MASS MURDER (52 page)

The air between them bristled and Swan let his eyes drop. Grosvner slunk away to the cover of a nearby desk. Giorgio turned away from the file cabinet, rubbing his forearm.

“You don’t need to be here, Joe,” Swan reassured him. “We’d all understand. Go home and take care of Angie.”

Giorgio stared across the street at the funeral home for a full minute, thinking how close he’d come to being anoth
er one of the mortuary’s guests. A
t this very moment Marvin Palomar was probably laid out in a cold storage unit there. He took a deep breath and leaned into the wall.

“I moved here to get away from all of this. I wanted Angie to have a better life. Now, because of me
…”

“You didn’t do this to her, Joe. Cory Poindexter might have, but you didn’t.
”

“Poindexter was after
me,”
he said, turning to Swan. “
I got injured and went to the hospital and because of that, Angie fell.”

“Right, and don’t forget, because you were born, went to high school and married Angie, none of this would have happened. I mean, if you’re going to
blame yourself, get it right.”

Giorgio had heard that same tone in his father’s voice many times when he’d blamed himself for some failure he felt could have been avoided if only he’d tried harder. He thought Swan was just acting like the big brother he didn’t have. Giorgio felt some of the weight lift from his shoulders as he sat back down, putting his hands flat on the desk in front of him.

“It’s not that easy, you know. This is my Angie we’re talking about.”

“I know that, Joe, but this didn’t happen just because you’re a cop. You could have been hurt in a baseball game, or in a car accident, or on stage for God’s sake. Christ, some of those plays you’re in have nearly killed
me
.”

He smiled and Giorgi
o felt the wall begin to crack.

“Thing is, Joe
…
life is what it is. Don’t try to second-guess it. If Angie is meant to have another child, she will.
If she’s not, well, she won’t.”

“You get what you get and don’t throw a fit,” Gior
gio said under his breath.

“What?”

Giorgio looked up, “Nothing.”

McCready entered the room holding one of the blue note cards. “I found something.”

Giorgio perked up with the first hint of interest. “What is i
t?”

“I was re-reading the cards and noticed something we missed. Remember the woman who said she spoke with Mallery Olsen as she left the cocktail party?  And Olsen said that she would be late for the dinner because she was having a drink with a friend?”

“Yeah?” Giorgio prodded.

McCready’s eyes were alight as if he’d just found a ten-dollar bill. “Actually, that’s not what this woman said. She quoted Olsen as having said she was going to have a drink with an
old
friend.”

Giorgio took the card from his hand and read the notation. “You’re right. An
old
friend.”  He got up and wandered around his desk with the card in his hand. “Someone from the past.”

“That leaves ou
t the boyfriend,” Swan offered.

“I would assume it leaves out Father Damian, too.” McCready said this almost sadly since the connection with Damian was his idea.

“It would leave out Marsh as well,” Giorgio added. “She wouldn’t have referred to him as a friend at all.”

“I think it means she met someone at the conference she hadn’t seen in some time,” Swan speculated. “How long did we say she’d lived here?”

“Four years,” McCready answered readily. “She came from
Chicago
.”

Giorgio turned to him, his face re-animated. “Didn’t she go to school there?”

“She studied journalism.”

“We need to know who else may have known her in Chicago,” he said, slapping the card on the d
esk. “And we need to know now.”

“Okay,” McCready agreed. “By the way, this came in the mail this morning. It’s addressed to the Homicide Unit.”  McCready chuckled. “Wonder who thinks we have a Homicide Unit.”

Giorgio spied the padded brown envelope with suspicion. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. The handwriting was a ragged, irregular block style as if someone had tried to disguise it
,
and the envelope felt as if it was filled with padding. Giorgio turned it over and saw that it had been taped shut. Taking a letter opener from his desk, he carefully lifted the tape without
touching it. McCready
watched
with interest. Swan even got up from his desk to come over an
d look over Giorgio’s shoulder.

“What do you think it is?”

Giorgio could only look at him with the kind of dead-pan expression that meant he thought this wouldn’t be good. He used the letter opener to pull the ends of the envelope apart and then slid out a thick wad of toilet paper. When he turned it over, they all stared at a pale red stain that spread across one corner, as if something inside had leaked through. The te
nsion in the room quickly rose.

