He did it. But by noon, he craved the police station.
CHAPTER 35
The second meeting was worse for Petra.
Five minutes after it started a Valley Gang Unit rep arrived, a uniformed three-striper, a huge man with a shaved bullet-head, ice eyes, and all the charm of a virus. He kept inspecting his nails as Hotshot I gave more speeches about gang behavior.
The search for Omar Selden and associates was now an official task force.
Schoelkopf had decided to sit in.
Not that the captain said much. For the most part he looked sleepy and small, and Petra, knowing about his third wife, felt sorry for him. She started nodding off as Honcho droned on. Finally, the guy slapped his notepad shut and motioned for his buddy to collapse the easel.
“So,” he said, tightening the knot of his tie, “we’re all on the same page.”
Petra looked at the big gang sergeant and said, “One thing you might want to check out: Our boy Omar took college courses in photography and when I saw him in Venice he had camera equipment with him. He listed a phony address in NoHo, so maybe he’s got some kind of connection there.”
“It was a phony address,” Schoelkopf cut in. “That was the point of lying, Detective Connor. To throw you off.”
Which was utter nonsense. Criminals lacked imagination, made stupid mistakes all the time. If they didn’t, police work would be an exercise in futility.
No one backed her up.
She said, “Still, sir- ”
The gang guy stood to his full six-four and broke in: “Never seen any bangers in NoHo, except for a few straggling in when there’s a street fair. No street fairs till next month.”
He left the room.
The head Downtown guy said, “Onward.”
When Petra returned to the detectives’ room, Isaac was waiting for her. Now she did need to walk and she told him so. They left the station and headed south on Wilcox. Isaac was smart enough not to talk as she stomped her way toward Santa Monica. Eventually, she cooled down and noticed that he was keeping his distance from her. She was probably scaring him. Time to force a smile.
“So,” she said. “June 28. The date has to mean something- a birthday, an anniversary, something personal to the bad guy. Or some historical event that turns him on. I checked DMV stats on all the principals in the files. None of the vics were born that day. So maybe our boy is a history freak.”
She waited for him to comment. He didn’t.
“Any ideas?”
“Everything you’re saying sounds reasonable.”
Was he losing interest? Distracted by his other life?
“What keeps coming to me,” she said, “is an extremely seductive killer. Someone subtle, really careful about the way he sets things up. Marta Doebbler being called out of the theater, Geraldo Solis possibly being conned by a phony cable appointment. If the cable guy is our suspect, he was canny enough to case the house and come back later. Maybe he was also canny enough to use a dog as a lure.”
She told him about the two kinds of canine hair found on Coral Langdon, recounted her friendly neighborhood dog-walker scenario.
“The setups,” she said, “could be as much a turn-on as the kill.”
“A choreographer,” he said.
“That’s a good way to put it. So what do you think?”
“You’re right about the subtlety.”
“Until he blitz-attacks the victims from behind and bashes their brains out. That’s anything but subtle, Isaac. To me that says (a) cowardice- he’s afraid to look them in the eye so he avoids the usual sex-psycho strangulation thing- and (b) he’s got lots of rage beneath the surface that he’s able to control in everyday life. More than control. He functions well until he’s triggered. We know the date is one trigger, but there has to be something about the victims.”
They walked for a while before she said, “Anything you want to add is okay.”
He shook his head.
“You okay?”
He startled. She’d shaken him out of some sort of reverie. “Sure.”
“You seem a bit spacey.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“No apology necessary. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” She smiled. “As your mentor- not that I’ve mented much. Is that a verb?”
Isaac smiled back. “Nope. Mentored.”
“Feel free to speculate about what I just said.”
“Everything you’re saying makes sense. I wish I had something to add, but I don’t.”
A half-block later, he said, “One thing does occur to me. There’s a discrepancy between Marta Doebbler and the others. If the killer was able to disguise himself as a cable repairman to get into Mr. Solis’s place, Mr. Solis obviously didn’t know him. If the dog theory’s true, the same could go for Coral Langdon: She met a man walking his dog in her neighborhood, chatted, turned to go, and got bludgeoned. The killer could’ve rehearsed the scene by dog-walking previously in order to familiarize himself with the surroundings. But he still could’ve been a relative stranger. That can’t be true of Marta Doebbler. She wouldn’t have left the theater in the middle of the show unless she knew who had called her. Plus, a stranger wouldn’t have known Marta was going to the theater.”
“Someone she trusted,” said Petra. “Back to the husband.” Weird Kurt. “There’s another discrepancy between Marta and the others. She was killed on the street but then placed in her car. You could look at that as her being treated with a bit more respect. Which would also fit with a killer who knew her well.”
He grimaced. “I should’ve thought of that.”
Distracted. By Klara. Self-doubt. Flaco’s gun… my gun… would I ever really use it?
“That’s why it’s good to brainstorm,” said Petra. They reached Santa Monica Boulevard. Traffic, noise, pedestrians, gay hustlers loitering on corners.
Petra said, “Here’s yet another distinction for Doebbler: She was the first. When Detective Ballou told me he thought Kurt Doebbler’s reaction was off, and then after I met Kurt, it got me thinking: What if the bad guy never set out to commit a string of murders? What if he killed Marta for a personal reason and found out he liked it? Got himself a hobby. Which brings us back to Kurt.”
“A-once-a-year hobby,” said Isaac.
“An anniversary,” she said. “What if June 28 is significant to Kurt because he happened to kill Marta on that day? So he relives it.”
He stared at her. “That’s brilliant.”
Return of the youthful exuberance. Oddly, it deflated Petra’s enthusiasm and she said, “Hardly. It’s a theory. But at least we’re focusing.”
“On Marta Doebbler?”
“For lack of anyone better.”
“Maybe,” he said, touching his bruise absently, “we should find out who knew she was at the theater. She went with friends, right?”
Staring at her with that unlined, precocious, innocent face. She wanted to kiss it.
They returned to the station and Petra pulled the Doebbler file. Marta had gone out with three friends and Detective Conrad Ballou had listed their names dutifully along with the fact that he’d contacted two, Melanie Jaeger and Sarah Casagrande, “telephonically.” The third, Emily Pastern, had been out of town.
According to Ballou’s notes, neither Jaeger nor Casagrande knew for certain who’d called Marta out of the theater.
“Witness Casagrande reports that Victim Doebbler appeared agitated by telephonic interruption and that Vic Doebbler reacted quickly to said interruption, ‘jumped out of her seat and just left. Like it was an emergency, she didn’t even apologize for having her cell phone on. Which wasn’t like Marta, she was always considerate.’ Likewise Witness Jaeger, interviewed independently.
Vic’s husband, Kurt Doebbler, denies calling Vic at any time that night, denies owning cellular phone. K. Doebbler agreed to immediate inspection of home telephonic records, which was accomplished this morning at 11:14 a.m. per Pacific Bell, confirming said denials.”