The White Angel Murder (31 page)

Colby pulled out a copy of the
Times
and flipped through until he found the crossword section. He neatly folded the paper into a rectangle and pressed it against the steering wheel. The first line asked for a five letter word that meant “hard to stir.”

A car engine started and Colby’s head jerked up. The subject was in his van and pulling out of the driveway and into the road.

“
Shit! Wake up, Chad!”

Colby started the car as his partner jumped up in the backseat. He waited until the van had passed before pulling away from the curb and following him.

“
He’s on the move.”

“
Shit. Did you call it in?”

“
No.”

Chad dialed a number on his phone and then reported to someone that the subject was on the move and they were following him northbound. The van drove under the speed limit and obeyed all the traffic laws. Almost to the point that Colby thought he may have had some law enforcement experience. He signaled for three seconds before changing lanes and didn’t stop the signal halfway through. He came to a complete stop at every stop sign and waited behind a school bus that was letting kids off at a stop instead of going around.

“
Did you get a photo?” Chad asked.

“
No I missed him. The fucker popped out of nowhere.”

The van got onto the 405 and Colby counted four cars before he hopped on and pursued him. He let another two cars in between them and then fell back about sixty feet. The van was going the speed limit, exactly the speed limit, in the far right lane.

Chad thought about climbing into the passenger seat but didn’t think he could make it with his gut. So he buckled his seat belt and looked for the bottle of Pepsi he’d been drinking. He found it on the floor underneath the driver seat and bent down to pick it up when Colby hit the brakes.

He slammed his head into the seat and said, “What the fuck?”

“
Sorry,” Colby said. “He’s gettin’ off.”

They took the 28 exit and the van drove for another fifteen minutes before parking in a convenience store lot. Colby parked at a Mexican restaurant across the street as Chad got out the camera and began snapping photos.

The subject was huge. Colby guessed somewhere around 6’2 and maybe three hundred to three hundred and twenty pounds. His face was clean shaven except for a mustache and he wore glasses. A large belly hung over his belt and he glanced around before walking to the payphone.

*****

Stanton received a call from an unknown number at exactly 7:02. He waited three rings, wondering if there was any way he could’ve possibly ever heard Hunter’s voice. Hunter was a writer and shunned television and radio. But the possibility was still there and Stanton wasn’t quite sure what he would do if he was caught.

“
Hello?”

There was silence on the line except for the sound of passing traffic in the background.

“
Hello? Is someone there?”

“
What do the police have?”

The voice made Stanton’s heart drop. Until now, he had been a shadow; a conglomeration of images and theories. Now he was a living, breathing person. And it hit Stanton that those images of Tami and Pamela that had burned themselves into him were caused by another human being.

“
I have a copy of what they have. But I want something in exchange.”

“
What?”

“
An interview. Exclusive, which means you can’t give anyone else interviews if you ever get caught. I’m gonna have you sign a contract and if you ever give another interview they won’t be able to use any—”

“
Fuck your interview. What do they have?”

“
That’s the deal. A copy of the police file in exchange for one interview. Recorded.”

There was silence again and Stanton thought that perhaps he had pushed him too fast. He needed to feel in control and if he didn’t, he would run.

“
Look,” Stanton said, “I’m risking my ass by giving you anything. It’s not fair if I don’t get a lot in return.”

“
One interview. Tonight.”

“
Where?”

“
Your house.”

“
No.”

“
Take it or leave it.”

Stanton knew he had to stand his ground. Hunter would’ve never agreed to this. “Then I leave it. And you can go it on your own. I’ll find the next story of the week. See ya.”

“
Wait. Where do you want to meet?”

“
Somewhere public but not too public. Like a library or something.”

“
Mission Hills Library. It’s on Washington Street.”

“
It’ll take me half an hour to get there.”

“
That’s where I want to do it.”

“
Fine. How will I find you?” Stanton said.

“
I’ll find you.”

*****

Colby watched as the man hung up the phone and then went inside the convenience store. He looked around for what seemed like a long time and then purchased a fountain drink and a package of donuts and got back into the van and started driving.

“
Did you see the number he dialed?” Chad asked.

“
What am I a fucking hawk?”

“
You can see what numbers he dials from where his hand moves. It’s called police work kiddo.”

Colby shook his head. “Go back to sleep, Chad.”

They waited half a minute before getting on the road and starting to follow him again. The van drove slowly and it seemed like in a circle. It went down into a residential neighborhood, stopped near a liquor store, and then started again.

As it was passing a busy intersection the van began to slow, and then out of nowhere it sped through the intersection on a red light as a motorcyclist had to swerve and lay down his bike to avoid hitting him.

“
Shit!”

Colby tried to follow but without his red and blues none of the cars stopped and a Dodge truck hammered into his right side. The impact swung his car around sideways and a Saturn slammed on his brakes and narrowly avoided smashing into them head-on.

Colby was dazed and realized he’d hit his head against the window, causing it to cut and bleed. He looked back to Chad who was holding his mouth, blood cascading down over his hand.

“
Hang on.”

Colby called into dispatch and requested an ambulance. Then he called Tommy and told him they had lost the van.

“
He’s heading east on Sandy Boulevard. Get a unit down there now.”

“
How the fuck did you lose a van?” Tommy said.

Colby hung up and turned to his partner. He took his hand away from his mouth to look at the wound and saw that he had bitten into his tongue.

“
They’re on their way.”

