by Steve Gannon
“I got him,” Mr. Baker said shakily, squinting into a bristling array of lights and guns.
“Drop your weapon!” a disembodied voice yelled over a bullhorn.
Mr. Baker dropped the Glock. It clattered on the entry tiles.
“Raise your hands and step out onto the landing.”
“Hey, I’m not the guy. He’s inside. I-”
“Raise your hands and step outside,” the voice repeated.
Bewildered, Mr. Baker lifted his hands and moved toward the lights. “He’s inside,” he repeated. “I got him.”
34
Aspecial task force briefing was called later that morning. Minutes after starting, the meeting degenerated into a divisive confrontation brimming with recrimination and finger pointing. Captain Coiner and Sergeant Kinoshita, there to represent the Metro stakeout team, maintained that they should have been advised of the garage entry possibility, a detail that might have saved the life of Officer Patterson. That the intruder might actually be able to enter the locked house was a possibility no one had even considered. They were supposed to have stopped him on the street.
They also argued that because the task force had originally requested the operation, a task force member should have been present-an absence that had left the surveillance unit shorthanded. Lieutenants Snead and Huff closed ranks in defense of the Candlelight Killer Unit. Although under the circumstances averse to pointing out that the surveillance was supposed to have ended days earlier, Snead demanded to know why Metro hadn’t determined that Mr. Baker had a gun in the house. And why had it taken so long to get out an APB on the blue Toyota? They’d had the guy, and they’d let him escape. Taking a more temperate approach, Huff reminded Metro that the loss of one of their men was the direct result of Patterson’s entering the house contrary to orders. If he had remained outside as directed, he would still be alive. And maybe they would have caught the killer as well.
Even Chief Ingram made an appearance, the second in as many days. His previous visit had followed Lauren Van Owen’s most recent newscast, one in which she had disclosed confidential portions-albeit containing inaccuracies and exaggerations-of the killer’s psychological profile. Ingram had promised to find the source of the leak, promising dire consequences for the leaker. Now, after listening to several rounds of the group’s bilateral squabbling, he interrupted to offer his caustic assessment that both the task force and the Metro surveillance team had succeeded in at least one thing: making everybody look like shit. Establishing the definitive low point of the meeting, he added, “You guys have more excuses than a convent of pregnant nuns.”
Later, after everyone else had left, an atmosphere of resignation settled over the task force members. One thing Snead had said earlier summed up the mood. They’d had the guy. And they’d let him escape.
“Okay, who’s got something?” asked Huff glumly. “Kane?”
“We didn’t come up with much at the scene,” I answered. “Nobody got a good look at the killer’s face. He was wearing gloves, so no prints. We got tennis shoe impressions from a flower bed. The lab is comparing them to those taken from the Welsh and Larson scenes.”
“What else?”
“We found fresh oil drips at the end of the street where we think he parked the Toyota. Radiator coolant, too. SID’s sending samples over to Standard Oil for comparison with the drips taken from the Larsons’ garage. I also phoned the woman whose plates were on the Toyota. She didn’t even know they were missing. She has somebody else’s on her car.”
“By any chance, do they belong to our schoolteacher in Tarzana?” asked Barrello.
“None other.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. “Let’s move on,” suggested Huff. “The guy had a remote door-opener for the Bakers’ garage. How did he get it?”
“We know he broke in earlier,” said Barrello. “He could have stolen it then.”
“Who keeps garage-door openers lying around the house?” scoffed Collins. “You keep them in your car. The Bakers’ vehicles were gone the first time he broke in.”
“And if he were going to steal something, why not take a key?” added Snead.
“Maybe he tried and couldn’t find one,” I offered.
“So where’d he get the opener?”
“A while back you suggested a way yourself, Lieutenant,” I said, recalling my visit to Hank Dexter’s electronic shop. “He just went out and bought one.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“If he knows the settings or whatever, all he has to do is buy a replacement control and he’s in.”
“And he could’ve obtained the code from the base unit in the garage the first time he was in there,” said Deluca, catching on.
I nodded. “It’s probably not that simple, and we still don’t know how he originally got in, but let’s check the Bakers’ opener for prints. Maybe he got careless this time.”
“What about the attorney’s office in Santa Ana?” asked Barrello. “After this, we might have enough for a warrant to examine their files.”
“I already made a call on that,” answered Huff. “The DA says we can subpoena anything related to the DMV trace. We can also get a list of the firm’s employees, but not the clients. That’s still considered privileged.”
“So we put everybody working at the firm under the microscope and see what shakes loose?”
“Right. Other ideas?”
“We could check garage-opener distributors in the area,” I suggested. “Go through credit card purchases and work up a list of anybody who’s bought replacement remotes for the types of openers in the victims’ homes-say, for the past six months.”
“There could be thousands,” objected Fairfield. “And the guy could’ve bought them out of the area, or online, or paid cash-whatever.”
“Anybody have a better idea?” asked Huff.
No one answered.
