The White Angel Murder (30 page)

An older man was at the counter showing some handguns to a family and Stanton walked over to him and flashed his badge.

“
I need to speak to Brian please.”

“
We got two Brians. Which one you need?”

Stanton flipped through the report on his phone. “Newman.”

“
All right, hang on.”

He went in back and came out with a young man following him. Brian appeared malnourished he was so skinny and he had the floppy, disheveled haircut of a stoner.

“
Are you Brian Newman?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Nice to meet you, I’m Jon. We’re from the San Diego Police Department. We just need to ask you a few questions about Zoe.”

“
I already talked to the cops.”

“
I know, but we have some follow up we’d like to talk to you about. Won’t take more than a minute or two.”

“
All right, let’s talk in back.”

They followed him through a door to the back area. It was filled with boxes and firearms. A few deer and moose heads adorned the walls and there were two other people cleaning pistols and rifles on a metal table.

“
So what’dya need?”

“
The night she disappeared, you said she ran out to her car in the parking lot.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Could you see her from where you were?”

“
No, I was inside the mall.”

“
How long did you wait for her?”

“
I dunno, like five or ten minutes maybe.”

“
And I think you said you were in a hurry to get to a friend’s house.”

“
Yeah, we was way late and she was taking forever. So I went out there.”

“
Did you go to her car?”

“
Yeah, I didn’t see nothin’ though.”

“
Well was there anything or anyone around her car? Or nearby; maybe farther down the parking lot?”

“
Nope. There wasn’t nothin’. I thought maybe she’d gone back inside.”

“
Where was her car parked?”

“
Near a light in the back’a Macy’s.”

“
Were there any cars around hers?”

“
Yeah, like some blue van and a—”

“
Where was the van?”

“
Um, like right next to her car.”

Stanton took out his notepad and began to write. “What kind of van was it?”

“
Blue. Had like rust all over it. Looked like a piece.”

“
Did you see anyone in it or anyone that got into it later?”

“
No.”

“
Did you see the license plate?”

“
No I wasn’t really lookin’ ya know?”

“
Were the windows tinted?”

“
Yeah, yeah I think so.”

“
Brian, this is really important, do you remember anything else about the van that could help me identify it if I saw it?”

“
Um, no. No I don’t think so.”

“
All right.” He asked for a card from Jessica and gave it to him. “If you think of anything else, you call this number and ask for Jon or Jessica, okay?”

“
Okay.”

When they had left and were back on the road Stanton called Chin Ho. He answered on the second ring and sounded out of breath.

“
What’s up, Jon?”

“
You at the office?”

“
Yeah, yeah just took the stairs. What’s going on?”

“
I need you to log in to the State-wide and check on a car for me.”

“
Okay, one sec … all right, whose car?”

“
Our boy’s mother.”

“
Okay, you know her name?”

“
Debra Rattigan. She’d have a birthday in the sixties.”

“
All right, hang tight a sec … okay, three Debra Rattigan’s, one with a birthday of August eleven, sixty eight. Same address as our boy.”

“
That’s it. What kind of car?”

“
She has a Chevy Express cargo van.”

“
What color?”

“
Ah … blue.”

62

It was six o’clock when Stanton pulled to a stop in front of Hunter Royal’s house. He had been released on $50,000 bail and went straight home. Within hours, his mug shot and the probable cause statement for his case was online on six blogs and a local paper. He had a lot of competition that was excited to see him go.

Stanton knew he wasn’t stupid and would not drift silently away. He was, in fact, extremely clever. One of the cleverest people Stanton had ever known. People underestimated him because of the industry he had chosen as a profession, but he could easily have been behind a surgeon’s scalpel or at a lectern lecturing about medieval philosophy.

Stanton walked to the door and rang the doorbell. Royal answered in shorts and a t-shirt. He hadn’t shaved and had dark, patchy stubble covering his face.

“
What is it?” he said.

“
Can I come in?”

He opened the door and began walking back to the couch. Stanton walked inside and shut it behind him.

The house was messy and there were plates covered in dried food on the counter. Though his maids hadn’t come in awhile, his cook looked to be a frequent visitor.

“
I didn’t think you would take it this hard,” Stanton said.

“
I’m going to be a registered sex offender, Jon. How am I supposed to take that?”

“
I thought you would use your notoriety. Make it a part of your persona.”

“
If I had robbed a bank, yeah. But people with my preferences aren’t treated that way. I may actually have to move out of this house once the neighbors find out what happened. They got kids.”

Stanton sat down in the tan leather Ottoman. “Is that what you think it is? A preference?”

“
What do you think it is?”

“
Do you really want my opinion?”

“
No.”

“
I didn’t think you would. But anyway, I need your help.”

“
For what? I gave you all I got.”

“
Your lawyer told the ADA that you threw away all the letters.”

“
I did.”

“
I don’t believe you.”

“
Search my fucking house then if you don’t believe me.”

“
You wouldn’t throw them away, Hunter. We both know that. Which means either you still have them, or you’re lying about them.”

He turned his attention to the television that was turned low. “Fuck off. I gave you all I got. Now get outta my house or arrest me.”

“
Do you believe in evil, Hunter?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I do. I think there’s real evil in the world. People, for some reason, even people that don’t believe in God, still believe in a devil. Why do you think that is?”

