TUESDAY, AUGUST 9th
DENT STARTED DIALING through the Newhouse list at 9 a.m. At 9:25 he found the place Mrs. Parks bought the masks—place in San Francisco called Wellington and Sons.
The woman he was speaking to, a Mrs. Kent, spoke in very precise, very cool English tones. She was very quickly pissing Dent off.
Mrs. Kent’s voice saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Dent but I simply cannot release that information. Our customers respect Wellington and Sons as a place of the utmost discretion.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Parks would appreciate your discretion, but I don’t think she’ll mind.”
There was silence on the line. Finally, Mrs. Kent said, “How can I be certain you’re who you claim? You could be ringing me up willy-nilly and not be at all associated with law-enforcement.”
Which was how Dent ended up faxing photocopies of his badge and drivers license to Mrs. Kent. When she was on the phone again, he said, “Now I’d like to ask a couple questions.”
Mrs. Kent’s voice said, “A thought occurred to me while awaiting your facsimile: How do I know Mrs. Parks is dead? Or that you’re not with those Internal Revenue Service fellows. I need not tell you Wellington has no wish to become embroiled in any messy taxation business.”
“Ma’am, I’m homicide. I don’t care if you pay your taxes, I care who killed Mrs. Parks.”
“I’m not sure . . .”
“Mrs. Kent? Give me a jif— I’ll facsimile over something more convincing.” Which is how Dent ended up faxing a photo, shot from above, showing pentagrams slashed into Mrs. Parks; visible in the upper left corner was a metal stake stuck through her hand; in the lower right, C. Parks, Caucasian Female.
Dent called Mrs. Kent back. “Now will you answer some questions, please?”
“You are a very rude man, Detective Dent—”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
“—-but you may proceed.”
“Thanks. First, when did Mrs. Parks purchase the Kwiatlu’s?”
Dent heard paper being rustled. Mrs. Kent’s voice said, “July 12th.”
“How’d she pay?”
“By cashier’s check drawn against First Bank of the Bahamas.”
“And how’d she find out about them? Was it a catalogue or an auction or what?”
“It was a blind auction. Each interested party makes an offer.”
“Did you put ads in the newspaper or some magazine?”
Mrs. Kent laughed a cultured, above-it-all laugh. “Detective, we don’t advertise our auctions. We simply ring our clients up and let them know what’s available.”
“How many participated?”
“A dozen or so.”
“I’ll need their names.”
There was momentary silence. Then: “I am afraid that would be contrary to the manner Wellington and Sons conducts business. Our clients are private people. I am sorry.”
“A woman is dead, Mrs. Kent. A client of yours is dead.”
A longer silence before Mrs. Kent’s voice said, “I am sorry.”
Dent was non-plussed, unable to comprehend this woman cared more about protecting her living clients’ privacy than helping locate the killer of one of her now-dead clients. “Did Mrs. Parks pick up the masks in person?”
“No, she sent a man to get them. He picked them up on a Saturday, as I recall. I remember it quite clearly because I was forced to miss a cricket match at the club that day.”
“A regular drag, hunh?”
“Quite.”
“Do you have his name and the date?”
“Hold on.” Dent heard rustling papers. “Raymond St. Michael on July fifteen.”
Dent hung up the phone. Raymond St. Michael? Who the hell’s Raymond St. Michael? He didn’t know what he expected, but so far he had shit. It was starting out that kind of day.
DENT SAID: “Lou, look me straight in the eye and tell me that again.” Staring at Lou Cano through the wire mesh and getting a little antsy about what Lou was saying.
“Vince, I’m telling you, I can’t find it. Me and Janey looked, we can’t find it.”
“But it was here, I checked it in last night.”
“I know that, Vince, I took it, remember? It’s back here somewhere, we just have to find it.”
‘Back here’ being the racks of guns and knives and bloody rocks and other stuff making up the ingredients for San Diego crime.
“Who else has access to the cage?”
“Nobody ‘cept me, Janey and Wes.”
“You talk to Wes about this?”
“No, I didn’t know until you came down and asked.”
In the past, evidence had been misplaced in the cage. Dent remembered how one time a hair sample in a murder case involving a stripper was lost for over two years before mysteriously turning up. But never a whole laptop.
“We can’t go losing that laptop, Lou. It’s very important. The main computer already had the hard drive wiped and we lost critical info about a guy who was murdered. I want you and Janey and Wes to tear that place apart and find it.”
DENT WAS WORKING through the Parks case folder, reading reports, summarizing his own observations and conjectures, when the phone rang. Gideon Pope’s voice said: “I’ve got Jim Winston at Quantico on a three-way, Vince.”
Jim Winston’s voice said, “First off, your guy’s good-looking, articulate and self-assured. I say that because if you have a guy who’s afraid to talk to people, they’ll blitz attack, just hit the woman from behind with everything they’ve got. This guy got inside the house without forced entry, so he’s a talker, good with people. Second thing is the lacerations’ high degree of elaboration— he’s got a lot of pent up hostility and this is his vent. But the manner he carries it out suggests a highly organized mind— it’s very planned. This guy’s killed before, probably a lot. The fact he took time to revive her tells me he’s got a massive ego . . . really wants her to acknowledge him as God, the Devil, that sort of mentality. He knew her somehow and knew he had time to draw it out. Most likely he’s somewhere between 35 and 45— this is a highly evolved fantasy by someone who’s perfected his craft. He’s above average in intelligence and accustomed to dealing with the higher social classes. He’ll kill again, probably sooner than later, and because of his organized mind, unless he screws up, he’s gonna be a bitch to nail.”
OUT FRONT MIRABELLA’S HOUSE, Dent sat on the steps staring up at the fiery blossoms of the coral tree, thinking about the Parks and Mirabella cases, the bodies superimposed over the coral blossoms like some deathly collage. Mrs. Parks on the floor, nailed down, blood everywhere. Mirabella slumped in his chair. Dent pushed the specters from his mind to concentrate solely on the facts of the Mirabella case. Sipping from his flask just to set his mind straight, oil up the wheels.
