Obsession (13 page)

I forwarded the text to Milo, busied myself with paperwork for a couple of hours, got no callback.

Maybe he’d really gotten into a vacation mode.

Maybe I should, too. No more work over the weekend.

But Sunday morning I was up early, scanning cyberspace for the killings Isaac had found. Wilfred Hong’s unsolved murder was noted on a diamond dealer’s Web site. Gory details and warnings for his colleagues, but no new facts. None of the Hollywood cases were listed but the dual murder of Cesar Cruz and Thomas Beltran received notice in the
Times
archive. Cruz and Beltran were members of Westside Venice Boyzz with long police records, and their murders were termed “a possible gang retaliation slaying.” I crossed them off, along with Hong.

I clicked away until noon, trying different approaches to the remaining cases, starting with those in the Cherokee Avenue zone. Nothing on three of them, but I unearthed notice of Christopher Blanding Stimple’s death in a newspaper morgue at
The Philadelphia Inquirer
. Stimple, a Philly native and high school athlete, had been eulogized in a brief, paid-for obituary. His demise was listed as “accidental while Chris was visiting California.”

The family sanitizing the details of a shotgun homicide? No reason to do that in a case of murder, but suicide could inspire shame. Maybe the coroner had closed the case as self-inflicted but that conclusion hadn’t found its way into LAPD records. In any event, I couldn’t see Patty Bigelow blasting a twenty-year-old man with two barrels and crossed off Stimple.

At four p.m., I took a punishing run, showered, made coffee, straightened the house. At six thirty, Robin’s truck pulled up in front of the house.

She jumped out and hugged me hard. “Why do we ever stay apart?”

Moist cheek. Tears weren’t often part of Robin’s repertoire. I tried to draw her face away for a kiss. She hugged me tighter.

I’d made dinner reservations at the Hotel Bel-Air. She said, “I love that place but would you be disappointed if we just stayed in?”

“Shattered and ground to dust.” I canceled and called out for Chinese from a place in Westwood Village.

As she unpacked, she said, “Where’s Blondie?”

“Sleeping.”

“Smart girl.”

She bathed, towel-dried her hair, put on some makeup, and emerged wearing a white sleeveless shift and nothing else. We were kissing in the kitchen when the food arrived. I overpaid the delivery boy, let the food go cold.

By nine, we were sitting near the pond, tossing random bits of egg roll and noodles to the koi.

“They’re Japanese,” she said. “But they sure go for Mandarin.”

“Diversity has made its mark everywhere.”

“Ha…this is so wonderful.” She winced, rubbed the side of her neck.

“Sore?”

“Stiff from all the driving.” Crooked smile. “Also, that last position.”

“New one on me, too,” I said. “Creative.”

“Nothing ventured.”

I got up and massaged her upper shoulders.

“That feels good…a little lower—lower—
perfect
…I learned one thing over the weekend. The whole convention thing is getting old.”

“Too much like school.”

“Not just the lectures,” she said. “The social scene, too—who’s making money, who’s sleeping with who.”

“You made serious money on the F5,” I said.

“Nice big check for a working girl but petty cash for Mr. Dot-Com.” She rolled her head. “A little lower, still—
yes
…maybe he’ll even learn to play.”

“Not a note?”

“Not even a bad one. After he paid me, he wanted to have dinner. Discuss the historical roots of luthiery.”

“Good line.”

“Not good enough. I stayed in my room and watched movies.” Crooked smile. “Not much plot, but some interesting positions.”

“So I’ve seen.”

“Honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

An hour later:

“It is
good
to be home.”

“Alex,” she said, “I’m the one who was gone.”

“Whatever.”

Milo called back Monday, just after four.

“All the Culver City cases were gang hits. CC detectives have a pretty good idea who the shooters were on Cruz, Beltran, and Stover but no one talked. Moving down the list, Wilfred Hong. The consensus is that Mrs. Hong was in on it. She was tied up but not tightly. A month after the funeral, she sold the house, moved with the kids to Hong Kong.”

“Maybe she was scared.”

“Not scared enough to avoid a new boyfriend. Guess what he does for a living.”

“Sells gems.”

