit spacey.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“No apology necessary. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” She smiled. “As your mentor- not that I’ve mented much. Is that a verb?”

Isaac smiled back. “Nope. Mentored.”

“Feel free to speculate about what I just said.”

“Everything you’re saying makes sense. I wish I had something to add, but I don’t.”

A half-block later, he said, “One thing does occur to me. There’s a discrepancy between Marta Doebbler and the others. If the killer was able to disguise himself as a cable repairman to get into Mr. Solis’s place, Mr. Solis obviously didn’t know him. If the dog theory’s true, the same could go for Coral Langdon: She met a man walking his dog in her neighborhood, chatted, turned to go, and got bludgeoned. The killer could’ve rehearsed the scene by dog-walking previously in order to familiarize himself with the surroundings. But he still could’ve been a relative stranger. That can’t be true of Marta Doebbler. She wouldn’t have left the theater in the middle of the show unless she knew who had called her. Plus, a stranger wouldn’t have known Marta was going to the theater.”

“Someone she trusted,” said Petra. “Back to the husband.” Weird Kurt. “There’s another discrepancy between Marta and the others. She was killed on the street but then placed in her car. You could look at that as her being treated with a bit more respect. Which would also fit with a killer who knew her well.”

He grimaced. “I should’ve thought of that.”

Distracted. By Klara. Self-doubt. Flaco’s gun… my gun… would I ever really use it?

“That’s why it’s good to brainstorm,” said Petra. They reached Santa Monica Boulevard. Traffic, noise, pedestrians, gay hustlers loitering on corners.

Petra said, “Here’s yet another distinction for Doebbler: She was the first. When Detective Ballou told me he thought Kurt Doebbler’s reaction was off, and then after I met Kurt, it got me thinking: What if the bad guy never set out to commit a string of murders? What if he killed Marta for a personal reason and found out he liked it? Got himself a hobby. Which brings us back to Kurt.”

“A-once-a-year hobby,” said Isaac.

“An anniversary,” she said. “What if June 28 is significant to Kurt because he happened to kill Marta on that day? So he relives it.”

He stared at her. “That’s brilliant.”

Return of the youthful exuberance. Oddly, it deflated Petra’s enthusiasm and she said, “Hardly. It’s a theory. But at least we’re focusing.”

“On Marta Doebbler?”

“For lack of anyone better.”

“Maybe,” he said, touching his bruise absently, “we should find out who knew she was at the theater. She went with friends, right?”

Staring at her with that unlined, precocious, innocent face. She wanted to kiss it.

They returned to the station and Petra pulled the Doebbler file. Marta had gone out with three friends and Detective Conrad Ballou had listed their names dutifully along with the fact that he’d contacted two, Melanie Jaeger and Sarah Casagrande, “telephonically.” The third, Emily Pastern, had been out of town.

According to Ballou’s notes, neither Jaeger nor Casagrande knew for certain who’d called Marta out of the theater.

“Witness Casagrande reports that Victim Doebbler appeared agitated by telephonic interruption and that Vic Doebbler reacted quickly to said interruption, ‘jumped out of her seat and just left. Like it was an emergency, she didn’t even apologize for having her cell phone on. Which wasn’t like Marta, she was always considerate.’ Likewise Witness Jaeger, interviewed independently.

Vic’s husband, Kurt Doebbler, denies calling Vic at any time that night, denies owning cellular phone. K. Doebbler agreed to immediate inspection of home telephonic records, which was accomplished this morning at 11:14 a.m. per Pacific Bell, confirming said denials.”

Ballou’s next notation identified the origin of the call as the pay phone around the corner from the theater.

Isaac, reading over Petra’s shoulder, said, “Doebbler could’ve driven from the Valley to Hollywood, called Marta from the booth, and waited by her car. What if he agreed to have his phone records inspected because he knew they wouldn’t incriminate him?”

Petra said, “I wonder if Mr. Doebbler has ever owned a dog.”

She called Valley SPCA. No dog registrations at the Doebbler household, but plenty of people didn’t register their pets.

Next, she phoned the numbers Ballou had listed for Marta’s friends, Melanie Jaeger and Sarah Casagrande. Both were now owned by new parties.

Transitory L.A.

DMV records showed no listings for Jaeger anywhere in California, but a Sarah Rebecca Casagrande was listed on J Street, in Sacramento. Petra got her number from the Sacramento directory and phoned it.

The receptionist at a family medicine clinic answered. Doctor Casagrande was with a patient.

“What kind of doctor is she?”

