Joe sat wedged in the booth opposite Arvo, shoulders taking up so much room no one could have found space next to him. He was wearing a neatly pressed brown suit, dazzling white shirt and muted tie. Arvo hadn’t been home yet and was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. They’d been to San Francisco and back on him, and they felt like it, too.
Joe held a sheet of paper in front of him and read as Arvo ate, pausing only to sip his coffee every now and then. He seemed able to do that without taking the toothpick out of the corner of his mouth.
“We got this from the Social Security number. Mitchell Lorne Cameron. Born January 3, 1967, Bakersfield, California.” Joe looked up and grinned. “Well, what do you know? Looks like the little slimeball has a birthday today. I dug out the state birth records. Mother, Marta Cameron; father unknown. After that it got easier. According to the Bakersfield PD, Marta used to run with the local biker crowd, real motorcycle mamma, had a few run-ins over drugs, fights and the like, but nothing serious, no dealing or trafficking as far as they know.”
“What happened to her?”
“OD’d on heroin, July 21, 1972.” Joe sipped some more coffee. “But not before she’d had three kids to three different fathers. Mitch was the middle one. He’s got an older half-sister, called Marianne, and a younger half-brother, Mark. After Marta OD’d, a distant relative in Eureka took them all in.”
“Did you talk to this relative?”
“Nope. She’s been dead five years.”
“Anything on the other two kids? They might be able to lead us to Mitch.”
“We’re trying to trace them. It’s early days yet.”
“Bar manager in San Francisco said something about the brother being disabled. She thought he was blind.”
“That’s something we can check. Got to be registered somewhere.” Joe made a note.
“Anything else?”
“Sure. Plenty. Listen, while you’ve been having fun up in San Francisco watching strippers and sitting around here talking to pretty starlets, I’ve been on the phone, fax or computer. All morning.”
“Okay, so give me a hard time, why don’t you.”
Joe grinned. “I checked with ATF. No firearms registration.”
“Huh. Like half of LA. Doesn’t mean he’s not carrying, though, does it?”
Joe raised his eyebrows. “He hasn’t used a gun so far.”
“True,” said Arvo. “But I don’t think it’s because he couldn’t get hold of one. For some reason it’s just not part of his scenario. Anything from DMV? I was going to call in from the hotel last night but I got the message about the accident first.”
“Yup. Drives a red 1990 Honda Civic. I got the number out on the street. The black-and-whites are keeping an eye open.”
“Photo?”
“Uh-huh. Driver’s-licence photo. Not much good. Could probably be any blue-eyed blond kid in LA. After a while they all get to look the same to me.” Joe’s eyes sparkled for a second and he flicked the toothpick toward his nose. “The lab phoned and told me they did find some blond hairs at the Marillo scene. Dyed blond hairs.”
Arvo pushed his plate aside and sipped some coffee. “It’s looking good, isn’t it? If only we could find the bastard. What about the address on the driver’s licence?”
Joe put down his toothpick and lit a cigarette. “Eureka. And I mean the place, not the classical allusion. The distant relative’s address. It’s a dead end. The people who live there now never even knew the old lady.”
“Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“What about the phone company, utilities?”
“Still checking. Nothing yet. At least not under his real name.”
“Why would he use an alias?”
“Maybe there are people he doesn’t want to find him?”
“Like us?”
Joe shrugged. “Maybe others, too. Maybe he owes money. Who knows? Anyway, all I could find was that he skipped out of San Francisco owing Ma Bell a few hundred bucks and they haven’t come across his name since. Maybe that’s why.”
“Can you pull the phone records?”
“Already being done.”
“Have you checked mental institutions?”
“Wondered when you’d get around to that. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have to. I ran him through records. Seems he has a history of assault charges, mostly minor stuff, but about ten years ago in Stockton he went down on a felony assault charge. Bar fight.”
“What happened?”
“They sent him for psychiatric evaluation. Must’ve checked out okay because after that he did eighteen months in Tehachapi. Witnesses said the other guy started it. That went in his favor. Anyway, we’ve got his prints, for what good they’ll do us.”
“Have you checked them against the Heimar and Marillo killings?”
“We got nothing from Heimar and only partials from the Marillo place. No guarantee they were the killer’s, either. We ran a fingerprint check, but we couldn’t come up with a positive match. The lab also found red cotton fibers, which indicated he probably wore gloves.”
“What about Stuart Kleigman’s car?”
“I don’t think we’ll find anything there, either, but it’s being done. This guy plans, Arvo, he doesn’t just act on the spur of the moment.”
“But he’s getting more and more careless. I don’t suppose he’s on parole or probation?”
“No such luck.”
“Did you check with the military?”
“Uh-huh. Drew a blank there, too.”
“What about the psychiatric evaluation? What were the conclusions?”
Joe stubbed out his cigarette in the foil ashtray. “I’ve got someone digging it out for me,” he said. “They’ll fax it to us as soon as they can. I wouldn’t hold out much hope, though. It’ll probably just say Cameron had a short fuse and needed to learn to control his temper.”
“Probably. But you never know. Now, how do we find the son of a bitch? Anything from the IRS?”
The waitress came by with the coffee pot, and Joe pushed his cup and saucer toward her. Arvo declined. He’d already had too much coffee for one morning. Besides, it tasted like battery acid.
“You know how close-mouthed those bastards are,” said Joe, “but I did get the date of his last return and the address it was sent from.”
“And?”
“Two years ago. An—”
“Let me guess, an address in the Castro, San Francisco?”
“You got it. Same one I got from the phone company.”
“Shit. That gets us no further. It’s like he never got an address in LA at all.”
“I know. I’ve got a couple of guys back at Parker Center still checking around. You know, Welfare, State Licensing Board, Workmen’s Comp.”
“I won’t hold my breath. It looks like this one’s slipped between the cracks since he left San Francisco.”
“Sure looks that way. For what it’s worth, I also got a couple of guys putting more pressure on some of the agencies that sell celebrity addresses. Nothing so far, but you never know.”
“Right. And now we can try the car-rental agencies, too.”
“Why?”
“Because of what happened last night,” said Arvo. “My guess is that Mitch has been watching Sarah’s routine for a few days, just like he did when she was at the beach house. He noticed that Zak, the bodyguard, always went on ahead to check the house before Sarah and Stuart went back there from the studio. Last night, Zak rode shotgun for Stuart to a meeting in Hollywood while Sarah was safe at the studio. The stalker must have followed them and taken his chance on the way back. According to the accident report, there’s at least one witness thinks someone deliberately pulled in front of Zak’s car and forced him onto the hard shoulder. It’s a miracle Zak wasn’t killed.”