Gone ,but not forgotten

by Philip Margolin

  As she dressed, Nancy tried to find one concrete fact that she could present to the other detectives. One piece of evidence that linked Peter to the crimes. She came up dry. For the moment, she'd have to keep her feelings to herself. Frank Grimsbo ran a forearm across his forehead, staining the sleeve of his madras jacket with sweat. He was wearing a short-sleeve, white shirt and brown polyester pants, and had jerked his paisley print tie to half mast after unbuttoning his top button. The heat was killing him, and all he could think about was cold beer.

  Herbert Solomon answered the door on the third ring. Wearily, Grimsbo held up his shield and identified himself "This is about the Lakes, right?" asked Solomon, a stocky man of medium height who sported a well groomed beard and was dressed in loose green-and-red checked Bermuda shorts and a yellow T-shirt.

  "That's right, Mr. Solomon. My partner and I are canvassing the neighborhood."

  "I already spoke to a policeman on the evening it happened."

  "I know, sir. I'm a detective on the special task force that's investigating all of the killings, and I wanted to go into a little more detail with you."

  "Have there been other murders? I thought these women just disappeared."

  "That's right, but we're assuming the worst."

  "Come on in out of the heat. Can I get you a beer, or can't you drink on duty?"

  Grimsbo grinned. "A beer would be great."

  "Wait in there and I'll grab one for you," Solomon said, pointing to a small front room. Grimsbo pulled his shirt away from his body as he walked toward the den.

  Thank God they were canvassing in The Meadows, where everyone had air-conditioning.

  "I hope this is cold enough for you," Solomon said, handing Grimsbo a chilled Budweiser. Grimsbo placed the cold bottle against his forehead and closed his eyes.

  Then he took a sip.

  "Boy, that hits the spot. I wish they could think up a way to air-condition the outside."

  Solomon laughed.

  "You an accountant?"

  "A c.p.a."

  "I figured," Grimsbo said, pointing his beer at two large bookcases filled with books about tax and accounting. A desk stood in front of the only window in the room.

  A computer and printer sat in the center of the desk next to a phone.

  The window looked out at Sparrow Lane across a wide front lawn.

  "Well," Grimsbo said, after taking another swig from the bottle, "let me ask you a few questions and get out of your hair. Were you around the night Mrs. Lake and her daughter were murdered?"

  Solomon stopped smiling and nodded. "Poor bastard."

  "You know Peter Lake?"

  "Sure. Neighbors and — all. We have a home-owners committee in The Meadows. Pete and I were on it. We played doubles together in the tennis tournament. Marge that's my wife-she and Sandy were good friends."

  "Is your wife home?"

  "She's at the club, playing golf I didn't feel like it in this heat."

  Grimsbo put down the beer and took a pad and pen out of his inside jacket pocket.

  "About what time did you get home on the night it happened?"

  "it had to be about six."

  "Did you see anything unusual that night?"

  "Not a thing. I was in the dining room until we finished dinner. The dining room looks out into the back yard. Then I was in the living room for a few minutes. It's in the back of the house too. After that I was in here working on the computer with the blinds drawn."

  "Oh.", Grimsbo said, reluctantly ready to wrap up the interview and trudge back out into the heat.

  "One thing I forgot about when the officer talked to me the night of the murder. There was so much excitement and Marge was hysterical. I did see Pete come home."

  "Oh, yeah? When was that?"

  "I can get pretty close there. The Yankees played a day game and I caught the score on headline Sports." CNN runs the sports scores twenty after and ten to the hour. I went into the den right — after the score, so figure seven twenty-two or so. I saw Pete's Ferrari when I closed the blinds."

  "He was heading home?"

  "Right."

  "And you're certain about the time."

  "Twenty — after the hour, every hour. So it had to be about then, give or take a minute."

  "Did you notice a florist's truck at any time that night, near The Meadows or in it?"

  Solomon thought for a second. "There was a TV repairman at the Osgoods'.

  That's the only unusual vehicle I saw."

  Grimsbo levered himself out of his seat and extended his hand. "Thanks for the beer."

