“I think he broke my toe,” said Elena as she sat down.
“In that case you want to file a worker’s compensation claim.” Maggie smiled hospitably. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to run a computer search, and I’m not even sure some of the things I want to do can be done.”
Maggie clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “It’s the age of electronics, kid. Get with it. You want me to give you some books?”
“I want you to give me some advice, or better, I want you to do it for me.”
“Forget that,” said Maggie. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll type out directions on how to get it.” She swung her chair to face the computer keyboard and screen, leaving her cast propped on an open desk drawer.
Elena sighed. “I want to read detectives’ reports and everything else connected with robbery-homicides—well, maybe just homicides—of men over sixty-five. Well, no, make that sixty-two.”
She watched Maggie think a minute, then attack the keyboard.
“Cases from the last five years,” Elena added.
“That’s a problem. The older stuff—you can call up the cases, but you’re not going to get a lot of information from the computer. You’ll have to pull the written files.”
Elena nodded. “If it’s possible, I’d like to narrow it down to men who were killed in their own homes, men who might have abused their wives and or even their children.”
“So you want to cross-reference domestic violence cases?”
“Yeah, I guess so. And I want to know where the wives were when the men were killed. Particularly, I want cases where the wives were at the Socorro Heights Senior Citizens Center.”
Maggie groaned. “I can give you some tips, but I’m not sure you can pull up cases that meet all those parameters without reading the files yourself.”
Elena nodded glumly. Still, how many old men could have been murdered in the last five years? Surely not that many. She hoped not, anyway. She had thirty-nine cases presently active. She’d be lucky to find time. “I bet you could do this in an hour,” she hinted.
“In an hour, I’m going home,” said Maggie. “My leg hurts like hell.” Even as she was talking, she continued to type. Her telephone rang; she picked it up, tucked it under her chin, and went on typing as she listened. “Leo wants you,” she said, passing the phone to Elena.
Leo said, “Lance Potemkin’s here. Says he’s got an alibi for the day of the murder, wants to talk to us both.”
Elena sighed. An alibi. If he really had one, she would have to run the computer search, check back with the pawnshops. They’d be scrambling for suspects. “I’ll come right up.” If Lance had an alibi, why the hell hadn’t he told them in the first place instead of insisting he’d been home by himself with the flu?
25
Tuesday, October 5, 9:15 A.M.
“He wouldn’t say anything until you got here,” said Leo when Elena found them sitting silently in one of the small interrogation rooms.
“That way I won’t have to keep repeating myself,” said Lance, “and you can tell your mother about the whole thing. I really hated her thinking I might be a murderer.”
“She didn’t think that,” said Elena.
“Well, she must have wondered.”
“You’re saying you’re more worried about what Harmony thinks than us?” asked Leo. “She can’t put you in jail.”
“No one should. I didn’t kill him.”
“You going to tell us you were with someone on the day of the murder?” Leo looked as if he didn’t believe it.
“Yes,” said Lance. “Not only that day, but Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before and Tuesday after. I took some sick leave.” He looked defensive. “Well, I’ve never taken any before, and everyone else does it.”
“So you weren’t in your apartment at all?” Elena asked. Surely he hadn’t lied because he was afraid the English Department would find out he’d taken a bogus sick leave?
“I wasn’t even in Texas,” said Lance. “My friend has a place across the border in New Mexico. He grows grapes and vegetables, makes his own wine. Beautiful house.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Leo. “What’s your friend’s name?”
Lance hesitated.
“Look, it’s not going to do you any good unless we can check this out,” said Elena.
Lance sighed. “His name is Bayard Sims. He’s the chairman of Gourmet Cookery at the university.”
“He’s your lover?”
Lance nodded.
“So why didn’t you tell us in the first place? It’s not as if we didn’t know you’re gay.”
“Bayard’s getting a divorce. His wife’s a lawyer here in town, and he wants partial custody of the children. He was afraid, if it came out that he’s bisexual, he couldn’t even get decent visitation rights.”
“So he asked you not to—”
“No! It was my idea. I’d have felt terrible if he lost his children because of me.”
“You’d have felt worse if you were convicted of your father’s murder because of him,” said Elena, frowning. Who was to say that this Bayard Sims wouldn’t lie for Lance?
“There was a case where a lesbian mother lost her kids because of her sexual orientation,” said Lance. “And the divorce was Bayard’s idea. His wife is really mad about it. She wanted them to move back into town and stay together. Neither one of us doubted that she’d use the children against him if she had any idea about—well, about me.”
“So how come you’ve decided to tell us now?” Leo asked.
Lance sighed again. “There’s nothing to keep from her anymore. She left town on business and took the kids with her, so we thought—well, we thought we could have a long weekend together while she was gone, but she—she’d hired a private detective. When she got back Saturday she
told Bayard that he either stayed married to her and dumped me, or he’d never see the children again.”
“So Bayard dumped you.” Elena shook her head. Adultery had sure changed. She wondered if Mrs. Sims had been surprised to find that her husband’s lover was male.
“He did,” said Lance sadly.
“And you were with him all day Monday? Never out of his sight?” asked Leo.
