The Murder Book (8 page)

“She was sixteen last March ten.”

“Yeah.”

Sixteen-and-a-half-year-old sophomore, thought Milo. A year behind. Borderline intelligence? Some kind of learning problem? Yet another factor that had propelled her toward victimhood? If she was the one…

He glanced at Schwinn but Schwinn was still writing and Milo hazarded a question of his own: “School’s hard for Janie, huh?”

Schwinn’s eyebrows rose for a second, but he kept making notes.

“She hates it,” said Ingalls. “Can barely read. That’s why she hated to—” The bloodshot eyes filled with fear. “What’s going on? What’d she do?”

Focused on Milo, now. Looking to Milo for an answer, but that was one ad lib Milo wasn’t going to risk, and Ingalls shifted his attention back to Schwinn. “C’mon, what’s going on, man? What’d she do?”

“Maybe nothing,” said Schwinn, producing the blue envelope. “Maybe something was done to her.”

He fanned out the snaps again, stretching his arm and offering Ingalls the display.

“Huh?” said Ingalls, not moving. Then: “No.”

Calmly, no inflection. Milo thought: Okay, it wasn’t her, false lead, good for him, bad for us, they’d accomplished nothing, Schwinn was right. As usual. The pompous bastard, he’d be gloating, the remainder of the shift would be unbearable—

But Schwinn continued to hold the pictures steady, and Bowie Ingalls continued to stare at them.

“No,” Ingalls repeated. He made a grab for the pictures, not a serious attempt, just a pathetic stab. Schwinn held firm, and Ingalls stepped away from the horror, pressing his hands to the sides of his head. Stamping his foot hard enough to make the floor quake.

Suddenly, he grabbed his melon-belly, bent over as if seized by cramps. Stamped again, howled,
“No!”

Kept howling.

Schwinn let him rant for a while, then eased him over to the clearing on the couch, and told Milo, “Get him some fortification.”

Milo found an unopened Bud, popped the top, held it to Ingalls’s lips, but Ingalls shook his head. “No, no, no. Get that the fuck away from me.”

The guy lives in a booze-haze but won’t medicate himself when he sinks to the bottom. Milo supposed that passed for dignity.

He and Schwinn stood there for what seemed to be an eternity. Schwinn serene — used to this. Enjoying it?

Finally, Ingalls looked up. “Where?” he said. “Who?”

Schwinn gave him the basic details, talking quietly. Ingalls moaned through the entire recitation.

“Janie, Janie—”

“What can you tell us that would help us?” said Schwinn.

“Nothing. What could I tell… ?” Ingalls shuddered. Shivered. Crossed skinny arms over his chest. “That — who would — oh, God…
Janie
…”

“Tell us something,” pressed Schwinn. “Anything. Help us.”

“What… I don’t know… She didn’t — since she was fourteen, she’s basically been gone, using this place as a crash pad but always gone, telling me to fuck off, mind my own business. Half the time, she ain’t here, see what I’m sayin’?”

“Sleeping at friends’ houses,” said Schwinn. “Melinda, other friends.”

“Whatever… oh God, I can’t believe this.…” Tears filled Ingalls’s eyes, and Schwinn was there with a snow-white hankie. PS monogram in gold thread on a corner. The guy talked despair and pessimism, but offered his own starched linen to a drunk, for the sake of the job.

“Help me,” he whispered to Ingalls. “For Janie.”

“I would… I don’t know — she… I… we didn’t talk. Not since… she used to be my kid, but then she didn’t want to be my kid, telling me to fuck off all the time. I’m not saying I was any big deal as a daddy, but still, without me, Janie would’ve… she turned thirteen and all of a sudden she didn’t appreciate anything. Started going out all hours, the school didn’t give a shit. Janie never went, no one from the school ever called me, not one time.”

“You call them?”

Ingalls shook his head. “What’s the point? Talking to people who don’t give a shit. I’da called, they’da probably sent cops over and busted me for something, child neglect, whatever. I was busy, man. Working — I used to work at Paramount Studios.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Schwinn.

“Yeah. Publicity department. Information transfer.”

“Janie interested in the movies?”

“Nah,” said Ingalls. “Anything I was into she
wasn’t
into.”

“What was she into?”

“Nothing. Running around.”

“This friend, Melinda. If Janie never told you where she was going, how do you know she was with Melinda Friday night?”

“Because I seen her with Melinda on Friday.”

“What time?”

