by Alan Russell
For a time I had regularly visited with Haines at San Quentin. Ostensibly, I was helping the FBI’s Behavioral Unit, but there was more to it than that, even if I didn’t like to admit it. My near-death experience had left scars and scabs that I felt the need to pick.
Of late I had tried to distance myself from Haines. You would think that would be easy, but it wasn’t. Even from the confines of a maximum-security prison, he was able to reach out to me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that my partner and I were in his crosshairs, and he was just biding his time over squeezing the trigger.
Like it or not, Sirius and I were forever linked to this century’s messianic bogeyman. For the second year in a row, the Weatherman’s displays were topping the YouTube charts. I had heard that some of his rants had more than a hundred million hits.
I looked around. Even on a hot day I felt a chill. Sirius must have sensed my discomfort, for he turned his head toward me and made a little sound.
“It’s all right,” I said, scratching him under his chin. “Let’s get back to work.”
We were going door to door in Culver City in the hopes of getting a lead on the man the media had dubbed “the Reluctant Hero.”
“I can understand his reluctance,” I said to Sirius. “Being a hero is way overrated.”
I was speaking from experience. Three years ago the citizens of Los Angeles had decided Sirius and I were heroes after we caught Ellis Haines.
Culver City is a five-square-mile enclave in West Los Angeles. Most of its neighborhoods are identified by parks. We were working the Blanco Park neighborhood near The Corner Elementary School, the same school where the shooting had occurred and the mystery of our heroic enigma had surfaced. Sirius and I were scheduled to do an appearance at the school in a few days. The goal was to bag the proverbial two birds with one stone—we would do community outreach and use that opportunity to ask questions of students and teachers about that enigma now known as the Reluctant Hero.
The houses on the street had been built in the early fifties but were well maintained. So far our canvas had allowed us good looks at the homes, but not many of the people in them. Either the residents were ignoring the stranger at the door, or they were working. NBH was my shorthand of the day—nobody home. The other popular entry in my notepad was D-SAT, police lingo for those who didn’t see a thing.
“If someone doesn’t want to be a hero,” I said, “what law is it that says he has to be?”
Sirius didn’t answer. Chief of Police Andrew Ehrlich wanted us to find the hero, but his strings had been pulled by the mayor. The Chief had deemed it a special case, but I still suspected it was a special punishment because of the “Officer Sirius” letter. Currently, two detectives work LAPD’s Special Cases Unit (SCU): me and fur face. We’re the ones who get the strange and unusual cases that don’t fall into neat categories. And sometimes we get the Chief’s shit work, especially if we get on his shit list.
I rang the doorbell on a single-story ranch-style home. The tinted glass wasn’t quite dark enough to obscure movement behind it, and it was clear we were being scrutinized through a peephole.
“Smile,” I said to Sirius.
The door opened six inches. My partner wagged his tail, and it opened another six inches. He likes the game of open the door and is better at it than I am. I can only offer nods meant to be encouraging. The pronounced scarring on my face from our fire walk with Haines looks even scarier when I smile.
I offered up my wallet badge and my name, and the woman interrupted me: “I thought so.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and your dog looked familiar. The two of you caught the Strangler, didn’t you?”
I nodded. Suddenly she was all smiles. Her eyes were curious, with a shine I had seen too many times before. Otherwise sensible people are fascinated by Ellis Haines, and through me try to get their secondhand thrills.
“Is the Weatherman as eerie as he seems to be in person? He reminds me of a vampire.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know any vampires,” I said and then added, “Missus?”
She heard the question and saw my raised pen. “I’m Heather Francis,” she said. “And it’s ‘Missus’ with an asterisk. I’m divorced.”
Her smile and manner were flirtatious, but I kept my professional front. “I am here because of what happened at The Corner Elementary School last week,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“The shooter’s in jail isn’t he?” she said.
“He’s locked up and not going anywhere, but we want to make sure he was acting alone. And we’d like to determine whether the shooting was premeditated. Have you been following the coverage in the local media?”
When she nodded, I asked, “Did the suspect look familiar to you? Had you seen him in the area before?”
Heather shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.”
“Have you noticed any unusual characters lingering around The Corner School during the last week or so?”
“I don’t recall any, but then I try to avoid the school during drop-off and pickup times. That’s when it’s a zoo.”
What had happened was every parent’s nightmare. Two days ago our shooter had entered the playground area, rambling about “changelings” and “demon spawn.” He’d brandished his gun and ordered the children to line up at the fence.
The chaos had been captured by a teacher surreptitiously filming with her phone. She was afraid another Sandy Hook was taking place, and wanted the video to be her last will and testament. When a custodian and teacher tried to intervene with the gunman, he emptied his magazine in their direction. Luckily, he wasn’t a good shot, and only the custodian sustained minor gunshot wounds. As the shooter was reloading a new magazine, the Reluctant Hero suddenly appeared. He blindsided the suspect with a textbook tackle, and within moments other teachers piled onto him.
Only the side of the Hero’s face was apparent in the footage. He was white, had dark hair, a medium build, and appeared to be an inch or two shy of six feet. It was likely he was under thirty; all the onlookers agreed he covered a lot of ground very quickly.