Chad wrapped his tie around the wound and pressed hard to stop the bleeding. “I ucking ate surweilance.”

64

Stanton turned his cell phone off. He pulled to a stop a block from the house and put the phone and his wallet in the glove compartment. Last he had checked, the surveillance team was following the van and the street was quiet and empty. The type of place where neighbors could live ten feet from each other for thirty years and never know each others’ names.

It wasn’t quite yet dark but he had little time. After Brady realized that Hunter wasn’t coming, it would take him about forty minutes to get home. The variable was how long he would wait there without Hunter answering his phone. Stanton’s guess was not long. He probably had somewhere between an hour and ten and an hour and thirty minutes in the house.

He stepped out of the car. The air was warm and there was no breeze, the trees still as glass. He looked at all the cars in the driveways and guessed this was a lower-middle class neighborhood. At the far end of the street two kids were playing on the sidewalk.

The house appeared old and the windows were tinted so dark it was difficult to see through them. Stanton looked around one more time and then went to the front porch. The mother, he had been told, was bedridden in a room on the top floor. The surveillance team had only seen her come to the window once to empty an ashtray onto the driveway and then go back to bed. He guessed she wouldn’t be a problem.

He looked at the lock. It was a simple pin and tumbler. None of the windows had alarm stickers and Stanton had checked all the major alarm companies and they didn’t list this address as a client.

Stanton took out a pin and a tension wrench. He inserted the pin until he heard a click and then put the tension wrench into the bottom portion of the lock. The problem was that he didn’t know which way to turn the cylinder and he had to try both directions several times before it clicked and turned over.

He quickly got inside and shut the door behind him.

The house was cool and he could hear an air conditioner going. There were stairs just to his left leading to the second floor. Past those was the living room. To the other side was a hallway that led into the kitchen.

He leaned against the door and let himself adjust to the house. He observed the decorations on the walls. Mostly, they were just plants; their long vines strung up with thumb tacks along the ceiling and walls. It reminded him of an abandoned house in a jungle that nature had overtaken again. He glanced into the living room and saw a large painting of Elvis on black velvet. The sofa and love seat were wrapped in plastic and in the corner was a basket filled with yarn and crocheting needles. The television was outdated by at least fifteen years and still had the dial channel changer and bunny ear antennas.

Stanton walked softly on the shag carpet and went into the kitchen. He could see a table with only two chairs and place mats with silverware already laid out. The centerpiece was a bowl of plastic fruit with a thick layer of dust over it.

The linoleum was clean but the sink was filled with dirty dishes. Bowls and plates and filthy glasses covered the countertops and the garbage can was overflowing. A large butcher’s knife lay by the sink on a cutting board.

Past the kitchen was another small hallway. He walked into it and saw a bathroom on the left. It was filled with men’s products. Shaving cream and aftershave and hard, unscented soap. He continued down the hallway and came to a bedroom. It stunk of body odor and sweat. He went around the bed and then looked underneath. There was a dresser-drawer against the wall and he began to open the individual drawers. Socks, underwear, loose change … but in the far right drawer was a stack of pornography.

They were magazines and Stanton flipped through them. Some dated back to the eighties. They were all bondage and rape and gangbangs. He placed them back and closed the drawer. Research showed that violent pornography didn’t make people violent, but if they had a predisposition to violence, it was like throwing gasoline on a forest fire.

On the nightstand next to the bed was a lamp and alarm clock and tucked underneath the alarm clock were some papers. They were envelopes and he took them out and saw that each one had papers in them. He looked at the return address on the envelopes: they were from the Pelican Bay State Prison.

65

Stanton took a few minutes and read through the first letter twice. There were five total: three from Noah, and two from “BLR” to Noah. The first letter was sent from Noah and introduced himself and told Rattigan how he knew him. Tami Jacobs’ boyfriend had told Noah about the manager of her building and how he had a key to her apartment and let him in. The responding officers took a statement from the manager and then never followed up.

But something never sat right with Sherman. The boyfriend had said the manager vomited in the bathroom and the manager had said the same. He said he had flushed the vomit away and washed out his mouth before leaving and calling the police. Sherman had checked under the toilet seat. Bits of vomit, no matter how hard one tried, always got underneath the toilet seat and there was none there. Sherman investigated the manager and had discovered that the managers were not allowed to have keys to the apartments in that building. He had pulled a criminal history and saw that there were several burglaries and minor sex offenses for Brady Louis Rattigan. Many rapists began as burglars that stumbled upon vulnerable women when they were burglarizing a home. They would develop a taste for it and continue down that path.

Brady had gotten the job from an uncle who owned the apartment complex.

You had him and you let him go. Damn you to hell, Noah
.

As he was about to turn to the second letter he heard a sound. He held his breath and waited. It happened again. It was a scraping sound; a pen being dragged across concrete. He stood up and removed his firearm from the holster, placing the letters down on the bed. He kept his gun at chest height and moved toward the door. He leaned against the wall and peered out into the hallway. There was nothing but air shooting down on his forehead from a vent on the ceiling.

Stanton stepped into the hallway and made his way into the kitchen. He went past the table to the sliding glass door and thought that perhaps they had a dog. But no dog had been observed by surveillance.

There was the scraping sound again, coming from near the stairs, and Stanton turned to it. It was coming from behind a door. He leaned against the wall, the gun by his face, enjoying its weight against his hands, and waited.