by Robert Crais
I was still searching when Dolan quietly said, "Oh, holy shit."
She was pale and stiff.
"What?"
She handed me a witness list that compiled the names of the people who had lodged complaints about DeVille. The list was long, and at first I didn't understand until Dolan pointed at a name midway down the list.
Karen Garcia.
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Her face still ashen, Dolan said, "Keep reading."
They were all there, the first five victims, plus the newest, Jesus Lorenzo. Dersh wasn't there, but he was the exception.
Dolan stared at me. "You were right, you sonofabitch. These people weren't random. They're linked. He's killing everyone who helped put away Leonard DeVille."
All I could do was nod.
"Maybe you're the world's greatest fuckin' detective, after all."
Only one of the six victims actually gave testimony against DeVille, that being Walter Semple, who had seen DeVille at the park from where the little girl disappeared. The others were part of what Dolan called the clutter, people who had been questioned by Krakauer because they had lodged sex crime complaints against a man Krakauer believed to be DeVille, but not directly related to the case for which DeVille was finally prosecuted.
Dolan's breast rose and fell as we read through the rest of the file. A copy of DeVille's criminal arrest record was attached, listing several aliases, one of which was the Coopster.
I said, "It's Sobek. It's got to be Sobek. We have to take this to Krantz. The other people on this list have to be notified."
"Not yet. I want more."
"What do you mean, more? This will break open the case. It's a showstopper."
"It links Sobek with DeVille, but it doesn't prove he's the shooter. If I can bring them the shooter, Bishop's gotta let me on again,"
"You've already got something, Dolan. We've found a connection between these people, and we've got leads. You're going to turn this case around."
"I want more. I want to put the whole thing right on the table. I want the headline, Cole. I want to push Krantz's face in it. I want it so tight that Bishop can't not take me back on the team."
I stared at her, and thought that if I were her I would want it
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this badly, too. But maybe I wanted it more. If we got the shooter, then maybe that would clear Joe Pike. "Okay, Samantha. Let's find this guy."
We drove back to her place. It took Dolan almost two hours of phone calls, but we learned that Laurence Sobek wasn't in the adult system, and the system had no record of his present whereabouts. This meant one of two things: Either he'd straightened out and gotten his life together, or he'd moved away before the age of eighteen. Of course, he could always be dead, too. Boys who work the streets often end up that way.
While Dolan made the calls, I went into her kitchen for a glass of water. A couple of million photographs were stuck to her refrigerator with little magnets, including several of Dolan posing with the actress who'd played her in the series. Dolan looked like she could kick your ass and would enjoy doing it, but the actress looked like an anorexic heroin addict. Showbiz.
The picture that Dolan had taken of me at Forest Lawn was stuck near the handle with a little Wonder Woman magnet. Seeing it there made me smile.
I finished my water, then went back into the living room as she put down the phone.
Dolan said, "We've got to go to Rampart."
"Why?"
"Because that's where Sobek was busted as a juvenile. The Juvie Section there will know where to find his sheet. They might have it loaded on their system, but maybe somebody will have to dig through paper."
"I thought you said we'd need a court order to get at the juvenile stuff."
She frowned, annoyed. "I'm Samantha Dolan, you idiot. Get up to speed."
And this woman wanted to sleep with me.
The Rampart Division station house is a low-slung, brown brick building facing Rampart Street a few blocks west of MacArthur Park, where Joe Pike had first met Karen Garcia.
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We parked in a small lot they have behind the place for officers, then entered the division through the back. This time Dolan didn't tell me to keep my mouth shut and try to look smart. Looking smart would be out of place in a station house anyway.
Dolan badged our way into the Juvenile Section, which was microscopic in size, just four detectives attached to the robbery table in the corner of a dingy room. Where Parker Center and the Robbery-Homicide offices were modern and bright, the detective tables at Rampart seemed faded and small, with outdated furniture that looked as tired as the detectives. Rampart was a high crime area, and the detectives there busted their asses, but the cases rarely made headlines, and no one was lounging around in six-hundred-dollar sport coats waiting to be interviewed on 60 Minutes. Most of them just tried to survive their shift.
Dolan zeroed on the youngest detective in the room, badged him, and introduced herself. "Samantha Dolan. Robbery-Homicide."
His name was Murray, and his eyebrows went up when she said that.
"I know you, don't I?"
She gave him the smile. "Sorry, Murray. Don't think we've met. You mean from the TV show? "
Murray couldn't have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. He was clearly impressed. "Yeah. You're the one they made the show about, right?"
Dolan laughed. She hadn't laughed when I'd mentioned her show, but there you go. "These Hollywood people, they don't know what being a detective really means. Not like we do."
