Probable Cause

by Ridley Pearson

  Dewitt thought it strange that Capp should know so much detail on a Saturday concerning a Friday-night incident. It was entirely out of character and Capp had that look about him, like a person who had improperly revealed a secret.

  “He was at both crime scenes, regardless.”

  “He was in those parking lots, you mean? Whether or not he was at the crime scenes remains to be seen. Let me tell you something about the Brow that may surprise you, Dewitt. The man walks the beaches every morning, real early. Goes back to him and his old lady. It was something they used to do together, and after she… died, he kept up the tradition.”

  “So he just happened to be there? Is that what you’re telling me? You sound like a defense attorney.”

  “Come on, Dewitt, admit it: You’re frustrated by this case. You’re chasing straws in the wind. Let me tell you something: You got to shift down a gear here, pal. Two kills in three days… four days now… that’s got you all in a snit. Take a long look around you, Dewitt. These cases can go on for years. We’re talking serial killer here, right? Hindeman says this is your baby, fine. But you’re my detective. Experience says you downshift a gear and get ready for the long climb. You keep going like this, you’ll burn out by the end of next week.”

  Dewitt nodded, too tired for this kind of lecture. He had such a different relationship with Hindeman. He had to remind himself of Capp’s rank. As a subordinate, he was required to follow unspoken as well as written rules. He hesitated before asking, “You wouldn’t know anything about a few extra copies of my reports circulating around, would you?”

  The commander’s face turned scarlet. His piggish eyes focused on Dewitt and seemed to cut right through him. The poodle was down there shaking its stump and attempting to hump Capp’s leg, the dog license chiming like a bell. Capp kicked it away and it scurried to a hiding position in the kitchen. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tried.

  “Undocumented photocopies of active reports,” Dewitt said, attempting to make it sound as if he was quoting regulations. He knew that P.O.S.T. issued guidelines for such things, though he doubted they took the form of regulations.

  “Are you accusing me of something, Sergeant?” He asked.

  “I’m suggesting,” Dewitt said cautiously, “that there is a possibility you may have copied one or more of the investigative reports and forgotten to record such a copy.”

  “I’ll look at any damn file I please, Dewitt. Where the hell—” Capp began to nod then, stiff little marionette-like jerks to his stumpy neck and dimpled chin. Begrudged acceptance slowly replaced the anger on his face. Capp knew when to modify his position.

  “Just so I can keep the records straight,” Dewitt added, giving Capp some room to maneuver. “Tons of paperwork on these cases. If we go to court, then we’ll need to have all our paperwork in order. That’s all I’m talking about.”

  “Yeah, sure. Yeah, right.”

  “Exactly what is your interest in those files, sir? Perhaps I can help.”

  “Interest? This case falls under my command, Sergeant. That’s my interest! Quite frankly, I wonder about your competence, your experience.” Capp glared at him viciously then, his jaw muscles flexing as he ground his teeth. “We’ll get this all straightened out on Monday.” He moved slowly. Dewitt could feel the man’s every joint ache under the excess weight.

  Dewitt swallowed away his frustration. It would be improper—and a mistake—for him to pursue this further. Ginny may have been mistaken. The resulting silence grew from awkward to claustrophobic. Only the poodle remained oblivious to the tension in the air, scratching once again at the calf of his master. To Dewitt, the dog looked more like an albino rat with a permanent.

  Capp had the door open. The poodle streaked outside in a flash of white fur. Capp called it back in a growling, angry voice. With Dewitt outside and the dog inside, Capp shut the door.

  Dewitt walked down the short stone path to the driveway and the waiting Zephyr. He was walking with his head cocked down in deep thought, sorting through their discussion. He stopped short of his car, staring at the driveway’s yellowed concrete. Just beyond the toes of his scuffed shoes, a few feet ahead of the Zephyr, he spotted that same triangle of motor oil.

  Howard Lumbrowski.

  Dewitt glanced back toward the house. Karl Capp, poodle cradled in his arms, was watching him through a window. Capp petted the poodle once, his eyes still on Dewitt, then turned and disappeared into the interior of the house.

