"Caroline is taking care of the house until we clear probate," Mace explained to Munch, as they pulled up the narrow street.
"How many bedrooms?" she asked.
"Two."
"What are you going to do after it clears probate?" Munch asked.
"'We'll put it on the market."
"You should hold on to it," Munch said. "You got a nice little fenced-in yard, parking, you're close to the ocean. Plus the property values have really been going up in this area."
He smiled at her. "Property values?"
"Yeah," she said. "There's like this big boom going on. Even with the high interest rates. You wouldn't believe what they want for a third of a lot in Ghost Town. We looked at one place. They were asking one hundred and thirty thousand, and it wasn't even safe there."
"Maybe this is a good time to sell," he said. "Before everyone comes to their senses."
"And then what?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Are you going to move back to your train car?"
"Probably. I've been there for the last couple of months. It's been all right."
"Doesn't it seem cramped after living in a house?"
"No," he said, and opened the car door. He didn't tell her that instead of cramped, the Bella Donna felt remarkably empty. But none of that made any difference. Letting Caroline keep the house was the obvious choice. She had a small vegetable garden that she'd begun when they moved in with Digger back in December. She was comfortable there, with a bathtub she could soak in, a real kitchen, and her own washer and dryer. There was that, but more importantly, the ghosts of the place didn't haunt her. For him, painful memories lurked around every corner. First his mother, then his father, and finally his marriage. '
"There· they are," Munch said, pointing to two figures standing by the edge of the canal. She jumped out of the car, called out to them, then headed their way.
Caroline and Asia turned at the same time. Each held chunks of white bread in her hand. A horde of ducks, gulls, and small black birds with yellow eyes surrounded them. Caroline's laugh carried above the clamor of the flock.
"Hey, Mom," Asia yelled. "Come on over here. We're feeding the birds."
"I can see that," Munch said.
Mace followed her to the water's edge. Caroline turned to him. "Hi," she said. "Watch where you step."
Seeing Caroline at play with the little girl filled him with warmth and pain. Was this a glimpse of some sort of alternate life? Should this child have been their own? Would that satisfy in Caroline the emotional connection she claimed to need—a need he failed to meet? Just saying "I love you" was not enough, she said. Nor were flowers, a monthly paycheck, or a diamond ring, he also discovered. What the fuck it would take, he hadn't the energy left to figure out. Hadn't he said he was sorry? "Where's Derek?" he asked. The question surprised even him. Derek's location was close to the bottom of his list of priorities. Caroline seemed unfazed by his inquiry.
"He needed to go home and take care of his dog," Caroline said. "I told him that we'd be fine without him."
"Good call," Munch said.
Caroline opened her arms to Munch, and said, "How have you been?"
Munch stepped forward and returned the hug, saying, "Really great "
Mace felt his face twitch with the push-pull of longing and sorrow. He folded his lips inside his mouth to stop their quiver and felt a tug on his hand. He looked down to see Asia holding out a piece of bread to him. "Watch out for the big white one over there," she said. "He's a hog."
"Maybe that's how he got so big," Mace said. When he looked up, Caroline was smiling at him. "Did you meet my babies?" he asked Asia.
"Your babies?" she asked, wide-eyed, drawing out the last word.
"Sammy and Nicky. "
"Oh. Oh," Asia said, hopping up and down. "Mom, they got dogs. Two of them. The black one is Samantha. She kisses all the time. And if you throw a ball for Nicky, she brings it back to you." '
"You'll have to show me that," Munch said. Asia took her hand. "They're in the house. C'mon."
"You two go ahead," Mace said. "We'll be right in."
He waited until Munch and Asia reached the gate and were out of earshot. "Thanks," he said to Caroline.
"What's going on?" she asked. "Is Munch in some kind of trouble again?"
"I didn't want to take any chances? He filled her in on his case, how the evidence indicated that Munch had inadvertently crossed the path of the Band-Aid Killer. When he told Caroline about the missing registration, she shivered.
