“For fun,” she said, and hung up and phoned Sacramento.
The Department of Justice lab had no record of receiving any bio sample from Marta Doebbler’s murder. Parker Center’s Evidence Room hadn’t logged it in.
Big-time screw-up, but get anyone to admit it.
Time to take a closer look at the other June murders.
In Geraldo Solis’s murder book she found an interesting notation by Detective Jack Hustaad: According to Solis’s daughter, the old man had been expecting a cable repairman the day he’d been bludgeoned.
No sign Hustaad had followed up.
She phoned Wilshire Division and learned that, unlike the Hollywood cases, Solis had been transferred after Hustaad’s suicide. But not until two years after the murder had gone down. Hustaad must’ve held on to the file all that time, including a three-month lapse between his medical leave for cancer treatment and his suicide. A week after Hustaad’s funeral, Solis had been passed to a DI named Scott Weber.
Weber was still at Wilshire and Petra reached him at his desk.
He said, “I never got anywhere on it. How come you’re asking?”
She told him about a possible cold-case similarity, talked about the wound pattern on Marta Doebbler, made no mention of the other murders or June 28. Weber wanted to hear more but when she gave him a few details, he lost interest.
“Don’t see any match,” he said. “People get hit on the head.”
Not that often fatally. According to my expert.
“True,” she said.
“What do you figure for the weapon on yours?”
“Some kind of pipe.”
“Same here,” said Weber. “Any physical evidence on yours?”
Just a missing blood sample. “Not so far.”
Why was she being evasive with another detective? Because she still wasn’t comfortable with all this.
“Anyway,” said Weber.
“One question. There was a note about a cable repairman- ”
“You have a copy of the file?”
“One of our interns, doing research, pulled it and made a copy.”
“From here?” said Weber.
“I think from the duplicate at Parker.”
“Oh… yeah, it could be duped, being cold and all that.”
“The cable call,” she prompted.
“There was a cable call on yours?” said Weber.
“No, I was just wondering if that led anywhere, but obviously- ”
“You’re wondering if I followed up on it.” Weber laughed, but the sound wasn’t friendly. “I did. Even though it was two freakin’ years later. Solis’s cable company had no record of any visit. I talked to the daughter, turns out she maybe remembered something about the old man maybe saying something. Turns out no one saw any cable truck near the house. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Petra. “Sorry if I- ”
“I couldn’t get anywhere on it,” said Weber. “It’s in the icebox.”
No cable appointment. Did that mean a phony call had led Geraldo Solis to expect a visitor? If so, that could be a match to the phone booth call that had lured Marta Doebbler from the theater.
Cable appointment at midnight?
Petra recalled an incident in her own life that had spooked her. Two years ago, in the midst of a one-week vacation, a doorbell ring at eleven P.M. had jolted her out of bed. Some joker claiming to be a UPS deliveryman. She’d told him to go away, he’d persisted, said he needed a signature on a package. She’d grabbed her gun, tossed on a robe, and cracked the door. Found a haggard, brown-clad zombie. Actual UPS guy, with an actual package. Cookies from one of her sisters-in-law.
“Running late,” he’d explained. Twitching and tapping his foot. Not even noticing the nine-millimeter held down against her right flank.
She knew delivery services put their drivers under pressure but this guy looked ready to blow.
So it was possible. A bad guy calls Geraldo Solis with the cable story, shows up late, Solis opens his door. No cable truck in the neighborhood didn’t mean a thing. At that hour, in Solis’s quiet, residential neighborhood, who’d be looking?
Geraldo Solis’s daughter’s address and phone number were duly listed in the murder book. Maria Solis Murphy, age thirty-nine, Covina. A DMV check put her current residence in the city. Right here in Hollywood, Russell Street off Los Feliz.
Her work number matched an extension for Food Services at Kaiser Permanente Hospital. Also Hollywood, an easy stroll from Russell.
She was on shift, came to the phone, arranged to meet Petra in front of the hospital in twenty minutes. By the time Petra arrived, she was there.
Hard-body type, pretty, with very short dark hair tipped blond, wearing a pale blue dress, white socks, and tennies. Three filament hoops in one ear, a diamond chip and a gold stud in the other. Tattoo of a rose on her left ankle. Kind of punk for a woman of nearly forty- a woman with a gold wedding band on her ring finger- but Maria Murphy had an unlined face and an aerobic bounce in her step. Put her in the right duds and she could’ve passed for mid-twenties.
Her badge said M. Murphy, MS, Registered Dietician. Very hard body. Boyish hips. The benefits of vitamins?
She said, “Detective?” in a husky voice.
“Ms. Murphy.”
“If you don’t mind, I could use a little stretch. Been kind of cooped up.”
They walked west on Sunset, past the hospital, fast-food joints, the prosthetic outfitters, after-care specialists, and linen suppliers that attach themselves to hospitals. Western Peds, where Sandra Leon had been treated for leukemia, was a couple of blocks east. What was with that doctor, Katzman.
Maria Murphy said, “I’m very grateful you’re reopening my dad’s case.”
“It’s not exactly like that, Ms. Murphy. I’m a Hollywood detective and I picked up a case that could conceivably bear some similarities to your father’s. But it’s not a dramatic match- we’re talking small details, ma’am.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, ma’am. Sorry.”
“I understand,” Maria Murphy said. “I discovered Dad’s body. I’ll never forget it.”
That fact had been in the file. Geraldo Solis had been found slumped over his food at one A.M. Petra asked Murphy why she’d dropped in so late.
“I didn’t drop in. I lived there. On and off. Temporarily.”
“Temporarily?”
“I was married at the time and my husband and I were having problems. I stayed with Dad, from time to time.”
Petra glanced at Murphy’s gold band.
Murphy smiled. “That’s from my partner. Her name is Bella.”
Petra sensed Murphy sizing her up, assessing her tolerance level. “So you and your husband were having marital problems.”
“I changed the rules, midstream,” said Murphy. “Dave, my husband, was a good guy. I was the one who initiated the breakup. Back then, I was pretty moody.”
“How’d Dave react to that?”
“He wasn’t happy,” said Murphy.
“He get mad?”
Without missing a step, Murphy turned sharply toward Petra. “It wasn’t like that, don’t even think that. Dave and Dad got along great. You want to know the truth, Dave and Dad had more in common with each other than with me. Any time we had a fight, Dad took Dave’s side. He couldn’t believe what I was doing and why I was doing it. My whole family was in pretty strong denial.”
“Big family?” said Petra.
“Two brothers, two sisters. Mom’s been gone for a while. When she was alive, I suppressed myself. Not wanting to hurt her. After I came out, they all ganged up on me, wanted me to see a shrink. Which was exactly what I’d been doing for two years, unbeknownst to them.”