Wanda said, “The main thing is that after a full day of being pushed through Marine-type survival drills, Riley was very tired and it didn’t take much for him to fall back asleep.”
“Did you tape the interview?” Decker asked.
“No, sir, we did not.” Wanda wiped her face with a tissue. “We caught the kid and the parents at a weak moment—when they were too shocked to protest—took whatever we could get. We knew they were going to bolt any second, so once we got Riley to admit that he heard something, we just started flinging questions until Mr. Barns put up the legal fence. We tried to keep it friendly because we figured you’d want to come back.”
Decker nodded. “And you’re sure the other kid—Brandon—he didn’t see or hear anything?”
“He says he didn’t,” Webster answered. “We interviewed them all as best we could. Most of them were minors.”
“A stunned population of teenage boys who were scared witless, but still trying to keep up the macho front. Then you add hysterical parents into the mix…” Wanda shook her head. “It wasn’t a beach party. We didn’t see or find anything suspicious.”
“Where are Ernesto’s belongings?”
“They’ve been bagged,” Webster said. “We didn’t find any letters from Ruby Ranger if that’s what you’re asking. They do exist, right?”
“His brother claims they do. No reason to doubt it.” Decker took out his notepad and wrote down, Riley Barns. “So none of the other kids look hot on the perp list?”
“Not from what we could see,” Webster said. “It’s the same story, Loo. The boys in the camps are what I might call overly rambunctious, but not carved-in-stone psychos.”
“So why were they there?” Marge asked.
“Different reasons.” Webster took out his notepad. “Most were brought in to the Baldwins for drug problems. The parents found a stash or the pills and freaked out.”
Decker knew that feeling. “A normal reaction.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Wanda was flipping through her notes. “One got in trouble for getting drunk, taking the family car and totaling it. Another got arrested for malicious mischief at a shopping center.”
“That’s pretty serious,” Marge said.
“Yeah, but it ain’t shooting your teacher because she wore the wrong type of athletic shoes,” Wanda stated. “The boys had been brought to the Baldwins by the parents without the kids getting in official trouble with the law. Some were school recommendations. Ernesto Golding was an exception, because he was charged and convicted of something.”
“I’ll tell you one thing that they all had in common,” Webster broke in. “The parents could afford the Baldwins’ hefty fee—twenty grand a kid for three weeks.”
Oliver and Decker broke into whistles. Marge’s eyes widened in diameter. She said, “The Baldwins have carved out a nice niche in rich, bad boys.”
“Psychiatry is the province of the rich,” Webster said. “That’s nothing new.”
“Not always,” Decker said. “I’ll tell you this much. Twenty grand buys a lot of shrink time—like a hundred hours. Which would be seeing a shrink an hour a day, two times a week for almost a year. How many camps a summer does he run?”
Webster said, “Three.”
“How many kids per session?”
“Twelve,” Webster said. “We did the math: seven hundred and twenty thousand a summer. And that doesn’t include the sessions they run during winter and spring break—that’s only ten grand a pop.”
“A bargain,” Marge said.
“Nor does it include the follow-up sessions—”
“And they say a diploma is just a scrap of paper!” Decker shook his head. “I definitely went into the wrong field.”
“What do they do with all the money?” Oliver asked. “Surely that kind of income brings about some kind of vice.”
“Tarpin told me they might be renting a Malibu condo while they were remodeling their Beverly Hills home,” Decker said. “That’ll chew up a hell of a lot of income.” Decker added money and debts to the list. “Here’s another tidbit for your consideration. Darrell Holt—the kid from the Preservers of Ethnic Whatshisface—he attended one of Baldwin’s camp sessions about seven years ago. He must come from money. We should find out about him.”
“What?” Oliver said. “Why didn’t you tell me this two hours ago? I would have stolen his file—”
“I didn’t hear that,” Decker said.
Oliver smiled. “I’m talking theoretically.”
Before Decker could delve, Marge broke in. “What did Holt do to get shunted into the Baldwins’ camp?”
