“I’m sensing a theme here, Gayle. Everyone does it as a defense.”
“What do you want from me?” said Lindstrom. “Flash back to your Hollywood D all roofied up with her legs spread and guess what, you won’t find a trace of those dirty pictures anywhere on the Web. Any written record of the operation, period. What comes from on top filters down to the peons. Our job is to clean up messes.”
“Fine,” said Milo. “Kafka’s God and we’re all cockroaches. But even bugs know how to be social. Why did your bosses want to obstruct me?”
“They wanted to make sure everything was squared up before we interfaced.”
“As in cleaning Doreen’s file of anything useful so as not to look stupid?”
“As in getting my own facts straight. As in a sudden trip to Seattle yesterday morning in a coach seat next to a snoring fat guy.”
“If I hadn’t bugged Hal, would we be sitting here, Gayle?”
“I can’t answer theoretical questions,” said Lindstrom. “Point is, I’m here and I told you what I know about Doreen. If it helps you close her out, I’ll celebrate along with you. Because one of my assignments is to get her the hell off my desk.”
“Then write a bullshit report. I’m a cockroach enabler.”
“First enable some more. As in telling me what you can about Doreen’s murder.”
“Doreen and Backer were enjoying sexual congress in a big house and got surprised in the act.”
“Ouch,” said Lindstrom. “Mode?”
“He was shot once in the head, probably a .22, she was strangled.”
“Forensics?
“His and her prints in expected places, no one else’s, nothing at Backer’s crib. No crib at all for Doreen, because some unnamed government agency helped her go bye-bye and let her stay underground even after she screwed them. Why, once you realized she’d conned you, didn’t you put her factoids back in place?”
“It’s not done that way.”
“She was an embarrassment, so no sense calling attention to her before the next begging session at Congress.”
“Whatever,” said Lindstrom. “I really wish you’d stop bitching, because I didn’t cause any of this. All I’m after is enough data to write her damn epitaph. What else do you have?”
“Nada.”
She toed her bag closer. “I did some checking and the owner of the property might be of interest.”
“Really,” said Milo. Grinning, his hands had curled into massive flesh-mitts, pink and glossy and twitching. Like a pair of Christmas hams revivified by some mad scientist.
Gayle Lindstrom watched them, fascinated.
Milo stood. “Special Agent Lindstrom, I believe we’re through here.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “What’s with you?”
“First you say you’ve told me everything, then you toss in your own little morsel to spice up the bullshit. Unlike the Bureau, I don’t have years to put up with gamers.”
Lindstrom’s jaw jutted. “I never used the word everything.”
“Well, that sure clarifies it,” he said, heading for the door.
Gayle Lindstrom said, “I am not gaming you. I didn’t say anything in the beginning because I assumed you knew about the owner. After you didn’t say anything, I thought you didn’t so I told you, okay?”
Silence.
“I didn’t think I had to spoon-feed you basic—”
“Who owns the property, Gayle?”
“You really don’t know?”
Milo smiled.
“C’mon,” said Lindstrom. “Just like you, I’m a salaried employee far from the top of the food chain. You want to keep picking at me, I can’t stop you, but it won’t close your double homicide. You want me to go first, fine? Prince Tariq of Sranil, aka Teddy.”
Milo sat back down. “More coffee, Gayle? We’re nothing if not hospitable.”
Lindstrom gaped. “Not that it matters, but I only learned about him right before I came over here. You don’t consider him a suspect. Not directly, I mean. He’s back in Sranil.”
Milo said, “He’s alleged to have killed another girl.”
Lindstrom sat up. “Who, where, when?”
“Don’t know, don’t know, around two years ago. It’s still at the rumor level, a foreign national, maybe a party girl, maybe Swedish.”
“Who’s your source?”
“Someone who heard a rumor.”
“Who?”
Milo shook his head. “We’ve got secrecy issues, too. For all I know, it’s baloney but the timing’s right: just when construction stopped on Teddy’s shack. And he rabbited back home right after.”
“Then Doreen ends up there.” Lindstrom shook her head. “I’m not seeing any obvious link.”
“Anything related to Sranil ever come up in Doreen’s stories?”
“Nope. And that I can be sure of because soon as I found out about Teddy owning the property, I re-read every damn word in her file.”
“But she did talk about foreign terrorists confederating with local eco-nuts.”
“It never came to anything, plus she never mentioned anything about Asians or Swedes or Ugandans or Lithuanians.”
“Just Ahmed,” said Milo.
“Quote unquote ‘al-Qaeda types.’”
“Sranil’s Muslim, Gayle. And the sultan’s got two groups of extremists itching to cut his head off and get control of all his oil. One of them’s fundamentalist.”
“Interesting,” said Lindstrom. “You’re really thinking this could be political?”
