“Glad to do all three. Although I imagine you can teach me a few things about motivation. A body can’t get to Captain of the Guard without having a few motivational techniques tucked away. If anything of interest crops up in Needlepoint though, I'll let you know. Take care and thanks.”
Carly ambled out of 'Old Max' tingling with excitement for what tomorrow might hold. There was something he thought about the two dead lawyers, two dead executioners, and one rich live doctor that set his detective senses on guard. They linked together too much. One healthy lawyer and one healthy executioner die of coronaries. One sleazy lawyer with ties to prostitution dies outside a Colorado Springs topless bar, while one doctor formerly married to a prostitute retires a rich man after having spent most of his personal life sleazing about Colorado Springs topless bars looking for hookers.
He picked a small mom and pop hotel at the edge of town for the night and settled in quickly. Stretched out across the bed, his feet dangling over the edge as they always did at most motels, he phoned Dave. It seemed his friend in Denver had been doing a lot of detective work regarding the attorneys Higgins and Langella. It seems that Higgins wasn't a candidate for a heart attack, at least according to his widow and his physician, as both had been surprised when he died. Higgins had been a weekend athlete, having taken excellent care of himself. He never drank or smoked, jogged daily and had always played a strong game of city league basketball on a regular basis. He was no slouch, city ball in Denver included a lot of former college and professional jocks trying to stay in shape. A body needed to be in great shape to play in that league.
Another odd fact Dave had uncovered, was Higgins and Langella had fought bitterly before they split as partners, which was just weeks before Higgins died. The wife hadn't known why they were on the outs that time, but it seemed that the two had a strained relationship from time to time throughout their partnership. Higgins was the straight arrow and Langella’s feet of clay kept getting in the way.
Langella it seemed had been inclined to represent anyone and anybody, guilty or innocent as long as they paid. He had seemed to be on the edge of a number of shady deals, all the time. There had been talk around the district attorney's office he had a hand in everything from Medicaid fraud, phony adoptions, to insurance fraud. For the most part, it seemed that Langella did a lot of his 'midnight' lawyering out of Colorado Springs where he spent time on the weekends. Higgins had an idea that was going on and the two would argue about it. Langella would always appease Higgins in some way, as he seemed to need the legitimate front that Higgins presented. Higgins on the other hand was a new attorney, not necessarily a legal eagle and needed the experience Langella had to offer. Plus, Langella's grandparents had had strong connections around the Denver social circuit, a definite asset for any new legal firm. Theirs was a tenuous marriage of skills, contacts, and weak morals to say the least.
At Carly's behest, Dave was going to do some checking into Hasan. Carly wondered if possibly Hasan and Langella knew each other from the party scene in Springs. Maybe they knew each other before Dombrowski ended up on death row. It seemed logical to both detectives that a lawyer profiteering in illegal Medicaid, and the like, might need a medical doctor who was willing to sell his signature or perform a back alley surgery for the right price.
Dave broke the news to Carly that the LAPD had found another body. Seems as if the Cross Killer in L. A. acted out the ‘Simon Station’ killing a black woman and another woman at the same time. From his friend’s description of the newscast, it sounded as if the killer was getting closer and closer to exact imitation of Dombrowski. For Carly it was getting to be too close. Dave also added one last comment to the discussion after Carly filled him in on the information he had gotten at 'Old Max'.
“Joy called trying to find you. She said a Diane Edwards called several times and seemed pretty distraught. She has a right to be. The newscast indicated that the black woman killed, was named Leona Edwards, sister of noted LAPD Inspector Diane Edwards.”
Carly closed the conversation without saying good-bye, but by sighing a low, “Oh God.”
Chapter Ten
Calling Joy first helped Carly make the second call to Diane. Joy had always been a rock of stability in his crazy world and talking to her gave him a calmness that he didn't seem able to muster on his own. Joy told him she spent some time talking with Diane and did what she could to console the grieving woman, but she felt that the only real respite for Diane would be a break in the case. Carly couldn't have agreed more. He recounted the events of the day, hoping to reassure himself as much as Joy that he was making some headway, if no longer for his addled reputation but for the sake of his now grieving lover.
