"I notice from the case notes you e-mailed over that you've still only recovered fifty-three of the sixty-four Makarov slugs that were fired, and that we're still missing four casings."
"That's right," I said.
"Then get back out there and start digging."
"The video techs couldn't determine how many rounds were actually fired. He might not have dumped the whole clip," I protested. "Besides that, as I've already told you, some of those bullets were shot up into the air and could be miles away. We're never going to recover all of them."
"Doesn't mean you shouldn't try," she replied. "That's why you're up here, right? Homicide Special the best of the best. I know you hotshots are gonna come through for me."
We finally had her smiling, but believe me, there was no humor there.
"Excuse me, Dahlia," Jeb said. "But I don't want my detectives doing busywork. This is an active division. As far as I'm concerned this case is basically made and I need to put Scully and Hitch back in rotation. They'll continue to do normal wrap-up for you; take statements, build timelines and the like, but they're gonna get a new case to work. If you want more done at that crime scene, you should request a CSI evidence-gathering team out there."
"I'm sure you don't want me to bring Chase Beal into this."
She was referring to our county DA, who was already starting his campaign for L. A. mayor and was a dedicated politician. Whenever the media was involved he got squirrely.
"Let's just do it my way for a day or two," she said. "Then, if necessary, we can revisit it."
One of the other detectives in the unit tapped on the glass partition of Jeb's office and made a telephone sign, holding his thumb and little finger up to the side of his face, then pointed at his cubicle.
"Okay. You got 'em, but only for a day or two," Jeb said, getting up to take the call, glad to be out of there.
As soon as he was gone, Hitch switched tactics. He didn't want to kneel on a towel in his gray Italian designer slacks, digging in the dirt like a six-year-old, looking for bullets that were a mile away on some hillside or brass that wasn't there because it was probably never fired.
"Excuse me again, Ms. Wilkes," he said, standing up and putting on a full charm offensive. "Laying all of this aside for a minute, I'd like to say that I, for one, am glad to be at your disposal on this. I have nothing but the utmost respect for your work and hope you didn't misconstrue my comment of a moment ago."
She said nothing. She studied him like a spider in her closet, trying to parse this sudden change of course.
"Is that suit Dolce and Gabbana?" he asked, smiling.
Nothing from our beautiful, cold-eyed prosecutor.
"Because it looks stunning on you."
She just stood there looking at him, a frown now beginning to pull her eyebrows together like warring caterpillars, wrinkling her gorgeous face.
"Simply killer look on you," Hitch added. "That Italian cut is really happening this winter and I, for one, am glad to see its back."
Still nothing. Not a flicker of interest. But I gotta hand it to him, in the face of this ice storm, he soldiered on.
"I know this might be presumptive, and please don't take it the wrong way, but as it turns out, I've been invited to Jamie Foxxs New Years Day barbecue. Its going to be a pretty cool deal. Football and ribs. Lots of A-list Hollywood people. I was thinking perhaps, if you re not doing anything, we "
"Which one is Jamie Foxx?" Dahlia interrupted coolly. "Is she the actress with the bad nose job?"
"Jamie Foxx is a guy. A major movie star. He played me in Mosquito."
"Really? How nice for him. So I guess if you want to be at that party on January one and not still digging in the backyard at my crime scene, you better get moving." She smiled coldy. "And its DKNY, not Dolce and Gabbana." Then she swept out of the room.
Hitch turned to me. "I want it noted I was down for our team."
"Done. But on a more practical note, the way this is going, from now on we probably should start wearing blue jeans to work," I told him.
Chapter 22
We left Jeb s office and returned to our cubicle.
"I'm gonna take my own car out there," Hitch said. "Ive got a thing I'm doing after work and it's out of my way if I have to come back here."
"Okay, see you out on Skyline."
I waited as he gathered up his stuff and left. I was glad to have a minute alone because I wanted to run something down. I opened my crime scene book to the page where I'd noted the Realtor's name I'd seen on the sign at the side of the Skyline Drive house. I found it on the second page. I'd written:
Prime Properties Real Estate
Beverly Bartinelli
Listing Agent
I called Information for the phone number and dialed Prime Properties. When the switchboard answered, I asked for Beverly Bartinelli.
"She doesn't work here anymore," the receptionist said. "Hasn't for a while."
"I'd like her number and current address if you still have it."
"I do have it, but I don't want to give it out to just anybody without her permission."
"My name is Shane Scully. I'm a homicide detective with the LAPD," I told her. "I'm working a case that she may have information on. You can call me back to make sure I'm telling you the truth. I'm at Homicide Special, extension 5675."
A minute later my phone rang and the receptionist came back on the line.
"Guess you're legit," she said.
"What about the phone number and address?"
"It's her residence. 1616 Maplewood Drive. I just checked the phone number I have but it's no longer current and I don't believe it's listed."
I thanked her and hung up. Rather than going to the trouble of running that number down through the department's reverse directory, I decided I'd just drop by. Maplewood ran parallel to Ventura Boulevard and was only about three miles away from Skyline, so it was on the way.
