“Like? . . .”
“The Night Stalker, right now.”
He grinned.
“That’s why I sometimes swear I’m nuts. It’s like an obsession with me.”
“That case is solved, Dickie, in case you hadn’t heard.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m just saying, all of it, it all sucks me in. It’s like an obsession, or worse. I can’t stop thinking about the cases—any of them—ours, other guys’, famous cases like the Night Stalker, Hillside Strangler, Ted Bundy. I mean, I even read about this shit in my spare time. I don’t think that’s normal. I don’t dare tell the shrink this stuff either. But I’m telling you, it really worries me sometimes.”
“Well yeah, Dickie, you’re definitely nuts. Shit, I’ve been telling you that for years.”
“Then there’s guys who seem to just cruise through, not really worrying too much if they solve their own cases, let alone someone else’s. Here we’re trying to kill ourselves over each one, and some guys are out golfing. And it don’t matter what they give us, either. Gangsters, pimps, junkies, whores—shit, transvestites—as long as there’s a coroner’s case number, we work it the same as if it were a cop or a senator.”
“Yeah, your point is?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”
“Look, we give a shit, that’s just how we’re wired. It isn’t about anyone else, Dickie, it’s about us. And it’s about the victims and their families and whether or not the bad guys get away with murder on our watch. That’s why you take this shit so serious, Dickie, you want to solve our cases. We both do. We see it as a challenge and we want to win, see the son-of-a-bitch put away.”
I gave it a slow nod, thinking it through.
“It’s what we do,” he continued, “stand over a fresh kill like we were dispatched from Heaven, there to do the Lord’s work. Solve cases and take assholes like Elmer Fudd and Charlie Wright to jail.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Hell yeah, I’m right, Dickie.”
Maybe I just needed the pep talk. It was like going to the shrink, only something that actually made sense. This genius I work with filling in for the overpaid doc with her plush office, and doing a better job of understanding my madness.
I smiled. “Thanks, partner.”
“We’re a good bunch of men, Dickie,” Floyd said with a wide grin on his face.
I chuckled at the memory. It had been fifteen years earlier, back in our uniformed patrol days, a hot and busy weekend night in South Central Los Angeles. Units were scattered throughout our jurisdiction, Firestone Park, chasing one hot call after another. The burglary-in-progress call Floyd and I were sent to seemed hardly a priority on a night when people were shooting one another at a record pace. We took our time, not expecting much as these types of calls were notoriously false reports. But we arrived to find the back door of the business wide open. We didn’t bother to call for backup, knowing it would take one of us being shot, or at least bleeding, to get another car out there on a night like that one; every unit in the field was busy chasing the radio.
Floyd had covered the front while I stayed with our patrol car at the rear of the business and made announcements over the loud speaker, telling the would-be burglars inside that they were surrounded by the Texas Rangers. To my surprise, it worked. Two crackheads came out the back door, hands held high above their heads to surrender.
Floyd came back around as he heard me direct them on the loudspeaker to walk toward me with their hands up. We handcuffed the suspects and placed them in the back of our patrol car. Both of us were amazed that anyone was even still there. Shortly after the arrest, we were laughing and joking about the announcement while we headed to the jail with our prisoners. One of the crooks, a tall, slender black man with a joker’s grin, said, “Y’all ain’t no Texas Rangers, man . . . shit, I knew y’all was jus’ playin’ us.” Floyd told him, “We’re every bit as tough as those rangers though, you made the right decision giving up.” The crook had laughed and said, “Sho’ yo’ right, Deputy, all y’alls a good bunch of men.”
Turning into the neighborhood, Floyd asked, “We going to Donna’s or that other place first?”
I suggested we check the two-story I had told him about, the one on the street behind Donna’s with a view of her backyard and Jacuzzi. I told him maybe we’d catch someone home, see if they know anything, maybe have a look at Donna’s from that upstairs window. Who knows, I had said, maybe we’d see something interesting ourselves. Catch Fudd creeping around the back, maybe moving the bodies or chopping them up. I asked Floyd what he thought about that plan.
He shrugged and said, “You’re driving.”
I pulled the car to the curb in front of the two-story, pleased to see two cars in the drive and several lights on inside. An Asian woman in her forties answered the door with a smile, and warm, soft eyes. “Hello,” she said, “how may I help you?”
Floyd showed her a badge. “We’d like to ask about a neighbor, someone from the next block over.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t think we know anyone over there, but please,” stepping back and allowing space in the doorway, “come in.” She turned her head toward the back of the house. “Honey?”
Lanh Hoang, a man I immediately recognized, walked from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He smiled when he saw us. “Detectives, nice to see you.”
I offered a hand as he neared. “Small world, huh?”
“What brings you here?” he asked, then looked at his wife. “These are the detectives from that case I helped with translation, a few months back. You remember, I told you about it.”
“He was a big help,” I added. “What’d we do, a dozen interviews in Vietnamese?”
“At least,” he said, now shaking Floyd’s hand. “Come in, come in.”
His wife excused herself after the introductions, disappearing into the kitchen. The sounds of water running and dishes clanging brought an image of the petite woman busily cleaning after their meal. The aroma of spices and food wafted throughout the clean and comfortable living area, furnished in black leather and metal framed glass tables.
