California Girl (16 page)
Authors: T Jefferson Parker
Nick nodded.
Gant’s eyes bore into Nick again. Silver fish leaping out of them, landing on the desk. Gant held up one finger and ran it up close across Nick’s field of vision.
“With all respect, Investigator Becker, what the hell are you tripping on?” asked Gant.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know I was. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on. Del Gado’s face melted and now there’s fish all over the desk. And the tools at Sears—”
“Here.”
Gant took him by one arm—surprisingly strong for a little guy—and walked Nick back outside. Down the hall and into a bathroom. Ran some water in the sink, got Nick’s face down close to it and splashed him good. Soaked some paper towels. Got his neck and hair. Walked Nick over to a stall and sat him down.
“What’d you take, Sarge?” he asked quietly.
“Eggs and—”
“Not food. Not breakfast. Something else.”
“Coffee in the cafeteria.”
“Something else. You smoke something funny, maybe?”
“I pretty much quit cigarettes two years ago.”
Nick tried to think of everything he’d put in his mouth since getting up.
“Tell me what you did this morning,” said Troy Gant.
Nick went through it. Detail by detail. Amazing to him that he could remember it. He was trying to explain the almost-orange-blossom smell of Janelle Vonn’s air freshener when Gant sighed. He put a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
Sitting on the toilet with a weird narc touching him sent a shiver of panic up Nick’s backbone. Never claustrophobic but he felt that way now. Suffocating. Ugly thoughts and smells. He almost jumped up to run for it but the sinks behind Gant were breathing in and out, enlarging, then decreasing. Enlarging, then decreasing.
“You took a dose of Orange Sunshine LSD,” Troy said. “Janelle got it from Tim Leary. Leary got it from Ronnie Joe Fowler. Fowler gets it from a lab up near San Francisco that nobody can find. What you got through your skin pores is pure LSD dissolved in distilled water. Instead of pills, the acid gurus are taking it orally. One spray in your mouth, you’re flying in twenty minutes. On your hands, like happened to you—forty minutes. The air freshener label is their idea of being clever and
funny. It actually fooled us for about a month because the label was so good.”
“Goddamn,” said Nick. “I can’t believe this stuff was legal until a couple of years ago.”
“Strong shit,” said Gant.
“He’s been acting like a complete nutcase,” said Lobdell.
Gant helped Nick off the toilet. “Get him downstairs and drive him home. Nick, don’t stop and rap with your buddies or the whole department’s going to know. I’m going to give you Ronnie Joe Fowler’s numbers. And a couple more people in Janelle’s group. And some of the reports I wrote up, based on her information. But besides that I’m not going to tell you a single thing. I’m done. I don’t exist for you. See me on the street, man—any street in the world—and just walk the other way.”
“Yes,” said Nick.
“I’ll call you in a couple of hours,” said Gant.
“How long’s this going to last?”
“One spray on your fingers about ten o’clock? And a whiff of another? You’ll start coming down about five or six tonight. You’ll still be high when you fall asleep, if you do.”
“Whopping hangover?”
“You’ll feel fine,” said Gant. “You’ll remember all the cool stuff. You’ll want to try it again sometime.”
“Wow. Not so sure about that.”
“See? That’s what I mean. You may think homicide is tough, but narco is just plain scary. By the way, eat plenty. A couple of strong cocktails will help you come down. And one more thing—get the creep who killed her. She was a sweet girl.”
“DAD’S HOME EARLY!”
“GIVE ME MY BATMOBILE!”
“QUIET! Honey, is everything okay?”
Nick stood blinking in the doorway. The orange wool carpet Katy had recently bought for the living room undulated like a field of wind
blown barley, stretching before him, out the sliding glass doors, across the backyard, over the flood control channel that ran behind their house, all the way to the horizon. Nick thought that he’d like to see the precise line where the orange carpet met the sky.
He turned and waved away Lobdell.
“Is everything okay, Nick?”
“Is everything okay, Dad?”
“Yes,” he said, stepping into the entryway. He knelt down and hugged Katherine and Stevie, both home with colds. Willie was at school.
“Do you feel okay, honey?” asked Katy.
He rose and smiled at her. She was huge and beautiful to him. Life rippled off her in visible vibrations, waves of shimmering purple and yellow.
“I see your beauty in a whole new way, Katy,” he said. She smiled guardedly. “I’d started to think you were beautiful like a new truck or one of those big airliners they fly to New York. But you’re not that at all. It’s more to do with grace and blood. Not function, but…
form.
”
Katy’s mouth fell open. He saw the hardness come to her eyes. The sudden worry.
“Katherine, Steven—go to your rooms.”
“But—”
“But—”
“NOW!”
