The Crime Writer Page 17

  “Invasive,” I said. “Right.”

  Leaving Preston on my couch reading my latest pages and Xena trying to bite the stream of air from the floor vent, I gathered up my untraceable documents and my various theories and went in search of a detective.

  “Since I wasted your night last time, I figured I’d give you first crack at it.”

  I waited through the pause. I’d caught Cal at home, readying to forge into another day of Westside crime. Someone had kidnapped a poodle from a Brentwood nail salon, which meant that Fifi had wandered off but the owner wanted police help in retrieving her. Ethics bow before toy dogs. I looked down to plug in my headset, almost sending the Guiltmobile flying off a Mulholland ridge.

  Cal said, “Listen, as much as I’d like to get on this—fuck, do I want to—and as much as I appreciate your cutting me in, you’re gonna have to bring it to Kaden and Delveckio. I can’t dick around anymore. My captain caught wind of our Starsky-and-Hutch stunt and came down pretty good.”

  Thus the poodle assignment.

  “I didn’t tell him you were there, though,” Cal said, “though it might come out soon. Figured you got enough balls in the air, and I was the dumb-ass with the badge.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry. How’d your captain catch wind of it?”

  “Richard Collins is pressing charges.”

  “What?”

  “The whole fire-extinguisher thing.”

  “I’d wondered whether that was within departmental regs.”

  “I saw it on TV once. Aiden’s War.”

  Johnny Ordean’s show. Served us right.

  “Tell Richard Collins that I used my cell-phone camera to take a picture of the pot he was trying to wash down the disposal. And sent it, Web-time-stamped to my computer at the very minute we were inside his place.”

  “He was? You did?”

  “Yes. No. But it won’t be worth his risking a third strike to call the bluff.”

  Cal exhaled—a relieved sigh. A lawsuit would’ve killed his chances of getting to Robbery-Homicide. “You know I love you, Drew. Listen, you’re not doing such a shitty job here. About the Richard Collins angle? We all step in it, as I proved. That’s how investigations proceed. Like writing, I’d guess. You fuck up and keep trying until something hits.”

  “It’ll hit for you, Cal. You’ll make RHD.”

  “Yeah, right after I collar the poodle.” He laughed. “Listen, I know I was a dick when you first asked for help. I was pissed I was stuck in West Latte Division and you murdered someone and didn’t even call me first.”

  “Next time,” I said, “I’ll be sure to.”

  Kaden set a brick of a fist on the papers I’d placed on his desk. “Where’d you get these documents?”

  “They’re illegal for you to have,” Delveckio said. “This is confidential information. Just like the case files your buddy Cal Unger’s been quietly digging around for.”

  “Cal has? When?”

  “Right. This is news to you.”

  It was. Cal had just told me that since getting busted he’d stepped off the extracurricular investigation. He put in a request for the case files before then and hadn’t told me? Or was Delveckio lying? As LAPD detectives, both were certainly in pole position to dick around with evidence. Why would Cal be secretive about seeing the case files? Because he was gunning for a promotion or helping me out but had to cover his ass since he was out of his jurisdiction. Or for more ominous reasons. What had he said to me when I’d first tracked him down? I think guys like you are exploitive bastards. But his name wasn’t on the Volvo list—I was sure of it. Was I paranoid? Yes. Wrong? Maybe. I made a note to have Chic get Cal’s information to the database privacy invader. Next I’d be getting the guy to investigate Chic. And then himself.

  “Now,” Kaden said, his tone snapping me back to the cool Parker Center air, “how ’ bout you tell us where you got the DMV records?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that. So can we skip this part and figure out how to use what’s here?” Leaving out Lloyd’s involvement, I’d explained to them twice already how I’d arrived at the DMV registration list and the suspect photos. Frustrated, I leaned back in the folding chair before Kaden’s desk and peered around the squad room. I’d drawn a few looks of recognition and disdain on my way up and as I’d moved through the halls.

  Kaden angled his computer monitor away from the glare of the bare windows. “What’s the witness’s name again?”

  “Junior Delgado.”

