The Rabbit Factory (4 page)

Terry and I stepped to the back of the elevator. Amy stood in front. I inhaled deeply to get a better take on her perfume. This was not official police work. In fact it wasn't work at all. She smelled fantastic. Not your typical office fragrance. More bedroom than boardroom.

There were no buttons to push. Just a panel with a series of locks, each one marked with the corresponding floor. I gawked at Amy as she inserted a chrome key into the fourth lock from the top. The light next to it went from red to green. Then before the doors could close, one more passenger jumped aboard. Surprise, surprise, it was the little voice that lives inside my head. "And what do we have here?" it said. "Is this Detective Lomax fantasizing about a principal in a homicide case? How quickly one forgets the letter from one's wife, who is lying in the ground these six short months."

I've accepted the fact that I can't hold onto my own life. I just can't let go of being part of yours.

I thanked the voice for stopping by and looked away from Amy's seductive butt and down at my loafers. I also began to

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breathe through my mouth, but the scent of Amy still hung in the air. I took one last gawk to see if I could make out a panty line. Nothing visible. Civilians have no idea what goes on inside a cop's head when he's working the job.

The elevator took us four floors down. D Level. The doors opened, and we got our first look at The Rabbit Hole. It was hardly a hole. It was wide and spacious and well lit. It reminded me of the American Airlines terminal at LAX.

We hopped on a golf cart and headed down a corridor that was not quite as wide as the Ventura Freeway. Amy was our driver and tourguide.

"On your right is the employee cafeteria. We serve over twelve thousand meals a day. Up ahead is our laundry facility. How many pounds of laundry would you guess we handle on a daily basis?"

"We're cops, ma'am," Terry said. "We can't guess without clues."

"Fifty-two tons," she said, with a hint of self-congratulation that one doesn't usually associate with getting laundry dirty. "And believe it or not, that generates over one hundred pounds of dryer lint every day.",

I had to hand it to her. She acted like this was just another day at the office. Let's see, what's on the agenda today? Staff meeting, write a press release, dash over to Familyland, drive cops to dead body, then lunch. The gal in charge of Corporate Miscommunications. Calm and composed on the outside, but I'd bet that deep down she was scared shitless.

The cart stopped to let a zebra cross in front of us. Not a man in a zebra suit. A real zebra, like you see on the savannah. The handler, or whatever you call those guys who pull exotic animals

The Rabbit Factory

around underground tunnels, waved at us. Amy said, "Hi, Harold," and for a second I was impressed that she knew him by name. Then I saw the name tag on his shirt. Can't fool this detective.

The cart took off again. Like I told Terry, I had been to Familyland. This was better. It was like being backstage at the circus. Actually it was more like being in the circus. Everyone was in costume. We passed a group of three young women who must have been on a coffee break. One of them looked like Dolley Madison and had to stand about five feet back from the others to make clearance for her hoop skirt. The second was in a tiger suit, with the head resting on the ground nearby. The third was some sort of a Martian drinking a Fresca.

"You think maybe our killer was wearing a costume to help him blend in?" Terry asked, practically reading my mind.

"I was just wondering the same thing," I said.

"But it would have to be something simple," Terry said. "I can't imagine being able to kill somebody if you're dressed up like a six-foot duck." .

The golf cart hummed along, and I sat back and enjoyed the show. It was difficult to think of this place as a business. Or a murder scene. This was the underbelly of one of the greatest entertainment institutions in the world. The part the public never gets to see; hardly even knows about. I couldn't help but think how much Joanie would have loved this special secret world down here.

We drove past hundreds of people, most of whom seemed to be in a hurry to get to God-knows-where. Just like an airport. Except in the airport, you don't see that many people dressed in sequins, sparkles, and spangles. Well, maybe San Francisco Airport.

We turned off the Ventura Freeway onto a narrow passageway, a cul-de-sac about fifty feet deep. At the far end was a cluster of people inside a perimeter of yellow plastic tape. Amy stopped the cart, and Terry jumped off. "What the hell is this?" he said, grabbing the tape.

It should have said, Crime Scene. Do Not Cross. Instead it said This Area Closed For Renovations. Sorry For The Inconvenience. Terry was furious. "Are we investigating a homicide, or an inconvenience?"