“I don’t know,” Decker said. “Tarpin wasn’t forthcoming with details. He did say that Darrell was radical in his younger days and that he went to Berkeley. It would be interesting to know what brought about Darrell’s shift to the right.”
“The day’s still young even if we aren’t,” Webster said. “I’ll go back to the PEI and see if I can’t catch up with Holt.”
Decker looked at his notes. He had to investigate Holt, Ranger, Riley Barns, and money and debt with regard to the Baldwins’ finances. And of course, there was Bert out looking for Dee Baldwin’s supposed beach getaway.
Webster said, “You want me to interview Holt or surf through racist Web sites?”
Decker said, “Let’s do this, Tom. Before you get to Holt, let’s do some homework. Go to the Tolerance Center in the city. I’m sure it has details on all the hate groups. I didn’t bother with it after the vandalism because Ernesto confessed. But a double murder justifies the man-hours. I want to know everything there is to know about Holt and Tarpin—and that Moke character while you’re at it.”
“I can make an appointment to go down there tomorrow,” Webster said.
“I’ll go you one better. I’m going to hook you up with Rina. She knows the lingo because she’s done research on white supremacist groups, as part of her outreach program in the community. You set it up, and when you have an appointment time, I’ll make sure that Rina meets you down there. She’ll love it and it’ll be beneficial to you.”
“Sounds good.” Webster certainly didn’t mind working with Decker’s wife. She was smart and competent, and a comely lass at that. “I’ll let you know when I get something set up.”
Oliver consulted his notes. “How long has Darrell Holt been with PEI?”
“Tarpin claims four years.”
“And what’s Tarpin’s role in the camp?” Marge asked. “Besides being a fascist Marine.”
Decker gave her a smile and a wistful one at that. There were times—when Marge asked a certain question in a certain way—that made him sorely miss working with his former partner. “He’s a Baldwin henchman. Discipline guy for the day-to-day activities. I didn’t grill him on his activities with PEI.”
“Regarding this Holt guy,” Oliver said. “It’s totally possible for me to…theoretically get into Baldwin’s files. I know where they’re kept…theoretically.”
Decker said, “It’s totally possible that if you were to do that, you would find yourself in jail with a bunch of eager felons waiting to ram a hard rod up your butt.”
“Loo, you have a vivid way of describing things. So I won’t bother telling you the details that theoretically might be in Ernesto Golding’s file—a file that we could have gotten into anyway because Ernesto is dead and there’s no confidentiality with dead people.”
“Anything we can use?” Decker asked.
“Lots of jargon and abbreviations. Still, what came out was that he had a kinky sexual thing going on with this girl, Ruby Ranger.”
“Nazi shit?” Decker asked.
“Exactly. Except I think some of it might be fantasy because it was pretty wild. I think that was Baldwin’s conclusion, too.”
“We need to fix on this Ranger girl. Last we heard, she went up north. Earlier this morning, I called six police stations in the greater Bay Area. They’re looking for her and her car, bu
t they’re going to forget unless we follow up. Wanda, I’ll leave the job of pestering to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You wanna see Ernesto’s file, Loo?” Oliver asked. “You went to college. Maybe you’ll understand it.”
“No, I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to even know about it until the warrants come through.”
“While we’re on the subjects of theoretical incidents…” Marge cleared her throat. “Just suppose I found some things lying around on Baldwin’s desk, copied them down, and had a question about the shorthand Baldwin used by his patients’ names?”
Decker stared at her. “I don’t believe this.”
Oliver said, “Blame it on me. Show and tell, Margie.”
“I don’t want to see it,” Decker said.
“So don’t look,” Oliver retorted.
But Decker did look. Marge had brought out several copies of what looked to be a desk calendar. She felt guilty—but not that guilty. “At first, we were thinking that the shorthand could be describing his patients’ psychiatric conditions. But the abbreviations don’t seem to correspond to psychiatric ailments.”
“Like C for ‘crazy’ or N for ‘nutcase’—” Oliver said.
“How about N for ‘neurotic’?” Webster said. “Not the kids, the parents. Doesn’t anyone ever just work things out anymore?”