She agreed investigating the strange deaths of the lawyers and the executioners had merit. Joy said that she could easily clear his calendar for the remainder of the week. The next semester was almost three weeks away, so whatever he had to do was merely idle housekeeping tasks between classes. She could even steer the dean onto some other sap within the department. As they ended their conversation, Joy, as always told him to be careful. This time her voice betrayed a sense of urgency in the request, people were dying and she made it very clear she didn't want him to be the next tragedy.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the sense of calm Joy had imparted, despite her veiled concern for his safety. When Diane answered her home phone on the first ring, he knew she must have been sitting almost on top of it. Her relief at hearing his voice soon gave away to a torrent of grief, and remorse. Grief over the loss of her youngest sister, a young nurse who disappeared from a hospital parking lot. Remorse for the sense of inadequacy she felt, that for all her professional skills Diane could not have saved her own sister.
Interrupted by the occasional silence of someone too overwrought to speak, Diane was able to give him a detailed account of the latest killings. Her sister Leona, ‘Le’ as everyone called her, had been abducted early on a Friday morning as she came off the midnight shift. She and Diane talked about every other day maybe less so recently with the amount of time Diane was spending on the case, so it was not unusual that they didn't speak or see each other on Friday. Saturday evening Diane had called her sister regarding plans they had made for Sunday, but only reached her phone message. A second call late on Saturday raised her curiosity. Her sister was unmarried and wasn't seeing anyone at the time, so the likelihood of her being out on a date was small. By Sunday morning, when she still didn't answer, Diane got alarmed and went to her apartment. Not finding her there, Diane drove to the hospital where fellow nurses said Le had left on Friday morning as scheduled and wasn't due back in until Sunday night.
As Diane drove out of the hospital parking lot she spotted her sister's car. By the time she managed to maneuver through the parking lot to get next to the little red sedan, she had radioed for back-up assistance, as her intuition raised the ugly specter of a forbidden possibility. Within the hour, as black and white units along with several detectives from her squad scurried about the hospital grounds searching for clues of any sort, Diane began to fear the worst. Diane knew Le had always been the epitome of responsibility, so the possibility of her taking off for a wild, spur-of-the-moment, weekend fling seemed most unlikely.
“Carly, I knew he had her. From the moment I saw her car, I knew it. It began eating at me, turning my soul to stone. I knew it. I gave up hope from the start,” she had sobbed into the receiver. “It seemed as though this killer had come to own me, not just professionally but
now personally.”
Slowly she managed to continue to fill in the rest of the killers, new 'Station' as she described it. By Sunday night, a seventeen-year-old hooker had been listed as missing by friends. The last time anyone saw the girl she had been working the street on Friday night. She had taken off with a trick driving a van. No one saw the guy, no one bothered to look at the vehicle plates. Despite the admonishments the police had put out on the street telling everyone to be wary, it had b
een business as usual.
On the following Tuesday afternoon, a demolition crew working the East Side found the two bodies. From the description Diane gave him of the crime scene, Le and the other girl participated in the fifth 'Station', with the black girl acting out the role of Simon. The details fit those of the same 'Station' in the Denver killings.
Carly made a mental note to himself to call Dave and have him send the 'Simon' case file to Diane. A review of the details would be of some help, maybe not in catching the raging evil that was beginning to put a vise grip on L.A., but he knew that it would seem like a life line to Diane and her squad. It would be something tangible, something to occupy time, something to take her mind off her grief and provide some soul-saving minutiae to help the healing to begin.
After talking out the crime and the leads Carly was following a thousand miles away, the two lovers spent the remainder of the night and into the early morning entwined in each other's psyche. Carly tried to lend support and comfort to someone so injured both personally and professionally that recovery might not be possible. Diane in turn poured out the depths of her heart to a man who needed to be needed, hoping that he could be her ‘Knight’ on a shining steed, ready to deliver her from her pain. To her relief and his hope, they managed to laugh a little when she had actually referred to him as a 'white' knight and he feigned some racial indignity.