When I got to the parking garage I saw that Hitch's Carrera was gone. I climbed into my car and headed out to the Valley.
I was telling myself the reason I hadn't mentioned this errand to Hitch was because I was just indulging a stupid hunch that would undoubtedly go nowhere and it wasn't worth wasting his time on it. But the real truth was some part of me still didn't trust him. Hitch could be very efficient one minute, and the next, go totally off the reservation, like that smart-ass remark to Dahlia about those two old cases she'd lost.
Most prosecutors will only take slam dunks to trial and will plead out everything else so they all have at least a ninety-five percent trial win rate. Hitch had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to find the few losers in her package so he could jam them in her face. But for what purpose? It just pissed her off and now we were going to spend one and maybe two more days with CSI digging for lead and brass that probably wasn't even there. And that, I told myself, was why I was not confiding my hunch to him.
Despite all my rationalization, it really didn't matter, because when I pulled up in front of 1616 Maplewood Drive, Hitch's Porsche Carrera was parked at the curb. He was already inside talking to Beverly Bartinelli.
The guy had obviously spotted the same old real estate sign by the side of the house that I had. Worse still, he'd beaten me here.
The duplex was a neatly cared for two-story building with light yellow siding and white trim. I walked up the path to the front porch.
Before I could ring the bell, the door was opened by the Hitch-meister himself. He had a mug of Beverly's steaming black coffee in his hand.
"Saw you coming up the steps, dawg." He was grinning. "Guess you probably want to come inside."
Chapter 23
Before I could bitch Hitchens out for doing exactly what I was going to do, I saw Beverly Bartinelli standing a short distance behind him in the entry, so I put it on hold.
She was a pleasant-looking woman in her fifties with one of those faces that lacked guile and radiated warmth. Everything else about her was medium. Medium hei
ght, medium build, medium-blond hair.
After I stepped inside Hitch made the introductions. "Beverly Bartinelli, meet my partner, Shane Scully."
We shook hands and Beverly said, "Detective Hitchens was just asking me about 3151 Skyline Drive."
Hitch just shrugged at me. It was obvious to both of us that we were going to have to deal with this trust issue or our partnership was doomed.
"Can I get you some coffee?" Beverly asked and I shook my head. "Then why don't we sit in the living room? I'm sorry, but Christmas is still all over the place. I was at my daughters house all day yesterday and Todd and I haven't had a chance to straighten up yet."
We sat on a sofa grouping, moving some new quilts and a few pillows in boxes to make room.
"It's strange seeing that Skyline Drive house after all these years," she said once we were settled. "It's been all over the news."
"Beverly was just telling me she had that listing in 1982," Hitch said.
She nodded. "I haven't been in real estate for a few years. I'm in computer sales now. That was one of my first listings when I went to work for Prime Properties over twenty-five years ago."
Hitch and I exchanged a look. One of us had to take the lead on this interview. Since I was senior man and still out of sorts about getting here second, I leaned forward and began.
"We're looking for some background on the property. Anything that you might know that could affect the triple murder that happened there."
"I'm certain nothing I know could have anything to do with that dead movie producer and those two prostitutes," she began. "I mean, it was December of eighty-two when I finally closed escrow."
"You're probably right, but nonetheless, we have some questions about the history of the place," Hitch jumped in. "Rather than us leading you, why don't you just tell us what you know and then if we have questions, we'll ask them later."
I shot him a look. He just leaned back and showed me nothing.
"Start with when you first listed the house," I said.
"Actually, it sort of starts a few months before I listed the house. I sold it for the estate of the late Thomas Vulcuna and his family. You may remember that name if you were around L. A. in eighty-one."
She looked at us to see if we responded. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.
"He was the head of a very successful television studio called Eagles Nest Productions," she said.
Now Hitch and I traded startled looks.
"What happened to him and his family is one of those horrible L. A. stories," she continued. "If either of you were in town back then you must remember it."
"I was ten, living in South Central," Hitch told her. "The Crips moved onto my block in eighty-one so I spent most of that year hiding under my uncle's car."
"Why don't you tell us?" I said. "Start at the beginning."
"In 1981 Thomas Vulcuna had piled up a lot of debts at Eagle's Nest, a studio which he owned privately. I know a little about all this because his house on Skyline was actually put up as collateral on the Eagle's Nest bank loan. We had to untangle that mess before we could sell the property.
"Back then, Eagle's Nest had six TV series on the air, but the problem was they were spending more for each episode than the network gave them in licensing fees. Tom Vulcuna was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode, and with the production company making over a hundred episodes a year, despite his success in getting his shows programmed, he was quickly outrunning his bank loan and going broke."
I was vaguely beginning to remember this now. It had been a big TV and newspaper story. A murder-suicide if I recalled correctly.
"Tom Vulcuna had all these production company debts and his bank was about to foreclose on the loans," she went on. "Then on Christmas Eve 1981, he came home from a Christmas party at the studio. He was distraught, he'd had too much to drink, and the police thought he got into an argument with his eighteen-year-old daughter, Victoria. When his wife, Ellen, tried to break it up, apparently he just snapped. He picked up a ball-peen hammer that was lying around to hang Christmas wreaths and, in a frenzy, he beat both of them to death right there in the living room."
