What Waits for You

by Joseph Schneider

  Jarsdel stepped forward. “Sorry, did you—”

  Porter’s eye opened again and focused on Jarsdel. “No.” Only his lips moved; all the rest was locked in place, making his voice sound angry.

  “No? Is it that you don’t remember what he looks like, or you never saw his face to begin with?”

  “Don’t know.” Porter grimaced.

  “You mean you don’t remember at all?”

  Another single nod.

  “Would you be willing to be hypnotized? See if we can jog anything?”

  Porter answered immediately. “No.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Morales. “Why not?”

  The officer was silent. Either the answer was too long to be worth the trouble, or Porter wasn’t in the mood to give it.

  “Okay,” said Jarsdel. “Let’s move on to—”

  “No, wait, hang on.” Morales pointed at Porter. “You run ahead of your partner, get your face caved in, nearly get her killed, too, by not following procedure. Now LA taxpayers gotta carry your ass for the rest of your life. And you’re not gonna do everything you can to help us out?”

  Porter’s single eye blazed back at Morales, but still he gave no answer.

  “Wow. What a hero.”

  Jarsdel held up a hand. “Let’s move on. What exactly prompted you to enter the house?”

  Porter swallowed, grimaced again. “Bleeding. House was bleeding.”

  “Officer Banning mentioned that as well. You saw a red substance seeping from a crack near the second story.”

  “Blood.”

  “Yes, that’s true. It was blood. And you pointed it out to Officer Banning. Then what?” By now Jarsdel had his notebook out and was making shorthand jottings as the conversation went on.

  “Told me breach.”

  “Officer Banning ordered you to breach the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what? Did you identify yourself as a police officer?”

  Porter closed his eye. “Forget.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Probably said ‘police.’ Probably. But don’t remember. Once inside, don’t remember.”

  “Don’t blame you,” said Morales. “I wouldn’t wanna remember, either. I’ll tell you this: I know Melissa Banning, and she’d’ve washed your dumb ass if you hadn’t gone and—”

  “Oscar.” Jarsdel gave his partner a weary look.

  “Fuck it,” said Morales and turned to leave. “I’ll wait outside. No, actually I’m gonna run down to the gift shop and buy this hero some roses.”

  Once Morales had gone, Porter appeared to relax. “Hates me.” He tried a smile. It was ghastly, and he seemed to know it. He let his face go slack.

  “I really need you to think hard, hard as you can. Anything you can tell us about what happened to you. A piece of jewelry maybe, or a tattoo, or even a scent—cologne or deodorant or bad breath.”

  “All hate me.”

  “What?”

  “They. All. Hate. Me.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” said Jarsdel. “But we gotta catch this guy, and you’re the only one who can still tell me something.”

  “I wish it killed me.”

  “You wish he’d killed you?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Why?”

  Porter didn’t answer.

  “Why? It’s over.”

  Porter’s eye, bright as a shard of glass, shuddered in its socket. It flicked right and left, as if searching the room, making sure the two of them were alone. “I’m scared I’ll remember.”

  “That you’ll remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Remember what?”

  “Everything. In the house.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jarsdel. “You’re scared you’ll remember? Won’t it be a big help to everyone if you did?”

  “Not to everyone.” Porter grunted.

  “Yeah? You’re done, huh?”

  “Oh yeah. I’m done.”

  Jarsdel glared at him. “You think it was somehow special, what you experienced?” He waited and, when Porter remained silent, continued. “So now you’re what—just going to recuse yourself from this investigation?”

  “I’m a faithful man.”

  “What?”

  “I’m religious.”

  “What’s that have to do with anything?”

  Porter’s face tightened, and he groped around for something at his side. Jarsdel saw it was an analgesia pump. Porter clicked the button, dispensing some more painkillers into his bloodstream. He relaxed a little.

  “What does religion have to do with anything?” Jarsdel repeated.

  “I’m tired. Wanna sleep.”

  “Tell me and I’ll go.”

  “I’m just… I believe in God, but I’ve never seen him.”

  “Great. So?”

