Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 16 - The Murder Book

by The Murder Book(Lit)

  These King's Men would've jumped at the chance to stomp Humpty Dumpty's skull.

  The Cossack brothers, Specs Larner, Coury. And the smart one - Nicholas Dale Hansen. What was he about?

  He looked the guy up in the property files. Nothing. What did that mean, he was leasing the house on North Roxbury?

  He found himself a quiet corner in the basement of the building, hidden between stacks of old plot maps, made sure no one was around and took the risk of an NCIC call using the ID of a West Valley D-I named Korn - a punk he'd supervised two years ago, low on initiative, high on attitude.

  Wasted risk: Nicholas Dale Hansen had no criminal history. The only thing left to do was go home and play with his laptop. Or take a shortcut and ask Alex to do it - his friend, initially a computer Luddite, resistant to the whole notion of the Internet, had become quite the Web-surfing whiz.

  He began the two-block walk to the city lot where he'd left the Taurus. Melting in with the afternoon pedestrian throng, dialing up his cell phone like every other lemming on the street. Probably giving himself ear cancer or something, but those were the breaks. Faking normal felt good.

  Alex picked up on the first ring, and Milo thought he sounded disappointed. Waiting for a call from Robin? What was up with that}

  Milo asked him about running a search on Nicholas Hansen, and Alex said, 'Funny you should ask.'

  'Oh yeah, I forgot,' said Milo. 'I'm dealing with Nostradamus.'

  'No, just a guy with spare time,' said Alex. 'Hansen wasn't hard to find, at all. Guess what he does for a living?'

  'He looked kinda corporate in high school, so some hoo-hah financial thing with a bad smell to it?'

  'He's an artist. A painter. Quite a good one, if the images posted by the New York gallery that handles him are accurate.'

  'An artist and he leases in Beverly Hills and drives a big Beemer?'

  'A successful artist,' said Alex. 'His prices range from ten to thirty thousand a canvas.'

  'And what, he churns them out?'

  'Doesn't look like it. I phoned the gallery pretending to be an interested collector, and he's sold out. They described his style as post-modern old masters. Hansen mixes his own pigments, makes his own frames and brushes, lays down layer after layer of paint and glaze. It's a time-consuming process and the owner said Hansen finishes four, five pictures a year. She implied she'd love to have more.'

  'Four, five a year at his top fee means a hundred and fifty, max,' said Milo. 'A year's lease on a house in the flats could be more than that by itself.'

  'Plus galleries usually take around thirty percent,' said Alex, 'so, no, it doesn't add up.' He paused. 'I hope you don't mind, but I drove by his house. It's a nice one - big old Spanish thing that hasn't been made over. The BMW's in the driveway. Freshly polished. Dark green, almost the exact same shade as my Seville.'

  Milo laughed. 'Do I mind? Would it make a difference? No, it's fine unless you knocked on the door and accused the bastard of murder. Which, I'd love to do. Because, guess what, the plot curdles.'

  He told Alex about Luke Chapman's drowning death.

  'Another accident,' said Alex. 'Normally, I'd say "ah," but you've been crankier than usual.'

  'Say it. I'll give you Novocaine before I start drilling.'

  Alex let out an obligatory chuckle. 'I also got a brief look at Hansen. Or someone who's living at the same address. While I was driving by, a man came out the front door, went to the BMW, and removed a sheet of wood from the trunk. Nicholas Hansen paints on mahogany.'

  'An artist,' said Milo, 'with independent income. Ambling out to his driveway in comfy clothes, doing whatever the hell he pleases. Life's sure fair, ain't it?'

  There were things Milo wanted to do after dark, so he thanked Alex, told him to stay out of trouble, he'd call in the morning.

  'Anything else I can do for you, big guy?'

  Milo quashed the impulse to say, 'Stay out of trouble.' 'No, not right now.'

  'Okay,' said Alex. He sounded disappointed. Milo wanted to ask about Robin, but he didn't.

