The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller (15 page)

Mrs. Vanderman fed us shrimp scampi over rice, baked spinach with yellow squash and parmesan, and the salad: asparagus
with a creamy dressing of cilantro and lime. For dessert, lemon mousse. We talked about her work as a magazine editor, the bankrupt county, the recent fires, the earthquakes, birds, and Gil’s astonishing—by his mother’s words—work in photography. I acknowledged my job in the crime lab, and Gil’s father spoke briefly about his life as a judge but seemed content leaving it at that.

After dinner, Gil stood by the fireplace holding his wine glass, rich fire colors lighting his hair, the wine, the glass, as soft music played. His mother served chocolates and his father offered liqueur. For a while I didn’t think about murder. Or Joe. Or his anguished son.

At my car, standing there after I unlocked the door, Gil said, “Would you come back to my place, Smokey?” He touched my cheek with the side of a finger and pressed his forehead to mine. “I have etchings,” he said.

“No thanks, Gil.” He was sweet and he smelled wonderful, and I’d had an evening I was grateful for. More, I was charmed. A man who brought you to his parents right off. Where did you find that any more? “Thanks for a great evening, Gil. I really appreciate it.”

I got in. He immediately brought his knuckles to the glass and knocked. I rolled the window down.

“What, Gil?” I said, laughing.

“One more chance: Come back to my place?”

I brought his knuckles to my lips, kissed them, and said, “You are a wonderful person, Gil, and I am grateful to know you.”

“That’s a brush-off, huh?”

“I didn’t say that.”

There was something so earnest in his face that I smiled and said what I knew would commit me to action I might come to regret. I was still warm from the good meal and good will and the man’s own heat off his body, and I said it anyway. “Know what Marilyn Monroe used to say?”

“No idea at all.”

“Sex should be like saying hello.”

He said, “Hello,” and leaned in and kissed me.

“Hello,” I said back.

When I opened the door to my condo, only the thought of the tiny creature who never sleeps kept me from feeling the loneliness of the condemned with a conscience; and here I hadn’t even done anything yet. I hadn’t followed Gil to his place, hadn’t done the wild thang with him. But I knew it was only a matter of time. I told myself I was a free soul. I just wouldn’t think about it for now.

Motorboat peeped. I went to him in the darkness, with only the moon’s light reflecting off the walls and appliances, and raised the lid of the cage and propped it against the wall. I slid a hand under his warm belly and lifted him out, bringing him to the heat and safe hiding of my neck, letting my hair drape over him. “How you doin’, baby? Did you miss me, hm?”

His whole small body purred. I hummed to match his sound, the two of us in the darkness, linked in temporary song.

That night I tossed with indecipherable dreams. I saw airplane lights in skies, and bright explosions. Upside down in the room where we found her, Little Crane hung from the ceiling.

EIGHTEEN

I
t was the talk of the lab. Orange County, said a senator, was in the grip of another serial killer. Heat was channeling down from the top echelons. Atop the top was this senator with a Z-ending to his last name and a Hispanic look to his features—I saw him on the news before leaving my condo.

I had two messages on my voice-mail from reporters. At last they had more than mega-deals to moon over and Presidential peccadilloes at which to snicker, but unless I wanted to be picking up early retirement forms, those calls had to go unanswered.

What had I missed in evidence collection? There was so little to go on. Current wisdom says most serial killers are Caucasian who target Caucasians. Maybe we had one out of type: Such was the case in Atlanta, that killer of black kids.

I hated how psychological profilers always said these vicious morons were highly intelligent. Go ahead, give the sick fucks more glamour to feed their perverted egos. That kind of press, someone might even be inspired to try the game. Sick-fuck monkey see, sick-fuck monkey do. Murder is an equal opportunity employer.

Stu Hollings had me come see him at eight and kept me till nine. Lots of talk, no result except me in a sweat from the grilling.