  Porter closed his eye. His breathing slowed. “Don’t believe in Devil, but I’ve seen him.”

  Jarsdel frowned. “You remember what he looked like, then?”

  “No. No. Never want to. But I know I did see him. Because. It’s like. My soul. My soul hurts now.”

  * * *

  “His soul hurts, huh?” Morales made a right onto Vermont, toward Hollywood Boulevard. A man in a gray suit and red tie paced the corner, shouting into a microphone. A woman hovered nearby, clutching flyers and guarding the man’s amp, which spat out a feedback-streaked tirade in Spanish.

  “That’s how he put it,” said Jarsdel.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I suppose it’s a kind of Zapffian crisis. An unmooring in the ‘liquid fray of consciousness.’”

  “Jesus, Tully. Forget I asked.”

  They parked on Russell and walked in silence to Fred 62, a faux-retro diner that’d sprung up during the Los Feliz renaissance of the ’90s. It was a time when newly minted hepcats—men with glistening rockabilly pompadours and wallet chains snaking into their pegged trousers—prowled the Derby and the Dresden Room, when the radio was as likely to play Sublime as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and everyone knew how to jitterbug, if only a little. Twenty years later, the party was definitely over, the hepcats and hepkittens having traded their bowling shirts and polka-dot dresses for the anonymous uniforms of middle age. Music no longer filled the night, and the Derby was now, perfectly, a bank.

  Somehow Fred 62, with its wall of Golden Age headshots and green leather booths, had survived. But its self-aware charm wasn’t the only reason guys like Jarsdel and Morales stopped by; since the death of Jay’s Jayburger, Fred’s made the best burger in Los Feliz.

  The lunch rush was over, and the detectives picked a table in back, far from the door. Once they put in their order—two Juicy Lucys with sides of onion rings and coleslaw—Jarsdel brought out the Lauterbach murder book. Murder books were royal-blue three-ring binders containing every scrap of evidence related to a particular homicide case and were divided into twenty-six numbered sections—from the crime scene log to the witness list to the ambulance and medical records. And though it might’ve sounded like one, it wasn’t a nickname—the standardized face page and table of contents were titled Los Angeles Police Department “Murder Book”—just like that, in quotes.

  This one was already thick with documents. Pictures, too, more than a hundred, but Jarsdel was careful not to turn to them before lunch. Brown DYMO tape in the binder’s upper left-hand corner indicated the case number, victims, and the assigned detectives. This one read as follows:

  MURDER: DR 21–0825790

  VICTIMS: LAUTERBACH, JOANNE ROSE

  LAUTERBACH, WILLIAM ALAN

  1320 HOLLYRIDGE LOOP

  DATE/TIME: 1-5-21

 
DETECTIVES: JARSDEL/MORALES

  “Okay,” Jarsdel said to his partner. “You wanna go first?”

  “No.” Morales chuckled. “No. Fuck no.”

  “All right. I’ll go.” Jarsdel pulled the murder book closer and scanned the first few pages. Statements from the officers who’d found Banning and Porter from the EMTs who’d taken them to Hollywood Pres, from neighbors—none of whom had heard or seen anything strange, a transcript of their interview with Banning, their own notes from the scene, and the Lauterbachs’ autopsy reports.

  “I’m on pins and needles,” said Morales.

  “Just gimme a sec.”

  Morales sighed and began scrolling through emails on his phone. “Whoa, my lucky day. Check it out: ‘Would you bang a fifty-year-old? Hot, lonely housewives wanna meet YOU for casual sex.’ The only concern is would I be discreet. Hell yes, I’d be discreet. I’m Mister—”

  “Please, could you stop?” said Jarsdel. “Okay, here. Let’s start here. With what Porter says to Banning.”

  “‘The house is bleeding,’” said Morales. “Sounds like one of those concept albums. Featuring the hit single, ‘My Soul Hurts.’”

  “What interests me is the viciousness of it. Dr. Ipgreve can’t even say conclusively how many times Joanne Lauterbach was struck, because in addition to the hammer blows, we’ve got countless kicks and stomps. Leached an estimated five pints of blood into the floorboards. Looks like she was hit by a truck.”

