Jarsdel tried to think of another explanation for why she might have done that. Maybe she’d seen something threatening, dialed the number, then for some reason felt safe enough to cancel the call. Perhaps her killer was someone she knew, someone she trusted to get close to her.
“Still not convinced?” said Morales. “Try this one. We got into her laptop and checked out her browser history. Five or six wiki articles on human anatomy. What’s your verdict? Sudden fascination with medicine?”
Jarsdel considered that, too. His partner—ex-partner—was right; it didn’t look good. But if someone were trying to set her up, that would be a great way to dress the scene.
“I know what you’re doing,” said Morales. “You always make that face when you’re trying to work out a puzzle. Only thing, this puzzle’s already been solved. You’re in denial.”
“I’m not in denial,” said Jarsdel. “But congratulations on your new job as a psychoanalyst.”
“You realize if this were any case but this one, you wouldn’t be jumping through so many hoops trying to pitch some half-assed alternate theory. Totality of the circumstances, man. Work it through, just like we used to do over lunch.”
Jarsdel handed the papers back to Morales, who put them back into his coat pocket. “Not interested. Got lots to do.”
“That’s weak sauce, Tully, and you know it.”
Jarsdel looked at him, his gaze cold.
“Somethin’ you wanna say?” asked Morales.
“I’m fine,” said Jarsdel. “Just curious how much Haarmann had to do with your theory.”
“Fucking hell, dude. It’s not a theory. It’s overwhelming physical evidence. Along with common sense. Tell you what—define for me exactly what you think. Go ahead, I’m asking you to define it. Explain what’s bouncing around in your head, what conclusion you’ve come to.”
“I think that’s the point, Oscar. I’m saying I don’t see how it benefits anyone to rush to a conclusion. We need to take our time, look at this from every possible angle. And the fact that you’re not willing to do that—well, frankly that gives me the creeps a little bit. I’m trying to figure out what you gain from making this go away.”
“Ohhh,” said Morales, drawing out the syllable in a tone of mock epiphany. “So wait a sec, ’cause I just need to run through this to make sure I really got it. This is all a big conspiracy against your girlfriend. Someone killed her and left a double-fake-out staged crime scene, something that would’ve taken a team of veteran FBI agents to set up convincingly. And we know the truth, but we’re gonna sweep it under the rug anyway.
“Oh, and everyone’s in on it—Ipgreve, Gavin, Haarmann, and me, too, of course—and we’re all doing it why? For what reason? Because we know how much it means to you? Or maybe laziness—just not interested in finding the mastermind who’s really behind this? Or, hang on, what if we’re part of the murder itself—have you thought about that? It would be negligent not to consider it, right?”
Jarsdel took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I’m just urging thoroughness.”
“No, dude, you’re not. You’re urging insanity. Spending too much time on the Creeper, you want my opinion.”
“If we’re expressing opinions,” said Jarsdel, “I think you’re a fool for trusting Haarmann. He’s deeply sick. Dangerous. Guy like that’s never gonna have your back. Look what he did to me basically just because I insulted him.”
Morales shook his head. “You got no proof about that. Coulda been anyone. Didn’t we already have this conversation?”
“I’m sorry, I thought you were a fan of common sense. It’s so obvious he did it. He wants me to know it was him. All those winks and carefully engineered little looks he gives me. So I guess denial’s contagious.”
Morales looked like he was about to say something, but Jarsdel plowed ahead. “And I know why you like him so much. He’s exactly the kind of partner you’ve always wanted. A backslapping, grunting buffoon who can actually tell you down to the ounce how much he can bench.”
Morales laughed. “That what this is about? You jealous? I swear, you can be such a fussy little bitch. You’re working a task force in Homicide Special. Most guys would give their left nut to be where you are.”
“What about when it’s over, Oscar? Gonna have a job waiting for me when I get back? Sturdivant’s retiring. They’ll need someone experienced to take the reins, and Gavin’s got seniority. If HH2 had a reason for being, it’s been played out.”
