She heard sirens. Pacific Division cops burst in; then came the paramedics. Only when the boy was up on a stretcher did she allow herself to leave him. Fetal again, so small under the shock blanket. An old man rushed in, looking stunned. The paramedics seemed pained as they carried the boy out.
She watched them carry him away, ignored the old man's questions. The uniforms' too. Walking straight to Balch's body, she turned it over.
Not Balch. A stranger.
The shock punched her in the heart, and she broke out into a sweat.
A second jolt hit her, even stronger. Recognition.
Ramsey.
His mustache was gone and his skin was different- some kind of salmon-pink theatrical makeup was smeared all over his face and down his neck, flaking around his nostrils. Dark shadows around his eyes- gray makeup. The bushy blond wig had been jarred loose, revealing a crescent of black curls. Blond tint in the eyebrows- he'd even done the eyebrows.
Blue eyes, dull as sewer water.
Mouth open, the same old death gape. She looked down his mouth, saw the tongue curled back, blood collecting at the bottom of his throat.
Thinking about what he'd put the boy through, Lisa, Ilse, the Flores woman, she would have welcomed the chance to kill him again.
81
They found Gregory Balch's body the next day, buried under dirt, hay, and horse manure in the barn behind the Calabasas house, his throat cut, just like Estrella Flores's.
Entombed in dung. You didn't need to be a shrink to interpret.
After tearing the pink palace apart, the closest they got to a motive was a single piece of notepaper in Ramsey's bedroom rolltop. One of those FROM THE DESK OF things. In the center, he'd written:
L and G?
Lisa and Greg. A sweat stain beneath the inscription indicated stress, according to a department shrink. Very profound. The psychologist was light on facts, heavy on pomposity, suggested he be the one to see Billy Straight for “debriefing.”
Petra had other ideas, and she stood her ground.
Stu's find added another layer: ten-year-old Adjustor plot out of TV Guide.
A football player attempts to frame his best friend for murder, and Dack Price investigates.
Maybe eventually it would help Stu feel he'd played a part. Right now he had Kathy's recuperation to deal with; she'd finally gotten realistic, agreed to his thirty-day compassionate leave.
L and G? Had Lisa and Balch tumbled? Or was it all in Ramsey's paranoid mind? Or maybe it was money, Lisa and Balch conspiring to skim. No way to know till all the financial records were pried loose from Larry Schick. Maybe never. Petra really didn't care.
Same for the specifics of Lisa's murder- just paperwork now. Her best guess was the original scenario: Ramsey had doped up Balch on Sunday night, snuck out, followed Lisa, abducted her. Using the Mercedes, not the Jeep. Because Billy had seen the plates. PLYR 1.
Turned out that's all he'd seen. Not enough to point a finger at anyone- the boy had been turned into quarry for nothing.
Or maybe Ramsey had switched plates, used the Jeep after all. Or some other set of wheels. He had so many; let the techs logic it out.
Killing Estrella Flores up in the hills because she'd seen him sneak out. Or might have. Borrowing Balch's Lexus for the Flores kill. Or maybe Balch had been in on it, after all, friend to the end. Whatever. Ramsey'd used him, tossed him away.
A football player attempts to frame an old friend… pilfering from a script that hadn't been very good in the first place. No imagination. The industry.
Industry big shots called themselves players.
Ramsey styling himself a player, knowing he really wasn't one. Because his ratings were low, his acting was a joke, and his penis wouldn't harden.
To hell with him. Billy was her concern.
The boy was beginning his sixth day at Western Pediatric Hospital, where he'd proved a difficult patient at first. Petra neglected her paperwork, ignored Schoelkopf's calls, spent most of her time bedside. When she left, a hospital play therapist filled in. At first, Billy ignored both of them. By the third day, he was accepting the books and magazines Petra brought him. On the fourth day, Ron came and took her to dinner at the Biltmore, downtown.
Nice dinner- great dinner. She found her hand seeking his. The way he listened to her turned her on. Till then she'd wondered if what had happened between them was due to the tension of the case.
To her great pleasure, now that things were calming down, she wanted to be with him more. Maybe soon she'd get to meet his girls.
Sweet fantasies… she harbored no illusions of healing the boy's emotional wounds, had phoned Alex Delaware, a psychologist she'd worked with and trusted, friend of Milo Sturgis's, a man who'd been willing to go undercover for something he believed in. But he was out of town with his girlfriend, would be returning today.
Meanwhile, Billy stayed in the hospital for antibiotic treatment and nutrition, a police guard sitting ten feet down the hall. No reason Petra could see for that, but Schoelkopf had ordered it. Maybe he was feeling guilty, so why not?
The uniform at the door to Billy's room had been called into action only once, dealing with Sam Ganzer, who insisted on visiting. Feisty old guy, standing on his tiptoes, facing up to the uniform, fingers pointing, things getting loud until Petra interceded, said Ganzer could see Billy, took him for coffee in the family lounge first, to calm him down.
He wanted to know what would happen after Billy left the hospital. Telling Petra she was brave, a “real hero,” but no way would he allow her or anyone else to send the boy to some “stupid juvenile hall, I can tell you about institutions- hell, I'll adopt him myself before I let you get away with that.”
Petra promised she'd take care of Billy. Adoption fantasies had filled her head, too.
Billy needed to be hospitalized for at least three weeks. He'd emerged from the nightmare encounter with only superficial scratches, but medical tests revealed a low-grade bacterial infection in his lungs, foot fungus, slightly elevated blood pressure, and a pre-ulcerous stomach. The doctors pronounced the last two symptoms as probable stress reactions. No kidding. The infection was their main concern, and they had him on IV antibiotics. No one had told him about his mother yet. Delaware said he'd handle it, and Petra was grateful it wouldn't be her.
Ilse Eggermann would never be solved officially, but Petra was sure Ramsey had done her, too. How close she'd come to being fooled- okay, humility was good for the soul. Good for the career, too. In the future she'd be careful about assuming anything.
She thought about how Ramsey and Ilse could have gone down: Ramsey visiting Balch in Rolling Hills Estates, couple of beers between friends, then on the way home, nice, easy drive up Hawthorne, he decides on a stopover at the pier. Had he used a disguise that night, too? Had he been planning something all along? Or had Ilse's foreigner status protected him from recognition? The Adjustor had never made it over to Europe.
That kind of M.O. indicated he might've killed other women. She'd beg off that part of it- let the feds have their fun, anyone else who wanted the glory. Schoelkopf was already holding press conferences, talking about his investigation.
No news on the reward yet. Dr. and Mrs. Boehlinger had returned to Ohio to finalize Lisa's funeral arrangements, and they hadn't returned Petra's calls. Whether or not Billy deserved the reward legally, he certainly deserved it morally. Boehlinger would probably try to avoid paying. After what he'd put Billy through, Petra wanted to lean on him, but what could she do? Maybe an anonymous leak to the papers. Or perhaps Mrs. B. would come through.