The Murder Book (3 page)

“So what’s this, a new look?” A sausage finger aimed at my stubbled face.

“Maintaining a leisurely shaving schedule,” I said.

He sniffed, took in the room. “No one chewing at my cuffs. El Poocho out back with Robin?”

“Nope.”

“She’s here, right?” he said. “Her truck’s out front.”

“You must be a detective,” I said. “Unfortunately, false leads abound. She’s out.” I pointed to the book. “Check that out while I forage in the larder. If I can find anything that hasn’t petrified, I’ll fix you a sandwich—”

“No thanks.”

“Something to drink?”

“Nothing.” He didn’t budge.

“What’s the problem?” I said.

“How do I put this delicately,” he said. “Okay: You look like shit, this place smells like an old-age home, Robin’s truck is here but she isn’t and my bringing her up makes your eyes drop to the floor like a suspect. What the hell’s going on, Alex?”

“I look like shit?”

“To euphemize.”

“Oh, well,” I said. “Better cancel the photo shoot with
In Style
. And speaking of photography…” I held the book out to him.

“Changing the subject,” he said, squinting down at me from his six-three vantage. “What do they call that in psychologist school?”

“Changing the subject.”

He shook his head, kept his expression mild, folded his arms across his chest. But for spring-loaded tension around the eyes and mouth, he looked at peace. Pallid, acne-pitted face a bit leaner than usual, beer gut light-years from flat but definitely less bulge.

Dieting? On the wagon, yet again?

He’d dressed with uncommon color harmony: cheap but clean navy blazer, cotton khakis, white shirt with just a touch of fray at the neckline, navy tie, brand-new beige desert boots with pink rubber soles that squeaked as he shifted his weight and continued to study me. Brand-new haircut, too. The usual motif — clipped fuzzy at the sides and back, the top left long and shaggy, multiple cowlicks sprouting at the crown. A black forelock hooked over his pockmarked forehead. The hair from his temples to the bottoms of too-long sideburns had denatured to snow-white. The contrast with the black hair on top was unseemly — Mr. Skunk, he’d taken to calling himself.

“Spiffed and freshly barbered,” I said. “Is this some new-leaf thing? Should I not attempt to feed you? Either way, take the damn book.”

“Robin—”

“Later.” I thrust the blue album at him.

He kept his arms folded. “Just put it back down on the table.” Pulling out a pair of surgical gloves from the sets, he encased his hands in latex, studied the blue leather cover, opened the book, read the frontispiece, moved on to the first photo.

“Old,” he murmured. “The tint and the clothes. Probably someone’s creepy collection from the attic.”

“Department shots?”

“Probably.”

“A home collection pilfered from the evidence room?”

“Cases get filed away, someone gets itchy-fingered, who’s gonna notice if one shot per file gets lifted.”

“A cop?”

“A cop or a civilian ghoul. Lots of people have access, Alex. Some of them like the job because they dig blood.”

“ ‘The murder book,’ ” I said. “Same title as an official case file.”

“Same color, too. Whoever sent this knows procedure.”

“Evoking procedure… why send it to me?”

He didn’t answer.

I said, “It’s not all antique. Keep going.”

He studied several more photos, flipped back to the initial shot, then forward to where he’d left off. Resuming his inspection, picking up speed and skimming the horror, just as I had. Then he stopped. Stared at a photo toward the back of the book. Chunky knuckles swelled the gloves as he gripped the album.

“When exactly did you get this?”

“Today’s mail.”

He reached for the wrapping paper, took in the address, verified the postmark. Turned back to the album.

“What is it?” I said.

He placed the book on the table, open to the page that had stopped him. Resting his palms on either side of the album, he sat there. Ground his teeth. Laughed. The sound could have paralyzed prey.

Photograph Number 40.

A body in a ditch, muddy water pooled in the trough. Rusty blood on beige dirt. Off to the right side of the frame, dry weeds bristled. White-ink arrows were aimed at the subject, but the subject was obvious.

A young woman, maybe a teenager. Very thin — concave belly, rib cage washboard, fragile shoulders, spindly arms and legs. Slash and puncture wounds meshed her abdomen and neck. Curious black polka dots, too. Both breasts were gone, replaced by purplish discs the shape of marquis diamonds. Her angular face had been posed in profile, gazing to the right. Above her brow, where the hair should have been, floated a ruby cloud.