Without noticing, they had talked through the night, with Carly mostly listening and Diane talking. She spoke of her and Le's childhood, the pride they had taken in each other's careers, the sense of sisterhood the two had shared so deeply. Diane feared her personal involvement in the case would now be the much sought after reason for the chief to remove her from the case. In the week or so since Carly had left, the chief continued to harangue her and badger her about initiating the involvement of Carly in the case. Now as her sister was added to the list of victims, the chief would be more than justified in removing her on grounds of conflict of interest. Carly's reassurance that even Chief Michaels would not be so insensitive to her need to be involved. He might remove her from the case in time, but only when it was politically wise. The reality of the situation was a white politician could not fire a black woman, the only black woman Inspector in the LAPD in her greatest hour of need. If he did, he would not be able to last the day himself as a bureaucrat.
Convinced by Carly's arguments, Diane found a morsel of inner fortitude and started to talk like a cop and reviewed the case with Carly. By morning, she was far stronger than when he had called the night before, gaining sustenance from the conversation that a night's sleep could never have provided. As they hung up, Diane was prepared to go to work, a sure respite from the loneliness of her personal torment.
When Carly called, the Ramirez' phone rang once, as had Diane's. Dave knew his former partner too well, as he had expected the call.
“I was waiting for you buddy. I have a feeling you want me to send some information out west.” Without waiting for Carly's response, he continued, “You've got the drive on the 'Simon Station' at your place. I’d prefer not to get it from records again, so I'll call Joy, get her to break into your rat-infested hovel and have her load them in your computer. If you give me an e-mail address, I can link up with L.A. and send her the entire case to her personally.”
Relieved at the efficiency of his friend, Carly gave him Diane's email and told him to contact her, as the files really should be for her eyes only. After all he surmised, until something breaks, the Chief in Los Angeles was not receptive to anything that smelled like it came out of Carly's arena and less so if it appeared to have linked Dombrowski to the L.A. killings in any way.
A quick shower and a cup of coffee got Carly out of the motel quickly. Heading west up the Arkansas River canyon, Carly paid little attention to the gorgeous rock walls, herds of mountain goats, and the peek-a-boo glimpses of the whitecaps from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Staring at the pavement as it passed under his wheels, he ran through his stay in Cañon City, the talk with Diane, and the unraveled threads from Dombrowski that seemed to be cropping up a thousand miles away. He earnestly hoped his drive was going to be more than a few hours of missed scenery.
It was not a matter of reaching Needlepoint, as suddenly being there. A small town tucked in the shadows of fourteen thousand-foot peaks, which broke abruptly into a sage dotted plain. Needlepoint was noted for its alpine hiking trails, a monastery and breath taking views of the mountains.
An early mining town in the 1800's, Needlepoint went bust as the silver mines played out by the early 1900's. A few ranchers who eked out a living ranging cattle herds over the vast plains kept the town alive for most of modern times. By the 1960's Needlepoint had been 'discovered' all over again by flower children in search of nirvana, karma and all the essences of the universe that Carly didn't understand. Most left in short time but some stayed. As time passed Needlepoint became a haven for artisans, dropouts and those in search of spirituality. Playing off the old Indian yarns those who came, felt it to be a holy place. For some it was. For others it was a safe place from the burdens of modern civilization, minor drug laws, and some of the more conventional social encumbrances like clothing. A brief period of community nudity in the late 1960's, gave way to a more traditional search for soul when a priest in need of some time alone founded a monastery just south of the town limits.
The monastery flourished and gave the town a source of income and respectability as it became noted as a cushy retreat for well to do Catholics couples and families. For Carly the monastery merely provided directions. As the most notable feature to the Needlepoint landscape, other than the mountains, Carly stopped to inquire as to the whereabouts of the good Dr. Hasan.