Decker bristled. “Maybe these kids have real problems, Tom.”
“Yeah, the problem is they’re spoiled rotten. Y’all wouldn’t find any of us desecrating a temple and getting away with a slap on the wrist.”
“In the end, Ernesto got more than a slap,” Decker said.
Webster paused. “Yeah, that’s too bad. I’m not saying he deserved to die or anything. And I’m not saying that kids don’t have troubles. I’m just wondering if some of the parents aren’t using the Baldwins as high-priced baby-sitters?”
“I’m sure there’s some of that,” Decker said. “But I’m also sure that most of the parents are very sincere in wanting the best for their kids.”
“Whether the kids want it or not,” Wanda said.
Oliver said, “Getting back to the shorthand, I was thinking that PS could stand for ‘psycho.’”
“Shrinks don’t use the term ‘psycho,’ Scott,” Marge answered. “You know, Maryam mentioned Dee Baldwin acting as kind of a guidance counselor…getting kids into the right colleges. I’m thinking that maybe the shorthand stands for names of colleges. Since S is the most frequent, and we’re talking about smart, rich kids, it could be Stanford.”
“What’s PS?” Oliver said. “Pseudo-Stanford. And notice I knew ‘pseudo’ started with a P.”
“Very good, Oliver,” Marge said.
“Maybe University of Pennsylvania,” Webster said. “That’s an Ivy. PS equals Pennsylvania.”
“What’s E then?” Wanda asked. “What’s M?”
“E could be Emory in Atlanta,” Webster said. “That’s also top-ranked. Maybe M is for U of Michigan in Ann Arbor. That’s considered a public Ivy.”
“How do you know that?” Oliver sneered.
“I got into Michigan.”
“Bully for you.”
“No need to get nasty.”
“If the abbreviations are top universities, where is the H for Harvard, or the P for Princeton, or the Y for Yale?” Decker asked. “And what is I? Or L? Or S2?”
“Stanford waiting list?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Decker rubbed his forehead. “Any other ideas?”
His question was met with silence broken by the ring of his telephone. The tension in Rina’s tone was audible. So was her voice. Everyone could hear it.
“The murders are all over the news,” she said. “Yonkie’s beside himself. In case you forgot, he knew Ernesto Golding—”
“Hold on, Rina.” Decker covered the receiver and looked at his staff. They were on their feet before he even spoke. “Give me five minutes.”
They all nodded and were out the door. Rina said, “Are you in the middle of a meeting?”
“I was.”
“About Ernesto Golding’s murder?”
“Yes.”
“Did Jacob tell you where he knew Ernesto from? He’s being vague with me.”
Decker didn’t answer right away.
Rina broke in. “You’ve got to tell me, Peter.”
“Rina, he spoke to me in confidence—”
“Peter, I’m his mother!” Rina shouted. “Oh, just forget it! I know anyway. From the drug parties, right?”
Decker was momentarily stunned. He couldn’t speak.
“I’m religious, Peter, but I’m not blind,” Rina stated. “More important, I have a nose. His clothes used to reek of pot. Combine that with his formerly poor grades, and the fact that he was a gross underachiever, it doesn’t take Sam Spade to figure it out.”
“So why didn’t you ever say anything about it to me?”
“Stop throwing the blame back in my corner—”
“This isn’t about blame, Rina; I’m just trying to understand you, for heaven’s sake!”
Silence over the phone. Then Rina said, “I didn’t want to upset you. You were nervous enough about Sammy being in Israel.”
Decker said, “Did you ever talk to Jacob about his drug…his former drug use?”
“It is former?”
“Best of my knowledge, it’s former.”
“No, I didn’t. Because frankly I didn’t know how to handle it without getting hysterical. And the last thing that Yonkie needed was an hysterical mother. I figured he just had to mature. That was probably pretty stupid of me, but sometimes, Peter, I just get tired of parenting.”
“I hear you loud and clear, darlin’.”
“I did talk to Shmueli about it. I knew if Jacob confided in anyone, it would be his brother. He told me to let it ride, that Yonkie was feeling bad enough for the both of us.”