Purple ligature marks banded both wrists and ankles. More black dots speckled both legs — punctuation marks ringed with rosy haloes — inflammation.

Cigarette burns.

Long white legs had been drawn up in a parody of sexual welcome.

I’d skimmed right past this one.

Central, Beaudry Ave., body dump above 101 freeway on-ramp. Sex murder, scalped and strangled and slashed and burned. NS.

“ ‘NS,’ ” I said. “No Solve?”

Milo said, “There was nothing else besides the book and wrapping? No note?”

“Nope. Just this.”

He checked the blue wrapping again, did the same for the pink butcher paper, returned to the brutalized girl. Sat there for a long time until, finally, he freed one hand and rubbed his face as if washing without water. Old nervous habit. Sometimes it helps cue me in to his mood, sometimes I barely notice it.

He repeated the gesture. Squeezed the bridge of his nose. Rubbed yet again. Twisted his mouth and didn’t relax it and stared some more.

“My, my,” he said.

Several moments later: “Yeah, that would be my guess. No Solve.”

“ ‘NS’ wasn’t appended to any of the other photos,” I said.

No answer.

“Meaning this is what we’re supposed to look at?” I said.

No answer.

“Who was she?” I said.

His lips slackened and he looked up at me and showed me some teeth. Not a smile, not even close to a smile. This was the expression a bear might take on when it spots a free meal.

He picked up the blue book. It vibrated. Shaking hands. I’d never seen that happen before. Emitting another terrible laugh, he repositioned the binder flat on the table. Squared the corners. Got up and walked into the living room. Facing the fireplace, he lifted a poker and tapped the granite hearth very softly.

I took a closer look at the mutilated girl.

His head shook violently. “What do you wanna fill your head with that for?”

“What about your head?” I said.

“Mine’s already polluted.”

Mine, too.
“Who was she, Milo?”

He put the poker back. Paced the room.

“Who was she?” he said. “Someone turned into nothing.”

T
he first seven killings weren’t as bad as he’d thought.

Not bad at all, compared to what he’d seen in Vietnam.

The department had assigned him to Central Division, not far — geographically or culturally — from Rampart, where he’d paid a year of uniform dues, followed by eight months with Newton Bunco.

Managing to talk his way out of the initial Newton assignment: Vice. Wouldn’t
that
have been a yuk-fest. Ha ha ha. The sound of one voice laughing.

He was twenty-seven years old, already fighting the battle of the bulge, brand-new to Homicide and not sure if he had the stomach for it. For any kind of police work. But, at this point — after Southeast Asia, what else was there?

A freshly minted Detective One, managing to hold on to his secret, though he knew there’d been talk.

No one confronting him directly, but he had ears.

Something different about him — like he thinks he’s better than anyone.

Drinks, but doesn’t talk.

Doesn’t shoot the shit.

Came to Hank Swangle’s bachelor party but when they brought the groupie in and the gang bang started, where the fuck was he?

Free blow job and he splits.

Doesn’t chase pussy, period.

Weird.

His test scores and solve-rates and persistence got him to Central Homicide, where they paired him with a rail-thin forty-eight-year-old DII named Pierce Schwinn, who looked sixty and fancied himself a philosopher. Mostly, he and Schwinn worked nights, because Schwinn thrived in the dark: Bright lights gave the guy migraines, and he complained of chronic insomnia. No big mystery there, the guy popped decongestants like candy for a perpetually stuffed nose and downed a dozen cups of coffee per shift.

Schwinn loved driving around, spent very little time at his desk, which was a pleasant switch from the butt-numbing routine Milo had experienced at Bunco. But the downside was Schwinn had no attention span for white-collar work, couldn’t wait to shove all the paperwork at his new junior partner.

Milo spent hours being a goddamned secretary, figured the best thing was to keep his mouth shut and listen, Schwinn had been around, must have something to offer. In the car, Schwinn alternated between taciturn and gabby. When he did talk, his tone got hyper and preachy — always making a
point
. Guy reminded him of one of his grad school professors at Indiana U. Herbert Milrad, inherited wealth, specialist on Byron. Lockjaw elocution, obese pear of a physique, violent mood swings. Milrad had figured Milo out by the middle of the first semester and tried to take advantage of it. Milo, still far from clear about his sexuality, had declined with tact. Also, he found Milrad physically repugnant.

