by Alton Gansky
20
What Carmen Rainmondi wanted to do was stew over her conversation with Dr. Poe. In many ways, she liked the man. He was courteous, intelligent, and unassuming.
He also had a secret.
If pressed in court about that last thought, she wouldn’t be able to say why she was so sure. It was instinct, something undefined in his tone or manner or eye-movement that made her think Poe wasn’t showing all his cards. But instead of thinking about the short meeting in the professor’s office, her mind raced ahead to what might be waiting for her at Lake Murray Community Park north of I-8 and east of College Avenue.
The location fit with the Cohen murder but not with that of Doug Lindsey—at least not on the surface. Lindsey’s body was found in Balboa Park, which was much further to the southwest. Just one more confusing factoid—unless both men were killed in the same area. She had already established that the bodies had been transported from the murder scene or scenes.
Bud had been precise in the location. Lake Murray, a reservoir really, was a small body of water next to the Alvarado Water Treatment Plant on the south shore. She moved through the 6300 block of Park Ridge Boulevard and turned into a small paved lot next to a recreation building with a blue roof. To her left was a pair of baseball fields, occupied by what she took to be a local softball league. Each team had matching uniforms, but no game was underway. Instead, the athletes lined the fence on the third-base side of the nearest field. Apparently, the activity of the police by the water’s edge was more interesting than running the bases.
She pulled from the paved portion of the lot and drove over a dirt island and onto a service road that ran closer to the shore. The majority of the lake lay farther to the south, but that didn’t matter. Bud told her the body and car were found in one of the finger recesses that gave Lake Murray it’s odd shape. She had no trouble finding the location. Two patrol cars lined the access road, and one had left its light bar flashing in the dark, splashing blue and red swatches on the area. Carmen pulled in front of the marked cars and exited the Crown Vic.
A yellow tape barricade had marked off the length of the inlet’s shoreline. Two officers monitored the perimeter. Carmen pulled back her coat enough to reveal her badge and her holster, an unnecessary motion since the Crown Vic said, “Cop.” Still, she liked to follow protocol as much as possible.
One of the officers lifted the tape. “Detective.”
“Officer.” She gave a “we’re-in-the-same-club” nod and slipped beneath the crime scene tape.
The scene was surreal. Spotlights from the patrol car shone toward the water, casting long shadows in front of people and plants. Additional light from the lights around the baseball diamond helped, but she still felt as if half her vision had gone.
A tow truck from the company that provided services to the SDPD was parked just inside the tape barrier, and a long metal cable stretched from the back of the vehicle to the rear bumper of an old, beige VW Beetle. That car was old when Carmen was in high school, but the body looked to be in good condition. Someone loved the car.
“Welcome to overtime.”
She nodded to her partner. “Hey, Bud.” She studied the area and walked carefully to where he stood, several feet behind and to the side of the VW.
“Watch the tire tracks.” He pointed. “I’m gonna cast them, even though I’m sure they belong to the Bug. Also, there are some imprints over here that might belong to our man. They look like boot prints.”
“How can you tell in this stuff?” The ground leading to the water was mostly desert sand. She shone her flashlight on the ground. “There are prints everywhere.”
“Yeah, I know. Public park in the middle of a major city. Throw in a shoreline, and people flock to it like a moth to . . . whatever a moth likes. So where were you when I called?”
“Escondido. I went to the Lindsey funeral.” She didn’t see any reason to talk about her discussion with Poe. “Why?”
“It took a while for you to get here.”
She shrugged. “I had dinner, hit a couple of bars, went shopping, then visited my sweet Aunt May.”
Bud’s brows creased. “It wasn’t a complaint, Carmen, just an observation. No need to get snippy.”
“The long hours are getting to me. So what do we have?”
“Shortly before sundown, a mother and her children saw something glinting in the water. She said it looked like a bumper to a car. She called the police. A street unit showed up about ten minutes later. He took a look and recognized the bumper style. VWs have a unique bumper arrangement. He called for a tow truck and let his supervisor know what he was looking at. We have a BOLO out for a VW so they let homicide know. Heywood was still in the office. He’s a go-getter, that one.” He pointed to a figure a short distance away. Heywood stood back a few steps from the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Yeah, he is. I think he wants your job.”
“There are days when I’d give it to him.”
Carmen looked him in the eye. “Really?”
“No. I’m fishing for pity.”
She smiled. “Getting any bites?”
“Apparently not. Anyway, Heywood got wind of it and phoned me. I guess he likes me better.”
“He doesn’t know you like I do.” Carmen gazed at the VW—she would have to look inside soon.
“I told him to get down here and scope things out, which he did. He oversaw the car’s extraction from the lake. He also took a ton of photos. The car was almost completely out of sight. First guess is, our guy killed the passenger then drove here and pushed the car into the water. As you can see, or could see if it were daylight, the water has a great deal of moss and reeds. No wonder it took so long to find.”
“Aren’t VW Bugs supposed to float?”
“They used to advertise that, but the car is a ’67 so it’s well over forty years old. I doubt it’s as watertight as it was four decades ago.”