“God, that’s loud,” Nick said. Felt the sound waves pulverizing his eardrums.
“Come with me,” said Katy. She took his arm where Gant had taken it and led him back to the bedroom.
She closed the door and asked for his explanation.
After he told her she went out to check the children, came back in, locked the door, and stripped off his clothes. She made love to him three times that afternoon, in between lunch, laundry, getting Katherine and Steven down for naps, and picking up Willie at the bus stop.
By evening Nick felt like he’d been blasted through an entire universe
of sex. Then pulled back through it to earth and his bed. Spent and empty. Whole body limp. Katy brought him dinner. And six fingers of scotch and ice with a little water in a giant red plastic tumbler.
Bloated with sensation, Nick curled up under the sheets naked and watched squadrons of identical purple tulips scroll down his inner vision. Then red Ford Country Squire station wagons with wood-look siding and 428s in them. Then blue fire hydrants. Then Janelle Vonn’s disembodied head. She was alive and speaking but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. A thousand Janelles. He tried to say something back but he couldn’t move his mouth.
He slept for eleven hours. Woke up at six in time to pour Willie a bowl of Sugar Spangled Rice Krinkles.
Felt great.
HE WAS ON HIS WAY
to headquarters by seven. A warm wind blew from the east off the desert, swaying the traffic lights on their cables and shivering the trees.
Nick thought about the things that had gone through his head the day before, frankly amazed that they could arrive so clear and strong, then vanish so completely. Like a Santa Ana wind had blown them into his brain and back out again.
And Katy. Incredible. It had been twenty-four days since they’d made love. And over seven years since they’d done anything like that when the sun was up. What had gotten into her?
The homicide room was empty. He made coffee and set the copies of Troy Gant’s dossiers on his desk. There were four of them, all profiles of drug culture suspects apparently prepared from debriefings of Janelle. And from conversations, some covertly recorded by Janelle and others caught by telephone intercepts. Key excerpts had been transcribed and included in the files.
Timothy Leary.
Ronnie Joe Fowler.
Price Herald.
Cory Bonnett.
Nick read the synopsis that began each file:
TIMOTHY LEARY, 48, has been living in Laguna Beach since early April. He is “spokesman” for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a “church” recently founded there by approximately thirty members (see add’l file for RONNIE JOE FOWLER). LEARY is a charismatic former Harvard researcher who espouses widespread use of mind-altering drugs. He is very influential over young people and those uncertain in their beliefs and convictions. Because of his academic experience and notoriety he is accepted by the artistic and university community in Laguna Beach.
LEARY is not considered dangerous and is not known to carry weapons or resist arrest. He often smiles at law enforcement personnel. Many consider it a taunt. He is married to a former fashion model named ROSEMARY and has a son, JACK. This is his third marriage. His first wife committed suicide.
Laguna Beach PD has LEARY under irregular surveillance. FBI has a dossier on LEARY, little of which has been shared with us (see Orange County FBI Resident Agency, Special Agent Hambly).
It is known to law enforcement that LEARY’S Laguna Beach parties and “happenings” encourage illegal drug use, permissive sexual behavior, and anti-American sentiments. LEARY was arrested for possession of marijuana in Laredo, Texas, last year. If convicted, he faces a thirty-year sentence.
Various Sheriff’s Department informers supply firsthand information on Leary’s activities. Of these, JANELLE VONN, through her personal relationship with LEARY, is our most productive. They met at a “be-in” (drug party) in Laguna Beach in the summer of 1968. JANELLE accompanied JESSE BLACK, a young musician, to this party. BLACK and LEARY are friends. LEARY is forthcoming with JANELLE about his opinions and activities. He has made no threatening or sexual advances toward her. JANELLE admits to using LSD. Although JANELLE is nineteen years old, we feel that she is not in
danger in her capacity as a paid and voluntary Sheriff’s Department informant.
We also believe it possible that JANELLE has admitted her connection to us to LEARY and BLACK, and that any information she supplies is possibly misleading or false. Calls made to and from her phone and taped by JANELLE are likewise suspect.
EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO CORROBORATE JANELLE/LEARY INFORMATION WITH TWO (2) OTHER SOURCES.
Nick scanned the pages that followed.
There were encounters with Leary, as described by Janelle to del Gado and Gant.
He had joints in his pocket but no acid. I’ve never seen him carry the acid around. He’s got a safe in his bedroom for it. He watches over it like it’s gold. Which to him and some of his friends it is.
Phone conversations—
Hello, Janelle dear. How do you like the sunshine today?
Groov-y!
Remember, Janelle, we are all God’s flesh.
Descriptions of Leary’s home—
and lots of books of poetry, Ginsberg and Corso and Olson and…
Be-ins. Happenings. Experiences. Parties and more parties.