“Ding. Onward to Hollywood. Gerardo Escobedo and Rigoberto Martinez are both in Petra’s fridge pile. Escobedo called himself Marilyn, wore hair and makeup to match. By nineteen he’d been hustling for three years, was known to get into anyone’s car. He was stabbed somewhere else, probably a park from the leaves and twigs, and dumped in an alley near Selma. Mucho overkill, everyone sees it as a trick gone bad. Martinez worked as a gardener with a crew out in Lawndale and had two priors for solicitation. Big guy, nearly three hundred pounds. Once he’d get in a room with a girl, he’d try to bully her out of full payment. Probably annoyed the wrong pimp. Christopher Stimple also had a hustler history—four busts. He was found in a rented room with a shotgun lying nearby, possible suicide, but since no one had ever seen him with any firearm and the position of the weapon wasn’t clear-cut, the coroner listed the COD as undetermined.”

“I found his obit online,” I said. “High school football hero, the family listed the COD as accidental.”

“Easier for them. In any event, I don’t see Patty blowing away some confused kid. Which brings me to Leland William Armbruster. White male, heroin addict, convicted felon, and generally annoying habitué of the Boulevard. His street name was Lowball. Forty-three years old when someone propelled three .22 slugs into his chest. Why am I not shocked to learn that one of his known associates was Lester Marion Jordan?”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Could turn out to be fascinating. Armbruster’s body was found on Las Palmas, a block west of Patty’s apartment and three blocks north.”

“Was Jordan a suspect in the shooting?”

“Nope, just a name that popped up in the file. The D on the case died a few years ago but he was thorough. Interviewed Jordan and several others in Lowball’s social circle. The clear picture is that when Lowball wasn’t high he had an abrasive personality. One informant described his voice as ‘cat claws on glass.’ Another opined that for Lowball heroin shoulda been court-ordered as a mood modifier. Another interesting tidbit is when the guy couldn’t score smack, he took anything. Including fortified wine, which turned him ugly.”

“Drunks used to knock on Patty’s door,” I said. “Tanya said shouting made most of them go away.”

“And maybe the ones who didn’t required more forceful handling?”

“According to Tanya, there was never a need to follow through.”

“According to Tanya,” he said. “A little kid sleeping in back. Alex, even if she tried to find out what was going on, Patty woulda shushed her and sent her to bed. Maybe Lowball and Patty got into a verbal altercation that heated up ugly. Here I was thinking no way would we find a damn thing and Armbruster pops up. His being a buddy of Jordan would explain Jordan getting antsy when we brought up Patty. It could also place him in the building. Maybe one of those times, Armbruster spots Patty, gets ideas. Comes back late at night, pounds the door. Patty yells for him to split, he does but he stews on it, decides his urges will not be denied. Next time she goes out, he’s lying in wait and, as they say, a confrontation ensues.”

“Be good to know if Patty had any registered guns.”

“Or unregistered. If she wanted serious protection on the streets she’d have to break the law. You know the deal with carry permits.”

“Movies stars, millionaires, and friends of the sheriff.”

“For sure not a working nurse with no juice. This was a woman who grew up on a ranch, Alex. Got abused by her father, struck out by herself, and made a point of having her shit together. Rick says she reminded him of a pioneer woman. I can see her packing. A .22 wouldn’t be too bulky for a woman’s handbag. Armbruster attacks her, she’s prepared. She mighta even felt good about it, at first.”

He turned silent. No sense elaborating.

He’d killed several men in Vietnam, a few more in the line of duty. I’d ended one life. Self-defense, no question about the necessity. But at odd times it could chew at you. Thinking about the children my psychopath would never sire.

“She carries it around all these years,” he went on. “Then she gets sick, her inhibitions drop, and she blurts it to Tanya. Anything that
doesn’t
fit?”

“Not so far.”

“Leland William Armbruster,” he said, savoring the name. “Let me do a little more background and if nothing contradictory comes up, I say we settle on ol’ Lowball as our dead guy and tell Tanya that Mommy operated with clear justification.”

“Maybe it was more than self-protection,” I said. “With Armbruster hanging around Patty’s building, he could’ve spotted Tanya. Given Patty’s personal history and her devotion as a mother, she’d have been vigilant about any threat to her child.”