“Jesus, Joe, what
do
you think it is?”

Giorgio slowly unrolled the toilet paper to reveal the blood soaked baggie with the tip of Mallery Olsen’s little finger peeking through.

“Christ,” McCready whispered.

“I think it’s a message,” Giorgio whispered.

C
hapter Thirty-Seven

The baggie
and envelope
w
ere
sent to the crime lab in Pasadena
.
The envelope had been postmarked in Sierra Madre
.
A phone call to the post office confirmed that mail was picked up at the monastery every day around noon, except Sunday
.
Since Mallery Olsen had been murdered Saturday night, the envelope wouldn’t have gone out until Monday
.
Why then had it taken two days to arrive at the police station?  The answer would take a second call to the Monastery
.
It seemed Father Damian had sent the gift shop volunteers home the morning Jeff
Dorman’s
body was found in the vegetable garden, so the gift shop was closed when the mail man arrived
.
Mail hadn’t been picked up until T
uesday
.
Today was Wednesday.

“Cap’n wants to know what you’re going to do about the envelope,” Swan said in the background.

Giorgio looked up from his desk. “I’m not sure, yet.”

Swan leaned against the doorframe, a toothpick stuck between his teeth
.
Opening the envelope had cast a pall over the entire station
.
These officers weren’t used to multiple murders, let alone having body parts mailed to them as c
asually as a greeting card.

“The mayor is hounding him for answers
.
There’s talk of a major press conference.”

“No,” Giorgio suddenly came to attention
.
“That’s what this guy wants
.
This is all for attention
.
Just like hanging her by her bra strap in the closet
.
He’s showing off
.
Better to keep him off balance
.
I’ll talk to the Captain.”

When
Giorgio returned
he
found Swan guzzling a soft drink while he contemplated a chess move by the window.
“What did Captain Ramos say?”

“He’s getting phone calls and letters demanding answers and the mayor is breathing down his neck
.
Even the Governor has weighed in
.
They want these murders wrapped up
.
If we don’t get some answers soon, he’ll be forced to bring in help.”  Giorgio sighed and dropped into his chair
.
“We have twenty-four hours.”

“Well, then I guess it’s back to work,” Swan said, returning to his desk.

Giorgio filled out paperwork on the fire and then put in a call to Marvin’s father
.
That afternoon, Giorgio visited with the District Attorney who would prosecute Poindexter
.
Poindexter wasn’t talking
,
and they had yet to pin down a motive for
Dorman’s
murder, but a partial fingerprint had been lifted off Marvin’s sedan
.
That and Oliver’s testimony should make Poindexter spend the rest of his life in jail
.
Giorgio’s job now was to find out how, or if, Poindexter was connected to any of the deaths at the monastery while Swan and McCready mapped Mallery Olsen’s life in Chicago.

He checked in twice with Mrs. Greenspan during the day
.
His first call was all but drowned out by the whirring of the electric mixer
.
He only hoped Angie didn’t feel well enough to come downstairs
.
The sight of Mrs. Greenspan firmly planted in her kitchen would be enough to send her into a tailspin
.
The second time he called, Mrs. Greenspan was on her way upstairs with a tray of tea and freshly baked cookies, and, no, now was not a good time to talk with Angie
.
She would pass along his well wishes and tell his wife he’d be home before eight
.
Feeling a little put out and more than a little unnecessary, he
returned to his paperwork.

By seven-thirty, he came through the door with a bouquet of flowers and a box of Mallery Olsen’s college papers
.
Grosvner headed straight for the kitchen
with
his nose in the air, sucking in the odors of roast beef and onions
.
Saliva filled Giorgio’s mouth like a tub filling with water
,
and he dropped the box on a chair when Tony appeared at the doorway to the den
.
His son’s normally jovial manner had disappeared
,
and he seemed on the verge of tears.

“What’s the matter, Buddy?”

The boy faded back into the room without a word
.
Giorgio followed and found Marie on the sofa with her hands in her lap, her features pinched, a sullen Tony beside her
.
It was obvious they’d both been crying
.
The heart-wrenching tableau made Giorgio turn and go directly to the kitchen where he found Mrs. Greenspan cleaning up the dishes.

“Mrs. Greenspan
…
”