“We clear cases,” said Morales.
“We clear cases,” Jarsdel agreed. “But apparently so do you and Haarmann. So what do they need guys like me for?”
“You’re smart. In that Rain Man way you got.”
“Overrated. Most of our cases are solved by procedure and persistence. In other words, good police work. They’re a classic for a reason, as you’d say. No, I think Gavin wants to fold the squad and move on. He’ll probably hang on to you and Haarmann, but Barnhardt and I are gonna get shown the door. Rutenberg’s never been one of Gavin’s favorites, either, so I’m betting he’ll get kicked back to Olympic. Maybe RHD, if Sponholz steps down and they boost Rall to the top spot.”
“You’re paranoid,” said Morales. “They can’t demote you for no reason. Even if that’s what Gavin wants.”
“They don’t have to. If the Creeper Task Force is a loser, then so am I by association. I’ll keep my badge, but they’ll give me freeway therapy to the remotest end of Valley Bureau. Or maybe San Pedro.”
Morales shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. Not your fault. There’s something to be said for going through the ranks, putting in your time like everyone else. Your partner was right about that. I don’t have my street degree.”
“Gotta get out of this dumb-ass chair,” Morales said, pushing himself up. As always, his features twisted in pain when his knees took his weight. “I said what I came to say. You can do what you want with it. All this other stuff, I don’t know.”
“Oscar,” said Jarsdel.
Morales paused on his way to the door. “What?”
“What’s your gut tell you? Did Varma really do this to herself?”
“I thought I was one of the bad guys. Why you asking me?”
“Please.”
Morales sighed. “Yeah, Tully. She did it. The only prints on that knife were hers. Gripping the handle like this.” He demonstrated, holding out a fist. “Like an ice cream cone.” He turned his hand so that if it had been holding a blade, it would’ve been pointed at his chest. “Good control, see?” He struck himself one, two, three times.
Jarsdel nodded.
“We think her original plan was to ditch the knife after she called 911. There were lots of places she could’ve done it. Trash chute, drain. Shit, even her own car, which we never woulda searched if she’d lived. Probably picked the knife up at a 99-cent store, paid cash. It’s a piece of shit, and no one would’ve remembered it. Anonymous as you can get.”
Jarsdel thought it over. “Would you have a problem with me going to take a look at her apartment?”
“Jesus, you still don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that. Guess I just want some closure. See if there’s anything she left for me to find.”
“You guys were really a thing? I was just giving you shit with that ‘girlfriend’ stuff.”
“I don’t know what we were. But I can’t leave it like this. I mean, you didn’t see her a few days ago. She was excited, ebullient even. She had all these plans for how she was going to transform this city. More than anyone else I’ve met, she had answers. Real answers.”
Morales shrugged. “You wanna go, it’s fine. We’re releasing the apartment to her dad and brother tomorrow, so if you want to go, go tonight. Have the manager let you in.”
“Thanks, Oscar.”
�
�Yeah.” He opened the door, then remembered something. “You never came by the house.”
“What?”
“Told you I had something for you. ’Case you caught the Creeper.” Morales reached into his waistband and brought out a black leather holster. Sticking out of it was the polished wood handle of a revolver. Morales pulled it free and cracked the cylinder.
“Smith & Wesson Bodyguard, 649. Shrouded hammer, so it’s double-action only, but you won’t get it snagged on your clothes. This one’s chambered for .357 rounds—pretty much stop anything. You know me, I like a little extra kick. The loads are all wadcutters.”
Jarsdel hadn’t used that kind of ammunition since he was in the academy. Wadcutters were perfectly flat at their tips, not tapered like most bullets, and spanned the entire diameter of the cartridge. They were mostly used in target shooting, since they left perfect, clean holes in the paper instead of rips and tears. Beyond about fifty yards, their accuracy dropped off, but at close range they were deadly.