  “Worse.”

  “Yeah,” Jarsdel agreed. “Worse.”

  “So what does that tell us?”

  “He’s enraged. Either he believes the Lauterbachs deserved to die or he’s using them as surrogates for someone he can’t get to physically.” Jarsdel considered. “Overkill tactics, lack of bindings. Didn’t even bring a weapon, far as we know. Hammer was already there. So were the cigarettes he used to torture the husband. Disorganized offender. No planning. Impulsive.”

  “Disorganized.” Morales chewed on the word. “You’re back to that FBI shit again.”

  “I know it annoys you, but it’s apt.”

  “You think so? What about the campsite?”

  Jarsdel opened his mouth to speak, then saw Morales’s point.

  In dusting the house for prints, they’d found a large grouping on and around the basement door. Someone had been handling it a lot, as if trying to open and close it as quietly as possible. The detectives had picked their way down the narrow wooden staircase into a dank cellar, where a sump pump kicked on every few minutes to expel rainwater. There was a hulking water heater with rusted, cobwebbed valves and an assortment of rat traps, several of which had been sprung. Overhead swayed a single caged incandescent bulb. Around them in all directions stretched the crawl space, the dirt-floored underbelly of the house. Most of it was filled with decades of accumulated detritus—sticks of old furniture, countless cardboard boxes labeled in Sharpie, plastic bins loaded with holiday decorations and cold-weather clothing, empty file cabinets, suitcases, and any number of rickety, rotting, dust-caked odds and ends.

  But in one spot, it was clear items had been pushed aside. The dirt bore fresh scuff marks, revealing darker soil beneath, and there the detectives could make out patterns left by shoe treads. Morales followed the trail with the beam of his Maglite. His breath caught.

  “No fuckin’ way.”

  Jarsdel joined him, peering into the crawl space. About ten feet in lay a blanket and a pillow. On either side were scattered perhaps a dozen empty cans of pantry goods. Jarsdel could identify labels for pork and beans, sweet corn, hearts of palm, peeled Roma tomatoes, and turkey chili. There was also a quart of half-and-half, an empty tin of kippered herring, and several bottles of vanilla-flavored Ensure.

  Jarsdel didn’t think he’d ever seen his partner truly amazed until then. “How long was he down here? I mean, you’ve got… I don’t even know. Tully, you smell that? Is that piss?”

  It was. Once the junk had been hauled away and evidence technicians could get to work, fifteen puddles of urine in varying states of dryness were counted. Ipgreve said that could be two or even three days’ worth but maybe longer if he’d also been using one of the bathrooms inside the house. That would also account for why he hadn’t defecated in the crawl space.

  The results had come in that morning, just before they’d gone to see Porter. Crime lab techs had been able to identify the presence of three DNA profiles in both the downstairs bathroom and the one adjacent to the master bedroom. Two of the profiles matched those of Bill and Joanne Lauterbach. The third, from an unknown donor, matched the urine in the cellar along with the fecal matter stuffed into Bill Lauterbach’s mouth.

  Another puzzle that had recently been solved was exactly how the killer had gained entry. All the house’s locks were intact, none of the windows had been broken, and the alarm company hadn’t reported any unusual activity—except that no one had armed the system in the last three days.

  Morales had been the one to figure it out. He’d been retracing Officer Banning’s steps as she’d investigated the grounds. He found the yellow watering can she’d used as a step stool to peek inside and see Bill Lauterbach’s empty eyes staring back at her.

  Low on the exterior wall, hidden behind a lush, flowering dogwood, a hole had been carved. It would’ve been practically invisible the night Banning and Porter arrived, blanketed in darkness and too far below anyone’s line of sight to be noticed. It was more or less rectangular in shape, perhaps one by one-and-a-half feet at its widest, maybe big enough to admit a ballerina. Crime scene techs had found hair follicles matching the killer’s DNA snagged along the top edge of the opening.