  He hammered on the keyboard, then shook his head as if he’d found what he’d suspected all along. “Kid’s got a rap sheet longer than my dick.”

  “So does my Aunt Hazel. Come on, Kaden, who do you expect to find wandering beneath the Rampart freeway overpass at two in the morning?”

  Kaden fanned off my comment with a hand. “We’ll look into it.”

  “When?”

  “We have about a hundred leads, most of them from more reputable citizens than Hoon-yore Delgado.”

  “And none of whom were there that night.”

  “And none of whom were located and interviewed by a suspect in the case.”

  “So my information is tainted.”

  “Of course it is, asshole. We’ve got no corroborating reports of a brown Volvo anywhere in either murder investigation. And this minor”—a finger jab at the screen—“seems like someone who’d be easily led by the nose.”

  I laughed. “Interview him. I beg you.”

  “We will.”

  “When?”

  Kaden threw down his pencil. “You’re an amateur, so you don’t see how many assumptions your guesswork rests on. Brown is the second most common Volvo paint job behind that shit yellow. There are a hundred and fifty-three brown Volvos with licenses starting with seven in L.A. County. Great. You know how many there are in the state?” More hammering on the keyboard. “One thousand two hundred ninety-one.”

  “How many are owned by convicted sex offenders?”

  “How many of the victims in this investigation were sexually assaulted?”

  “How about your theory that the killer evolved?” I tapped Frankel’s sinister booking photo. “The forensics line up. He’s a hundred eighty-five pounds—”

  “Just like you.”

  Delveckio leaned back so his thin shirt stretched across his narrow chest. “And you maintain that Morton Frankel doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  “I told you already,” I said. “I don’t know the guy. I think the question is if I mean anything to him. And it’s easy enough for us to find out. One strand of hair from this guy could prove our case.”

  “Prove?” Delveckio repeated. “Us?”

  “The unidentified hair found on Broach’s body might have nothing to do with anything,” Kaden said. “Dumped bodies pick up hairs. Or it could be a plant, like your hair supposedly was. That’s what you don’t get. It’s never neat. And even if it is, it’s not just about evidence. It’s about building a case.”

  “Look at the guy. A jury’ll hate him.”

  “Not probable cause for a seizure warrant to force him to surrender a DNA sample. Frankly, there’s not much from a legal perspective to differentiate him from the other satisfied Volvo owners on that DMV list.”

  “Morton Frankel is a felon.”

  “Let’s just forget the non felons who drive Volvos,” Delveckio said. “Guys too smart to get caught, we ain’t interested in them.”

  “I assume you have to start somewhere. And a car registered in L.A. County to a felon who lives around the block from one of the crime scenes seems like not a bad place.”

  Kaden settled back in his chair and said, “Oh. I get it.”

  Delveckio: “What’s that?”

  “This isn’t a real conversation, Ed. We’re in a script. Characters.” Kaden feigned amusement. “We’re the cops who bumble around with their bureaucratic agendas and investigative oversights so the vigilante hero, the average-guy-in-peril, can pursue the clues and s
olve the case without the inconvenience of competent law enforcement sharing a city with him.” He leaned over his desk, anger rising to the surface. “What you found was a felon who drives a Volvo. Congrats. I must admit, a rare demographic. You know why you like that lead? More than, say, the all-cotton rope found on Kasey Broach’s wrists that only ships to three erotica—and I use the term loosely—stores in Los Angeles? More than the two thousand one hundred and sixty hours—three months, right?—of security footage we’re reviewing from one store? More than the credit-card transactions we’re sorting through from the other two? More than the shipping records from those dildo shops? You know why you like your brown Volvo more than the electrical tape on Broach’s ankles, which was part of an irregular lot sold discount to Home Depot and shipped only to the Van Nuys store and one on Cave Creek Road in Phoenix? More than Broach’s and Bertrand’s phone records, which, cross-referenced, reveal overlaps to at least two establishments? More than the FedEx guy who delivered packages to both women two months apart? More than the pool guy who services a complex two blocks over from Broach’s place and did a dime at San Quentin for slitting his sister’s throat? You like Morton Frankel more because he’s yours. Because you found him. Now, despite the questionable combination of Junior Delgado and Andrew Danner as generators of this particular trail, we will look into it, certainly and absolutely. This and the other hundred and fifty-two Volvo owners on the list, which—you’re right—is where we should and will start. But we’re not gonna drop everything we’re working on this instant because we’re so darn bowled over that you found a clue.”