“Psychologist. Actually, she’s a psych assistant.”

“Is that like a nurse?”

“No, Dr. Casagrande is a new Ph.D. She’s supervised by Dr. Ellis and Dr. Goldstein. If you’d like an appointment- ”

“This is Detective Connor, Los Angeles Police. Would you please have her call me?” Petra recited her number.

“The police?”

“Nothing to worry about,” said Petra. “An old case.”

Next, she tried Emily Pastern, the sole friend Ballou hadn’t reached.

A machine picked up on the fifth ring and a perky female voice said, “This is Emily and Gary Daisy’s place. We’re not in now, but if you’ll leave…”

Petra sat through the message. Blocking out the words because the background noise had captured her attention.

Running canine commentary as Emily Pastern chirped away.

A dog barking.

As she hung up, Mac Dilbeck passed her desk, shot her a long, unhappy look, and kept going toward the men’s room.

She followed, waited in the hallway, was there when he exited the lav. He was only mildly surprised to see her.

“Something up, Mac?”

“For the record,” he said, “I thought your point about photography was good.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“It’s at least something, Petra. Which was more than those yahoos had to offer.” His eyes glinted. “I just got a call from one of the victims’ mother. The Dalkin kid, that freckled boy trying to look punk. Poor lady was sobbing. Begged me to say we’ve made some progress. So what could I tell her?”

He slapped his hands together hard. The sound, as sharp as a gunshot, nearly made Petra jump.

“You know what’s happening, don’t you, Petra? We hand them their prime suspect on a silver platter, they take over but don’t have the smarts to move their sorry butts and find him.” He looked around, as if seeking somewhere to spit. “Task force. All they’re going to do is keep taking meetings, with their easels and their diagrams. Like it’s a football play. They’ll probably give themselves a sweet little name. ‘Operation Alligator,’ some garbage like that.” He shook his head. Brylcreemed hair didn’t budge but his eyelids fluttered like crepe banners.

“Taking their sweet time,” he went on, “until word gets out to Selden that they’re coming for him and he rabbits. If he hasn’t already.”

He looked old, tired, miserable. Petra didn’t console him. A man like Mac wouldn’t take well to consolation.

“It’s a drag,” she said.

“It’s a super-drag. Regular Cagé au Follies.” His smile was nervous, fleeting. His neck tendons flexed and lumps formed under his ears. “That was a joke. By the way.”

Petra smiled.

Mac said, “I crack wise like that at home, everyone tells me I’m inappropriate. Believe it or not, I used to be a funny guy. Back in the service, I was part of this theater review, we had this little stage set up- in Guam- I’m talking bare-bones but we got some laughs.”

“Musical review?” she said.

“We had ukuleles, whatever we could come up with.” He colored. “No one dressed up as women, nothing like that, that’s not what I’m getting at. Just that I used to know my way around a joke. Now? I’m a humorless geezer. Inappropriate.”

His discomfiture made Petra edgy. She laughed, more for herself than him. “Come over and joke any time, Mac.”

“Sure,” he said, walking off. “We call that police work, right?”

Petra watched him vanish around a corner. People. They could always surprise you.

Returning to her desk, she saw Isaac hunched over his laptop.

She returned to the Doebbler file, studied it as if it was the Bible.

By five-thirty Friday, neither Dr. Sarah Casagrande nor Emily Pastern had returned her calls. She tried again with no success. Everyone gone for the weekend.

Suddenly all the energy generated by her brainstorm with Isaac was gone. She walked over to his desk. He stopped typing, cleared his screen. An Albert Einstein screensaver popped up. Genius in a funny bow tie. Wild hair. But ol’ Albie’s eyes…

Isaac closed the laptop. Something he didn’t want her to see?

She said, “Want some dinner?”

“Thanks, but I can’t.” He looked down at the linoleum and Petra prepared herself for a lie. “Promised my mother I’d spend some time at home.”

“That’s nice.”

“She cooks these enormous meals and gets deeply hurt if no one’s around to eat them. My father does his bit but it’s not enough, she wants all of us. My younger brother tends to stays out late and sometimes my older brother eats on the job, comes home and goes straight to sleep.”

“Leaving you,” said Petra.

He shrugged. “It’s the weekend.”

“I really do think it’s nice, Isaac. Mothers are important.”

He frowned. Klara, her kids…

“You okay?” said Petra.

“Tired.”

“You’re too young for that.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “I don’t feel very young.”

