“Intriguing image,” I said, chuckling in spite of myself.
“Which brings us back to the drawing you left at the desk.”
“I don’t suppose you would believe it has nothing to do with the task force.”
“No.”
“As it appears I don’t have a choice, I’m going to trust you, Van Owen.” I sighed, deciding damage control was my best course. “On two conditions. One is that you keep quiet concerning the drawing. At least for now.”
“And the other?”
“I want total anonymity. Agreed?”
“Deal,” said Lauren. “I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath. “We may have a line on the guy,” I said reluctantly. “It’s shaky, but it’s the best we have. We think he’s stalking his victims, finding women in markets, shopping malls, maybe even health clubs like this one,” I continued, skewing things a bit. “We have a possible witness. She worked with a police artist and came up with a composite sketch.”
“The drawing?”
“Right.”
“I’d think you’d want that plastered on every newspaper and TV in town.”
“Not yet. If it is the guy, we don’t want to tip our hand before we’ve had a chance to locate him.”
“I’ll hold off on the picture till Monday.”
“Agreed,” I said. I knew the task force would have completed its canvass by then, and if something hadn’t shaken loose at that point, inundating the city with the composite was the next step anyway. In any case, unless I wanted to retrieve the considerable number of drawings currently being distributed to other clubs, I had no other option. “Well, I have things to do, so-”
“I’ll need more than that, Kane.”
“Don’t push it, Van Owen.”
“Hear me out. I have a couple of ideas that might help catch your murderer.”
“And further your career in the process?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Before I could respond, our waitress returned. Lauren and I lapsed into silence as the woman slid our orders before us. With a rumbling of hunger, I glanced at Lauren’s lunch, belatedly wishing that I’d requested more than coffee.
Lauren dug in, noticing me eyeing her food. “Mmm,” she murmured around a mouthful of salad. “Want a bite?”
“No.”
“Suit yourself.” She took a pull on her smoothie and continued. “Here’s what I think. You need to get the public involved to catch this guy, right? Next week I’m starting an ongoing story on crime fighters in the LAPD. How about getting me into one of the task force briefings? If it works out, we’ll do a followup. The station could offer a reward for information, and we-”
“You can’t be serious,” I snorted.
“What’s wrong?”
“For one, every other station would scream bloody murder.”
Lauren shrugged. “So we make dubs for the other stations. It would be a pain in the ass, but…”
“… you would control the coverage. And be right in the center of things to boot.”
“You’ll suggest it?”
“Sure. Right after I have my sex-change operation.”
“Okay, how about this? We set up one of your task force investigators as some sort of supercop who always gets his man. We’ll do a profile on him. You know, laying down an unspoken challenge to the killer. Maybe he’ll call in and make a mistake.”
“Now that actually might work,” I mused, surprised we hadn’t thought of it ourselves. “Snead would love it. With him as the supercop, of course.”
“You’ll bring it up to him?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Got a pen?” asked Lauren, setting down her fork.
I pulled a ballpoint from my pocket and passed it over, watching as Lauren scribbled a string of numbers on a napkin. “This is my cell number, along with my phone number and extension in the newsroom,” she said, passing me the pen and napkin. “If I’m not answering my cell, they’ll know how to contact me.”
“I don’t mind telling you, Van Owen, it’ll take a while getting used to the idea of hopping into bed with the media.”
Lauren grinned. “You’ll live. Who knows? You might even like it.”
“I doubt that.”
“We’ll see. By the way, your bedroom metaphor reminds me of something you said earlier.”
“What?”
“Intriguing image.”
At a table thirty feet away, Victor Carns sipped a steaming caffe latte. Occasionally he stole a glance across the restaurant, watching the couple in the back. It had taken a moment to recognize the large, rough-looking man as the detective he had seen weeks back on TV. Although Carns had noted something disturbingly familiar about the man when he had first entered the lobby, he hadn’t put it together until he’d noticed the cop showing a sheet of paper to the boy at the reception desk.
Something unrelated? he wondered.
No. Too coincidental. What was his name-Kane-had somehow discovered the health club connection.
Carns took another sip of coffee, wishing he could get a look at the sheet the detective had left at the desk.
Too risky.
Briefly he considered moving to a closer table and attempting to overhear their conversation.
Also too risky.
Carns chanced another furtive glance, finally placing the woman. Lauren Van Owen, Action News at Five. Puzzled, he watched a little longer to be sure, detecting something intimate in the way she looked at Kane when she thought she wasn’t being observed.
Why would a cop be having a private tete-a-tete with a reporter? An affair… or something more?
Not coming up with an answer, Carns shifted in his chair, wondering where he had made his mistake. He realized he was becoming more and more preoccupied with the game. Had he grown careless?
Although certain the police couldn’t have much, Carns forced himself to review his actions over the past months, reassuring himself that he had been meticulous in every detail. Nevertheless, the detective’s presence proved he’d missed something.
What?
Minutes later Carns watched as Kane left some money on the table and exited the club, leaving the reporter to finish her meal alone. Carns pushed away from his table. Grimly, he grabbed his gym bag and headed for the locker room, deciding that in the interest of safety, the time would soon come for him to change the game once more.
Soon… but not quite yet.
31
A high-level decision was made not to inform the Bakers that their intruder might be involved in the candlelight killings. Instead, they were simply told that a good chance existed he would return. As hoped, John and Maureen Baker agreed to cooperate, and during the two weeks that followed, with the exception of sending their son to stay with his grandparents in Palos Verdes, they kept up a normal routine-John off to work by seven-thirty; Maureen to her part-time accounting job on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; friends over occasionally for dinner on weekends.
Meanwhile a Metro surveillance team, with one member of the task force present during each shift, maintained a twenty-four-hour watch from the vacant residence I had noticed on my first visit. Two other plainclothes surveillance teams were posted in unmarked vehicles on Valley Vista Boulevard, with a third vehicle stationed one street up to watch the back-able to monitor anyone approaching the house. Efficient, total coverage. By the book. And fruitless.
Two Tuesdays later, on the morning that surveillance was scheduled to end, I made several telephone calls. The first was to Lieutenant Long at the West LA Division. At my request, Long subsequently contacted his friend Wally Coiner, Metro Division’s commanding officer, requesting that the Baker surveillance be extended another week-even though members of the task force would no longer be participating. Although puzzled, Coiner agreed to do so as a favor to Long, on condition that the size of the surveillance unit be reduced and coverage continued on a nighttime basis only.