  His anger, cold and rational, had put me back in my seat. “Did you do that before?” I asked. “Check messengers to Genevieve’s house? See if any of her neighbors had criminal records?”

  Kaden glared at me. “We knew you did it. We didn’t give a shit to beat the bushes. We gave a shit to convict.”

  I stood, leaving them the documents, pissed off at Kaden for his last crack and for raising so many goddamned good objections before it.

  Kaden reached across the desk and grabbed my arm. “You’re in the real world now,” he said. “Watch that you don’t get yourself killed.”

  I pulled my arm free.

  Delveckio swiveled in his chair to watch me pass. “Oh—and, Danner?” He met my look evenly, his red-rimmed eyes detached and calm. “Don’t leave town.”

  25

  I eased my car through the packed parking lot of Bonsky Forge and Metalworks, up one row of vehicles, down the next. In the market for a brown Volvo. My tires rattled across the plane of crumbling asphalt, faded back to dirt in patches. Pollution smudged the building’s concrete blocks. The only windows were casements set high under the eaves, but from the edge of the lot, through a fence and a rolled-aside warehouse door, I could see the men inside. They labored over blade wheels and soldering torches, curved masks shielding them from sparks fanning up at their faces. The whine of machinery, even at this distance, made my dashboard rattle.

  Kaden had been right about one thing: My guesswork did rest on too many assumptions. I needed to gather more facts.

  Like, say, whether Frankel’s brown Volvo had a dent in the right front wheel well.

  I finished my second tour through the lot—no Volvos of any color—then drove the surrounding blocks to see if Frankel had parked off site. No better luck there. Maybe he’d left the state. Maybe he’d burned his car to eliminate evidence. Maybe he’d sold his Volvo four months ago to his poker buddy, the Zodiac Killer.

  I could walk into the factory under a ruse and see whether I could spot Frankel. But there were two problems: the welding masks and the fact that if he was my guy, he’d recognize me as much as I would him. And if there was one thing I didn’t want, it was Morton Frankel with the pointy sideburns knowing I was sniffing his trail.

  I called information and had them put me through to the factory office.

  “This is FedEx,” I said. “I have a delivery for a Mortie Frankel that I need him to sign for. Is he in today?”

  Gruff voice—“Hang on. Lemme check the board.” Rustling. Screeching machinery. “Yeah, he’s here.”

  “I’m stuck in traffic in Burbank. How late will he be there today?”

  “They knock off at three.” He hung up before I could thank him for providing excellent service.

  A genuine lunch whistle split the air. I drove back to the parking lot and watched the men spilling out into the weedy side yard to eat. They sat on cable spools and rusted machinery and had metal lunch pails with thermoses. I watched more emerge from the gloomy interior, lifting their face shields to reveal red, shiny faces. I was losing hope when a thick form stepped out into the midday glare. He was facing away, but the vibe off him was electric, and I wasn’t surprised when he turned. He swiped a palm across that hard brow and flicked a spray of sweat to the dirt. Flapping the front of his blue overalls to move air through them, he exchanged a few words with another worker.

  There was maybe fifty yards between us—parking lot, fence, brief throw of yard—but I felt as though we existed in separate bubbles, he with his tools, beat-up overalls, and sparks, I with my leather driver’s seat, notepad, and tinted windows. Suddenly sweating in my air-conditioned Highlander, I stared at him. Had this man stood in the dark of my bedroom the night of January 21, watching me sleep? Had he drugged me, taken my blood, and plucked a hair to leave beneath the cold, dead fingernail of Kasey Broach? And if so, why?

  There was something fascinating about Frankel—looking at him was unsettling, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  Please be a killer so I’m not.

  It dawned on me that Kaden had been right about something else. Frankel was mine. He was my suspect, and he would be until he wasn’t.

