Paul has been assigned to me for the last four years. He stands six foot two, and slim. His black-rimmed glasses are too big for him. He comes to work with his backpack, along with the sandwiches he made himself for lunch. Since my workload had increased, the police commander decided it was warranted to set up a special task force for high-profile cases. Four years ago, when the city coffers were spilling over with money, I was told I could go ahead and get whatever I needed. Paul, the computer nerd, was at the top of my list as well as the top of his class at Berkeley. He took all of my most persuasive skills to convince him to come to work for this particular unit.
"God Almighty, doesn't anyone around here have anything? Okay, how long of a period of time is you are talking about?” I turn around in the chair and follow Paul as he walks over to his computer to type in some keystrokes to bring up the series of tapes.
"Only 38 seconds, but long enough for him to get out of the car, place the body where you found her, and drive off."
"What could cause the surveillance video to be distorted like that?”
Paul explains to me there is a relay box at certain intervals where the feed is passed down to headquarters. The transmitters cannot be any farther apart than they already are, as it would distort the images and the picture quality.
"Go ahead, check out some of the other cameras. Not right in this area, but a couple of blocks away, and see if you can pick up anything. Like maybe a four-door black car." I try moving my hands as if to move what is directly in front of me.
Paul goes through videotapes of several different sections along Hollywood Boulevard. Going east, he checks out North Highland Avenue. He even checks the side streets like Schrader and North Hudson. Checking all the way to North Cahuenga, and west of, Sycamore, El Cerrito Place and La Brea, hoping to find something to help the case. “Look here, you see how the video after a while goes off and on, off and on, flickering, making the video very hazy, steady snow, then sputtering, showing some images on the tape?"
"Yes, I see it, but what does it mean?" I ask.
"It means he is powering the device, switching it off and on. I believe the reason is he is trying to merge into traffic at this point. He knows he can’t continue using the device all the way through the downtown area, as eventually it would be picked up and someone would detect what was going on. He is ingenious with the timing and use of the device.”
"Go through the next several blocks of video and get the license plates from the database of every vehicle you can. Have every one of them printed out and on my desk ASAP. That includes who the car belongs to, where they live, et cetera. Maybe we might get lucky," I say in an angry tone. "Something will break in this case. One little mistake this person has made, something he has not thought of in covering his tracks. No one is perfect." I turn back to Paul. "How could he accomplish this? What is he using to distort our video feed? What kind of device is he using?"
"It's a specialized device, but not complicated to make. It's not something you can just pick up at any Radio Shack. You can build it yourself if you have the know-how or have a degree in engineering. It is similar to the mechanism that the ambulances, fire trucks, and police cruisers have. To have the lights turn green while you're chasing a suspect or going through to an emergency, nothing different." He points to some drawings on the table. "In this case, it's the ability to transmit a video signal to a remote location. He's hacking or blocking the video feed from the relays, by using an inexpensive OEM transmitter module. All it requires is a simple power supply. Most of the ones you buy at a spy shop or make at home only have a transmitting distance of around 200 feet. But with what we see on our cameras, or better said, don't see, he has built a much stronger one. This one can transmit a lot farther, and thus preventing us from doing any enhancing of any image from a distance to identify the vehicle.” Handing me a sheet of paper, here Mike, I drew out a diagram of what it would look like and the components he used."
"I know, I have one in my car, but the general public is not authorized to use them, nor even know about them."
"If you ask me, I wouldn't be surprised if this were someone who has worked for the city either as an ambulance driver, fireman, or policeman. Wouldn't surprise me at all," Paul adds in a reassuring tone.
"Run that through the database; just get those license plates and info on my desk. I'm starting to really get pissed off.We've got to make some headway before these people kill again."
Chapter 8
"Stephen, over here," Joel calls out, as he is waiting in the downstairs lobby of the Fox Entertainment Group studio building off of 10201 West Pico Boulevard, downtown Los Angeles. He rises from a white leather couch, hand stitched with the Fox logo in each middle section. He stands all of five foot two inches, with his waist far exceeding that. His coat is never buttoned, and his white shirt is never fully tucked in. Both seem they are in need of ironing. His brown shoes are in contracts with his blue suit. "You're late; I've been waiting here for the last two and a half hours for you to show up. You didn't answer any of my calls. I worked my ass off getting you this role, and you don't have the decency to show up on time. Julius Sharp said if you can't show up on time, he is going to pull the plug on you and go with his second choice."
"Keep your shirt on; I'm here. What do you mean you worked your ass off? You said they called you. Besides, who was their second choice?"
"Howard Teal."
"Howard Teal? That guy is not an actor, he's a joke. Besides, he doesn't look the part; I do."
"And just how are you supposed to look for this part? You don't even know yet what it entails. You haven't read any of the scripts."
"I don't need to. I watched the news; I read the papers, and I know just how this guy thinks. I can feel his moves, his mannerisms, everything about him. I've been feeling the part. I know him just as well as I know myself."
"Well, I think it's great you’re even giving it so much thought. I do believe if you would've been just a half hour later, all your quote unquote ‘knowing’ this individual would not have come to fruition. Stephen, let's get upstairs and get this show on the road."
