by Steve Gannon
“You never quit, do you?”
“Nope,” Lauren laughed, obviously amused by my discomfort at our chance meeting. “Same as you. Always on the job. Which brings up my next question. What are you doing here?”
“Running down some routine leads.” I shot a glance toward the exit.
“What was that paper you just handed the receptionist?”
“None of your business.”
“I think it is,” said Lauren. Then, to the young man behind the desk, “What did he give you?”
“Don’t answer that, kid,” I ordered. “Anything I said to you was part of a confidential police investigation.”
“That’s crap and you know it,” said Lauren. “Last time I checked, this was still a free country.” Again turning to the receptionist, “I’m Lauren Van Owen from Channel Two News.”
The boy’s eyes widened in recognition.
“You want to be on TV?”
“Keep your mouth shut, kid,” I warned.
The youngster’s gaze swiveled indecisively between Lauren and me. “It was a drawing of some guy he’s looking for,” he said.
Lauren smiled triumphantly. “I knew it! Let’s take a look.”
Before the youth could produce the sheet, I took Lauren’s arm and began marching her toward the far side of the lobby.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lauren snapped, her cheeks flushing with anger.
“You and I are going to have a private little conference,” I said, not slowing my pace.
Apparently deciding that resistance was futile, Lauren accompanied me as gracefully as possible to a secluded table at the club grill. “A private conference, huh? Thought you’d never ask,” she said as I deposited her in a rattan chair. “Don’t ever change, Kane. You’re perfect the way you are.”
I took a place across from her at the table. “For once we agree.”
“I was using a new form of speech. It’s called sarcasm. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah. I’ve always found it especially unattractive in a woman, by the way.”
About to respond in kind, Lauren stopped as a waitress approached. “Would either of you care for something from the grill?” the woman asked. “The specials today are-”
“Nothing,” I interrupted. “We’re fine.”
“I’ll have a peach-banana smoothie, the smoked salmon and avocado salad, and a dry English muffin,” said Lauren, glaring at me defiantly.
“Fine,” I said. “Bring me some coffee. Make sure it’s hot.”
After the waitress departed, Lauren folded her arms. “You said you wanted to talk,” she said crossly. “So talk. Or do I go back to the kid at the desk and have him Xerox me a copy of your drawing?”
“You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
Lauren shook her head. “I told you three weeks ago that the candlelight killings were my ticket to network. I’m not letting it go, but since we last talked it’s become even harder for me to stay in the game. The only reason I’m-”
“Cue the violins,” I said.
“The only reason I’m getting any air time at all on the case,” Lauren continued stubbornly, “is that I keep coming up with things the network guys don’t have or can’t get.”
“Like the plastic ties at the crime scenes?” I asked, referring to an on-air disclosure she had made recently regarding one of the crime-scene descriptors we had withheld from the media. “How’d you get that, anyway?”
“You’d be surprised.” Refusing to elaborate, Lauren paused, then seemed to come to a decision. “Let me ask you something, Kane. Do you ever run into politics on the job?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Well, that’s exactly my situation at Channel Two. Network wants me to turn over my sources and let their anchors report my material. Until now my news director has run interference for me, but serious pressure is coming down from the top. If I cooperate, I’m cutting my own throat. The big boys say they’ll remember who helped them, but you know how that goes. On the other hand, if I don’t play their game, I’m making enemies in the very ranks I want to join.”
“That’s tough, but I don’t see where you’re going with this. How about getting to the point?”
“The point is, I need something. A bargaining chip, something to work with. If I don’t get it soon, I’m off the story. And in words even you can understand, I’d rather give birth to a burning porcupine.”
“Intriguing image,” I said, chuckling in spite of myself.
“Which brings us back to the drawing you left at the desk.”
“I don’t suppose you would believe it has nothing to do with the task force.”
“No.”
“As it appears I don’t have a choice, I’m going to trust you, Van Owen.” I sighed, deciding damage control was my best course. “On two conditions. One is that you keep quiet concerning the drawing. At least for now.”
“And the other?”
“I want total anonymity. Agreed?”
“Deal,” said Lauren. “I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath. “We may have a line on the guy,” I said reluctantly. “It’s shaky, but it’s the best we have. We think he’s stalking his victims, finding women in markets, shopping malls, maybe even health clubs like this one,” I continued, skewing things a bit. “We have a possible witness. She worked with a police artist and came up with a composite sketch.”
“The drawing?”
“Right.”
“I’d think you’d want that plastered on every newspaper and TV in town.”
“Not yet. If it is the guy, we don’t want to tip our hand before we’ve had a chance to locate him.”
“I’ll hold off on the picture till Monday.”
“Agreed,” I said. I knew the task force would have completed its canvass by then, and if something hadn’t shaken loose at that point, inundating the city with the composite was the next step anyway. In any case, unless I wanted to retrieve the considerable number of drawings currently being distributed to other clubs, I had no other option. “Well, I have things to do, so-”
“I’ll need more than that, Kane.”