Morales snapped the cylinder closed, replaced the revolver in the holster, and handed it to Jarsdel. “That was reserved for Bell Gardens Butcher, if it came down to it. Work just as well for the Eastside Creeper.”
Jarsdel took the weapon. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the holster was an ankle rig.
Morales nodded. “Yeah, can’t use that so well anymore. I want the gun back when you close the case. Holster you can keep.”
“Thanks, Oscar.”
Morales left, closing the door behind him. There was a finality in the sound of it shutting, as of a coffin lid. The silence was oppressive, stifling.
Morales was right, Jarsdel knew. Totality of the circumstances. Varma had tried to set up her own assault. Anything else he found out about her from now on would only confuse things, make it harder to let go.
Still, he needed to see, needed to know.
The remaining afternoon light was stained red from the smoke, deepening the shadows in his apartment and splashing the walls with hues of sickness and rot. He looked at the portrait of Lady Mary, wanting to shake the pall of unease that had settled around him. But the light was wrong, and the portrait didn’t take it well. An errant brushstroke, perhaps. Something. But there was a blemish now near her lip, a spot of shading that give the impression of a fold in the skin—a harelip or other deformity. It turned the otherwise sweet, mischievous smile, one born of culture and wit, into a sneer.
Alarmed, Jarsdel approached the painting. The image sharpened as he drew closer, the shadow or blemish or whatever it was tucking itself back into the thousands of other strokes marking the canvas.
But not completely. There was still a hint of it, an odd little pinch or wrinkle in her flesh.
He turned on the hallway light. It was an LED, powerful, bright, and unpleasant. He usually only put it on when he was doing laundry and needed to check for stains.
The mark was still there.
He turned the dimmer all the way up, his eyes watering from the harsh white glare.
Lady Mary’s once loving, even sensual features had been corrupted by that single swipe of paint. Jarsdel moved around the painting, trying to see it from different angles, and finally concluded the issue was one of texture. There was a tiny, thin little ridge of paint that hadn’t been smoothed. If it caught the light, it cast a shadow that, once seen, was impossible to disregard.
He held up a hand, blocking the offending area from view. That was a little better. The softness returned to her features, her eyes once again filled with a sly humor. He took his hand away and saw a succubus, a resentful, hungry thing that wished him pain and would enjoy delivering it.
Jarsdel hit the switch, and the hall fell back into the muddy light of gloaming. The thing that used to be Lady Mary bored her gaze into him.
A creak. So soft, almost undetectable. Easily dismissed.
But he had heard it. There was no fooling him. The first tentative step, perhaps, of someone descending the stairs.
He turned to look at them. They were just off the hallway, curling up into darkness. There wasn’t much on the second floor—a guest room he used as an office, a linen closet, and a bathroom. Some days he never went up there at all. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d checked those rooms. Could he have really been so careless? So stupid?
He listened, staring at the bottom of the stairway. Nothing.
Jarsdel pulled the Bodyguard free, tossing the holster on the kitchen counter. He flicked on the hall light again. Searing, cleansing brightness.
He thought he could feel someone’s eyes on him and, when he glanced to his right, found himself face-to-face with Lady Mary again. The blemish was now a canyon, impossible to miss—how could he have not seen it before? Her expression manic, ravenous. Jarsdel set down the gun. For this he needed a knife, and there was one right there in the drying rack. He’d thrust it into the painting, working the blade up and down the canvas until nothing remained but ribbons.
No.
He exhaled, scooped his car keys off the kitchen counter, and stepped outside.
* * *
Jarsdel got off at the top floor and followed the apartment numbers to 619. He would’ve found it anyway—bright-yellow police tape crisscrossed the frame, and a large red sticker had been affixed to both the door and the jamb:
SECURITY SEAL
DO NOT TAMPER
The date had been handwritten on a line beneath, as had the initials of the lead investigator—O.M.—Oscar Morales.
Jarsdel used the key given him by the manager to first slice the seal, then turn the lock. The door swung open.
