Inkslingers Ball (A Forensic Handwriting Mystery)

by Sheila Lowe

  Jovanic did not question her. She had an uncanny sense for ammo. He knew that if the first bullet had hit Oliver in the heart, like Darla Steinman, it would have immediately stopped pumping and there would be very little blood. Whatever there might have been had been washed away by the waves. As frustrating as the lack of trace evidence was, he knew they were lucky that jammed up against the piling as it was, at least the body had not been washed out to sea with the tides.

  How long had Shane Oliver been lying there? More than twenty-four hours if he had been brought here before Jovanic got to his motel room. He considered the possibility that the killer had kept the journalist somewhere else until after dark the night before, beating out of him how much incriminating information he had gathered and what he had done with it.

  “No cell phone,” Shirley concluded after going through his pockets. “Maybe the suspect dumped it.”

  “Or maybe he took it with him.” It should be relatively simple to get Oliver’s phone number and get a warrant to trace it.

  “That’d be sweet. Criminals can be so stupid.”

  “He was on his knees. The shooter was standing over him.”

  “Yeah. He fell back on his butt, then keeled over onto his side. You can see livor mortis where the blood pooled in his face. He’s already out of rigor.” Shirley’s eyes scrunched as she did the math. “This time of year the ocean’s about 50 degrees at night. If he’s been here through at least two high tides, that would slow down decomp.”

  She ran her expert eye over the victim, then rolled him onto his stomach, looking for any other wounds. “One’s a through and through.” She showed Jovanic where a bullet had gone straight through Oliver’s chest and exited the back of the leather vest.

  Making a quick calculation in his head, in his mind’s eye he traced the bullet’s trajectory. He started looking for shell casings in the sand. “I’m gonna go ask to borrow our wit’s metal detector,” he said after coming up empty. If RJ had finished interviewing their witness—his thoughts were interrupted by the Shirley Lorraine.

  “Oh man, are you one lucky D.”

  “What’ve you got?” Jovanic followed her pointing finger to a bullet that was almost entirely embedded in Oliver’s left boot heel. A surge of energy went through him and pushed the fatigue to the background. “Holy shit, Shirl! If Claudia wouldn’t kill me, I’d plant a big wet one on those rosy lips.”

  The coroner’s investigator grinned. “Never mind Claudia. I’d have to file a sexual harassment grievance.”

  Jovanic got serious. “You’re gonna let me take the boot straight to the lab, right?”

  “Sure. Help me get it off him.”

  ***

  Jovanic left Shane Oliver’s boot at the ballistics lab with an urgent request for results, though it was Friday, so nothing would happen with it until next week. Then he met up with his partner, Randy Coleman at a McDonald’s.

  “Did you get Bobby Morgan booked?”

  “Yeah,” Coleman said. “He was whining about Viper putting a hit on him, so they gave him his own cell at Van Nuys. He’ll be okay there for a few days. If we cut him loose on Tuesday, he won’t have to go to County.”

  “Bobby makes a better witness than he does a suspect and we’ve got bigger fish to hook. I’ll ask the D.A. to offer him an immunity deal if he testifies. I think he’ll go for it. What about Big Carl?”

  “Still working on him. He’s chillin’ at the station. Once he knows Bobby caved, no reason for him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “With Bobby’s statement and the video we got from Yvonne Lee as corroborating evidence, the D.A. should be ready to file paper on Viper by Monday.” Jovanic took a bite of his Big Mac and chewed thoughtfully, letting his mind work out a question that had been pestering him all morning like an annoying tickle just out of reach.

  “What?” Coleman asked. “You’ve got that look. What’s the problem?”