“God, I hope not. Doreen ever travel abroad?”
“Never even had a passport.”
“Same question, Gayle.”
“I just told you—oh. No, Lieutenant Sturgis, as far as my peon status can carry me, I’m unaware of the Bureau or anyone else furnishing her funny travel papers.”
Milo said, “So someone upstairs could’ve granted it.”
“Sure, but why would the Bureau help her evade when we were paying her to blab and she hadn’t come through? The only time she could’ve traveled abroad would’ve been between splitting on us and now.”
“Exactly,” said Milo.
Lindstrom thought about that. “Okay, I’ll make some calls, promise to give you righteous info. Fair enough?”
He nodded. “After Doreen asked to be moved away from Seattle, where’d you safe-house her?”
“Sorry, not authorized. But trust me, it wasn’t anywhere outside the continental U.S.” Smiling. “Think acres of plains, not a mountain in sight.”
Milo said, “Not here in L.A.”
“Not even close.”
“Seeing as you just read every damn word of the file, is there anything in there about a gal-pal who had traveled abroad? Or came from abroad?”
“Swedish party girl? Negative, yet again,” said Lindstrom. “You’ll have to believe me on this, but that file contains squat-all international intrigue associated with Doreen Fredd. And you’ve got no serious evidence Prince Teddy actually offed anyone. But even if he did, how would it connect to Doreen and Backer two years later? Burning down a big showy house, I can believe. They probably did that back in Bellevue and God knows how many other times. But targeting Teddy, specifically? This turning into some obnoxious 007 deal? I’m not seeing it.”
Milo said, “What if Doreen and Backer somehow found out about the alleged murder and tried to cash in? From what you know about her, would that make sense?”
“Blackmail ... sure, why not? She wasn’t a woman of high character.” She sat forward. “She and Backer hooked up more for old times’ sake, decided to do more than eat dandelions and screw? Hey, anything’s possible, but there’s nothing along those lines that I can help you with.”
“Does the name Monte appear anywhere in your files?”
“Nope. Who is he?
“Maybe no one, Gayle.”
“Obviously, you think he’s someone.”
“What happened to the other two kids Doreen a
nd Backer hung with back in Seattle?”
“Dwayne Parris and Kathy Vanderveldt? They both went off to college and got on the straight and narrow. She was pre-med, he was pre-law. Tell me about Monte.”
“Just a name that came up in a tip.”
“As...”
“Someone who might’ve known Doreen.”
“Might? That mean you don’t think the tip’s solid?”
Milo gave her the details.
“Geezer without a cell,” she said. “Monte. Nope, doesn’t ring a bell, but the moment I get back, I’ll re-read the file, just in case it slipped by me. We’re talking seven-hundred-plus pages.”
“Doreen was small-time but she merited an encyclopedia?”
“One thing we’re good at is churning paper.” Lindstrom smiled. “Poor trees.”
CHAPTER 21
We stood in front of the station and watched Lindstrom drive away in a government-issued Chevy.
Milo said, “How much of that was real?”
“Who knows?”
A woman exited the staff parking lot, crossed the street, and brushed by us, setting off a zephyr of Chanel No. 5. Thin, pinch-featured, with a well-styled mop of flame-colored hair sharpened by a deep green suit and a yellow scarf patterned like a rattlesnake. She carried a bag even larger than Lindstrom’s, maintained a high-stepping walk as she flung the station door open.
I said, “It probably is in Lindstrom’s best interests to cooperate. You clear Doreen, she makes headway on her pile of punishment.”
The station door opened and the redhead charged toward us, bag swinging, hair bouncing. “Lieutenant Sturgis? Clarice Jernigan, from the coroner’s.”
“Doctor.”
“I was testifying around the corner, thought I might as well talk to you in person. The receptionist told me I’d walked right by you.” Khaki eyes studied me.
“This is Dr. Delaware, our psych consultant.”
“We can sometimes use help on suicides. Would you mind if I talked to the lieutenant in private?”
Milo said, “Anything I know, Dr. Delaware’s going to know.”
“There’s nothing psychological about what I have to say, Lieutenant.”
“Sorry, Doc. It ain’t done that way.”
Dr. Clarice Jernigan slid her bag to the sidewalk. “Sure, what the hey. I opened Mr. Backer’s head and retrieved bullet frags. Definitely .22s, lab’s trying to reassemble so if you get a weapon, they can run a match.”
“Thanks—”
“I also decided to do an autopsy on your Jane Doe, after all. As I’d assumed, no big surprise in terms of COD. Manual strangulation, the finger marks are obvious, but no prints or DNA, so maybe your bad guy gloved up. This was a healthy young woman who met a rather unpleasant demise literally at the hands of another.”
“We’ve got a name for her, now, Doc. Doreen Fredd. Two d’s.”
