“No name, just Assembly Bill 5678930-CRP-M, Amendment F,” she said. “Subtitled ‘Psychocultural demarginalization of released offenders.’ Which was one of your buzzwords. I found a couple others in the text of the rider. ‘Attitudinal shifting,’ ‘Holistic emphasis.’ The individual programs are free to take on their own names. The one in Beverly Hills is called-”
“Sentries for Justice.”
“Yes, just like you said. So, what, this has been done before?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
“Where?”
“You don’t want to know.”
I found out the name of Assemblyman Reynard Bird’s third wife and ran her through the Internet.
Dr. Michelle Harrington-Bird. A tall, Scottish-born redhead in her forties who favored African robes and spoke out frequently about political issues. The assemblyman was in his seventies, a legislative vet known for passionate oration and the ability to fix potholes in his district.
In one of the many photos I found, Harrington-Bird was posed with a group of fellow psychologists that included Albin Larsen. A bunch of therapists hanging out at a convention. Larsen stood next to Harrington-Bird, goateed, bespectacled, wearing a tweed suit over a sweater-vest and looking like Hollywood’s incarnation of Freud. His body language implied no intimacy with the assemblyman’s current spouse.
All business. Plenty of incentive for that.
Harrington-Bird had borrowed Larsen’s terminology for the wording of the bill. No doubt Larsen had impressed her with descriptions of his human rights work in Africa. I wondered what she’d think about his role in African genocide. About two little boys left in their beds with their throats cut.
I found Larsen and Harrington-Bird paired three more times, as signatories on political ads. After printing what I thought was relevant, I got on the phone.
Milo said, “Oh, man, Olivia. She should run the world.”
“She’s overqualified,” I said. “Now we know the funding’s real and that Larsen got in on it early.”
“Reynard Bird. Wonder how high this will go.”
“There’s no evidence Bird or his wife colluded on any scam. Larsen knew her professionally, and they hobnobbed politically. He may have used her, too.”
“She’s into human rights?”
“She’s into petitions. Protesting U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, et cetera. Larsen signed the same ads.”
He grunted. “So when did the funding start?”
“Year and a half ago. Reimbursements began sixteen months ago. Pacifica was in at the outset.”
“Thirty-five bucks for each con-hour,” he said. “Even more than we estimated.”
“Huge incentive to keep it going. And to cover up when exposure was threatened. If Mary Lou posed any sort of threat, the obvious solution was to eliminate her.”
“Bullet and impalement. Speaking of which, here’s my contribution to the database. Through some fancy detective footwork, I located a retired guard supervisor at Quentin who actually knew Raymond Degussa. He’s certain Degussa was responsible for not two but three inmate contract killings and maybe as many as five others. In-house hit man, the gangs hire them to keep their own noses clean. With all that, they just couldn’t get any evidence on the asshole. When Degussa wasn’t offing people, he did all things that make parole boards salivate. Attended church, served as a pastor’s assistant, volunteered to make Christmas toys for ghetto kids, worked as a volunteer library clerk. And get this: He went regularly for counseling. This is a guy who appreciates the value of therapy.”
“Bet he does.”
“And here’s the fun part, Alex: This supervisor, God bless him, told me all the hits featured some kind of impaling and a combination MO, which is unusual for prison killings, mostly it’s cut and run. Degussa cut all right- your basic throat and multiple body slashing by shiv. But he followed it up with a coup de grâce through the neck or chest with some sort of pointed object. In a couple of cases, the objects were found: sharpened fountain pen, meat skewer purloined from the prison kitchen. Raymond’s definitely our bad guy.”
“He has no record of sexual crimes?”
“His sheet’s what I told you- larceny, drugs, armed robbery. But those are only the things he gets caught for. Who knows what he does in his spare time? Starting tonight, I’m switching Sean Binchy from surveilling Gull to watching Degussa. I’ll be there at the start, to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. Watching a sweating shrink’s one thing, this bad boy’s another.”
“Gull’s off the screen?”
“On the contrary. Now that we know the scam’s real, we’ve got something to use against him. Assuming you still see him as the weakest link.”
“If you want to lean on someone, he’d be my choice.”
“I want badly to lean,” he said. “A couple more things. The address Christi Marsh gave is a mail drop, big surprise. She only rented the box for two months, and the clerk has no recollection of her. Did you check the paper this morning?”
“Not yet.”
“They finally ran the photo. Page thirty-two, at the bottom, along with three sentences asking anyone with knowledge to call me. No calls yet. On the Quick family front, I tracked down sister Kelly. She stayed in Boston to work at a law firm. But she just took a sudden leave of absence, supposedly sick grandmother in Michigan.”
“You think she could be well west of Michigan.”
“I phoned the house but no answer, have a call in to Eileen Paxton just in case she got sisterly, again. How about we get together, sooner rather than later, to talk about Franco Gull. I have a few ideas about the fine art of social pressure.”
CHAPTER 38
Franco Gull had retained the services of a criminal defense lawyer named Armand Moss. Moss had passed the assignment to an associate, a stunning brunette woman of around forty named Myrna Wimmer.
The meeting was held in Wimmer’s office, a glass-lined room on the top floor of an office building on Wilshire near Barrington. It was a glorious day, and the glass served its purpose.
Myrna Wimmer wore a burgundy pantsuit and had flawless ivory skin. Her artfully highlighted wedge cut was glossy and efficient. A Yale law degree was displayed like the icon it was. The photos on her credenza said she had a doting husband and five gorgeous kids. She moved like a dancer, her greeting was warm. Slanted gray eyes under artfully shaped brows could’ve melted paint.
She said, “For the record, Dr. Gull is here of his own volition and is under no obligation to answer any questions, let alone those deemed inappropriate.”
“Yes, ma’am, anything you say,” said Milo.
Wimmer regarded him with amusement, turned to Gull, who sat on a club chair near the longest glass wall, feet planted on the carpet, looking drained and thinner. The chair rested on casters, and Gull’s movements made it shudder.
He had on a black suit, white mock-turtleneck, oxblood calfskin loafers. Little red clocks on his black socks. A folded linen handkerchief was wadded in one big hand. No sweating, yet, but preparing himself? Or maybe his lawyer had provided the hankie.
Milo took the seat farthest from Gull. I got close.
“Good morning,” I said. It was 11 A.M., and the view out Myrna Wimmer’s glass walls deserved some serious meditation. I was there for anything but, dressed in my best navy suit, a white pin-collar shirt with French cuffs, and a gold jacquard tie. Last time I’d gone that route someone had mistaken me for a lawyer. The sacrifices we make for the public good.
Two days had passed since Christina Marsh’s photo had run in the paper. A couple of schizophrenics had phoned Milo, each with oddly congruent stories about alien abductions, each certain Christina was really from Venus. Comic relief; with the schedule he’d been keeping Milo needed it.