Lance nodded. “We were trying out recipes. Bayard is writing a cookbook. He’s a brilliant chef.”
“What’s his phone number?”
“Do you have to call him?”
“Of course we do.”
“Maybe you could call him at school. So his wife doesn’t have to hear any more about me.”
“O.K. What’s his number at school?” asked Elena.
Lance produced it. “Maybe you could avoid mentioning to his secretary that it’s the police calling.”
“Does he know he’s going to be hearing from us?”
Lance looked even more unhappy. “I’d have told him—after I decided I might as well admit where I was—but he doesn’t want me to call him.”
“Does he know you’re a suspect in the case?”
“Surely I’m not anymore.”
“You are until we talk to him,” said Leo.
“I told him about being questioned when he told me about his wife’s ultimatum.”
“And he didn’t offer to come forward for you?” asked Elena, thinking that was pretty tacky of the great chef.
“I’m sure he would have once he’d had time to think about it, but my mother—she’s pretty upset about me being a suspect. I don’t want her joining any more demonstrations. Maybe you could remind Mrs. Portillo that my mother isn’t really up to—”
“Neither am I,” interrupted Elena dryly. “Is that Dr. Sims?”
Lance nodded. “Bayard has a doctorate in French literature, although his cooking these days is usually Southwestern with unusual ingredients. For in
stance—”
“That’s O.K.,” said Leo. “You don’t have to tell us about his menus.”
“Christ!” he said when Lance had left. “I’ve never been on a case where you can’t shut up either the suspects or the witnesses.”
“What suspects?” grumbled Elena. “We’re pretty much back to square one. Left with a thief or T. Bob Tyler, who swears he was at the center, or”—and she didn’t believe this one herself—”or a serial killer.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Dr. Bayard Sims. “I was by myself on those dates. At my home in New Mexico.”
“You don’t know Lance Potemkin?” Elena asked, amazed.
“We may have met,” said Sims cautiously.
“But he wasn’t at your house Friday through Tuesday a week ago?”
“No.”
“Great!” said Elena after she’d hung up. “Now what?”
“Kind of dumb for Potemkin to feed us this story if his alibi was going to deny it,” said Leo.
“Telephone calls,” Elena mused. “Let’s see if they called each other. That’ll be easy since Sims lives in New Mexico and Lance lives here in Los Santos.”
“Worth a try.”
“You do it.”
“Why me?”
“Because I want to start a computer search.”
“You and who else?”
“Me and Maggie Daguerre’s instructions.” Elena fished them out of her bag. “Unless you want to check for dead old men killed in their own homes while—”
“Not me. That’s the dumbest theory I ever heard.”
“My mother doesn’t think so.”
“Your mother isn’t a cop. In fact, your mother, much as I like her, is kinda flaky. Auras, for God’s sake?” Leo shook his head. “I’ll take the telephone company.”
26
Tuesday, October 5, 10:00 A.M.
Staring dismally at the computer screen, Elena picked up Maggie’s instructions, accessed the central files, and entered her parameters. Crime: robbery/homicide. Victim: male, 62 plus. Scene of crime: victim’s residence. Scope of search: five years. Maggie’s suggestions for trying to find out where the wife had been were difficult. Maybe if there weren’t too many cases, Elena could just scan each file.
The first case came up on the screen. Good lord! It was just three months ago. She read the patrolman’s report and shook her head. The homicide had been committed in the projects on the far Westside, an elderly male Hispanic killed by a teenager who was in the act of stealing the victim’s car, a 1978 Mercury with, as it happened, a dead battery. She rejected that case and punched next.
A year ago, Jose “Joe” Castro, a retired high-school principal, had been shot in his kitchen with a Japanese Nambu at approximately 2:30 P.M. while fixing himself a bourbon and ginger ale. Daytime drinker, thought Elena. Wife beaters were often heavy drinkers. The Castro murder was still an open file, no arrest. She scanned further. Robbery-homicide. She called up the next screen. A family ring and a watch given to the decedent on his retirement by the school system were missing, both presumed to have been taken off the body. The widow’s name was Mercedes Castro.
Elena cross-referenced to Domestic Violence. No reports, which didn’t mean there hadn’t been any. Still, it would have been nice to have something clear-cut. She skipped back to the detective reports on the Jose Castro murder. Reading . . . reading . . . bingo! Mercedes Castro had been at the Socorro Heights Senior Citizens Center when her husband was killed. Excitement flowed through Elena’s veins, something that rarely happened to her in front of a computer. Maybe there was something to the rumors. Two murders in one year. Both wives at Socorro Heights.
“Sanchez. Jarvis.” Elena looked up at the sound of Manny’s voice. “Shooting on the perimeters at Bowie.” Elena poked her head out into the aisle. “You got anybody else, Sergeant? The Potemkin case just blew up in our faces, but I’m onto something else.”
“What?”
“My mother’s been telling me about other women at the center whose husbands have been killed in daylight robberies. Rumors about spousal abuse.” Elena grinned. “Mom thinks it’s divine retribution.” This was a theory that Harmony had advanced on the drive home.
“Oh, right!” said Manny. “Do you think it’s divine retribution? What do you expect to find? God in the computer?”
