MASS MURDER (24 page)

“Okay, buddy, we’re off,” he said.

The oversized head, squat body
,
and long ears
made
the young Basset both humorous and endearing
.
Giorgio
couldn’t help
but
chuckle.
Unaware of his funny looks, Grosvner sat down, happily waiting for what the rest of the day would bring.
More than once in his life, Giorgio had felt things had happened for a purpose.
He had that feeling now.

Giorgio returned to the station and left Grosvner in the car while he went in through the back door to see if Swan had returned.
Swan was still at the monastery, but McCready had information he wanted to share and offered to ride with Giorgio to Olsen’s apartment.
When McCready got to the car, he took one look at Grosvner and cooed.

“Whoa, that’s a good looking dog.
Where’d you get him?”

“He’s a present for my wife,” Giorgio responded, opening the back door.
“Let’s put him in the back.”

H
e and the young cop hauled
Grosvner onto the back seat
. It was a little
like wrangling with a sea lion
, but e
ventually the two men got him safely situated and climbed into the front seat.
McCready turned around and scratched the dog under his neck
.
Grosvner
whined
in pure ecstasy.

“My family had a Basset when I was little,” McCready chattered good-naturedly.
“I used to ride him around the house pretending I was a cowboy.
I’ll never forget that dog.
His name was Rags on account of his ears used to wipe the floor like two dishrags.”

Giorgio snuck a glance at Grosvner who was now happily looking out the back window, his short legs up on the arm rest.
Giorgio couldn’t help but think how sometimes the stars align for good luck.
This was his lucky day.

He started to back out of his parking space just as the same young female reporter appeared.
She saw Giorgio and made a beeline in his direction.

“Shit, she must have radar or something.”

He made full use of the car’s power steering, laying a small patch of rubber as he sped away. Grosvner gazed balefully out the back window at the retreating reporter.
Giorgio found his way to the 210 Freeway heading west, and McCready began to fill Giorgio in on what
he knew about the dead girl.

“She was twenty-six and divorced,” McCready read from his notes. “She left her husband about two years ago.
He’s an electrical contractor and beat her up pretty good a couple of times.
She finally moved out.
When he began following her around, she went to court for a restraining order.”

Freeway overpasses whizzed past
,
and traffic squeezed around them.
Driving in the Los Angeles basin was like serving a tour of duty in Iraq.
You had to stay alert and drive offensively or die.
Giorgio deftly switched lanes back and forth while McCready continued his report unabated.

“We checked her bank records and she declared bankruptcy around the same time she left her husband.”

“How did she make a living back then?”

“Real estate.
We finally got a hold of Beth Tomlinsen in Florida
. S
he said Olsen only became a literary agent about eighteen months ago.
She
bought her home in
Marina del Rey
when she sold real estate.
She was born in a small town outside of
Chicago
.
Her parents were Elaine and Jack Young.
Her father died six years ago, but her mother lives in
San Diego
.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”
Giorgio switched lanes to pass a slow moving delivery truck, checked his rear view mirror and
then
pulled in front of the truck again.

“She had a sister named Lisa who lives in Tucson.
The two women have been estranged for some time according to the mother.
Apparently Lisa loaned Mallery money a few years ago and wasn’t paid back.
The mother said the loan was pretty substantial and the two sisters haven’t spoken since.”

“Hmmm,” Giorgio was thinking, all the time keeping his eye on an elderly couple in an old Subaru station wagon next to him.
They kept pace with traffic
but also kept hugging the line.

“Interesting,” he murmured.
“Family squabbles can complicate matters.
Anything else?”

McCready referred the notes again in his hands. “The mother hasn’t seen Mallery since last Christmas when she came up to visit.
She said everything seemed fine then, although Mallery had just broken up with a boyfriend.”

“Any names?”

“Pedro something.
She never met him, but Mallery said he had a nasty temper and liked to hang out in bars too much for her taste.”