Mirabella’s neighbors said he kept to himself and had few visitors, and that he went out at night for a couple hours carrying a black case Dent reasoned was the laptop.
But where did you go every night? Why?
Dent watched a kid wheel by on a bicycle, sling a newspaper at a house and continue on.
A couple neighbors reported a young brunette woman would drive into the garage and park a Ford Probe. Two neighbors thought the woman was white, another that she was “Oriental or Mexican or something ethnic like that.” Fingerprints in the house were mostly Mirabella’s, some the plant guy’s, and still two other sets unidentified. Turned out the nickel-plate .357 had been reported stolen by a La Mesa dentist six months back and had no prints other than the corpse’s.
Analysis of Mirabella’s phone records revealed an interesting point: an absolute absence of any long distance or 800 calls, making Dent suspect the man went out to make his LD calls— Mirabella was a Mexican national, had lived in other parts of the country and had to make at least a couple long distance calls a month.
Was that what you did every other night? Took that laptop out? And did what?
Dent was willing to bet Mirabella went out nightly to do nocturnal work with his laptop, maybe faxing documents somewhere down Mexico way.
Okay, but where would he do it? He couldn’t plug into a payphone with a laptop.
Dent sipped scotch, holding it in his mouth and watching a hummingbird hover at a feeder attached to a birdhouse hanging in the coral tree. The hummingbird took a drink, hovered a moment longer, then darted over to the house next door. It took a sip from a yellow plastic feeder and darted away. Maybe out towards the sea. Dent swallowed.
Maybe Mirabella went to hotels and started making calls, that way no one could track his calls back to his home number or plant a bug.
The idea of canvassing every hotel in the city was impossible, but Dent made a mental note to have Walt Bishop and No-Action Jackson take a photo of Mirabella to hotels within a five-mile radius of Mirabella’s house, betting Mirabella was lazy and wouldn’t drive further to make his calls. Dent thought about telephones some more until his mind ultimately double-tracked over to Celeste Parks’ telephone records.
Every one of the numbers on record was accountable and every number ruled inconsequential. Except one. On nine occasions in the last three months, Celeste Parks dialed the number of a pager reported lost and that the carrier for the paging service had failed to deactivate. The pager belonged to a nurse currently staying with her sister in Rhode Island. McClain had spoken to the nurse himself, along with the woman’s sister. Solid alibi. Dent’d called it this morning and left his number, but no one called back.
Who were you paging, Mrs. Parks? More importantly, who did you page the night you died, at 9:52 in the evening?
A pickup truck stopped at the curb, the back loaded with lawnmowers and yard equipment. Two guys got out wearing shorts and tank tops, and started unloading the equipment. Dent watched a moment before descending the steps.
“How’s it going guys?”
The guy who’d been driving was unstrapping a weed eater from the truck. He said, “Running’ late man, running’ late. One more place to do and it’s 4:30 and we got tickets to the Pods.” Took the weed-eater from the truck and started pulling the rope to start it. The other guy was rolling a mower down a ramp.
“You work for Peter Mirabella?”
“Sure, why?” The guy pulling on the weed-eater’s rope and the weed-eater not starting. Dent showed his badge. “Because you probably don’t want to go to all the trouble. He’s dead.”
The guy stopped pulling on the rope. “You mean like dead dead?”
“Right, like dead dead.”
“Well, shit.” Weed eater looked at his partner. “Hear that, Mike? No more picking leaf crumbs out of the sidewalk cracks.”
“I take it you didn’t like Mirabella a lot?”
“Not to dis’ the dead,” Weed-eater said, “but he was an asshole. Complained about the tiniest shit. So how’d he die?”
“Shot himself Friday morning. Do you know who drove the white Probe?”
“I think it was his girlfriend. Some hot stripper-looking chick. You know, big tits?”
“You by any chance know the license plate number on her car?”
“No offense, dude,” Mike said, “but do I look like Rainman?”
Dent smiled. “When was the last time you saw her here?”
Weed-eater said, “Last week. Drove away like she was pissed. Laid a stripe of rubber down—” waving at a 20-foot black streak on the street “—right there.”
“What day was that?”
“Tuesday morning. We were running late last week.”
“When was the last time you spoke with Mirabella.”
“Same day his girlfriend peeled outta here. He paid cash, so we had to pick it up every week. He was always trying to get out of it, not answering the door, or saying he only had hundreds, he’d get us next week. And he never tipped.”
“How’d he seem that day? Was he angry or anything after his girlfriend left?”
“I don’t know. Not angry. Maybe kinda quiet? He was weird, hard to read.”
“Why do you say that?”
Weed-eater shrugged. “I don’t know. He was just real calm. And he had these dark eyes. Kind of scary.”
Mike said, “Dull and sleepy-like, but you knew the asshole was watching you all the time, making mental notes.” He laughed. “Making sure the leaf crumbs were out of the cracks.”
Dent smiled. “Would you two sit with a sketch artist and work up a picture of Mirabella’s girlfriend?”
Weed eater shrugged. “It’s cool . . . but hey, dude . . . I thought you said Mr. Mirabella killed himself. Why’re you knocking yourself out over his girlfriend?”
Dent shrugged. “Boss is an asshole. Makes us do bullshit work. You know how it is.”
Mike smiled. “Fuckin ay, dude, fuckin ay.”
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Friday, August 05, 2005
ONE MONTH TO MIDNIGHT-CHAPTER 5
MONDAY, AUGUST 8th
DENT SAID TO THE GUY, “Hey, you know where I can find Storm Hall?” Lost as hell on the San Diego State campus, but thinking he was in the general vicinity.
