He put his palms down on the desk and leaned over it, so he could speak to her in a confidential tone. There were still plenty of Winston’s colleagues around the bureau, working at their desks and trying to get things done before the weekend.
“Arrango and Walters missed something,” McCaleb said. “So did I on my first go-through. But I picked up on it this morning when I took a second look at the videos and the paperwork. It’s something that has to be considered pretty seriously. I think it changes things.”
Winston furrowed her eyebrows and looked at him seriously.
“Quit talking in circles. What did they miss?”
“I’d rather show you than tell you.” He reached down to the floor and opened his leather satchel. He pulled out the copy of the surveillance tape and held it up to her. “Can we go look at this?”
“I guess so.”
Winston got up and led the way to the video room. She turned the machines on and popped in the tape after looking at it and noting it was not one of the tapes she had given McCaleb on Wednesday.
“What is this?”
“It’s the surveillance from the market.”
“Not the one I gave you.”
“It’s a copy. I’m having somebody look at the other one.”
“What do you mean? Who?”
“A tech I knew when I was with the bureau. I’m just trying to get some of the images enhanced. Not a big deal.”
“So what are you showing me?”
She had the surveillance tape playing.
“Where’s the freeze?”
Winston pointed to a button on the console and McCaleb held his finger over it, waiting for the right moment. On the tape Gloria Torres approached the counter and smiled at Kang. Then came the gunman and the shot that threw her body forward over the counter. McCaleb froze the image and used a pen from his pocket to point at Gloria’s left ear.
“It’s pretty murky but on a blowup you can see she has three earrings on this ear,” he said. Then tapping the pen at each point on the ear, he added, “A crescent moon on a stud, a hoop and then dangling from the lobe, a cross.”
“Okay. I can’t really see it too well but I’ll take your word for it.”
McCaleb hit the freeze button again and the video started playing. He stopped it at the moment Gloria’s body rebounded backward, her head turning to the left.
“Right ear,” he said, using the pen again to point. “Just the matching crescent moon.”
“Okay, what’s it mean?”
He ignored the question and hit the button again. The gun was fired. Gloria was hurled into the counter and then rebounded backward into the shooter. Holding her in front of him, he fired at Mr. Kang while stepping backward out of the camera’s field of vision and lowering Gloria to the ground.
“The victim is then lowered down out of view of the camera.”
“What, you’re saying that was intentional?”
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
He opened the satchel again and drew out the property report and handed it to Winston.
“That’s the police property report on the victim’s possessions. It was filled out at the hospital. Remember, she was still alive. They took her things there, gave them to a patrol officer. That is his report. What don’t you see?”
Winston scanned the page.
“I don’t know. It’s just a list of-the cross earring?”
“Right. It’s not there. He took it.”
“The patrolman?”
“No. The shooter. The shooter took her earring.”
A puzzled look came across Winston’s face. She wasn’t following the logic. She hadn’t had the same experiences or seen the same things that McCaleb had. She didn’t see it for what it was.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “How do you know he took it? It could have just fallen off and gotten lost.”
“No. I’ve talked to the victim’s sister and I’ve talked to the hospital and the paramedics.”
He knew this was exaggerating his investigation into this aspect but he needed to pin Winston down. He couldn’t give her a way out or a way to any other conclusion than his own conclusion.
“The sister says the earring had a safety hasp. It is unlikely that it fell off. Even if it did, the paramedics didn’t find it on the stretcher or in the ambulance, and they didn’t find it at the hospital. He took it, Jaye. The shooter. Besides, if it was going to fall off, despite the safety hasp, it probably would have been when he fired the round. You saw the impact on the head. If the earring was going to come loose, it would have been then. Only it didn’t. It was taken off.”
“Okay, okay, what if he did take it? I’m not saying I believe it yet, but what are you saying it means?”
“It means everything changes. It means this wasn’t about a robbery. She wasn’t just an innocent nobody who walked into the wrong place at the wrong time. It means she was a target. She was prey.”
“Oh, come on. She… What are you trying to do, turn this into a serial killer or something?”
“I’m not trying to turn it into anything. It is what it is. And it’s been that way all along. Only you people-we, I mean-didn’t see it for what it was.”
Winston turned away from him and walked toward the corner of the room shaking her head. She then turned back to him.
“Okay, you tell me what you’re seeing here. Because I’m just not seeing it. I’d love to go to the LAPD and tell those two jerks that they fucked up but I’m just not seeing what you’re seeing.”
“Okay, let’s start with the earring itself. Like I said, I talked to the sister. She said Glory Torres wore this particular earring every day. She played around with the others, switched them, used different combinations, but never the cross. It was always there. Every day. It had the obvious religious implications but for lack of a better description, it was also her good luck charm. Okay? You with me so far?”
“So far.”
“Okay, now let’s just assume that the shooter took it. Like I said, I talked to the hospital and the fire department, and it hasn’t showed up anywhere. So let’s assume he took it.”