“Around six. I was sleeping, and Janie busts in to get some clothes, I wake up, by the time I’m sitting up, she’s heading out the door, and I look out there.” He jabbed a thumb at the shuttered windows. “I seen her walking away with Melinda.”

“Walking which way?”

“That way.” Hooking his finger north. Toward Sunset, maybe Hollywood Boulevard, if the girls had kept going.

“Anyone else with them?”

“No, just the two of them.”

“Walking, not driving,” said Schwinn.

“Janie didn’t have no license. I got one car, and it barely drives. No way was I gonna — she didn’t care, anyway. Got around by hitching. I told her about that — I used to hitch, back when you could do it, but now, with all the — you think that’s what happened? She hitched and some… oh, God…”

Unaware of Janie’s downtown rape? If so, the guy was being truthful about one thing: Janie had been lost to him for a long time.

“Some what?” said Schwinn.

“Some — you know,” moaned Ingalls. “Getting picked up — some stranger.”

The death snaps were back in the envelope, but Schwinn had kept the envelope in full view. Now he waved it inches from Ingalls’s face. “I’d say, sir, that only a stranger would do something like this. Unless you have some other idea?”

“Me? No,” said Ingalls. “She was like her mother. Didn’t talk — gimme that beer.”

When the can was empty, Schwinn waved the envelope again. “Let’s get back to Friday. Janie came home to get clothes. What was she wearing?”

Ingalls thought. “Jeans and a T-shirt — red T-shirt… and those crazy black shoes with those heels — platform heels. She was
carrying
her party clothes.”

“Party clothes.”

“When I woke up and saw her going out the door, I could see part of what she had in the bag.”

“What kind of bag?”

“Shopping bag. White — Zody’s, probably, ’cause that’s where she shops. She always stuffed her party stuff inside shopping bags.”

“What did you see in the bag?”

“Red halter the size of a Band-Aid. I always told her it was hooker shit, she should throw it out, used to threaten her I’d throw it out.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” said Ingalls. “What woulda been the point?”

“A red halter,” said Schwinn. “What else?”

“That’s all I saw. Probably a skirt, one of those microminis, that’s all she buys. The shoes she already had on.”

“Black with big heels.”

“Shiny black,” said Ingalls. “Patent leather. Those crazy heels, I kept telling her she’d fall and break her neck.”

“Party outfit,” said Schwinn, copying.

Red-and-black party outfit, thought Milo. Remembering something that had gone round in high school, boys sitting around pontificating, pointing with glee: Red and black on Fridays meant a girl put out all the way. Him, laughing along, pretending to care…

Bowie Ingalls said, “Except for the jeans and T-shirts, that’s all she buys. Party stuff.”

“Speaking of which,” said Schwinn, “let’s take a look at her closet.”

The rest of the apartment was two cell-sized bedrooms separated by a windowless bathroom stale with flatulence.

Schwinn and Milo glanced into Bowie Ingalls’s sleep chamber as they passed. A queen-size mattress took up most of the floor. Unwashed sheets were pulled half-off, and they puddled on cheap carpeting. A tiny TV threatened to topple from a pressed-wood bureau. More Bud empties.

Janie’s room was even smaller, with barely enough space for a single mattress and a nightstand of the same synthetic wood. Cutouts from teen magazines were taped to the walls, mounted at careless angles. A single, muddy-looking stuffed koala slumped on the nightstand, next to a soft pack of Kents and a half-empty box of Luden’s cough drops. The room was so cramped that the mattress prevented the closet door from opening all the way, and Schwinn had to contort to get a look inside.

He winced, stepped out, and told Milo, “You do it.”

Milo’s size made the task excruciating, but he obeyed.

Zody’s was a cut-rate barn. Even at their prices, Janie Ingalls hadn’t assembled much of a wardrobe. On the dusty floor sat one pair of tennis shoes, size 8, next to red Thom McAn platform sandals and white plastic boots with see-through plastic soles. Two pairs of size S jeans were carelessly hung in the closet, one faded denim with holes that could’ve been genuine wear or contrivance, the other denim patchwork, both made in Taiwan. Four ribbed, snug-fit T-shirts with bias-cut sleeves, a floral cotton blouse with moth wounds pocking the breast pocket, three shiny, polyester halter tops not much bigger than the hankie Schwinn had offered to Ingalls — peacock blue, black, pearlescent white. A red sweatshirt emblazoned
Hollywood
in puffy gold letters, a black plastic shortie jacket pretending to be leather, cracking like an old lady’s face.

