‘Oh, here we go. You do this every time, Maddy, every—’
‘I’m going to hang up now, Quincy.’
‘Yeah, that’s it. Just run away whenever it gets difficult. The moment things—’
‘Goodbye, Quincy.’
She stared hard at the silenced phone, as if it too were about to rebuke her. Then she looked up, glad for the distraction of the café crowd, faces to look at who were not her or her sister. She needed to focus, to rejoin the train of thought that was advancing before the phone rang.
Come on, she told herself. Think. Who was this guy? What do you know about him? Only one thing. That he was a stalker, a sexual predator with an aggressive appetite and a taste for rape fantasies, if not worse. He’d have been a regular on porn sites, no doubt. But, hold on, that’s not what turned him on. He got off on looking at, and terrorizing, real women, those he could see in person. And, of course, he would want women who would lack the obvious protection of a husband or boyfriend. How would he have found them? Perhaps he hung out at clubs like the Opium Den, but online that meant only one destination. How had she not thought of it before?
With new vigour, she hammered away at the sites she knew of, one of which Quincy had recommended, back when the animating purpose of her life had been to find Maddy a husband.
‘I don’t need some website to find a date, Quincy,’ she had said, standing in her sister’s cavernous, knocked-through kitchen. ‘For Christ’s sake.’
‘I know you could date every night of the week, if you wanted to,’ her sister had replied, making the word date sound strongly like ‘fuck’. ‘Perhaps you are, for all we know.’ Always that ‘we’, implying, what, husband Mark and her? Or, Mom, Abigail and her, the three of them sitting together, denouncing Maddy as a slut?
‘The point is, this is not about hooking up. This is about, you know, settling down.’
To humour her, Maddy had signed up for the thirty-day trial, created a profile (no photo), and a handle (middle name plus year of birth) and had even gone on two dates. One had become the source for a good story about corruption at UCLA; the other one, she had slept with for one night – the thrill enhanced by knowing that was precisely not what Quincy had intended.
She remembered her password, was pleased to see it still worked and astonished to see more than six hundred ‘requests’ left for her since she had last looked. But there was no sign of Gilper, under any of the permutations.
Truth was, he was never likely to be there. The same was true of Rosario Padilla. Dating sites were as stratified by class as everything else in LA. Quincy’s recommendation had been one of those ‘exclusive’ forums, where not one degree but two was considered a must. But Maddy refused to be discouraged.
She worked through the more mainstream sites, first searching by name without success. That was hardly a surprise. If Gilper’s intention was to find women to stalk, he was hardly going to advertise his identity. But the advantage of dating sites like these was that they demanded users posted a photo. That would have been hard to resist for Gilper: it meant he could check out his potential prey. And he couldn’t easily post a fake picture of himself; these days, thanks to tagging, whoever’s face he had stolen would have found out pretty quick.
So she scrolled through reams of male faces, three or four hundred she guessed even though she had filtered by age, before finally striking gold. TonyG and a recent year – perhaps the year he had joined the site – in two digits. There he was, the face unmistakable from his mugshot. The profile gave little away:
My name is Anthony, but everyone calls me Tony. I’m fit, athletic and an all-round good guy. If you love the Dodgers and want a guy who’ll love you just as much, then you know who to call.
She had found him. A few more clicks told her that the account had been dormant for four weeks. He had stopped using it before the first killing. Maddy felt her palms grow clammy.
She texted Katharine and, within twenty minutes, her friend had cracked loveheartsusa.com wide open, extracting the address under which Gilper had registered. The tone of Katharine’s reply – terse – left Maddy in no doubt that this was a kindness proffered to her late sister, not to her.
Maddy called for a cab to take her to East LA, arriving at the address twenty-five minutes later. She was, she noted, not far from Rosie Padilla’s home in Boyle Heights, near enough for Gilper to have kept watch over her, at any rate. The building surprised her. Expecting a down-at-heel apartment block, she couldn’t tell if it was instead an office or some kind of hotel. As she got closer, she understood. A sign announced ‘The Bruce J Rhind Residential Facility for Military Veterans’. She knew of these places, sheltered accommodation they called them, often the sanctuary for those whose brains got mashed up in Iraq or Afghanistan or the second Korean war. That would explain the missing four or so years after the DUI conviction, during which Gilper had left next to no trace online. He’d been on a tour of duty. Maybe several. And come back to hunt young women.
