by Robert Roper
Her cheeks were full of color tonight. Her dark eyes flashing.
“Melody, bad things are happening all around me. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I would hate that, bloody hate it. You really shouldn’t be here.”
“Let’s not go up yet. You said you had a nice piece of fish. Do you want me to cook it?”
“I don’t know. I’m not hungry, are you?”
“Yes, I am. I’m starving.”
chapter 15
The judge who had granted bail, Sherman Beane, was on medical leave, and at least for a while there was little chance of his grant of bail being revoked by some other judge, because the police had to investigate the new killing and then connect Landau to it. Then the DA had to decide whether to charge him with the new crime. He would be called in for questioning, Raboy warned, rough questioning, probably. Byrum Johnson had been taken off the case—had gone on medical leave himself.
“What! Are you serious?”
“That’s what I’m hearing,” said the lawyer.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“I don’t know. Nothing?”
“Nothing?”
“Look, he did an amazingly wrong thing. It was a political gesture as much as anything, showing that they could be pushed too far, even the squishy Berkeley types can. That you could make them angry.”
“I don’t get it.”
“He shouldn’t have put you in the cell. In the box. But someone told him he had to, and after that, he had to fall on his sword. He’s probably on Prozac now.”
Landau felt abandoned. In his fantasy he and his detective friend had been about to crack the case, by the judicious application of Occam’s razor, among other things. Had been working up the San Diego murders, the mysterious Mexican man on videotape factor, the Chiapas group. Now, all for nothing.
“Get ready for some rude handling, Doctor. We’re back with the Oakland PD, it’s Oakland’s case after the East Bay Regional police go over it,” Raboy went on. “Officer Cheatham, Lieutenant Cheatham excuse me, wants another shot at you. Wants to take you down hard.”
“Oh, fie on him.”
“Have you put together that timeline I asked you for?”
“No, I’m working on it. The fact is there are stretches of time I can’t recall at all. Usually they run between midnight and about 7:00 a.m. It’s as if I black out or something.”
“Funny. You still don’t understand that you’re playing for your life, do you?”
“No, I understand that very well.”
“Not fun and games anymore, Professor. You’re at liberty on only the thinnest of pretexts. The judge wants the charges consolidated, thank God. So you can’t be denied bail in another court. Then he announces that he’s having his gallbladder out. Think of that. Think what he’s done for you.”
Meaning what—that the judge was pulling a fast one on Landau’s behalf? Was that possible?
“I want you to consider hiring a security service. And give me that timeline, please, hurry up,” Raboy commanded. “I want to know who killed those women. You know who did, and it’s time that I did, too.”
“Do I know that? Well—that’s a relief.”
Raboy fell silent.
“That’s the problem right there,” the lawyer growled after a while. “You’re the problem. You’re not really trying.”
“I bloody well am trying, counselor. I have no gift for playing detective, but that’s not my fault, is it? You don’t need to know who did it, anyway. You only need to know that I didn’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to know.”
Blustery, Englishy-weather. Egdon Heath-ish. Landau and two of his lawyers, Glebefelder and Dimitriopoulous, walked up a muddy path out of tall eucalyptus with a squad of Oakland police officers in attendance. What a strange spot for a park. It was a small dead volcano, Sibley was, with lava flows, but the rounded hilltops and upsy-downsy ridges did not add up to what Landau looked for in a park. Wasteland, that’s what it was. An owner had given it over to the state, after tiring of paying taxes for generations.
Rain falling again. Landau put up the hood of his parka. Masha had a chartreuse slicker made by Sierra Designs—it said so on her breast—and Carl wore an old-fashioned belted raincoat and brown felt hat, made him look like a battered private eye, a young impersonation of one. Raboy was in Sacramento today, pursuing unrelated matters. Just listen to what Masha tells you, had been the order from the top—do whatever Masha tells you.