I gave Heather Francis an encouraging nod and continued my fishing expedition by saying, “I’d hate to think what might have happened if the Reluctant Hero hadn’t shown up.”
“He was a godsend,” she said.
“And then he just disappeared without even a backward glance, like he was the Lone Ranger.”
That’s what intrigued the people of Los Angeles more than anything else. L.A. is the capital of promotion, and self-promotion is epidemic. Trying to get noticed is a full-time pursuit for all too many.
“It’s likely the Hero is from around here,” I said. “Did he look familiar to you?”
“Who could tell? The film they’ve been showing looks like one of those Sasquatch sightings. The camera is all shaky, and the images are so grainy, it makes it hard to see what you’re looking at.”
“It wasn’t Sasquatch,” I said. “The Hero doesn’t have facial hair, and his feet are normal sized.”
“So much for my theory,” she said.
I closed my notepad but wasn’t able to make a clean getaway like the Hero.
“I read that you go and see him every month,” she said.
The hunger was in Heather’s voice and her eyes. Ellis Haines received more mail than any prisoner in the world, most of it from women. Some were curious, some wanted to be his pen pal, and many wanted to marry him. It was a rare day when Haines didn’t get at least one proposal of marriage.
I began backing away. “I used to do that to help out the FBI. Their Behavioral Science Unit is interested in the FUBAR minds of serial murders.”
“FUBAR?” she asked.
I sanitized the acronym: “Fouled up beyond all recognition. Ellis Haines is a psychopath.”
&n
bsp; My phone began singing, which gave me the perfect exit cue. I called out my thanks and started toward the sidewalk. My phone is programmed with one special ringtone identifying this particular caller. I interrupted the rendition of “Hail to the Chief.”
“Gideon,” I said.
“Good afternoon, Detective. This is Dawn from Chief Ehrlich’s office. Are you available to talk to the Chief?”
“I’m great at multitasking, Dawn. I’m good to talk and piss him off at the same time.”
Dawn had been calling on the Chief’s behalf for long enough to expect a sarcastic remark, and I was rewarded with a laugh. She was Ehrlich’s much-too-pretty administrative assistant. My administrative assistant has fleas.
A new voice came on the line: “How goes the hunt, Detective?”
“I am afraid that today I am zero for hero.”
“Hemingway said, ‘As you get older, it is harder to have heroes.’ ”
Before becoming top cop of L.A., Ehrlich had been an academic. His critics say Ehrlich likes lecturing so much that he should return to the classroom, and the sooner, the better. I didn’t know much about Hemingway other than he blew his brains out, so I didn’t comment.
“Last night dispatch received an unusual call,” Ehrlich said. “A man who identified himself as Ron Pauley reported that he had seen a murder. I want you to handle this . . . situation.”
“Why am I getting it instead of Homicide?”
“Did I say a homicide had been committed?”
“You said a man identified himself as being a witness to a murder.”
“That’s correct. But the legal definition of a homicide is the killing of one person by another, whereas murder has a broader meaning.”
I was afraid I was going to get a lecture, but Ehrlich cut to the chase, at least by his standards. “This situation is already drawing media scrutiny. I don’t want it said that LAPD gives short shrift to any of its citizens, and the media needs to know that we’re doing our due diligence. Talk to Pauley and follow up on his story. I understand he’s homeless but lives in the vicinity of the Venice Beach boardwalk.”
“What’s Pauley going to tell me?”
“Last night he claims an angel was murdered in Venice Beach.”
CHAPTER 2:
DEATH IN VENICE BEACH
In college I read Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, a story about a writer who gets fixated on a young man while vacationing in Venice. The object of his obsession kept him in Venice even as an outbreak of plague fell upon the city. I wasn’t anywhere near as enamored as my professor was with the story. He found a lot of symbolism and metaphors in Mann’s writing. Some of us divine things that others don’t or can’t.
If I were an angel, I don’t think I’d choose Venice Beach as a place to play my harp. Those in search of L.A.’s best freak show go to Venice Beach. What doesn’t fit under the big top, or what’s been swept out with the elephant droppings, is there. All sorts of performers flock to the boardwalk to sing, dance, gyrate, and do performance art and comedy. They depend upon the kindness of strangers. There are plenty of nonperformers as well, looking for handouts.
My cell phone rang, but I didn’t immediately answer. There were two reasons for that: I was enjoying the musical ringtone of the Peter Gunn theme that my lady friend, Lisbet, had installed, and I could see the caller was Captain Brown, the Chief’s main toady. Lisbet had also decided my texts should be announced by the Munchkins. It’s a good thing my phone is usually in silent mode and set to vibrate.
I had no choice but to take Brown’s call. Like Ellis Haines, Brown has two nicknames, but his are Brownnose and Radar. The former needs no explanation; the latter is for his resemblance in looks and actions to Radar O’Reilly from M*A*S*H*. The two nickname camps seem evenly divided. I usually go with Radar.
Reluctantly, I shut down Peter Gunn, and from inside the car answered his call hands-free. “I am following up on your earlier conversation with Chief Ehrlich, Detective,” Brown said.