Gingerly, she approached the reception desk, saying that she was there to visit Tony Gilper. (A mistake to ask for ‘Anthony’ if everyone called him ‘Tony’; it would only arouse suspicion, marking you out as a stranger. The other way around carried less risk: if everyone there knew him as Anthony, no problem; she’d be implying that true intimates, from way back when, called him Tony. All this went through Maddy’s mind in the half-second before she opened her mouth.)
‘Tony? Oh, that’s nice,’ said the woman seated at the desk, an African-American, in her fifties and motherly. ‘He doesn’t get so many visitors. You family?’
‘Friend of the family,’ Maddy said.
‘And what name shall I give, honey?’
‘If you tell him Rosie’s here to see him.’
It was a gamble, she knew that. Maybe even a reckless one. The name alone might prompt him to refuse to see her, though that would be an answer in itself. But then she had a better idea. ‘Actually, I’d like to give him a surprise. It’s been a while.’
‘All right, then. Why don’t you follow me.’
The woman levered herself from her chair, rested a homemade, cardboard ‘Back in 5 minutes’ sign on the counter, and set off down a corridor, through one set of double-doors, then another. There were paintings on the walls, the kind you’d get in a high-school art-room: amateurish still lives; prog-rock voluptuous fantasy women and winged horses; gloomy self-portraits. Infusing the air was the smell of institutional food.
Now the linoleum was replaced by carpet, signalling that they were away from the communal space and nearing the individual rooms and apartments. They stopped outside number thirty-one and the receptionist gave a light knock on the door.
‘Who is it?’
Crouching slightly, as if communicating with a young child on the other side, she said, ‘There’s a visitor for you.’
‘OK.’
The woman creaked the door open gently, yielding just a sliver of the room inside. In that wedge, though, Maddy saw enough to know that she had found him. Older, the skin greyer, the eyes smaller and harder, without the youthful arrogance she had seen earlier, there was nevertheless no doubting it: this was the face on the documents Leo had handed her, the face on the driver’s licence, the face of the man identified by police as the stalker of Rosario Padilla. It was bathed in the sickly glow of the television directly opposite him.
Maddy felt a clutch inside her stomach, as if an unseen hand were squeezing her innards. This was the man who had tormented a woman and possibly killed her. And if he had done that, there was at least a chance he had done the same to Eveline Plaats and to Abigail. She was seized with a dizzying sensation: that she was about to come face to face with the man who had killed her sister.
Chapter 31
‘We OK to come in?’ the receptionist asked, seeking a second confirmation.
‘Sure.’
The door opened wider to reveal a modest room, dominated by the big TV. A bed, two chairs, a small window an
d then another door leading to what Maddy guessed was a bathroom. At intervals, leaning against a cupboard and a back wall, were items of medical equipment. She only understood their purpose when she took a proper look at Tony Gilper.
He was in an armchair, remote control on his lap, wearing a loose Dodgers sweatshirt. It took Maddy a moment to absorb the information her eyes were giving her. The left sleeve was hanging loose and floppy. It was, she realized, empty. Only then did she register that there were no trousers to speak of because there were no legs.
She must have let out a gasp, or else her face betrayed her, because the receptionist laid a soft hand on her forearm. ‘It’s often a shock the first time, honey,’ she whispered. ‘You just take your time.’
The woman pulled out the second chair, patting it for Maddy to sit down and make herself at home. ‘I’ll leave you two young people to talk,’ she said as she withdrew from the room and headed back to the reception desk. Maddy thanked her, noticing that, under the bed, were the disassembled component parts of a mobility scooter. Now she looked directly at Gilper, comforting herself that though this man had been capable of following a woman and torturing her from afar – and that having his body shattered in battle had perhaps filled him with enough rage and frustration to do it – he was surely not able to do much more.