  I watched those teeth tear into a sandwich, watched his jaw flex as he chewed.

  See you later.

  26

  Chic staggered beneath the pop-up hit by his eldest son, Jeremiah, screaming, “I got it! I got it!” to call off his various children wielding mitts of all sizes.

  He snared the ball in a basket catch, then let it flop free. His brood groaned and hurled gloves at him and piled on as he laughed at his self-parody, rolling on the grass of his extended front lawn and covering his head protectively. Grabbing ankles and wrists, I pulled the kids off him, calling them by all the wrong names.

  Angela came out, her glare sending the children—and almost me—scrambling to wash up for lunch. She bore a tray of drinks for the workers who were lazily assembling a high-end play structure to the left of the baseball diamond. Complete with corkscrew slide, rope ladder, and mini rock-climbing wall, and topped with a fake tree house, the contraption made the play set at Hope House look like a heap of scrap metal.

  Angela served the workers, then turned to her husband. “Baby, take Drew on down to the truck and get me some queso blanco.”

  “We having soul comida?” I asked.

  She nodded. “And, baby, pick up a gift for Asia’s lil’ friend from camp. They brought her the Polly Pockets when they dropped by, ’ member?”

  We headed off on foot, sourcing the distant chime of the Mexican-food truck as Chic filled me in on the latest from the database guy. He’d unearthed a number of the overlaps between Genevieve and Broach that Kaden and Delveckio had referred to, and a few others that sounded irrelevant. Broach and I both belonged to 24 Hour Fitness but worked out at different locations. We both had checking accounts at Wells Fargo. Stop the presses.

  “And there’s one other tidbit—nothing that shudders the heavy bag, but worth poking at.” Chic pouched his lips. “Your boy Delveckio bought his life-insurance policy through the same broker as Adeline.” He reacted to my face before I could say anything. “I knew you’d go spinning on this like you did with the Cal Unger thing”—though he’d agreed to look into it, Chic had been understandably skeptical about Cal as suspect—“but it’s probably nothing, like everything else. Question, though—what’s a rich g
irl like Adeline need a million-dollar life-insurance policy for?”

  “Genevieve had one, too—they were each other’s beneficiaries. Their father read in some in-flight magazine that people with life insurance live longer and take fewer risks.”

  “Ain’t that like buying a Subaru because you hear people with low blood pressure own ’em?”

  “I thought so, but Luc plays golf with Warren Buffett, and I use the driving range off I-5, so whose advice are you gonna take?” I rolled my lips over my teeth, bit them. “I don’t like this Delveckio overlap at all.”

  I pictured the detective in the interrogation room, his weak features set in their best approximation of anger. I did the advise-next-of-kin for Adeline. I wish I’d borrowed your camcorder first so I could make you watch her reaction. I repeated his words to Chic, who shrugged.

  “Don’t you think it’s weird he referred to her by first name?” I asked. “And why mention her at all, let alone so emotionally? And now we’ve got a million-dollar life-insurance policy in the mix.”

  He gave me the slow-down hands. “It’s a big city, but the right demographics cut it down to size. So they used the same insurance broker. So the fuck what?”

  I was embarrassed to have no answer. Plus, how would Delveckio fit with Frankel, my lead horse? Like Cal, Delveckio ran across Mort Frankels every day in the course of doing business. Frankel could be a hire. Or, given the paucity of connective tissue, both cops could be red herrings. Delveckio and Genevieve’s kid sister used the same insurance broker. Any more salient than my sharing a gym with Kasey Broach?

  Chic interrupted my thoughts. “Hard to imagine Delveckio having an affair with Adeline—I’ve met her and seen him, and that match only works if the finances tilt the other way.” He sucked his teeth, an old Chic standby. “And even if they was? What they need another million for anyway? If there is a hook here, it ain’t the broker, it’s a step removed. The cat who referred them to the broker, that kind of stuff. Until then it’s just another L.A. overlap. So we’ll keep chasing the digital trails and focus on whoever put that sheen on your forehead when you first drove up. And that was…?”