“It could happen.”
“They write these things for normal people, Dickie, not lunatics. They should have a warning on the bottom of the page, or maybe on the top, Not Intended for Dickies.”
“Well speaking of me finishing my chores, and since the stars say you have all the answers, or at least a viable plan, what are you going to do about your buddy, Elmer Fudd?”
“What about him?”
“Dude gives me the creeps. I think we better dig into his background, see what he’s about. But I’m not the guy who has all the answers, or a plan.”
Floyd turned in his chair to face me, revealing a brown and gold, flower-patterned tie with hints of deep red against a light blue, freshly pressed shirt. He said, “The guy’s just a derelict, plain and simple. He’s a drunk and a slob. Probably never held a job. Probably goes to jail for drunk and disorderly, occasionally lewd conduct, maybe pissing in public. That’s about all I think about Fudd, that and he might be your uncle. But I also think he has nothing to do with this case, so tell me, Dickie, why are you so interested in him?”
“I think he’s a serial killer.”
“You say that about everyone.”
“Just white guys in vans that give me the creeps. Reminds me of those two cousins; what were their names?”
“Bono?”
He was close, the name rang a bell . . . “Bianchi. Ken Bianchi. Who was his cousin, Buono? Yeah, that’s it, Bianchi and Buono, the hillside stranglers.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You said, ‘Bono,’ like, Sonny Bono.”
“Exactly. Sonny and Cher, famous serial killers. So you’ve been back over there?” Floyd asked.
“I dropped by on the way in. Let me get a cup and hit the head, I’ll tell you all about it.”
He spun his chair back to face a cluttered desk. “Hurry up.”
“Nice tie, by the way” I commented, as I turned away from Floyd only to find my captain standing behind me.
“You could stand to run yours up to the collar, maybe button up that shirt,” Captain Stover said, snugging the knot on his as an example.
“It’s hot in here.”
He shook his head, glanced from me to Floyd and back. I could see the wheels turning, the man dying to say something smart.
“So you guys caught that whore murder?”
Trying to not engage, I simply said, “Yeah, it’s ours.”
“You know why the two of you get these sick, twisted cases?” he asked, nodding to Floyd.
Floyd spun his chair back around to face us, his arms folded across his chest and the corners of his mouth turned up in a grin. Floyd’s favorite thing in the world seemed to be watching his partner have a conversation with someone whose agenda differed from his own. Especially people like our captain, a natural smart-ass who lived to antagonize others. Floyd knew I would fall into the trap half the time and end up pissed off and arguing or going off, doing or saying something I’d later regret.
“Why?” I asked the captain and then glanced around to see who’d be listening.
The office sat nearly empty, not uncommon for a Monday morning. A third of the bureau on a day off, their teams up for murders next weekend. Another third coming off weekend duty, including me and my partner, the new cases scattering us throughout the county for the next couple of days. The last third would be equally divided among those golfing, those sitting at home, and those who had already crawled into a watering hole for the day, the stress of the job and all taking its toll.
Captain Stover grinned a mouthful of crooked teeth. No doubt he had hoped I’d ask. “Because you two nut-jobs are the only ones sick enough to relate to those weirdos and their friends, that’s why. Wouldn’t surprise me if one of you two perverts had been with one of them, whatever you call ‘ems.”
“Transsexuals,” Floyd said, still grinning. “That’s what they’re called when they’ve gone through a gender reassignment surgery.”
Working the captain into a frenzy.
“See?” Stover said, shaking his finger now toward Floyd, “That’s exactly what I mean about the two of you. Most of the guys around here wouldn’t even know about that. Most detectives, if they picked up one of these types of cases, would have the good sense to do the scene and be done, not waste any more time on a dead—what’d you call it?”
“Transsexual,” Floyd answered. “Now, if they dress like a woman but still have all the boy parts, they’re just transvestites. Or drag queens, cross-dressers . . . whatever.”
“You guys are sick,” the captain said, his smirk now completely gone. “I mean it.”
“Us?” I pointed to Floyd, “him.”
“You got real cases need solving, right?” Captain Stover asked, now showing some anger. “Cases with real victims?”
Maybe he could have this conversation with our victim’s mother, I thought. Tell her how her son’s death doesn’t matter, since he isn’t a real victim.
Floyd sat there smiling; he knew I’d be fighting to hold back. That son-of-a-bitch, I thought, he really enjoys this.
I recalled a dead baby case we had picked up a few years earlier. The captain had sauntered out to the floor mingling with detectives as he did today. He had asked why Floyd and I used so much overtime the month before. I reminded him of the complex baby murder we were working, and told him a little bit about the progress we’d made and the plans we had to shore up the case. I mentioned we were close to making an arrest, and hoped to have the case filed with the District Attorney in the near future. And the prick had the audacity to hold his hands two feet apart and ask why we were making such a stir over a victim only so big.
It had been a mistake engaging him that time, and I knew better than to do it again. I’d only end up losing my temper, which never ended well. It had been said I have no filter when angry, and I wouldn’t disagree.
