And now the supreme irony. Wasn't it always a woman who ultimately fucked up everything? Ellen, fucking Ellen. He tightened his fist into a ball. She was like a bad memory, popping up at the worst possible moments. There was only one thing for it—he would have to find her himself before some hotshot prosecutor got hold of her and turned the whole world inside out.
Raleigh climbed back into his Vega and headed for the dead drop. He cruised an underpass in Westwood, seeing the chalk mark recently placed there. This informed him that his documents would be found inside the hollow trunk of a tree in the VA cemetery. Stone crypts sheltered his movements as he retrieved the packet.
He waited until he was miles away before he unwrapped the plastic cover and devoured the contents.
First, there were the police reports. Detective Tony Cassiletti's neat print carefully cataloged all the known information relating to the case of the Band-Aid Killer. Raleigh skimmed through the affidavits of witnesses—or rather non-witnesses. People who had been in the Westwood apartment building at the time of the homicides, yet had reported not noticing anything amiss until the police and coroner arrived. He lingered over the photographs of the dead woman.
The report on the Hollywood slaying had more details. The weapon had been tentatively identified and toxicology reports showed that the women had been drugged—it was assumed unwillingly. In addition to the crime-scene photographs of the victims and the apartment, there were also three videotapes recovered from surveillance cameras. None of this came as any surprise to Raleigh. He studied the photographs derived from the video footage. The resolution was poor, but that fool Victor was easily recognizable. He even smiled into the camera. Amateur.
The connection between Mace St. John and Munch Mancini surfaced several times. The two of them had gone to Mexico together, ostensibly to retrieve the limousine. Obviously there was some personal connection going on there. Which meant that he might not so easily abandon his investigation. St. John had also visited the Tijuana morgue. He had absolutely no legal business there, not that that would help anybody now. Forensics on the tape recovered from the body of a teenage Mexican girl backed up St. John's theory that he'd found yet another victim of the Band-Aid Killer. He'd probably already made the connection between the dead girl and her family. This cop was proving quite troublesome.
Raleigh also read with interest the police records of Miranda "Munch" Mancini and Ellen Summers. The report on Ellen was believable. He'd seen the bitch in action. Munch's priors surprised him. Went to show you how well some people could blend in. The FBI file on her would come in especially useful. The people in disinformation would shred their credibility but hopefully the situation would be contained without its coming to that. The country didn't need another "conspiracy theory" debacle.
Raleigh stifled an exclamation of surprise when he read about the semen Detective Cassiletti had discovered at the Mancini residence. It was just as his mother always said, idle hands were the devil's plaything.
He checked his watch. Victor was meeting him at the Olympic Village at UCLA. Raleigh was tired of messing around with this guy. It was time to make America safe.
CHAPTER 23
The couple who came to pick Ellen up for the meeting drove a sixties-vintage Dodge Dart. A rainbow-hued bumper sticker pasted to the back window read HIGHER POWERED. The man and woman were much like the car, not much to look at but clean, Ellen thought as she opened the door to greet them. The woman stuck out her hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Diane, and this is Danny."
Isn't that just too cute? Ellen thought. It's a wander they didn't have matching shirts. She shook the woman's hand while smiling at the man. "I'm Ellen."
"So, Ellen," Diane said, casting glances at Danny as if needing his approval for every word, What prompted you to make the call?"
"Call?"
"To Central Office."
"Well," Ellen said, wondering if this were this woman's first time out the chute, "everything was going so great I just had a thought that I'd check y'al1 out. Just for fun."
Diane shot a perplexed look at Danny, who at least had the what-with-all-to smile. "You ever been to a meeting before?" he asked.
"Yeah," Ellen said. "They had groups of you guys come see us up at CIW. " In fact, it was at that meeting that she'd seen Munch again after five years of not hearing a peep. She'd even wondered if that little pistol had gone and gotten herself killed. But then there she was, sitting up on that panel of reformed drug addicts and telling her story. If Ellen had not seen and heard first hand, she wouldn't have believed it. Munch on the straight and narrow. Who would have dreamed? She was so proud of her she almost cried on the spot.