“Is it true every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings, Captain?”
“Let’s stay on task, shall we?”
Then again, Brownnose isn’t a bad nickname either.
“The witness who reported the crime is Ronald Pauley, who goes by the name of Wrong with a ‘W.’ ”
“Right,” I said, “with an ‘R.’ ”
“Mr. Pauley usually roosts in an area known as the Drummers’ Circle,” Radar said. “He has been panhandling in Venice Beach for a few years and has a criminal record. Because of his fondness for drugs and alcohol, he’s been arrested for, among other things, being drunk and disorderly, public intoxication, petty theft, and assault and battery.”
“So he’s no angel,” I said.
“That isn’t the point, is it?”
“I’m still having trouble figuring out the point.”
“The media has picked up on Mr. Pauley’s story. This morning he got a spot on drive time radio, which snowballed into more radio and television interviews. Mr. Pauley is on record as saying the police have not followed up with his reporting a crime. We need to show that is not the case.”
“I get the need for a dog and pony show,” I said. “What I don’t get is why the Venice Beach substation isn’t handling this.”
“The Chief watched one of Pauley’s interviews. For whatever reason, he thinks you’re right for the job.”
“It must be my angelic face.”
Radar sighed. “I expect you to be respectful around Mr. Pauley, especially given the media interest.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Wrong with a ‘W’ listened to too many tracks of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”
“Facts always work better than supposition. Keep me informed as to the status of your investigation.”
Radar hung up on me before I could tell him that Jimmy Page once said, “I’m looking for an angel with a broken wing.”
Maybe I would have made captain if I had listened less to Led Zeppelin. “Ooh, it makes me wonder,” I sang, trying to hit Robert Plant’s high notes.
Sirius nudged me. I guess he thought I was sick.
On a busy weekend Venice Beach can draw up to half a million people. Inexplicably, it’s the second biggest tourist draw in the L.A. area, Mickey Mouse and Company being the first. Luckily, it wasn’t a weekend, but there were still plenty of people strolling along the Venice Beach boardwalk.
I decided to take in the steroid route and began my walk at Muscle Beach, but only a few bodybuilders were out pumping iron. There was more action on the outdoor basketball courts; when I was younger I’d had enough game not to disgrace myself and had occasionally played on those courts. I could have parked closer to the Drummers’ Circle, but my roundabout route was also a trip down memory lane. Jen and I had spent one of our too few anniversary nights at the Marina Pacific Hotel, which is now the Hotel Erwin. It was an adventure for us, a getaway not that far from our home, yet a world away. When I’d made the reservation, I’d mentioned that it was our anniversary, and the staff had upgraded us to a beautiful ocean-view room. Looking at the hotel now, I could see how it had gentrified in the years since Jen’s and my stay, but that still didn’t take away from my time-in-a-bottle moment.
Sirius and I paused in our walk to take in the view of Venice Beach’s long stretch of sand. The sun was sinking into the west; soon people would be watching for a green flash.
“I wish we could both get off our leashes,” I said to my partner.
We started walking again. I was the only one on the boardwalk wearing a blazer and a tie. Everyone knew I was a cop, but no one changed their behavior. A homeless man waved his “I Need Weed” sign my way.
There weren’t any other dogs besides Sirius; there’s a dog ban along the boardwalk that’s in effect from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Still, there was an assortment of anim
als. One man was wearing a boa, as in constrictor, around his neck. Not far from him was a colorfully tattooed woman who paled in comparison to the macaw that graced her shoulder.
The scene at Venice Beach wasn’t the ocean life as sung by the Beach Boys. The sun, surf, and sand were there, but so were tarot readers, tattoo artists, and psychics. It was L.A. after all; storefronts advertised the availability of Botox at the beach. There were also storefronts that advertised the doctor was in and ready to see to your medical marijuana card. I didn’t see the need. Just walking the boardwalk got you a contact high.
Eventually, we made it past the gauntlet, leaving behind the vendors and panhandlers. The vying music from stores and performers gradually became background noise.
The drumming circle hadn’t yet come together, but it was just a matter of time. The players were always well away from the boardwalk and were a scene unto themselves. On weekends more than a hundred performers often gathered. Not everyone was a percussionist, but if you could bang it or clang it, there was a place in the circle for you. The middle of the circle was for the swaying dancers, who often danced to the beat of their own drummers. The circle was known to play for hours and hours without a break. From a distance, the argument was always which could be detected first: the beat of the drummers or the scent of cannabis.
I started asking people who looked like locals where I might find Wrong. Most were noncommittal and walked by me without comment, but a few pointed me toward likely spots.
My inquiries brought me to a homeless man with dreadlocks who was missing his two front teeth. Even before I asked, he said, “You here about the angel?”
At my nod he said, “Give me five dollars and I’ll take you to Wrong.”
“I’ll give you a buck now and a buck when we get there.”
“You cops are cheap,” he said, but extended his hand anyway. I handed him the dollar, and we started walking.
“Today I’m a tour guide,” he said. “Be sure to tip your tour guide. Your dog don’t bite, do he?”