“Don’t push it, Van Owen.”
“Hear me out. I have a couple of ideas that might help catch your murderer.”
“And further your career in the process?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Before I could respond, our waitress returned. Lauren and I lapsed into silence as the woman slid our orders before us. With a rumbling of hunger, I glanced at Lauren’s lunch, belatedly wishing that I’d requested more than coffee.
Lauren dug in, noticing me eyeing her food. “Mmm,” she murmured around a mouthful of salad. “Want a bite?”
“No.”
“Suit yourself.” She took a pull on her smoothie and continued. “Here’s what I think. You need to get the public involved to catch this guy, right? Next week I’m starting an ongoing story on crime fighters in the LAPD. How about getting me into one of the task force briefings? If it works out, we’ll do a followup. The station could offer a reward for information, and we-”
“You can’t be serious,” I snorted.
“What’s wrong?”
“For one, every other station would scream bloody murder.”
Lauren shrugged. “So we make dubs for the other stations. It would be a pain in the ass, but…”
“… you would control the coverage. And be right in the center of things to boot.”
“You’ll suggest it?”
“Sure. Right after I have my sex-change operation.”
“Okay, how about this? We set up one of your task force investigators as some sort of supercop who always gets his man. We’ll do a profile on him. You know, laying down an unspoken challenge to the killer. Maybe he’ll call in and make a mistake.”
“Now that actually might work,” I mused, surprised we hadn’t thought of it ourselves. “Snead would love it. With him a
s the supercop, of course.”
“You’ll bring it up to him?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Got a pen?” asked Lauren, setting down her fork.
I pulled a ballpoint from my pocket and passed it over, watching as Lauren scribbled a string of numbers on a napkin. “This is my cell number, along with my phone number and extension in the newsroom,” she said, passing me the pen and napkin. “If I’m not answering my cell, they’ll know how to contact me.”
“I don’t mind telling you, Van Owen, it’ll take a while getting used to the idea of hopping into bed with the media.”
Lauren grinned. “You’ll live. Who knows? You might even like it.”
“I doubt that.”
“We’ll see. By the way, your bedroom metaphor reminds me of something you said earlier.”
“What?”
“Intriguing image.”
At a table thirty feet away, Victor Carns sipped a steaming caffe latte. Occasionally he stole a glance across the restaurant, watching the couple in the back. It had taken a moment to recognize the large, rough-looking man as the detective he had seen weeks back on TV. Although Carns had noted something disturbingly familiar about the man when he had first entered the lobby, he hadn’t put it together until he’d noticed the cop showing a sheet of paper to the boy at the reception desk.
Something unrelated? he wondered.
No. Too coincidental. What was his name-Kane-had somehow discovered the health club connection.
Carns took another sip of coffee, wishing he could get a look at the sheet the detective had left at the desk.
Too risky.
Briefly he considered moving to a closer table and attempting to overhear their conversation.
Also too risky.
Carns chanced another furtive glance, finally placing the woman. Lauren Van Owen, Action News at Five. Puzzled, he watched a little longer to be sure, detecting something intimate in the way she looked at Kane when she thought she wasn’t being observed.
Why would a cop be having a private tete-a-tete with a reporter? An affair… or something more?
Not coming up with an answer, Carns shifted in his chair, wondering where he had made his mistake. He realized he was becoming more and more preoccupied with the game. Had he grown careless?
Although certain the police couldn’t have much, Carns forced himself to review his actions over the past months, reassuring himself that he had been meticulous in every detail. Nevertheless, the detective’s presence proved he’d missed something.
What?
Minutes later Carns watched as Kane left some money on the table and exited the club, leaving the reporter to finish her meal alone. Carns pushed away from his table. Grimly, he grabbed his gym bag and headed for the locker room, deciding that in the interest of safety, the time would soon come for him to change the game once more.
Soon… but not quite yet.
31
A high-level decision was made not to inform the Bakers that their intruder might be involved in the candlelight killings. Instead, they were simply told that a good chance existed he would return. As hoped, John and Maureen Baker agreed to cooperate, and during the two weeks that followed, with the exception of sending their son to stay with his grandparents in Palos Verdes, they kept up a normal routine-John off to work by seven-thirty; Maureen to her part-time accounting job on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; friends over occasionally for dinner on weekends.
Meanwhile a Metro surveillance team, with one member of the task force present during each shift, maintained a twenty-four-hour watch from the vacant residence I had noticed on my first visit. Two other plainclothes surveillance teams were posted in unmarked vehicles on Valley Vista Boulevard, with a third vehicle stationed one street up to watch the back-able to monitor anyone approaching the house. Efficient, total coverage. By the book. And fruitless.
Two Tuesdays later, on the morning that surveillance was scheduled to end, I made several telephone calls. The first was to Lieutenant Long at the West LA Division. At my request, Long subsequently contacted his friend Wally Coiner, Metro Division’s commanding officer, requesting that the Baker surveillance be extended another week-even though members of the task force would no longer be participating. Although puzzled, Coiner agreed to do so as a favor to Long, on condition that the size of the surveillance unit be reduced and coverage continued on a nighttime basis only.