"CIW?" Diane asked.
"California Institution for Women at Frontera," Ellen said.
"Oh."
"You never heard of it? " Ellen asked. Jesus, where has this one been?
"No," Diane answered, her mouth losing that happy-to-have-you-with-us smile. "I'm fortunate that my disease never progressed that far." Danny-boy put a hand on her shoulder. She stopped talking.
"Shall we go?" he asked. He opened the car door for Ellen. She took a deep breath before stepping into the backseat, wondering at her need for courage just then. She had dressed for the occasion in jeans, sandals with two-inch heels, and a white serving-wench-style shirt with billowing sleeves and a ruffled front that revealed a generous peek of cleavage. She went with the brunette wig and dark red lipstick, topping the outfit off with silver loop earrings.
Danny-boy wore jeans and a T-shirt, but then ruined everything with sandals. Guys who wore sandals gave her the creeps. Diane had on fish-tank-algae green corduroys, a polyester shirt buttoned all the way to the top, and a crocheted vest. Lord, Ellen thought, if that's what it takes to get sober I might have to give this whole business a good second think.
"So how long y'all been going to these meetings?" she asked.
"I have sixteen months," Diane said proudly, "and Danny is coming up on three years."
"Three, huh?" Ellen said. "I've got a friend with seven years."
"Who's that?" Diane asked.
"Isn't this supposed to be an anonymous program?" Ellen asked.
"Not to each other, " Diane said.
"Well, still," Ellen said.
"Is he married?" Danny asked.
"Oh, you," Ellen said, playfully pushing the back of Danny's head with her hand and letting her fingertips linger at the back of his neck. She was gratified to see the skin there flush red. "It's not like that at all. What you must think."
Diane looked like her own neck was giving her problems. Ellen gave Danny a little pat on the shoulder, then settled back into her seat.
Danny rolled down his window a few inches, Ellen noted with satisfaction. Getting a little warm, is he? "So," she said, catching Diane's eye in the rearview mirror, "is all this A.A. stuff worth the trouble?"
"Our worst day sober is better than our best day using," Diane said.
Where had this one partied? Ellen wondered, starting to feel a little sorry for the broad. "Is that right?" she asked.
Diane nodded like one of those spring-necked dogs that you put in the back window of your car. "All you have to worry about is today," she said, and looked over at Danny, who responded by patting her hand.
Pathetic, Ellen thought. This girl really needs my help. "So, Diane," Ellen asked, "what do you do when you really want to cut loose?"
Diane licked her lips and cast a nervous glance at Danny.
"I'm very content," she said.
"That's not what I asked you," Ellen said.
"What about you, Ellen?" Danny asked. "What have you done for yourself lately?"
Ellen knew a trick question when she heard one. "Why, I called y'all. Isn't that the first step? "
They arrived at the clubhouse. Diane drove the Dodge down a narrow driveway and parked in the rear lot. Ellen's escorts held hands all the way inside. Chairs were arranged around a long cafeteria-style table. Ellen excused herself
to use the bathroom. Five minutes later someone knocked on the door. The lights flicked on and off.
"Meeting's starting," a voice yelled in to her.
"I'll be there directly," she said. She splashed cold water on her face and went out to join them.
The room had filled up some. There were maybe twelve people seated around the table. Wasn't that the number at the Last Supper? she wondered. Diane gave her hand a little squeeze as she sat down.
"This is going to be a little different than the meeting you went to before," Diane said. "Instead of speakers on a panel, this will be a participation meeting. All you have to do is listen."
"And what if I want to say something?" Ellen asked. Isn't that what they all do at these meetings? Spill their guts.
"You can't share at the meeting unless you have twenty-four hours of consecutive sobriety."
