by Tyler Dilts
“Hi, Geoff,” I said. “Somehow, I doubt you’re calling to shoot the breeze.”
“Can you give me anything at all about the teacher?”
“No.”
“Off the record?”
“What have you heard?” I asked.
“Elizabeth Williams, English teacher, thirty years old, unmarried,” he paused for a breath. “Brutally stabbed to death.”
“Sounds like you’ve got about as much as we do.”
“Was it as bad as they say?”
“Worse,” I said, although I had no idea who “they” were or what “they” were saying.
“Suspects?”
“None.”
“Links to any other murders?”
“Not yet.” I winced as soon as I spoke, wondering if I should have given him the “yet.” I’d tipped my hand. Geoff let it go, although I knew it didn’t escape him.
“Are the task force rumors true?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Election’s next year.”
“Never too early to start a campaign, is it?”
“Apparently not.” I gave him a minute for another question. He didn’t ask one. “Check in with me tomorrow. I might be able to give you something.”
“Will do. You should get some sleep.”
“So should you,” I said, and I hung up the phone.
I went into the coffee room and poured myself cup number four. Marty was still snoring. His head was propped on one arm of the couch, and his feet hung over the other.
As I dumped a packet of sugar into my mug, I thought about what I’d said to Geoff. None of us had openly acknowledged what we had been thinking all night. It was not likely that this was a case of acquaintance murder. Jilted lovers or greedy siblings rarely have a taste for the kind of brutality we’d seen. From the state of Beth’s body, the violence inflicted upon her, the sheer number of wounds, and the postmortem vaginal penetration, we knew one thing—in all likelihood, our perpetrator had killed before. And unless we found him, he would kill again.
FIVE
“Wake up, Marty,” I said.
“Five more minutes, Mom,” he said without opening his eyes.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes as I poured two cups of water into the top of the Mr. Coffee.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Six thirty.”
“Anything new?”
“Paula called,” I said. “No surprises in the initial workup.” The coffeemaker gurgled and spurted behind me as I took a seat at the table. “Fucker chopped her more than a hundred times. Her abdomen was hacked into too much of a mess to get an exact count.”
“Lovely.” Marty lifted his arms above his head and yawned as he stretched. “Trace evidence?”
“Bunches. Hairs, fibers, all kinds of stuff.”
“But?”
“Most of it was posterior. Probably picked it up off the floor.” I glanced over my shoulder. The coffeepot was just about full. “And since our pal, Carl the custodian, hadn’t cleaned the room yet, we got maybe two hundred high school students tracking shit in and out of there all day long.” I got up and poured us each a cup. A few drops fell onto the heating surface of the machine and sizzled into nothingness. “Gonna take a month just to coordinate with the Crime Scene Unit and catalog it all.”
“Even then,” Marty said, “we’ll probably just be pissing in the wind.” He tore open a packet of Sweet’N Low and emptied it into his cup. “Semen? Prints?”
“Negative on the semen. She’s gonna keep trying for prints, but probably not.”
I could see him tossing the ideas around in his head as he stirred his coffee. “So our perp’s either very lucky or very careful.”
“Or both,” I said.
At ten to seven, armed with two-dozen copies of the preliminary case reports, Marty and I headed upstairs and knocked on the door of the chief’s conference room.
“Come,” he said.
We opened the door and found Ruiz arguing with Deputy Chief Baxter. The DC was a round little man with transplanted hair plugs that he’d had done gradually over the course of several months, as if no one would remember that he used to be bald. A community relations officer, whose name I couldn’t remember, sat next to Baxter, looking a bit lost and studying the pale blue wall.
“You can’t release that,” the lieutenant said. His voice was calm, but the knuckles on his right hand went white as he clenched it into a fist around a pencil.
“I don’t see why not,” Baxter replied, puffing up his chest and straightening in his chair. “We need to reassure the community of our commitment to—”
Ruiz turned to us, dropping the pencil on the desk before Baxter could finish his sentence. “What have we got?” he asked.
“Prelims,” Marty said, sliding one of the copies across the table to him. “Nothing solid yet.”
Ruiz rubbed his temples. “Save the rundown,” he said. “No point in going through it twice.”
“There’s fresh coffee,” the CRO said after a moment of silence. He smiled at us unassumingly and gestured toward the door at the end of the conference room. He took the photocopied packets from us and distributed them around the conference table, placing one in front of each chair, with the packets’ bottom edges perfectly parallel to the edge of the table.
“First task force?” Marty asked him.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to a seasoned and experienced detective such as myself,” Marty said.
I wandered into the kitchenette and saw a large chrome urn that had a bright red light glowing next to the spigot. Thinking back over the night, I tried to remember how many cups of coffee I’d had. I lost count somewhere after five. I opted instead for a small bottle of Arrowhead spring water, which I took from the fridge.