Elena shrugged. She didn’t believe in divine retribution, but on the other hand, she didn’t believe in big fat coincidences either. If any more of these murders showed up, she’d figure it was more than a coincidence.
“So what are we looking at?” asked Manny. “A serial killer based out of a senior citizens center?”
“I know it sounds crazy, Sergeant, but it’s the only lead we’ve got beside the boyfriend—unless we get Lance back.” But would Lance use Sims as an alibi if he hadn’t been with Sims? The professor was probably lying to cover his ass with his wife.
Coming down the aisle, Leo heard the last sentence. “What’s up?”
“Your partner’s pursuing a case of divine retribution.”
“The Potemkin case? The wife says God killed him.”
“You want to take a shooting over at Bowie with Sanchez?”
“Sure. I’d rather go out with Sanchez than be in on accusing God. Concepcion would never forgive me. She’d figure she can’t get pregnant cause I’m on God’s shit list.” He headed back toward Sanchez, who was talking to another detective where the two aisles intersected.
“Thanks, Sergeant,” said Elena. “I’ve already found one killing that fits the pattern.”
Manny rolled his eyes and left. Elena went back to the computer and took notes on the Jose Castro case. Hoping to interview Mercedes Castro, she wrote down addresses and telephone numbers for the family home, plus the son’s place, then called up the next entry.
A year and a half ago an old man was shot in his home. The case was investigated as homicide but closed out as suicide. He had advanced cancer. Items reported missing by relatives turned out to be pawned to pay his medical bills, the last of which had been for an office-visit appeal to his doctor to give him a hundred sleeping pills. The doctor had refused. Elena shook her head. Poor old guy. He’d shot himself through the ear, blown his brains out all over the bathroom, and been discovered three days later by a neighbor lady soliciting for the American Cancer Society.
Elena called up the next file. Victim: Harold “Hank” Brolie. Shot in his home three years ago around one in the afternoon with a Smith and Wesson, case open. Stolen: a watch awarded him as Salesman of the Year for an independent insurance agency. The watch had probably been taken off the body. Elena nodded. Same as Jose Castro. But this one had a new wrinkle. Well, not new when you considered Boris. Hank Brolie’s National Rifle Association shooting medals, usually displayed in a case in the living room, were missing. Medal theft number two.
Wife of the deceased: Chantal Brolie. Elena called up the detectives’ reports. And smiled. Chantal Brolie had been—guess where?—at the Socorro Heights Senior Citizens Center. The whole afternoon. Dear God! There really might be a serial killer at work here. Chantal had been a French teacher in a local high school, retired at the time of the killing. Two high-school connections, thought Elena, Castro and Brolie. But not with the Potemkins.
She cross-referenced for domestic abuse. Three disturbing-the-peace calls phoned in by neighbors over a period of two years, but nothing a year prior to the murder. Elena bit her lip. The patrolman who answered one of the calls said the husband and wife claimed it was just an ordinary quarrel, maybe a little loud. Another noted that the wife had a bruised cheekbone and twist marks on her left wrist. She claimed a fall for the bruised cheekbone, burst out crying and wouldn’t answer when asked about the wrist. Husband sullen and uncooperative, noted Officer Amalo Baile. The third officer smelled alcohol on the husband. Elena wrote d
own the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and parallels between the Brolie murder and the others.
“This is really creepy,” she muttered and pulled up two more cases, the first an old man living alone in Sunset Heights. They’d cleaned out everything in his house. Neighbors had seen a truck and moving men but hadn’t thought anything of it. It was a mind-your-own-business street. The body wasn’t found for two weeks, until the mailman noticed an odor emanating from the mail slot and called the police. Newspapers piling up in the front yard might have been a clue, but nobody had investigated. One neighbor said he figured the old man had gone to visit his daughter in Carrizozo, maybe taken his furniture with him, although the neighbor couldn’t explain why the furniture had been moved after dark.
The second was a murder-suicide over by the water-treatment plant. Husband killed the wife, then himself, although it had been investigated for a time as a double murder. Neighbors said the smell from the plant was enough to make anyone crazy.
Elena went out to lunch with a detective from Sex Crimes and had a salad, trying to ameliorate the effects of overeating during the bicycle-race weekend. At two o’clock she pulled up the death four years ago of Porfirio Cox. Since it occurred before the department began entering everything into the computers, there wasn’t as much information, but it was listed as a daylight robbery-murder, unsolved, so Elena took the case number. She’d follow up by pulling the written files. The last one she could find that fit the pattern at all was Herbert Stoltz, another daylight robbery-murder. Porfirio Cox had a wife listed, Marcia Cox. Stoltz didn’t. Still, Elena took down his case number and name.
She shut down the computer and headed for I.D. & R., only to be stopped by Manny, who said, “If you’ve got the time, Jarvis, we’ve got an agg assault at a pawnshop on Alameda, one Jesus Bonilla. Isn’t he a buddy of yours?”
“No. Who did Jesus assault?”
“Someone assaulted him and cleaned out his gun inventory.”
“Who’m I covering it with?”
“Me. We’re out of detectives except for you, our computer wizard.”
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