  Wayne Turner was leaning against the car, looking so cool in his tan suit that it pissed Grimsbo off.

  "Any luck?" Turner asked, as he pushed off the car.

  "Nada. Oh, Solomon, the last guy I talked to, saw Lake driving home past his house about seven-twenty.

  Other than that, I don't have a thing that wasn't in the uniforms' reports."

  "I struck out too, but I'm not surprised. You get a development like The Meadows, you get houses with land. They're not leaning over each other. less chance anyone will see what's going on at the neighbor's. And with heat like this, everyone's either inside with the air-conditioning on or out at their country club."

  "So what do we do now?"

  "Head back in."

  "You get a hit on a florist truck?" Grimsbo asked, when he had the car started.

  "There was a cable TV repairman at the Osgoods', but no florist."

  "Yeah, I got the TV guy too. What do you think of Waters?"

  "I don't think anything, Frank. You seen him?"

  Grimsbo shook his head.

  "Our killer's got to be high IQ, right? Waters is a zero. Skinny, pimple-faced kid. He's got this little wisp of a beard. If he's not retarded, he's not far from it.

  Dropped out of school in the tenth grade. He was eighteen. Worked as a gas station attendant and a box boy at Safeway. He lost that job when he was arrested for jacking off outside the window of a sixteen-year-old neighbor girl. The girl's father beat the crap out of him."

  "He sounds pretty pathetic," Grimsbo observed.

  "The guy's got no life. He lives with his mother.

  She's in her late sixties and in poor health. I followed him for a few days. He's a robot. Every day it's the same routine. He leaves work and walks to the One Way Inn, this bar that's halfway to his house. Orders two beers, nurses 'em, doesn't say a word to anyone but the bartender.

  Forty-five minutes after he goes in, he leaves, walks straight home and spends the evening watching TV with his mother. I talked to his boss and his neighbors. If he's got any friends, no one knows who they are. He's held this delivery boy job with Evergreen Florists longer than any of his other jobs."

  "You writing him off?"

  "He's a weeny-waver. A little twisted, sure, but I don't make him for our killer. He's not smart enough to be our boy. We don't have anything with Waters."

  "We don't have anything, period."

  Glen Michaels walked into the task force office just as Grimsbo and Turner were finishing the reports on their interviews in The Meadows.

  "Whatcha got?" Grimsbo asked. He had shucked his jacket and parked himself next to a small fan.

  "Nothing at all," Michaels said. "It's like the guy was never there. I just finished all the lab work. Every print matches up to the victims, Lake or one of the neighbors.

  There's nothing to do a DNA test on. No unusual hairs, no fibers, no semen. This is one smart cookie, gentlemen."

  "You think he knows police procedure?" Turner asked.

  "I have to believe it. I've never seen so many clean crime scenes."

  "Anyway," Michaels said, heading for the door, "I'm out of here. This heat is boiling my blood."

  Turner turned to Grimsbo. "This perp is starting to piss me off.

  Nobody's that good. He leaves no prints, no hairs, no one sees him.

  Christ, we've got a development full of people and no one reports an
unusual occurrence.

  No strangers lurking around, not a single odd car. How does he get in and out?"

  Grimsbo didn't answer. He was frowning. He levered himself out of his chair and walked over to the cabinet where they kept the master file on the case.

  "What's up?" Turner asked.

  "just something… Yeah, here it is."

  Grimsbo pulled a report out of the file and showed it to Turner. It was the one-page report of the dispatcher who had taken the 911 call from Peter Lake.

  "You see it?" Grimsbo asked.

  Turner read the report a few times and shook his head.

  "The time," Grimsbo said. "Lake called in the 911 at eight-fifteen."

  "Yeah? so?"

  "Solomon said he saw Lake driving by at seven-twenty. He was certain he'd just heard the sports scores.

  CNN gives them at twenty after."

  "And the bodies were in the hall," Turner said, suddenly catching on.

  "How long does it take to park the car, open the door? Let's give Lake the benefit of the doubt and assume Solomon is a little off. He's still gonna be inside by seven-thirty."