Murray smiled wider, and I thought if she told him to roll over and bark, he wouldn't hesitate. "Well, that was some case you put together. I remember reading about it. Man, you were news."
"Hey, it's just Robbery-Homicide, you know? We get the hot cases, and the press tags along. No different than what you do here."
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Dolan didn't look good playing modest, but maybe that was just me.
Murray asked how he could help her, and Dolan said that she wanted to look at an old juvie packet, but she didn't have a court order for it. When Murray looked uneasy about that, she grew serious and leaned toward him. "Something we got down at Parker Center. Headline case, man. The real stuff."
Murray nodded, thinking how cool it would be to work the real stuff.
Dolan leaned closer. "You ever think about putting in for RHD, Murray? We need sharp cops who know how to make the right call."
Murray wet his lips. "You think you could put in a word forme?"
Dolan winked at him. "Well, we're trying to find this kid, you see? So while we're reading his file, maybe you could run a DMV check and call the phone company. See if you can't shag an address for us? "
Murray glanced at the older detectives. "My supervisor might not like it."
Dolan looked blank. "Gee. I guess you shouldn't tell him."
Murray stared at her a moment longer, then got busy.
I shook my head. "You're something, all right."
Dolan considered me, but now she wasn't smiling. "Something, but not enough."
"Let it go."
She raised her hands.
Twenty minutes later we had the file and an interview room, and Murray was making the calls.
Laurence Sobek had been booked seven times from age twelve to age sixteen, twice for shoplifting and four times for pandering. The DOB indicated he would now be in his late twenties. Abel Wozniak was twice the arresting officer, first on the shoplifting charge, then later for the second pandering charge. Sobek's most recent booking photo, taken at age sixteen, showed a thin kid with a wispy mustache, stringy hair, and aggravated acne. He looked timid and cowed.
At the time of his arrests, he had lived with his mother, a
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Mrs. Brasilia Sobek. The record noted that she was divorced, and had not come to pick up her son or meet with the officers any of the seven times.
Dolan scowled. "
Typical."
Murray interrupted us, knocking once before opening the door. He looked crestfallen.
"Doesn't have a California driver's license and never had one. The phone company never heard of him, either. I'm really sorry about this, Samantha." He was seeing his chance at the hot stuff fizzle and melt.
"Don't worry about it, bud. You've been a help."
The booking sheets showed that his mother had lived in an area of South L.A. called Maywood.
I said, "If she's still alive, maybe we can work through the mother. You think she's still at this address?"
"Easy to find out."
Dolan made a copy of the booking photo, then used Murray's phone to call the telephone company.
As Dolan called, Murray sidled up to me. "You really think I got a shot at Robbery-Homicide?"
"Murray, you've got the inside track."
Three minutes later we knew that Laurence Sobek's mother was still down in Maywood.
We went to see Drusilla Sobek.
Detective Murray was disappointed that he could not tag along.
Drusilla Sobek was a sour woman who lived in a tiny stucco house in a part of Maywood that was mostly illegal aliens come up from Honduras and Ecuador. The illegals often lived eighteen or more to a house, hot-bedding their cots between sub-minimum-wage jobs, and Drusilla didn't like it that they'd taken over the goddamned neighborhood. She made no bones about it, and told us so.
She peered at us heavily from her door, her flat face wrinkled and scowling. She was a large woman who filled the door. "I don't want to stand here all goddamned day. These
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Mexicans see me here with this door open, they might get ideas."
I said, "These folks are from Central America, Mrs. Sobek."
"Who gives a shit? If it looks like a Mexican and talks like a Mexican, it's a Mexican."
Dolan said, "We're trying to find your son, Mrs. Sobek."
"My son's a faggot whore."
Just like that.
When she'd first come to the door, Dolan had badged her, but Mrs. Sobek had said we couldn't come in. She said she didn't let in strangers, and I was just as glad. A sour smell came from within her house, and she reeked of body odor. Behind the hygiene curve.
I said, "Can you give us an address or phone number, please?"
"No."
"Do you know how we can find him?"
Her eyes narrowed, tiny and piglike in the broad face. "There some kind of reward?"
Dolan cleared her throat. "No, ma'am. No reward. We just need to ask him a few questions. It's very important."
"Then you better look somewhere else, lady. My faggot whore son ain't never even been close to important."
She tried to close the door, but Dolan put her foot in its base and jammed the sill. Dolan's left eye was ticking.
Drusilla said, "Hey! What the hell you think you're doing?"