Photographs, too, of Leary and Janelle and others on the beach in tai chi poses, Leary and Janelle smoking marijuana in a Laguna alleyway, Leary and two younger men outside a store called Mystic Arts World on Coast Highway.
Nick got another cup of coffee. Conjured up some of the hallucinogenic images from the day before. Most of them he couldn’t remember. And the ones that he could remember had lost their power to dazzle or delight or disturb.
The next file was shorter:
RONNIE JOE FOWLER, 28, is one of the later members of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.
The Brotherhood, as it is commonly called, encourages the use of LSD to induce mystical states. In the articles of incorporation of this alleged church, they say they’re going to “bring to the world a greater awareness of God through the teachings of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Ramakrishna, Babaji, Paramahansa Yogananda, Mahatma Gandhi,” etc. To support their “religion” they opened a drug-paraphernalia store on Coast Highway in Laguna Beach called the Mystic Arts World.
However, in order to purchase land for the church, the Brotherhood has established international networks for smuggling illicit drugs into this country for sale. They are especially expert in the smuggling of hashish from Afghanistan. It is far more powerful than marijuana and reaps greater profits in the illegal marketplace.
FOWLER’s role in the Brotherhood narcotics smuggling network is mainly in distribution of so-called Orange Sunshine lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). It is alleged to be stronger and “purer” than the laboratory-produced LSD made by Sandoz Laboratories of Switzerland. This dangerous hallucinogenic substance is believed to be manufactured in a secret Northern California drug lab. ANY IN FORMATION RELATING TO THE EXISTENCE AND POSSIBLE LOCATION OF THIS LAB IS A HIGH PRIORITY OF NARCOTICS LAW ENFORCEMENT NATIONWIDE.
FOWLER is neither a gullible hippie nor a mystical shaman. He is a hardened criminal with ties to the Hell’s Angels and Hessian motorcycle gangs. JANELLE VONN’s brothers LENNY and CASEY are known Hessian members and convicted drug offenders. FOWLER has priors for assault with a deadly weapon (a knife) and grand theft. He was acquitted on forcible and statutory rape charges last year in Eugene, Oregon. He is known to have an engaging and outwardly friendly personality. He preys on females.
The file photographs showed a bull-necked man with lank black hair and a thick mustache. Balding on the top. Long sideburns and a hard jaw.
Nick sat back and wondered again if Lenny and Casey might have murdered their sister. She’d humiliated them semipublicly three years ago, with the drugs and sex testimony. Helped convict them. But their alibis held unless you figured Karl to lie for them.
No. The Vonn brothers had survived all that. Gone back to their rat holes. It seemed a far stretch.
He read through the last two files. Price Herald was “a flamboyant Laguna Beach antique dealer known to be supplying drugs of all kinds to the homosexual underground in Laguna Beach and Hollywood.” Two years ago Herald had been convicted of “crimes against nature.” Not one of the public bathroom fairies, Nick saw, but a prosperous businessman who’d taken in a seventeen-year-old runaway. Later the boy had ratted out Herald in trade for a reduced marijuana charge. According to del Gado’s narcotics detail, Herald was using the runaways to peddle dope and collect money.
Janelle had met him through a photographer who had shot her for
Orange County Illustrated
magazine when she was Miss Tustin.
According to JANELLE, HERALD claimed he was “going to turn on every queer in Southern California and make some dough while I’m at it.” JANELLE has attended Herald’s lavish and bizarre parties thrown in his Bluebird Canyon home. We consider HERALD an important drug culture figure, due to his influence in the large homosexual population in Southern California.
In his photograph, Herald looked overweight and affronted. He wore his hair in a ponytail and a paisley satin smoking jacket over a ruffled shirt. The Pirate Queen look, thought Nick.
The last file was on Cory Bonnett. A sheet of paper stapled to the cover said that Bonnett had last been seen outside his home in Laguna Beach on October 3. The day after Janelle’s body had been discovered, thought Nick.
No outstanding warrants but approach with extreme caution.
He opened and read:
BONNETT is a 22-year-old former water polo star at Santa Ana High School, where he was voted all-conference in 1964. He has adult convictions for assault and drunk in public. Mexican authorities in Michoacán believe he is responsible for the murders of two marijuana growers in that state. They were both shot execution style and their throats were cut. BONNETT is rumored to be in collusion with corrupt law enforcement officials in Tijuana and Ensenada, Mexico. According to JANELLE, BONNETT has referred to these murders but not stated his part in them to her.
BONNETT’s juvenile record was sealed when he was eighteen, at the request of his parents. Offenses as a minor include arson, assault, receiving stolen property, and grand theft auto (see attached juvenile court transcripts). When sixteen, BONNETT beat his mother and father so badly that both were hospitalized.