Not a pretty scene, the Grand Rejection, and Milo knew Milrad would torment him. He was finished with academia, any idea of a Ph.D. He finished the goddamned M.A. thesis by flogging the life out of poor Walt Whitman’s words, escaped with a bare pass. Bored to tears, anyway, by the bullshit that passed for literary analysis, he left IU, lost his student deferment, answered a want ad at the campus student employment center, and took a job as a groundsman at the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, waiting for Selective Service to call. Five weeks later, the letter arrived.

By year’s end, he was a medic wading through rice paddies, cradling young boys’ heads and watching the departure of the barely formed souls, cupping steaming viscera in his hands — intestines were the big challenge, the way they slipped through his fingers like raw sausage. Blood browning and swirling as it hit the muddy water.

He made it home alive, found civilian life and his parents and brothers unbearable, struck out on a road trip, spent a while in San Francisco, learned a few things about his sexuality. Found SF claustrophobic and self-consciously hip, bought an old Fiat, and drove down the coast to L.A., where he stayed because the smog and the ugliness were reassuring. He knocked around for a while on temp jobs, before deciding police work might be interesting and why the hell not?

Then there he was, three years later. Seven
P.M.
call, as he and Schwinn sat in the unmarked in the parking lot of a Taco Tio on Temple Street, eating green chile burritos, Schwinn in one of his quiet moods, eyes jumpy as he gorged himself with no apparent pleasure.

When the radio squawked, Milo talked to the dispatcher, took down the details, said, “Guess we’d better shove off.”

Schwinn said, “Let’s eat first. No one’s coming back to life.”

Homicide number eight.

The first seven had been no big deal, gross-out-wise. Nothing whodunit about them, either. Like nearly every Central case, the victims were all black or Mexican and the same for the victimizers. When he and Pierce showed, the only other white faces at the scene would be uniforms and techs.

Black/brown cases meant tragedy that never hit the papers, charges that mostly got filed and plea-bargained, or, if the bad guy ended up with a really stupid public defender, a long stay in county lockup, then a quick trial and sentencing to the max allowable.

The first two calls had been your basic bar shootings, juicehead perpetrators drunk enough to stick around when the uniforms arrived — literally holding the smoking guns, putting up no resistance.

Milo watched Schwinn deal with fools, caught on to what would turn out to be Schwinn’s routine: First, he’d mumbled an unintelligible Miranda to an uncomprehending perp. Then he’d pressured the idiot for a confession right there at the scene. Making sure Milo had his pen and his pad out, was getting everything down.

“Good boy,” he’d say afterward to the suspect, as if the asshole had passed a test. Over-the-shoulder aside to Milo: “How’s your typing?”

Then back to the station, where Milo would pound the keys and Schwinn would disappear.

Cases Three, Four, and Five had been domestics. Dangerous for the responding blues, but laid out neatly for the D’s. Three low-impulse husbands, two shootings, one stabbing. Talk to the family and the neighbors, find out where the bad guys were “hiding” — usually within walking distance — call for backup, pick ’em up, Schwinn mumbles Miranda.…

Killing Six was a two-man holdup at one of the discount jewelry outlets on Broadway — cheap silver chains and dirty diamond chips in cheesy ten-karat settings. The robbery had been premeditated, but the 187 was a fluke that went down when one of the stickup morons’ guns went off by accident, the bullet zipping straight into the forehead of the store clerk’s eighteen-year-old son. Big, handsome kid named Kyle Rodriguez, star football player at El Monte High, just happened to be visiting Dad, bringing the good news of an athletic scholarship to Arizona State.

Schwinn seemed bored with that one, too, but he did show his stuff. In a manner of speaking. Telling Milo to check out former employees, ten to one that’s the way it would shake out. Dropping Milo off at the station and heading off for a doctor appointment, then calling in sick for the rest of the week. Milo did three days of legwork, assembled a list, zeroed in on a janitor who’d been fired from the jewelry store a month ago for suspected pilferage. Turned the guy up in an SRO hotel on Central, still rooming with the brother-in-law who’d been his partner in crime. Both bad guys were incarcerated and Pierce Schwinn showed up looking pink and healthy, and saying, “Yeah, there was no other possibility — did you finish the report?”