“Anything of a sexual nature seems to keep Floyd’s attention,” the captain continued, still stuck on our new case. “Maybe this’ll keep him out of trouble for a couple of weeks. The two of you perverts checking packages in the ghetto, looking for a missing carrot.” The smirk back on his face now, probably thinking his comment was clever.
“Speaking of me staying out of trouble,” Floyd said, “do I get reimbursed for all my shit that was burned up?”
Captain Stover frowned. “You got receipts?”
“My suit was seven hundred, and it’s not like I can just replace the jacket. Dickie’s probably cost him fifty bucks. Plus I had at least lost what, two, three hundred in cash?”
I walked away knowing Floyd would keep the captain entertained with his growing list of damaged personal property and its rapidly increasing value, hearing the captain say something about how we cost him more money than we were worth to him.
I walked into the bathroom thinking about how much I hated the bastard.
When I returned with a Styrofoam cup of black coffee, strong, the bottom of the pot stuff but it would do, Floyd sat entertaining Sandy Landers and her partner, Rick Davenport. The two detectives stood at Floyd’s desk. I pulled the chair from my desk and joined them.
Floyd looked at me, and his eyes told me he didn’t like it and neither would I. He and I could read each other’s minds with merely a glance. It had been that way for years. Partnerships were like marriages: some worked, some didn’t. Some were just better than others, and every once in a while one seemed perfect. Floyd and I loved being partners and it worked. We were best friends, and had been for nearly two decades. As with a good marriage, we both recognized it as a once-in-a-lifetime partnership.
“Sandy was just telling me their case is solved.”
“What case?” I knew which case, but had to ask. “The motel room?”
“Yeah,” Sandy said. “An informant gave us some information on a gangster who bragged about doing it. Apparently, our suspect went there to buy himself a piece of tail, finds out our girl isn’t a girl, and whacks him.”
Floyd
and I looked at each other.
“That’s it?” I asked.
She nodded her head. “That’s it, plain and simple.”
“So, you think it’s a coincidence your victim is killed the same night as ours, right across the street?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“They know each other,” I said, “obviously. They were staying together or at least using the same motel room, probably doing tricks there, maybe even tricking together. Not to mention both were strangled. I’m pretty sure we’re looking at one suspect here, Sandy.”
“We matched a partial print on our gangster, lifted from a beer bottle inside the room,” she said, staying with it. “How much more do you need?”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “He was there? So what? When was he there? That doesn’t put him there when your victim was killed. Shit, probably half the gangsters in Lynwood have been in that room at some point.”
I paused, running it through my head, wondering could she be this shallow or was she taking the shortcut and moving on, the way the captain liked things done. A solve’s a solve, right? Jesus.
Floyd decided to deflect the hostility I had inadvertently directed toward Sandy. “Maybe that’s how it went down, Sandy, but you have to admit, that’d be an awfully strange coincidence.”
“Maybe,” she replied.
“Yeah, maybe the story’s true,” I said, picking up on Floyd’s message that I needed to cool off a bit. “Maybe your guy did go there to get a piece of ass, found out the trick was a dude and lost it, then left in a hurry, leaving his beer there . . . maybe. Or, maybe he went there knowing damned well your victim’s a queen, and that’s his thing, I don’t know. But I honestly just can’t believe he killed her, Sandy. I just don’t see it being that simple.”
“Him,” Floyd said, keeping track of who’s who in the transgender scheme of things, or maybe just trying to lighten it up a bit.
After a few moments of silence, I asked, “Did you guys interview him?”
“No,” Sandy said, “he lawyered up on us.”
“Did you take it to the District Attorney yet?”
“It was rejected,” she said. “The D.A. said we didn’t have enough evidence to convict him, though he said it sounded like a good start. Either way, it goes down as a solved for us. How does it get any better’n that?”
8
WHAT THE HELL was that all about?” I asked Floyd as we walked to my car later in the afternoon. “Is she lazy, or stupid?”
“Sandy?”
“Yeah, Sandy. How’s she going to clear a case like that? She knows damn well there’s a good chance that gangster had nothing to do with it. Doesn’t she?”
“Surprised me to hear her say it, to be honest.”
“Bullshit’s what it is,” I said, squeezing between my car and one just like it, only black, the two detective cars backed into their spaces behind the gray building in the City of Commerce. “Problem is, it’ll jack our case up too, if she sticks with it.”
“We won’t let it,” Floyd said. He slid into the passenger’s seat. “Don’t get yourself all worked up, Dickie. That’s your problem, you let this shit get to you.”
I dropped the car in gear and pulled out of the space, the tires groaning against the asphalt as I cranked the wheel. I glanced at my partner. “Who’s on our list now?”
“Suspects?”
“Yeah, who are we looking at so far? Charlie Wright . . .”
“Charlie . . . Elmer Fudd, this gangster of Sandy’s, I guess. Maybe he’s someone we should at least consider. That’s about it, as far as I can see. Unless you want to add the captain to the list. He seemed to have a problem with Susie’s lifestyle.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said, “the weirdo.”