Ellen mentally calculated. She'd gotten loaded about mid-day yesterday. Well, maybe a teensy bit later, but considering the lack of effect she was perfectly justified in docking a few hours. "I qualify," she said.
Diane looked at her uncertainly. "You do?"
Ellen started to get pissed off. If they were going to question her integrity first off . . .
The guy sitting at the head of the table read a bunch of stuff, then he called on someone else to read the Twelve Steps and some other stuff. They'd done all that in the jailhouse meetings, too, so she tuned out, waited for them to get it over with. Finally, the meeting got under way. Some guy told a story about trying to install his own toilet over the weekend and how everything went wrong. "Self will run riot," he said.
Everybody laughed. Ellen didn't see what that had to do with anything. When he finished, she raised her hand. The leader looked at her with that same uncertain expression on his face, then called on Diane. Ellen had trained herself early in life not to react, to stay unaffected by others' power trips and efforts to control. If you let people's disapproval get to you, you'd never have any fun at all.
Diane told some sad-sack tale about how her mother didn't understand her and her father ignored her and she was learning to set boundaries. Ellen tapped her foot impatiently. Boy, could she teach these people a thing or two. Who gave a shit what her mother did or didn't understand? Today was what was important, That was another thing. Diane could do a whole lot better than that Danny fellow, sitting there so smug with his personalized ceramic mug. Mr. No Socks, Mr. Sandals. What kind of a real man wears sandals anyway? That's what she should be noticing—not the way his eyes walked all over Ellen. Hell, she should be glad he was red-blooded enough for that. That was the real compliment. If he was some low-testosterone wimp who never looked at another woman, that said nothing. But if he kept coming back to her after his eye wandered. Well, that was something else again. What that girl needed was some confidence. A makeover. Like the one Ellen did for that little gal in Mexico. Giovanna. In fact that little interlude with Giovanna was one of the few things Ellen did remember of her activities before she passed out. She laughed to herself, shaking her head. Munch was right. What good was partying if you couldn't remember any of it?
"Did you Want to share?" the leader asked her, breaking her reverie.
"Do what now?" Ellen asked.
"Didn't you have your hand up?"
"Oh, you mean talk. Sure. My name's Ellen," she said, copying how the others had begun.
"What are you?" the leader asked.
"I'm a Scorpio," she said. To her consternation, everybody laughed.
"No," the leader said, putting on a tone of voice as if he were speaking to some idiot child. "Identify your disease."
"Say you're an alcoholic and a drug addict," Diane said sotto voce.
"I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict," Ellen said.
"HI, ELLEN," the people around the table responded. Diane beamed. "Now, don't you feel better?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah," Ellen said. "I'm just pounds lighter."
Diane's face fought a smile. Ellen winked at her. "I think y'all are doing a wonderful thing for yourselves here."
"Is that all?" the leader asked.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm done." She leaned over to Diane, and whispered, "You got some time after the meeting?"
"Sure."
* * *
Munch drove around Venice. Up and down Main and Pacific. She checked out the foot traffic on Windward, cruised the narrow alleys of the canal streets. Ellen was nowhere. She stopped at a bank of pay phones bolted to the wall of a liquor store on South Venice Boulevard and Main Street. A Monte Carlo with tinted windows and wide, low-profile tires on chrome rims cruised past. The bass of its radio vibrated the storefront window in front of her. The driver, a young Hispanic kid with a bandanna tied over his head pirate fashion, sat slumped behind the wheel, his eyes just level with the dashboard.
Munch called Caroline.
"How's Asia?" she asked after they exchanged greetings.
"We made cookies."
"Chocolate chip?" Munch asked. A car cruised by slowly, the man leaning over in his seat to get a look at Munch.
"Are you working?" his hopeful expression asked. She turned her back on him.
"She ate more dough than we baked," Caroline said.
"That's my kid," Munch said.
"What are your plans now?" Caroline asked.
