I watched them drive away in a dark blue sedan.
They'd labeled Fusco obsessive but hadn't dismissed the core of his investigation. An internal issue. Not their problem.
Meaning someone else in the Bureau might very well be looking into Michael Burke. Or they weren't.
When news of the Zoghbie-Haiselden murder broke, Fusco's nose would twitch harder. He'd probably try to contact Milo, even fly back down to L.A. Get snagged by his former comrades, taken into custody. For his own good.
He'd had a tragic life, but right now worrying about his welfare wasn't my job either. I went back inside, gave Milo yet another try. Daring another attempt at the West L.A. station, ready to disguise my voice if the same clerk answered.
This time it was a bored-sounding man who patched me up to the Robbery-Homicide room.
A familiar voice picked up Milo's extension. Del Hardy. A long time ago the veteran detective and Milo had worked together. Del was black, which hadn't mattered much, and married to a second wife who was a devout Baptist, which had— she'd kiboshed the partnership. I knew Del was a year from retirement, planning something down in Florida.
"Working Saturday, Del?"
"Long as it's not Sunday, Doc. How's the guitar-playing?"
"Not doing enough of it. Seen the big guy recently?"
"Happened to see him about an hour ago. He said he was going over to Judge MacIntyre's house, try for some warrants. Pasadena— I can give you the number if it's important. But Judge MacIntyre gets cranky about being bugged on the weekend, so why don't you try Milo's mobile."
"I did. He didn't answer."
"Maybe he shut it off, didn't want to annoy Judge MacIntyre."
"Scary guy, huh?"
"MacIntyre? Yeah, but law and order. If he thinks you're righteous he'll give all sorts of leeway— okay, here it is."
• • •
A frosty-voiced woman said, "What's this about?"
"I'm a police consultant, working on a homicide case. It's important that I reach Detective Sturgis. Is he there?"
"One minute."
Four minutes later, she came back on. "He's on his way out, said he'll call you."
It took another quarter hour for Milo to ring in.
"What's so important, Alex? How the hell did you get MacIntyre's number— you almost messed me up, I was in the middle of getting paper on Doss. Got some, too."
"Sorry, but you were wasting your time." I told him what I'd seen in Alice Zoghbie's backyard. The way I'd reported it to the police clerk, my prints on the gate.
"This is a joke, right?" he said.
"Ha ha ha."
Long silence. "Why'd you go out there in the first place, Alex?"
"Boredom, overachievement— what's the difference? This changes everything."
"Where are you right now?"
"Home. Just finished with some visitors." I began to tell him about Donovan and Bratz.
"Stop," he said. "I'm coming over— no, better if we meet somewhere, just in case they're still watching you. I just got on the 110— let's make it somewhere central . . . Pico-Robertson, the parking lot behind the Miller's Outpost, southeast corner. If I'm late, buy yourself some jeans. And try to figure out if the feebies are tailing you. If they are, I doubt they'll be using more than one car, which will make it damn near impossible for them to pull it off if you're looking out for them. Did you happen to notice what kind of car they were driving?"
"Blue sedan."
"Check for it three, four car lengths behind you. If you see it, drive back home and wait."
"High intrigue."
"Low intrigue," he said. "Bureaucracy's big toes getting stepped on. Zoghbie and Haiselden— did you notice any overt putrefaction?"
"Green tinge, no maggots, lots of flies."
"Probably a day or two at most . . . and you're saying the positioning was similar to the stuff in Fusco's file?"
"Identical. Geometrical wounds, as well."
"Oh my," he said. "Every day brings new thrills."
• • •
I wrote a note to Robin and left, drove more slowly than usual, looked out for the blue sedan or anything else that spelled government-issue. No sign of a tail, as far as I could tell. I reached the Miller's Outpost lot before Milo, parked where he'd instructed, got out of the car and stood against the driver's door. Still, no blue car. The lot was half full. Shoppers streamed in and out of the store, business at a nearby newsstand was brisk, cars roared by on Robertson. I waited and thought about putrefaction.
Milo showed up ten minutes later, surprisingly well-put-together in a gray suit, white shirt, maroon tie. Warrant-begging duds. No string tie for Judge MacIntyre.
He motioned me into the unmarked, lit up the cold stub of a Panatela as I eased into the passenger seat.
He scanned the lot, fondled his cell phone, let his eyes drift to the jeans store. "Time to get myself some easy-fit . . . Glendale's at the scene— they've pegged it to an anonymous caller. How does it feel to be an archetype?"
"Glorious. But I won't be anonymous long. The gate."
"Yeah, terrific. I'm waiting to hear back from their detectives. News jackals picked it up, too, it's only a matter of time before they tie Zoghbie and Haiselden to Mate and we're back on page one."
"That's exactly what Burke wants," I said. "But maybe he had another motive for killing Zoghbie and Haiselden: to get hold of any records that incriminated him. He might very well have been planning it for a while, but Richard's arrest might have sped things up: he wouldn't like someone else getting credit for his handiwork. Like Mate, he's after the attention, is eliminating the old guard, telling the world he's the new Dr. Death."
