12 Days (15 page)
Authors: Chris Frank,Skip Press
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #mystery, #Hard-Boiled
“Hi, is this the number I’m supposed to call if I have information about the guy with the limp?”
“Yes it is. Can I help you?”
“Yeah, so I know the guy. I used to work with him at Gower Studios about two years ago.”
“Okay, sir. How do you know it’s him?”
“He had a terrible limp.”
“There are many people who have a limp in Los Angeles.”
“I know that. But how many people with a terrible limp have written a movie about a serial killer who murders people according to a Christmas song?”
Jim could not breathe. He started snapping his fingers wildly to anyone who would notice to get over to his desk. Jim hit the speakerphone button.
“Sir, what is your name?”
“Bobby Santoro.”
“Bobby, tell me where you live.”
“1096 Willets Avenue, Apartment 3B, Los Angeles.”
Jim jotted down the address.
“I’m coming to see you. Stay on the phone.”
He handed the phone to an FBI agent he had just met that morning.
“Keep talking to this guy. Don’t hang up until you hear my voice on the other end of the line.”
Day 5: 11:30 a.m.
God
, Gordon thought,
I fucking hate being a waiter. One of these days I am going to get my big break and tell everyone in this town to lick my balls.
Until then, Gordon Ring would have to straighten his tie and prepare for the first wave of diners who wanted to grab an early lunch at Pecca. He was scheduled to work both lunch and dinner but had convinced the manager to let him leave at 2:30 for his audition, with a promise on his mother’s life he would be back by 5:00 p.m. sharp. Since ninety-eight percent of wanna-be actors in L.A. waited tables, it was not an unusual request and, since the manager had fielded said request a thousand times before, he granted Gordon’s wish. Gordon thanked the man profusely.
He stood now at the men’s room mirror, practicing a few last silent screams. This could be his day, the one he had been dreaming about since the first time he saw Quentin Tarantino suck champagne from Salma Hayek’s boot in
From Dusk Till Dawn
. He left the bathroom and took his position with the other actors by the kitchen. He nodded his thanks one last time, which the manager acknowledged with a smile.
Actors
, the manager thought,
nothing but dreamers
.
Day 5 12:00 p.m.
Bobby Santoro had never been in a police station, which was an amazing feat considering all the drugs he had either sold, snorted, or smoked. He sat in an interrogation room with Captain Robert Jones and Detective Jim Jovian, staring at a tape recorder, still somewhat stoned from the night before. When asked if he wanted anything before they started, Bobby responded that he could really use a bagel with a thick schmear. His request was respectfully rejected, and Jim pressed the record button on the digital recorder.
“Testing. This is Detective James Jovian; Captain Robert Jones, Jr. and I are taping this interview in Interrogation Room 1, Parker Center, in Los Angeles, California. I will begin. Sir, can you please tell me your name and where you live?”
“My name is Robert Santoro and I live at 1096 Willets Avenue, Apartment 3B, Los Angeles.”
“Very good, Mr. Santoro. Did you come to Parker Center and agree to be interviewed under your own free will?”
“Well, yeah, but you drove, officer.”
“Yes. And are you of sound mind?”
Bobby laughed.
“What does that mean?”
“Are you mentally stable? Do you think clearly?”
“Well yeah. I mean I smoked pot yesterday but I’m okay today.”
Captain Jones groaned and looked at Jim crossly. Knowing that he could erase that response later, Jim continued.
“Mr. Santoro, do you know the identity of the man who has been implicated in the deaths of Paul Artridge, Janette McDermott, Audrey La Pense, and Alice Edwards?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Would you tell us how you know this?”
“When I first moved to L.A., I got a job at Gower Studios doing some sound work for a show about undertakers. There was this weird guy who worked at Gower, doing props, His name was Marty Lord. This guy was a real head case. He was good with props but he was scary.”
“What makes you say that he was scary?”
“He always looked like he was in a trance, like he was dosing with some powerful shit. He would stare with these blank eyes like he couldn’t see anything. Nobody liked him and then one day the producer just had enough. The actors would not work with Marty anywhere near the set, so they let him go. Man, Marty was pissed. He creeped us all out.”
“Mr. Santoro, why do you think that Marty Lord is the person that the police are looking for with regard to the murder victims that I recently mentioned?”
“Well, first of all, Marty had a limp; this guy had trouble getting around. He told me that he had been born without a hip or some shit like that and that nothing the doctors did could correct it.”
“Again Mr. Santoro, there are many people who walk with a limp. Why do you think Marty Lord is the person the police are looking for right now?”
“Because of his script.”
Jim watched the Captain lean forward, interested. Jim looked back at Bobby.
“By script do you mean a screenplay?”
“Why, yeah, sure.”
“What script was that, Mr. Santoro?”
“This script Marty wrote. Everyone who works in the industry thinks that they can write a script or that they can direct a feature. Marty once told me about an idea he had about a serial killer who selects his victims according to a Christmas song. The killer in Marty’s movie would choose his targets based upon the words of this song.”
Jim proffered to Bobby a still photo taken from the Target video of the man who bought the bamboo cage. He stated for the record what he was showing the witness.
“Mr. Santoro, is this Marty Lord in that picture I gave you?”
Bobby looked at the grainy photograph.
“It’s been a while so I can’t be one hundred per cent sure, but yes, that’s Marty Lord.”
“Thank you, Mr. Santoro. I have one last question.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you remember the name of the song in Mr. Lord’s script?”
“Yes, I do.’