The guy—dark-skinned and looking like he’d look perfect wearing Newhouse’s Cheyenne war bonnet, a regular White Buffalo-look-alike— he said, “I’m not sure. I’m just visiting myself,” in a weirdly sophisticated Spanish accent before walking away. Dent shrugged and kept asking.
Turned out Storm Hall, where Ben Stack’s office was located, was the building they’d been standing before, an unimpressive, un-Storm-like building with half-dead ivy in the flower beds.
Dent punched the second floor button. When the elevator-door opened, Lucy Blackfoot looked Dent dead in the eyes.
“Oh brother, I’m being stalked by Barney Fife.”
Very deadpan.
Dent said, “And I’m thinking the same thing . . . Except I don’t know any famous anthropologists besides that guy Leaky.”
“Stick to corpses, Vince, you’d never make it in comedy.” Lucy smiled a little. “You’re not really following me are you? Because I’d like to know if you are so I can try to ditch you . . . find some tunnel and lose you like in The Third Man.”
“You know The Third Man?”
“Joseph Cotton’s best. I fit stuff like that around F-Troop and other great westerns.” Lucy smiled. “You’re here to see Ben. C’mon, I’ll take you up.”
Boarding the elevator, she waved the paper in her hand. “I’m applying for a job. One of Ben’s colleagues is starting a project in New Mexico. State needs something on file to pay me.”
“Digging for pots?”
Lucy nodded. “Hope Ben can help. He’s busy researching a legend that has the Incas sailing to Asia in the 14th century, meaning they discovered Asia a hundred years before Columbus discovered the New World.”
Lucy led them to an office within which a big bearded guy hung upside down, like a giant bat, wearing gravity boots and throwing balls at a bucket; balls surrounded the bucket. He threw one more and said, “You wanna hand me a couple of those?”
Dent handed balls to the guy he assumed was Dr. Benjamin Stack, noted anthropological genius and bat. Stack hit one of three and said to Lucy: “ Forget the application?”
Lucy shook her head. “I was helping this gentlemen find you. Dr. Ben Stack, Detective Vince Dent.”
Stack reached up a hand. Dent took it as the guy said, “So you’re the cop Lucy was talking about. What’s the deal, you harassing her, following her around or what?”
Saying this upside down in a serious tone and making it work.
Lucy said, “It’s okay, Ben, he’s not bothering me.”
Ben Stack grunted, unhooking his gravity boots, and landing on his feet. Stack was 235 and maybe 6'5", late forties. He said to Lucy. “You sure he’s not some kind of stalker?”
Lucy laughed. “As you can see, Ben’s protective. Sometimes a little too protective.”
Stack said, “Lotta weirdoes out there, Luce. Like your last guy.”
“He wasn’t my last guy, Ben.”
Stack shrugged. “I assume this is about Celeste Parks? I’ve been out where they don’t cover the news so well, in the Andes, but Lucy filled me in. What can I do?’
Dent detailed what Newhouse had said about the masks.
“Sounds pretty thorough,” Stack said, slipping on a work boot. “Though he didn’t mention that dancers wearing the masks were believed to become the spirits with all the commensurate powers.” Stacked shrugged, slipping on another boot. “As far as who you’d sell the stuff to, I wouldn’t have the foggiest. I’m not involved in the miserly hoarding of history’s relics.” Stack crossed the office, picking up balls. “I’m of the opinion they’re more suitable for public consumption than private . . . That said, I’ll get down off my soapbox.”
“You know anything about numerology?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Whoever killed Mrs. Parks removed her face and cut pentagrams into her skin.”
Placing the bucket of balls on a pile of books rising from the floor, Stack said, “That’s not numerology, Detective. That’s witchcraft.”
Dent nodded. “But the pentagrams are comprised of five cuts radiating in twenties down the limbs, four hundred cuts in all. Also, he severed her arms and legs but let them be. Does that mean anything?”
Stack frowned. “You looking for a ritual or what?”
“I’m looking for something to work with. Whoever murdered Mrs. Parks knew something about Indians because he knew about the masks. So, yeah, maybe this is a ritual of some Indian tribe or something that this wacko’s replicating.”
Stack shook his head. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds more like the Aztecs. But I’ve never heard of a ritual like you’re describing.”
Dent said, “The Aztecs were the ones cut out their victms’ hearts, right?”
Stack’s eyes refocused on Dent. “Among other things. Brutally militaristic, brave and arguably ancient history’s greatest warriors. They worshipped Huitzilopochtli, the war god. Myth has it that his mother, after giving birth to the moon and stars, made a vow of chastity but became miraculously pregnant with Huitzilopochtli. His sister, the moon goddess, gathered the other gods to kill mom but one god ran ahead and warned Huitzilopochtli, who burst from her womb, fully armed. He killed the moon and brought day. So Huitzilopochtli had the strength to chase off the night and bring day— thereby avoiding Armageddon— his priests fed him a steady diet of human blood and hearts. Worshipping him, the Aztecs seized an empire bigger than Italy, still growing when the Spanish arrived in 1519. Funny thing is, the Aztec priests in fact believed they were in the final world and that destruction was imminent. Montezuma allowed Cortez to destroy everything with only 600 men and a few rival Indian tribes because he believed Cortez was the god Quetzalcoatl returned from across the sea and because destruction was the Aztec’s destiny. At its fall, the Aztec’s capital was bigger than the biggest city in Spain at the time, capital of a vanquished civilization that once numbered over six million.” Stack smiled. “The Reader’s Digest condensed history.”
“But is there a connection?”
“Perhaps. After a victim’s heart was cut out, the Aztec priests tossed them down the steps of the Great Temple, hacked the limbs off and spread them around. Were there any bite marks?”
“No. Why?”
“For Aztec warrior societies, eating human flesh at feast was a celebration.”
“Jesus. What about the number of cuts on the body?”
