L.A. Boneyard (11 page)

“Can you give me a cause of death, Doctor?”

Galt nodded and got on with his autopsy. He made tiny measurements using calipers and a ruler, and spoke his findings into the hanging microphone, putting the scanning electron microscope into action more than once. Finally he spoke again.

“Subcomponents of the auricular surface correspond with early adulthood. Include the pregnancy as a factor of age, and I think L.A. BONEYARD
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we’re looking at a young Caucasian woman, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, give or take five years—although I’d hesitate to say she’s less than sixteen.”

“So, young, white and the hair found with her was blond.

Bottled?”

“The test results will tell us that.”

“Cause of death?” David repeated.

Galt pointed at the skeletonized form. “Hyoid has been fractured. Strong indications she was slashed with something very sharp, possibly serrated. See here and here,” he indicated areas of the neck where the vocal chords would have been.

“Sorry, I can’t tell what kind of knife was used.”

“Was the baby buried with her?”

“Let me get back to you.”

They’d have to be content with that. David and Jairo left the morgue and stepped out into the surprisingly hot pre-spring day. The sun had turned the parking lot into a simmering cauldron, and Jairo’s unmarked stewed in the unseasonable glare that bounced off the mullioned windows of the red brick building in front of them. As he waited for Jairo to unlock the vehicle, a meat wagon rolled into the lot, rolling around to the unloading zone. Jairo cranked the air on the minute he started the car.

“What now?” he asked.

“We track down the building’s owner and pay a visit.”

They still hadn’t found him by the end of the day. Before it got too late, David called the vet about the dog and was given the number of Sergeant’s breeder, in Anaheim. He called the number and got a young girl on the phone.

When he asked to speak to someone about one of their dogs an older woman came on the line. “Yes?” she said.

David introduced himself. “My partner found a dog we think belongs to you, but the owner isn’t showing up. We’d like to know what you want us to do with him.”

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David rattled off the number the vet had read off the implant Sergeant carried.

“Oh that’s Avanti’s Special Edition,” she said. “You say you found him?”

“Like I said, my partner found him on the street. He’d obviously been, ah, left to his own devices—”

“You mean abandoned?” the woman’s voice was cool. “Did he call animal control?”

“He didn’t feel comfortable doing that.”

“And what exactly does he want to do?” she said shrewdly, and David suspected she knew exactly what Chris wanted to do.

“Does he want me to take the dog back? I will, I tell all my dog owners if they ever find they can’t keep an animal, to bring it back. I don’t countenance dumping any dog into the street, but especially not one of mine.”

“No, ma’am. Actually he was kind of hoping you might see your way to letting us keep him.”

“You want him?”

David took a deep breath, wondering what he was getting himself in for. “Yes, ma’am. We do.”

“Tell me a bit about yourself. Aside from the fact you’re a police detective. Why should I let one of my dogs go to you?”

David had no idea how to respond to that. So he countered.

“You’re free to come out and see the dog for yourself. You can see if he’s happy, or not.”

She agreed to that and he gave her their Silver Lake address.

But she couldn’t commit on a time. “I’ll let you know.”

David called it quits around six, and headed home for a much needed shower. Sergeant met him at the door, a scrap of skin hanging from his nose. Upstairs in the bedroom, the bed looked like a small bomb had gone off in it. Sweeney lay on David’s pillow, eying the dog with disgust.

David scooped the angry cat up, and gave Sergeant a stern look when he surged forward, trying to nudge the Siamese in his arms. Putting both animals outside on the hall landing, he L.A. BONEYARD
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stripped the bloodied sheets where the two had tussled, and put fresh ones on. When he let the two back in, Sweeney curled up on David’s pillow. Sergeant took up his place at the foot of the bed.

Shaking his head, David carried the bed clothes down to the laundry room, and put a load in. Then he went in search of supper, settling on a quick-fry steak and rice side dish. He ate in the media room, flipping through channels until he finally settled on a NASCAR race in Daytona.

Someone pounded on the door. Sergeant beat him to it, and even before he threw the heavy oak door open, he knew who was on the other side.