He didn’t know whether or not it was purely his imagination, but Jarsdel had been in enough homes and apartments and trailers belonging to the dead that he’d come to believe there was a palpable difference to them, a unique characteristic that set them apart. They were unnaturally quiet, yes, but it was more than that. The air inside those places felt as dead as their owners, stagnant and beginning to sour.
Varma’s apartment was a wreck. Stacks of books and magazines lined the walls of the entryway, and loose papers lay on every flat surface. Several large cardboard boxes were grouped in the center of the living room. The flaps were open, and when Jarsdel approached, he saw that most were nearly full.
Had Varma been moving? If so, to where? Out of LA? Or was this simply how she lived?
Jarsdel surveyed the room, and his skin popped with gooseflesh. An antique carousel horse stood in the corner, the paint so faded that its eyes appeared white. They were so odd and expressionless, particularly compared with the rest of the carved features. The jaw, the open, panting mouth, the great teeth, all told the story of a vigorous animal, full of spirit, pushed to its absolute limit, but the eyes were cold and dead. The juxtaposition bothered him.
To his left, Jarsdel was surprised to see another print of the strange masterwork from Varma’s office. The three men—sated, passed-out, or dead, he wasn’t sure—along with the running egg and the animated cooked pig and that mysterious figure spooning its way through a cloud of whipped cream or mashed potatoes. A weight-loss ad, circa mid-1500s, perhaps.
Jarsdel stepped around the boxes, then encountered their smaller siblings. One of these, an old Nike shoebox, overflowed with what was probably five solid pounds of Mardi Gras beads. He was about to leave and see what he could find in the bedroom when he noticed Varma’s purse. Her smaller, everyday clutch was the one found at the scene; this was her large business purse—more like a briefcase or a messenger bag, thick black leather and heavy straps. It hung on the back of a dining room chair. The matching table, he saw, was being used as her desk and held mounds of paperwork from one end to the other.
He picked his way across the room, lifted the purse off the chair, and set it down on the floor. He crouched down and began sifting through it. Her day planner was gone, probably sti
ll in evidence, and what remained was of little interest. A tube of Varma’s cherry-red lipstick, a tin of Altoids, a compact and face powder, a small hairbrush, loose change, some wadded-up tissues.
His phone vibrated. He checked the display and saw it was Rall. Jarsdel wasn’t in the mood, but he answered anyway.
“Yeah, it’s Jarsdel.”
“Where you at?” Rall sounded tired.
“Nowhere.”
“I want everyone to come in early tomorrow. Be there by six.”
“What? Why?”
“Because this is some bullshit,” said Rall. “There’s no reason we can’t catch him, so we’re gonna catch him. And we’re gonna make sacrifices so it can be done with.”
“Great. That everything?”
No answer. Jarsdel looked down at his phone and saw the detective had already hung up. He touched the icon for his email, and suddenly a bright magenta stain began forming at the top of his display. Startled, he pressed the button for his home screen. It appeared, but the strange smear of color didn’t go away.
He picked up the phone, shook it, squinted at the screen. Some of the stain seemed to dissipate, but only a little.
“Piece of absolute shit,” Jarsdel murmured. He turned the phone over and examined the case, hoping for some explanation of the color show, but there was nothing he could see that appeared suspicious. Puzzled, he set the phone down again, thinking perhaps it had to do with the angle. Maybe there was a leak in the liquid crystal or something—he had no idea how the things worked—and maybe it was made worse when it lay flat.
This time the effect was immediate. At least three-quarters of the screen became an unreadable purple soup. Alarmed, Jarsdel snatched up the phone. He raked his fingers over the carpet, prodding into the soft pile for the culprit, though he wasn’t at all sure what it could be.
Nothing.
He went back to his phone, massaging the screen, urging the picture to return. When that didn’t work, he tried prying open the case, digging his fingernails into the seam. Maybe it was a moisture issue. Some water had seeped in somehow and was monkeying with the electronics.
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