“What about the associations?” asked Harloff.
Nick had already talked to the California Identifying Officers Association to see if any similar crimes had occurred in other California jurisdictions. A Humboldt County decapitation murder had been closed out earlier in the year when the son confessed to killing and mutilating his mother for “mental cruelty.”
The California Homicide Officers Association had nothing but put him in touch with a half dozen other associations throughout the American West- Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Washington State. Nick had spent so much time on the phone over the three days his ear had swollen and his neck hurt. He’d come up with three current unsolved murders of young women with postmortem beheadings. It surprised him that they weren’t reported to NCIC. But none of the mutilation killings had happened closer than four hundred miles away.
“Red and Ho,” said Harloff. “Like ‘Better Dead Than Red’? Or like Ho Chi Minh?”
“I’ve gotten nothing political from this so far,” said Nick.
“Laguna’s full of radicals,” said Lobdell. “All kinds of political types. Marxists, Bolsheviks, anarchists, demonstrators, flag burners, atheists, God haters, peaceniks, hippies, yippies. Dopers and flower children. Fairies all over the place. That Leary nut from Harvard is still there with his LSD religion. You drive down Coast Highway on a hot night you can smell the marijuana in the air. The canyon there is full of dealers selling anything you can imagine. They call Woodland Street Dodge City because the law can’t get in. Or so the hippies think.”
“I know,” said Harloff. “I oversee narcotics.”
“I know you know,” said Lobdell. “I’m just saying if Vonn was living in that mix down in Laguna, she could have had just about anybody over for Mexican takeout.”
“The two squares sound more like Mormons to me,” said Harloff. Then a rare smile. Dark lips, white teeth. “Or insurance salesmen or FBI.”
Lobdell didn’t answer.
“Interesting you should say that,” said Nick. “One of my sources said a white male searched Janelle’s cottage Thursday night. I tracked the car plates back to the FBI resident agency in Santa Ana.”
Harloff raised his eyebrows and tapped his pen on his desk. “FBI? I know one of the agents there. I’ll make a call and see what that was all about.”
“Appreciate it, sir.”
“Odd, though,” said Harloff, “that they didn’t contact us.”
In the silence Nick cleared his throat. Looked directly at Harloff. Time to play another one of Andy’s tips. Thank God for little brothers who were also newspaper reporters.
“Sir,” Nick said. “There’s something else you can do to help us.”
“Shoot.”
“I heard that Janelle Vonn had been on the narcotics informant payroll for four years,” said Nick. “If that’s true, someone there knows her a lot better than we do, just coming in now. We need to talk.”
Harloff nodded curtly. “Who told you that?”
“I’m not free to say.”
“Talk to del Gado.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Harloff studied him for a long time. Nick held his gaze for a beat, then looked away.
A few minutes later Frank del Gado, the narcotics captain, unhappily told Nick and Lobdell that he’d look into it.
When they got outside the building Nick stopped and looked at his partner. “Hey, Lucky.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck me again in front of my boss and you can find another partner. I don’t care how it looks or who gets written up, I’m not working with a guy who won’t stand by me.”
Lobdell eyed Nick. Almost smiled but didn’t. Nodded instead. “Good.”
15
THEY WENT TO a late lunch at the new place, Lorenzo’s, up in the Anaheim hills. Nick had found the Lorenzo’s matchbook in Janelle Vonn’s shoe box. And the Lorenzo’s phone number written in three different places in the pile of papers by her phone.
He showed a five-by-seven black-and-white photograph of Janelle Vonn to the hostess. The hostess had long hair and a startlingly brief skirt. About Janelle’s age. In Nick’s opinion they shouldn’t let girls dress that way, but he liked it when they did. Katherine would never be allowed to dress like that. The hostess had never seen Janelle.
The dining room was almost empty. A few people drinking in the bar. The steaks were pricey so Nick got the Ortega burger with a big wet chili on it. Lobdell went with the lunch special New York cut.
The waitress had seen Janelle Vonn here at Lorenzo’s about a week ago, she said.
And one time before that, maybe a month earlier. Both times large parties, thrown by the Lorenzo’s owners.
“That’s really a bummer what happened to her,” she said. “She was younger than me.”
“What day of the week was she in?” asked Lobdell.
“Friday or Saturday. Super busy.”
“Are any of the owners in today?” asked Nick.
“Not today. They never tell us when they’re coming. They just arrive. But let me get the manager.”
“We’ll just knock on his door, say hello. Okay?” asked Nick.
“That’s cool.”
The office was small, bright, and neat. Radio playing “Soul Kitchen.” Smell of aftershave. Raquel Welch poster from One Million Years B.C. on the bathroom door. Fur bikini on a body like that, thought Nick. Unbelievable.
The manager didn’t understand why he couldn’t help the detectives but the owners of Lorenzo’s could. Said he knew the operations up and down, knew personnel better than any of the investors, knew what was going on and what wasn’t. He wore his hair short and a U.S. flag pin on his coat lapel. Nick thought it was odd that half the men in the country had hair like this and a flag pin while the other half had hair down to their backs and were loaded.
Nick showed him the picture.
“Oh,” he said quietly. “Sure.”
“Sure what?” asked Nick.
“She’s been in. Hard to forget a fox like her.”
The manager sat, flipped through a Rolodex file on his desk, and handed Nick a business card. Nick read it. Heart did a little hop. He handed the card to his partner.
“He’ll put you in touch with the others,” said the manager. “I think there’s five investors total, maybe six. They’re all Journal newspaper guys. Don’t know anything about this business.”
“Enough to give you good reviews,” said Nick.
The manager smiled. “Kind of biased, maybe.”
JONAS DESSINGER
Associate Publisher
Orange County Journal
“This the guy she was with?” asked Lobdell.
The manager shook his head and stood. “Ask him.”
“I asked you.”
“Let’s just ask Jonas,” said Nick.
THEY WERE near the Journal building in Costa Mesa at four. Lobdell had to stop at a convenience store pay phone on the way and call Shirley and talk to Kevin. Lucky’s voice was always soft and serious when he talked to his wife. Then with his son it was loud and brusque. Nick bought a pack of cigarettes, stood under the overhang of a U-Totem market in Orange, and smoked one while he half eavesdropped on Lobdell barking at his son. Saved the rest of the pack for the Wolfman Neemal. Waste of thirty-four cents. Wondered what relation Jonas Dessinger was to Teresa, Andy’s girlfriend. Hoped he and Lucky didn’t have to walk through the newsroom, call attention to themselves, get Andy curious.
Nick watched the cars go up and down Tustin Avenue. Liked the new AMC Barracuda and the Mustang and the Dodge Dart convertible. Figured it would take a lot more overtime for a deputy with a wife and three to afford something like that on top of the Red Rocket, which they needed for the kids. Thought of his father and mother and how they drove the Studebaker until it quit. Right there on Holt Avenue, smoke billowing out of the grille like napalm is how Dad described it. Still waxed and polished, probably. What, hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand miles? Nick figured his mom and dad had plenty of miles left on them and that’s what counted. Wondered at Max’s obsession with the Communists, how he went crazy with it after Clay. Him and Roger Stoltz and their damned meetings and rallies. The booze. And Monika getting quieter and slower, like Max was stealing her energy. Part of her died when Clay did. A blind man could see that.