Stack tugged at his beard. “You know, the numbers are divisible into twenty. The Maya used a twenty-based number system, the visegimal system, where ours is based on ten.”
“A colleague mentioned that. Think it means something?”
“Probably just a coincidence. Two different civilizations, the Maya and Aztecs.” Stack sighed.
“Listen, I’ll see what I can dig up. Probably nothing to it, but who knows.”
LUCY AND DENT were in the Sprint, headed for the Pit where Lucy was parked.
Dent saying, “Thanks for waiting, but you didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
They stopped at a crosswalk, two college kids, in some animated conversation, crossing.
“You like old sci-fi movies, Vince?”
“Favorite movie as a kid was The Blob. Why?”
“I saw a flyer for a showing of 2001 on campus tomorrow night. We could meet.” Lucy pointed at a red Jeep. “That’s me.”
Dent angled towards it, nodding. “Sure. I’m game.”
Lucy took a pen and a piece of paper from her purse. “In case something comes up, here’s my number. Least I think that’s it. I just moved.”
Dent watched her climb into the jeep. Looked down at the piece of paper — actually a business card, phone number on the back— and turned it over. Lucille M. Blackfoot, PhD.
THEY WERE ROLLING down Garnet in Pacific Beach, McClain gazing out the passenger window. They’d discussed the Parks and Mirabella cases on the ride up I-5, but passing the shops and the bars, silence reigned— McClain staring at beach bunnies on Roller blades and mountain bikes, occasionally commenting; Dent was thinking about Lucy.
McClain broke the silence with, “So who’s better, Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard?”
Dent said, “On Star Trek?” making a right onto Mission Beach Boulevard, heading north.
“Yeah.”
“Better as in tougher or smarter?”
“Both.”
Dent shrugged, glancing at a surf shop had a couple of girls in bikinis dancing in the window.
“Physically, Kirk’d beat Picard nine times out of ten. He’s got the judo moves.”
McClain had noticed the girls too, head swiveling as they passed. “Yeah, but they’re bogus. The two-handed club on the back, the karate chop to the neck . . . that shit doesn’t work.”
“You ever try it?”
“In junior high I did. Got my ass kicked s’what happened.”
“Is that right? Well still, Kirk’s bigger, more of a bad ass than Picard . . . Picard’s just a skinny little rat. And he never does any fighting, not like Kirk.”
“Picard doesn’t need to. Picard’s smarter.”
“Give me a break. Look at the stuff Kirk got the Enterprise out of. Remember when the Enterprise went back in time and they took out that guy wanted to start a nuclear war? Mister Seven? Kirk always had a plan.”
“So does Picard. And he’s erudite.”
“Erudite?”
“Erudite. That’s a new word Katey taught me. Means educated.”
“Why not say ‘Educated?’”
“It’s good to use big words. You come across as smarter.”
Dent smiled. “Junior, it takes more than big words to make you smart.”
“Yeah, alright. Point is, Picard could out-think Kirk in a minute. He’s a better captain.”
“Yeah? Well let me put it on your level. Who gets more women?”
McClain slowly turned his head to look at Dent. Smiled, acknowledging defeat. Crossed his legs, left ankle on right knee, and looked back at the road. “Okay, who’s the better science officer, Data or Spock?”
THEY WERE IN MIRABELLA’S HOME OFFICE, Walt Bishop slipping on a pair of gloves and saying, “I’ll bring up the DOS shell first and see what we got . . . Uh-oh.”
The screen was black except for white letters stating: “Hard Drive Unformatted- Format Hard Drive (y/n).
McClain said, “What’s that mean?”
“It mean’s whatever resided on the hard drive’s been wiped clean.”
Dent said, “Can you fix it?”
“I can reformat the hard drive, but the drive’s been wiped.”
“Maybe the Windows part is corrupted,” McClain said, “like what that dude from Comp USA was talking about. Maybe it’s a virus.”
“Nope. Someone manually entered commands to wipe the drive.”
Dent said, “Mirabella’s killer wiped the files after because Mirabella had something on his computer we weren’t supposed to see.”
“That’s not exactly right. You remember how you told Jerry not to touch anything?”
“You’re kidding me,” Dent said. “He screwed up the drive?”
Shaking his head, Bishop said, “No, but Jerry just got a computer and you know how expensive software is. He was looking to see if there was anything on here he needed. Maybe make a copy, save a couple a bucks. You know Jerry. Thing is, I told him to shut it off, on account of what you’d said about the golf clubs and he shut it right down—” Bishop snapped his fingers “—just like that.”
“Walt, you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Bishop nodded. “It was formatted when we left. Somebody came after and cleaned it.”
Dent stared at the computer, at the brains and the blood, until McClain said, “Might not be a problem. The laptop at CompUSA, remember? Whoever ‘86'ed Mirabella probably doesn’t know it exists.”
THERE WERE NO SPACES out front CompUSA, so Dent parked on the grass.
Getting out, McClain said, “So how many parking tickets you got?”
“Couple.”
“Right,” McClain said, “and since I’ve known you, you’ve gotten twenty easy.”
“You counting?”
“If I was I’d give you an exact number.”
Electronic doors slid open as Dent said, “Being the erudite kind of guy you are.”
There was a customer service counter with a couple teens behind it and, before it, a line of angry folks clutching computers and boxes of software; validating Dent’s basic belief that computers were crap.
Flashing badge, Dent said, “San Diego PD. We need to talk to Benny.”
Benny was an Asian kid with a pierced eyebrow they took outside. Under that blazing sun, Dent asked, “So you took the computer in from Mr. Mirabella?”
“Yeah. He was really angry about his laptop not working, he’d just bought it. Said he wanted his money back and all this stuff, but the thirty-day guarantee was up, so all we could do was guarantee he’d have his laptop back within 72 hours.”
“How’d Mirabella seem to you emotionally? He seem frantic at all?”