  Instead, he hung up, thinking about Janie Ingalls and how some lives were so short, so brutish, that it was a wonder God bothered.

  He slogged through yet another rush-hour mess from downtown, wondering what to do with Rick and deciding that a nice hotel for a few days was the best solution. Rick would be profoundly unhappy, but he wouldn't scream. Rick never screamed, just tucked himself in psychologically and grew quiet and unreachable.

  It wouldn't be fun, but in the end Rick would agree. All these years together, and they'd both learned to pick their battles.

  He made it home by five o'clock.

  Midway up his block, he stopped.

  Something white was stationed in his driveway.

  The Porsche.

  He looked around, saw no strange cars on the block, gunned the Taurus, and swung it behind the pearly 928. From what he could tell the car was intact - no joyriding wounds or missing parts. More than intact - shiny and clean, as if it had been freshly washed. Rick kept it spotless, but Milo couldn't remember when he'd last scrubbed it down... last weekend. For most of the week, Rick had garaged the car, but the last two days he'd left it out to be ready when he hit the ER early. Two days' dirt would have shown itself easily on the white paint.

  Someone had detailed the damn thing.

  He surveyed the block, put his hand on his gun, got out cautiously, walked over to the Porsche and touched the car's convex flank.

  Glossy. Washed and waxed.

  A peek through the window added freshly vacuumed to the picture; he could see the tracks in the carpet.

  Even the steering wheel lock had been put back. Then he saw something on the driver's seat.

  A brown paper bag.

  He gave the block another up-and-down, then kneeled down and examined the Porsche's underside. No ticking toys or tracers. Popping the trunk revealed an intact rear engine. He'd worked on the car himself, had rust-proofed the belly for all those cold-weather trips that had never materialized. He knew the Porsche's guts well. Nothing new.

  He unlocked the driver's door, took a closer look at the bag. The paper mouth was open, and the content was visible.

  A blue binder. Not shiny leather like Alex's little gift. Your basic blue cloth.

  The same kind of binder the department used to employ before the switch to plastic.

  He took hold of the top of the bag with his fingertips and carried it inside the house. Sat down in the living room, heart racing, hands icy, because he knew exactly what would be inside. Knew also that, despite the certainty, he'd be shocked.

  His jaw hurt and his back ached as he opened the book to Janie Ingalls's case file.

  Very thin file. Milo's own notes on top, followed by the official death shots, and yes, Schwinn had lifted the photo out of this set. Body drawings with every wound delineated, autopsy summary. Not originals, nice clean photocopies.

  Then, nothing else. No tox screens or lab tests, no investigative reports by the Metro boys who'd supposedly taken over. So either that had been a lie, or pages had been left out.

  He flipped to the postmortem summary. No mention of semen -of anything much. This had to be the sketchiest autopsy synopsis he'd ever read. 'This white, adolescent, well-nourished female's wounds were accomplished by sharp, single-bladed...' Thanks a heap.

  No sign of the toxicology screen he'd requested. He didn't need

  official confirmation; Melinda Waters had said Janie began the evening stoned.

  No semen, no foreign blood types. Forget DNA.

  But one detail in the autopsy summary did catch his eye: ligature marks around Janie's ankles, wrists, and throat.

  Same pattern of restraints as in the hotel.

  Vance Coury spotting Janie and going for an encore.

  This time, adding his buddies to the mix.

  He reread the file. Nothing revelatory, but someone wanted to make sure Milo saw it.

  He settled his head
with vodka and grapefruit juice, checked the mail, punched the phone machine.

  One message from Rick, who'd made it easy for him by taking on an extra shift.

  'I won't be through until tomorrow morning, probably crash in the doctors' room, maybe go for a drive afterward. Take care of yourself... I love you.'

  'Me too,' Milo muttered to the empty house. Even alone, he had trouble saying it.

  opened the door for Milo at 9 A.M., doing my best impression of awake and human. Last night, I'd woken up every couple of hours, thinking the kind of thoughts that erode your soul.

