Chapter 19
"Tuh."
"What's that, Ardis?"
Tape buzz. I clocked it. Twenty-two seconds-
"What did you say, Ardis…? You just said something… because you want to talk to me, right, Ardis…?" Thirty-two seconds.
"Ardis? Could you open your eyes… please? " A minute. Ninety seconds, a hundred… Heidi Ott held up her finger, signaling us to be patient.
It was just before midnight, but her eyes were bright. She and Milo and I were in an interrogation room at the station- a hot, Lysol-smelling yellow closet barely large enough for the three of us. Heidi's hair was tied back and styled with a shark clip. She'd come straight from Starkweather and the clip of her I.D. badge protruded from a breast pocket. The recorder was a tiny black Sony.
"Just a bit more," she said, tapping her fingers on the steel table.
Her voice on the tape said, "Okay, Ardis. Maybe tomorrow."
Thirty-three seconds. Footsteps.
"Tuh."
"Tuh, Ardis? Two? Two what? "
Twenty-eight seconds.
"Ardis? "
"Tuhguh."
"Togo?"
"Tuh guh choo choo bang bang."
"Togo choo choo bang bang? Whatdoes that mean, Ardis? "
Fifteen seconds.
"Choo choo bang bang, Ardis? Is that some sort of game? "
Eighteen seconds.
"Ardis? What's choo choo bang bang? "
Thirty seconds, forty, fifty.
"What does it mean, Ardis? "
Eighty-three seconds. Click.
She said, "At that point, he turned away from me, wouldn't open his eyes. I waited awhile longer, but I knew it was all I was going to get out of him."
" 'Choo choo bang bang,' " said Milo.
She colored. "I know. It's pretty stupid, isn't it? I guess I shouldn't have gotten so jazzed. But at least it's something, right? He's talking to me. Maybe he'll keep talking."
"Where'd you keep the recorder?" I said.
"In my pocket." She pointed to the navy photographer's vest she'd draped over her chair. "I tried yesterday, too, but nothing happened."
" 'Choo choo bang bang,' " said Milo. " 'Bad eyes in a box.' "
"I've been trying to figure out some connection," said Heidi. Suddenly, she looked very tired. "Probably wasting your time. Sorry."
"No, no," said Milo. "I appreciate your help. I'd like to keep the tape."
"Sure." She popped it out of the machine, gave it to him, placed the recorder back in the vest pocket, collected her purse, and stood.
Milo held out a hand and they shook. "Thanks," he said. "Really. Any information is helpful."
She shrugged. "I guess.… Want me to keep taping?"
"I don't want you to do anything that violates regulations."
"Never heard of any regulation against taping."
"It's generally illegal to tape anyone without their knowledge, Heidi. Jail prisoners lose the presumption of privacy, but whether or not that applies to the men at Starkweather, I don't know."
"Okay," she said. "So I won't do it anymore." Shrugging, she moved toward the door. "Kind of strange, isn't it? Protecting them. That's another reason I don't want to stick around."
"What's that?"
"Swig talks all the time about humane care, how they're human beings, too. But I just can't find much sympathy for them, and I'd rather work with people I care about. -At least they can't leave. I guess that's the main thing."
"Speaking of which," said Milo. "One of them did get out."
Her knuckles whitened around the purse handle. "I never heard that. When?"
"Before you came on staff."
"Who? What was his name?"
"Wendell Pelley."
"No," she said. "Never heard of him-why, is he some sort of suspect in Claire's murder?"
"No," said Milo. "Not yet. I'm just trying to cover all bases. Anything you could find out about Pelley would be useful. Like, did he and Peake associate with each other."
"I can try… long as I stay at Starkweather."
"Two more weeks."
"Yes, but if there's something you think I can… Are you saying this Pelley is what Peake's little speeches are all about? Pelley's been communicating with Peake? Sending him messages, and Peake's babbling them back at me?"
"I wish I knew enough to theorize, Heidi. Right now I'm simply looking into everything."
"Okay… I'll do what I can." Sharp tug of the ponytail. Looking troubled, she opened the door. Milo and I walked her downstairs to the street. Her car was parked at the curb, half-lit by a streetlamp. Old, dented Chrysler minivan. A bumper sticker read, "Climbers Get High Naturally."
Milo said, "What's the highest mountain you ever tackled?"
"I'm more of a wall person than a mountain person. Sheer surfaces, the more vertical the better." She smiled. "Promise you won't tell? The best one wasn't exactly legal. Power station near the Nevada border. We did it at three A.M., then parachuted down."
"Adrenaline high," said Milo.
"Oh, yeah." She laughed, got in the van, and drove away.
"Got your junior G-woman on the job," I said. "I think she's found a new source of adrenaline."
"Yeah, she's a little hyper, isn't she? But at least someone's cooperating… So, what do you think about Peake's latest soliloquy?"
"If there's some deep psychological meaning, it's eluding me."
" 'Choo choo bang bang.' " He laughed. "Talk about loco motives."
We returned to the Robbery-Homicide room. A Dunkin' Donuts takeout box dominated Mile's desk. He said, "Shouldn't you be getting home to Robin?"
"I told her it might take a while."
He studied the notes he'd scrawled in the interrogation room. "Heidi," he said. "Our little mountain girl. Too bad everything she's come up with is probably worth a warm bucket of spit… 'Choo choo bang bang.' What's next? Peake reads selections from Dr. Seuss?"
He rubbed his eyes, stacked some papers, squared the corners with his thumbs.
"You think it was poor judgment?" he said. "Asking her to check on Pelley?"
"Not if she's discreet."
"Worse comes to worst, Swig finds out, gets all huffy. He can't afford to make too big a deal of it-bad publicity."
"Anything new on Pelley's whereabouts?" I said.
"Zilch. Ramparts was notified by the P.O., so there's something positive. Other than that, the P.O. wasn't very helpful. Caseload in the hundreds; to him, Pelley was just another number. I doubt he could point him out in a crowd."
He pulled a folded sheet out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. LAPD Suspect Alert. Pelley's vital statistics and a photo so dark and blurry I couldn't see it being useful for anything. All I could make out was a round, clean-shaven Caucasian face smudged with indeterminate features. Thin, light-colored hair. Serious mouth. The crime was failure to report.
"This is what they're using?" I said, placing the paper on the desk.
"Yeah, I know-not exactly Cartier-Bresson. But at least they're looking. I did some looking, too. Driving around the neighborhood, checking out MacArthur Park, Lafayette Park, alleys, con bars, some other bad-guy spots I know. Visited the halfway house, too. Old apartment building, cons out in front, some Korean guy running the place-sincere enough, told me he'd been a social worker in Seoul. But he barely speaks English, and basically all he does is warehouse the residents, do random drug tests maybe four times a year. Counseling consists of asking the cons how they're doing. The ones I saw hanging around didn't look at all insightful. As for Pelley, all the Korean could say was that he'd been quiet, hadn't caused problems. None of the cons remembered a damn thing about him. Of course."
He reached for a piece of stale cinnamon roll. "He could be a thousand miles away by now. I didn't do much better with Stargill's investment records. The Newport money managers wouldn't talk to me, and they informed him I'd been asking around. He calls me, all irate. I tell him I'm just trying to clear him, how about he voluntarily gives me a look at his stock portfolio. If everything checks out, we call it a day. He says he'll think about it, but I could tell he won't."