“It’s why I joined.” Jarsdel blurted it out. He didn’t know why, but he felt if anyone could understand his motives, it would be someone like Sponholz.
A ghost of the lieutenant’s smile returned. “Did you? Then good. We need that. And we’ll continue to need that as this case moves forward. Because for much of it, we’re going to suffer. Our social lives, our personal lives—these will suffer—but so will our dreams, our psyches, every corner of our subconscious minds. There won’t be any place to hide from it. In a way it’ll be like having him in there, just like he was in those houses. Until we catch him.”
“I’m ready for that,” said Jarsdel.
“No,” said Sponholz. “No one’s ever ready for that. It’s not the kind of fight you can prepare for. But you’re willing, and that’s what matters most.” He stood, extending his hand, and the men shook. “Come by my birthday party, will you? It’s this Saturday at the Tiki-Ti. If you don’t have plans, of course.”
“Sounds great—thanks for the invite.”
“Pleasure to have you with us. Now let’s go and shut this fucking guy down.”
* * *
Jarsdel didn’t bother dusting the razor for prints. If there’d been any, he would’ve smudged them completely when he’d tried opening the door. And even if he hadn’t, Haarmann would’ve known to wear gloves.
The epoxy held it fast. He tried tearing it free with a pair of needle-nose pliers, and stopped when he felt the handle itself give an ominous little snap.
After leaving PAB, he drove the car the few blocks to Motor Transportation Division on Judge John Aiso Street, the LAPD’s fleet operations headquarters. The mechanic who examined the handle didn’t seem surprised. “Seen worse,” he said.
Jarsdel didn’t ask for elaboration. “When can I get it back?”
“That razor’s on there good. Have to get you a new handle.” The mechanic straightened up, running a hand through his mane of silver hair, and noticed Jarsdel’s bandaged hand. “Dinged you up, huh?”
“How long for the handle?”
“Oughta get here by Monday. Tuesday at the outside.”
Jarsdel tried not to look as annoyed as he felt. “Why so long?”
“Too late to put in the order today, tomorrow’s Friday, then you got the weekend. Your model’s already four years old. Thought of putting in a request for a newer one? Parts’ll come quicker.”
“So what do I do? What am I gonna drive?”
“Got a cruiser you can take.”
“Wait—you don’t have any unmarked cars? What if I have to do a stakeout or follow a suspect?”
“Not sure what to tell you. You want to drive this one out of here, you’re more than welcome.”
“Shit.”
The mechanic waited for him to make up his mind. Jarsdel glared at the few millimeters of steel protruding below the handle. His hand ached in sympathy. “Fine,” he said.
“There’s some paperwork.”
“Of course there is.”
An hour later, a patrol car pulled up to where Jarsdel was waiting. The silver-haired mechanic stepped out. “Probably been a few years since you been in one of these. Pretty much the same. Gas’s still on the right.”
“Wonderful.”
“You familiar with SkyTrace?”
Jarsdel shook his head. He could feel his pulse beating in the slashed fingers of his left hand.
“Then I’d stay away from that little console there.” The mechanic pointed at something to the right of the driver’s seat. “Just equipped them this year. Wanted to see how Contra Costa Sheriff’s liked it, then we sprung for ’em.”
Jarsdel bent close so he could see. A simple black box with two switches, both in the down position. One was protected by a hinged, plastic cube, presumably to prevent it being toggled accidentally. A small LED burned yellow. “What’s it do?”
“Pursuit abatement system. That switch there means it’s off, and the light means it’s unarmed. Otherwise it’ll be green. Activate the second switch and…” The mechanic led Jarsdel to the front of the cruiser, where a trapezoidal hatch had been fitted into the grille. “Lid pops open, out fires a GPS tracker. Compressed air cannon. Tracker’s fitted with this very sticky putty. Magnet too, ’case the putty doesn’t stick. Got an eight-hour battery on it. Then you just kinda hang back and follow the suspect vehicle on your computer. Lot safer for everyone. Get pretty good accuracy, too—laser paints the bumper of the suspect vehicle. Just gotta account for drop if it’s more’n about fifty yards ahead.”