He opened his hands and held them up, waiting. Winston reluctantly nodded her agreement.
“So then let’s look at that from two angles. How? And why? The first one is easy. Remember the video. He shot her and let her rebound off the counter and then fall back into him and then down to the floor, outside the view of the camera. He could take the earring then without being seen.”
“You’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The Good Samaritan. He wrapped her head up. Maybe he took it.”
“I thought about that. It’s not beyond possibility. But it’s less likely than it being the shooter. The Good Samaritan is the random player in this. Why would he take it?”
“I don’t know. Why would the shooter?”
“Well, like I said, that’s a question. But look at the item that was taken. A religious icon, good luck charm. She wore it every day. It was a personality signature, its personal significance more important than its monetary value.”
He waited a beat. He had just given her the setup. Now came the closing pitch. Winston was fighting on this but McCaleb hadn’t lost sight of her skills as an investigator. She would see what he was saying. He was confident he would convince her.
“Someone who knew Gloria would know the significance of the earring. Similarly, someone who was close to her, who had studied her over a period of days or longer could pick up on it as well.”
“You’re talking about a stalker.”
McCaleb nodded.
“In the acquisition period. He watches her. Learns her habits, sets his plan. He’d also be looking for something. A token. Something to take and to remember her by.”
“The earring.”
He nodded again. Winston started pacing around the small room, not looking at McCaleb.
“I’ve got to think
about this. I’ve got… let’s go someplace where we can sit down.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She opened the door and left the room. McCaleb quickly ejected the tape, grabbed his bag and followed. Winston led him to the meeting room in which they had talked the first day McCaleb had come to see her about the case. The room was empty but smelled like a McDonald’s restaurant. Winston hunted around, found the offending trash can under the table and escorted it out into the hallway.
“People aren’t supposed to eat in this room,” she said as she closed the door and sat down.
McCaleb took the seat across from her.
“All right, what about my guy? How does James Cordell fit in? First of all, he’s a guy. The other’s a girl. Plus, there was no sex. This woman wasn’t touched.”
“None of that matters,” McCaleb said quickly. He had been anticipating the question. He had done nothing but think about the questions and their possible answers during the drive out with Buddy Lockridge from the marina. “If I’m right, this would fall into what we called the power kill model. Basically, it’s a guy who is doing it because he can get away with it. He gets off on that. It’s his way of thumbing his nose at authority and shocking society. He transfers his problems with a particular situation-whether it’s a job, self-worth, women in general or his mother in particular or whatever-onto the police. The investigators. From tweaking them, he gets the jolt in self-worth that he needs. He derives a form of power from it. And it can be sexual power, even if there are no obvious or physical sexual manifestations in the actual crime. You remember the Code Killer out here a while back? Or Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer in New York?”
“Of course.”
“Same thing with both of them. There was no sex in each crime itself but it was all about sex. Look at Berkowitz. He shot people up-men and women-and ran away. But he came back days later and masturbated at the scene. We assumed the Code Killer did the same thing but if he did, our surveillances missed him. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to be obvious, Jaye, that’s all. It’s not always the obvious wackos who carve their names in people’s skin.”
McCaleb watched Winston closely, leery of talking above her. But she seemed to understand his theory.
“But it’s not only that,” McCaleb went on. “There’s another part to this. He gets off on the camera, too.”
“He likes us seeing him do it?”
McCaleb nodded.
“That’s the new twist. I think he wants the camera. He wants his work and his accomplishments documented, seen and admired. It increases the danger to him and therefore increases the power reflection on him. The payoff. So to get that situation, what does he do? I think he picks up on a target-he chooses his prey-and then watches them until he has their routine and he knows when it takes them into places of business where the cameras are. The ATM, the market. He wants the camera. He talks to it. He winks at it. The camera is you-the investigator. He’s talking to you and getting off on it.”
“Then maybe he doesn’t choose the victim,” Winston said. “Maybe he doesn’t care about that. Just the camera. Like Berkowitz. He didn’t care who he shot. He just went out shooting.”
“But Berkowitz didn’t take souvenirs.”
“The earring?”
McCaleb nodded.
“You see that makes it personal. I think these victims were chosen. Not the other way around.”
“You’ve thought this all out, haven’t you?”
“Not everything. I don’t know how he chose them or why. But I’ve been thinking about it, yeah. The whole hour and a half it took us to get out here. Traffic was bad.”
“Us?”
“I have a driver. I can’t drive yet.”
She didn’t say anything. McCaleb wished he hadn’t mentioned the driver. It was revealing a weakness.
“We have to start over,” McCaleb said. “Because we thought these people were chosen at random. We thought the locations were chosen, not the victims. But I think it’s the other way around. The victims were chosen. They were prey. Specific targets that were acquired, followed, stalked. We’ve got to background them. There’s got to be an intersection. Some commonality. A person, a place… a moment in time-something that hooks them either to each other or our unknown subject. We find-”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.”
McCaleb stopped, realizing his voice had been rising in fervor.