"We need to keep a low profile," Amy said. "We can't have employees gawking at a big yellow police banner that says Murder Committed Here.'"

"You need to keep it low profile?" Terry barked. "Are you aware that it's against the law to remove the Crime Scene tape?"

"We didn't remove it. We just added our own tape and extended the perimeter. The whole world doesn't have to know there was a murder here."

"Well, LAPD just might want the whole world to know," Terry said, loud enough for a good chunk of the world to hear him, "just in case one of them happened to be a witness. Did you ever think of that?"

"Gentlemen, can I help?" a voice called out.

The people behind the tape stopped working to see what the yelling was about. One by one they lost interest and went back to what they were doing. Except for the guy who offered to help. He headed toward us.

He was a light-skinned African-American, big and well-built, his head shaved smooth and buffed to a soft glow. His eyes locked on me and Terry, slicing and dicing us as he approached. He stopped a foot away and stood eyeball to eyeball with me,

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The Rabbit Factory

which made him six-foot-one. But he had at least twenty pounds on me, about nineteen and a half of which were muscle. His face, his bearing, his look, everything about him, said Cop. Everything but his clothes, which said Handsomely Paid Executive. I was right on both counts. "Gentlemen," he said, "I'm Brian Curry, Head of Security at Familyland."

H

Cop-to-cop introductions at the scene of a homicide don't usually call for hearty handshakes, but Curry extended his hand, so I shook it. Terry hung about six feet back, folded his arms across his chest and nodded at him.

"I'm glad you're here," Curry said. That surprised me. Private cops are never glad to see city cops show up on their turf. "This is a terrible day for us. Whatever I can do to help you solve this crime quickly..." he cleared his throat, "and quietly, just say the word."

He walked over to Terry and extended his hand again, this time with a business card in it. "If it's really critical, I'll take down the little barrier we put up to discourage people from rubbernecking. However..."

Terry took the card. "Let's just leave it for now."

"Hey, guys... Lomax... Biggs... over here."

Another voice from the business side of the Crime Scene tape. This time it was the unmistakable twang of Jessica Keating. Nobody in all of LAPD sounds quite like Jessica. She's from Chicago where they apparently teach their young to run

every word through their nasal passages before actually speaking it. She could really mutilate the name Lomax, but I was thrilled to hear her. There are a couple of hard-ass, self absorbed, this-is-my-job-not-yours-fuckface LAPD Crime Scene Investigators. Jessica Keating is not one of them.

Jess is an amalgam of visual counterpoints. She's Janet Reno tall, with curly blonde Shirley Temple hair. Her face has wonderful hints of Audrey Hepburn. Creamy white skin, unblemished by a single ray of California sunshine, tapering off into an elegant slender neck. At the other end are two oversized Bozo the Clown feet.

She's Midwestern friendly with a glorious smile and a big goofy laugh. Homicide cases are inherently depressing, but if anyone can brighten up a murder scene, it's Jessica. I always tell her she's the Ghoul of my Dreams. The only time I ever saw her cry was in a high school gymnasium in Van Nuys. Every cop has a breaking point. For Jessica it was four dead kids and a gym teacher sprawled across a painted hardwood floor.ŚŚŚ'->

Terry and I gave her a big "Hey, Jess" and walked over with Curry and Amy close behind. Jess was on one knee, fiddling with the DOA, who was still inside his bunny suit. His size 42 rabbit head, an open pack of Marlboro Lights, and a red translucent plastic Bic lighter were on the floor nearby.

Terry and I hadn't crossed paths with Jessica for about a week, so she had a little catching up to do. "Nice going on the Marlar case," she said.

"Couldn't have done it without you, Keating," I said. It was true. She had determined that the murder weapon was a rock hard rawhide bone that had been the chew toy of the victim's dog, a massive golden retriever named Rudy. The dog hadn't

done it, but apparently the victim's husband had. Jessica had put us on the path to success when she picked up a single drool-covered Rudy hair from the victim's skull.

"What do we have?" I asked, getting down to the business at hand.

