Twisted

CHAPTER 43

Petra spent a good deal of Monday trying to locate Melanie Jaeger, the fourth member of Marta Doebbler’s theater party. Living somewhere in the South of France.

She recontacted Emily Pastern, who now seemed reluctant to talk, but pushed and got the woman to specify “somewhere near Nice, I think.” Using the Internet, she pulled up maps and phoned every listed hotel and pension in that region.

Slow, painful process. Being cut off from official data banks, the ability to use the reverse directory, any clout with the airlines, reminded her that she was just another civilian.

She spoke to a lot of baffled/bored French desk clerks, lied, tried charm, finally struck gold at a place called La Mer where a concierge who spoke beautiful English put her through to Madame Jaeger’s room.

After all that, Jaeger had nothing new to tell her. She, too, was certain Kurt Doebbler had brained Marta.

Why?

“Because he’s a spooky creep who never smiled. Hope you catch him and cut off his balls.”

By eleven P.M. she still hadn’t heard from Eric. Popping a couple of Benadryl, she sank into ten hours of drugged-out sleep and awoke Tuesday, ready to work.

Back to the computer. Experienced private eyes had their own methods, could sometimes tread where cops couldn’t. Her ignorance of all that bugged her. Eric was a fast learner. Soon he’d be in touch with all that good stuff.

If he really made the move.

She allowed herself a fantasy: the two of them working together, partners in a high-end p.i. firm. Beautiful office suite on Wilshire or Sunset or maybe even out near the beach. Cool, deco furnishings, rich clients…

You write the screenplay and I’ll pitch it to the networks.

He called at noon, just as she was finishing a quick lunch of toast, a green apple, and strong coffee. She chewed fast, swallowed. “Where are you?”

“Downtown.”

“Second day, running?”

“Maybe the last day,” he said.

“How’s it going?”

“They’re being… thorough.”

“You can’t talk freely.”

“I can listen.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Eric.”

“For what?”

“Your having to go through this because of- ”

“No sweat. Got to go.” In a softer voice: “Honey.”

Google pulled up zero on Kurt Doebbler- an achievement in itself because the search engine was a monstrous cyber-vacuum cleaner.

She supposed the absence of a personal website was consistent with Doebbler’s asocial personality. But his name did come up on the Pacific Dynamics homepage. One of many names on a roster of the company’s “Senior Staff.”

Kurt was listed as senior engineer and technical designer on something called Project Advent. No details on what that was. The bio did note that Doebbler had “interfaced” with the 40th Engineering Battalion at Baumholden Army Base, in Germany. Having spent his high school years as an Army brat near Hamburg, and speaking fluent German, “Kurt was a natural for the assignment.”

That seemed odd. American Army engineers would speak English.

Was Kurt into hush-hush stuff?

Something else to make her life more difficult?

She read on: B.S. from Cal Tech, M.S. from USC- Isaac’s alma mater.

Speaking of which, she hadn’t talked to Isaac since Friday. With nothing to show there was no sense bothering the kid. According to the bio, Kurt Doebbler was well-regarded as a systems designer who’d worked at Pacific Dynamics for fifteen years. Meaning soon after grad school. No listing of prior employment as a cable dude. But why would there be?

She printed the info, reread it. The German connection got her going in a whole new direction, and she spent the afternoon making international calls until she reached the right person at the Hamburg Police Department.

Chief Inspector Klaus Bandorffer. It was the early morning hours in Germany, still dark, and she wondered what kind of chief inspector kept those hours. But Bandorffer sounded chipper, a professional but amiable fellow, intrigued by a call from an American detective.

Adding yet another potential infraction to her departmental jacket, she told him the June 28 cases were being actively and officially investigated and that she was the lead detective.

“Another one,” said Bandorffer.

“Another what, Chief Inspector?”

“Serial killer, Detective- is it Connor?”

“Yes, sir. You’ve got a lot of serials in Hamburg?”

“Nothing active, right now, but we have our share,” said Bandorffer. “You Americans and we Germans seem proficient at growing such sociopaths.”

A spooky thought. “Maybe we’re just good at detecting patterns.”

Bandorffer chuckled. “Efficiency and intelligence- I like that explanation. So you believe you have a suspect who may have lived in Hamburg?”

“It’s possible.”

“Hmm. During what time period?”

Kurt Doebbler was forty. “High school years” meant twenty-two to twenty-five years ago. She gave Bandorffer those parameters and the details of the head-bashing.