“
Am I supposed to give a shit?”

“
They believe in him because what they see for most of their life is evil. Good is far rarer and most people only get glimpses of it. But evil is all around us. Everywhere. You’re evil, Hunter.”

“
Fuck you, Jon.”

“
You may not want to say it out loud but I know you think it. Especially when you’re alone. At night in those moments before you go to bed and the cocaine and the booze have worn off and the woman you slept with isn’t there; I know.”

“
What’d you want from me? I don’t have anything left.”

“
That’s not true. You have your soul, Hunter. Even someone as evil as you still has their soul and you can redeem it. Not all the way, but a little. Help me catch this guy. Give me everything you’ve got. Don’t bullshit me, we’re past that. Just give me what you got. It’ll stay between us. Besides, if you’re telling the truth, he tried to blame you. You don’t owe any loyalty to him. Your reporter’s integrity will stay intact.”

He sat silently, staring at the television. Stanton thought he looked like someone that was just settling in to a long illness. His skin was pale and he had dark circles under his eyes.

“
He would email me,” he finally said. “I got the emails. He was following you. That’s how he got that note into Francisco’s apartment. He said he went in after the esays popped him and he dragged the body into the living room and tried to clean up cause he didn’t want anyone else to find the note. I don’t know how he knows who you are, but he does.”

“
Can I have the emails?”

“
Yeah.” He stood up and walked out of the room and then came back with a stack of pages. They were printed copies of emails dating back nearly two years ago. “He wanted to be featured in some stories but with his name taken out. I did one piece when Tami was killed but that was it. But he didn’t stop emailing me.”

“
I need you to email him.”

“
And say what?”

“
I’ll draft it,” he said as he rose.

They walked to the bedroom. The floor was covered in empty beer bottles and the nightstand was an assortment of imported liquors. There was a half-eaten jar of peanuts next to the bed and many of them had spilled over the covers and pillows.

Royal sat down at the desk in the corner and punched up his email account.

“
I thought they got a warrant to search your email?”

“
They did. But I got other accounts. Got one through an offshore IP address. The President couldn’t get to it if he wanted to,” he said proudly. He stood up and sat on the edge of the bed. “All yours.”

Stanton sat in the chair and began to type:

Police have something. Need to talk to you right away. Don’t call from your number. Call me from a payphone. I want one interview. Call me tonight as soon as possible. I’ll be home at seven
.

Stanton listed his own cell phone number and then sent the email.

*****

When Stanton had left, Royal lay on the bed and waited for the reply email. He received it within the hour. It asked what was wrong and what the police knew. He only replied that he couldn’t talk and that he needed to call him at seven. Then he shut his computer off and went out the back doors to the pool.

It was a small act he had done. A drop of goodness in an ocean of misery and wickedness. His life had been short and evil. Stanton was right about that. He had committed acts that he had blocked out and not thought about for years. The pills he had taken this morning, lortab and oxycotton, numbed his mind and it flooded with images and sensations and sounds. Like a damn of putrid acts that broke and was drowning him.

He sat in a lounge chair and threw an empty can into the pool to watch the ripples as they scattered and disappeared into the concrete perimeter. He had had sex with two women in that pool only recently. Both of them had been bent over near the shallow end, leaning against the stairs, and he fucked them from behind. When he was done, they all shot up in the living room and one of them went to the bathroom to piss. She didn’t come out for a long time, but Royal didn’t notice. He passed out with the other girl and didn’t wake up until the middle of the night.

He went to the fridge and drank down half a beer before going into the bathroom. The girl was sitting on the toilet, a syringe dangling out of her arm and a shoelace tied around her bicep. Drool sopped from her mouth onto the floor and her nose was running. Her bowels had let loose and runny feces coated the toilet and floor and gave the room a warm, fetid smell.

Royal checked her pulse and she was still alive. He went to the phone to call 911 but then hung up. There was heroin, cocaine, guns, and illegal pornography all over his house. He thought for a few minutes in the kitchen and then went and put on his clothes.

He dragged the girl out and put her in his car. They drove to a secluded beach near Santa Monica and he waited until there were no headlights on the road to take her out. He carried her down to the beach and placed her on her back. Someone would find her.

But no one did. His line at the Santa Monica PD called him the next day to feed him the story. A young twenty year old pre-law student found dead from a heroin overdose on the beach. The officer said that she had been hot too. Royal hung up the phone.

Now, sitting in front of his pool, he wondered where that girl would be if she had never met him. Would she have gone on to law school? Had a family and a successful practice? Or would some other Hunter Royal have come into her life and given her the needle and drugs?

Royal rose from his chair and walked to the edge of the pool and stripped down naked. He pissed into the pool from the side and then walked inside and to the den on the far end of his house. There was a revolver in a safe and he took it out.

He put the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

63

Colby Lashowe sat in the surveillance vehicle and munched on pork rinds. It had been a hot day and his underarms had rings of sweat. Sweat had soaked through his undershirt and his chest and belly had dark splotches.

It was evening but the sun hadn’t gone down yet. The sky appeared that odd gray before nightfall and he watched the stars beginning to shine above him. His partner, Chad Eldridge, was asleep in the backseat. Chad was at least fifteen years his senior and was close to retirement. Surveillance to him was boring, painful work. He would always tell Colby that it makes his ass and his mind flat.