Compulsion (10 page)

“Fair enough. Did you happen to hold on to your airline tickets?”

“Why would I?”

“What’s your ex’s name and phone number?”

“Y’all are serious?”

“Dead serious, Clive.”

“Oh, man.”

“Do you send cars back with three wheels?”

Hatfield smoothed back his hair, favored us with a gap-toothed grin. “Sure, ask her, she got no reason to lie. Then y’all can tell her how good I’m looking.”

“Will do, Clive.”

“Make her squirm,” said Hatfield. “Tell her y’all saw me with some actress.”

“Name and number, Clive.”

“Brittany Louise Hatfield. Hold the phone far away from your ear, that girl can get loud.”

Milo copied down the information and watched him go. We returned to the front office and showed a picture of Kat Shonsky to Esther.

She studied it for a while. “Can’t swear to it but she could be one of them who comes by to see him.” Holding the photo closer. “Not bad. Better than some of the others.”

“Clive’s popular?”

“You wouldn’t believe,” she said. “They bring him lunch. Guy must have something going on but I don’t see it.”

I said, “Doesn’t appear to be charm.”

“Clean hands, either.”

I said, “This kind of work, be hard to stay clean.”

“Exactly, that’s why I’m dating a teacher.”

Milo said, “Clive ever ask you out?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” She returned the photo. “You think he did something to her?”

Milo said, “You see him as capable of that?”

“To me, he’s an oaf with a sour personality but he’s never lost his temper or done anything aggressive. But I guess anyone’s capable of anything. So you do suspect him.”

“We’re nowhere near that, ma’am. It would be best to keep this conversation under the hat.”

She removed her glasses. “I wasn’t
planning
on spreading rumors.”

“Of course not. So, Clive-”

“Clive’s fine,” she said. “Everyone here is fine. I’m really busy.”

The glass partition slid shut.

As I backed out of the lot, a Bentley turned in and blocked my way.

Another black one. Red interior.

I rolled forward.

The Bentley didn’t budge.

Milo stuck his head out and said, “Give us some space.”

The driver’s window opened and a blue-shirted man stuck his head out and shouted, “Can’t you read? Customers only, dude!”

Milo said, “Ah the travails of the alpha male,” got out, had a thirty-second chat with the shouter. By the time he was back in the Seville, the stunned driver had given me plenty of room.

I said, “Making friends and influencing people,” and turned onto Pico.

“If I had Clive’s natural charm, I could’ve gotten a free lunch. How do you figure?”

“I guess there could be a certain rough appeal.”

“Rough enough for him to hurt Kat Shonsky?”

“He doesn’t like women,” I said, “and this particular woman dumped him.”

“With his wife and kids gone, he’s lonely, maybe gets horny and remembers how driving around in fancy wheels was a big thrill for Kat, why not try it again?”

I said, “He claims he doesn’t know the customers but all he’d have to do is read a work order to learn Heubel’s address. And if he actually tinkered with Heubel’s car, he could’ve known about the spare key in the wheel well.”

“Hell,” he said, “he could have a master key. So you like him.”

“On the negative side, he bears no resemblance to Ella Mancusi’s killer. And there is the matter of that alibi.”

He found Brittany Hatfield’s number in Mississippi and punched it. “Hi, is your mom there? A friend from California. Yes, Cali – Mrs. Hatfield? This is Lieutenant Sturgis of the Los Angeles Police Department. No, I’m sorry, it’s not about that… I see. I’ll do what I can but, first off, could you tell me…”

He did a lot of listening, ended up holding the phone away from his ear. “Clive was right about her being surround sound. And she’s got reason to yell, seems the prince has a bad-check problem. As in three straight months of child support bouncing. She put in for a wage garnish, that’s what she thought I was calling about. Unfortunately, she does verify that he was in Mississippi when he says he was. Stayed with her and the kids until he ‘went off to Biloxi to see that
insane bitch mother of his.
’”

He stretched his legs. “Back to nowhere at warp speed.”

Memos and message slips blanketed his desk. Public Affairs had called to inform him that Ella Mancusi’s murder might be on the news tonight, he needed to be available for comments if necessary. Sean Binchy had phoned twice, no message. Gordon Beverly wanted to know if any progress had been made on Antoine.