My second call was to Dr. Sidney Berns.
Later that afternoon, after fighting cross-town traffic, I pulled up in front of the UCI Neuropsychiatric Center in Orange County. Leaving my car in a twenty-minute parking zone, I entered the white, three-story building. After receiving directions from an elderly receptionist, I proceeded down a hallway to the right, arriving at an outpatient waiting room. There I tapped on a glass partition window, flashing my badge at a nurse on the other side. “Dan Kane to see Dr. Berns,” I said.
The woman slid the window open and checked her schedule. After finding my name partway down, she told me to take a seat and that Dr. Berns would see me when his patient schedule permitted.
Obstinately, I remained standing. Resisting the impulse to pace, I turned my attention to a TV bracketed high on one wall, idly watching a daytime talk show host schmooze her afternoon guests. Fifteen minutes later Dr. Berns stuck his head into the waiting room. “Detective Kane,” he said. “Come in.”
I shook the psychiatrist’s hand, noting his grasp was surprisingly strong. “I know you’re busy,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me on short notice.”
“Glad to help,” replied Berns. “We can talk in my office.”
I followed the psychiatrist through a residents’ lounge, arriving at an eight-by-twelve cubicle with a window opening onto a cement patio. Berns settled behind a desk cluttered with files, a photograph of an attractive woman in her late thirties, and an ashtray overflowing with stubbed-out cigarettes. With a wave of his hand, he directed me to a chair opposite the desk. “Quite unexpected hearing from you,” he noted dryly.
“I suppose,” I said, taking a seat. “Look, I was out of line at the first task force meeting. When it comes to certain subjects, I have a tendency to shoot off my mouth before I have all the facts.”
“Apology accepted.” Berns opened a drawer, withdrawing a half-empty pack of Marlboros. He shook one out and lit it. “I assume from your presence that you want my assistance on something.”
“I do have a couple things I want to run by you,” I admitted. “Confidentially, of course.”
“Of course. You understand I’m no longer being retained on your investigation? My involvement was a one-shot deal requested by Ken Huff. I did the FBI followup pro bono.”
“No. I didn’t realize that.”
Berns shrugged. “Money’s tight down here in Orange County. As long as you realize I no longer hold an official position on the case, I’ll be glad to help in any way I can. What do you want to know?”
“Two things,” I said, ratcheting up my assessment of Berns several notches. “First, I think that in addition to stalking his victims, our man is reconnoitering their houses prior to his killings. It’s a belief not shared by some of my colleagues.”
“Lieutenant Snead?”
“For one. Nonetheless, Huff is backing me up, and working on the prior entry premise, we’ve been investigating selected cases of breaking-and-entering. Recently we discovered an instance that looks to me like the work of the killer. A maid surprised a man while he was in the house. She wound up in the hospital. We got a composite drawing from a family member of the guy who probably did it, a picture you probably saw later on the news. The drawing generated a rash of calls, but unfortunately nothing ever panned out. We also put surveillance teams on the family’s residence, hoping the intruder would return. So far he hasn’t. What I want to know is this: If this guy’s our man, is he coming back?”
Berns thought a moment. “Several factors are at work,” he said. “On one hand, I belie
ve your killer is fixating on a victim. Once he’s selected her, he feels progressive pressure to complete his fantasy and make it real. In the instance you’re describing, he might also view his interrupted reconnaissance as a failure, something to be rectified.”
“On the other hand,” I interjected, anticipating Berns’s train of thought, “the more time goes by, the more likely he’ll be to select a new target. So what’s the bottom line? Is he coming back?”
Berns crushed out his cigarette. “Bottom line, I don’t know. It could go either way. I do know that the guy you’re looking for is smart, and as I said previously, I believe he’s done this before-maybe in different places and operating under different rules, but he’s done it before. Given that, I suspect that as he feels more pressure from the police, he’ll eventually disappear and resurface someplace else, possibly with a new method of finding and killing victims.”
“Putting us back to square one.”
“Correct. Let’s see, it’s been, what-three weeks since the Welsh murders?”
“Twenty-two days.”
“The interim between the first and second murders was twenty-five days; the period between the second and third lessened to fifteen. Assuming the killer’s calendar is decreasing, he’s overdue.”
I nodded. “Which brings me to my second question. At the first task force meeting you mentioned there might be triggers that set him off. Could you expand on that?”
“For one, other cases of violence can act as stressors to push these types of individuals over the edge. A particularly brutal murder reported in the media often spawns a series of repeats across the country.”
“Like worms surfacing after a rain,” I noted. “What else? Anything specific that applies to our guy?”
“The murder of the Welsh family followed almost immediately after the arrest of that auto repairman,” Berns said thoughtfully. “As I said, it’s possible someone else being credited with the killer’s crimes enraged him, causing him to accelerate his schedule.”