Hillsides with bright new grass. One slope ran up to a copse of small trees on a summit. Looked like the haircut on the actor in Eraserhead. Now Lieutenant Cheatham and another police detective, Nordwin, appeared beside Landau, the second detective also dressed Philip Marlowe–style, with an actual gray fedora. Lieutenant Cheatham smiled at Landau as if at an old friend.
“Good of you to come, sir. Your cooperation is appreciated, I mean that sincerely.”
“Anything to help you, Detective.”
“Not detective. Lieutenant. It’s a little different.”
“Okay, sorry.”
Big, square-headed fellow, the lieutenant. Looked like an African-American Ernest Hemingway. Another thick, manly mustache: there must be a fad for them in the department.
“How you been doing, Doc, you hanging in there?”
“I guess so, what about you?”
“Oh, not so good. We can’t stop these damned murders. Another one this morning. Yes, a whole other one. Over in the Fruitvale district. Pretty brown-skinned girl, all cut up, horrible.”
“Wh-what?”
“That’s right, number four or five, depending how you count. Mid-twenties, Mexican-looking, no ID. He basically vivisected her.”
Landau, blinking, looked over his shoulder, wondering where his lawyers were.
“Are you fooling with me, Lieutenant?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. I don’t fool around about murder. Murder’s the real thing.”
“I’m shocked. I don’t know what else to say. Completely shocked.”
“I hear you. He’s shocked, Nordwin, did you get that? Completely shocked.”
The other detective nodded.
They had taken him away from Masha and Carl, had walked him fast up the hill, to get a little separation. Now they were practically running together.
Just short of the top, the lieutenant stopped, panting, and said, “I can never figure out how to get inside here. You could climb over the rocks, or you could worm through the trees. Which is better, do you think, Professor?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been here before.”
Cheatham looked at Nordwin. “Yeah, but which approach would you take, anyhow? Would you just barge in, or would you maybe look for a little path?”
“Well, maybe some barging, some path-hunting, combine them.”
“Okay, yeah. That’ll do.”
Here came Masha and Carl. Masha grabbed Landau by the coat sleeve—stop right there, say no more.
“Why don’t you just push on through, then, Doc. Go on. I’ll follow.”
Masha let go of him, and Landau hefted himself over a boulder. Children must love to play up here: it was a sort of stockade of trees, with a secret space inside, a cozy hideaway. Two uniformed Oakland police officers were already in there, shivering. They said nothing.
“Okay, that works. What kind of trees are these, Professor, valley oaks?”
“I don’t think so. They look like bay trees to me.”
“Bay trees. Hmm. Okay, I see you know your trees.”
Rocky ground, trees growing directly out of the rock. No one had told him anything, but this must be where Angela Lindon’s body had been found. There were two flat spots. One was two yards higher than the other, and the lower one was where the patrolmen were standing.
“If you brought someone up here, you could hide stuff in the bushes so you’d have it when you got her up here, no, Professor?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, you could, if you wanted to do that.”
“We found some duct tape over on that other hill. The gal this morning was bound with duct tape. Arms severed at the elbow. Hands bound at the wrist, kind of in a prayer position.”
For some reason, Landau was thinking of the guards. The one who was shivering more was trying not to seem to be eavesdropping, but the other one was frankly listening to every word, staring bug-eyed at Landau meanwhile. What an opportunity for a simple patrolman. What a learning experience. Later he would tell his friends, “Yeah, I was there, when that smiley freak, the Berkeley Slasher, gave it up. Cheatham got him talking about the dead girls. There’s two kinds of killers, see, binders and non-binders, and binders truss them up like a turkey, do painful things with rope or tape. Non-binders are different. He got him talking about all that, binding, and that broke him, the sick fuck.”
“This poor, poor girl,” the lieutenant was saying. “No tape on her. Her body was over here, head over there, six feet away. No signs of struggle. The dark stuff’s all her blood.”