I said, “Sixteen years, it’s still fresh for them. But Tony, with a brand-new loss, hasn’t called to ask about Mom.”

“Funny thing ’bout that?” He phoned the cop watching Mancusi, confirmed a clear pattern: The subject stayed in his apartment all day, emerged late afternoon for the brief drive to the same food stand, ate a burrito in his car, littered, returned home.

Sean had taken the initiative to canvass the block of Villa Entrada where the Bentley had been abandoned. No neighbor had seen or heard a thing, no one was aware of any juvenile delinquents in the neighborhood prone to GTA.

No sign of Kat Shonsky’s Mustang.

He played with Gordon Beverly’s slip. “I’m starting to feel like a family counselor. At least Kat’s mother hasn’t gotten past her denial yet.”

“She might if you asked her for a blood sample.”

“Mitochondrial match to the blood in the Bentley? Let’s see how the initial request is doing.”

He logged on to the New Jersey lab’s site. “Still way at the back of the line and without a confirmed felony, it’s gonna stay there. Okay, time to disappoint the Beverlys.”

I said, “I still don’t understand why Texas doesn’t pressure Jackson to be specific before you waste all this time.”

“Because it’s not about logical or ethical, Alex. It’s politics.” He swung a big foot onto the desk. Papers scattered and fell to the floor. He made no attempt to pick them up. Unwrapped a cigarillo and bit down hard. Wood splintered. He inspected the shattered tip, tossed the whole thing into the trash. Yanking a drawer open, he pulled out a thin blue folder. “Let’s give Antoine’s buddies another try.”

Repeat call to Bradley Maisonette’s parole officer, same voice mail, same message. St. Xavier High informed him that Mr. Good was out ill. Rather than try to wheedle Good’s personal data out of the receptionist, he ran a vehicle check.

“Two-year-old gray Ford Explorer, address on North Broadmoor Terrace.” He thumbed through his Thomas Guide. “Up in the hills, near the Bowl. Time to pay a sick call.”

His desk phone jangled. What he heard on the other end made him button his jacket and tighten the knot of his tie. Checked his shoelaces, rolled his shoulders, gave off the tiniest wince, stood.

I said, “Sudden meeting downtown?”

He stared at me.

“You went all appearance-conscious.”

“Mr. Wizard. Yeah, yeah, the chief wants to schmooze, I’m to be at his office before it’s physically feasible.”

“What’s the topic?”

“Pending cases,” he said. “His Righteousness probably got media calls on Mancusi or Beverly or both, doesn’t want to sound uninformed.”

“Have fun,” I said.

“Real chuckle-fest… you have a problem talking to Wilson Good by yourself?”

“Not unless it violates procedure.”

“Psychologically sensitive case like Antoine?” he said. “A shrink’s deft touch is clearly called for. Also, the chief likes you, so he’d approve.”

“When did that come up?”

“Last time he summoned me. Seems he read that paper you published last spring, agrees that most profiling is bullshit.”

“The chief reads psych journals?”

“The chief has a master’s in psych. He suggested you should be on the payroll. I told him the department wasn’t economically competitive.”

He quoted the pay scale.

I said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Always looking out for your interests. Say hi to Coach Good. Maybe you can get tips on passing and rushing.”

“I played baseball in high school.”

“What position?”

“Utility outfielder,” I said. “Wherever they needed me.”

Wilson Good’s house was one of five crisp one-stories edging a dead-end street above the Hollywood Bowl’s cheap seats. What brokers call “midcentury architectural,” as if the fifties is a leper decade.

Close enough to the amphitheater to hear music on warm summer nights. The rest of the view was trees and brush and ozone-depleted sky.

Good’s house was peach stucco where it wasn’t redwood siding. The gray Explorer and a green VW Passat sat on a pebble-grain slab behind a full-width electric mesh gate.

I pushed the button on the call box, listened to the doorbell chime the first few notes of Pachelbel’s Canon. A mockingbird hopped from a bottlebrush tree onto a honeysuckle hedge. Off in the distance, ravens played politics. And always, the auto hum; the freeway was the real L.A. philharmonic.

Before setting out I’d found a picture of Wilson Good on the Web. Victory party after a title game. Thick-necked, good-looking man with sad eyes that seemed at odds with the celebration.