“We’re looking for someone who lives on the next block,” Floyd said, “might have some information on a case we’re working.”
I nodded toward the staircase. “You can see the place from your upstairs window.”
“Oh?”
“We’re pretty sure,” I said.
“Well, let’s go have a look,” he said, “you can point it out.”
The room with a view of Donna’s back yard held a treadmill, a stationary bike, and a universal gym, the type with pulleys and bars going every which way, and a bench on one side. Rubber mats covered the floor, mirrors and bodybuilder posters hung on the walls. The room appeared recently cleaned, everything neatly arranged and organized.
I walked directly to the north-facing window and pointed toward Donna’s house. “Right over there, the place with a Jacuzzi on the patio.”
“Ah,” Lanh said.
The pungent odor of garlic announced his presence at my side.
“Yes, I have noticed these people before. I don’t know them, but I have noticed several people there on different occasions. Young people, you know?”
Floyd slipped over to take a look, see the view. Then he cut to the chase: “They have Jacuzzi parties?”
“Yes, often,” he said. Then he looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “They don’t always wear bathing suits either.” He chuckled, but somewhat uncomfortably.
I glanced at Floyd, then back to Lanh. “Describe the people you’ve seen.”
“Almost always, a black girl, young, probably early twenties, attractive, nice body.” He paused, a slight smile on his face. Probably a bit of image recall taking place as he recounted the moments. “Sometimes there are men, different ones. A Spanish guy with some tattoos, muscular build, he seems to be there often. Some
times a Spanish woman, too.”
Floyd stepped closer, focused now, intense. “Who gets naked in the Jacuzzi, Lanh?”
“Always the black girl. Sometimes with the Spanish couple. Sometimes with men I don’t see before, black men. One time a white man. Young like her, short hair, clean cut.”
“When’s the last time you saw them?” I asked.
“Few nights ago, maybe three or four. I exercise at night, ten, eleven o’clock. Last time I saw them, I heard the music first, so I had a peek. The black lady was there with the Spanish guy, the one with tattoos? There were also two girls I had never seen before, but they didn’t go into the Jacuzzi. They sat on some chairs outside, smoking.”
“Your wife ever see any of this?” I asked.
Lanh’s eyes widened and he looked over his shoulder again. “Oh no. Um, she probably shouldn’t know what I told you. She would maybe be a little mad at me, but it’s not my fault I see them.”
“No, Lanh,” Floyd said, “I’d say you’re completely innocent on this one, clearly a victim.”
Lanh smiled, seeming to relax a bit.
“What did these two girls look like,” Floyd asked, “the ones that didn’t go in the Jacuzzi?”
Lanh giggled. “Hookers.”
“Hookers?”
“To me, it’s what they looked like. Short skirts, high-heeled shoes, those stockings, you know?”
“Fishnets?”
“I think that’s what they’re called, they’re black, kind of lacy . . . really stood out from the red shoes.”
“Red shoes?”
“Yes, one of them had red, the other black I think, both high heels.”
Floyd scrunched his brows. “Did you see the color of that skirt, this one with the red shoes?”
“The skirt was dark, really that’s all I could tell. But shiny too, you know, like glittery?”
“Sequins?”
“Huh?”
Floyd looked at me, then back at Lanh. “It sparkled, right, like a movie star’s dress?”
“Yeah.”
“She was black?” I asked.
“Both of the ones that looked like hookers, were black. Then the girl who lives there, she’s black. Then the Spanish guy was there too, but he’s not black.”
Floyd rolled his eyes at me.
“But he was in the tub,” Lanh said, “that Spanish guy, with the black girl who lives there. I remember thinking they probably got something going. But I never think that when the Spanish woman is there, you know? I think he’s got something going with her, too.”
“But the night with the hookers there,” Floyd said, “the black lady who lives there and the Mexican weren’t romantic, right?”
“No, not romantic, not that night with all those people there. But they didn’t have any clothes on.”
“And what night was this, Lanh, exactly?”
“I think Friday or maybe Thursday. I just can’t remember for sure.”
I prepared to ask Floyd if he could believe how strange this case was now that it looked like Susie Q and maybe her friend from the motel were with Donna the night she was killed, or possibly the night before that, and how everyone was either dead or missing. I was about to ask him that and what does he think about Elmer Fudd now, when we turned the corner in my Crown Vic to see the strange man crossing the street. He had stepped off the curb from the area of Donna’s house and appeared to be headed home.
“What’s your boy Fudd up to?” I asked, accelerating to get up there quicker.
“I don’t know,” Floyd said, “but I plan to find out.”
I watched as the stranger stepped onto the curb, onto the dead lawn, and continued walking toward the door.
“The guy creeps me out. Look,” I said, “he’s still wearing the same outfit, those disgusting sweatpants, that t-shirt—”
“Pull over,” Floyd said to me, and then through his window, “Excuse me, sir?”
“Mr. Fudd,” I said behind him.
“Shut-up, Dickie, what’s his name?”
“We didn’t get it.”