  They’d also found a slice of flexible, translucent yellow plastic stuck in mud nearby. It looked like a corner piece cut from a larger square—sharp and triangular on one side, concave and crescent on the other. What it had come from, indeed whether it was something the killer had brought with him at all, no one knew, but it went into evidence along with everything else.

  He’d stayed in the Lauterbach house maybe as long as a week while his victims went about their lives unaware. During the day, he listened to them from beneath the floorboards as they talked about their grandkids or Bill’s upcoming fifty-year fraternity reunion or Joanne’s osteoporosis. At night, he crept up the cellar stairs to use the bathroom, steal food, and watch his prey. Jarsdel and Morales believed that was the killer’s biggest thrill—seeing how long he could live among them, how close he could get without them knowing. Near his makeshift bed, they’d found a pillowcase stuffed with items pilfered from the house, things like the TV remote, a hair dryer, Bill Lauterbach’s hearing aid and bridgework, a pair of candlesticks. He wanted them off-balance, confused, sensing in some way they’d fallen under his shadow, but not knowing the true nature of the threat or where it came from.

  It must have been, Jarsdel decided, like living in a haunted house.

  Now, sitting in their booth at Fred’s, Jarsdel tried to answer Morales’s question. What about the campsite? If their offender was disorganized, it would’ve been impossible for him to lie low for so long. The kind of behavior he exhibited up until the homicides demonstrated control, not a lack of it.

  “Point taken,” said Jarsdel. “So he’s a mixed offender, with both organized and disorganized aspects to his pathology.”

  Morales wasn’t impressed. “Who cares what he is? Gotta let go of that Quantico shit. I been doing this a lot longer than you, and none of those labels ever did me any good. Even with the serials. No, we look at it like any other homicide. Odds are he knew them, so we go through every plumber and electrician, handyman and gardener they’ve had. Motive, means, and opportunity: it’s a classic for a reason.”

  Jarsdel tried to hide his disappointment. Metrics appealed to him; he ascribed to Lord Kelvin’s overall philosophy that if it can’t be measured, it isn’t science. And Jarsdel b
elieved that anything worthy of study must therefore also be measurable. This included, of course, human behavior. Being able to name and catalog something didn’t merely enhance understanding; it gave the observer a certain power. The magic of taxonomy was its ability to strip a thing of its mystique. Identifying the killer by genus and species would contain him, define and limit his shape. Pull him at least a few inches out of the shadows.

  Lunch arrived, but the men only picked at their food. Morales took a few perfunctory bites, then asked the waiter to box up the rest. Jarsdel said he didn’t want his leftovers, and the table was cleared. Their bill arrived a moment later, weighted down by a couple peppermints. Morales unwrapped one and popped in his mouth, then rubbed the cellophane between his fingers. Jarsdel found the rasping, crackling sound annoying, but said nothing. Finally, Morales spoke.

  “He’ll do it again.”

  “Why? How do you know?”

  “It’s what they always say in movies. After they find the first crime scene, they always go, ‘He’s just getting started’ or ‘He’s got a taste for it now—look out.’”

  “Ah. Right.”

  “You don’t watch movies.”

  “No.”

  Jarsdel stood. Morales followed, throwing down a few bills. It was his turn to cover lunch.

  “You should, you know. Watch movies. Part of our culture here.”

  “Send me your top five,” said Jarsdel.

  “Yeah, you won’t watch ’em. I know you. If it wasn’t written a thousand years ago, it’s not worth your time.”

  “Two thousand, actually. Other than Byrhtferth and Kushyar ib Labban, the eleventh century was pretty much an intellectual wasteland. Oh, and Li Qingzhao. I like her.”

  The two headed for the door, and Morales gave a weary sigh. “You know, what’s funny is all your lofty, hard-learned bullshit won’t do you nearly as much good in this job as watching Training Day a few times. Or in this case, Manhunter. Because I’m telling you, he’s gonna do it again.”

  * * *

  And he did do it again. And again, and again. In each instance he hid somewhere in the house prior to the murder. From as few as a dozen hours to—in the case of the Rustads—perhaps as many as five days.