“So I’m not the only one who was keeping secrets.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Rina said. “We can talk about that later. Right now, Yonkie’s the issue here. Peter, he’s very scared.”
“About what?” Decker sat up. “Does he know something?”
“I don’t know.”
Decker’s duty was clear. “Is Jacob home now?”
“Yes. He was going to come with me to the airport to pick up Shmueli. But if you’re coming home, I’ll tell him to stay and wait for you.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Was he good friends with this Golding boy? He claims he wasn’t, but I think he might be lying to protect me.”
“I think he’s being honest. Yonkie had told me that he hadn’t seen the boy in months. It’s probably the murder itself. You know kids. They think they’re immortal. Then reality smacks them in the face…. Don’t worry.”
“Just when he was doing so well with the therapy and his grades. I don’t want him to start Johns Hopkins an emotional wreck!”
“It’s the start of the summer, Rina. He’ll be okay by the fall.”
“Except he’s taking his Calculus and Physics SAT II next week. I know he’s a good test taker but—”
Again, Decker sat up straight. “What did you say?”
“I don’t know,” Rina said. “What did I say?”
“You said that Yonkie is taking the SAT II in Calculus and Physics,” Decker answered.
“Right. He’s trying to exempt out of freshman Calc—”
“S2 is SAT II, S is SAT, PS is PSAT…” Decker replied. “Of course. That’s it. That’s what their specialty was…getting kids into top universities.”
“What’s it?”
“A code we were trying to crack. Now it’s obvious. None of the others could know because none of them have college-bound teenagers. Scott’s sons didn’t go to college. Neither did Bontemps’s daughter. Webster has school-age kids, and Vega hasn’t reached that point yet. Only me. I’m a very dull boy sometimes.”
“What ar
e you talking about?” Rina exclaimed.
“Rina, what’s a standardized test starting with M?”
“How would I know? I haven’t been in school in eighteen years. Are you coming home?”
“Yes. So you don’t know of any test that starts with M?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, can you ever stop thinking about work?”
“I’m on my way home—”
“How about the test to get into medical school?” Rina threw out. “I think it’s the MedCat or the MCAT. Something like that.”
“You’re a genius.”
“Great!” Rina was irritated. “Will you come home to your son now?”
“Absolutely. I bet L is for the LSAT. Jesus, I took the LSAT.”
“Way back in the Stone Age.”
“Now you’re being nasty.”
“You deserve it.”
“How about E?”
“E?”
“Yes, E. What about E? What tests begin with the letter E? A test for economics or something?”
She thought a moment. “Are we dealing only with college tests?”
“I don’t know. What do you have in mind?”
“How about the ERBs? Hannah’s school gives them every year. Some schools give the Iowa instead—”
“So that’s the I,” Decker said. What was Baldwin doing? Helping kids prepare for their standardized tests? And what, if anything, did it have to do with Ernesto’s murder? His second phone line lit up. He asked Rina to hold a moment.
It was Martinez.
The news didn’t surprise him. But it did sadden him.
To his wife, he said, “I’m sorry, Rina. I’m not going to make it home. You may as well take Jacob with you.”
“That sounds bad.”
“They found Dee Baldwin’s body. An apparent suicide, but it could be homicide. I’ve got to go.”
“Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry, Peter.”
“Tell Jacob not to worry. It’s under control.”
“Is it?”
“Not yet. But it will be.”
He spoke bravado. He spoke lies.
20
Over the hill, it was fifteen degrees cooler, and being as the condo sat atop the sand, Decker felt a pleasant ocean breeze riffle through his suit jacket as soon as he got out of the car. He had squeezed the unmarked into the last spot on the gravel lot, which was already filled with two Mercedes, two Beemers, one Porsche, one Range Rover, one Ford Explorer, one Jeep, one Honda (Bert’s), three squad cars, and a half-dozen scantily dressed people—dazed and confused—milling in the open spaces. At five in the afternoon, daylight was still strong, but the sun had begun its westerly descent. Decker hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps before Martinez pulled him between the Beemer and the Explorer, a place for temporary privacy.
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