Maybe a sensitive guy. Maybe he wouldn’t mind my waking him from a sickbed.

I rang again, was contemplating a third attempt when a woman came walking up Broadmoor trailing something tiny and brown. The animal tugged and leaped and strained a spaghetti-strap leash. The woman trotted to catch up.

I guessed Chihuahua and I was wrong; this was the smallest dachshund I’d ever seen, surging and charging, head-down, like a bratwurst on a mission.

The woman was brown-haired and freckled, wore a green top the same color as the Passat, skinny black pants, black shoes. Thirties, five five, with long legs and commodious hips.

The dog surged to the end of a long leash. Developed an instant lust for my left shoe.

The woman said, “Stop, Indy,” without much conviction, got her wrist yanked, fought to hold her ground.

I said, “Indy as in the big race?”

“His engine never turns off.” She scooped the dog into her arms, wrestled with the squirming bundle. When Indy finally calmed, the woman looked at Wilson Good’s house. Moss-green eyes. Soft color, hard appraisal.

She said, “Anything I can help you with?”

I brought out my LAPD consultant’s badge. Long expired and pretty dinky, but few people bother to check. The freckled woman remained too far back to read the details, though Indy was itching for a try.

“I’m looking for Mr. Good.”

“I’m Andrea. His wife.” As if she wasn’t sure. “What do you need with Will?”

“Fifteen years ago he had a friend named Antoine Beverly who-”

“Of course. Antoine.” Indy began making gremlin noises, renewed his battle against confinement. Andrea Good gave up and lowered him to the ground. “Will and Antoine were friends since preschool. What happened to Antoine is the saddest thing Will’s ever experienced. But he doesn’t know anything that would help the police.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“Of course I am. Have the police finally learned something?”

“The case has just been reopened. Could you ask your husband if he can spare me a few minutes?”

“The police send psychologists out on old cases?”

“On specific cases. If I-”

“I’m sure Will would love to help,” she said, “but it’s not a good time. He’s got a nasty flu and a couple of big games coming up. Leave me your number.”

“The detective on the case has already called-”

“Has he? I’ll have to check the machine. Will’s been pretty out of it. High fever, not like him at all, but there’s stuff going around the school.”

Choking protest from below caught our attention.

Indy reared on his hind legs, forelegs pumping air, eyes bulging.

Semi-suspended, with the leash pulling up on his throat. Andrea Good’s hand had drawn up on the cord.

She said, “Oh, no!” and relaxed her grip. Indy dropped down, panting. She kneeled. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Indy gave out one last yelp of protest and kissed her face.

Unconditional faith and love; maybe one day the Vatican will start canonizing canines.

“Anyway,” said Andrea Good, rising to her feet.

I said, “We’d appreciate hearing from your husband. Hope he heals up quickly.”

“Oh, he will. He’s a tough guy.”

Ella Mancusi’s murder didn’t make the six o’clock news but it was the final segment at eleven p.m., complete with pompous baritone narration and close-ups of a blood-soaked knife blade taken from stock footage.

The toll-free tip line flashed for a second, but that was enough. When I called Milo ’s office the next morning, I got a brand-new message.

“This is Lieutenant Sturgis. If you’re calling about the Mancusi homicide, please leave your name and phone number. Talk slowly and clearly. Thank you.”

I phoned Wilson Good, hoping a chat with his wife, bed rest, and civic duty might have loosened his tongue. No one answered.

Blanche was up for a walk and bounced along happily as we headed down the glen. Squirrels, birds, and cars amused her. Trees amused her. Rocks were hilarious.

A sinewy woman jogger paused to pet her. “That’s the prettiest dog I’ve ever seen.”

Blanche agreed.

At one p.m., Robin and I drove to Sherman Oaks and ate spaghetti at Antonio’s. Afterward, I asked if she could spare some time and we headed over to Katrina Shonsky’s address in Van Nuys.

Big-box complex on a treeless block. The air smelled of construction dust though no projects were in sight. All the charm of a heat rash.

Robin said, “I can see why she’d want to get away from this. Not that living in thirty rooms on twenty acres helps, if you’re lonely.”

“Thinking of someone in particular?”

