Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (13 page)

‘Is that a wedding gown?’

‘Looks like it.’

Marlene was draped in a long cream lace affair. Matching gloves up to the elbow. Satin slippers. Hands clasping a faded lemon posy to her chest. Everything looked slightly too big, I thought. Like hand-me-downs. The gown was old, possibly an heirloom. Had she been wearing it when she was murdered? Or had the killer deliberately frocked her up afterwards?

I took a pair of blue latex gloves from one of the watching techies. Snapped them on. Checked to see if her mouth was glued shut. It was.

‘It’s our boy.’ I said, getting back to my feet.

‘What’s with the glue?’

I shrugged. I could have hazarded a guess. But if I was brutally honest I had no idea. Psychologists will tell you that sealing a victim’s lips is an act of remorse. Like covering the face. But my jury was still out.

Ferguson handed me an evidence bag.

‘What’s this?’

‘Schaeffer found it on the old gal’s pillow.’

I held it up to the light. Inside was a faded clipping from an old newspaper. A cut-out column of print. Two by six inches. Without my glasses I couldn’t make it out.

‘Do we know what happened?’

Ferguson exhaled. ‘From what we can gather he broke in just before dawn. Handcuffed the butler to the bed before killing the old gal.’ He saw me gawping at the diamond rings encrusting her fingers and the wreath of real pearls wrapped around her neck. ‘Pity money can’t buy immortality.’

I handed the gloves to the techie. ‘I guess that depends how good your agent is. Let’s go speak with the butler.’

30

^{___________________________}

By default, killers don’t tend to be picky creatures. Leaving eyewitnesses – especially in home invasions – is considered messy and potentially incriminating. Occasionally you see it: where the killer is unaware of somebody in hiding. But for the most part, the rule is: leave no witnesses.

In this case, the killer had deliberately restrained the butler before killing Marlene. The irregularity stood out like a Pekinese at a greyhound track. I was intrigued to know why the killer had left him alive. In any other situation, if there hadn’t been two other homicides by the same killer, we’d be looking at the butler for her murder. As it stood, he was our only living link to
The Undertaker
. We were obliged to question him.

‘Mr. Schaeffer,’ Ferguson was saying in his hushed but forceful voiced, ‘you’re doing yourself no favors. All this evasiveness just makes you look guilty.’

We were sitting in a pleasant sun lounge with the sun warming our backs. The surfer dude from Huntington Beach had been giving us the run-around for the last couple of minutes. Threatening us with all sorts of law suits. Turned out his daddy was a sweet-talking Fountain Valley lawyer with a smidgeon of clout with the Assistant DA. No kidding – he’d have both our badges before the day was out.

Both the Captain and I were unimpressed.

He thrust out his wrists. ‘So arrest me.’

They looked pretty mashed up. Inflamed. He’d been curling and uncurling his fists since coming inside. Irritable. Scratching at his arms. Drugs did that, I knew. There was also the fact he’d been a heartbeat away from his own death and that tended to shake a person up a little.

I sat forward. ‘Have you any idea why he left you alive?’

The kid made an objectionable face that can only be pulled by youthful skin.

‘I know my rights. This is harassment.’

‘We’re just asking a few questions. Trying to catch Marlene’s killer.’

‘So go. Stop wasting my time.’

I stared into the kid’s reddened eyes. Either he’d been bawling for real or he’d rubbed so hard he’d broken capillaries.

‘The fact this killer went out of his way to tie you up means he kept you alive for a reason.’ I said. ‘You’re our first eyewitness in three separate murders.’

 
‘It would have been much easier just to kill you too.’ The Captain added.

Something like scared incomprehension scuttled across the kid’s face.

‘You need to tell us everything you know.’ I said. ‘And fast. Do the calculations, son. If you’re not the guy we’re looking for, that means somebody else is. And that somebody else is out there on the loose, right now.’

‘He could even come back.’ Ferguson suggested, just to push home our advantage. ‘Finish the job.’

There was a swollen blood vessel on the kid’s forehead. One of those fun balloons at a children’s party.

‘It was late,’ he said through grated teeth.

‘Eleven, twelve?’

‘More like three or four. I was in bed. I was asleep.’

‘Alone?’