Once the door was closed, Maddy introduced herself as Detective Madison Halliday of the LAPD, producing her badge for inspection. She was making inquiries into the death of Rosario Padilla and had seen a series of complaints relating to him.
He seemed terrified, as if he had dreaded this moment.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.
‘Yes you do.’ She began reading. ‘“I don’t care if you don’t want it, we’re going to do it anyway. I’m stronger than you, Rosie … If you don’t like it, that’s just going to make me harder. I like it dry.” Ringing any bells? Or should I go on? How about this? “Why do you not look my way today, Rosie? You know I was watching you, so why not a little wave? Or maybe a kiss from those lips, made to give me blowjob?” You sent that to Rosario Padilla, who worked very near here, as it happens. Near enough for you to have seen her walk past your window.”
‘You’ve got no proof.’
‘Oh yes I do. I have phone company records tracing these messages directly to you.’ It was a bluff, but she held his gaze and he soon crumbled.
‘Look, look, I told you guys already. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’ He was shaking his head from side to side as he spoke. His left eye began to twitch. ‘I never meant no harm by it. I mean, I didn’t want to hurt her. I just, I just – sitting here, in this room, when you can’t move and no girl will ever look at you again, it’s hard. I’m sorry. I told you, I promise I won’t do it again. I won’t.’ She wondered if he was about to cry.
Torn between disgust and pity, Madison tried to repress both feelings. ‘Rosie Padilla is dead, Mr Gilper.’
‘I’m Corporal Gilper,’ he said, his left eye now opening and closing as rapidly as a camera shutter. ‘And I know she’s dead. But I had nothing to do with it. I can barely wipe my ass, how the fuck could I kill anyone?’
She pressed him a little more, but her heart was not in it. Afterwards, she had a chat with the receptionist, asking her to check the diary to work out if other friends had been visiting Tony as often as they should be. Sure enough, the log confirmed Tony Gilper had been right here on the nights Rosario Padilla – and Eveline and Abigail – had been killed.
Maddy left the Bruce J Rhind Residential Facility for Military Veterans at first glum and then enraged. Glum at the horror that breeds horror, the war that had left Gilper so damaged and pained that he inflicted more pain on Rosie. And rage that she had wasted so much time, a full day chasing down a useless, blind alley. With that fury grew a suspicion. Whoever had set her haring off around this track, so soon after she had made trouble by raising the China connection, had known it would be futile. That’s why they had done it. She had been set-up, deliberately distracted and taken out of the game. Someone had decided to do that. Leo or whoever had handed that file to him. But who was it?
Chapter 32
Bill Doran hit rewind for the ninth time.
They were beautiful young women, cut down when their lives should have been ahead of them.
That could work. Could even be the opening. He pressed play.
We want the truth! We want to get to the bottom of who did this to our families!
That would work too. He played the next bit, mentally doing the edit that would produce the workable bite.
Let’s say the killer is someone in that base. You know what? We can’t do anything about that! The people on that base, in the garrison, are not subject to American law. They’re subject only to Chinese law. But it’s not fair and it’s not right. That’s what’s got to change!
Too long, but it was good. And the closer, this last bit: you wouldn’t need to do much to it. The tiniest edit, here and there, nip and tuck. But it was all there, ready to go.
We want the truth about these women. They are our sisters and daughters and friends. They deserve justice. Because the law should apply to everyone. That’s what we demand. Justice for Rosario and Eveline and Abigail!
He wasn’t sure about the names. Maybe that diluted the impact, plus Abigail at least was an ongoing case. They’d have to run it past legal. Wouldn’t be a disaster to cut it. And you could still end on a high, with the crowd chanting. USA! USA! USA!