She nodded. “He’s coming to town on business in a week or so. In between appointments, he intends to drop by to ‘visit my commission.’ It’s not that big of a deal but if you could be there, I wouldn’t mind.”

“He was inappropriate?”

“No, but when he talks to me he sounds so needy. Like he wants to get close – know what I mean?”

“An agenda behind the commission.”

“Maybe it’s silly,” she said.

“Conceited girl.”

She smiled. “So you’ll be there?”

She returned to her studio and I thought awhile about Ella Mancusi and Kat Shonsky. Could see no solid link beyond big black stolen cars.

I played with search engines, pairing variants of
homicide
and
luxury car.
When that came up empty, I substituted
murder.
Still, zero.

I began combining
murder
with specific automobile marques, went through
Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari,
and
BMW,
with no luck.

Lamborghini
and
Cadillac
pulled up a pair of shootings, one in L.A., the other in New York. Two gangsta rappers gunned down leaving late-night recording sessions, one alone in his Murciélago, the other caravanning with an entourage in a tricked-out Escalade. Officially, both cases were unsolved. But everyone in the hip-hop world knew whodunit.

Bentley
and
Aston Martin
came up empty.
Mercedes
elicited nothing about Ella Mancusi, probably because of the lack of media coverage – and that made me question the value of the search.
Benz
produced photos of Hitler in both of his massive 770Ks and a rant from a Qatar-based blogger who believed
Der Fuhrer
had been a misunderstood “cool guy everyone thinks is a murder.”

I typed in
Lincoln,
not expecting much.

So much for my powers of prediction.

Double homicide, nine years ago, in Ojo Negro, a struggling agricultural hamlet north and inland of Santa Barbara. The case had been logged on DarkVisions.net, a borderline-literate Web site that delighted in listing gruesome, unsolved killings and posted crude cartoons and grainy photos cribbed from true-crime books.

The facts, as recounted by the site’s “
soal author and webmaster, DV Zapper,
” were spare and brutal: Leonora Bright, owner of the only beauty parlor in Ojo Negro, and Vicki Tranh, her resident manicurist, had been murdered sometime after closing the shop, their bodies found the following morning “
multipally stabbed,
” and “
maybe disamenbered.
”

A black Lincoln Town Car had been parked near the shop just before dusk. A tall man in a floor-length canvas duster and ten-gallon hat had been seen earlier in the day. Exiting the car, walking past the salon, driving off.

The car was later identified as a rental, stolen from a hotel parking lot in Santa Barbara.

Cowboys were no novelty in Ojo Negro; several nearby cattle ranches struggled against Big Agribusiness. But the stranger’s swagger and the costume-like getup attracted glances.

“Pale Rider,”
the site tagged him.
“And in Wilde West days, the Detroit beast could probably a been a cole-black stalleon.”

The morning after the sighting, a parcel-service driver delivering nail polish and
“other cosmetic items made a stomach chorning discovery.”

“What I wonder,”
mused DV Zapper,
“is was Leona was married
and maybe Vicki also and if yeah why didn’t there husbands go looking for them the hole time?”

I ran a search using the victims’ names.

Only one story, printed in
The Santa Barbara Express
a week after the murder. Two new facts: The car had been stolen at the Wharf Inn. And: “Sheriff Wendell Salmey is currently talking to Santa Barbara detectives.”

Googling
Salmey
evoked zero hits and the computer’s suggestion that I really meant
Wendell Salmon.
Just to be safe, I said I did and got connected to the Web site of a Washington State Fish and Game booklet for children.

I printed the newspaper text, returned to DarkVisions, clicked the bloody knife
contact
icon, and inquired if anything new had come up on the case.

Within seconds, I had a reply.

hey alex jason blasco here aka DV ZAPPER aka the mannnn. no there is shit the cops don’t wanna talk maybe its prejustice or something tranh was veetnamise you know????? if you hear something you can post with me

Googling
Jason Blasco
brought up a similarly misspelled MySpace page.

I’d just corresponded with a gawky, dark-haired, fourteen-year-old, self-described
“genius wizard gore-geek”
who lived in Minneapolis and liked AC/DC
“even tho theyr older then anteeks and have shit drumming.”