She smiled real perky and put on her instructor face, as if she were now going to teach us a simple, basic lifeskill, like how to stuff a turkey. "Cause of death, strangulation. This is a No Smoking facility. Looks like the vie snuck back here to cop a cigarette. Someone came up from behind him, wrapped a rope around his neck, and strangled him."

"You sure the killer came from behind?" Biggs said.

"Not a hundred percent, but if he attacked from the front, there'd be signs of a struggle. I'm thinking the killer snuck through these pipes and got behind Elkins while he was lighting up. Elkins never knew what hit him. Once the rope was around his neck, he was probably unconscious in thirty seconds, dead in sixty. A maintenance guy found him this morning, but I'd put the time of death between 3 and 5 p.m. yesterday."

"There's a million people down here," Terry said. "It took that long for someone to discover the body?"

"This is a blind alley, a dead-end junction for ducts and pipes. No security cameras. No reason for people to be here."

Amy was hovering at our side listening to every word. "So there wouldn't be any witnesses," she said, with a smug look at Terry.

Terry ignored her and turned to Curry. "Come to think of it, Brian, there is something you can do. Explain the concept of obstruction of justice to your people." He turned back to Jessica. "You sure the murder weapon was a rope?"

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"You tell me. Let's call this Exhibit One." She used a tongue depressor to hold up a kid's jump rope. It was flecked with dried blood, and when I leaned closer I could see little shriveled bits and shreds of Eddie Elkins's neck hanging off it. The handles at each end of the rope were plastic cartoon characters. Gerbils, maybe. Or hamsters. Definitely some kind of fun vermin for little kids.

"It's the Wacky Pack Rat jump rope," Brian said. "We sell it here in the park."

"We'll need surveillance tapes from the gift shops," I said, "and the names of anyone who put that jump rope on their credit card in the past thirty days." I turned back to Jessica. "Anything else?"

"The killer cut an ear off the rabbit head; took it as a souvenir. Then there's this. We found it in the victim's right paw... hand... whatever."

With two gloved fingers, she held up a little book, two inches long, an inch and a half wide. It was forty or fifty pages thick. "It's an old-fashioned flipbook," she said. "Y'know, the picture is slightly different on each page. When you flip the pages, the picture looks like it's moving. Take a look."

There was a drawing of a closed hand on the cover page. She placed her thumb on the front edge and began flipping. As the pages flew by, the picture animated, and the middle digit of the hand popped up, giving us the finger.

"Definitely not available at a Lamaar gift shop," Curry said.

Biggs began writing in his notebook. Homicide cops are supposed to write in pads. You see it on all the TV shows. So nobody paid attention. But I knew he wasn't taking notes. He was quietly communicating with me. I leaned left so I could see

the pad. He wrote TIT??? I responded with a shrug. Terry closed the pad. He wasn't about to pursue his theory in public.

"Brian," I said, "we'll need to talk to the people Elkins worked with."

"Can do," he said. "Each character is assigned a Keeper. Someone to tag along, so they never walk through the park solo. I've checked the roster, and Elkins's Keeper is Noreen Stubiak. We can track her down for you. Also, a lot of the characters work in teams for the Character Breakfast Events, so I'm sure there are a number of people who knew him. Plus there's the men's dressing room. I'll get you a list of all the guys who had lockers near his."

"I have a problem with that." It was Amy.

"You got a problem with what?" I was real close to becoming Bad Cop.

"I know this will sound heartless," she said, "but we were fortunate that Mr. Elkins was murdered in this out-of-the-way area. The maintenance man who found him has agreed not to discuss it publicly. Then there were another fourteen employees who were attracted to the commotion before we were able to close off the area. They too have agreed not to discuss the incident publicly."

"You seem to have an abundance of agreeable employees," I said.

"It's not against the law to encourage our people to protect the company's privacy. Why broadcast the murder by talking to every employee who knows him? I thought we were trying to keep this out of the press."

"You're the one trying to keep this out of the press." I said. "We're the ones trying to solve it. That means talking to everybody

Elkins worked with."

Brian shook his head slowly. "This is premeditated, isn't it? Somebody had it in for this guy and hunted him down. Maybe another employee."