"Then they can't go back home until this is resolved," she said. "What about Asia's father? Can he help out?"
"Apparently he's dead. I'm sure there's a whole lot more to that story that she's not telling me."
"Let them stay here," Caroline said. "Maybe I can pry some information out of Munch." Her eyes softened, and he saw a hint of the old tenderness there. "How about you? Can you stay for dinner?"
He wanted more than anything to say yes, to end the drought between them. But he still needed to go back over to the apartment in Hollywood, and he still hadn't heard what Steve Brown had to tell him. "How about I bring back dessert?" he said. "I'll pick up a pie at Polly's."
"Try not to be too late," she said.
Kiss her you idiot. Tell her you want to change, that you have already. Tell her how sometimes you look at the long days and years ahead without her and you're gripped with such terrible emptiness that you can't believe you he still drawing breath.
"Lock everything up," he said. Gutless, totally gutless, St. John.
"We'll be okay We've got the dogs to protect us."
"Oh, right, as long as one of the bad guys doesn't come armed with a tennis ball." He made his mouth smile and felt the rest of his body twitch in confusion as his emotions fought for control of his facial muscles and glands. His mind, always his strongest suit, maintained control.
"I think if someone was really threatening us, they'd do something," she said.
"You like to think the best of everyone," he said, and instantly regretted his words when the smile left her face. Great, he'd done it again, brought up the ghost of one of their arguments. The one where he always accused her of being too liberal. Maybe she was right about the counseling. He'd tell her that when he returned, when the time was right. "Apple all right with you?"
"Whatever looks good to you," she said.
He reached over and gave her arm a squeeze, a tight smile on his face. He wanted to say something else, but couldn't come up with anything, so he just nodded. She stood on the curb and watched him get into his car. He raised his hand once more in farewell and started the engine. It wasn't until he was all the way to the stop sign at the end of the block when it came to him. "You look good to me," he said out loud. How hard was that?
On the way to Hollywood he slammed the steering wheel with his open palm. "Dickhead," he said, addressing himself in the rearview mirror. "Moron." The only thing that comforted him was that at least he had them all together and safe under the same roof. At least he'd done that right.
CHAPTER 18
Mace peeled back the barricade tape at the Hollywood apartment and let himself in with the victim's keys. He went directly to the couch, the one Munch had identified as a hide-a-bed. The SID crew had spent little time in the living room; their main focus had been on the sites where the bodies were discovered, and rightfully so. Everybody's impression had been that the living room was hardly ever used. The only object the techs had dusted for prints was the telephone. He reached down to pull off the couch cushions and stopped. They were now all pointed out the right way.
He lifted the cushions up one at a time and placed them across the room, keeping them in exact order. Then he lifted open the mattress mechanism. The mattress pad was missing. The rest of the hide-a-bed had a faint ammonia odor. He was certain now that he had found the scene of the women's slaughter. The old mattress must have soaked up the blood, making cleanup a simple matter
of coming back later and removing the pad and with it such trace evidence as pubic hair and semen. He should have posted guards at the crime scene. But it was too late for that now. The damage had been done. He returned everything as he'd found it and let himself out the way he'd come in.
From a pay phone on the street, he called Cassiletti.
"Munch and her kid are going to stay over at Digger's house for now. She's going to need to go back to her house and pick up some clothes. I want you to take her over there. Have a black-and-white unit back you up."
"Sure, Mace. Anything else?"
"Yeah, send the photographers back over to the apartment on Gower. I want them to shoot another roll of film in the living room. Tell them to bring Luminol. I want the couch taken apart, vacuumed for fibers, and everything sprayed. Carpet, couch, baseboards, the works." If there was any trace of blood left in that living room, the Luminol would find it. It didn't matter how well the place had been cleaned.