Greeted at the door by a large bearded man in a hooded monk’s robe, Brother Damien as he introduced himself responded to Carly’s questions in clipped short phrases. He seemed almost perturbed by the visitor as if Carly had intruded, yet he sketched a quick map in the sand at his bare feet depicting the way to Hasan's cabin. To Carly's surprise the monk offered supper at 5:00, vespers at 7:00 and a clean bed at 9:00 for $50.00 if a weary traveler felt the need. Carly assured him that if he did, he would take him up on the offer, as it seemed if not more comfortable than the floundering resort leading to the main highway, it surely would be more interesting.
As Carly approached the doctor’s property, he couldn’t help think for having a 'a wad of money', Dr. Hasan lived modestly, very modestly. An old pick-up truck sat parked in the front yard, adorned by two old dogs and large calico cat. The simple A-frame cabin was unadorned, weathered and in need of a general face-lift. Standing on the paint-peeling porch, he knocked on the tattered screen door. Carly managed to rouse a short heavy man with a swarthy complexion from a tattered couch he could see through the rusted screen.
“Dr. Hasan?”
In an accent thick with another culture and the smell of liquor, the man wheezed out, “Yeah. Who wants to know?”
“My name is Carlton Thompson. I worked on the Dombrowski case. I'd like to talk with you a bit. Can I come in?”
The eyes, yellow as if jaundiced, glared back at Carly. The detective in him had seen the look a hundred times on door-to-door interviews. Without a word, the eyes seemed to scream... “Interloper...Invader!”
In a surprise move that Carly would remember for a lifetime, the older man betrayed his eyes, with a gruff, “Come on in. I figured somebody would be around eventually.”
The screen door predictably creaked open and slammed shut after Carly as went through it. He stepped into a room almost as devoid of decoration as the outside of the cabin. The cheap couch rested against the far wall, across from it sat a ragged recliner. On the floor was an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, an empty liquor bottle and another calico cat sitting and licking himself. Obviously if Hasan had hit it big, he didn't waste his money on the finer things in life.
Abruptly, Hasan spoke up, “What do you want to know. I'm so damn tired of wait
ing for someone like you, so damn tired of not sleeping, looking over my shoulder, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I might not be scared of you, or them. I'm just tired.”
The obvious lead-in to some sort of confession that the doctor had presented, nullified the questions Carly had so meticulously thought up as he drove.
Feigning any real knowledge of what may be happening, Carly used his most reassuring tone to say, “I think I can help you Doctor. You'll be protected and you can stop hiding. Who knows, maybe you can even start practicing medicine again. You'd like that wouldn't you?'
Eyes down, the doctor nodded his head.
Like a father confessor, Carly gently urged him on. “Tell me about it then, from the beginning.”
Hasan got up without a word and went into the kitchen, from the sounds Carly knew he was getting a cup of courage and a cigarette. He came back with a coffee mug that smelled of bourbon. The cigarette dangled from his mouth as he fell back on the couch. He cleared his throat with a slug from the mug, took a long draw on the cigarette, brushed away errant ashes from his stained shirt and began his confession. Carly eased into the recliner and let Hasan talk.
“I knew Langella from the beginning, back when I was in Pakistan he arranged for me to meet my wife. He did that as a business for a while, arranging marriages for foreign nationals. Usually, it was for professionals, doctors, scientists and such. The kind of person your Immigration department likes to see come to America. I was put in contact with him through an online advertisement. He was able to set this all up using G.I.'s who had been stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. He'd pay them to run the ads and make the connections through him.”
The story was typical and Carly knew it well. For $10,000 Hasan was married to an American woman and came to the United States. Langella had arranged everything. He even helped with the paperwork once Hasan had arrived. Lots of the women who did this were hookers and related sex workers, Hasan’s wife had been no exception. Hasan was not sure but he thought Langella was partners with one of the club owners. He did a lot of business through the clubs it seemed: women, drugs, illegal adoptions and such. Once in a while, he would run a Medicaid scam and needed a physician’s signature on some fraudulent billing.
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