He chewed the cigar's wooden tip, blew out acrid smoke. "You buy the whole Burke thing even though Fusco misrepresented himself?"
"When will you be going over to the Zoghbie crime scene?"
"Soon."
"Wait till you see it. Everything fits. And Donovan and Bratz never dismissed Fusco's findings, they're just worried he'll do something that makes the Bureau look bad. Fusco's convinced Sharveneau and/or Burke murdered his daughter. Personal motivation can get in the way, but sometimes it's potent fuel."
He sucked in smoke, held it in his lungs for a long time, drew a lazy circle on the windshield fog. "So I've been spinning my wheels on Doss . . . who, from what I've been told by business associates, has very complicated financial records— maybe I'll send my files to the Fraud boys."
He faced me. "Alex, you know damn well he solicited Goad to kill Mate, we're not talking Mother Teresa. Just because Goad didn't go all the way doesn't put Doss in the clear."
"I realize that. But it doesn't change what I saw in Glendale."
"Right," he said. "Back to square goddamn one . . . Burke, or whatever the hell he's calling himself . . . you're saying he craves center stage. But he can't go public the way Mate did . . . so what does that mean? More nasties against trees?" His laugh was thick with affliction and anger. "Gee, that's a terrific lead. Let's go check out every bit of bark in the goddamn county— where the hell do I go with this, Alex?"
"Back to Fusco's files?" I said.
"You've already been through them. Okay, I'll accept the fact that Burke is evil personified. Now, where the hell do I find him?"
"I'll go over them again. You never know—"
"You're right about that," he said. "I never do know. Spend half my damn life in blissless ignorance . . . Okay, let's handle some short-term matters. Like keeping you out of jail once those prints cross-reference to the Medical Board. Did you touch anything but the gate?"
"The front door knocker. I also knocked on the side door, but just with my knuckles."
"The old goat's head," he said. "When I first saw it I wondered if Alice was into witchcraft or something. That, combined with all her talk of Mate being a sacrifice. So she ends up tied up— All right, look, I'm going to run interference for you with Glendale PD, but at some point you'll have to talk to them.
It'll take days for the prints to be analyzed, maybe a good week for the cross-reference, even longer if the med files aren't on Printrak. But I need to work with them, so I'm telling them about you sooner— figure on tomorrow. I'll try to have them interview you on friendly territory."
"Thanks."
"Yeah. Thanks, too." He inhaled, made the cigar tip glow, created another quarter inch of ash.
"For what?"
"Being such a persistent bastard."
"What's next?" I said.
"For you? Keeping out of trouble. For me, anguish."
"Want Fusco's file?"
"Later," he said. "There's still Doss's paper to deal with. I can't let warrants lapse on an attempted murder case. I do that and Judge MacIntyre puts me on his naughty list. I'll sic Korn and Demetri on Doss's office, have them shlep the financial records to the station so I can get moving at Glendale. Maybe the scene will tell me something. Maybe Burke/whatever missed something in Alice's house and we can get a lead on him." He crushed the cigar in the ashtray. "Fat chance of that, right?"
"Anything's possible."
"Everything's possible," he said. "That's the problem."
• • •
By the time I got back, Robin was home. We had a takeout Chinese dinner and I fed slivers of Peking duck to Spike, acting like a regular, domestic guy with nothing heavier on my mind than taxes and prostate problems. This time I went to sleep when Robin did and drifted off easily. At 4:43 A.M., I woke up with a stiff neck and a stubborn brain. Cold air had settled in during the night and my hands felt like freezer-burned steaks. I put on sweats, athletic socks and slippers, shuffled to my office, removed Fusco's file from the drawer where I'd concealed it from Donovan and Bratz.
Starting again, with Marissa Bonpaine, finding nothing out of the ordinary but the plastic hypodermic. An hour in, I got drowsy. The smart decision would have been to crawl back in bed. Instead, I lurched to the kitchen. Spike was curled up on his mattress in the adjacent laundry room, flat little bulldog face compressed against the foam. Movement beneath his eyelids said he was dreaming. His expression said they were sweet dreams— a beautiful woman drives you around in her truck and feeds you kibble, why not?
I headed for the pantry. Generally, that's a stimulus for him to hurry over, assume the squat, wait for food. This time, he raised an eyelid, shot me a "you've got to be kidding" look, and resumed snoring.
I chewed on some dry cereal, made a tall mug of strong instant coffee, drank half trying to dispel the chill. The kitchen windows were blue with night. The suggestion of foliage was a distant black haze. I checked the clock. Forty minutes before daybreak. I carried the mug back to my office.
Time for more tilting, Mr. Quixote.
I returned to my desk. Ten minutes later I saw it, wondered why I hadn't seen it before.
A notation made by the first Seattle officer on the Bonpaine murder scene— a detective named Robert Elias, called in by the forest rangers who'd actually found the body.