Landau looked at the vast, sorrowful stain. He nodded.
“Appears she walked up the hill willingly. Killer took her shoes afterward because he didn’t want any fibers found from his car. No slices through the nipples, so, that’s different. Maybe he’s losing that motivation.”
“Losing what?”
“Losing impulse. Yeah, you see that sometimes. They stop carrying through on certain drives. Sort of let them fade out.”
Masha now entered the ring of trees. Her parka had gotten wet and had a Day-Glo cast.
“Miz Dimitripolis. How tall’re you, can I ask?”
“Five seven and three quarters, Lieutenant, why?”
“Well, would you lie down here for a second? To show us how a woman would fit?”
Astonished pause. “Are you crazy? You lie down, Lieutenant. You lie down in all that blood and rain and whatnot, you do it.”
The lieutenant chuckled. “Okay, okay. Just kidding.”
Now more serious: “Professor, this is a special place. It’s in the guidebooks, a place where people come to on purpose, they call it the Faerie Ring. Out there is Mount Diablo, away across the valley, can you see it? Devil Mountain, in plain English. That’s what ‘diablo’ means.”
Landau tried but could not see Devil Mountain. Too much blowing mist today.
“This is an altar, an actual altar. In the spring they come up and have their ceremonies,” the lieutenant went on. “The Volcanic Witch Project—you’ve heard of them, right? They cover it in the Chronicle every year.”
“I’m uninformed about such things, Lieutenant. Local cults and so forth—not my area of expertise.”
Landau looked more closely at the site. Some forest animals might sleep on the lower perch, when it wasn’t dark with blood. Very little rain was filtering through the leaves overhead, because the branches were tightly woven. It was a private place, an uncanny place. An altar, yes, all right, he could see that.
He stepped back and sat upon a large rock. From here he had a good view of the lower spot, with no trees in the way.
“I think he sat up here, Lieutenant. Then, he watched her bleed out. He had an excellent view from up here.”
“Yeah, think so?”
“Yes. You’re like on a throne here. Your victim is displayed at your feet, near and yet not so close as to grab you. He would have liked that, degenerate that he is. Cruel maniacal bully.”
The lieutenant nodded. Kept nodding.
“And since we’re expressing every odd idea that comes into our heads,” Masha said. She shook her head ruefully, then went on: “What was the weather like that day, Lieutenant, do you know? Was it fair, or was it like today?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I could look that up.”
“What day was it, anyway?”
“Found her on the eighth. Lab says she was out three to four days. That makes February 4, February 4 or 5.”
Landau happened to remember February 4. The fourth had been a Sunday. The weather had been blowy.
“You remember, Professor?”
“Well, I sort of do, in fact. The fourth was Sunday and it was cold and rainy. That was when the weather changed, around then, when it didn’t seem like spring anymore.”
What was this with the weather? They didn’t know what else to talk about, he reflected, so they had to talk about the weather.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” said Masha. “If it was a nice day, you come up here on a nice walk, it’s not that hard to get into. But if the weather was like now, you’d have to be compelled. I don’t know—maybe the guy had a gun at her head. Or maybe she wanted to come, because she liked the guy, he was attractive. Maybe there’s something about him.”
The lieutenant blinked twice—okay, maybe. But let’s get back to something more important, what the professor can tell us, the professor himself.
“That’s very smart, Masha. Because, it’s a long way up from the car,” said Landau.
“Yeah, and it’s steep.”
“I don’t think you just amble up, not on February 4, in the rain.”
“The blood puddles, though, Professor, what about the blood puddles?”
“The blood puddles?”
“Look, there should be two. Body here, head here. A head has a lot of blood in it. You can’t believe how much. It’s like a little barrel full of blood.”
Landau thought about it. “If he were the same one who killed Dolores Huerta, maybe he did the same thing here, made expert incisions. Cut around her throat, then retreated up here for a ringside seat. I don’t know how he subdued her to begin with. Half-suffocated her? Half-strangled? But he likes the bleeding, so while he’s watching her, maybe he got excited. Have you checked around here for semen, Lieutenant? That would seem to be a possibility.”
