Soon there were four black-and-whites parked on the street in front, one of them belonging to the watch commander. And Bix Ramstead was standing on the porch in front of the house, telling them not to come inside but to keep the street clear for the coroner’s van, criminalists from Scientific Investigation Division, and the two Hollywood homicide teams that were coming from home. Only a successful telephonic argument by the area captain, who said that this incident should be contained as much as possible, kept Robbery-Homicide detectives downtown from being called out, as they often are in high-profile cases. With an LAPD cop involved, this was very high profile.
The surfer cops stood in the driveway, and Jetsam looked up at the moon illuminating the tile roof on the two-story house. For a few seconds, cobwebs of cloud floated across that dazzling white ball high in the velvety black sky over Hollywood.
And Jetsam said to his partner, “The Oracle would have told us to beware tonight. There’s a Hollywood moon up there. And bro, this fucking house is full of bad juju.”
TWENTY-TWO
FLOTSAM SAID TO JETSAM, “One of the corpse cops just arrived.”
Hollywood homicide D2, Albino Villaseñor, was the first detective to arrive from home. He parked on the street and emerged from the car with a plastic briefcase and a flashlight, wearing the same brown Men’s Wearhouse suit that he’d worn every time Flotsam had seen him.
His bald head glinted under the luminescence provided by the Hollywood moon, and his white mustache looked wild and feline from his having slept facedown in bed. He nodded to the surfer cops and plodded toward the arched doorway in no particular hurry to see another of the multitude of dead bodies he’d seen during his long career.
He turned toward the street when a white van with a TV news logo on the door climbed the steep street and parked as near as it could get to the driveway. And close behind it was a news van from another Los Angeles TV station. The toney Mt. Olympus address on the police band was drawing them from their beds.
After the detective was inside the foyer, Flotsam said to Jetsam, “Dude, do you think a homicide dick gets a secret high when someone else gets laid low? Wouldn’t that, like, give you the guilts?”
“It’d creep me out, bro,” Jetsam said. “And it looks like there’s gonna be an opening in the Crow office, for sure.”
By this time, the forensics van had arrived and criminalists wearing latex gloves and booties were in the bedroom, treating the situation like a full-scale murder investigation, even though Bino Villaseñor had been informed by the patrol watch commander that the only crime committed had been perpetrated by the decedent. But with an LAPD cop even peripherally involved, great investigative care was to be taken, per orders from the West Bureau deputy chief. Just in case things turned out to be more dicey than they seemed.
“Here come the body snatchers,” Flotsam said when the coroner’s van was waved into the driveway by one of the morning-watch officers who’d received the original call.
When Bino Villaseñor got inside, he found Dan Applewhite in the kitchen with Bix Ramstead, who sat staring at his coffee cup, eyes red and ravaged.
The detective, who did not know the Crow personally, nodded at him. Bino Villaseñor, speaking in the lilting cadence of the East Los Angeles barrio where he’d grown up, said to Bix, “Soon as somebody else from our homicide team arrives, I’d like them to take you to the station. I’ll get down there as soon as I can.”
Bix Ramstead nodded and continued to stare. The detective had seen it before: the unnerving, hopeless look into the abyss.
The detective said to another of the morning-watch cops standing in the foyer by the staircase, “Where’s the lady of the house?”
“Up in one of the bedrooms to your left,” the cop said. “She’s with a woman officer from the midwatch.”
Bino Villaseñor climbed the stairs to the upper floor, looked in the master bedroom where lights had been set up, and did not enter while the criminalists were at work, but he could see that blood had drenched the carpet under Ali’s body. The detective turned left and walked to Nicky’s bedroom, where he found Margot Aziz, still in pajamas and robe, dried blood on her cheek and chest, sitting on the bed, apparently weeping into a handful of tissues. He didn’t know the burly female officer with her, but he indicated with a motion of his head that she could leave. Gert Von Braun walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“I’m Detective Villaseñor, Mrs. Aziz,” he said to Margot. “We might need you to come to the station for a more formal statement, but I have a few preliminary questions I’d like to ask.”
“Of course,” Margot said. “I’ll tell you whatever I can.”
Bino looked around the huge bedroom, at the mountain of toys and gadgets and picture books and the biggest TV set he’d ever seen in a child’s bedroom, and he said, “Where is your son?”
“He’s spending the night with my au pair,” she said. “That’s why I…well, that’s why Bix and I…you know.”
“How long have you and Officer Ramstead been intimate?” the detective asked, sitting on a chair in front of a PlayStation and opening his notebook folder.
“For about five months.” She almost said “on and off” but realized how inappropriate that would sound and said, “More or less.”
“Do you often sleep together here?”
“This is the first time we’ve ever slept together anywhere. On the other occasions we went to hotels for brief interludes.”
“Tell me what happened after you and Officer Ramstead went to sleep.”
“I heard a noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
“Ali’s car. The window was open and I heard it, but of course I didn’t know it was him. It could have been someone visiting next door. There’s a Russian man living there who gets visitors at all hours.”
“What’d you do then?”
“I’ve been frightened for some time about my husband. He’s irrational… was irrational. He hated me and wanted to take my son from me any way he could. I’ve told my lawyer, William T. Goodman, numerous times about threats my husband made. I can give you my lawyer’s phone number.”
“Later,” the detective said. “Did you tell anyone else about the threats? Did you report the threats to the police?”
“I tried to,” she said. “I told it to Officer Nate Weiss of the Community Relations Office, and Sergeant Treakle, and Detective Fernandez, and of course Bix Ramstead.”
That surprised Bino Villaseñor, who said, “Did any of the officers talk to you about making a police report against your husband for making terroristic threats?”
“Nobody seemed to think the threats were explicit enough to qualify as a crime. Everyone seemed convinced that a successful businessman like Ali Aziz wouldn’t do anything irrational. But I knew he was an insanely jealous and dangerous man, especially where our son was concerned. I knew he’d eventually try to steal Nicky from me. What I didn’t know was that he was insane enough to come here to murder me.”
“How’d he get in? Did he still have a key?”
“Not that I know of,” she said. “I changed the locks when he turned vicious during our divorce and custody battles.”
“How about the alarm? Didn’t you change the code when he moved out?”
“Yes,” she said, “but…sorry, it’s hard to talk about.”
“Take your time,” the detective said.
“I’m ashamed. So ashamed. But the truth is, Bix and I were drinking quite a lot. He drank a lot more than I did, and I had to practically carry him up the stairs. And, well, we made love. We were both exhausted. I simply could not get up again to set the alarm. I dozed off. I don’t know, maybe I felt secure with a police officer…with Bix in bed with me. I’d forgotten that the front door was unlocked.”