He held out the keys. There were two fobs. The first, built into the car key, was the standard array of lock and unlock buttons. The second, sleek and egg-shaped, bore only a single gray button. “You can activate it remotely. Writing a citation, guy starts to take off. Nope, gotcha. Independent system, too. Works even if the engine’s not running. Gotta press it twice to avoid accidental discharge.”
Jarsdel took the keys without comment. All he could think about was how much the patrol car would slow him down. Black- and-white fever, every car in front of him hitting the brakes once they spotted him in the rearview. Citizens flagging him from the sidewalk, eager to file a complaint or get him to resolve a dispute.
Haarmann. Fucking Haarmann.
Jarsdel’s hand began to ache as his pulse kicked up. As if in answer, the scar above his ear sent out a bolt of pain. He grimaced, headed back toward the driver’s seat.
“Not even a little impressed?” asked the mechanic. “Most guys can’t wait to try it out.”
* * *
Someone had taken out a hydrant on the corner of Oakwood and Sycamore, and now a twenty-foot geyser baptized the crawling southbound traffic. Jarsdel was stuck beneath it for close to a minute—a limbo in which the world shimmered ghostly beyond the deluged windshield, and the only sound was the roar of water against metal.
He turned right at the next intersection, passing the New Beverly Cinema. Quentin Tarantino had bought the building in 2007, saving it from destruction, and programmed each month’s showings. And since all the 35mm prints came from his personal collection, watching films at the New Bev was kind of like hanging out in the director’s own screening room. According to the marquee, July was dedicated to LA crime stories. On offer that night was a double feature: The Limey with Terence Stamp, followed by Boris Karloff in Targets.
When he got back to his apartment, the first thing Jarsdel did was pause to admire the portrait of Lady Mary. It really was a beautiful piece, and it softened the daily return to his silent, empty home. A bargain at $2,400.
His phone hummed, and he snatched it from his belt. Morales. He took the call and brought the phone to his ear.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? That’s it? I come to work this afternoon, drag my ass in there, still sick as shit, and find out you been transferred to PAB? And on top of that I’m workin’ with Haarmann? You plan on telling me any of this?”
“Oh.”
“Uh-huh. Now I get Gavin not calling and telling me—he’s a dickhead first class. But you I don’t figure.”
Jarsdel fell into his wingback chair, using his free hand to massage his brow. He did it without thinking, and his stitches pulled. Searing, electric pain. “Ow—shit.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. No—actually, you should definitely know. You hear about that thing a couple weeks back between me and Haarmann? The arm-wrestling table?”
“Everyone knows. Said you lost your shit.”
“Lost my shit? Well, that’s interesting. Especially considering that in retaliation, our resident Cro-Mag glued a razor blade to my door handle. A razor blade. Cut the hell out of my hand. Lucky I didn’t sever the nerves.”
“Holy shit.”
“So that’s why calling you about the PAB thing might’ve slipped my mind. This happened just
yesterday.” Jarsdel thought for a moment. “But don’t tell anyone. Don’t want it getting back to him that I know who did it.”
A pause on the other end. “Okay. So you got proof?”
“He threatened me. In front of witnesses. But no, that’s it.”
“You sure? ’Cause this is enough to get him kicked out the department, easy. Throw a charge on top, too.”
Jarsdel felt anger surge inside him. “The station cameras were out.”
“Out? What d’you mean—like—”
“Yes. Malfunctioned. Convenient, huh? Anyway, the important thing here is that your new partner’s an extremely dangerous, disturbed individual. Get you killed under the right circumstances.”
Morales considered that for a while. “What about when it’s all over? They hookin’ us back up, or am I stuck with Haarmann now?”
“Gavin was deliberately vague. It’s a golden opportunity for him to fuck with me. And with HH2. I get the sense since it’s less a priority for Comsky since there’s no mayoral race on the horizon.”