“We had such a murder last year,” he said. “Two drunks in a beer hall, brains knocked clear out of the skull. Our killer’s an illiterate carpenter, never been to the United States… Your suspect’s family name is Doebbler, Christian name Curtis?”

“Just Kurt. With a K.”

Click click click. “I find nothing under that name in my current files but I will check retrospectively. It may take a day or so.”

Petra gave him her home number and her cell and thanked him profusely.

Bandorffer chuckled again. “Times like these, we efficient, intelligent law officers must cooperate.”

She tried every cable outfit in L.A., Orange, Ventura, San Diego, and Santa Barbara Counties, dealing with paper-pushers at Human Resource Departments, lying when she needed to.

No record of Kurt Doebbler ever working as an installer or any other type of employee. Which didn’t mean much; she hadn’t expected them to keep records that old.

And that was it.

Still, Doebbler was all she had. Especially for his wife’s killing.

Worse came to worst, she could stake out his house June 28. Hope for a miracle and prepare herself for disappointment.

Maybe it was time to try Isaac. He’d had a few days to mull. Perhaps a high I.Q. could accomplish what her average little brain couldn’t.

He’d probably been by the station yesterday and learned about her suspension. Whatever his issues were with that Jaramillo loser, she knew that hearing about her plight would upset him. In her self-obsession, she’d neglected to consider that. Some babysitter she’d turned out to be.

It was six-fifteen P.M. and all the university departments were closed. She phoned the Gomez residence and Isaac picked up, sounding sleepy. Dozing in the middle of the afternoon?

“Isaac, it’s- ”

A loud, flapping yawn drowned her out. Like a horse’s neighing, kind of gross. This was a side of Isaac she hadn’t seen.

He said, “You, again?”

“Again?”

“This is Klara, right? Listen, my brother’s- ”

“This is Detective Petra Connor. You’re Isaac’s brother?”

Silence. “Hey, sorry, I was sleeping, yeah, I’m his brother.”

“Sorry for waking you. Is Isaac there?”

Another yawn, then a throat clearing. The guy’s vocal tones were a lot like Isaac’s. But deeper, slower. Like Isaac on downers.

“He ain’t here.”

“Still at school?”

“Don’t know.”

“Please tell him I called.”

“Sure.”

“Go back to sleep, Isaac’s brother.”

“Isaiah… yeah, I will.”

At eight P.M. she fought the urge to throw together a lonely gal, out-of-cans dinner and went out. If she was forced to live like a civilian, she might as well reap the benefits.

She drove around the Fairfax District for a while, considering the Grove or one of the places on Melrose. Ended up at a little kosher fish restaurant on Beverly where she and Stu Bishop had lunched from time to time. The owner’s father, a doctor, was a colleague of Stu’s ophthalmologist dad. Petra had returned by herself because the place was close to her apartment, had sawdust floors, fresh, tasty, cheap food, and a counter pickup policy that avoided chitchat with the waitstaff.

Tonight, the owner was out and two Hispanic guys in baseball caps were running the place. Lots of people and noise. Good.

She ordered grilled baby salmon with a baked potato and slaw, snagged the last vacant table, and sat next to a Hasidic family with five tiny, rambunctious kids. The black-suited, bearded father pretended not to notice her, but when she caught the eye of the pretty bewigged mother, the woman smiled shyly and said, “Sorry for the noise.”

As if her progeny were responsible for all the din.

Petra smiled back. “They’re cute.”

Bigger smile. “Thank you… stop it, Shmuel Yakov! Leave Yisroel Tzvi alone!”

By nine forty-five she was back at her place. Eric’s Jeep was parked on Detroit and when she cracked her door, he got up from her living room couch and hugged her. He had on a tan suit, blue shirt, yellow tie. She’d never seen him in light colors and it gave his skin a little earth tone.

“It wasn’t necessary to dress for me, big boy.”

He smiled and removed the jacket.

“Aw,” she said.

They kissed briefly. He said, “You eat yet?”

“Just finished. You were figuring on going out?”

“Out or in, doesn’t matter.” He moved his mouth toward hers again. She turned her head to the side. “My breath smells of fish.”

He took her face in his hands, touched lips gently, then pressed his tongue forward and got her to open up. “Hmm… trout?”

“Salmon. I can still go out. Have coffee and stare while you eat.”

He moved to the kitchen, opened the fridge. “I’ll forage.”

“Let me fix you something.”

By the time she reached him, he’d taken out eggs and milk and pulled a loaf out of the bread box.

“French toast,” she said. “I do that real well.”

She cracked eggs and sliced bread. He poured milk and said, “You haven’t heard about Schoelkopf.”