  Jovanic shrugged. “It just doesn’t feel right. Viper’s kept a low profile for a lot of years. Now, four homicides in one week, all with a clear connection to him.” He set his sandwich back in its box and took out a pen, started making a list on a napkin. “First, Travis Navarette—competition—gets firebombed. Then Angel gets done in a drugged-up rage because she disobeyed him. Then Steinman. Why her? Looks like she been working for him for years. What happened that set all this off? Shane Oliver digs around and gets too close to something, we don’t know what, so he has to go.” Jovanic looked at the names he had block printed on the napkin. If he turned it over he knew he would see the heavy pen strokes had bled through to the next layer. Claudia never disparaged him for his printing, but she often encouraged him to use cursive writing. She said it would help him get in touch with his feelings. As if he wanted to do that.

  Coleman said, “There are no coincidences, right? Maybe Darla saw what happened to Travis or Angel. Maybe she talked to Oliver about it.”

  “Her name is in his notebook.” Jovanic dunked a fistful of fries into the mound of ketchup he’d squeezed onto the paper tray cover. “But if Darla’s been servicing Viper’s clients all these years, she knows he’s no boy scout. Why turn on him now?”

  “She’s got kids, doesn’t she? Maybe him beating a teenage girl to death was her limit.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sunday

  “I don’t want to be seen with him,” Annabelle said. Her lip stuck out in a sulky pout. Much of the 50 mile drive from Playa de la Reina to the Pomona Fairgrounds had passed with her resisting the idea of looking for and confronting the man who had inked the sugar skull on her fifteen-year-old skin. Now she was turning her disfavor on Jovanic.

  “I thought you two were getting along,” said Claudia.

  “Everyone will know he’s a cop. He walks like a cop. He looks like a cop.”

  “And you know people here who are going to look down on you for being with a cop?”

  “They don’t have to know me.”

  “Well, if we run into this Crash guy, I think it’s good for him to know you’re with a cop. Shake him up a little. What does he look like?”

  Annabelle heaved a big, fed up sigh. “I don’t know. Old. Skinny. Crappy teeth.” She gave a little snort. “Actually, missing teeth. He doesn’t have any in the front.”

  “What color is his hair? How long is it?”

  She thought about it before answering. “Kinda grey, in a pretty long ponytail.”

  “That description includes about a third of the population here.”

  In spite of herself, Annabelle giggled. “I’ll tell you if I see him.” She opened the passenger door and immediately began to complain about the heat. According to the digital thermometer on the roof of a bank building they had passed it was 106. Claudia groaned, too. After spending the better part of an hour in the air conditioned Jaguar, the sun beat on her bare shoulders like the fires of hell.

  Jovanic had decided to drive separately in the event something broke on one of his cases and he needed to make a quick exit. He stepped from his vehicle in the adjoining parking space and stretched. Despite the oppressive temperature he was wearing Levi’s. Probably to cover an ankle holster, Claudia guessed. Having taken the day off, he was unshaven. His beard, always quick to grow, made a sinister shadow on his jaw that she found incredibly sexy.

  The sleeve of his black T-shirt covered his left bicep, where he wore his father’s name—Bennis—on a banner over a police shield. There was an innate distrust of cops in the tattoo culture. No point rubbing it in their faces.

  Catching his gaze across the tops of their vehicles Claudia gave Jovanic an eye roll that spoke volumes. “What’s the plan?” she asked as he walked around the Jeep.

  “Take a look around, see what’s up.”

  “Should we be elsewhere when you talk to Viper?”
r />   “When are you going to get him for killing Angel?” Annabelle cut in before he could respond.

  Jovanic put up a restraining hand. “Don’t worry, we’re working on it.”

  “I heard you tell Claudia he always gets away with everything.”

  “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to eavesdrop?”

  “You shouldn’t let him get away with it. He murdered her.” Annabelle’s expression darkened. “He should die for what he did.”

  “Trust me, kiddo, I understand how you feel, and—”

  “But how can you just let him go free after what Mouser’s brother—”

  “It’s being handled, and that’s all you need to know right now,” Jovanic interrupted her. “We’re not gonna talk about it here.”

  “But I want—”

  “Enough, Annabelle,” Claudia said firmly. “Let’s get inside. Your nose is already getting sunburned.”