He called Steve Brown next and arranged to meet him at Madame Wu's in Santa Monica. Twenty minutes later, the waiter seated them in a private booth under a red-lacquered archway. Mace and Steve had little to say while the tea was brought. They each ordered the special. The waiter beamed at the wisdom of their choice.
Mace glanced around the room at the other diners. He stopped short when he saw a familiar face. "Hey," he whispered excitedly to Steve, "Muharnrnad Ali is sitting over there."
"Be cool," Steve said.
"Oh, man. Wait till I tell my . . ." Mace stopped mid-sentence. The familiar pall of memories dimmed his pleasure.
"How long has it been?" Steve asked gently.
"March, four months. The worst is watching ball games. Every time the Dodgers score, I keep picking up the phone to call him. We always talked to each other during ball games. Sometimes I'm halfway through dialing his number before I realize he's not there anymore?
Steve poured them both tea.
"What did you find out?" Mace asked.
"I couldn't find any paper trail on Raleigh Ward," Steve said, "and believe me, you won't either. He never existed. The apartment in Culver City was stripped to the baseboards."
"Some kind of spook, right?"
Steve nodded. "Looks like. The way those guys operate is to have three sets of ID. One will be a civilian cover, another as a government employee, and then a third as a CIA or FBI agent and even that one will be under an alias. Now, the other guy. Victor Draicu. He's real."
"That's cornforting," Mace said. "What's his deal?"
"He's the third secretary of cultural affairs with the Romanian embassy He speaks English and was an Olympic gymnast. So maybe he is what he seems. He's been in Los Angeles on and off since December overseeing the accommodations for the Romanian Olympic team."
"Since December?" Mace asked, his pulse quickening.
"Way ahead of you, buddy," Steve said. "I called a Securitate major in Bucharest I know."
"What's the Securitate?" Mace asked. "State police?"
"Yeah, they're controlled by the KGB, though."
"And this guy talked to you?" Mace asked.
"We have an arrangement," Steve said. "Any information that's strictly criminal activity—none of the political bullshit—we share. I asked him about murders fitting your killer's M.O. He found me one. A little gypsy girl in Transylvania. She disappeared from her camp. Two days later, they found her in pieces. First the head, then the rest. My guy remembered the case because it was so weird to him how the killer had taken the time to wash all the body parts and tape the wounds shut."
"How about the hand-over-the-heart thing?"
"He didn't know about that," Steve said.
"Did you ask him if Draicu had any kind of a record?"
"No," Steve. said, pouring himself a second cup of tea.
"That would have been pushing it. You ask the wrong question or you start naming names, and you don't know what kind of shit you might be stirring up."
The waiter delivered the sweet-and-sour pork. Mace ate without tasting it.
* * *
The effects of the dope still lingered in Ellen's system, making her nose itch and her pupils tiny. As soon as she had stuck the needle in her arm, she knew she was making a mistake. She hadn't even enjoyed the rush. The anxiety and fear that the dope was supposed to quiet still raged full blast. Only now her thought processes were too clouded to deal with solutions. One thing hadn't changed, though. Whenever she shot dope, she had this overwhelming compulsion to wash dishes, clean floors, and put things in order. She did the best she could with Farmer's dungeon given the limited amount of cleaning supplies he kept on hand. After bringing some small degree of organization to her surroundings, she did what she could to clean herself up.
She showered in his tiny bathroom, drying herself off with a small threadbare white towel with Gold's Gym stamped on it. She combed her wet hair straight back. Rummaging though Farmer's drawers, she came across a tube of flesh-colored foundation and dabbed it over the two telltale little pinholes over the veins in the crook of her left arm.
To be caught with fresh tracks was an automatic misdemeanor, especially if coupled with a blood or urine test. And for a person already on parole, it guaranteed an instant return trip to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Your ass is gone.
God, she thought, what is wrong with me? I've risked everything: my freedom, my future, and for what? All she had to show for it was an itchy nose and not even a momentary break from her problems. Most of which, she thought miserably, are really not even my fault.