I was late to hook up with Bob Hammerly on a training video. Then in the afternoon I went on an arson call; no human casualties, but a stinky, tedious job nonetheless. I didn’t get home until eight. Phoned Joe. He said it was all right, he was hitting the rack, I could come see him tomorrow. If anyone understood, he did.

Five minutes later, Dave Sanders showed at my door, haggard and unshaven. He had found my address at Joe’s.

I brought him a can of cherry soda and sat on the arm of the couch, while he took the wicker chair near the glass slider.

“What’s cookin’?” I said gently. “You don’t look so great.”

He took a moment, then said, “Dad’s going to die, isn’t he?”

“David.”

“He is.”

“Well, then, we’re all going to die,” I said.

“Before his time,” he said.

“Whenever we die, it
is
our time.”

“You believe in predestination then?”

“I think we kid ourselves a lot. I believe we have both more control and less control over our lives than we think we do.”

“So in your mind we have no chance of changing life’s events.”

“That’s not exactly it,” I said. “I think sometimes we can.”

“Predestination is like nihilism, isn’t it? Nothing matters.”

“I believe in fate,” I said. “At least, that’s what we say when we don’t know what else to say.” I laughed, trying to take some of the weight off of the subject.

His face stayed locked in seriousness.

“What I don’t believe in,” I said, “is Somebody-Up-There directing traffic. A lot of people do. I don’t knock it. Whatever works. Are you concerned for your father’s spiritual state?”

“I’m concerned about my own!”

“Then I’m not the one you need to be talking to,” I said.

His eyes threaded with red. “Someone’s going to be hurt, maybe even killed, and I can’t stop it, and I don’t know what to do!” Tears sparkled. Saliva bunched in his mouth.

The divorce, the stresses of college, his father’s brush with death: the kid had cracked. I went into the kitchen and got a clean dishtowel, ran it under the faucet, and brought it back to him. “Here,” I said.

“My roommate…I told you about him.”

“Yes. He steals.”

“Put a nickel on the nightstand, it’s in his bank the next day. He’d steal his grandma’s dentures if he could.” His voice was harsh, a serrated knife through cardboard. “I didn’t tell you
what
he steals.”

“Software off the internet.”

“
And
hardware. He helps guys get jobs in computer companies, then tells them what parts to steal. He fakes their resumes, pretends he’s a reference if someone calls. The parts, he keeps or sells, pays a commission.”

“Have you tried to stop him?”

“What we’re talking here is a guy with no guts,” he said, jabbing his thumb into his chest. “A guy without an ounce of integrity or guts.”

“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” I wished I had his father to deal with this. Even his mother. What did I know about twenty-year-olds? “For pete’s sake, what is so terrible about you?” His face bunched, and I thought he was going to break down again so I said, “Tell me more about this roommate. Greg’s his name?”

“Greg Cheng. Cheng with his little
bidness
,” he said.

“Are other students involved with him?”

“It’s not the money most of the time. It’s for kicks, power. I was brought up…I mean, you have these ideals…”

“Are
you
involved, David?”

“No!”

“I’m just trying to understand,” I said.

“He’s got this network, like Fabian. Trainees.”

“You mean Fagin?” I said.

“What?”

“From
Oliver Twist
. It was Fagin who taught the pickpockets.”

“Yeah, jeez! See? I’m off my beam. Fabian,” he said in disgust. “The other day someone asked my middle name. I had to stop and think,” he said, shaking his head. “So fucked.”

“You said someone was going to be harmed,” I said.

The room was so quiet I thought I heard a Daddy Longlegs spider in the corner crawling. Then: “I can’t be sure. But…”

“Why would you say that if you didn’t think it was true?”

“I said I can’t be
sure
.” He stood and paced the room, then went to the slider and opened it.

Out on the patio, a sparrow that should have been asleep dripped a white mess down a green plastic chair, then tilted her head at what wondrous work she’d wrought and flew off.

David went out and stood at the railing of the balcony. I followed. He pointed over the bay. “I’ve been sleeping in the bushes,” David said. “In something like that.”