I watched as Floyd reached for the radio. He changed it from AM to FM, then began checking different stations. He settled on a classic rock station, then leaned back and opened his notebook. As he jotted notes, he read them aloud: “Interview Charlie Wright . . . and . . . do a background . . . ditto for Elmer Fudd . . . arrest the captain.”
“Perfect.”
He looked up from the notes. “We can’t talk to Sandy’s suspect. You do realize that, right? She said he lawyered up.”
I glanced from the road to Floyd and back, twice. Not answering right away, thinking it through for a moment.
“We can do a background on him,” Floyd continued, “maybe see if that gives us anything to work on. Talk to his homeboys, family members, work it that way. Hell, he might have an alibi. It’s not like she bothered to check.”
I turned the radio down. “What about the informant, the one who put Sandy onto the gangster? He doesn’t have a lawyer. I say we beat his balls, see what he has to say. I mean, why did he give this guy up to begin with?”
Floyd read it aloud as he added it to the list. “Interview Sandy’s informant. Beat balls. Oh,” he said and looked up, “I sent a teletype out statewide this morning.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, while you were sleeping in, enjoying your morning. Just a generic of what we have, the prostitute thing. Didn’t even reference the queen angle. Maybe someone out there has a similar murder, LAPD, Long Beach—”
“You thinking serial killer?”
“Well, Dickie, you’re always expecting it, we might as well explore it. Nothing gets you more excited than having a good old-fashioned serial killer running around the county. Still pissed off you missed out on all the Night Stalker fun.”
“Yeah, too bad we were just pups back then.”
I thought back to when Floyd and I were assigned to the jail and the Night Stalker case went down, each of us just young deputies not long out of the academy. I remembered them bringing him in, the big celebrity, Richard Ramirez. He had been escorted by half a dozen deputies and a few sergeants and lieutenants, everyone enamored with this sick bastard coming in wearing handcuffs and chains, the biggest killer of our time. I had been surprised to see he wasn’t anything special, just a slimy looking stoner type. He looked like half the kids you’d see behind the bowling alley or hanging out in the park smoking dope. Nothing special about his outward appearance, which made me want to see inside his head all the more. His eyes were dark and empty, a contrast to the smirk he wore on his face. I remembered looking at the homicide dicks who led the way and thinking, those are the big leaguers right there, man. These were the guys who get to take on this vicious killer and try to get him to crack, tell his story and confess his sins. They’d hear the details of each case and go through it with him over and over until it’s solid and until they knew they had him. They would get a close-up view inside the monster’s head, a unique experience most would not be able to handle or comprehend. Then they’d see him through court and tell him, have a nice life, asshole. Or death, whatever.
“It would be a dream come true, for you, huh Dickie?” Floyd said and chuckled.
“You have to be careful what you wish for,” I said.
The rock and roll music and our air-conditioner blowing full blast nearly drowned the sounds of traffic and road noise, the streets of L.A. badly in need of repair. My mind remained on the Night Stalker, the Satan-worshipping serial murderer and rapist who terrorized Californians for more than a year, some for maybe a lifetime. Floyd was likely thinking about fashion or beer or one of the secretaries, or maybe kicking someone’s ass at the gym, the guy all over the place.
I glanced over and saw him leaned against the door, the A/C blowing his brown hair up on that one side. He was giving me a look through his shades, more of a smirk, really.
“What?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Anyone know you better than me?”
He had a point. Of the two people from whom I couldn’t hide my emotions, Floyd was certainly one; I had married the other.
“You don’t know me for shit,” I insisted.
“Something’s eating you,” he said, “or maybe it’s your hat’s too tight today. I like that color by the way. Kind of a taupe?”
“Something like that,” I said, and glanced in the rearview mirror to see it. “I forget what they call it . . . Yeah, kind of a taupe, I’d say.”
“Did I help you pick that one out? It looks too nice for you to have picked it out all on your own.”
“No, asshole,” I said, “you picked out that green piece of shit straw hat that I never wear because it is absolutely so gay Peter Pan wouldn’t wear it to a fairy festival. You know the one I’m talking about too, the one you talked me into buying at that hat store in Inglewood, the one that specializes in pimp-daddy felts with big purple feathers. Remember?”
Floyd grinned.
“I swore I’d never take you to another hat store after that.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with that green straw, Dickie. I happen to like it. You’re just too insecure to wear it. If I were into wearing hats, I’d wear it to the office with a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, maybe flip-flops and a snorkel.”
“If I ever have a manicure, I’ll probably wear it that day, to the salon,” I told him. “Or if I ever visit a gay bathhouse, I’ll definitely wear it for that occasion. Otherwise, I think I’ll leave it with you. Maybe I’ll will it to you, along with all these cases you’re not bothering to solve.”
Floyd sat grinning, not saying a thing.
“I do like this one,” I said, and glanced at it again in the mirror.
“Okay, but back to you, dickhead,” Floyd said. “What’s up? Something’s on your mind and don’t tell me there’s not . . . Don’t make me stop this car.”
“That only works when you’re driving.”
I paused, glanced over, and then back to the road. Floyd held his stare. I knew he wouldn’t let it go, and I couldn’t bullshit him. “I don’t know, man, just sitting here thinking about stuff.”
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