  "Shit," Turner said softly.

  "Am I right, Wayne?" Grimsbo asked.

  "I don't know, Frank. If it was your wife and kid I mean, you'd be in shock."

  "Sure, the guy's knocked out. He said he sat down on the stairs for a while. You know, gathering himself. But for forty-five minutes?

  Something doesn't wash. I think he spent the time cleaning up the crime scene."

  "What's the motive? Jesus, Frank, you saw her face.

  Why would he do that to his own wife?"

  "You know why. She knew something, she found something, and she made the mistake of telling Lake.

  Think about it, Wayne. If Lake killed them it would explain the absence of clues at the crime scene. There wouldn't be any strange cars in the neighborhood or prints that didn't match the Lakes or the neighbors.

  "I don't know."

  "Yes you do. He killed that little girl. His own little girl."

  "Christ, Frank, Lake's a successful lawyer. His wife was beautiful."

  "You heard Klien. The guy we're looking for is a monster, but no one's gonna see that. He's smooth, handsome, the type of guy these women would let in their house without a second thought. it could be a successful lawyer with a beautiful wife. It could be anyone who isn't wired right and is working in some psycho world of his own where this all makes sense."

  Turner paced around the room while Grimsbo waited (quietly. Finally Turner sat down and picked up a picture of Melody Lake.

  "We aren't going to do anything stupid, Frank. If Lake is our killer, he is one devious motherfucker. one hint that we're on to him and he'll figure a way to cover this up."

  "so, what's the next step? We can't bring him in and sweat him and we know there's nothing connecting Lake to the other crime scenes."

  "These women weren't picked at random. If he's the killer, they've — all got to be connected to Lake somehow.

  We have to reinterview the husbands, go back over the reports and recheck our lists with Lake in mind. If we're right, there's going to be something there."

  The two men sat silently for a moment, figuring the angles.

  "None of this goes in a report," Turner said. "Lake could stumble across it when he's here."

  "Right," Grimsbo answered. "I'd better take Solomon's interview with me."

  "When do we tell Nancy and the chief?"

  "When we have something solid. Lake's very smart and he's got political connections. If he's the one, I don't want him beating this, I want him nailed."

  Nancy Gordon was deep in a dreamless sleep when the phone rang. She jerked up in bed, flailing for a moment, before she realized what was happening. The phone rang again before she found it in the dark.

  "Detective Gordon?" the man on the phone asked.

  "Speaking," Nancy said, as she tried to orient herself.

  "This is Jeff Spears. I'm a patrolman. Fifteen minutes ago we received a complaint about a man sitting in a car on the corner of Bethesda and Champagne. Seems he's been parked there for three successive nights. One of the neighbors got worried.

  "Anyway, Officer Demuniz and I talked to the guy. He identified himself as Peter Lake. He claims he's working on the task force that's looking into the murders of those women. He gave me your name."

  "What time is it?" Nancy asked. The last thing she wanted to do was turn on the light and scorch her eyeballs.

  "One-thirty. Sorry about waking you," Spears said apologetically.

  "No, that's okay," she answered as she located the digital clock and confirmed the time. "Is Lake there?"

  "Right beside me."

  Nancy took a deep breath. "Put him on."

  Nancy heard Spears talking to someone. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  "Nancy?" Lake asked.

  "What's going on?"

  "Do you want me to explain with the officer standing here?"

  "What I want is to go back to bed. Now, what's this about you sitting in a parked car in the middle of the night for three straight nights?"

  "It's Waters. I was staking out his house."

  "Oh, fuck. I don't believe this. You were staking him out? Like some goddamn movie? Peter, I want you at Chang's in twenty minutes."

  "But "Twenty minutes. This is too stupid for words. And put Spears back on."

  Nancy heard Lake calling to the officer. She closed her eyes and turned on the bedside lamp. Then she raised her lids slowly. The light burned and her eyes watered.

  "Detective Gordon?"

