The White Angel Murder (24 page)

He climbed up on the desk and pushed at the pipe. It came loose immediately and spilled putrid water down his shirt and onto the desk and floor. Stanton ignored it and pulled the pipe down and looked inside. There was a clear plastic bag taped to the side. He pulled it out and inside was a folded piece of paper.

“
Well well,” Sherman said, “looks like you are a cop after all. Tell me something though; how many people were through here and missed that?”

Stanton shook his head. “Maybe the locals would have but our forensics are too good to miss it. It was put here after we’d already gone through.”

“
What’s it say?”

“
You don’t need to worry about it.”

“
Tiss tiss, don’t make me go to the boss.”

Stanton hopped down and walked past him and onto the factory floor. He called Jessica and asked her to meet him back at the office. She suggested dropping the note off to latent prints and he agreed. He wasn’t expecting to find anything, but you never knew.

When he was alone in his car, he slapped on some latex gloves and took out the note:

Detective Stanton,

What do you think? She’s much better than the first, no? A tigress in the bed too. You wouldn’t believe how much loving this little bitch could give. I’ve kept a few pieces for myself, hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t think she would be needing them. Maybe I’ll send a few to her parents?

See you in a couple of weeks.

Sincerely,

Quaker

Stanton drove back to the office. He went to latent prints on the second floor and submitted the note after having a copy made. He didn’t find Jessica in her office or the conference room on the fifth floor so he tried the cafeteria downstairs and saw her sitting at a table by herself eating a salad and Diet Coke.

“
Hey,” he said, throwing down the copy of the note in front of her, “read this.”

She read the note carefully and placed it back on the table. “Where’d you find it?”

“
Stuffed in a pipe at the scene.”

“
He’s trying to piss you off.”

“
Maybe. Something’s off though. Most killers like this hold in their urges as much as possible until they can’t and they have to go out and hunt. That’s why some go for months or even years without killing. Then their urges take over and they have to kill more frequently. But they’re also sloppier cause they haven’t had months to fantasize and plan every detail. For how meticulous and careful he is, two weeks is too short a time frame. At two weeks apart, he’d be a crazed animal killing in broad daylight with witnesses. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“
Since when do any of these assholes make sense?”

“
Good point.”

She took a bite of her salad. “How was it being there with Noah?”

“
Awful. And it breaks my concentration.”

“
I won’t be in the same room with him anymore. He told me I had nice tits in the conference room and the chief agreed that I wouldn’t have to work with him.”

“
He won’t be with us long, I’m sure of it.”

She shrugged. “Hope so. So what do you make of the name?”

“
I thought about that. Maybe he has some roots with the Quakers?”

“
Could just be trying to throw us off. I once had a case where someone left a note talking about other victims and it turned out to be the vic’s husband that had just killed her for the life insurance.”

“
I don’t think that’s it. He’s leading me to something but I don’t know what it is.”

“
Can I be honest with you, Jon?”

“
Of course.”

“
I’ve never seen a detective analyze every little thing like you do. These people are crazy and evil. There is nothing else there. Their actions are random and there’s nothing for us there. I think we just need to work the evidence and sooner or later he’ll screw up or some neighbor will turn him in and we’ll have him.”

“
Do you like abstract art?”

“
Abstract art?”

“
Yeah, Jackson Pollock, Rothko, stuff like that?”

“
Not really.”

“
Why?”

“
I think a five year old could splash paint on a canvas. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“
That’s exactly what I used to think when I was younger. I don’t believe that anymore and I love abstract art now. You know why? Because nothing is random. Nothing. Our unconscious is the bulk of our minds, it’s what motivates and controls us far more than what we see as our conscious mind. In fact, the more random you try and make an expression of yourself, the more the unconscious comes through. Guys like Pollock, their paintings may seem like throwing paint on a canvas but that paint represents something buried deep inside them that even they may not want to admit is there.

“
It’s the same with the monsters. The more they try and throw us off, the more they reveal. They can’t help it. Everything we need to find him is right in front of us. We just have to make the right connections.”

Stanton’s cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Tommy saying that Pamela Dallas’ step-father had just dropped off a list addressed to him and Jessica.

“
Come on,” he said, “we need to get upstairs.”

49

They sat at the conference room table and looked over the list. There were only four names and just one of the four was male. Scribbled next to the names was the relationship they had with Pamela. Two friends, one cousin, and one ex-boyfriend.

“
Dropped it off himself,” Tommy said looking over Stanton’s shoulder at the list. “Could’a just called or emailed.”

“
He’s from a different time, Tommy. This was something he wanted to do himself.”

“
Yeah, I guess. My grandpa still refuses to use a computer. Says technology is throwing off the balance of nature and causing the world to go crazy.”

“
Well,” Stanton said, “I think I should hit the ex-boyfriend. Do you want to hit the two friends and the cousin?”

Jessica looked over the list one more time, memorizing the names. “I think I should talk to the ex. If it is him, it may piss him off if you come at him.”

“
Okay. I’ll hit the friends and the cousin. Let me know as soon as you’re done with him.”

Jessica rose and walked out of the room as Stanton leaned back in the chair and put his hands behind his head, trying to force himself to relax.

“
You sleeping all right?” Tommy asked.

“
Good enough. Why?”