  With a look of horror, Annabelle put her hand up to cover the offending organ. She hurried ahead of them, her ire at Viper’s evasion of justice evaporating in her urgent need to avoid a possible sunburn. Even her mortification at being forced to suffer the company of a cop seemed to have disappeared.

  Jovanic shook his head in exasperation as they followed her to the ticket booth. “You sure she’s gonna be okay here?”

  “Not really. But we can’t pretend nothing happened.”

  “You know I can’t discuss an open case with her.”

  “Of course I know that. I’m not saying you should. Just that it’s not going to stop her from processing what happened, however she processes it.”

  She could feel his impatience, but her protective instincts always kicked in when it came to Annabelle, and he knew better than to interfere. When they caught up with her a moment later at the ticket booth, Claudia gave the girl a long look. Not wanting to start an argument with Jovanic, she refrained from saying what she was thinking: that since Angel’s death, the PTSD flare-ups worried her.

  Annabelle had witnessed the ruthless murder of someone she cared about. Such a memory would not leave a child her age unscarred; more so a child whose mother had also been violently torn from her early in life. The feverish light she had noticed in the girl’s eyes had put Claudia on hyper alert for acting out. Since Angel’s reappearance in her life, Annabelle’s progress had stalled.

  Jovanic paid their admission fee at the gate and each of them held out their hands in turn for the ticket-taker’s stamp. They joined the throng of fairgoers inside the grounds. Pushing through the doors of the hangar-like building, the trio entered the Inkslingers Ball Tattoo and Body Piercing Expo.

  And walked into a wall of noise; a pulsing cacophony that reverberated throughout the building. Annabelle clapped her hands over her ears. It took several seconds for Claudia to realize that what they were hearing was a drumbeat. The sound was everywhere. The poor acoustics made conversation impossible. Jovanic slipped an arm around her shoulders and motioned her toward the drums.

  They made their way through rows of exhibit spaces, through the crush of human canvases. Body art ran the gamut from understated hearts and flowers to full body suits that covered arms and legs. Relatively few were like Claudia, a blank slate where their skin showed.

  In many booths tattoo artists seated on low stools worked on their customers out in the open. Scattered between booths, vendors sold tattoo supplies and equipment or goth jewelry. Stalls displayed racks of T-shirts with silkscreen slogans such as, “Respect: you get what you give.”

  Claudia kept her eyes peeled, looking for an artist who fit Annabelle’s description of Crash. Most of the working males were on the younger side, or had dark hair or shaved heads or wore do-rags. She discounted the ones who looked like lowriders, but the biker types got a second glance. Some of them might be members of Viper’s gang, the Skullz.

  The name of each tattoo studio hung from a curtain on the back panel of its booth and she looked for the Dragon House logo. Claudia could feel Jovanic’s heightened vigilance bristling like invisible armor. Annabelle was right. Even with the scruffy beard, he couldn’t help carrying himself like a cop. She smiled to herself, glad of it. His presence always made her feel safer, and that had nothing to do with the fact that he was carrying.

  As they neared the back of the building, through the circle of spectators Claudia could see feather headdresses rising high above the crowd. Dancers in Aztec tribal costume kicking and whirling. Dozens of bells on their anklets jingled to the warlike beating of the drums. The percussion pounded harder, faster, building to a crescendo until the air was vibrating with the sound.

  Claudia felt Jovanic squeeze her arm. A slight jerk of his head brought her attention to Annabelle, whose rapt gaze was focused on one of the dancers. Her face was made up like a sugar skull; thick dark smudges around the eyes, black stitches drawn across the lips as if she were dead. Very like the sugar skulls tattooed on Viper’s girls. Like the one Crash had put on Annabelle.

  “God, I hope she doesn’t decide to copy the makeup,” Claudia murmured in Jovanic’s ear.