The secretary, a well-endowed redhead in a dress that is a least one size too small, announces Stephen and Joel are there. Stephen gives her the once-over and picks up a pen from her desk and writes down his phone number and whispers for her to give him a call. She smiles as she gets up and leads them into Julius Sharp’s lavish office, with Koa paneling and bookcase along with a Koa desk and Brazilian hardwood floors. There are several pictures of some of his past stars, along with the name of the movie they were in.
Joel elbows Stephen, saying, "Can't you leave well enough alone? Hell, we just got here, and you're trying to pick up on Julius's plaything."
"Oh, shit, now you tell me," Stephen whispers back to Joel as he slaps his shoulder with the back of his hand.
Mr. Sharp rose and pointed for them to take a seat. He is a tall, slim gentleman, with curly graying hair, wearing a dark blue pinstriped suit with a vest. "Glad you could finally make it, was afraid you didn't want the part."
"No, I want it; I was just doing some preparation for the part."
"Preparation? What the hell are you talking about? You don't know what the part is." He glances over to Joel.
"Well, Joel told me the part you're offering me is the murderer, right?"
"Yes, but we haven't ourselves even figured how we want him to be."
"But Joel said you wanted to get started shooting right away."
"We do, but now they are confused about who and how this murderer should be and act."
"I know exactly how this person acts, who he is, how he thinks, even what he smells like. I can tell them how to write him into the script.”
Julius, with a sarcastic smile, picks up the phone on his desk talks to Jason Young, the lead staff writer for the upcoming series. He tells him that Stephen, the one he chose to play the murderer, feels he knows just how an actor should be portraying this guy. "Sur
e, sure; I will send him right down. He said come on down, in fact, they are having a bit of an argument on how to script the part and how many and who should be involved. So maybe you might be able to swing the mood in their office one way or another. They're in room 405."
As Stephen and Joel leave the office, Stephen turns around and motions to the secretary that maybe she shouldn't call him. He does this by waving his hands back and forth, and placing his hand up to his ear, as they go out the door and walk down to the elevator. Joel pushes the down button, they step into the elevator, and Stephen pushes for the fourth floor. Joel holds the elevator doors as Stephen steps out. "I leave you here. Don't make an ass out of yourself, okay?"
Stephen doesn't even bother to answer, just gives Joel a “what me?” look and proceeds down the hallway to meet with the staff writers for the upcoming episode. He opens the door and looks into the well-lit room with a long table surrounded by four men and three women. "Hi, guys. I'm Stephen Gray, and I'm your murderer."
Chapter 9
"Too late," says Sharon after picking up the phone.
"What's too late?" I ask, looking up at her in confusion.
"There's another one." She puts the receiver down. “I'll get the car."
We pull out onto North Cahuenga Boulevard and make a quick left on De Longpre Avenue, then take the next left and head south on Wilcox Avenue. After several more turns, we end up on the corner of South Curson Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, the George C. Page Museum, Tar Pit Discoveries. We arrive at the famous La Brea Tar Pits. Sharon parks the car behind several units which are already on the scene. We walk through the front green wrought iron gates and over to the statue of the elephant where everyone is congregated.
Several TV crews are lined up on Wilshire Boulevard, as they jockey for the best positions. Some camera operators are sticking their cameras through the wrought iron bars, as one tall man is raising his camera just over the top of the fence.
Again Sarge and his partner are the first on the scene.
“Sarge, who have we got this time?” I ask as we approach. “This is happening way too often.”
“It’s Sandra Lee,” he said in a calm manner.
"I don't remember that she was ever an Oscar winner, only a nominee."
"Maybe they're running out of available Oscar winners within the close proximity," he says.
"You might be right."
Susan arrives and takes the prescribed pictures, swabs, and fingernails scrapings. "Is her being placed under the elephant supposed to mean anything?" Sharon and I are watching her while still looking around.
"I wonder how they got in last night? That woman is way too large for one person to move, or even two." I say this out loud, but was just thinking.
Sandra Lee was a nominee for a supporting actress in the movie Take It to Them. The movie was a flop, but she was nominated for her exceptional performance in the film. Had the film been a hit, more than likely she would have won the Oscar. She had to gain about forty pounds to fit the part, and she was already a relatively large lady the way she was. She had been in many films and had been nominated once before.
"Sharon, check out the lock on the front gate. More than likely, it’s where they brought her in from."
Sharon, also taking pictures, walks over to the front gate and checks out the locks. Sure enough, she sees scratches on the bottom of the lock, indicating someone had picked the lock. She takes some close-ups, as well as checking for fingerprints, just in case.
"Sharon, I just called Paul. He gave me her address. Let's go." We head back towards the car. "It's up North Laurel Canyon Place."