“
You look like shit.”

“
Thanks.”

He sat down in a chair next to him. “How you holding up?”

“
I’ve been better.”

Tommy glanced around. “I know what the chief did, Jon. It made me sick when he told me. You didn’t deserve that, no cop does. As far as I’m concerned, he crossed the line.”

“
But you didn’t do anything to fix it, did you?”

“
I … no. No I didn’t. Truth is, I’m a coward. I think you need to be to do what I do. I’m basically his assistant. I’ve never sought a promotion or to branch out or anything like that. I just do what I’m told. But I’ll tell you, there’s freedom in that. I don’t have to think, just act.”

Stanton rose. “That’s slavery, Tommy. Freedom at the end of a leash isn’t freedom. Thanks for the list.”

“
Sure.”

*****

No one answered their phones at first so Stanton had to leave messages. While he waited for return calls, he tried to busy himself by reading the newest issue of
Scientific American
and going through some profiles of known sex offenders that were released from prison around the time of Tami’s death. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to see, but he studied every face, every expression. He wished that something would scream to him, or at least give him an uneasy feeling in his gut. He needed something to follow up on, some goal to be working toward rather than treading water and wasting time.

Slowly, as the day wore on and people began leaving work, the calls came in. Pamela’s cousin was the first to call. She worked at the make-up counter at the local mall and hadn’t seen Pam for at least a year. They had exchanged a few messages on Facebook but nothing substantive. She didn’t know anything personal about her or who she might’ve been dating. The one thing the cousin knew for sure was that Pamela was a drug addict. That her family had spent their savings to get her into the best treatment facility in the state located in Palm Springs, and that Pamela had convinced one of the other patients to steal a car and take off with her.

One time, she was certain, Pamela had prostituted herself for a thousand dollars.

It was chilling for Stanton to speak with the cousin, not because of anything she said but because of how normal she and her family were. There was a disconnect somewhere between the life Pamela should have had and the life she actually had.

Stanton talked with the friends next and they were even less help than the cousin. Both of them spoke in the whirlwind unintelligible speech of meth addicts and Stanton guessed one if not both were dealers for Pamela. Towards the low-end of the addiction, addicts believe their dealers are actually their friends.

As he hung up the phone and knew he had no one else to call, a heavy melancholy came over him and he hoped Jessica had fared better. Pamela’s family had given up and abandoned her; she had no friends and no one that really cared about her. He prayed that they would not be another in a long line of people that had failed her.

“
Hey,” Tommy said, poking his head in, “they found him.”

Stanton’s heart jumped. “Who?”

“
The homeless guy at the factory. They’ve got him at Salton City. Jessica’s heading down there right now.”

50

Jessica walked in to the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department with an ipad under her arm. She was greeted by a large uniformed officer with a handlebar mustache and tattoos on his forearms. This was the Salton City branch rather than the main branch and it was a small building joined to the fire station. It reminded her of the small town caricatures of police departments she would see on old television shows like
The Andy Griffith Show
and
Perry Mason
. In the back of the space there was even a drunk tank with an old man sleeping on a bunk.

“
What do you need?” the uniform said.

“
I’m Jessica Turner with SDPD, I called earlier about interviewing a Mr. Hood.”

“
Sign in here and leave your gun with me.”

She signed the sheet and handed her .38 special over the desk. The uniform took it and stuffed it into a small box behind him and gave her a laminated badge that said “Guest.” He led her to the back and they opened a door that led down a corridor and to another metal door that he unlocked. In a small room with a desk and three chairs sat an older black man wearing an orange beanie though it was over ninety degrees outside.

She saw bruising around his eye and a scuff mark on his cheek.

“
Hi Darrell, my name’s Jessica. I’ve driven up from San Diego to see you.” He didn’t respond and she sat down across from him. “I’m just here to show you some pictures, Darrell. Would that be okay?”

He shrugged. She took out her ipad and placed it on the table facing him and flipped it on. A screen shot of eight photographs came up.

“
I want you to tell me if you see the man that you told Jon Stanton about. The man that told you he had a message for Jon. If at any time you get tired or want to stop for a little bit, you tell me okay?”

He nodded.

She began flipping from page to page, eight at a time. They sat for over an hour and flipped through seven hundred photos, but he didn’t recognize anyone. She told him she would be right back and she stepped outside and called the SDPD dispatch.

“
Dispatch.”

“
This is Jessica Turner, CCU, number 28546. I need a sketch artist down at the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office, Salton City Department as quickly as possible.”

“
We’re gonna need authorization from a captain and a request form filled out and faxed over to us.”

She hung up without saying a word and called Tommy. He said he would have a sketch artist down to her in half an hour.

Jessica went back into the room and asked if Darrell needed anything. He said he would like a Sunkist orange drink and she went to the vending machine and got him one. When she came back in she sat down and scanned the room for cameras or audio recorders; there were none.

“
Darrell, I know that somebody hit you, and I would like you to tell me who it was.”

“
Don’t matter.”

“
It matters to me. Would you please tell me?”

“
Cops round here, they ain’t too friendly. Don’t want no homeless in their town. Whole town’s goin’ to hell cause’a them tweekers and they tryin’ to run us out for sleepin’ in their parks.”

“
Was it one of the cops here that hit you?”