Very small print, bottom of the page, cross-referenced to a footnote.
Easy to miss— no excuses, Delaware. Now it screamed at me.
The victim, wrote Elias, was discovered by a hiker, walking with his dog (see ref, 45).
That led me to the rear of the Bonpaine file, a listing of over three hundred events enumerated by the meticulous Detective Elias.
Number 45 read: Hiker: tourist from Michigan. Mr. Ferris Grant.
Number 46 was an address and phone number in Flint, Michigan.
Number 47: Dog: black labr. retriev. Mr. F. Grant states "she has great nose, thinks she's a drug dog."
I'd heard that before, word for word. Paul Ulrich describing Duchess, the golden retriever.
Ferris Grant.
Michael Ferris Burke. Grant Rushton.
Flint, Michigan. Huey Grant Mitchell had worked in Michigan— Ann Arbor.
I phoned the number Ferris Grant had left as his home exchange, got a recorded message from the Flint Museum of Art.
No sign Elias had followed up. Why would he bother? Ferris Grant had been nothing more than a helpful citizen who'd aided a major investigation by "discovering" the body.
Just as Paul Ulrich had discovered Mate.
How Burke must have loved that. Orchestrating. Providing himself with a legitimate reason to show up at the crime scene. Proud of his handiwork, watching the cops stumble.
Psychopath's private joke. Games, always games. His internal laughter must have been deafening.
Hiker with a dog.
Paul Ulrich, Tanya Stratton.
I paged hurriedly to the photo gallery Leimert Fusco had assembled, tried to reconcile any of the more recent portraits of Burke with my memory of Ulrich. But Ulrich's face wouldn't take shape in my head, all I recalled was the handlebar mustache.
Which was exactly the point.
Facial hair changed things. I'd been struck by that when trying to reconcile the various photos of Burke. The beard Burke had grown as Huey Mitchell, hospital security guard, as effective as any mask.
He'd gone on to use another Michigan identity. Ferris Grant . . . the Flint Museum. Another ha ha: I'm an artist! Reverting to Michigan— to familiar patterns— because at heart, psychopaths were rigid, there always had to be a script of sorts.
I studied Mitchell's picture, the dead eyes, the flat expression. Luxuriant mask of a beard. Heavy enough to nurture a giant mustache.
When I tried to picture Ulrich's face, all I saw was the mustache.
I strained to recall his other physical characteristics.
Medium-size man, late thirties to forty. Perfect match to Burke on both counts.
Shorter, thinner hair than any of Burke's pictures— balding to a fuzzy crew cut. Each picture of Burke revealed a steady, sequential loss, so that fit, too.
The mustache . . . stretching wider than Ulrich's face. As good a mask as any. I'd thought it an unusual flamboyance, contrasting especially with Ulrich's conservative dress.
Financial consultant, Mr. Respectable . . . Something else Ulrich had said— one of the first things he'd said— came back to me: So far our names haven't been in the paper. We're going to be able to keep it that way, aren't we, Detective Sturgis?
Concerned about publicity. Craving publicity.
Milo had answered that the two of them would probably be safe from media scrutiny, but Ulrich had stuck with the topic, talked about fifteen minutes of fame.
Andy Warhol coined that phrase and look what happened to him . . . checked into a hospital . . . went out in a bag . . . celebrity stinks . . . look at Princess Di, look at Dr. Mate.
Letting Milo know that fame was what he was after. Playing with Milo, the way he'd toyed with the Seattle cops.
Getting as close as he could to criminal celebrity without confessing outright.
It had been no coincidence that he and Tanya Stratton had chosen Mulholland for a morning walk that Monday.
Stratton had come out and said so: We rarely come up here, except on Sundays. Resentful about the change in routine. About Paul's insistence.
She'd complained to Milo that everything had been Paul's idea. Including the decision to talk to Milo up at the site, rather than at home. Ulrich had claimed to be attempting a kind of therapy for Tanya, but his real motive— multiple motives— had been something quite different: keep Milo off Ulrich's home territory, and get another chance at déjà vu.
Ulrich had talked about the horror of discovering Mate, but I realized now that emotion had been lacking.
Not so, Tanya Stratton. She'd been clearly upset, eager to leave. But Ulrich had come across amiable, helpful, relaxed. Too relaxed for someone who'd encountered a bloodbath.
An outdoorsy guy— Fusco had said Michael Burke skied, fancied himself an outdoorsman— Ulrich had chatted about staying fit, the beauty of the site.
Once you get past the gate, it's like being in another world.
Oh yeah.
His world.
Amia
ble guy, but the charm was wearing thin with Stratton. Was she edgy because she'd begun to sense something about her boyfriend? Or just a relationship gone stagnant?
I recalled her pallor, the unsteady gait. Wispy hair. Dark glasses— hiding something?
A fragile girl.
Not a well girl?
Then I understood and my heart beat faster: one of Michael Burke's patterns was to hook up with sick women, befriend them, nurture them.
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