“What souvenir was taken from James Cordell? Are you saying the money he took from the ATM is a token?”
“I don’t know what was taken but it wasn’t the money. That was just part of the robbery show. The money wasn’t a symbolic possession. Besides, he took it from the machine, not Cordell.”
“So then, aren’t you jumping the gun?”
“No. I’m sure something was taken.”
“We would have seen it. We have the whole thing on video.”
“Nobody picked up on it with Gloria Torres and that was on video, too.”
Winston turned in her chair.
“I don’t know. This still seems like a-let me ask you something. And try not to take it too personal. But isn’t it possible that you’re just looking for what you always looked for before, when you were with the bureau?”
“You mean, like am I exaggerating? Like I want to get back to what I was doing before and this is my way of doing it?”
Winston hiked her shoulders. She didn’t want to say it.
“I didn’t go looking for this, Jaye. It’s just there. It is what it is. Sure, the earring might mean something else. And it might not mean anything at all. But if there is anything I know about in this world, it is this kind of thing. These people. I know them. I know how they think and I know how they act. I feel it here, Jaye. The evil. It’s here.”
Winston looked at him strangely and McCaleb guessed that maybe he shouldn’t have been so fervent in his response to her doubts.
“Cordell’s truck, the Chevy Suburban, wasn’t in the video. Did you process his truck? I didn’t see anything in the stack you gave me about-”
“No, it wasn’t touched. He left his wallet open on the seat and just took his ATM card to the machine. If the shooter had gone into his truck, he would have taken his wallet. When we saw it still there, we didn’t bother.”
McCaleb shook his head and said, “You are still looking at it from the point of view of a robbery. The decision not to process the truck would have been okay-if it had been a real robbery. But what if it wasn’t? He wouldn’t have gone into the truck and taken something as obvious as the wallet.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Something else. Cordell used his truck a lot. Driving all day along the aqueduct. It would be like a second home to him. There could have been lots of things of a personal nature in there that the shooter could’ve taken. Photos, things hanging from the rearview, maybe a travel diary, you name it. Where is the truck? Make my day and tell me it’s still impounded.”
“No chance. We released it to his wife a couple days after the shooting.”
“It’s probably been cleaned out and sold by now.”
“Actually, no. The last time I talked to Cordell’s wife-which was only a couple weeks ago-she said something about not knowing what to do with the Suburban. It was too big for her and she said it gave her bad vibes now anyway. She didn’t use those words but you know what I mean.”
A charge of excitement went through McCaleb.
“Then we go up there and look at the Suburban and we talk to her and we figure out what was taken.”
“ If something was taken…”
Winston frowned. McCaleb knew what she was facing. She already was dealing with a captain who, after the hypnosis and Bolotov fiascos, probably thought she was being controlled too easily by an outsider. She didn’t want to have to go back to the man with McCaleb’s new theory unless she was sure it was dead-solid perfect. And McCaleb knew it could never be that. It never was.
“What ar
e you going to do?” he asked “It’s like I’m in the car and ready to go. Are you getting in with me or staying on the sidewalk?”
It had occurred to him that he was not constrained by such worries or by a job, a role, inertia or anything else. Either Winston could get in the car or McCaleb could drive on without her. She apparently realized the same thing.
“No,” she said. “The question is what are you going to do. You’re the one who doesn’t have to deal with the bullshit around here like I do. After the hypnosis thing, Hitchens has been-”
“Tell you what, Jaye. I don’t care about all of that. I only care about one thing-finding this guy. So look. You sit tight and give me a few days. I’ll come in with something. I’ll go up to the desert and talk to Cordell’s wife and take a look at the truck. I’ll find something you can go to the captain with. If I don’t, then I’ll eat my theory. You can cut me loose and I won’t bother you again.”
“Look, it’s not that you’re both-”
“You know what I mean. You’ve got court, other cases. The last thing you need is to have to overhaul on an old one. I know how it is. Maybe coming in here today was premature. I should’ve just gone up there and seen the widow. But since it’s your case and you’ve treated me like a human, I wanted to check with you first. Now, you give me your blessing and a little time and I’ll go up on my own. I’ll let you know what I get.”
Winston was silent for a long moment, then finally she nodded.
“Okay, you got it.”
20
LOCKRIDGE AND McCALEB took a succession of freeways from Whittier until they reached the Antelope Valley Freeway, which would finally take them to the northeast corner of the county. Lockridge drove one-handed most of the way, holding a harmonica to his mouth with the other hand. It didn’t give McCaleb much of a feeling of safety, but it cut out the meaningless banter.
As they passed Vasquez Rocks, McCaleb studied the formation and pinpointed the spot where the body had been found that eventually led to his knowing Jaye Winston. The slanted and jagged formation caused by tectonic upheaval was beautiful in the afternoon light. The sun was hitting the front rock faces at a low angle and throwing the crevices into deep darkness. It looked beautiful and dangerous at the same time. He wondered if that was what had drawn Luther Hatch to it.
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