Giorgio looked over at the red-haired young officer.
“We need to
find Pedro and the ex-husband.”

“The mother is flying in this afternoon to arrange for the burial.
I’ll see if she knows more about Pedro.”
McCready made a note.

Thirty minutes later they pulled up to a small, one-story Spanish style home with a manicured lawn.
McCready produced a key ring extracted from the dead woman’s purse
,
and they entered a tiled foyer.
The two officers wandered around to get a general picture of the place before beginning a complete search.
The house was neat and tidy just as her room had been at the monastery.
Olsen’s bedroom offered the only indication she had gone on a trip.
An empty satchel sat on the floor
,
and an open make up case sat on a nearby dresser.
A computer was set up in an extra bedroom and Giorgio turned to McCready.

“Let’s take it.
It may have something we can use.”

McCready nodded and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and the two men spent the next hour searching every room of the house.
In the end, they filled three boxes with bank records, unopened mail, old high school and college year books, unpaid invoices, letters from old boyfriends, loan papers
,
and even medical records.

Giorgio found a series of framed pictures displayed in the hallway and contemplated throwing them into a box as well.
They included the dead woman with what appeared to be family members and friends.
There were several other
pictures with various young men
dating back to when she was a teenager.
In each picture, a happy Mallery Olsen smiled for the camera as if she might cheat death forever.
But Giorgio knew better.
He remembered her bruised neck and pallid skin
. T
he beautiful young woman would live on now only in photographs, never growing old, but never smiling again either.
As his eyes pass
ed
over the fresh and innocent faces of the boys from her youth, he couldn’t help wondering if somewhere amongst them was the face of a killer.

It was six o’clock when Giorgio pulled into his driveway.
Leaves and twigs blanketed the yard, a sure sign he would have to drag out the rakes and trash bags sooner than he’d planned.
Perhaps Tony was old enough to help this year.
He remembered his own father carefully raking the leaves into piles.
Then
, when
he would leave to gather up the bags
,
Giorgio and Rocky would take flying leaps into the piles, rolling around with shrieks of laughter.
Giorgio could still
hear his father’s gruff voice.

“Here, here!
You two stop that!
Go inside and help your mother.
”

The first year after his father died, Giorgio talked his mother into paying someone else to rake the
yard rather than raking alone.

The rich smell of lasagna met them when they entered the house.
Grosvner pulled at the leash, heading for the kitchen as if he’d been in the house a hundred times before.
A shrill cry surprised them both as Tony and Marie
came bounding down the stairs.

“Is he ours?” Marie bubbled.

“What’s his name?” Tony wanted to know.

Within seconds, the
children and
the
dog were a jumble of arms, legs, ears
,
and snout. Grosvner couldn’t get enough of them.
His tongue sought every inch of exposed flesh while they attempted to wrap arms around his wriggling body.
Giorgio stood back watching approvingly.

“What’s the matter with his back,” Marie asked, her pretty face twisted into a sneer.

“I think he had some warts
,
and the vet burned them off.
He’ll be fine.”

“Oh!” his daughter exclaimed, happy to engage herself with the dog again
.

Slowly, Giorgio became aware of someone standing at his elbow and turned to find Angie, her dark gaze directed at the dog.
She dangled a long, sharp knife by her side.

“I hope that knife’s not for me,” he joked.

With barely a glance of acknowledgement, she turned and disappeared into the kitche
n, leaving an icy chill behind.

Chapter Seventeen

By seven-thirty,
the family
sat
in the living roo
m
with the television blaring, but only Giorgio pretended to watch it.
The children played on the floor with Grosvner while Angie sat at a desk in the corner paying bills.
She hadn’t said much duri
n
g
dinner and the subject of the baby hadn
’t come up.
Right now her
graceful brows
were
clenched just above her nose, something she did whenever she concentrated on a task.
Giorgio
flicked the remot
e control impatiently,
all the time stealing glances at his wife.
The newspaper lay unopened by his side.

“Look, Dad!
Watch this.”