Shaking his head, Benny said, “No, just really pissed. Yelling and telling my boss to fu—” Benny caught himself.
Dent said, “He told your boss to fuck off?”
“Yeah. Right.” Benny shrugged. “I ran a diagnostic in DOS and saw some corrupted files.
Made a copy of his hard-drive in case something went wrong, then I reloaded the Windows files and the whole thing took maybe an hour. Then I called Mr. Mirabella.”
McClain said, “Benny, you go into Windows to make sure everything worked?”
“I always do.”
“What kind of files were on it, what kind of programs?”
“I couldn’t look at his files. They were encrypted. Never seen an encryption program like that, it seemed pretty hard core.”
Dent looked at McClain and smiled. “Bingo.”
DENT CHECKED THE LAPTOP in with Lou Cano down at the evidence cage. Then, upstairs in Homicide, he found the fax from Newhouse on his desk. He started dialing through the numbers of the antiquities houses. Two thirds down the list, he’d basically uncovered nothing except that most people knew Celeste Parks but hadn’t spoken with her in a while.
At three o’clock, Dent dialed Gideon Pope.
GIDEON POPE SAT in a booth reading a menu, clad in the uniform of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: dark blue suit, striped regimental tie. His hair was parted sharply on the side, his face creased with smile lines. 19 years Pope had spent with the FBI, three as Special Agent In Charge of the San Diego office; Dent had known him for the last eleven. Pope looked up as Dent sat across from him.
“Why is it when you buy lunch, we end up at Denny’s and when I buy, you say you want Italian and we eat at Stephano’s?”
Dent smiled. “Because Feds make all the money, Gid. What’re you getting?”
“Superbird no mayo.”
A busboy set a couple waters on the table as Dent said, “How’s Margie?”
Pope shrugged. “She’s driving me crazy with this floral arrangement class she’s taking. She’s always asking my opinion about what looks good and what doesn’t.”
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know flowers except that they grow on bushes and die. Then someone sells them to Margie for about a dollar a piece and she asks if they go together.”
Dent ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a coke. “So what’s doing with the Hoover boys? Anything interesting?”
“We’re working on a cocaine-smuggling operation involving the chief of Tijuana PD.”
“Sounds like DEA more than you guys.”
“You haven’t heard the kicker.” Pope leaned back, seeming to consider what he was saying.
“Vince, if we hadn’t been friends for so long, I’d never tell you this, but I’d like someone inside SDPD I can trust.” His voice dropping, Pope said, “There’s involvement from San Diego PD.”
“How high up we talking?”
“Our snitch says it goes clear to the top, but we’ve got conflicting details that make it sketchy. You know these guys, they think they can cut a deal by telling pretend stories.”
“You’re certain SDPD’s involved, though?”
“We’ve got independent confirmation.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Keep an eye out. Flashy cars, new suits, something indicating a significant source of new income. If you catch something—” The waitress dropped off the burger and Superbird. When she was a suitable distance away, Pope said, “Call me from outside SDPD. If they’re in this deep, you don’t know what these cops will do. So don’t play the cowboy.”
Dent nodded, pouring ketchup and thinking about what Pope was saying . . . Coke-dealing cops. . . The world’s going to hell fast.
Pope said, “People never get things right these days,” scraping mayo off his Superbird. “So tell me about this case you’re working on. This is the Parks’ case, correct?”
Dent stuck a fry in his mouth. “Right. I’ve got a copy of the case file—” sliding the file across the table “— I want your profiler to look at. Tell us about who we’re dealing with.”
Pope opened the file, glanced at a couple pictures, frowning, and closed it. He shoved his Superbird aside. “Thanks a lot,” he said, frowning distastefully. He took an experimental bite of Superbird. Then pushed it away again. “Look, I’ll fax this stuff to Quantico and see what they come up with. Those guys love the elaborate nuts, it gives them more to work with. And judging by this—” tapping the file “—they should be able to work up a regular treatise. Probably tell you if the bastard prefers Coke or Pepsi.”
DENT SAID TO THE GUY, “Hey, you know where I can find Storm Hall?” Lost as hell on the San Diego State campus, but thinking he was in the general vicinity.
The guy—dark-skinned and looking like he’d look perfect wearing Newhouse’s Cheyenne war bonnet, a regular White Buffalo-look-alike— he said, “I’m not sure. I’m just visiting myself,” in a weirdly sophisticated Spanish accent before walking away. Dent shrugged and kept asking.
Turned out Storm Hall, where Ben Stack’s office was located, was the building they’d been standing before, an unimpressive, un-Storm-like building with half-dead ivy in the flower beds.
Dent punched the second floor button. When the elevator-door opened, Lucy Blackfoot looked Dent dead in the eyes.
“Oh brother, I’m being stalked by Barney Fife.”
Very deadpan.
Dent said, “And I’m thinking the same thing . . . Except I don’t know any famous anthropologists besides that guy Leaky.”
“Stick to corpses, Vince, you’d never make it in comedy.” Lucy smiled a little. “You’re not really following me are you? Because I’d like to know if you are so I can try to ditch you . . . find some tunnel and lose you like in The Third Man.”
“You know The Third Man?”
“Joseph Cotton’s best. I fit stuff like that around F-Troop and other great westerns.” Lucy smiled. “You’re here to see Ben. C’mon, I’ll take you up.”
Boarding the elevator, she waved the paper in her hand. “I’m applying for a job. One of Ben’s colleagues is starting a project in New Mexico. State needs something on file to pay me.”
“Digging for pots?”
Lucy nodded. “Hope Ben can help. He’s busy researching a legend that has the Incas sailing to Asia in the 14th century, meaning they discovered Asia a hundred years before Columbus discovered the New World.”
Lucy led them to an office within which a big bearded guy hung upside down, like a giant bat, wearing gravity boots and throwing balls at a bucket; balls surrounded the bucket. He threw one more and said, “You wanna hand me a couple of those?”