“And the body is in the car?”
“Oh, yeah. I hope you were kidding about stopping for dinner. Come on, I’ll show you.”
“I can hardly wait.” Carmen swallowed her reluctance and followed Bud to the car.
Moving down the shallow slope leading from the access road to the ebony water, Carmen recognized a man standing next to the open door of the VW and hunched forward, peering inside. She didn’t need to see his face to know it was Dr. Norman Shuffler. Why was he here?
“I thought your days in the field were over, Doc.” Carmen tried to sound upbeat.
Shuffler withdrew his torso from the car’s cab and turned to face Carmen. “Ah, ‘She walks in beauty as the night.’” He wore nitrile gloves. As he turned, an odor from the car filled the area. Carmen’s eyes burned, her throat constricted, and for a moment she thought she’d vomit everything she had eaten that month. How Shuffler could lean over the waterlogged corpse was beyond her.
“Um, yeah, I always look better in the dark.”
“Nonsense. You always look good.” Shuffler held his ground as if trying to keep Carmen at a distance. Silence, as thick as the stench, hung in the air. “I left standing orders at the ME office that I was to be notified of any calls that might be related to Lindsey and Cohen. This fit the bill.”
Bud had stopped his approach. He apparently had no desire to see the body again. Carmen had to look at the victim. It was her job. She had seen bad things before: dismembered bodies, brutal sexual assaults, children killed by stoned parents—she could handle this. She kept telling herself that.
Carmen didn’t know how other cops did it, but she had a lead-lined curtain in her mind, one she could draw to shut the emotional, reactive part of her brain from the logical, proactive part. She took a deep breath before closing the distance and held it for a moment. Shuffler stepped aside and began talking as if conversation might calm the boiling
acid vat that was her stomach.
“He had his wallet on him. Twenty-two-year-old white male. He’s been submerged for awhile, so his remains are in bad shape. Really bad shape.”
Carmen shone her light on the body. The young man looked like a character from a Zombie movie, only worse. His eyes, what was left of them, were open, revealing fogged orbs half their normal size. His lips were drawn back revealing teeth, his tongue swollen. His skin was pale, almost white. There was evidence that fish in the lake had been dining on him.
She forced down the gorge threatening to erupt from her stomach. The lead curtain closed tight.
Raising her head, she noticed two things: first, the windows were open; second, there was a hole about the size of a 9mm slug in the vic’s head. “Did you lower the windows, Doc?”
“No. They were that way when I got here.”
“Bud?”
He was close enough to hear the question. “Nope. The thing went in with the windows down.”
Carmen returned her attention to the ME. “We know the car belonged to Lindsey, and he was killed about a week ago. Am I right in assuming that . . .” She motioned to the body.
Shuffler didn’t need a complete sentence to understand. “His name is Bob Wilton. His license says Bob, not Robert. Yes, I’d say on preliminary examination that the body has been in the water about a week, which fits with the time of death for Doug Lindsey. Of course, it’s going to be difficult to prove, but I see nothing that contradicts the assumption.”
“Not much guesswork needed for COD.” Carmen stared at the swollen bullet wound.
“I can’t say officially, but you can probably bet your house on the fact that Mr. Wilton died from a gunshot wound to the head. The other side of the cranium is a mess.”
Carmen nodded. “Through and through?”
“Yes. Small hole here.” He pointed to the wound. “Big hole on the other side. He’s been in the water too long for powder residue, although I might have more luck once I have him back in the office.”
Turning, Carmen walked to Bud. Heywood had joined him. Carmen addressed the newcomer first. “Okay, Heywood, what does that gigantic intellect of yours tell you?”
“About the murder?”
“No, about the softball game in the park. Of course, about the murder.” She raised a hand. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge.”
“No problem, Detective.” Heywood straightened. “What strikes me as odd is the gunshot wound to the head. It doesn’t fit the other murders.”
Carmen gave a nod. “Go on.” The three strolled up the bank slowly, still careful about where they stepped.
“Well, Victim Number 1 was tortured and died of anaphylactic shock brought on by latex powder on the murderer’s gloves.”
“Probably an accident,” Bud said. “Not that the man didn’t intend to kill Lindsey anyway.”
Heywood continued. “Victim Number 2 died of a vicious beating. Both murders were protracted and hands on. The killer here popped the vic in the car with a shot to the head. Impersonal. Fast.”
“Why?” Carmen pursed her lips. “Why would he do that? Why change?”
“I’d just be guessing, Detective,” Heywood said.
“You’d be surprised how often a guess is right, Officer. Give me your best shot.” Carmen stopped at the top of the slope just a couple of feet from the crime scene tape.
“Victim 3 was in the way. He didn’t fit whatever the actor is doing, so he just squeezed off a shot. Maybe he did so when he grabbed Lindsey.”
“I’m thinking along the same lines. Does that make sense to you, Bud?”
“Yep. Maybe Lindsey and Wilton were out together. Bad guy approaches them somewhere, drills Wilton and takes Lindsey at gunpoint.”
“But if he has Lindsey, then how does he have time to drive the Bug here and sink it, unless—”
“—the crime happened here.”