Dolan was a little bit taller than Drusilla Sobek, but a couple of hundred pounds lighter. She said, "If you don't get the stick out your ass, you fat cow, I'm gonna beat you stupid."
Drusilla Sobek's mouth made a little round O, and she stepped back. Surprised.
I started to say something, but Dolan raised a finger, telling me to shut up. I shut.
She said, "Where can we find Laurence Sobek?"
"I don't know. I ain't seen him in three or four years." Drusilla's voice was small now, and not nearly so blustery.
"Where was he living the last time you knew?"
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"Up in San Francisco with all those other faggots."
"Is that where he's living now?"
"I don't know. I really don't." Her lower lip trembled and I thought she might cry.
Dolan took a breath, forcing herself to relax. "Okay, Mrs. Sobek, I believe you. But we still need to find your son, and we still need your help."
Drusilla Sobek's lip trembled harder, her chin wrinkled, and a small tear leaked down her cheek. "I don't like being spoken to in such a rude manner. It ain't right."
"Did you ever have an address or phone number for your son?"
"Yeah. I think I did. A long time ago."
"I need you to go look for it."
Drusilla nodded, still crying.
"We have his booking photo from when he was sixteen, but I'd like a more recent picture, too. Would you have one of him as an adult?"
"Uh-huh."
"You get those things. We'll wait here."
"Uh-huh. Please don't let in the Mexicans."
"No, ma'am. You go look."
Drusilla shuffled away into her house, leaving the door open. A fog of the sour smell billowed out at us.
I said, "Christ, Dolan, you're harsh."
"Is it any wonder her kid turned out screwed up?"
We stood there in the sun for almost fifteen minutes until Drusilla Sobek finally shuffled back to the door, like a sensitive child who had disappointed her family.
"I got this old address up there with the faggots. I got this picture he gimme two years ago."
"It's a San Francisco address?"
She nodded, her jowly chin quivering. "Up with the faggots, yeah."
She handed the address and the picture to Dolan, who stiffened as soon as she saw them. I guess I stiffened, too. We wouldn't need the address.
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Bigger, stronger, filled out and grown, and with much shorter hair, we recognized the adult Laurence Sobek. He worked at Parker Center.
Final Action
Laurence Sobek, his true name and not the name by which he is currently known, finishes stapling black plastic over his windows. He has already nailed shut every window but the small one in the bathroom, leaving only the front door as a point of egress. It is sweltering in the converted garage.
The plan was simple and obvious once Sobek lifted De-Ville's case file from the records section. There in black and white he knew all the people who had helped the Sex Crimes detectives put the Coopster into prison where he died, all the people who had lodged complaints or made statements, and fed the Coopster to the prison population like a sacrifice. Sobek designed the sequence of homicides to take advantage of the weaknesses in LAPD's system: He started with the peripheral complainants it would be impossible for LAPD to connect, intent on working steadily up the food chain until it was too late to stop him even when the Task Force finally realized what was happening.
Now, thanks to Cole and that bitch Dolan, he must spare the remaining minor players, and kill the people he holds most responsible. The lead Sex Crimes detective, Krakauer, died of a heart attack two days after he retired. (All to the good, as Krakauer was the only person with even a remote chance of tying together the names of the early victims.) Pike had arrested the Coopster, then sat in the witness chair at his trial and hammered the nails into De Ville's coffin, but Pike is now a fugitive.
That leaves one other.
The apartment now sealed, Sobek pulls De Ville's case file from its hiding place in the closet, along with the brittle, yellowed newspaper articles about De Ville's arrest. He has read these a hundred thousand times, touching the grainy photographs of the Coopster being led from the motel in handcuffs.
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He touches them again now. He hates Wozniak, who spotted him at a Dunkin' Donut shop that day, and manipulated him into revealing what he knew. This asshole is using you, Wozniak had said. What this guy is doing to you is wrong, he said. Help me help you.
The Islander Palms Motel. Arrest. Prison. Dead.
Sobek closes his eyes, and puts away whatever is left of his feelings for DeVille. He has studied Pike, and learned well. Abandon humanity. Feel nothing. Control is everything. If you are in control, then you can re-create yourself. Become larger. Control everything.
Sobek closes his eyes, steadies his breathing, and feels an inner calm that only comes from certainty. He admires himself in the mirror: jeans, Nikes, gray sweatshirt with
the sleeves cropped. He runs a hand over his quarter-inch hair, and imagines that he is not looking at Laurence Sobek, but is seeing Joe Pike. He flexes. The red arrows he had painted on his deltoids are gone, but he thinks that when this is over, he will have them tattooed there permanently. He rubs at his crotch, and enjoys the sensation.