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:

7S

MECH INFANTRY REIN 1335

PG783783

N 33 13 57.1

W 115 05 16.6

LIVE ORD 1,2

8S

MECH INFANTRY REIN 1539

PG726796

N 33 14 39.9

W 115 08 58.2

LIVE ORD 1, 2

10S

SA-6 Site

2240

PG771820

N 33 15 56.5

W 11506 01.1

LIVE ORD 1,2

11S

ARMORED COLUMN 2203

PG773815

N 33 15 38.1

W 115 05 54.3

LIVE ORD 1,2

12S

SAM SITE 1348

PG735806

N 33 15 12

W 115 08 18.5

LIVE ORD 1,2

13S

MECH INFANTRY 1444

PG718803

N 33 15 02.9

W 115 09 27.5

LIVE ORD 1,2

14S

MECH INFANTRY REIN

2350

PG771772

N 33 13 14.5

W 115 05 57.4

LIVE ORD 1,2

15S

NE-SW AIRFIELD W/SAM, AAA, RADAR SITES

0205

PG736809

N 33 15 23.6

W 115 08 17

LIVE ORD 1,2

MT. BARROW

NE-SW AIRFIELD W/SAM SITES

0545

PG895707

N 33 09 42.1

W 114 58 10.8

LIVE ORD

1,2,5.

Tad Palmer told me he'd seen this site on Smiley's computer out at Hidden Ranch, and I had tried unsuccessfully to access Cactus West on my PC. With words like INFANTRY and LIVE ORD, I knew it was some kind of military site.

I put the paper in my jacket pocket with the Polaroid and headed back toward the driveway. As I passed the garage, I noticed that the side door was ajar, so I pushed it open with my toe and walked in.

Nothing much was inside. A few recent oil stains on the pavement, but nothing was piled up against or hung on the walls. I noticed some old cardboard boxes up in the rafters that looked like they'd been broken down, folded and stored up there. Probably nothing, but most people don't go to the trouble to store broken-down boxes, so I found a ladder and dragged it over, climbed up, and started pulling at the edges. They cascaded down and landed on the floor.

I climbed down and started opening them up. The shipping labels indicated they had come from a mail order catalogue called The Mountaineer. The UPS dates indicated they were all delivered within the last week. I started to pull out the manufacturer's packing lists that had been left behind.

The first box I went into had contained a GPS-a miniunit for exact global satellite positioning. I reached into another box and found the printed instructions for installing something called "crampon metal spikes." They attached to the bottom of boots and were used for ice climbs. There was a box for an ascender and one for fifi hooks, which had a complicated set of instructions for a hanging belay. There was a box for an SLCD. The instructions indicated that it was a spring-loaded camming device, used to improve handholds on a cliff face.

What it all came down to was Vincent had recently ordered one hell of a lot of expensive mountain-climbing equipment. The boxes had been opened here, but since the gear wasn't in the house or garage, it was probably in the back of that bigfoot Dodge 2500 that had roared out of here, almost hitting me. Detective logic at its tip-top best.

I left the garage by the side door, walked down the drive, and climbed into a slick-back D-car that I'd picked up at the motor pool downtown after leaving the hospital. I drove slowly up the block, trying to figure my most effective next move. Jo's purse was on the seat beside me. Nobody had asked me for it at the hospital, so I just held onto it. I drove up the street and found a quiet place to park, then pulled over and turned off the engine.

I opened the purse and pulled out Jo's crime book, then began flipping pages until I found what I was looking for.