“The bushes?”

“Little grass shack by the railroad track in Hono-loo Hawaii. There’s a wash along La Paz goes for miles. There’s this real tall pampas grass there. Cheap, very cheap. Stars at night, big and bright, deep in the heart of Orange County.”

“What in the world are you talking about, David?”

His eyes shone like those of a man trapped in the rage of grief, a man who always thought
he’d
be the first to go yet saw his family stripped off one by one. Then he said, “You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.”

No argument there, I was thinking. Is the son the father, the father the son? Joe is low-key.

David…who knew?

“I’d like to.”

“You don’t know if what I say is a crock or not.”

“Well, you got me there,” I said. “Did you ever think of talking about this with your mom, David?”

“She’d freak.”

“Sometimes parents can take a lot more than—”

“You don’t know
her
either. She tried to commit suicide once. Did you know that? Did Dad tell you that?”

“No.”

“That’s right. He wouldn’t. Because things don’t go wrong in a family like ours, see. Crime lab, D.A., cop. Same thing.”

“David,” I said. “You need to go home. Your mother needs you. You need your mother.”

“I can’t go home. Did I get
that
right? Thomas Wolfe, ‘You can’t go home again’? I’m an English major. So I thought. Or did Fagin say that? I forget.”

His dramatics were getting to me. “Look,” I said, “we can Play-Me-A-Riddle all day. You came here because you needed to talk. I’m here, I’m listening. So talk.” Then I added what I shouldn’t have: “Or don’t waste my time.”

He bent his head to look at the muddy toe of his sneaker propped on the lower rail. A pained or an arrogant smile pulled across his lips. Then he was into the house and striding through the living room and out the front door.

He had the leg length over me; I couldn’t keep up. I chugged over to my car and dug the extra key out from under the fender and followed him down Bay Drive, catching up to him and talking to him through my open window.

“Dave, I’m an idiot. Get in the car. For your dad’s sake.”

That slowed him down.

“He needs you. He needs you to be okay. Come on. We can take a drive. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. You want to, I’m all ears.”

I thought I’d lost. Then he veered and crossed the street to me.

We drove down Pacific Coast Highway to a place I knew where we could sit on a rock wall high above the sand and watch the surf. On the way, I tried engaging him in talk about beach cleanups and hotel development on the hillsides and volleyball in the sand, but it wasn’t until we sat on the wall with a soda and onion rings from a drive-thru and watched the ocean exploding in white froth against a blue velvet night that he began to relax.

“Are you ready now?” I finally asked.

Below, a rush of surf raced forward, and beneath the noise I heard him say: “Someone has been murdered.” He glanced at me, then squeezed his eyes shut.

I let him gather himself…as I was doing the same.

“His name was Freddie. He wasn’t a student. He was somebody Greg Cheng knew. I think Greg either killed him or had him killed. He’s a fucking Mafia all to himself. He’s evil. Evil!”

A wave eased forward to capture a twist of paper on the sand below and suck it into its maw.

“David,” I said cautiously, “if this is so, we have to—”

“
If
this is so? It’s
so!
”

“Has he threatened you?”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“Why didn’t you tell your father?”

“Did you forget? He’s in the hospital!”

“But before. You could have told him before.”

“You tell yourself you’re not seeing what you’re seeing. You tell yourself you’re crazy, nobody’s
that
bad. You’ve seen too many De Niro movies. Maybe I’d just heard too many fantastic stories from Dad and his friends. Then again, maybe I didn’t
want
to know,” he said angrily. “David, Gutless Wonder.”

“Stop,” I said, and touched his arm. “It’s not your fault.”

“One day I borrowed Greg’s computer when he wasn’t there. Mine was acting up. I didn’t know the program I was using very well. I brought up one of Greg’s files, like, a chart. I was going to just make a copy of it and change all the data for my project. That way I wouldn’t have to set up all the fields myself, you know?”