Dent handed balls to the guy he assumed was Dr. Benjamin Stack, noted anthropological genius and bat. Stack hit one of three and said to Lucy: “ Forget the application?”
Lucy shook her head. “I was helping this gentlemen find you. Dr. Ben Stack, Detective Vince Dent.”
Stack reached up a hand. Dent took it as the guy said, “So you’re the cop Lucy was talking about. What’s the deal, you harassing her, following her around or what?”
Saying this upside down in a serious tone and making it work.
Lucy said, “It’s okay, Ben, he’s not bothering me.”
Ben Stack grunted, unhooking his gravity boots, and landing on his feet. Stack was 235 and maybe 6'5", late forties. He said to Lucy. “You sure he’s not some kind of stalker?”
Lucy laughed. “As you can see, Ben’s protective. Sometimes a little too protective.”
Stack said, “Lotta weirdoes out there, Luce. Like your last guy.”
“He wasn’t my last guy, Ben.”
Stack shrugged. “I assume this is about Celeste Parks? I’ve been out where they don’t cover the news so well, in the Andes, but Lucy filled me in. What can I do?’
Dent detailed what Newhouse had said about the masks.
“Sounds pretty thorough,” Stack said, slipping on a work boot. “Though he didn’t mention that dancers wearing the masks were believed to become the spirits with all the commensurate powers.” Stacked shrugged, slipping on another boot. “As far as who you’d sell the stuff to, I wouldn’t have the foggiest. I’m not involved in the miserly hoarding of history’s relics.” Stack crossed the office, picking up balls. “I’m of the opinion they’re more suitable for public consumption than private . . . That said, I’ll get down off my soapbox.”
“You know anything about numerology?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Whoever killed Mrs. Parks removed her face and cut pentagrams into her skin.”
Placing the bucket of balls on a pile of books rising from the floor, Stack said, “That’s not numerology, Detective. That’s witchcraft.”
Dent nodded. “But the pentagrams are comprised of five cuts radiating in twenties down the limbs, four hundred cuts in all. Also, he severed her arms and legs but let them be. Does that mean anything?”
Stack frowned. “You looking for a ritual or what?”
“I’m looking for something to work with. Whoever murdered Mrs. Parks knew something about Indians because he knew about the masks. So, yeah, maybe this is a ritual of some Indian tribe or something that this wacko’s replicating.”
Stack shook his head. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds more like the Aztecs. But I’ve never heard of a ritual like you’re describing.”
Dent said, “The Aztecs were the ones cut out their victms’ hearts, right?”
Stack’s eyes refocused on Dent. “Among other things. Brutally militaristic, brave and arguably ancient history’s greatest warriors. They worshipped Huitzilopochtli, the war god. Myth has it that his mother, after giving birth to the moon and stars, made a vow of chastity but became miraculously pregnant with Huitzilopochtli. His sister, the moon goddess, gathered the other gods to kill mom but one god ran ahead and warned Huitzilopochtli, who burst from her womb, fully armed. He killed the moon and brought day. So Huitzilopochtli had the strength to chase off the night and bring day— thereby avoiding Armageddon— his priests fed him a steady diet of human blood and hearts. Worshipping him, the Aztecs seized an empire bigger than Italy, still growing when the Spanish arrived in 1519. Funny thing is, the Aztec priests in fact believed they were in the final world and that destruction was imminent. Montezuma allowed Cortez to destroy everything with only 600 men and a few rival Indian tribes because he believed Cortez was the god Quetzalcoatl returned from across the sea and because destruction was the Aztec’s destiny. At its fall, the Aztec’s capital was bigger than the biggest city in Spain at the time, capital of a vanquished civilization that once numbered over six million.” Stack smiled. “The Reader’s Digest condensed history.”
“But is there a connection?”
“Perhaps. After a victim’s heart was cut out, the Aztec priests tossed them down the steps of the Great Temple, hacked the limbs off and spread them around. Were there any bite marks?”
“No. Why?”
“For Aztec warrior societies, eating human flesh at feast was a celebration.”
“Jesus. What about the number of cuts on the body?”
Stack tugged at his beard. “You know, the numbers are divisible into twenty. The Maya used a twenty-based number system, the visegimal system, where ours is based on ten.”
“A colleague mentioned that. Think it means something?”
“Probably just a coincidence. Two different civilizations, the Maya and Aztecs.” Stack sighed.
“Listen, I’ll see what I can dig up. Probably nothing to it, but who knows.”
LUCY AND DENT were in the Sprint, headed for the Pit where Lucy was parked.
Dent saying, “Thanks for waiting, but you didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
They stopped at a crosswalk, two college kids, in some animated conversation, crossing.
“You like old sci-fi movies, Vince?”
“Favorite movie as a kid was The Blob. Why?”
“I saw a flyer for a showing of 2001 on campus tomorrow night. We could meet.” Lucy pointed at a red Jeep. “That’s me.”
Dent angled towards it, nodding. “Sure. I’m game.”
Lucy took a pen and a piece of paper from her purse. “In case something comes up, here’s my number. Least I think that’s it. I just moved.”
Dent watched her climb into the jeep. Looked down at the piece of paper — actually a business card, phone number on the back— and turned it over. Lucille M. Blackfoot, PhD.
THEY WERE ROLLING down Garnet in Pacific Beach, McClain gazing out the passenger window. They’d discussed the Parks and Mirabella cases on the ride up I-5, but passing the shops and the bars, silence reigned— McClain staring at beach bunnies on Roller blades and mountain bikes, occasionally commenting; Dent was thinking about Lucy.
McClain broke the silence with, “So who’s better, Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard?”
Dent said, “On Star Trek?” making a right onto Mission Beach Boulevard, heading north.
“Yeah.”
“Better as in tougher or smarter?”
“Both.”
Dent shrugged, glancing at a surf shop had a couple of girls in bikinis dancing in the window.