  5

  The man crouched next to the fence that ran behind the car wash. It was cluttered with bleached, rain-wrinkled trash, road litter mostly. Some plastic bottles and many pale pop cans lay crushed and pressed into the mud, although most of the aluminum ones had been salvaged by winos for their refund value. It was a terrific place for cats. Cats loved the fence. Loved to rummage around in the piles of litter. They made noise out there at all hours, screamed murder during intercourse, scratched and clawed out a meager existence. They were a nuisance and the man appreciated them where few others would. He had use for them. Purpose.

  He reached into the bag of Kitti-Bitties and distributed a trail carefully. He was careful about every facet of his life, had been for years, and he wasn’t about to change now. He counted the Kitti-Bitties as he scattered the line, counted them like a poker player and his chips. An effective trap required specific bait. Kitti-Bitties were just the thing. They were shaped like wagon wheels, the Kitti-Bitties. Eight, nine… he popped the tenth into his mouth and chewed it up. Chew your food a hundred times, his mother had always said. He smiled at the thought, pieces of Kitti-Bitties stuck between his teeth. They weren’t that bad—tasted a little bit like liver. He loved liver and bacon.

  The trail led around the corner of his building, where he left a very small bowl of milk mixed with codeine cough syrup. He placed his worn-out lawn chair not five feet from the bowl and sat down, waiting. Patience was something he had learned a long time ago. Patience was what made careful planning pay off.

  It took a little longer than usual. About forty-five minutes. A mangy tom, a cat he had seen for several days now, came around the corner looking like it had six fathers and poor eyesight. It was steering by its nose, chewing up the Kitti-Bitties as it went along. Wiry. Wild as all hell. The man sat unnaturally still, his breathing contained—one of his well-developed talents. A useful talent at that. The tom planted his greedy face into the bowl and just about inhaled the milk.

  Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. Nor did greed. The man did.

  He let the cat walk away when it finished. Part of the fun was following; watching. Same with people. Part of the fun was the knowledge it was all over before it began. They never made it far. None of them had. This one did better than average. A little farther. Thirty or forty yards maybe. He could always tell by the tail. When the codeine hit, they couldn’t hold their tails up. They became tail-heavy. He could approach them then, as he approached this tom now. The tom glanced over his shoulder, a glazed look in his multicolored eyes, like a skid-row bum who hears you coming up behind him, unable to negotiate out of your way but eager to do so. The man slipped on the pair of thick leather gloves and scooped up the cat. “Good kitty,” he said softly into its ear. Goodbye kitty, was more like it.

  Inside the room, the man wrapped duct tape around each paw, nullifying the claws. When he was done, the tom looked confused, puzzled. In his dazed stupor, he bit at one of the taped mitts. “No, no,” said the man, placing the Baggie over the cat’s head and fastening it there with a thick rubber band doubled to hold it tightly. He released the tom then, allowing it to wander the room.

  It only took a few seconds for the plastic bag to fog. Then the body had no head, no eyes. The cat pawed at the bag but to no avail. In the process, it used up more of its precious air. It began to move quickly then. It ran full speed into the opposing wall, blinded by the fogged bag. It bounced off the wall, staggered, and started running in circles. The man laughed at the s
ight. Stupid cat.

  This one took eleven minutes. It banged its way around the room comically, shook its head violently, cried out in its ugliest back-alley voice—but to no avail. The man kept right on laughing, grinning, enjoying it, until the tom keeled over and lay panting frantically. Briefly. Then it was still. The man applauded. On a scale of one to ten, this was a definite six or seven.

  Better than average.

  He gave the carcass to his dog to play with, and enjoyed this nearly as much. The dog nosed it around in the dirt briefly, just as he did with the man’s socks, then bit down and tore off a leg.

  That was enough for the man.

  He hated the sight of blood.

  6

  Clarence Hindeman showed up for Rusty’s Point Lobos ceremony in khaki shorts and a jungle jacket from Banana Republic. Point Lobos, the spectacular coastal state reserve, had played a major role in Dewitt’s marriage, grief, and recovery. Forested with Monterey pines, its jagged shoreline weathers the interminable pounding of turbulent breakers boiling white in emerald waters. It is a magical place where sea lions languish indolently, soaking up intermittent sunshine on mossy islands of rock outcroppings, and malformed overhead limbs twist and recoil in stark protest to the brutal tenacity of offshore winds.