Jairo leaned against the tiled courtyard, legs crossed at the ankles, his brown lab lying at his feet. The dog scrambled up when the door opened, and greeted Sergeant enthusiastically.

Jairo tousled the Doberman’s head fondly.

“Looks like you had a run in with a claw,” he said with an easy grin.

“I think he lost that argument,” David said, determined not to respond to Jairo’s unwanted presence. It was getting harder and harder to ignore his own wholly unwanted physical reaction to the man.

In the meantime, the dog needed a good run. He grabbed his jacket and running shoes, and led Jairo at a fast clip over to the park, where the two dogs were free to gambol, and chase each other along the shoreline.

Back at the house, Jairo grinned when it became obvious David wasn’t going to invite him in. He saluted him and tugged Popeye back to his car. David didn’t bother watching to see if he left. He shut and locked the door, and led the exhausted dog into the media room, where they both settled down to watch a Johnny Cash retrospective. Half way through the show Chris called. He sounded tired, but upbeat.

“You’re taking care of yourself, right?”

“Sure,” Chris said with a laugh. “Trust me, no wild parties.

How’s the dog?”

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“He’s good.” David shook his head, looking down at the sleeping dog at his feet. “He misses you.” His voice dropped.

“He’s not the only one.”

They traded “I love you’s” and David got off the phone.

Blindly he reached down and stroked the dog’s dark head, wishing more than anything that Chris had never gone to New York.

The next morning Jairo located the Leland Way landlord. He had done a property search and found the owner, who was renting the place out. He agreed to meet them at eleven outside the house. Jairo reported his findings.

“Mr. Bailey Larson has owned that particular building since nineteen ninety-four. He and his wife used to own it, but they divorced in ninety-six and he purchased the structure from her.”

“Did he know the two tenants?”

“He met them, but doesn’t know much about either of them, except they spoke with heavy accents and they were lookers. Like with the tattoo artist, they made quite an impression on our guy.”

“No trouble with them?”

“Paid their rent on time. Last check cleared a couple of weeks ago. He would have been expecting next month’s check in another week.”

“What bank were the checks drawn on?”

“We’re in luck. He photocopied all his checks. They were drawn on Wells Fargo, Fountain and La Brea.”

“Depending on how this goes, we may be able to subpoena those records.” David rubbed at the rough skin of his cheek.

“You tell him anything about our suspicions?”

The look Jairo gave him said “What do you think I am, stupid?” all too clearly. David shrugged. “Then let’s go talk to him.”

Wednesday, 10:50 AM, Leland Way, Hollywood
Bailey Larson was a bearded, heavy-set man with narrow, weaselly eyes who spoke in a rushed whisper, as though afraid someone was going to shut him up before he got all the words out. When David and Jairo pulled up in Jairo’s dusty brown Crown Vic, he stepped out of his Kia and shaded his eyes against the late morning sun. David carried an evidence kit.

David extended his hand, swallowing up Larson’s. “Mr.

Larson? Detective David Eric Laine. My partner, Jairo Garcia Hernandez.”

Larson fished a set of keys out of his jacket pocket and motioned them up the step to the front door. He rapped smartly on the wooden panel, and waited for nearly a minute before glancing back at David and Jairo.

“Are the two girls in trouble, officers?”

“No, sir. We just want to be sure they’re fine,” David said, thinking trouble wasn’t the word for it.

Larson shrugged. “Okay, but if they get angry, it’s on your head.”

“Understood, sir.”

Larson tried knocking one more time, but the only sounds were the soft cooing of a mourning dove, and the swish of distant traffic on nearby Sunset. Finally he shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

Uneasily, he peered into the lightless room, seeing as much of it as he could without actually entering. David eased past him, and Jairo followed on his heels. Only then did Larson cross the threshold.

The living room was dim and empty. It had the stale smell of a room that had been closed up for days. A faint scent of
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lavender, and laundry soap, lay under the smell of uncirculated air. The room was pin neat, though David could make out a thin layer of dust on the nearby table, when he eased the curtains open to shed some light on things. It was obvious no one had been in the house for several days, maybe longer.