The kid shot the Captain a disgusted glare. ‘I heard somebody come into my room.
 
At first I thought it was Marlene. She gets up early.’

‘Was it Marlene?’

‘No.’

‘How do you know? It was dark.’

‘Marlene doesn’t smoke.’

I shuffled forward in the rattan chair. ‘Regular cigarette smoke?’

The kid nodded. ‘He smelled like an ashtray. I didn’t see much of anything. I reached for the light. Then something stung me.’ He pulled open the neck of his red silk kimono to expose a nasty-looking double-burn blistering on the side of his neck.
 

‘Nice hickey,’ Ferguson said.

‘So he hit you with a Taser.’ I said. ‘Then what?’

‘It hurt like hell! The next thing I know it’s daylight and I’m handcuffed to the bed.’

‘Your handcuffs?’

The kid shook his tousled head.

‘Anybody else in the house?’

‘No. Marlene has day maids. That’s all. It was just the two of us.’

‘What was she doing out on the sun terrace?’

‘It’s a tradition of hers. Every morning. She watches the sunrise through the clematis. Ever since her husband died.’

The kid was still thinking of Marlene in the present tense. Things still hadn’t sunk in. And her killer had known where to find her – which meant he’d probably cased the joint beforehand.

‘What about house security?’ I said. ‘Fancy place like this must have state-of-the-art systems. How’d he get past them?’

‘Easy. We don’t have any. Marlene came from a different era. She trusted people. She believed in people.’

Ferguson spread his hands. ‘So you’re telling us the killer walked right in?’

The kid nodded. He started looking green.

‘This guy,’ I said, refocusing his attention. ‘Big, small, white, black?’

‘I told you. I have no idea.’

‘What about his accent? Mannerisms? Any other smells? Think carefully.’ I said. ‘Even the smallest detail might mean something. Maybe not to you, but to us.’

We sat there a long, drawn-out minute while the kid squirmed in his seat. He had ants in his pants the size of roaches. I am a firm believer of the
silence is golden
routine.

‘What?’ I said when I saw a spark of recognition in his swollen eyes.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Let us decide that.’

‘Cleaning fluid.’ He said.

‘Chloroform smells that way to some people. What else?’

‘Nothing else.’

‘Marlene have any enemies?’

I saw him shake his head without hesitation. Saw tears well up in his eyes. ‘Everybody loved Marlene.’

I was beginning to hear the same everywhere.

‘What about surprise visitors? Phone calls?’

The kid was still shaking his head.

‘Were you banging the old gal?’

Ferguson’s question hit the kid like a sledgehammer. Me too. His quiet and unexpected delivery made for a greater impact.

I saw the butler suck on his own superheated breath. If he could have taken a swipe at the Captain and gotten away with it he would have.

And that was just about as cooperative as the butler got.

31

^{___________________________}

General George S. Patton was once quoted as saying:
‘A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan next week’.
Precisely why the plan came to me as it did, I have no idea. Often the best concepts are those that come to us when we least expect them.

Let’s be clear about this: I’m no duck egg. I know procedure. Most of the time I stick to it. Sometimes I don’t. Red tape binds. The general rule is, under normal circumstances, all LAPD undertakings which involve the use of public facilities must first be run past the Captain, the Commander, the Chief of Police and half the city Task Force (including the Mayor) before getting the go-ahead. Long-winded, I know. Great for normal circumstances. Diabolical if they’re exceptional. I couldn’t afford to wait all week for a decision on my plan. The killer wouldn’t.

At the Captain’s behest, I waited until Fred and Jan arrived so that they could go about interviewing Marlene’s closest neighbors. Then headed south out of the Hills, down to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center over in West Hollywood. The morning was brightening up. I wasn’t.

The Undertaker
had killed three times in as many days.

No pressure.

Eric Bryce is the Chief Hospital Administrator over at Cedars-Sinai. Been there so long he’s considered part of the fixtures. He’s also one of those people who live their whole life in the shadow of a raincloud. Everything’s’ doom and gloom. When he heard my plan, his everyday glower turned thunderous.

‘Jesus Christ.’ He flapped hands in the air, as if by doing so it would summon divine intervention. I wasn’t expecting any. I wasn’t even sure Bryce was a religious man.