“What about him?”

“It was on the news.”

“I haven’t watched TV in two days. What’s going on?”

“Dead,” said Eric. “Three hours ago. His wife killed him.”

She left the kitchen and sat down at the dinette table. “My God… which wife?”

“The current one. How many did he have?”

“She was number three. What, she left him and then decided to kill him?”

“From what I hear,” said Eric, “he left her.”

No one from the station had thought to call her. “What happened?”

“Schoelkopf moved out of the house a few weeks ago, rented an apartment near the station- one of the high-rises on Hollywood Boulevard west of La Brea. He was up there with his girlfriend, some civilian clerk. They headed out for lunch, went down in the sub parking lot to get his car. The wife stepped out and started shooting. Schoelkopf caught three in the arm and one right here.” He tapped the center of his brow. “The girlfriend got shot, too, but she was alive when the ambulances arrived. Then the wife turned the gun on herself.”

“Is the girlfriend named Kirsten Krebs? Blond, mid-twenties, worked downstairs?”

Eric nodded. “You knew about it?”

“I guessed about it. Krebs always had an attitude with me. The day Schoelkopf called me in, she was the messenger. I found her sitting on my desk liked she owned it. Where’s the wife?”

“On a respirator, not expected to live. Krebs is in bad shape, too.”

She got up, flicked on the TV, found news on Channel Five. A cheerful Latina in a mock-Chanel suit delivered bad news:

“… investigating this evening’s murder of an LAPD police captain. Edward Schoelkopf, forty-seven, a twenty-year veteran, was allegedly gunned down by his estranged wife, Meagan Schoelkopf, thirty-two, who shot herself fatally in what investigators believe was a love-triangle murder-suicide. Also wounded was a yet-unidentified young woman…”

The backdrop shifted from a ragged, white “Homicide” header over a chalked body outline to a wedding photo of the couple in happier times. “… that left this quiet residential area of Hollywood shocked and Schoelkopf’s colleagues at the police department stunned. Now on to other local news…”

Petra switched the set off. “I couldn’t stand him and Lord knows he despised me- why I’ll never know- but this…”

“He hated women,” said Eric.

“You say that as if you know for a fact.”

“When he first interviewed me, he tried to sound me out. About minorities, women. Mostly women, it was clear he didn’t like them. He thought he was being subtle, wanted to see if I agreed.”

“What’d you do?”

“Kept my mouth shut. That made him assume it was okay to talk freely and he told some really nasty antifemale jokes.”

“You never told me.”

“What was the point?”

“None, I guess.” She sat down. Eric walked behind her and massaged her shoulders.

“I’ve found,” he said, “that in most situations, the less said, the better.”

But not all situations, my dear. “Schoelkopf dead… What will it mean for us- in terms of our suspensions?”

“Before it happened, I was led to believe they weren’t going to be too hard on either of us. It’ll probably delay our dispositions.”

“No matter to you. You’re leaving.”

His hand stopped working. “Maybe.”

She twisted around, looked up.

“I’m still thinking,” he said.

“Big decision, makes sense.”

“Disappointed?”

“Of course not. It’s your life.”

“We could still get a house,” he said. “With both of us working, we could probably get a decent place sooner rather than later.”

“Sure,” she said. Surprised by the coolness in her own voice.

“Is there a problem?”

“I’m a little overwhelmed right now. Dangling. And all because I helped get rid of a really bad guy.”

She broke free, stood, marched into the kitchen. “Plus, there’s the June 28 stuff. Three days to go and I’ve got squat.”

“What about that husband- Doebbler?”

“Everyone’s sure he killed his wife, but there’s no evidence. He fits in some ways but not in others.”

“Like what?”

She elaborated. He listened. Petra saw the eggs and bread and milk sitting on the counter. Time to be useful. Scooping butter into a pan, she turned on the gas, soaked the bread in milk, and, when the butter was bubbling and barely brown, dropped in two slices.

Nice sound, the sizzle. There was something to be said for mindless work.

Eric said, “You could surveil Doebbler on the twenty-eighth. He moves, he’s your guy.”

“And if he doesn’t, someone dies.”

He shrugged.

“Mister Blasé.”

He didn’t answer.

The French toast was ready. She plated it, set it in front of him.

He didn’t move.

“Sorry for snapping,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to be glib,” he said.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I didn’t take you seriously,” he said. “You’re up to your eyeballs in junk.”

Gazing up at her. Eyes softer than she’d ever seen.

She cradled his head. Picked up a fork and slipped it between his fingers. “Eat. Before it gets cold.”