“Physically, Kirk’d beat Picard nine times out of ten. He’s got the judo moves.”
McClain had noticed the girls too, head swiveling as they passed. “Yeah, but they’re bogus. The two-handed club on the back, the karate chop to the neck . . . that shit doesn’t work.”
“You ever try it?”
“In junior high I did. Got my ass kicked s’what happened.”
“Is that right? Well still, Kirk’s bigger, more of a bad ass than Picard . . . Picard’s just a skinny little rat. And he never does any fighting, not like Kirk.”
“Picard doesn’t need to. Picard’s smarter.”
“Give me a break. Look at the stuff Kirk got the Enterprise out of. Remember when the Enterprise went back in time and they took out that guy wanted to start a nuclear war? Mister Seven? Kirk always had a plan.”
“So does Picard. And he’s erudite.”
“Erudite?”
“Erudite. That’s a new word Katey taught me. Means educated.”
“Why not say ‘Educated?’”
“It’s good to use big words. You come across as smarter.”
Dent smiled. “Junior, it takes more than big words to make you smart.”
“Yeah, alright. Point is, Picard could out-think Kirk in a minute. He’s a better captain.”
“Yeah? Well let me put it on your level. Who gets more women?”
McClain slowly turned his head to look at Dent. Smiled, acknowledging defeat. Crossed his legs, left ankle on right knee, and looked back at the road. “Okay, who’s the better science officer, Data or Spock?”
THEY WERE IN MIRABELLA’S HOME OFFICE, Walt Bishop slipping on a pair of gloves and saying, “I’ll bring up the DOS shell first and see what we got . . . Uh-oh.”
The screen was black except for white letters stating: “Hard Drive Unformatted- Format Hard Drive (y/n).
McClain said, “What’s that mean?”
“It mean’s whatever resided on the hard drive’s been wiped clean.”
Dent said, “Can you fix it?”
“I can reformat the hard drive, but the drive’s been wiped.”
“Maybe the Windows part is corrupted,” McClain said, “like what that dude from Comp USA was talking about. Maybe it’s a virus.”
“Nope. Someone manually entered commands to wipe the drive.”
Dent said, “Mirabella’s killer wiped the files after because Mirabella had something on his computer we weren’t supposed to see.”
“That’s not exactly right. You remember how you told Jerry not to touch anything?”
“You’re kidding me,” Dent said. “He screwed up the drive?”
Shaking his head, Bishop said, “No, but Jerry just got a computer and you know how expensive software is. He was looking to see if there was anything on here he needed. Maybe make a copy, save a couple a bucks. You know Jerry. Thing is, I told him to shut it off, on account of what you’d said about the golf clubs and he shut it right down—” Bishop snapped his fingers “—just like that.”
“Walt, you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Bishop nodded. “It was formatted when we left. Somebody came after and cleaned it.”
Dent stared at the computer, at the brains and the blood, until McClain said, “Might not be a problem. The laptop at CompUSA, remember? Whoever ‘86'ed Mirabella probably doesn’t know it exists.”
THERE WERE NO SPACES out front CompUSA, so Dent parked on the grass.
Getting out, McClain said, “So how many parking tickets you got?”
“Couple.”
“Right,” McClain said, “and since I’ve known you, you’ve gotten twenty easy.”
“You counting?”
“If I was I’d give you an exact number.”
Electronic doors slid open as Dent said, “Being the erudite kind of guy you are.”
There was a customer service counter with a couple teens behind it and, before it, a line of angry folks clutching computers and boxes of software; validating Dent’s basic belief that computers were crap.
Flashing badge, Dent said, “San Diego PD. We need to talk to Benny.”
Benny was an Asian kid with a pierced eyebrow they took outside. Under that blazing sun, Dent asked, “So you took the computer in from Mr. Mirabella?”
“Yeah. He was really angry about his laptop not working, he’d just bought it. Said he wanted his money back and all this stuff, but the thirty-day guarantee was up, so all we could do was guarantee he’d have his laptop back within 72 hours.”
“How’d Mirabella seem to you emotionally? He seem frantic at all?”
Shaking his head, Benny said, “No, just really pissed. Yelling and telling my boss to fu—” Benny caught himself.
Dent said, “He told your boss to fuck off?”
“Yeah. Right.” Benny shrugged. “I ran a diagnostic in DOS and saw some corrupted files.
Made a copy of his hard-drive in case something went wrong, then I reloaded the Windows files and the whole thing took maybe an hour. Then I called Mr. Mirabella.”
McClain said, “Benny, you go into Windows to make sure everything worked?”
“I always do.”
“What kind of files were on it, what kind of programs?”
“I couldn’t look at his files. They were encrypted. Never seen an encryption program like that, it seemed pretty hard core.”
Dent looked at McClain and smiled. “Bingo.”
DENT CHECKED THE LAPTOP in with Lou Cano down at the evidence cage. Then, upstairs in Homicide, he found the fax from Newhouse on his desk. He started dialing through the numbers of the antiquities houses. Two thirds down the list, he’d basically uncovered nothing except that most people knew Celeste Parks but hadn’t spoken with her in a while.
At three o’clock, Dent dialed Gideon Pope.
GIDEON POPE SAT in a booth reading a menu, clad in the uniform of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: dark blue suit, striped regimental tie. His hair was parted sharply on the side, his face creased with smile lines. 19 years Pope had spent with the FBI, three as Special Agent In Charge of the San Diego office; Dent had known him for the last eleven. Pope looked up as Dent sat across from him.
“Why is it when you buy lunch, we end up at Denny’s and when I buy, you say you want Italian and we eat at Stephano’s?”
Dent smiled. “Because Feds make all the money, Gid. What’re you getting?”
“Superbird no mayo.”
A busboy set a couple waters on the table as Dent said, “How’s Margie?”