Elmer looked over his shoulder from the front porch, his hand now reaching for the doorknob. A large figure standing silently in the shadows, moving stealthily about, appearing and disappearing with ease, the mystery man we called Elmer Fudd. A serial killer.
Floyd jumped from the car, his door flying open and bouncing back as he stepped toward the sidewalk saying—in an assertive tone now—“Sir?”
I slammed the gearshift into park and moved out behind him, accustomed to Floyd taking off without much notice.
Elmer Fudd disappeared into the dark hole and slammed the door behind him. Floyd, hot on his heels, stopped at the closed door.
There were no lights on inside the house, no movement or signs of life. No Elmer Fudd. Poof!
“Well, now what?” I asked, standing slightly behind and to the side of my partner.
Floyd stared at the door. He was probably contemplating putting his foot through it; that would be my guess. He held that look on his face: contemplative, maybe a little pissed, ready for action and deprived of it.
After a moment, he turned just enough to send his words over his shoulder at me. “What about a door-kick?”
“Then what? Take him to jail for being ugly in public? Neighborhood nuisance? Fleeing from Floyd? That could be a book, you know. Fleeing from Floyd. Yeah, I think I like that. Maybe it would be about all the women in your life, that and serial killers like Fudd. I could write it, but maybe call it an autobiography.”
Floyd turned to face me, his hands now gripping his hips, holding that posture he gets when something’s eating at him or there’s someone to impress. The forty-year-old detective with the build of a college athlete, light on his feet and quick with his wit. He said, “Dickie, if you’re planning to write any books about me, you’d better come up with something better than that. Maybe you could call it, How Dickie Ruined my Life. Or, How Dickie Drove me Half Nuts.”
“Half?”
He faced the door and said, “Let’s go, Dickie, before I do some-thing stupid here.”
I turned and walked across the dead lawn and onto the sidewalk where I paused to look across the street at Donna’s house. I glanced back at Fudd’s to see the closed door of a haunted house. Then I looked at my partner, who stood beside me, appearing to take it all in as well.
I asked, “This weird enough for you yet?”
“It’s never weird enough, Dickie.”
9
DONNA EDWARDS’S HOME appeared undisturbed since my earlier visit, still showing no sign of life. Having been left with no options or answers after the presumed outlaw Elmer Fudd had disappeared into the darkened home, we wondered what the serial killer had been up to. He had clearly come from the direction of Donna’s home, and Floyd and I both were intrigued.
Maybe we would find an open door or window, evidence of a break-in or even prowling, anything that might give us a reason to haul Fudd down to the pokey and beat a confession out of him. Or at least come up with some probable cause, something we could put in an affidavit and present to a judge, try to get a search warrant for his house. Have a look in the dungeon. See the stiffs piled up in the basement, body parts in the freezer.
Standing next to the Jacuzzi, I looked up to the darkened window of Lanh Hoang’s gymnasium and wondered if we were being watched. “Weird little bastard, that Lanh.”
Floyd followed my gaze, then turned back to study the patio, the Jacuzzi, the bedroom through partially opened blinds. He said, “I don’t know, I’d probably exercise more myself with a view of this place. Seems to be a constant source of entertainment. Shit, my neighborhood’s boring compared to this place.”
“We forgot to ask how it ended that night,” I said, the thought just coming to me. “Were they still out here when he finished pumping iron, or did he see them leave?”
“You know what else we didn’t ask him?”
“What?”
Floyd grinned.
“Where’s he keep his binoculars?”
“You think?”
“No way he’s seen this show more than once and hasn’t enhanced his vision, the little pervert.”
“It’s what you’d do.”
“Hell yeah, Dickie, that’s what I’m saying. This guy’s getting off on this shit, probably up there every night waiting for the show. It’s only natural to want a better look. Little perv probably has a telescope mounted on a tripod for this gig, had it hiding in the closet from us and the wife.”
“Makes sense, right?”
“The thing is,” Floyd said, going on with it, “he cops to using glasses, that’ll go over big in court if he ever has to identify anyone. Could end up being an important witness, the weird little bastard. If it turns out those were our girls he saw, Susie and the one from the motel, Sandy’s victim, this case just got real interesting, partner.”
Interesting, I thought, yes, but then again we had wanted to talk to Donna because she’s friends with Susie. Is it so odd to think that Susie had visited with her sometime before the murder? Probably not. Although, it did seem odd that not only is Susie dead, but so is her friend, Stephanie, and Donna’s nowhere to be found.
And what about this guy with the tatts?
“What we need,” I said, “is to see if Lanh can identify our girls. Bring him some pics. Also, get him to give us more on the Mexican asshole with the tattoos, the one that gets naked with Donna. If she doesn’t turn up soon, we might want to get a composite drawing of that asshole, see if we can get him identified.”
“That’s another point,” Floyd said. “How do you see a guy’s got tattoos this far away, if you’re not looking through glass?”
“I guess it depends on how tatted up he is,” I said. “If he’s fully sleeved and they’re all over his back and chest, probably wouldn’t be too hard. If you’re talking just a few tattoos, you may have a point. Let’s ask him, see how much detail he can remember, having had a good look through those binos.”
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