“Okay, then let’s get to it. Barrello, you and Fuentes have dead ended on the rental car angle. Why don’t you-”
“A quick announcement before we parcel out assignments,” interrupted Snead. “We’ll all be working straight through the weekend. No exceptions. And Kane, I want to see you after the meeting.”
Following the briefing, I met Snead outside in the hall. “What’s this about?” I asked.
“You know damn well what it’s about,” Snead snarled. “I checked to see who extended the surveillance on the Baker residence. Guess what, hotshot? The request came from Nelson Long, y our lieutenant over in West LA. Odd, don’t you think?”
“What I think is odd is that the stakeout was about to get canceled in the first place. It was our best shot at catching that dirtbag.”
Snead’s face mottled with rage. “You’re missing the point. You had no right to sidestep the chain of command. Aside from making everybody appear incompetent, your interference resulted in the death of a police officer.”
“If Metro hadn’t been there, the Bakers would be in body bags right now.”
“That’s not what we’re discussing.”
“It should be, Snead. You’re more concerned with appearances than-”
“That’s Lieutenant Snead.”
“Fine, Lieutenant. What I’m saying-”
“I don’t think you realize your role in this conversation, Kane. It’s to shut up and listen. The media haven’t connected the task force with the Sherman Oaks fiasco yet. But if they do, they’ll crucify us. And if that happens, I guarantee that you’ll take your full share of the blame. Which brings us to your friend, Ms. Van Owen, and her mysterious sources inside the department. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Why ask me?”
“Because over the past month, you’ve repeatedly been seen talking with her. Do you and Van Owen have something going, Detective? A little nookie on the side, maybe?”
“Are you accusing me of being the media leak?”
“Not yet,” Snead replied. “You’ll know when I do.”
<
br /> “With all due respect, Lieutenant, go pound sand.”
Snead’s eyes narrowed. “Keep messing with me, Kane, and I’ll make your life a godforsaken misery.”
“Thanks, Bill, but I’m a married man. Glad to see you finally busted out of the closet, though.”
“You’ve always got something smart to say, don’t you?”
“It’s a gift.”
Snead glared. “I’ve got a gift too, hotshot. I can predict the future, and I predict that one of these days your luck is going to run out. And when it does, I’m going to be there, sitting in the front row.”
35
Fortunately, traffic had been light. Staying within the speed limit, Carns made it back to Orange County without incident, arriving at his Mission Viejo storage garage in under ninety minutes.
He still couldn’t believe he had escaped. Obviously, the house had been under surveillance. They’d suckered him, played him for a chump with that phony broadcast.
Kane? he wondered once more.
He remembered the first time he had seen Kane on the news. “We’ll get this maggot,” he’d said. Insulting right from the beginning. But there had been something besides anger in his eyes, something calculating. It had been Lauren Van Owen who had interviewed him then, too.
Could Kane have been using the media for his own purposes as far back as then?
As he stepped from his car, Carns again recalled the surreptitious meeting he had witnessed at the health club. The blond reporter may have mouthed the lies that inspired his monumental blunder, but Carns knew her source.
Working quickly, he opened the door of the rental garage, drove the Toyota inside beside the van, and shut the door. Wearing gloves as always, he switched plates on the blue import, replacing the ones he’d stolen in Arcadia with the originals that had come with the car. The pilfered plates went into a plastic trash bag, along with the magnetic signs he’d purchased years before in Colorado. His knapsack and its contents went into a second bag; his jacket, baseball cap, and tennis shoes into a third. As a precaution, he wiped everything including the bags themselves, making sure there was no chance of a stray print.
He kept the camera and tape recorder, deciding they couldn’t be traced. Otherwise, everything went. In a few months, when things settled down, he would get rid of the cars as well.
Carns stopped on his way home, making deposits in several local Dumpsters. Two hours from the time he’d escaped the trap in Sherman Oaks, everything that could place him at any of the recent murder sites ceased to exist. Almost. There was still the garment he had taken from Julie Welsh’s hamper. And what about the rest, his precious mementos? Would everything have to go?
In the end he resisted the temptation to dispose of it all-slides, tapes, clothes, clippings, videos, digital recordings-reasoning that if the police knew his identity, they would already have come. There would be time enough to get rid of his souvenirs later, but only if necessary. And with attention to detail, that day would never come. His carelessness had been a fluke, a onetime mistake. He had grown overconfident and allowed himself to be tricked.
It wouldn’t happen again.
Still, the incident disturbed Carns more than he wanted to admit. In all the years he had been playing the game, no one had ever come this close. No one.
After returning home, Carns showered and taped his swollen ankle. Favoring his injured leg, he limped downstairs. In the living room he poured himself three fingers of Scotch, downing the drink in one shuddering gulp. After refilling his glass, he retired to his office. There he sat at his research station and booted up his Lexis-Nexis software. Once the familiar blue screen appeared, he entered his seven-digit PIN and hit transmit, tapping his fingers impatiently as the computer logged on.
Accessing thousands of databases, the Nexis international information service was a vital information source that was essential to Carns’s work. The inquiry he currently planned, however, did not involve business. A moment later the research display popped up. Carns selected the Nexis news library, major papers file, and typed in his search request: “Kane, Daniel.” Seconds later a response came back: 1,964 hits.