“Lowball’s a kiddy-groping sleaze? Sure, I like that even better. Hell, even if it’s not true, we spin it that way for Tanya, she’s got yet another reason to feel good about Mommy…yeah, I like it enough to marry it. Big juicy happy ending and we all go out for pizza.”

I called Tanya at six. She phoned back at eight. “Sorry it took so long, Dr. Delaware.”

“Studying?”

“What else?”

“How’ve you been doing?”

“Reasonably well. Is there anything new?”

“I have a question for you. Do you know if your mother ever owned a gun?”

“She did and I still have it. Why, did you find out something about a shooting near where we lived?”

“All kinds of things have come up but nothing dramatic, so far. Detective Sturgis thought if she did have a weapon it would be useful to rule it out. What kind is it?”

“Smith and Wesson semi-automatic, .22 caliber, that dark metal finish—bluing—with a wooden grip.”

“Sounds like you’ve handled it.”

“Mommy took me to the range to teach me how to shoot when I was around fourteen. She learned as a girl, thought it was a skill I should have. I was pretty good but I didn’t like it. Someplace out in the Valley, all these guys in camouflage. I said I didn’t want to continue and she said fine but if I wasn’t going to get proficient, she was going to separate the gun from the bullets for safety purposes. Are you saying Detective Sturgis actually wants to analyze it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” she said. “I know she never really hurt anyone. Anyway…”

“I was re-reading your chart and the second time you came to see me you talked about her being nervous.”

“I did?” she said. “Did I give a reason?”

“No, but you described her straightening late at night, when she thought you were sleeping. You’d just moved from Fourth Street, so I wondered about some kind of stress related to the change. But both you and she said the move was a good one.”

“I honestly don’t remember any of that, Dr. Delaware…the mind sciences are ambiguous, aren’t they?”

Echoes of Kyle Bedard. “They can be.”

“I’ve been thinking about psychiatry as a specialty, wonder if I have the ability to deal with that level of ambiguity.”

“It’s a long way off before you need to decide,” I said.

“I guess,” she said. “But time passes quickly as you get older.”

Unless you’re a heart-transplant surgeon waiting for an organ, you don’t bring a phone or a beeper to the dining room at the Hotel Bel-Air.

Robin and I had decided tonight would be okay for a bit of glamour. We got a spot reservation, arrived at nine forty-five. She wore a sleeveless red sheath and black pearls I’d bought her years ago. Her auburn curls were combed soft and glossed with something that smelled good. I wore a black suit, a white shirt, and a red tie, figured I was doing a pretty good impression of someone who cared about haberdashery. The food was great, the wines were mellow, and when we left at eleven thirty, I felt flush.

We were in the bedroom, about to slip under the covers, when the phone rang.

“I woke you?” said Milo.

“That assumes I sleep.”

“I wouldn’t bug you but life just got complicated.”

Hollywood Boulevard after midnight was grubby sidewalks, night-haze that turned neon to grease smears, retreat of the tourists, goblins, bats, and ghouls emerging from their hidey-holes.

Clubs shuttered during daylight drew clumps of hollow-eyed kids and those who preyed upon them. Adrenalized bouncers looked for trouble. Night types beyond categorization loitered at the fringes of the crowd.

I made it halfway up Cherokee before the LAPD sawhorses and the uniform charged with protecting them stopped me.

Milo’s name coaxed a stare and a nod, then a muffled conversation with a two-way radio. “Park over by the side, sir, and proceed on foot.”

I hurried to the brick-colored building. Petra had called it raw sienna. Artist’s eye. Darkness shaded the stucco dull brown.

The uniform at the glass doors waved me in. Milo was up a ways, standing by an open door, talking to a skinny red-haired woman courageous enough to wear a mullet.

Coroner’s badge on her lapel. Investigator Leticia Mopp. Milo introduced her anyway.

She said, “Nice to meet you,” and turned back to him. “Rigor’s come and gone. Want another look before we pack him up?”

“Why not?” said Milo. “Always been the sentimental type.”

Mopp hung back and we crossed a toxic-dump living room. The few clean surfaces were pollened by fingerprint powder.

Petra Connor stood just outside a cramped gray bathroom at the rear. Stick-thin, ivory-skinned, and dark-eyed, she had on the usual black pantsuit. Hair that matched the suit was cropped in a glossy wedge. With her was another Hollywood detective I didn’t recognize, even younger.