  Three calls to Robin had gone unanswered. Her hotel refused to say if she'd checked out - guest security. Next stop, Denver. I pictured her on the bus, Spike sleeping in her lap, gazing out the window.

  Thinking of me, or anything but?

  Milo handed me the blue binder. I thumbed through it and led him into my office.

  'Your typing wasn't any better back then,' I said. 'Any theories about who delivered it?'

  'Someone with a talent for grand theft auto.'

  'Same messenger who sent me the deluxe version?'

  'Could be.'

  'Doesn't sound like Schwinn's secret girlfriend,' I said. 'Or maybe I'm being sexist; I suppose women can steal cars, too.'

  'This was no amateur. I print-powdered the wheel and the door handles. Nada. Nothing on the book other than my paws. They put the crooklock back on. Picked it, didn't slice it.'

  'Same question,' I said. 'A criminal pro, the department, or a rogue cop?'

  'A rogue cop would mean Schwinn had a buddy back then or made a new one. I never saw him hang with anyone. The other detectives seemed to shun him.'

  'Any idea why?'

  'At first, I figured it was his charming personality, but maybe everyone knew about his bad behavior, could see he was ready for a

  fall. Everyone except me. I was a dumb-ass rookie caught up in my own paranoia. At the time I wondered if I'd been paired with him because I was seen as a pariah, too. Now, I'm sure of it.'

  'Not that much of a pariah,' I said. 'They got rid of him and transferred you to West L.A.'

  'Or I hadn't accrued enough time on the job to accumulate embarrassing information.'

  'Or to develop street sources. Like the one who cued Schwinn right to Janie.'

  He fingered the edge of the blue cloth binder. 'Another burnout cop... maybe. But why send this to me a week after the deluxe version?'

  'More covering of the rear,' I said. 'Pacing himself. He couldn't be sure you'd be seduced. You started investigating and qualified for the next installment.'

  'More installments coming?'

  'Could be.'

  He got up, circled the room, returned to the desk but remained on his feet. I'd kept the drapes drawn and a razor edge of light ran across his torso diagonally, a luminous wound.

  I said, 'Here's yet another theory: the IA man who interrogated you along with Broussard - Poulsenn. Any idea what happened to him?'

  'Lester Poulsenn,' he said. 'Been trying to recall his first name, and it just came to me. No, never heard of him again. Why?'

  'Because the real target of renewing interest in the case could be Broussard. John G. built his career on an upright reputation, exposure of a cover-up would destroy him. Lester Poulsenn could have a good reason to resent Broussard. Think about it: a black man and a white man are partnered, but the black man is put in charge. Then the black man ascends to the top of the department ladder, and the white man's never heard from again. Was Poulsenn also drummed out due to bad behavior? Or maybe he wasn't good at keeping secrets. Either way, we could be talking about one disgruntled gentleman.'

  'And Poulsenn would've known about Schwinn's resentment... yeah, it'd be interesting to know what happened to his career. I can't exactly waltz into Parker Center and stick my nose in the files...'

  He frowned, called DMV and identified himself as someone named Lt Horacio Batista. A few minutes later, he had statistics on three Lester Poulsenns living in California, but all were too young to be the man who'd played second fiddle to John G. Broussard.

  'He could've moved out of state,' I said, 'meaning he's probably not our man. Or he's yet another disappearing act.'

  He got to his feet again and paced; the light razor bounced. Returning to the book, he touched a blue cover. 'Installments - hey, folks, join the murder book club.'

  We divided up the workload this way:

  1. I'd try to learn what I could about Lester Poulsenn, check newspaper microfilms for twenty- to twenty-five-year-old stories about misbehaving cops and chase down whatever details I could find about the disposition of their cases. A long shot, because the department kept corruption stories quiet, just as it had with Pierce Schwinn. Unless, as in the Rampart scandal or the Hollywood Division burglary case of ten years ago, the stink got too strong to mask.