There were no signs that anything violent had occurred. To be sure, David moved through the house, checking behind every closed door, even peering outside into the matchbook-sized backyard. A flock of starlings argued from a nearby rubber tree.

A dog barked at him from next door; the yard itself was empty.

Not even a scrap of lawn furniture was in sight. A single large Eucalyptus tree crowded too close to the back of the house, filling the air with the familiar pungent smell. The yard was scuffed and dusty. The grass, thinned in spots to bare dirt, was already starting to brown under the relentless sun. A bucket, half-filled with scummy water, sat under the southeast corner of the house. A crawl space, half concealed by a ragged boxwood, was a black maw under the house.

Larson shook his head, and marched over to the bucket, upending it in the dirt. “Gotta keep telling them not to encourage mosquitoes. Maybe they don’t have them where they come from, but they should know better.”

“Any idea where they are from?” Jairo asked. His gaze swept the tiny backyard, taking in the houses on either side.

“They never said. I never asked. They were pretty hard to understand, so we weren’t big on conversation. They paid their rent on time. Can’t ask for more than that.” He glared at the now empty bucket. “Well, not much.”

“Who arranged to rent the place? Them or a second party?”

David asked.

Larson frowned. “A guy who said he was their uncle was helping them get settled in the country. Now that I remember, it was his name on the rent checks.”

“You keep copies of those checks?”

“Of course, have to or my accountant has a fit.”

“We’ll need to see them,” David said. He turned away from the landlord.

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“Do I need a subpoena to do that?”

“Up to you. I can get one, no problem.”

“Guess there’s no reason you can’t have them. I’m not hiding anything, right?”

“I can send an officer over later to pick those up.”

They checked out each of the two bedrooms. The bed in the first one was neatly made, flowered duvet and a threadbare area rug at the side of the single bed. A framed image of what David took to be Madonna and child was on the plain white wall, over the bed. A row of cosmetics and a hairbrush sat on a vanity.

David picked up the brush. Several blond hairs clung to the teeth. He pulled an evidence bag out of his kit and extracted a couple of hairs. Larson watched him uneasily.

“Just what do you think happened here?”

“Can’t say, sir. We’re just checking out all angles.”

Larson was skeptical, but David didn’t elaborate. He’d learn soon enough if David’s suspicions about the whereabouts of his two tenants were true.

“What were your tenants’ names? Can we see copies of their leases?”

“S-sure, I’ll have to get them from my office...”

“Please do that, sir. We could pick them up, too, if that would be easier. We can take photocopies of those checks at the same time.”

Larson glanced at this watch. “I’ll be heading back there once I leave here.” He handed David a business card. “My address. I’ll have everything ready when you get there.”

The second bedroom was messier than the first. The bed was unmade, and clothes, mostly simple dresses, and a pair of jeans, were scattered on an easy chair and over the uncarpeted floor. The closet yielded more clothes, finer dresses, all size 0, though how clothes could be zero was beyond David’s comprehension. Several pairs of stiletto shoes lined the closet.

“Ankle breakers,” Jairo said. At David’s look he murmured.

“My wife likes those things. Still can’t figure out how anyone
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can walk in them.” He grinned. “But it sure makes their legs look good.”

“Women.” Larson shook his head. “Does anything they do make sense?”

Back out in the living room, they found an odd display in the eastern corner. A small, hand-carved wooden table held a leather-bound book, on a red and white embroidered cloth with writing David didn’t recognize but was similar to the tattoo, and a pair of candlestick holders with simple white, unburned candles. A lamp hung from above, and an embroidered towel was draped over several small paintings of religious figures.

Facing the corner was a large, worn easy chair. Beside it was a wicker basket filled with various colored thread and a half finished piece of intricately embroidered cloth. He stared at the cloth, then picked it up and held it so he could study it. There was no mistaking the image, even though it was only partially complete.

It was the same odd picture of triangle and diamonds of the dead woman’s tattoo. Around the main image were several smaller ones, various stylized barnyard animals. He knew who at least one of his victims was.