There were, Bill Doran concluded, endless riches to be mined from this seam. He had watched newcomers before. As a trained spotter of political horseflesh, he believed he had a pretty keen eye. He had picked out a candidate for city council in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the time not even elected to that lowly office, who before the decade was out was the state governor and talked about for the VP slot on the next Republican ticket. He could detect talent at a hundred paces and this guy, this Mario Padilla, had it by the sack full. Obviously untutored, a total novice, he was indisputably a natural.
It had been Doran’s idea to ride the wave Padilla had unleashed. Besides the crowd that young man had pulled in with no notice, his campaign had gone wild on social media. It was exactly the kind of energy Republican candidates needed to tap but rarely did: young, grass-roots, real. He had suggested a rally – big, college basketball arena – where Padilla would be the guest speaker. Free media would be all over them: they couldn’t get enough of this guy. Bill had even come up with a name for the event, which he pictured on a vast banner as the backdrop: The Rape of California.
He made a few quick edits on his computer, collected up his papers and headed into the conference room of the Sacramento headquarters of the Sigurdsson for Governor campaign and prepared to make his case.
‘OK,’ the candidate said. ‘I get it. Downsides. Someone?’
There was the briefest of pauses, while Doran waited to see who would be first to throw a spear into the hide of the oldest rhino at the watering hole.
‘I love the idea, Bill. I think it’s bold. It’s provocative.’ It was Matt, young, keen and with a sharp nose for whatever doubts were brewing in Sigurdsson herself. Doran waited for the but.
‘But my only worry is whether Padilla would do it. His strength is that he’s nonpartisan. Why would he throw that away?’
‘Because he’s a kid. He’s an amateur. He doesn’t know about any of that stuff yet. He’s a boy with a computer who’s started an earthquake. He gets an invitation to speak to fifteen thousand people alongside the future governor of this state, he’s going to say yes.’
‘Maybe. But maybe we don’t want to be associated with him. We don’t know where his campaign’s gonna go, do we? What if he starts diving into crazy? That then becomes us. “Ms Sigurdsson, you’ve appeared at a rally with this man who believes the United States should declare war on the People’s Republic.” There’s a lot of risk.’
Doran could have come back with an answer, put that upst
art in his place. But he had been watching the candidate, giving a slight nod of the head at intervals while Matt was speaking. At which point, the realization clicked into place. Of course. He should have seen it; he should have anticipated it. Sigurdsson was a decent speaker – a little one-note, rarely able to shift out of courtroom battler mode – but decent. But she was no match for Padilla. She lacked his emotional power, his passion, his electrifying sense of a man wronged. No wonder she didn’t want to share a stage with him: she feared she would begin the rally the star and end it overshadowed.
‘OK, fair enough,’ he said, staging a tactical withdrawal. ‘There are other ways to seize the same bit of ground. We could play in some VT from the first rally. In fact, that would allow us to do something else.’
‘Yes?’ The candidate sat up. All politicians were like that, suckers for novelty.
‘What about an all-female line-up? Every speaker a woman. “We are the daughters, sisters and mothers.”’
‘Oh, I like that.’
Doran smiled. He knew what these kids had not yet learned. Come to a meeting with a good idea and, in your back pocket, an even better one.
‘You’ll top the bill, big rousing speech, pull it all together.’
‘And what about the message?’ It was Matt again, having a second stab at the rhino.
‘What about it?’ said Bill, relaxed now.
‘I agree we want to ride the wave. Totally agree. Love that. We all do. “We demand the garrison open up.” Perfect. No one’s against that. Openness. Let the sun shine. Great.’
‘But?’ Bill, still in control.
‘No buts. We demand the PLA co-operate with the police investigation. Again, who’s going to argue with that? We close with slamming Berger for letting this happen on his watch. “Weak, weak, weak.”’
Bill smiled. ‘Weak, weak, weak’ was the phrase that had made his name, deployed to devastating effect in a presidential four cycles ago. He had toyed with the notion of unleashing it in this campaign in the spring. Now, if he proposed that, he would look as if he was plagiarizing this kid. He was determined to show no irritation, just seasoned calm. ‘I still sense a “but” in there somewhere, Matt.’
The 3rd Woman Page 24