“But hey, least you’re on the Creeper Task Force now. Congrats.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound so thrilled.”
“It’s not that. Just…complicated.” Jarsdel thought of Mailander and Al-Amuli. He’d always assumed task forces were made up of the most elite investigators in the department. It was obvious to him now that they were more like storage units for undesirables, a way for commanders to dump their least favored investigators without formally transferring them.
“I get it,” said Morales. “Performance anxiety. Now you gotta put your money where your mouth is. RHD’s big leagues.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it.”
“You’ll be fine, partner. Hey, you wanna come by the house? Got a present for you. Something in case you actually catch the motherfucker.”
Jarsdel was distracted. His wounds had begun singing again. “Thanks, but I’m beat, and my hand’s killing me. I need to take a rest.”
“Yeah, okay. Take it easy.”
“Hey, be on your guard around Cro-Mag, okay? That dumb-ass jock routine’s just that—a routine. There’s something else going on there.”
Morales didn’t answer. Jarsdel could hear the bright, chirping voice of a child somewhere in the background—unintelligible—and his partner’s own baritone response, assuring the boy he was almost done with his call and to start the movie without him.
“Gotta run.” Morales was back on the line. “Promised him we’d watch NeverEnding Story together.”
“Sounds long.”
“It’s an hour-and-a-half, asshole. You didn’t watch that when you were a kid?”
“No, only PBS, and only for an hour on Saturdays.”
After Morales hung up, Jarsdel held the phone in his hand, trying to think of someone to call. His apartment seemed somehow quieter than it ever had before, and the silence bothered him. His dads were out of the question, and he didn’t know anyone on the task force nearly well enough to call just to talk.
He turned on the TV so at least there’d be some conversation going while he got ready for bed.
10
As the commander of the Media Relations Division approached the bank of microphones, Jarsdel noted how exhausted he looked. His gray mustache was neatly trimmed, his sideburns cut sharp above the ear, but his skin was waxy with sweat and fatigue. His uniform no longer fit, straining and puckering, evidence of what guys like Haarmann would’ve called donut tumors.
“Good morning. I’m Captain Sam Schirru, S-A-M, S-C-H-I-R-R-U, department spokesperson. I want to start by introducing our first speaker—we have two speakers here today—and once they’re done, we’ll go ahead and open it up for questions and answers. Our first speaker is Captain Tricia Coryell, Commanding Officer of Robbery-Homicide Division, which is our elite team of investigators here in the Police Administration Building. She oversees all aspects of the division, which includes, uh, in addition to Robbery Special and Homicide Special, the Special Assault Section, Cold Case Homicide Special Section, Gang Homicide Unit, and the, uh, Special Investigation Section.”
Schirru mumbled his way through the last few words of that sentence. The Special Investigation Section was chartered as the LAPD’s tactical surveillance unit; among its duties were tracking some of the city’s most violent habitual offenders. This meant the SIS often had to intervene during a criminal act, and such confrontations frequently ended with a dead bad guy. This had earned the unit a reputation as a kind of death squad, and Schirru didn’t want the dozens of assembled journalists to become distracted by its mention.
“So, uh, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Captain Coryell.” He backed away and crossed his arms. He looked like he was asleep standing up.
A tall, dark-haired woman stepped out from the assembled crowd of officers, detectives, and administrators. She had the build of a professional athlete—imposing and broad shouldered. She spoke without notes, eyes scanning the room as she spoke.
“Thank you, Captain Schirru. And good morning to all of you and thank you for coming. We all know why we’re here today. Our city is being terrorized by a very evil individual we know as the Eastside Creeper. It’s not necessary at this point to get into the details, and I think we’re all familiar with them by now anyway, but we can say with certainty these are some of the most vile and depraved crimes in the history of Los Angeles. Our purpose here today is to introduce to the media and the people of this city the dedicated investigators whose job it is to end the Creeper’s reign of terror and bring him to justice.