"I remember this now," I said. "He brought a handgun home from the studio or something. The police speculated he had already decided to commit suicide."
"That's right," Beverly said. "It was an old World War One Luger that he checked out of the studio prop department. Eagle's Nest was making a six-hour miniseries about Hitlers rise after World War One, and they had a bunch of those old Lugers for the SS officers to carry in the movie. They were props, but apparently the ones that weren't going to be fired didn't get altered by the prop master and still worked. He brought one of those home in his briefcase. After he killed his wife and daughter he went upstairs to the master bedroom, lay down on the bed, opened a copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy to a passage about death that he'd underlined, then he fired a shot into his head. When the maid arrived the next morning, she found them all dead."
"I remember," I said as my vague memory of it kicked in. "Big, big media case."
She nodded. "Because of the horrible, gory nature of the murders, the house was almost impossible for me to sell. Prime Properties assigned me the listing, but as soon as I took a client up there and they realized it was the Vulcuna house, any interest I had going evaporated."
"It's owned by the Dorothy White Foundation now," I said.
"I was the one who sold it to them," she said. "The foundation bought it at the Vulcuna estate sale less than a year later, in eighty-two. When we closed escrow, the Christmas tree with all their unopened presents was still in the living room. Last I heard, it was all still there."
"It is," I confirmed.
She gave us a weak, apologetic smile. "Anyway, it was quite a project selling that place. The production company owned the house. The bank had the production company in receivership. After the sale of all the studio's assets the bank only got twenty-five cents on the dollar and the sale eventually ended up in tax court.
"I finally got an offer from the Dorothy White Foundation. The easiest way for me to consummate the escrow was for the foundation to just buy the whole mess to pay back taxes. When escrow closed, they got the house and the defunct production studio along with some minimal tax loss carryforward."
"How much did they pay for it?"
"The house was a steal because of the murders. I think the end number was something like two point six million, but that's in eighty-two dollars. It would be worth a lot more today."
Hitch leaned forward. I could tell he had a question so I nodded for him to go ahead as if I actually had any control over him.
"Mrs. Bartinelli," he began, "it seems strange to us that a house worth that much money would stay vacant for over twenty-five years."
"Yes, it is, and it soon became apparent that the foundation had no intention of selling it either. Long after the stigma of the murders had passed, they were still turning down offers. We didn't represent the property any longer, but from time to time, people would be driving around up on Skyline and see it. We got our share of random inquiries.
"That mansion has the prime location right on the promontory point. People would want to buy it and fix it up to live in. I once submitted an offer for over seven million dollars to the Century City law firm that represents the foundation."
"Sheedy, Devine, and Lipscomb," Hitch said.
She nodded. "I dealt with one of the senior partners, Stender Sheedy. It didn't matter how good the deal was, he always said no. The place just wasn't for sale.
"After a while, none of the Realtors around here bothered to even submit offers to them. It's just been rotting up there empty and rundown with that old dust-covered tinsel tree and all those unopened presents sitting in the living room, waiting for the Vulcunas' ghosts to float down and open them." Then she added, "Somebody ought to make that into a movie, don't you think?"
Hitch just nodded and smiled.
Chapter 24
We stood out by our cars in front of the duplex apartment. Hitch was writing frantically in his red leather journal. It was just before noon.
"Put that away for a minute and let's talk about this," I said.
"You were right. There was a second shooter. The only problem was our time frame was off by over a quarter century. This story doesn't start with the Prostitutes' Ball and the Sladky triple. We gotta back it all up and start it on Christmas Eve 1981, the night Thomas Vulcuna bludgeoned his wife and daughter to death with a hammer then killed himself. Which, not for nothing, is a monster inciting event and the opening scene of our movie!"
"Listen, Hitch, put the movie on hold for a minute. Let's think this out." "Right."
"I think World War One Lugers fire 7.65 ammo."
Hitch was grinning. "Its all one case, dude. Beginning in 1981 with the bloody Vulcuna double murder with the ball-peen hammer, then the suicide. The investigation and the closed case ends Act One. Then we move into Act Two with the Prostitutes' Ball triple-murder case that just went down on the same crime scene. The exciting cast of characters grows and now we got Thayer Dunbar and his cadaverous attorney who bought the house from Vulcuna's estate in eighty-two and then for some still-unknown, Act Three reason won't let anybody get inside for almost thirty years. We got little coked-up Brooks and the Scott Berman/Yolanda Dublin thing with the two gorgeous dead hookers. I mean, can you stand this? Topping it off, we're simply lousy with subplots. We got a once-powerful production company run by Vulcuna in eighty-one, which is today a shell of itself with Brooks making cheesy Paris Hilton videos. And tying the whole thing together is the German Luger and the 7.65 ammo that turns up in both triple kills, and we're just getting started. I'm telling you, dawg, this is one big, magnificent, kick-ass, go-to-the-bank movie."
He had again started to jot something down in his journal, so I took the leather book out of his hand.
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