As I looked through the doorway into the conference room, I saw Jen come in with Bob Kincaid from the DA’s office on her heels. His blond hair was freshly moussed, and he had a charm-oozing smile carved into his pretty-boy face. He said something to Jen that I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was made her grin.
“Morning,” I said to her as I crossed back to the table.
“Hi, Danny,” she said, looking at my face. “You look like shit.”
“It amazes me,” I said, “the way you always know exactly the right thing to say.”
“I’m serious,” she said softly, looking into my eyes. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Just too much caffeine and not enough sleep.”
We sat down. Kincaid, Ruiz, and Baxter conferred on the other side of the table as the rest of the task force trickled in. In addition to the four of us from Homicide, who were already working the case, the task force was assigned two detectives each from Violent Crimes, Burglary, and Missing Persons and one from Computer Crimes, another from the Organized Crime Detail, and a watch commander from Patrol to coordinate uniform support. None of them was happy to be there. They knew that unless we caught a break in the case, they’d be spending the foreseeable future running criminal record checks, interviewing high school students, and knocking on neighborhood doors.
“Is this everyone?” Baxter asked when we were all seated.
Ruiz looked us over. “Still waiting on one—”
Dave Zepeda opened the door and came in. “Sorry,” he said. He was carrying a brown McDonald’s bag and a coffee cup. Dave took a seat next to Marty, and the smell of warm Egg McMuffin drifted down the length of the table.
“Very well, then,” Baxter said, sitting up straight in his chair in an unsuccessful attempt to seem authoritative. “I’m sure you all know why you’re here. This is, of course, a very serious case. I spoke with the chief last night, and he—”
“Where’s the chief?” asked Patrick Glenn from Computer Crimes. “Doesn’t he usually head up task forces?”
Baxter looked flustered for a moment, the rhythm of his well-rehearsed speech broken. “He’s in Seattle on personal business. He’s given me full aut
hority to—”
“I was just wondering,” Glenn said, grinning affably.
“Yes, well, he’s given me full authority to—”
“Sorry,” Glenn interrupted, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
The DC nodded decisively. “Well. All right, then,” he said. We watched, trying not to let our amusement show as he ran through his speech in his head and located the point at which he’d been distracted. He apparently had no idea that his already-tenuous authority had just been undermined further.
“As I was saying,” Baxter continued, “I spoke with the chief last night, and he wants a speedy resolution to this matter. As you might imagine, with the recent citywide reductions in violent crime—homicide, in particular—he’s very concerned about this incident. We need to reassure the community of its safety. To that end, we’ve organized this task force to fully and completely address the…”
Through the conference room window, I watched a jet in the distance angling through the blue morning sky on its descent toward Long Beach Airport. I first noticed it in the upper-right corner of the window. As the jet made a diagonal line toward the lower left, it flew directly behind Baxter’s head, disappeared for a moment, and then seemed to emerge from his ear. It continued its downward path just as he was saying something about “violence in our schools.” When he finished, he paused, as if we might feel the need to clap.
“With that,” he said, “I’ll turn it over to Lieutenant Ruiz.”
“Okay,” Ruiz said, “let’s get down to business.”
Marty and I ran everyone through the preliminary reports, explaining the little we actually knew and attempting to expand upon on the facts with educated guesses. When we were through, Efram Kennedy, the guy from the Organized Crime Detail, said, “So, basically, we don’t have anything to go on.” His annoyance covered his pointy face like a ferret mask.
Marty and I exchanged a glance. “Basically,” I said. “No.”
Within five minutes, Ruiz had us organized. Most of the new detectives were going to work with Dave recanvassing the neighborhood, running background checks, and interviewing Beth’s students. Marty had two detectives to help him with cataloging and processing the crime scene evidence, and Jen and I got Pat Glenn to help do background on our victimology workup.
Within another twenty minutes, I was in the passenger seat of Jen’s Explorer, and she was driving east on Seventh Street. The traffic was light, which was not unusual on a Saturday morning, and I caught Jen stealing glances in my direction.
“Want to get some breakfast?” I asked.
“No. You need a break,” she said. “I’m taking you home.”
“So I finally get to go up and see your etchings?”
She wasn’t amused. “Not to my home. Yours.”
“Probably a good idea. I need to get cleaned up.”
“You need to get some sleep.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. The caffeine and adrenaline rushes of the night before were fading quickly. I’d crash before long, whether I wanted to or not.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll meet you back at the squad at, what, noon?”
“Nope. I’ll pick you up at one. We’ll go down to Huntington and talk to the friend.” She turned right onto Roycroft and double-parked in front of my duplex.
“What about the ID?”
“I’ll take care of it. I’m going to pick up the sister in about an hour.” I nodded my appreciation of the fact that she was leaving me out of the victim ID. I’d been dreading it all morning.
“Don’t go solving anything without me,” I said.
“Go to sleep.”
She waited for me to unlock my front door before she pulled away.