  This afternoon, the breeze, heavy with salt spray and pine sap, carried with it a physical weight as it barreled inland. Brown grasses and naked shrubs rustled stubbornly, whispering, hissing at them like bums from the shadows.

  Hindeman carried a cold beer in hand as he led them onto the Cypress Grove trail. They walked out to The Pinnacle lookout, passing beneath a tree curling painfully away from the sea, hunched like a businessman holding his hat against a wintry gust. The insistent surf exploded far below them, tossing plumes of white foam twenty feet high and sounding like muffled explosions. They huddled together then, pulling in close and taking the wind to their backs. Dewitt was thankful for friends like Clarence and Briar. They were family, these two.

  Emmy opened the lid to the urn. Some of the ashes lifted in the wind. She slapped her small hand over the top and sealed them inside.

  “Looks like he’s dying to get out.” Hindeman tried a joke on the other three, only winning with Dewitt, who grinned. Briar looked at her father with acute disapproval.

  Emmy had memories here—memories of her mother, of their family on weekend outings—and although it was her choice to be here, she faltered briefly and looked to Dewitt for comfort. He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed. “We don’t need to do this, Em,” he whispered.

  “Are you going to say something?” she asked her father.

  He said somberly, “Rusty and I have never needed words to understand one another. He knows how I feel. He’ll always be with me, Em. Always. In that way, he’s immortal.” He reached over and touched the ceramic urn.

  Emmy, staring down into the container, eyes brimming with tears, then looked up at her father. “We’ve been here before, Dad, haven’t we?” she asked.

  “Yes, we have, Em,” he answered, consumed then by his own memories.

  She was weeping now, teeth biting her lower lip, eyes squinting. Dewitt felt tears slip from his own eyes. Nothing hurt as much as watching Emmy cry. She said, “So, I guess all I can really say is that I loved Rusty a whole lot. We all loved Rusty a whole lot and now… now he gets to be with Mom forever. Lucky him.”

  Dewitt hugged his daughter from behind. He could see Rusty running, could hear him barking, could feel his hot sour breath on his neck, his tongue on his cheek. Nothing so sweet. He placed his chin on his daughter’s head and his tears ran into her hair.

  “Lucky Rusty,” Emmy repeated. She threw the urn from the cliff, ashes spraying out a fantail of gray. She pivoted and buried her face deeply in Dewitt’s chest. “It’s not fair,” she complained.

  He watched over her shoulder as the urn descended. “I’ll miss you, boy,” Dewitt whispered privately.

  Emmy laced her fingers in her father’s and they headed back to the car, embraced in a deep and painful isolation.

  7

  Howard Lumbrowski was taking no chances. He’d had the car in the shop most of the day while they replaced seals, tightened bolts, and changed the oil. Let Dewitt impound it now; he’d end up with mud on his face. No oil leaking now. He ordered his second Absolut, a double this time, proud he had limited himself to what he considered two drinks. Just enough to keep the heart pounding and ears from ringing. The genius move, he decided, was drinking at the Boar, because Dewitt would never, ever look for him here; he would be looking over at the dives in Seaside. And even if he did look here, he would have to look carefully: The Mustang was parked around back, behind the dumpster, completely out of sight. No cops ever came in this place, and Pete, behind the bar, was a close friend. He’d given this number to Bret at The Horseshoe, warning him that Dewitt might be on the warpath. Certain that Bret would never betray his confidence, he knew if the phone behind the bar rang, and it was for him, that it could only be one person: Him.

  “It’s for you,” Pete said, handing him the receiver as if hearing his thoughts.

  Lumbrowski, feeling warm in the face, said into the receiver, “I had a little trouble last night. Couldn’t keep our date, sweetie.”

  The now familiar voice responded, “Yes.”

  “So?”

  “You remember what I said last time?”

  “You gonna get on with it?”

  The man named a motel. Seaside. “You’re expected. I’ll be along when I’m convinced it’s safe.”