“This case covers a wide area of our county, and at one time would have been vulnerable to communications issues between different branches of our police force. What I’d like to emphasize is that this is a one-hundred-percent unified investigation, bringing together detectives from each jurisdiction where the Creeper committed his crimes. There is going to be absolutely no intradepartmental lag time on this, no delay in communication and sharing of evidence between those jurisdictions. The same detectives who originally handled those cases are the same ones who are going to be on this task force.”
Coryell gestured at where Jarsdel was standing. “These experienced investigators are going to work around the clock in pursuit of the Creeper, and will not stop until he is in custody, or in the ground.”
There was some murmuring among the journalists at the ferocity of the captain’s statement, but she ignored it.
“I’m now going to introduce my colleague, Lieutenant Sponholz of Homicide Special.” She stepped away, joining Captain Schirru. Sponholz approached the lectern and adjusted the mic.
“Thank you, Captain Coryell. And good morning, everyone. My name is Lieutenant Edwin Darrel Sponholz, uh, that’s S-P-O-N-H-O-L-Z, and I oversee Homicide Special and therefore I’ll also be overseeing the Creeper Task Force. As Captain Coryell indicated, the team is comprised of experienced detectives, and these have been sourced—uh, drawn, rather, from each affected area. In direct day-to-day command of the team is Detective III Goodwin Rall—Detective Rall, could you raise your hand please?”
Rall did so, and the news cameras swung briefly in his direction.
“Detective Rall is senior in Homicide Special. Under him we have—and if these detectives could also raise their hands as I call their names—Darla Mailander of Northeast Area, Marcus Jarsdel of Hollywood Area, and Ibrahim Al-Amuli of Topanga Area. Together, these men and women are going to show the Eastside Creeper the meaning of swift justice.”
Sponholz cleared his throat. “Excuse me.” He coughed, paused, then regarded his audience with the same sudden gravity he’d displayed to Jarsdel in his office. His eyes once again became dewy with emotion.
“On a personal note, I would just like to say the following: that we now find ourselves in a, uh, unique—a very unique situation.”
J
arsdel flinched at the hoary redundancy, then covered by rubbing at his neck. Hopefully it only looked as if he’d had a muscle twinge.
“And that is, I think,” Sponholz continued, “that we have an opportunity to demonstrate to both the citizens of Los Angeles and to, uh, well to the entire earth, really, the virtues of the American justice system. We have here a man who is utterly without remorse, without mercy, without pity, and therefore not at all deserving of those qualities from the rest of us, from civilized society. And yet—and this is what’s truly remarkable—he will nonetheless be granted every right and protection provided under the law. It is our ability to rise above our revulsion for this man and adhere to our principles that sets us apart as a nation. And so I wanted you all to know that despite the hateful, utterly despicable nature of these crimes, we remain strong, we remain united. If this most foul excuse for a human, one whose offenses defy imagination, is guaranteed due process, then so are we all.”
Jarsdel was struggling with Sponholz’s speech. The “very unique” line bothered him of course, but so did the syntax in that bit about the “citizens of Los Angeles” and of the “entire earth.” So essentially Sponholz had just said “citizens of earth,” which sounded like something out of an Atomic Age serial. Beyond Jarsdel’s syntactic concerns, however, he thought the speech exceeded the limits of the lieutenant’s job description. Why was he editorializing? The police enforced the law, they didn’t comment on it.
But when Jarsdel glanced at Captain Coryell, she seemed enthralled, offering quick little nods of support as Sponholz went on.
“And in case he’s watching, there’s something I’d like him to know.” Sponholz pointed an accusing finger, as if the Creeper were standing right in front of him. “You will not get away with this. You will be caught. There is no place you can go where we won’t follow you, no cave deep enough or dark enough. You will answer for your crimes.”
He gave a long, dramatic pause. No one ever applauded at press conferences; they weren’t supposed to be political rallies. All the same, Sponholz’s speechifying earned him a few scattered claps. These were echoed around the room until even the most grudging brought their palms together at least once, just to show they were on the side of truth and justice.
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