She heads west on Wilshire and takes a right onto South Fairfax, turning right onto North Crescent Heights and continuing straight onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard, where the dead women's house is. You would almost drive right by if you weren't looking for it or didn’t know where it was. Her home turns out to be a simple ranch-style home in tan stucco, with a detached double-wide garage at the very front. We park right in front of the garage and walk up to the entryway, where Sharon picks the lock. The home is set back in the lot. She had a lap pool with a koi fish pond nearby. Inside, it has hardwood floors throughout most of the home, with marble flooring in the kitchen and granite countertops with top-of-the-line appliances. Looking around, we see very few pictures of her; it seems she led a very simple life.
We go from room to room, looking for anything which would help us with this investigation. “Why was she targeted, in fact, why were any of these women chosen for assassination?” I say out in a muffled tone.
"I'm getting to think all these women are being chosen at random and only because they are movie actresses, and for no other reason," Sharon proclaims.
"No, there is some reason why these particular women are targeted. Something links them together, something we haven't found, something we haven't thought of. But it's there. We just need to piece it together, but we will find it," I say with conviction.
Sharon takes pictures in all the rooms. There are a few pictures on the walls as well as on the desk and cabinets, and I take notes on what we are finding, which isn’t much. At least nothing seems out of place. There is one thing I did notice—there are no pictures taken by John Jacobs, which I found particularly interesting as three of the victims are all neighbors. That alone is telling me something.
We go door to door asking her neighbors the questions which might shed some light on who might have murdered her. We ask who might be her enemies, who she was dating and what kind of a neighbor she was. We try to get a picture of her, as a person, other than that of a famous movie star. The only things we find out from the neighbors she had broken up with a man over a year ago, and as far as they know, hadn’t been seeing anyone since. At least, they haven’t seen or heard any cars stopping by to see her. She was just a quiet, good neighbor. I write down the name of her last relationship so we can follow up with him, just in case.
Afterward, we lock up and place a police security tape on the door, as well as the garage, so if we come back, we will know if anyone has entered.
Chapter 10
We head back to the office. I already had the police psychologist run a profile on what type of individual would do this, killing movie actresses almost at random. She is there waiting for us, as we were close by, I asked Paul to keep her until we got back.
Esther Brown, Ph.D., MD, gives us the following.
Profile of the Hollywood murders: “I believe it to be possibly two white males between the age of 25 and 40, one or both probably divorced. One may have trouble getting women, feels insecure, and probably been rejected on numerous occasions. I believe it to be two individuals, with one being dominant and the other submissive. They have deviant behavior, and these murders will even get worse. The dominant one could have let the submissive one do something that would put him under his control, and the submissive one did this to be accepted. These types of murders are usually very personal. Usually, a killer is very familiar with the victim and has a deep-seated hatred for that person. These are up close and personal.”
"Dr. Brown, you say they are very familiar with the deceased, but this last victim doesn't seem to fit the profile. She looks like an outsider, someone with no connection with the others. Could it be they are targeting just anyone, or are they trying to throw something into the fray to throw us off?"
"I don't know anything about this latest victim. After I find out more about her, I can write out another profile. What I gave you was from what I know of the four victims."
I thank her for her assessment of who she feels we are looking for. I let her know that we also believed it isn't just one person, but at least two, maybe more.
Back in the lab, Susan gives me a call. "Good news. I just got a fingerprint off of the dress."
"How did you do that? I didn't think you could get a fingerprint off of garments?"
"Well, it's a good thing it was silk. I'll show you how I did it after you get down here."
"I'm on my way. Be down in a minute."
I want to find out how Susan had come up with our first clue. Is the Hollywood stabber getting careless, or is Ms. Kraft so good at her craft? I hurry down the steps and rush through the double doors into the morgue where she was standing. "God, Mike, what took you so long?"
"Okay, you're going to tell me?" trying to catch my breath
"I read about this procedure in the Medical Examiner Journal, about using fine particles of gold steamed into the fabric. I remembered silk being the best fabric overall to get a handprint or any fingerprints. The best I could do was only a five-point match, but it's better than nothing. It is something for you to go on?”
"Did you run it through AFIS to see if you can come up with any identification?"
"I have it running as we speak, but I doubt if any match will come out of this."
"Was it Ms. Borne's dress that you got it off of?"
"No, I went back to Ms. Akin, as she was the one wearing silk. I also ran the belt Ms. Borne was wearing for fingerprints. I got one good one on the end of the belt. And he has a loop in his fingerprint, of which about sixty percent of the population has the same pattern as he does. The name that came up was none other than Mark Jacobson, the movie actor who was once in the tabloids as dating Ms. Borne. His address is in the file right in front of you."
"Anything unusual found in her stomach?"
“Seemed she liked escargot, white fish, a salad along with some superb red wine.”
"I'll have the area canvassed, anything else?"
"No, not right now, and don't count too much on that partial fingerprint off the silk dress."
"Thanks for getting the info on Mark. We’ll go right now and check him out."
Chapter 11
Mark Jacobson, a much taller, good-looking Tom Cruise type whom women find irresistible. He has always been a cast member, never a star. You find his name, usually, on the long list of names following the end of the movie. He inherited a vast sum of money from his grandfather, who invented and patented a lot of toys we all grew up with.
The Hollywood Serial Killers: A Mike Kane Mystery Series Page 3