BONNETT and his friends from Santa Ana High School have been trafficking marijuana and heroin across the border since 1965, according to witnesses, informants, and recordings. BONNETT is considered the source of up to one-quarter of the marijuana brought into the county from Mexico, and up to three-quarters of the heroin. BONNETT owns and flies a Cessna airplane between the United States and Mexico. The airplane is kept at Orange County Airport.
BONNETT owns Neck Deep Leather in Laguna Beach. They sell clothing and accessories made in Laguna Beach and Tijuana. We believe that BONNETT funnels drug profits through the shop, giving the money the appearance of legitimacy.
He is 6'4" tall and weighs 245 lbs. His Stanford-Binet IQ is 126. He is known to carry a gun in his waistband and a white-handled Mexican switchblade knife in his left front pant pocket. Although he lives in Laguna Beach, BONNETT is contemptuous of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and disdainful of “hippie” culture in general. He dislikes homosexuals. BONNETT appears to be motivated by money and by a taste for danger and violence. According to witnesses and in
formants, BONNETT does not use the contraband drugs he smuggles into this country.
Due to BONNETT’s violent nature, JANELLE and other OCSD informants are discouraged from initiating contact or being alone with him. JANELLE is aware of this man’s behavior but shows no fear of him. JANELLE has joked about BONNETT being “like a cool older brother” and that he “watches out for me.” We have learned from JANELLE that she and BONNETT have a sexual relationship. They have traveled to Mexico together once and BONNETT has been to the yellow cottage several times.
DEPUTIES SHOULD CONSIDER BONNETT ARMED AND DANGEROUS AT ALL TIMES. According to several witnesses, including JANELLE, BONNETT has made numerous death threats against law enforcement, Brotherhood of Eternal Love members, and homosexuals. OCSD undercover narcotics deputy TROY GANT, who has established a relationship with BONNETT, believes that BONNETT is the most dangerous man in the county.
APPROACH WITH EXTREME CAUTION.
An IQ of 126, thought Nick.
A cool older brother.
Cut the growers’ throats? Cut Janelle’s? He remembered the initials
CB
from the scribbled numbers by her telephone—the guy who’d told him to kiss his ass on the phone. And Bonnett hadn’t been seen since the day after her body was discovered.
Nick flipped through the juvenile court transcripts and looked at the photographs of Cory Bonnett. Good face. Big features, something offhand and hopeful in his expression. Chipped teeth, sun-bleached eyebrows, and a crooked nose. Blond wavy hair to his shoulders. The hippie affectation made him look more like a deranged Round Table knight than a love child.
He has been to the yellow cottage.
Nick didn’t like the idea of tracking down a criminal with the same IQ as his own.
And he knew that none of these drug world contacts was the Sears, Roebuck customer who bought the Trim-Quick.
Though any of them could have bought or stolen one there or anywhere else.
And any of them could have been the one who raped and murdered Janelle and carried her into the SunBlesst packinghouse on his back.
He thought of large, violent Bonnett and Janelle flying down to Mexico. Being together in her little yellow cottage by the ocean.
He has been to the yellow cottage.
The
yellow cottage, thought Nick. Not
her
yellow cottage.
The
.
An idea came to him. He went to Captain Frank del Gado’s office. The captain was at his desk reading the
Journal
.
“Becker. What gives?”
“Did we rent Janelle Vonn’s cottage for her?”
“More or less.”
“And we had a wiretap on the phone?” asked Nick.
“Sure. Court order. She knew. So.”
“Was the cottage miked for surveillance?”
“Yeah. So,” said del Gado.
“I want to hear the tapes.”
“We got hundreds of hours.”
“Good.”
Del Gado dropped the paper and looked at Nick. “I’ll have the dupes on your desk by end of day.”
Harloff came in a minute later, said he talked to Special Agent Hambly over at the bureau. FBI was interested in Janelle’s friends Tim Leary and Roger Stoltz. Leary was high on President Johnson’s new COINTELPRO New Left list. Stoltz was on Johnson’s new COINTELPRO white hate list. Hambly wasn’t working her murder at all.
A Fed working two counterintelligence programs, thought Nick. Glad we got to her place first.
“What’s the Stoltz-Janelle connection?” asked Harloff.
“He helped her get straightened out after the molestations. Off the drugs.”
“Then these Laguna guys got her back on them.”
NICK SPENT
an hour watching the ID fingerprint examiners trying to match the partial fingerprint from the packinghouse lock to those of Leary, Fowler, Herald, and Bonnett. The print was only big enough to contain one, maybe two, comparison points. California courts would accept ten points and nothing less.