On the top shelf were bikini underpants, bras, panty hose, more dust. Everything stank of tobacco. Only a few pockets to search. Other than grit and lint and a Doublemint wrapper, Milo found nothing. Such a
blank
existence — not unlike his own apartment, he hadn’t bothered to furnish much since arriving in L.A., had never been sure he’d be staying.

He searched the rest of the room. The magazine posters were the closest thing to personal possessions. No diary or date book or photographs of friends. If Janie had ever called this dump home, she’d changed her mind sometime ago. He wondered if she had some other place of refuge — a crash pad, a sanctuary, somewhere she
kept
stuff.

He checked under the bed, found dirt. When he extricated himself, his neck killed and his shoulders throbbed.

Schwinn and Ingalls were back in the front room, and Milo stopped to check out the bathroom, compressing his nostrils to block out the stench, examining the medicine cabinet. All over-the-counter stuff — painkillers, laxatives, diarrhea remedies, antacids — a host of antacids. Something eating at Bowie Ingalls’s gut? Guilt or just alcohol?

Milo found himself craving a drink.

When he joined Schwinn and Ingalls, Ingalls was slumped on the couch, looking disoriented, saying, “What do I do now?”

Schwinn stood away from the guy, detached. No more use for Ingalls. “There’ll be some procedures to go through — identification, filling out forms. Identification can wait till after the autopsy. We may have more questions for you.”

Ingalls looked up. “About what?”

Schwinn handed Ingalls his card. “If you think of anything, give a call.”

“I already told you everything.”

Milo said, “Was there anywhere else Janie mighta crashed?”

“Like what?”

“Like a crash pad. Somewhere kids go.”

“I dunno where kids go. Dunno where my own kid goes, so how would I know?”

“Okay, thanks. Sorry for your loss, Mr. Ingalls.”

Schwinn motioned Milo to the door, but when they got there, he turned back to Ingalls. “One more thing: What does Melinda look like?”

Basic question, thought Milo, but he hadn’t thought to ask it. Schwinn had, but he orchestrated it, timed everything. The guy was nuts but miles ahead of him.

“Short, big tits — built big — kinda fat. Blond hair, real long, straight.”

“Voluptuous,” said Schwinn, enjoying the word.

“Whatever.”

“And she’s Janie’s age?”

“Maybe a little older,” said Ingalls.

“A sophomore, too?”

“I dunno what she is.”

“Bad influence,” said Schwinn.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a picture of Janie? Something we could show around?”

“I’d have to have one, wouldn’t I?” said Bowie, making it sound like the answer to an oral exam. Pulling himself to his feet, he stumbled to his bedroom, returned moments later with a three-by-five snap.

A dark-haired child around ten years old, wearing a sleeveless dress and staring at a five-foot-tall Mickey Mouse. Mickey giving that idiot grin, the kid unimpressed — scared, actually. No way to connect this child to the outrage on Beaudry.

“Disneyland,” said Ingalls.

“You took Janie there?” said Milo, trying to imagine that.

“Nah, it was a school trip. They got a group discount.”

Schwinn returned the photo to Ingalls. “I was thinking in terms of something more recent.”

“I should have something,” said Ingalls, “but hell if I can find anything — if I do, I’ll call you.”

“I noticed,” said Milo, “that there was no diary in Janie’s room.”

“You say so.”

“You never saw a diary or a date book — a photo album?”

Ingalls shook his head. “I stayed out of Janie’s stuff, but she wouldn’t have any of that. Janie didn’t like to write. Writing was hard for her. Her mother was like that, too: never really learned to read. I tried to teach Janie. The school didn’t do shit.”

Papa Juicehead huddled with Janie, tutoring. Hard to picture.

Schwinn frowned — he’d lost patience with Milo’s line of questioning and gave the doorknob a sharp twist. “Afternoon, Mr. Ingalls.”

As the door closed, Ingalls cried out: “She was my kid.”

“What a stupid asshole,” said Schwinn, as they headed to Hollywood High. “Stupid parents, stupid kid. Genes. That’s what you were getting at, right, with those questions about school?”

“I was thinking learning problems coulda made her an easier victim,” said Milo.

Schwinn grumbled, “Anyone can be a victim.”

The school was an ugly pile of gray-brown stucco that filled a block on the north side of Sunset just west of Highland. As impersonal as an airport, and Milo felt the curse of futility the moment his feet touched down on the campus. He and Schwinn walked past what seemed to be thousands of kids — every one of them bored, spaced, surly. Smiles and laughter were aberrations, and any eye contact directed at the detectives was hostile.