Jernigan whipped out a BlackBerry, entered the information. “My report will be forthcoming. Meaning whenever I can get to it.”
Milo said, “That’s what you needed to tell me face-to-face?”
Jernigan threw back her shoulders. “What I need to tell you is I made an error and preferred not to address that fact over the phone.” Looking at me. I settled my gaze on the parking lot and pretended to be elsewhere.
Milo waited.
“I don’t see it as a major faux pas, but you might as well know, in case it impacts how you direct your investigation. As I told you, the rape kit was negative and my initial evaluation was no sexual assault. But after opening her up, I did find an abrasion in the vaginal lining, just under five inches in.”
She tossed the snake scarf over her shoulder. “So why didn’t I spot it initially? Because it was on the roof of the vaginal vault, kind of tucked away. A smallish but rather nasty snag wound consistent with insertion of a hard object—no jokes, please. Something with a pointed extension on the upper surface. My guess, confirmed by my tool-mark analyst, is the barrel of a handgun with a sharp sight. Initially, I assumed a .22 because of Backer. But after checking barrel lengths, I can’t see any .22 entering that deeply without inflicting serious external damage to the labia. So we’re leaning toward a larger-caliber revolver with a longer barrel and a prominent sight, such as a Charter Arms Bulldog. In fact, we tried out a Bulldog and it fit quite nicely with the abrasion.”
“Two guns,” said Milo. “Little one for shooting, big one for raping.”
“To me, Lieutenant, that smells of intimidation, rage, or maybe just plain sadism. And, of course, now you need to consider two offenders. Do you concur, Dr. Delaware?”
“Makes sense.”
“Then we’re all on the same page.” Jernigan checked her watch. “Needless to say, my initial hypothesis will not appear in the report and I’d appreciate if the same goes for yours.”
“Absolutely, Doctor.”
“Just to reassure you, I took another look at Mr. Backer as well. Examined his anus and his mouth for any sign of assault by firearm or anything else. Pristine on all counts, so whatever additional psychopathology was at play seems to have been reserved for Ms. Fredd with two d’s. Have a nice day, gentlemen.”
“How’s it going on Bobby Escobar?”
“So far, Lieutenant, it’s going nowhere.” Angry smile. “Are you volunteering your services? That deal still stands.”
“I don’t think the Sheriff’s would appreciate my meddling, Doc.”
“No doubt,” said Jernigan. “Then again, things get bad enough, everyone wants a bailout.”
When she was gone, he said, “When she admitted goofing, I was expecting something about the vanished sperm stain.”
I said, “Maybe there’s just so much she can own up to.”
“Gun rape,” he said. “Two offenders or a single dominant blitz artist who managed to cow Backer and Doreen all by himself.”
“Someone with big bucks could afford to hire a team.”
“Teddy and/or the sultan dispatched a hit squad.” He pressed his palms together, looked up at the sky. “What did I do to offend you, Herr Kafka?”
Sean Binchy showed up at Milo’s office brandishing a list of felons culled from Beaudry Construction’s subcontractor list.
Nine names, no Montes or close. Binchy had run down seven of the miscreants, ruled them out, was headed to Lancaster to check out the last two—a pair of cement-worker brothers arrested for stealing tools from a previous job.
Milo said, “How’s Ricki Flatt doing?”
“Got her set up in the Star Inn, paid for full cable, all the movie channels.”
“That should do it, Sean.”
“One question, Loot: My dad used to be a contractor before he got into Amway, I worked summers for him. Nothing fancy, just remodels, room additions. But whenever the residents weren’t living on the premises, Dad fenced the job tight, it was my job to check at the end of each day. But that place? Anyone could walk right in, it was like asking for trouble. Not that there’s anything left to steal, but still.”
“I agree, kid. Any theories about why?”
“It’s almost like whoever owned it had lost interest in the place,” said Binchy. “But then, why not just sell it, make some money? Maybe they’re rich enough not to care about a few million, but I just don’t see the point of letting it sit there. Anyway, I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new, let me go check out those two thieves.”
When he was gone, Milo said, “Like we never thought of it. Still, obvious doesn’t mean irrelevant.”
I said, “Maybe there’s a body buried there and it has something to do with Sranil’s culture.”
“As in?”
“Letting nature take its course, something akin to Zen.”
“They’re Muslims, Alex.”
“There could be something like that in Islam.”
“Letting a body rot to the point where it can’t be I.D.’d? The lot’s worth eight figures. Even for a billionaire, that ain’t Lehman stock.”
“The sultan’s a religious man,” I said. “Articles of faith can go a long way.”
He faced his computer, pounded keys.
Five hits later, we were both reading an essay by a Yale scholar of “emergent and divergent cultural forces” named Keir MacElway, citing the sultanate as an example of
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