“Maybe he sedated Lindsey,” Heywood suggested.
“Doc said he found a pair of puncture marks that didn’t fit the pattern of the other punctures over the kid’s body.”
“The Taser thing you mentioned,” Bud said. “That’s crossed my mind. So he shoots one guy in the car and uses a Taser on the other? That had to be terrifying.”
“Wait . . . wait.” Carmen’s brain had dropped into fourth gear. “Doc says the exit wound is large. If Lindsey is in the driver’s seat when his buddy is shot, then why didn’t we find blood spatter on his clothing?”
“The bad guy redressed Lindsey after the kid died?” Heywood didn’t sound convinced of his own suggestion. “That would mean that he anticipated the problem.”
“We gotta go simpler,” Carmen said. “Look for the obvious answer.”
Bud scratched his chin. “Okay, how about this? Lindsey wasn’t in the car at the time. Maybe the perp takes him out with the Taser, then approaches the VW and does Wilton.”
That was a real possibility. “Makes sense. But what situation would fit that scenario?”
“Maybe Lindsey needed to use the head, and his buddy stayed in the car.” Bud thought for a second. “But that means the perp would know that Lindsey would do that and would have lain in wait. How would he know that?”
“Wait a second.” Carmen looked back at the VW. She was going to have to do what she didn’t want to: return to the VW. “I’ll be right back.”
She went to study the corpse again, seeing this time what the hideous condition of the body kept her from seeing before. She returned to the two who waited for her at the top of the bank. She uttered four words as if they answered everything: “He’s wearing jogging clothes.”
Bud stared at her for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.
The three looked to the park.
“That would explain a lot.” Bud gave a slow nod. “A lot.”
Carmen waited for the forensics team to arrive, then supervised as they removed the hideous corpse from the small car, placed it on a gurney, covered it, and took it to the ME vehicle. She took her own photos, not because she didn’t trust the crime-scene unit or Heywood, but because taking photos focused her attention on details.
She and Bud had interviewed everyone still at the park, and she sent Heywood and a few other officers to search for security cameras. There were no traffic cams in the area, but maybe some security-conscious homeowner had a camera mounted to the front of his or her house. That would be lucky.
Too bad she and luck hadn’t been on speaking terms since the first body was found.
21
Carmen and Bud were the last to leave the scene. They drove to the address on Bob Wilton’s driver’s license—she in her car, Bud following in his. The place was dark and empty. Mail was jammed into the small box. No one had been to the house in days. Which meant Wilton lived alone. The home was located in the town of Allied Gardens, not far west of Lake Murray.
She looked around the small bungalow. Streetlights illuminated the front of the home. Its pale green paint looked newly applied. White trim accented the exterior. The small lawn—far better than what welcomed guests to Carmen’s home—was neat, mowed, and looked well attended. Small plants in a dirt strip added visual interest to an otherwise plain wall.
“Keeps a neat yard.”
“A week’s salary says it’s a rental.” Bud stepped to Carmen’s side. “Not many twenty-something-year-olds spend their time gardening.”
“It’s not gardening, smart guy, just a few plants and a lawn.”
Bud stared at her for a long moment. “You forget, I’ve been to your house.”
“Touché.” The comment stung and she couldn’t guess why. She didn’t care what other people thought of her yard or home or much of anything else. “Let’s knock.”
“You expect someone to answer? The only person that’s bee
n up these porch steps is the mail carrier.”
“Still, it’s gotta be done. Can’t have some suit asking if we knocked or not, and if not, why.”
Bud shrugged. “I guess.”
Carmen moved up the steps, her gaze shifting from the front door to the living room window, looking for movement or a shadow. It was closing in on eleven. Not a time when people came to the front door of houses. Bud moved to the window and peeked around the jamb. He shook his head, indicating he saw nothing of interest.
A wood-frame screen door opened without a squeak. She knocked firmly but without aggression. She wanted to sound like a friend, not a home invader. As expected, no one responded and she heard nothing. This time she rang the doorbell. The sound of it, a sound that reminded Carmen of her parent’s home, oozed outside. Still no response.
Carmen pulled a latex glove from her pocket and used it to turn the doorknob. To her surprise, it turned. She opened the door an inch then drew her Glock 9mm. Bud had already done the same.
“Look,” he deadpanned, “the door is open. Someone might need our help.” He moved behind Carmen and pulled the screen door wider.
She removed a small flashlight from the pocket of her blazer, pointed it to the porch, and clicked it on. Then she pushed the door open and entered. “San Diego Police. Anyone here?” If she believed she was entering a charged situation, she would have kept the announcement to herself, but she and Bud were entering a private residence without a warrant and on the pretense that someone might be injured. There was no response.
The living room had an old sofa, a coffee table that might have once belonged to the Flintstones, and a small flat-screen television sitting on an old school desk.
Bud moved around her and headed to the kitchen, an open area just off a small dining room. “Clear.”
Carmen started down the hall, coming across the hall bath first. It was empty. “Clear.”
Bud had already moved down the hall and pushed into a bedroom. “Clear.”