She waited two hours before she dared venture out from Farmer's apartment. His telephone, she had discovered, only worked for incoming calls. Her destination, an apartment building on Paloma Avenue, was only two blocks away. It seemed like two miles. She kept to the alleys, hoping that Tommy still lived there and was home.
Tommy was a fiity-something-year-old guy who had never gotten past adolescent angst. He had greasy hair, one of those complexions that was forever erupting in pimples, and a nervous tic that made his eye flicker whenever a woman addressed him directly. He worked as a bartender at the Oar House and occasionally scored a date at 2 A.M. with some poor hapless female too drunk to realize what she was doing.
Ellen had learned that fact the hard way. She'd tried to forget waking up next to him almost as soon as it happened. After giving him an eight-digit phone number when he kept insisting on some way to reach her, she had stumbled out of his tiny apartment on Paloma and into the bright morning vowing to put as much distance between that night and her memory as possible. Now she was wondering if everything didn't happen for a reason.
"Hey, Tommy," she said, when he came to his door, "you still tending bar over at the Oar House?"
"Sure am, eh—"
'"Ellen. You remember me, don't you?"
His eye went into overdrive. "Yeah, sure. Ellen. How you doin'?"
"Fair to middling." She stepped across his threshold.
Tommy took a step back, buttoning his shirt. "My car broke down just up the street a ways. I hate to bother you, but I was supposed to pick up my girlfriend, and I don't want her to worry. Think I could use your phone?" she asked, stroking his forearm with the tip of her finger.
Both eyes were going at it now. "You mean now?"
"I haven't come at a bad time, have I?"
"Uh, no," he said, stumbling backwards. "Now is fine. You want a beer?"
"Thanks, darling. I'd just love a beer."
While Tommy went into the kitchen to fetch her drink, she dialed quickly. She crossed her fingers as the phone rang. After the third ring, Munch's voice came over her answering machine. Ellen waited impatiently for the outgoing message to play out. "You there?" she asked. "Please be there. Look, I'm so sorry. The car broke down. But, don't worry"—she patted the money in her pocket—"I've got you covered. I don't know what more to tell you other than I know it looks bad, but believe me, shit got out of Control real fast. It wasn't my fault.
Those guys were nuts. Oh, God, I wish you were there. I really need to talk to you." She bit her lip. Think, she told herself "I, uh, I'll call you back later. Don't worry."
She hung up. Tommy walked back into the room and handed her a can of Budweiser. She popped it open. He lit a cigarette. "You got another one of those?" she asked.
He handed her the pack. She took a smoke and held his hand while he lit it for her. She smiled encouragingly.
"You mind if I make one more teeny call? My girlfriend wasn't home."
"All right," he said, his hands fluttering about his belt and shirttails as if trying to fmd a place to roost. He finally jammed them in his pockets.
Ellen placed her second call, taking another long drag of her cigarette.
"Hello," the man answered.
Ellen exhaled quickly. "Dwayne? Is my mom there?"
"Yeah," he said. just a minute." He said the words like she was asking him to do her some really big favor. She would have loved to say something like, "If you don't mind moving your fat ass for once," but she knew she couldn't afford to antagonize him.
She heard the phone put down and Dwayne bellow, "Lila Mae, that daughter of yours is on the phone."
A moment later, Ellen's mom picked up. "Where have you been?"
"I've been getting my act together, Mom," Ellen said. "You know, finding an apartment, getting a job."
"Uh—huh. We didn't know what to think. One moment you're here, the next you're gone. And all without so much as a note."
I did leave you a note," Ellen said.
"Funny that I never saw it. So now what? You're all settled, is that it?"
"Well, I did get a job, but I had to move out of where I was staying." Ellen closed her eyes. "Mom, I ran into some trouble."
"Oh, Gawd," Lila Mae said. "You ain't pregnant." She said it like it was the worst thing that could happen to a person.
Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella Page 15