“And what is that song?”
Bobby smiled.
“You guys haven’t figured that out? It’s …‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.”
Day 5: 2:35 p.m.
Hollywood used many of the old warehouses on Figueroa Street north of downtown L.A. for movies sets and casting studios. The rundown buildings were cheap to rent and invariably seemed to be infested with flies. Gordon Ring had been on Figueroa for auditions before, but not this particular location, which seemed to be more decrepit than the others; still, a gig is a gig and as the sailors say, any port in the storm. The director with the bad limp introduced himself to Gordon and led the would-be star to a well-lighted room in the rear of the warehouse. Gordon’s concerns that he was the only person auditioning were quickly allayed by the director’s claimed idiosyncrasy of only being able to meet one actor at a time. The director felt that this was the best way to really get to know him. Gordon took off his shirt as asked and screamed. Not real enough, claimed the director. Gordon screamed again; still not enough. The director wanted to try it this time with props; he grabbed a bowie knife from his bag and stood before Gordon. On three, he directed, I want to you to scream. One. Two. Three. Gordon screamed convincingly as the director thrust the bowie knife in sequence through his anterior abdominal musculature, his liver, and then out his back. Now that, thought the director, was a good scream.
Day 5: 2:45 p.m.
Jim had spent the last hour searching the Internet and gathering as much information on Marty Lord and Christmas songs as possible before addressing the task force, as per Captain Jones’ request. He found nothing on Marty Lord. The guy was a real nobody. Jim called the people at Gower Studios but no one could remember him. Personnel had a post office box in Alhambra as a last known address and a home phone number that Jim discovered was not in service any longer.
He had much more luck with the song, and he learned something. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was more than just a catchy ditty that tested the memory skills of choirs during the Christmas season. It was a very religious song with strong symbolism associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Jim had always thought that the first day of Christmas was around December 13
th
or 14
th
, and the song’s triumphant conclusion arrived with the birth of Jesus, but he was wrong. The first day of Christmas was actually Christmas Day with the song culminating with its twelfth day on January fifth, when the church celebrated the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, the time when the three wise men presented their gifts to the baby Jesus. Jim kept his notes in his hands as he explained his research to Captain Jones and his peers.
“Each day of the song has strong religious symbolism. The one true love refers to God. The two turtle doves, the two books of the Bible, the Old and New Testament. Three French hens refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues and Four Calling Birds refers to the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, otherwise known as the Four Evangelists. Five golden rings is the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Old Testament, which details the story of man’s fall from grace. Six geese a laying are the six days of creation, seven swans a swimming represent the seven sacraments, eight maids a milking are the eight Beatitudes, and so on until the twelve drummers refer to the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed.”
Jim pointed to the panels behind him.
“We could not find a link between our victims because the connection was not to individuals, but to the words of a song. It was right there in front of us. Marty Lord thinks he’s clever. He hangs Paul Artridge from a tree on Pear Street. Paul Artridge. P. Artridge in a Pear tree. Janette McDermott drowns under the weight of a 200 year-old tortoise in six inches of water. Janette McDermott, philanthropist, savior of the Pacific tortoise.”
Jim passed around a picture of the vanity license plate on her car.
“As you can see, Janette McDermott, the Turtle Dove.”
Jim then pointed to the photograph of Audrey La Pense’s naked body, covered in sugar.
“He’s playing with us here. Three French hens. He actually spelled this one out for us, like we are children. Alice Edwards…”
Jim looked at her panel for a couple of seconds.
“This one is sloppy. I believe in this case that he had to improvise; that after Alice appeared on the news as a witness, he had to make Alice fit into the song. Alice Edwards called the police a half dozen times a week. He buys a bamboo cage and puts it over her head to comply with the calling bird. But...”
Captain Jones, standing off to the side and up to this point very impressed with Jim’s comprehension of the situation, saw the hesitation and jumped in.
“But what, Detective Jovian?”
“…but how could he know?”
The Captain was puzzled.
“How could he know what?”
“That Alice Edwards called the police a lot. I suppose that because Alice was a witness to the first murder and called the police about the car alarm, Lord could rationalize that Alice’s one call to the police was enough to make her the calling bird, but it just doesn’t seem like it would be enough for this guy. He’s more…poetically-driven than that.”
A middle-aged female agent from the FBI with her hair pulled severely into a bun chimed in.
“What if he knew her?”
Captain Jones looked at the agent.
“What do you mean?”
She continued.
“Detective Jovian seems to be having trouble as to whether Alice Edwards had done enough to warrant the title of ‘calling bird.’ What if Lord knew that Alice Edwards had called the police on multiple occasions? What if this wasn’t the first time that she called the police about Lord? Would that make her murder more poetic, Detective Jovian?”
“It would!” Jim exclaimed. “One early assumption in this case was that the killer lived in that West Covina neighborhood. Maybe he grew up there and knew Alice Edwards; he knew that she called the police a lot because she might have called the police on him once or twice.”
Captain Jones interrupted.
“Good. Thank you, Detective Jovian. Okay people, here are your marching orders. I need you to go door to door in West Covina and see if anyone knows where this Marty Lord might live. Start in the ‘Fruit’ streets and extend your search radius circularly. Detective Jovian, pull up every log on calls that came to the West Covina Police from Alice Edwards. You may need to go back quite a ways. We did not have a computer to track all the calls until the early nineties. The rest of the information may be in boxes and you’ve got to do some serious grunt work. Let’s get out there people, and catch ourselves a serial killer.”