  "Yeah. Look, Spears, he's okay. He is working on the task force. But that was heads-up work," she added, since he sounded young and eager and the compliment would mean something.

  "It sounded suspicious. And, with the murders… "No, you did the right thing. But I don't want you to mention this to anyone. We don't want what we're doing getting around."

  "No problem."

  "Thanks for calling."

  Nancy hung up. She felt awful, but she had to find out What Lake was up to.

  Lake was waiting for her in a booth when Nancy arrived at Chang's. The little cafe stayed open all night for cops, truckers and an occasional college student. It was a safe place to meet. There was a cup of coffee in front of Lake.

  Nancy told the waitress to make it two.

  "Why don't you clue me in on what you thought you were doing, Peter,"

  Nancy said when the waitress left.

  "I'm sorry if I was out of line. But I'm certain Waters is the killer.

  I've been tailing him for three days. Believe me, I did a great job. He has no idea he was followed."

  "Peter, this isn't how things are done. You don't go running off with some half-baked idea you picked up from "Magnum, P. I." The task force is a team. You have to run your ideas by everyone before you make a move.

  "More important, you don't know the first thing about surveillance. look how easily you were spotted by the neighbor. If Waters saw you, and it spooked him, he might go to ground and we'd lose him forever. And, if he is the killer, you could have been in danger. Whoever killed your wife and daughter has no conscience and he has no compunction about taking a human life. Remember that."

  "I guess I was foolish."

  "There's no 'guess' about it."

  "You're right. I apologize. I never thought about blowing the case or the danger. All I thought about was…"

  Lake paused and looked down at the table.

  "I know you want him, Peter. We — all do. But if you don't do this right, you'll ruin the case." Lake nodded thoughtfully. "You've gone out of your way to help me, Nancy, and I appreciate it. I'm finally starting to cope with losing Sandy and Melody and you're one of the reasons." Lake smiled at her. Nancy did not return the smile.

  She watched Lake carefully.

  "I've decided to go back to work. This little incident tonight has convi
nced me I'm not very valuable to the investigation. I thought I could really help, but that was ego and desperation. I'm not a cop and I was crazy to think I could do more than you're doing."."

  "Good sign.

  I'm glad to hear you say that. It's a healthy "That doesn't mean I'm going to abandon the case altogether. I'd like copies of all the police reports sent to my office. I still might spot something you miss or offer a different perspective. But I'll stop haunting the station house."

  "I can have the reports sent, if O'Malley says it's okay. But you'll have to keep them strictly to yourself.

  Not even your associates should see them."

  "Of course. You know, you've really taken good care of me," Lake said, smiling again. "Do you think we could have dinner sometime? just get together? Nothing to do with the case."

  "We'll see," she said uneasily.

  Lake checked his watch. "Hey, we'd better get going. We're going to be dead tired in the morning. I'm paying this time, no arguments."

  Nancy slid out of the booth and said good-bye. It was late and she'd had little sleep, but she was wide awake. There was no question about it now.

  With his wife dead less than three weeks, Peter Lake was coming on to her. And that wasn't the only thing bothering her. Nancy wanted to know the real reason Peter Lake was tailing Henry Waters.

  "Dr. Escalante," Wayne Turner said to a heavy-set, dark complected man with the sad eyes and weary air of someone who has given up hope, "I'm one of the detectives working on your wife's disappearance."

  "Is Gloria dead?" Escalante asked, expecting the worst.

  They were sitting in the doctor's office at the Wayside Clinic, a modern, two-story building located at the far end of the Wayside Mall.

  Escalante was one of several doctors, physical therapists and health care specialists who made up the staff of the clinic. His specialty was cardiology and he had privileges at Hunter's Point Hospital. Everyone spoke highly of Dr. Escalante's skills. They also thought he was one hell of a nice guy who was unfailingly cheerful. Or, at least, he had been until a month and a half ago, when be came home to his Tudor-style house in West Hunter's Point and found a note and a black rose.

  "I'm afraid we have no more information about your wife. We assume she's alive, until we learn otherwise."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "I have a few questions that may help us with the case."