“Yeah, we checked, but we’ll check again.”
“Then, when she’s fully exsanguinated—bled out—he cuts the head off. Puts it over there, six feet away. With no blood left in it.”
“Over here, Professor?”
“Over wherever you said.”
In the car afterward, the lawyers’ car, Landau wondered what that had all been about.
“It’s to be cooperative, sir. It’s to carry through on that theme, you with nothing to hide, wanting to solve these crimes so, so much. More than anybody. But Mr. Raboy’s always doing something else, two steps ahead of them. I don’t know what, really. You were good today, though, Professor, very smart. You said good things.”
“Did I, Masha? I wasn’t indiscreet?”
“You were indiscreet, but in a good way.”
chapter 16
The judge had his gallbladder out, and the district attorney delayed bringing charges in the murder of Angela Lindon. Wendy Waters was being taken off the case, the lawyers reported, and another assistant district attorney, Milka Resnick, was on. Resnick was four months pregnant. How would that play in court, what were the implications of that? No one could say, but the whole thing made Raboy nervous. Now less than a month till the trial started. Time to get organized.
Landau awoke the morning after the visit to the hilltop certain that Jad had done it, his son, Jad. Jad who had played with knives when a boy, who’d had an intense mumblety-peg period, aged about thirteen, out in the park throwing knives over and over in the dirt. Who’d taught him that game? Landau, Londoner, had not known the homely American pastime, and now he had the most amazing instant of recall: it was Samantha who had taught Jad, who had tomboyishly learned the game herself from her older brothers, Samantha who had given Landau’s son his first real knife. With Landau’s permission, of course.
My God, it was
overwhelming, overwhelming. Think of the psychosexual implications. But—maybe not. His mind wiggled as fast as it could away from thoughts of his son as the killer, as the mad vivisector, to consideration of other attractive candidates, and why had Georges not been brought in for questioning, Georges, the former lover of the next-to-last dead woman? The police seemed not to be thinking about Georges at all.
He built a case in his mind quickly against friend Georges, Georges who had once had a key to Landau’s house and might still have it, Georges who knew his comings and goings as well as Landau himself did. Georges had been out of the country when the maid disappeared and Samantha died, but that was a mere detail, his story of treating sore necks in Bali possibly a whole-cloth fabrication. Look at everyone, you foolish police! Landau wanted to say. Come on! Don’t just focus on my son!
The fourth or fifth victim had worked as a nanny, for a family on Gravalt Drive, Claremont district. Just around the corner from Jad’s house. In the early news and blog coverage, writers spoke of her as a preschool teacher, and Landau recalled the young woman whom Heitor had brought to the huarache joint, but that person wasn’t named Marta Villacorta, she was called Graciela Something. Every Thursday and Sunday, Marta Villacorta had had the afternoon off from her family, the Stein-Pidgeons, and one Sunday she hadn’t come home. Her body had been found in three dumpsters.
Heitor—Heitor as the killer. Heitor was a possibility, except that he was un-killer-like. Had arrived in the midst of all the action, from exotic Brazil. He knew Landau, was emotionally involved with him in a sort of way, as a former student. Had met Samantha Beevors once or twice. But Heitor liked women and always had friends among them, not just lovers but friends. His Argentine father was the only dark matter in his cosmos, a famous heart surgeon who had required that his three sons also become physicians, then had found each inadequate in his own way. Heitor occasionally told funny stories about the tyrant father, without real bitterness.
Just for fun, Landau tried out the Heitor hypothesis on Melody. They were in his bedroom on a Thursday night.
“I have this former researcher, Melody. He’s in town now. He would have no trouble enticing a girl into a car—could probably get a girl to buy him a car if he wanted.”