Carns focused his inquiry by adding the letters “LAPD.” This time the total proved considerably smaller: nineteen. Still, a healthy number for a homicide detective. Kane had been a busy boy.
Carns downloaded the files, then spent several minutes perusing Kane’s career as chronicled in the Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and various other news services. The results were disturbing. In every article Kane came across as a dangerous adversary: five shootings (three fatal), heated but unresolved scrapes with LAPD Internal Affairs, and an unparalleled reputation for closing cases. A maverick, and an unpredictable one as well. Studying the articles, Carns recognized something in Kane’s persona that struck a familiar chord. Although Carns hadn’t been able to pinpoint it earlier, he had sensed it from the beginning. Now he realized what it was: Kane was willing to play outside the rules.
Carns hit the print button. As copies of the documents began dropping into the tray, he switched to the Lexis public records library. Selecting the CAPROP assets file, he again typed “Kane, Daniel,” searching for California real estate owned by anyone with that name. Nine hits this time. A manageable number. Carns scrolled through.
Four of the California real estate parcels belonging to individuals named Daniel Kane were located in the San Francisco area, two in San Diego, another in San Bernadino. These Carns rejected, leaving a twelve-unit apartment building in Pasadena (unlikely on a policeman’s salary) and an owner occupied, single-family residence in Malibu.
Seconds later Carns had Daniel Thomas Kane’s street address, the annual property tax, lot size, number of rooms, assessed value, parcel number, square footage, and current mortgage. He also discovered a second individual listed as an owner: Catheryn Ellen Kane.
Kane’s married?
On a whim, after downloading the CAPROP information, Carns scrolled back to the Nexis library and hunted for articles on “Catheryn Kane,” “Catheryn E. Kane,” or “Catheryn Ellen Kane.” By progressively limiting his search, he pared the number of hits to two: mention of a cellist in a string quartet that had performed at Pepperdine University three years ago, and an article on a longtime Malibu resident who had recently become the associate principal cellist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The latter, a short bio that had appeared in the Los Angeles Times, mentioned a photograph not available through Nexis.
After logging off Lexis-Nexis, Carns connected to Times Link, an archival program provided by the Times. Following a short search, a black-and-white image materialized on Carns’s screen. The picture showed an extremely attractive woman sitting on a stool, a cello between her knees, an out-of-focus curtain behind her. The woman on the screen had confident eyes, a delicate neck, and a generous mouth that hinted at passions below the surface.
Carns leaned closer. Although the woman had her hair pinned back, he could tell it was long. Dark blond or auburn. Either would be satisfactory, he thought, picturing how it would look down, imagining it running through his fingers.
Sensing a familiar stirring, Carns studied the screen. The longer he looked, the more he liked what he saw. No doubt about it, the woman was stunningly beautiful, although not quite as movie-star gorgeous as some he’d had. The last two, for example, had been exquisite. Vapid, but flawless.
Still, all in all, there was definitely something about Catheryn Ellen Kane that Carns found… interesting.
Steve Gannon
Kane
36
C atheryn Kane, please.” I had my feet propped up on the kitchen table at home, phone in one hand, files from work in the other. Thanks to Snead I had unexpectedly drawn weekend task force duty, and I’d be unable to pick up Catheryn at the airport on Sunday-at least if she arrived as originally scheduled. Although I needed to let her know, I resolved to keep our conversation short, hoping to avoi
d another hurtful, long distance exchange.
The switchboard connection was bad. Earlier I’d tried Catheryn’s cell phone without success. I assumed she probably had it turned off. Next I had called her hotel in Amsterdam. Laden with static, a woman’s voice finally came back, her accent a blend of Dutch and German. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Please hold. I’ll transfer your call to her room.”
Exhausted and depressed, I glanced at my watch: 11:15 PM. Eight hours time difference to Amsterdam would make it, what-a quarter after seven in the morning there? Or was the time difference only seven hours? I shrugged. Either way, Catheryn was an early riser and sure to be up.
As I waited for my call to be transferred, my thoughts traveled back to the disaster at the Bakers’ house. It had proved a profound embarrassment to every member of the task force, and things hadn’t improved since then. Although the killer’s recent attack had elicited several new wrinkles-confirmation of the attorney-DMV connection and the door-opener angle, for example-I held little hope of apprehending a suspect anytime soon. Our best chance had been to grab the guy in Sherman Oaks, and we’d blown it. Making things worse, an officer had been killed, a tragedy that should have been avoided.
The problem now was that the investigation had begun to show signs of complete stagnation, with task force members increasingly revisiting stale ground already covered. Most avenues of inquiry-analyzing paint scrapes from Julie Welsh’s damaged fender, locating the source of the magnetic signs, finding common connections between various victims, forensic examination of latent prints, found hairs, and so forth-had turned into complete dead ends. The high point of the day had been the chromatography analysis from Standard Oil confirming that the radiator coolant and oil drips found near the Bakers’ house matched those discovered in the Larsons’ garage. Great