How slippery a slope was this going to be from here on? And where was it taking me?
I didn't think I could live with myself if Mary Smith started turning on kids before we caught up to her. But that's what I was afraid might happen next.
Mary, Mary
Chapter 64
“CAN I SEE YOU for a minute, Dr. Cross? We need to talk.”
I looked up to see Detective Jeanne Galletta standing in the door. Her expression was strained; I thought that she looked older than the last time we met, and thinner, as if she'd lost ten pounds she hadn't needed to shed.
We went out into the hall. “What's going on? Don't tell me something else has happened.”
“I don't want to go wide with this yet,” she said in a low, tired voice, “but there's a woman who saw a blue Suburban leaving the hotel parking lot in a big hurry Happened around two o'clock. She didn't notice much else. I wonder if you could interview her, and then we could compare notes. Before I do anything with this.”
It was a good move on her part. I'm pretty sure she was thinking the same thing I was: The D.C. sniper case in 2002 had included a massive public search for what turned out to be the wrong vehicle, a white van with black lettering. It was an investigative and public- relations nightmare, exactly the kind of mistake LAPD wouldn't want to make now “And could you do it right now? That would be helpful. I'd appreciate it,” she added. “If I'm going to run with this, I don't want to wait.”
I hated to leave the crime scene. There was a lot of work to be done. If Jeanne weren't wearing her stress so plainly, maybe I would have said no.
“Give me five minutes to finish up here,” I told her. “I'll be right down.”
Meanwhile, I asked Jeanne to do me a favor and follow up with Giovanni Cartoulis about the missing photos in his wife's wallet. There was frustratingly little we could do with the information from him, but it was important to know if Mary Smith had stolen family pictures. Also, Giovanni Cartoulis needed to be eliminated as a suspect, as all the previous husbands had been. Jeanne and her people had been handling this, but I was satisfied with the reports. The LAPD was doing a good job.
“What?” Jeanne asked, standing very still in the hallway and staring at me. “What are you thinking? Tell me. I can handle it. I think.”
“Take a deep breath. Don't give in to this crap. You're running the case as well as anyone possibly could, but you look like hell right now.”
She knitted her eyebrows. “Um... thanks?”
“You look good, just not as good as usual. You're pale, Jeanne. It's the stress. Nobody understands that until they get hit with it.“ Jeanne finally smiled. ”I look like a fucking raccoon. Big dark smears around my eyes.”
“Sorry”
“It's okay I've got to run.”
I thought about her earlier dinner invitation and my clumsy decline. If we had stood there a few seconds longer, maybe I would have reciprocated the invitation for later, but Jeanne - and the moment - was already gone.
And I had an interview to do.
A blue Suburban, right?
Mary, Mary
Chapter 65
IT WASN'T THE FOOT-LONG SERPENTINE tattoos up and down both of Bettina Rodgers's arms, or the half-dozen piercings on her face that made me doubt what she had just told me. Actually, Bettina was as good a witness as you get. It was more the fact that eyewitness accounts are notoriously sketchy and unreliable. FBI research has shown them to hover around 50-percent accuracy, even just a few minutes after an incident - and this was at least two hours later.
That said, Bettina's confidence in what she had seen was unwavering.
“I was in the parking lot, starting my car,” she told me for the third time. "And the Suburban tore out behind me, over that way, toward Santa Monica Boulevard. I turned around to look 'cause it was going so fast.
“I know for sure it was dark blue, and I know it was a Suburban 'cause my mom used to have one. I've ridden in it a times. I remember thinking it was kind of funny, 'cause it was like my mom was driving crazy like that.”
She paused. “The Suburban took a sharp left out of the parking lot. That's all I know. Can I fucking go now?”
That was about as much as Jeanne Galletta had gotten out of her, but I pressed on with a few more questions of my own.
“Any markings on the car?” I asked. “Bumper stickers, dents, anything at all?”
She shrugged. "I mostly just saw it from the side, and like I said - it flew by super fast.
For a Suburban. I didn't see the license plate or anything."
“How about the driver? Anything you noticed? Was there anyone else in the car? More than one person?”
She fiddled absently with one of the thick silver rings in her eyebrow while she thought about that. Her makeup was heavy and mostly black, except for the pale white cast of her face powder. 1 didn't know too much about Bettina, but she put me in mind of the urban vampire culture I'd investigated a few years back on a case. One thing I'd learned then was how sharp some of these people were despite the goth-slacker stereotype.
Finally, Bettina shook her head. “I want to say it was a woman, 'cause that would make sense, right? I mean, Jesus skit, we're talking about that fucked-up Hollywood Stalker wench, aren't we? Don't bother to lie, I know it's her. One of the other cops told me already”
I didn't respond, letting her think some more until she shrugged again. “Blue Suburban goin' like a bat out of hell, left turn, that's all I really know for sure. That's my final answer.” The fact that she wasn't inclined to fill in details actually boosted my confidence in her. It's incredible how many people do the opposite, sometimes just to please the interviewer. A few minutes later, I thanked Bettina for her time and help, and let her go.
Then I foundJeanne Galletta to tell her my thoughts. We met in an unused guest room on the second floor. Jeanne told me that another hotel patron had corroborated the story.
“Around two o'clock, he saw a large, dark-blue SUM tearing out of the parking lot from his room on the third floor. He couldn't see too much, but he said it might have been a woman driver.”
“That doesn't mean it was Mary Smith,” I said. "But if it was, this would be huge for us.
At least two people saw the same vehicle leaving in a hurry."
Jeanne nodded silently, weighing the idea. “So then the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question remains: How big do we go with this?”
There were risks either way, and I puzzled it out loud, partly for her and partly for myself.
"Time's not on our side. Mary Smith hasn't shown any signs of slowing down. Just the opposite, in fact. She seems to be evolving. This is a chance to use the press to our advantage and speed up the search - if that's what you want.
“On the other hand, people are already scared, and they're going to react to every blue Suburban they see, probably to every blue SUM If this blows up in your face, then it's one more reason for the public not to trust the Department. But if it gets you Mary Smith, then everything's okay and you're a hero.“ ”Russian roulette,” she said dryly.
“Name of the game,” 1 said.
“By the way, I don't want to be a hero.”
“Goes with the territory.”
She finally smiled. “America's Sherlock Holmes. Didn't I read that somewhere about you?”
“Don't believe everything you read.”
ne's head, I could almost hear the clock ticking inside Jean but maybe it was her heartbeat.
“All right,” she said, looking at her watch. "Lees do it UP.
I'm going to have to clear this with the Departrnent but if I go now, we can get in a press conference before the early news."