I asked him how he’d heard about the Ojo Negro case.

they were in a magzine one a those thrilling detectives or some shit is in a big pile

ebay???

don do that shit this is slo lets im

sorry no buddy list

kidding

sorry

sucks dude

so that magazine…

you like that shit????

if the stories are good

i like it when they find the guy and xecute

yeah that’s better

got tons a that shit you can buy it if you want thrilling det shocking det

how much

five bucks each

think about it

take or leaf

take

send cash dude no paypal yet

I asked for an address. He was ready with a P.O.B.

Ah, enterprising youth.

where are you alex geographic i mean

l.a.

cool manson nightstalker original and ramirez skid row slasher maybe even zodiac went down there not just san francsco

yeah hows minnesota

sucks send cash if you want fedex give me a number

snail mails ok

if you don mine slime trail gotta go

Milo phoned at seven p.m.

“Lots of tips?” I said.

“Think Noah looking out the window of the ark. One anonymous caller claims Tony Mancusi is ‘kinky.’ The rest is psychics and psychotics. I’m halfway through the pile and Gordon Beverly drops by. Nice man, he tried the friends himself, no luck. You do any better with Good?”

I described my meeting with Andrea and Indy.

He said, “Gets rattled and nearly strangles the dog. Interesting.”

“I thought so.”

“So now we have to look at respectable Mr. Good more closely.” He laughed. “You’d think people would get smart. Open the door, smile, lie pleasantly, we all move on.”

“Criminals think that way,” I said. “Average folk can get spooked.”

“Average folk with something to hide. Okay, I’ll pursue Mr. Good once I make some headway on Mancusi.”

“Want me to go back to Good’s house tonight?”

“No, big game coming up, guy’s not going anywhere. Let him simmer for a while. Even if I wanted to bug him, my night’s spoken for. One of my rookies was pulled off surveillance, I’ll be the one eyeballing Tony Mancusi in an hour.”

“Time for strong coffee.”

“Strong and bitter. Like
moi.
Talk to you tomorrow, Alex.”

“One more thing.”

“Is this gonna make me smile or cringe?”

“Could go either way.” I told him about the Ojo Negro murders and the DarkVisions Web site.

He said, “Fourteen-year-old gore freak. And a child shall lead.”

“Maybe this child led us to something serious. Stolen black luxury wheels lifted from a rental lot, a suspect in cowboy gear. Which is all anyone noticed about him. Dusting your hair with white powder, wearing a garish plaid cap, and shuffling would accomplish the same thing. So would driving a flashy car, for that matter.”

“Costumes,” he said. “Art of the misdirect. Ojo Negro, huh? Never heard of the place. Nine years ago… talk about your extended run, you know what I’m thinking.”

“If it’s connected, there could be more in between. No other black-car murders came up but Ella’s not logged in, so the Web’s far from perfect.”

“True. I’m not sure what this does for my mood… okay, first things first, gotta pack my mule, get over to 7-Eleven, stock up on grub and caffeine. You up for some bucolic travel? With time and mileage reimbursed, as granted by The Supreme Being?”

“God wants to pay me?”

“The chief,” he said. “Same difference.”

“How’d your meeting go?”

“Steely eyes, firm grip, he pumped me for progress, pretended not to be pissed when I told him there was none. But that Irish face of his gets all rosy around the edges. Then, out of the blue, he asks me if you’re consulting to any of it. I say all of it, when you’ve got time. He says what does that mean. I say given what the department pays, you’ve got other fish to fry. He goes
real
rosy. Embarks on a tirade about how the department’s stuck somewhere between Mesozoic and Jurassic, it’s time to modernize, we need serious psychological input not whore-shrinks out to stigmatize officers. I try to get a word in edgewise about the financial end but when he gets like that, there’s no interrupting. So basically, the meeting ended up being about you.”

“Gee,” I said. “Better soak my head in ice before it swells out of control.”

“For that, all you need is to see the salary scale he proposed. Thirty percent additional allowance for gas and mileage but the hourly’s still penury. I’m supposed to set up a billing account, you’re supposed to keep meticulous records. Neither of which will be done because we’ve got real work. But can you see clear to hit the road anyway?”

“Hmm,” I said.

“Thanks. And don’t forget to eat. Thirty percent more gets you to 1965 prices.”

“Twinkies and Flavo-straws it is.”

“There you go,” he said. “Brain food.”