  “Say your prayers, babe,” he whispered back, squeezing her arm. “I’m gonna look around, talk to some folks and see what I can find out. See you in a few.”

  He slipped away, leaving them to watch what remained of the performance.

  When it was over, afraid they would become separated in the packed aisles, Claudia grabbed a handful of Annabelle’s T-shirt, surprised at the lack of resistance. Annabelle was enthralled with everything going on around them.

  They wandered up and down the aisles, pausing to admire some of the artists at work. Claudia mostly people-watched, amusing herself by guessing what the handwritings of attendees might look like based on the tattoos they wore. It was an idle game, as people were too varied to guess with any accuracy. Chances were, most of them printed in one form or another, rather than using cursive. At least, that was what she had observed in a book she’d read called Permanence. There was photograph of each subject with a handwritten note detailing the reason for the tattoos worn by the writer.

  Annabelle wanted to stop at one of the jewelry booths where there were rows of sterling silver sugar skull earrings on display. These were more traditional, unlike the glamorous style of her tattoo. She gazed wistfully at the jewelry. “If they had some like my tatt, I’d buy them.”

  “Don’t you think one sugar skull is enough?”

  “There’s no such thing as too many sugar skulls.” Annabelle’s impish grin drew a smile from Claudia.

  The jewelry vendor, a girl in a tiny black mini dress, sauntered over and started pulling items from the case to tempt her potential customer. She set out boxes of earrings on top of the glass case.

  She could not have been much older than Annabelle. The two began an animated conversation about piercing gauges. Claudia moved off to the side to give them some space.

  “Looks like you’re gonna have to get out your pocketbook,” a woman said from behind her.

  Claudia turned. The speaker was seated on a stool in the next booth. Her tattoo table was currently vacant. A second female tattooist was coloring in a large piece on a woman’s back.

  Unlike some of the tacky, overdone women Claudia had observed at the event, the one who had spoken was a knockout. She was the “sexy and she knows it” kind who drew admiring glances from both genders. Perfect body. Blonde-streaked black hair half-covering one eye in front, shaved short in back. High cheekbones, peach-colored skin that glowed. Red and black hearts, skulls, and diamonds decorated the finely inked lacework that covered her arms from shoulders to knuckles.

  “She’s got her eye on something.” The woman was watching Annabelle pore over the jewelry with the vendor.

  Claudia half-turned so Annabelle couldn’t hear her. “No jewelry for her today. She’s in big trou
ble. She snuck out and got a tattoo.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Fifteen. And he knew it.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No. A much older guy.”

  “Not one of ours.” The woman shook her head with certainty. “Nobody here would do it underage without getting consent from the parents first.”

  “This guy did it in the back of his van.”

  The woman raised a winged brow. “That’s seriously fucked up. Who is he?”

  “He goes by Crash. Ever hear of him?”

  The woman thought about it for a long moment. “Uh uh. He wouldn’t be popular around here—give the rest of us a bad rep.” She held out a slim hand covered with tattooed roses. “I’m Tabitha. Like the witch. Call me Tabbie.”

  “I’m Claudia.”

  Tabitha grinned, showing a perfect set of gleaming pearly whites. “I snuck out plenty at that age, but I didn’t get any ink until I was legal. My daddy would have totally whaled on me.”

  “I know what you mean,” Claudia agreed. “But her friend had a particular sugar skull and she just had to have one like it. The friend’s was done by an artist named Viper. Maybe you know him?”

  “Course I do—Dragon House. We’re like family here, we all know each other. The reputable salons, anyway—not some dumbass who works out of his van.”

  “Is Dragon House here?”

  “They’re on the other side.” Tabbie waved vaguely to the far side of the building, where Claudia’s travels had not yet taken her.

  “I thought I’d talk to Viper, since this Crash guy seems to have copied his piece. Maybe he knows him.”

  Tabitha stared at her as though she were crazy. “You do not want to do that, sistah. I can tell you right now, Viper would be none too happy to hear someone’s copying his work.”