  2. Milo would go off to do his thing, not telling me what or where or when.

  The search on my computer revealed no Lester Poulsenns who fit the bill. I made another futile call to Vancouver, comforted myself with self-pity, and drove to the U.

  It took three hours to go through five years of microfilm, and I came up with several instances of felonious police officers. A pair of West Valley detectives had offered their services as contract killers. Both were serving life sentences in protective isolation at the state penitentiary at Pelican Bay. A Glendale traffic officer had been arrested for having sex with a thirteen-year-old baby-sitter. Ten years of jail, this prince was out by now, but an alliance with Schwinn and a child molester seemed unlikely. A female Pasadena gang officer had slept with several minor-age gang members, and two Van Nuys uniforms had been caught burglarizing pawnshops on their patrol route. Convictions and incarceration for all. In each instance a hookup with Schwinn seemed improbable. I copied

  down all the names, anyway, punched Lester Poulsenn's name into the periodicals index and felt my pupils dilate as a single reference popped into view.

  Twenty-year-old reference.

  Poulsenn, L.L. Veteran LAPD detective found murdered in Watts.

  The Sacramento Bee. I located the spool, jammed it into the machine, twirled like mad until I came to the story. Associated Press wire service piece. The L.A. papers hadn't picked it up.

  The Bee had run it in a side column at the back of the main section titled 'Elsewhere in the State.' Sandwiched between the account of a dead black rhinoceros at the San Diego Zoo and a Berkeley bank robbery.

  The date was 5 January. Fourteen days after Caroline Cossack had checked out of- or had been taken from - Achievement House.

  I did an instant photocopy on the machine, then read the text.

  (AP) Los Angeles police are investigating the shooting death of one of their own, in what appears to be a homicide and attempted cover-up by arson. The body of Lester Louis Poulsenn, formerly a detective with the department's Internal Affairs Unit and recently appointed to the Metro Major Crimes Unit, was found inside a burning house in Watts. Poulsenn, 39, a thirteen-year LAPD veteran, was discovered by firefighters dispatched to put out a blaze at the private residence on West 156th Street. A police spokesman said Poulsenn had been shot twice in the head in what appeared to be an execution-style killing.

  'This is a rough neighborhood, with lots of gang activity,' said the source, who neither confirmed nor denied reports that Poulsenn had been in Watts on official business. The structure, a single-family dwelling that had been vacant for some time, was described as a total loss.

  I kept spooling, in search of a follow-up.

  Nothing. Which was crazy; nothing mobilizes a police department

  faster than a cop's murder. Yet local press coverage of Poulsenn's death had been suppressed, and no further official statements had been issued.

  Recently transferred to Metro. Translation: Poulsenn had taken over the Ingalls case?

  Twenty years ago, a pair of IA men had interrogated Milo. One had merited success, the other was dead seven month
s later.

  A white man shot to death in a black neighborhood, just like Boris Nemerov. Dispatched execution-style, just like Boris Nemerov.

  Arson cover-up. Milo had wondered out loud about fire. Beleaguered or not, he had perfect pitch.

  I called him, got no answer at any of his numbers, thought about what to do.

  Nice mild morning. Time to wash the car.

  Two hours later, the Seville was as shiny as a '79 Seville could be, and I was hurtling over the Glen to the Valley. Mere cleanliness hadn't satisfied me. I'd waxed and hand-buffed the chesterfield-green paint, added detail spray, scrubbed the tires, the hubcaps, the beige vinyl top and matching upholstery, wiped down those crafty little simulated wood insets, vacuumed and shampooed the rugs. I bought the car fifteen years ago from the proverbial little old lady (a heavy-footed retired schoolteacher from Burbank, not Pasadena) and had pampered it since. Still, 105,000 miles had taken its toll, and one day I'd be forced to decide between an engine rebuild or something new. No decision at all. No more changes of heart.