Petra watched him tramp off, lugging the laptop and his briefcase. Something was definitely weighing him down. That junkie, Jaramillo, putting on some kind of pressure? Maybe she’d disobey the Downtown gang guys and confront the kid.

No, that would be a really bad idea.

Still, they’d put her in a bad position. Drafting her into the unpaid job of keeping an eye on the kid with no authority to do anything.

Babysitting, just as it had been all along.

Could she let Isaac go down without a warning? Could she afford not to?

Meanwhile, she’d use him on the June 28 killings.

The mess he’d foisted on her in the first place.

Her head hurt. Time for dinner. Another solitary night. Maybe Eric would call sometime during the weekend.

As she cleared her desk, he phoned, as if she’d conjured him. “Free?”

“Just about. What’s up?”

“Doing things,” he said. “I’d like to tell you about them.”

“I’d like to hear about them.”

They met just after six at a Thai café on Melrose near Gardner, a place favored by faux-depressed hipsters and wannabe performers. But the food was good enough to override the self-conscious atmosphere.

Petra figured she and Eric fit in, at least superficially. He was wearing a white V-neck T-shirt, black jeans that drooped on his skinny frame, the crepe-soled black oxfords he favored on stakeout, his oversized, multizone military wristwatch.

Eric was as far as you could get from hip. But add up the clothes, the close-cropped haircut, the indoor complexion, the deep-set eyes and emotionless face and he looked every bit the misunderstood artiste.

With her black Donna Karan pantsuit and matching loafers, she figured she’d be taken for a stylish career woman. Maybe someone in the entertainment biz.

Hah!

The place was already starting to fill but they got seated immediately, served quickly, ate their papaya salads and panang curry with silent enthusiasm.

“So,” said Petra, “what you been doing?”

Eric put down his fork. “Looking seriously into private work. The licensing requirements don’t seem too tough.”

“Don’t imagine they would be.” He’d done military special op work, spent a tour as an M.P. detective before signing on with LAPD. All that had taught him endless patience for surveillance. Perfect for private work.

“The question,” he said, “is do I go out on my own or hook up with an established p.i.”

“So you’re definitely doing it.”

“Don’t know.”

“Whatever you decide is okay,” she said.

He rolled the fork’s handle.

Petra’s warning system, already primed by too much frustration at work, went on full alert. “Something else on your mind?”

The frost in her voice made him look up.

“Not really.”

“Not really?”

He said, “Are you upset?”

“Why would I be?”

“At me. For quitting.”

She laughed. “No way. Maybe I’ll join you.”

“Bad day?”

One eye started to itch and she rubbed it.

He said, “Paradiso?”

“That, other stuff.”

He waited.

She was in no mood to talk. Then she was, pouring it out: shunted aside on Paradiso, Schoelkopf dissing her in front of the others. Zero progress on the June 28 killings, with the target date a week away.

“Someone’s going to die, Eric, and I can’t do a thing about it.”

He nodded.

“Any ideas?” she said.

“Not about that. As far as Selden, you’re right about the photography angle.”

“Think so?”

“Definitely.”

“You’d pursue it?”

“If it was my case.”

“Well,” she said, “go and tell the geniuses in charge.”

“Geniuses are rarely in charge.” His eyes slitted and he picked at his salad. Petra wondered if he was thinking about Saudi Arabia. Or a sidewalk café in Tel Aviv.

An uneasy expression slithered onto his face.

“What?” she said.

He looked at her blankly.

“You’re holding back, Eric.”

He rolled the fork some more and she braced herself for yet another put off.

He said, “If I go out on my own, it’ll mean less money. Until I build up a clientele. I haven’t been LAPD long enough to get a city pension, all I have is my military pension.”

“That’s decent money.”

“It pays the bills but I couldn’t buy a house.” He returned to his food, chewed slowly- excruciatingly slowly, the way he always did. Petra, a rapid eater, table habits borne of growing up with five ravenous brothers, typically sat idly as he finished. Most of the time it amused her. Or she rationalized that she should learn to emulate him. Now she wanted to flip his switch onto High, squeeze some emotion out of him.

She said, “A house would be nice but it’s not necessary.”

He placed the fork on the table. Shoved his plate away. Wiped his mouth. “Your place is small. So’s mine. I thought… if the two of us…” His shoulders rose and fell.

Petra’s chest grew warm. She touched his wrist. “You want to move in together?”

“No,” he said. “Not the right time.”

“Why not?” she said.

“Don’t know,” he said, looking about twelve years old.

She thought about the magnitude of his loss. What it took for him to express himself emotionally even at this level. Heard herself saying, “I don’t know either.”