  Lumbrowski handed the phone back to Pete. “Another D-cup starlet wants some aerobic instruction. Gotta run.”

  The motel was a T-shaped single-story structure with about a dozen units. The sign read, NO VACANCY, in a broken neon script. There wasn’t a single car in sight, only a mangy dog wandering around the front of the office. A hand-scrawled note in the office window read, TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR REPAIRS, PLEASE TRY US AGAIN. Lumbrowski knocked and waited for the door to open. It was dark inside the office, the only light from the glow of another neon sign advertising cable TV. The guy was big, and Lumbrowski felt uncomfortable. He hesitated for a moment in the doorway.

  “In,” said the other in a way that disguised his voice.

  Lumbrowski ventured inside. The guy pushed the door closed, slapped a key into his hand, and spun him around. The fingers wormed over him carefully. The guy knew what he was doing, and wasn’t afraid to check the groin, which told Lumbrowski something about him immediately: professional. It was a good sign. The snitch was probably worth something.

  “Which room?” he asked, feeling the cold key in his hand.

  “Twelve.” Low, unremarkable voice. Also professional.

  6

  SUNDAY

  1

  The patrolman said, “There’s another one, Sergeant.” Dewitt didn’t need to ask another what. “But this time it isn’t on our turf,” Nelson continued. “I’ve got a Bearcat scanner at home. Monitor it most of the time. They slipped up when they called it in. Used the radio. I had to check it out. I’m here now.”

  “Where?”

  “At a pay phone. You know the Seaside public baseball diamond?”

  “Seaside? Brutus, protect that crime scene. If they used the radio, it’s going to be a zoo.”

  “Already is.”

  Dewitt groaned. “Whatever you do, keep your eye out for Lumbrowski. He beat us to the first two crime scenes. He’s wanted for questioning.”

  “He beat us to this one, too,” Nelson informed him.

  “The oil again?”

  “No, not the oil. The stiff in the car, Sergeant? The one sucking fumes? It’s Howard Lumbrowski.”

  ***

  The crime scene infuriated Dewitt as he drove up: too small. Unacceptable. Two Seaside uniforms were inside the sectioned-off area, thereby negating the very purpose of the police tape.

  He was grateful, however, not to see any detectives. He had phoned Tilly to re
quest an invitation to the crime scene—a necessary technicality. In another department’s jurisdiction, Dewitt was a guest, the investigation out of his hands. What he now hoped was that whoever headed this investigation would extend Tilly’s “invitation.” That was anybody’s guess. He identified himself to the patrolman in charge and went to work immediately, acutely aware that his authority might be usurped at any moment. Nelson was dispatched to reestablish the crime scene in a scope and purpose more to Dewitt’s liking. He was then to have Ginny alert Clare O’Daly and Dr. Emmanuel.

  It began to rain heavily. Dewitt donned his rain jacket and headed directly to the Mustang before he lost any exterior evidence, camera at his ready. On hands and knees, he studied the cracked pavement from a variety of angles, drawing mocking, skeptical looks from the Seaside patrolmen. He spotted a sandy tread pattern by the passenger door—a bike?—but the rain washed it away before he had time to get a photograph. He handed the camera then to one of the uniformed onlookers and had him record Dewitt’s opening of the driver’s door and initial inspection of the corpse. The uniform did so reluctantly. Frame after frame recorded Dewitt’s every move.

  Lumbrowski had been in a fight—a much worse fight than the two of them had had. His knuckles were cut, his lip split; there were several ugly red spots on his neck. Dewitt hadn’t seen sores like that before.

  He leaned over the body in an attempt to grab hold of a roll of masking tape when he heard from behind, “That’ll be all, thank you.” A deep voice. He turned to see Lieutenant Rick Morn, a man in his late fifties, a poor dresser, losing hair, a cop’s intensity in his eyes. They knew of each other through prior investigations.

  “We’ll include you, Dewitt. More than likely we’ll share with you at some point, but we’ve got to do this our way for the time being. This is our turf. You can appreciate that.” Dewitt signaled for the uniform to stop taking photographs. “Investigator from the DA’s office is on the way down. Too many cooks, you know?”