Inside, I peeled off my coat and holster and hung each over the back of its own dining room chair. In the kitchen, the morning sun was glowing off the bright yellow, blue, and red walls. A graphic designer with a lively flair for color had rented the place before me, and I hadn’t repainted, imagining that the vivid colors might occasionally perk me up. Usually, though, they just made me want to squint.
I noticed that the message light on my answering machine was blinking, but I ignored it and opened the freezer. My bottle of Grey Goose was just where I had left it. I poured a shot into a paper cup, topped it off with orange juice, and drank it down.
I set the alarm clock on the nightstand in the bedroom for 12:15 and took off my shoes and belt. Lying down, I closed my eyes and hoped I wouldn’t dream.
The alarm went off, and at first I thought I must have made a mistake when I set it, but a double check of the time on my watch confirmed that three hours had passed. I hadn’t even noticed falling asleep, and there I was—already awake. I felt like I’d missed out on something.
I looked in the bathroom mirror. Jen’s comment in the conference room had been accurate. I did look like shit. Three hours of sleep hadn’t helped. Maybe a hot shower and a shave would. Maybe.
They made a dent. The puffy bags under my eyes were less pronounced, and losing the stubble shaved a bit of the weariness off my face. I wondered if salt-and-pepper whiskers on a thirty-four-year-old qualified as premature graying. I ran a comb through my hair and got dressed just in time to hear the doorbell ring.
I opened the door expecting to see my partner, but was surprised to see instead an LBPD uniform officer standing on my porch. He was small, not more than five-seven, but sturdily built, with red hair. He held his hat under his left arm. His blues were crisply pressed, and his Sam Browne belt and holster had a fresh-from-the-quartermaster sheen to them. The polished brass name tag on his chest identified him as Officer Roberts. I didn’t recognize him, and apparently, he didn’t recognize me either.
“Good afternoon, sir.” His voice was filled with an earnest eagerness.
“Hello, Officer,” I said, trying my best to sound like a concerned citizen.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions, sir.”
“Is this about the murder at the high school?”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“Please come in.” I pushed open the screen door for him. Rather than attempting to squeeze past me, he held the door and waited for me to step back inside.
“Thank you,” he said.
I gestured for him to have a seat on the couch in my living room. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?”
“No thank you, sir.” He sat on the end of the sofa while I lowered myself into the chair facing him. From there, looking past me, he had a clear view into the dining room.
“How can I help, Officer?”
“We’re canvassing the neighborhood, looking for anyone who might have seen anything unusual or out of the ordinary yesterday between five and eight p.m. Were you at home during those hours, sir?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I was.”
“Did you happen to see or hear anything,” he said, pausing briefly as he spotted the shoulder holster and Glock .40 hanging over the chair at the dining table, “that struck you as unusual?” His posture stiffened, and he rested his right hand on his thigh near his sidearm. If I hadn’t been looking for his reaction, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Not bad.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m—”
“Danny!” Jen’s voice shot at me from the porch as she opened the screen door.
Roberts’s eyes widened, and his muscles tightened. Instinctively he placed his hand on the grip of his pistol. He relaxed almost immediately as he recognized her. Everybody knew Jen.
“Detective Tanaka?”
“Hi,” she said.
“Careful, ma’am. He may be armed,” Roberts said.
“I know,” she said. “He’s my partner.”
Roberts looked confused. I watched the wheels turning in his head.
“Danny Beckett,” I said, extending my hand.
“I’m sorry, sir…I should have recognized you.” He shook my hand and looked down at the floor.
“Don’t mind him,” Jen
said to the rookie. “He’s an asshole.”
Roberts smiled awkwardly. He stood there for a moment trying to decide what to do. “I guess I should get back to the canvass.” He walked past us and out the door.
“Hey,” I called after him, stopping him on the porch. “You’re doing a good job. Keep it up.” He didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with that.
As I climbed into the passenger seat and buckled the safety belt, Jen reached down between her legs and lifted up a cardboard tray that held two large Styrofoam cups emblazoned with Juice Stop logos on their sides. She handed one to me.
“What’s this?”
“A strawberry-banana smoothie with ginseng. It’s good for you,” she said.
I popped off the plastic lid and looked down into the cup. It was filled with a thick pinkish liquid with dark red flecks. Lifting it to my mouth, I took a tentative sip. It wasn’t bad.
“Yuck,” I said, exaggerating a wince.
“Stop whining or I’ll make you drink my wheatgrass juice.”
I stopped. “How’d the ID go?”
“Well enough,” Jen said as she checked the traffic and turned east onto Seventh Street. “Rachel’s coming apart, though. She was too zoned out on tranqs and booze to handle it. Susan, the girlfriend, identified the body.” I watched the clear plastic straw in her cup turn a pale green as she sucked up a mouthful of juice. “The parents are flying into John Wayne in a couple of hours. No one seems too happy about it.”
“We got anything on them?”
“The parents? Only what we heard last night. Retired in Arizona. Ruiz said he’d handle them.”
I slurped some more of my smoothie, glad for small favors.