Vertical Coffin

Chapter 40

At three-forty-five I was back at Smiley's hideout house in Inglewood. Since I'd left two hours ago it had become a full-fledged LASD crime scene. CSI had chalked the spot where Jo fell. She was facing the back door when he shot her. The techies from soles and holes were searching the backyard with metal detectors, looking for bullet fragments. I found the man in charge. Deputy Douglas Hennings was a fifty-year-old plainclothes drone with a vanilla personality and hair the color of poured concrete.

"You were working this thing with her?" Hennings said, after I had shown my creds and explained who I was. He started motioning to his second, another deputy sheriff in a suit, who wandered over and stood behind me, blocking my exit as if I was the problem.

"How come an LAPD Special Crimes dick is working with one of our IAD advocates?" Hennings said. "That sounds screwy."

"Look, Deputy Hennings, if you want to call Sheriff Messenger…"

"No, I don't wanta call the sheriff. I'd like you to answer my question."

"We were working a joint reinvestigation of the Hidden Ranch Road shooting at the request of Mayor MacKenzie and Supervisor Salazar." I saw a little shadow pass across his eyes at the mention of the politicos. "Sergeant Brickhouse left me a message that she was coming over here to conduct an interview. I arrived right after Vincent Smiley shot her. He blew out of here dressed in women's clothing, driving a new black Dodge Ram twenty-five hundred, license number Ida-May-Victor-five-eight-seven. Surely, you must already have all this." My frustration was mounting.

"Let's get this on tape from the beginning," Hennings said, motioning again to his partner, who moved in and cracked his knuckles like a gunfighter about to upholster a six-gun. Instead, he reached for a Sony minitape and placed it under my nose.

For the next twenty minutes Hennings took my statement. What I wanted to do is get past this guy and search the house before the sheriff's department criminalists bagged everything for evidence and hauled it out of there.

After I finished my statement, I asked Hennings if I could take a look around. He regarded me skeptically.

"I know how to work a crime scene," I assured him. Then, to show him I meant business, I pulled out my latex gloves. See? He finally nodded, so I snapped them on and went down the hall into the master bedroom.

It was immediately obvious that Smiley had been living here as Susan. The clothes in the closet were all large-sized dresses and skirts. In the bureau, women's blouses and underwear, extra large. The cosmetics in the bathroom were pancake and rouge.

His preferred shade of lipstick was Bozo-the-Clown red, something called Torche. Pinned up over the mirror were several Polaroids of Vincent in drag-close-ups of his face in full makeup. Janet Reno on steroids. I broke my promise to Hennings, and filched one, putting it in my side coat pocket. Then I stood surveying the bathroom, trying to get a grip on the methodology here. Was this just a place to run after he shot Emo and barbecued his brother Paul, or did he actually live here as Susan half the time? How long had he owned this house, or did he just rent? I made a mental note to check the local Realtors.

I left the house twenty minutes later and walked out to the driveway. I wondered if anybody had gone through his garbage yet. Not wanting to let this normally important crime-scene treasure trove get away, I moved behind the garage and opened his cans. Both empty. The sheriff's crime techs had beat me to it. Then I noticed some sheets of paper on the ground, partially hidden behind some bushes. One was an old market list, but the other was some kind of computer printout that had "YUMA TACTS" on the top. Under that was a series of columns and boxes:

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