"I thought I'd pick us up some lunch at McDonald's."
"Mace called. He said you can pick up your limo anytime."
"Great."
"He wants you to call him right away. "
"Does he have any other news?"
"Something to do with Ellen, I think. Did you find her?"
"Not yet. She's around though. People have seen her."
"Do you have Mace's number?"
"No, hang on a minute." Munch reached for her shirt pocket for a pen, then remembered she wasn't in uniform. She rummaged in her purse and came up with a crayon and a napkin. "Go ahead."
Caroline read off two numbers, his office and his beeper. Munch thanked her and hung up. She got an answering machine at Parker Center and didn't leave a message. She decided to wait and call the beeper number after she got back to the house. She called her work. Lou had no messages for her and sounded harried. She checked her answering machine at home, but there had been no activity there since last night. The last number she called was Derek. He was home.
"What was going on at your house last night?" he asked. "I saw all the cops."
"Did you see Ellen?"
"No, they already asked me."
"Who asked you?"
"The cops," he said.
"You mean last night?"
"Last night, this morning. What did she do?"
"It's not what she did, " Munch said. "More like what she saw."
"A murder?"
"That's what it's looking like. Keep an eye out for her."
"What should I do if I see her?" he asked.
"Tell her to lie low until the cops find the killer."
"Do they know who he is?" Derek asked.
"I think it's a short list," Munch said. "You'd be better off staying clear of my house for the next couple of days, until this thing plays out. Some creep broke into my house and jerked off on Asia's underwear."
"When was this?"
"Sometime last night. Ellen came by, too, and picked up her shit. You didn't see anything?"
"No. Sorry. Christ, what next?"
"Hopefully they'll catch this guy before he kills again."
"Are you in danger?" he asked.
"No, I'm fine."
"VVhere are you now? I tried you at work."
"I took the day off. "
"I don't blame you," he said. "Where did you stay last night?"
"Derek."
"I'm just concerned," he said.
Not jealous. Derek didn't expend that kind of energy. Still, it was nice he cared enough to ask, no matter what his reasons.
"You know that cop?" she said. "Mace St. John? He put us up at his dad's old house in
Venice."
"Well, that's good. Kinda fucked up to not be able to go to your own house."
"Yeah, it is," she said.
"If you do find Ellen or anything else happens, will you call me?"
Maybe she didn't give Derek enough credit sometimes. "I'll do rhat."
* * *
Derek hung up the phone.
The man sitting next to him nodded his approval. "You did great."
"I don't want her to get hurt," Derek said.
"Nobody does," the man assured him. "Your cooperation will ensure that."
CHAPTER 24
After the A.A. meeting, Ellen went with Diane to drop Danny-boy off at his apartment. She promised to pick him up at eight for the evening meeting.
"Will I see you then?" he asked Ellen.
"I'm counting on it, sugar," Ellen said, not giving a hint of the surprise she had in mind for him. Wipe that smug look right off his face.
"So you two don't live together?" Ellen asked, as they drove away.
"No, he's got two roommates, and my apartment is very small."
"Why doesn't he drive?"
"He doesn't have a car. "
"Oh, please," Ellen said, more exasperated than ever. "No wheels even? What do you see in him?"
"He's very spiritual."
"That may be so, but I wouldn't date Gandhi either."
Diane fought off another smile, but she was weakening. They pulled up to the motel.
"You got a minute?" Ellen asked.
"Sure," Diane said, putting the Dodge into park and shutting off the engine. "You feel like talking now?"
"Let me just ask you one question," Ellen said. "Have you ever thought about thinning those eyebrows?"
"My eyebrows?" Diane asked, her hand reaching up to touch them.
"Yeah, it would really bring out your eyes. I could show you how."
"I never learned about that stuff," Diane said, her eyes filling with tears. "My mother—"
"Yeah, yeah. I know," Ellen said, cutting her off. "You gotta let that shit go."
Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella Page 20