Pope shrugged. “She’s driving me crazy with this floral arrangement class she’s taking. She’s always asking my opinion about what looks good and what doesn’t.”
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know flowers except that they grow on bushes and die. Then someone sells them to Margie for about a dollar a piece and she asks if they go together.”
Dent ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a coke. “So what’s doing with the Hoover boys? Anything interesting?”
“We’re working on a cocaine-smuggling operation involving the chief of Tijuana PD.”
“Sounds like DEA more than you guys.”
“You haven’t heard the kicker.” Pope leaned back, seeming to consider what he was saying.
“Vince, if we hadn’t been friends for so long, I’d never tell you this, but I’d like someone inside SDPD I can trust.” His voice dropping, Pope said, “There’s involvement from San Diego PD.”
“How high up we talking?”
“Our snitch says it goes clear to the top, but we’ve got conflicting details that make it sketchy. You know these guys, they think they can cut a deal by telling pretend stories.”
“You’re certain SDPD’s involved, though?”
“We’ve got independent confirmation.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Keep an eye out. Flashy cars, new suits, something indicating a significant source of new income. If you catch something—” The waitress dropped off the burger and Superbird. When she was a suitable distance away, Pope said, “Call me from outside SDPD. If they’re in this deep, you don’t know what these cops will do. So don’t play the cowboy.”
Dent nodded, pouring ketchup and thinking about what Pope was saying . . . Coke-dealing cops. . . The world’s going to hell fast.
Pope said, “People never get things right these days,” scraping mayo off his Superbird. “So tell me about this case you’re working on. This is the Parks’ case, correct?”
Dent stuck a fry in his mouth. “Right. I’ve got a copy of the case file—” sliding the file across the table “— I want your profiler to look at. Tell us about who we’re dealing with.”
Pope opened the file, glanced at a couple pictures, frowning, and closed it. He shoved his Superbird aside. “Thanks a lot,” he said, frowning distastefully. He took an experimental bite of Superbird. Then pushed it away again. “Look, I’ll fax this stuff to Quantico and see what they come up with. Those guys love the elaborate nuts, it gives them more to work with. And judging by this—” tapping the file “—they should be able to work up a regular treatise. Probably tell you if the bastard prefers Coke or Pepsi.”
ONE MONTH TO MIDNIGHT-Chapter 4
SUNDAY, AUGUST 7th
CORNER OF HOMICIDE, staring at monitor at seven in the morning, Dent was dialed into a database allowing him to read about Pedro “Peter” Mirabella, the stiff from Wind-N-Sea.
According to the Feds, Mirabella was born in Mexico City, son of a prominent politician who’d been snared in one of Mexico’s generational corruption sweeps, when the PRI looks to dust off its image a little. Papa Mirabella had pissed off somebody with political cajones, got set up, yanked out of office and tossed in the slam on a lifer. Typical Mexico.
Before the bottom fell out, Papa Mirabella sent Pedro to Harvard, then the Wharton School of Business. Pedro graduated with honors, top 5% of his class, but while his classmates were entering Big 8 accounting firms on the bottom floor, Mirabella was entering the crime world at the penthouse. In ‘86, he was RICO’ed for a money-laundering scheme for the Gambino family. Refusing to flip on his bosses, Pedro ended up getting 3-5 for racketeering and doing 19 months at a Club Fed facility in upstate New York.
Upon release, Mirabella disappeared from the FBI radar screen. He resurfaced in ‘91, a DEA report connecting him with the Cali Cartel. The report had Mirabella leaving the cartel in 1992 and disappearing again, and the last report, dated July ‘93, put him back in Mexico City.
Dent stretched, staring at the screen but not seeing it. Seeing Mirabella’s house in his mind’s eye, facing the Pacific, three-thousand-square feet of house in an expensive neighborhood. Rented. Dent smiled, because that’s how anybody dodging the IRS does it. If a guy’s got illegal income and no way to claim it, he rents. Maybe buys through some fish stupid enough to put it in his own name and try working some bullshit scheme to rent it back to a guy like Mirabella. Mirabella maybe giving thirty percent as a buyer’s fee. Dent glanced down at Walt Bishop’s report. ‘94 Porsche 956 in the garage. Dent thought, Ten to one you leased it. Pulling a phonebook from a shelf beside the monitor, he opened it to the L’s and found Lemontree Leasing.
LEMONTREE LEASING was a cottage-like affair in La Jolla with a Beemer and a Cadillac parked out front; the Beemer with a LEMONTREE LEASING sticker in the rear window.
A note on the cottage’s door informed Dent somebody would be ‘Back in one hour- Showing Property.’ On impulse, he tried the door, found it unlocked and entered. Inside were lots of plants but no sign of any lemon trees or leasing agents. Through a window, Dent could see into a private office. Empty.
He called out, “San Diego PD. Anybody here?” and heard a thump, like something had fallen over. He thought of the sign on the door and put a hand on the butt of his .45. “San Diego PD. Anybody here?” He moved so he could see down a hallway, in the direction of the thumping. A couple of open doors were on the left, one closed at the end with a sign on the door stating: Joyce Lemon, Broker. Hearing voices through the door, Dent loosened the .45 in its holster, said, “San Diego PD . . . who’s back there?” and started down the hall.
Abruptly, the door opened and a platinum blonde in her fifties exited the office, pulling the door closed behind her. “Can I help you?” Out of breath in a gold lamé pantsuit, buttons up the front, the collar of the suit disheveled and plum-colored lipstick smudged around her mouth.
“I’m Detective Dent with San Diego PD investigating a homicide. I want to ask some questions about a dead ex-tenant of yours.”
“Oh. Mr. Mirabella.” The woman kind of turned her head to the side, glancing behind her . . . Who’s in the office? . . . and back at Dent. Clasping her hands together, smiling a big real-estate agent’s smile, she said, “Maybe we could talk about this later, schedule an appointment? How’s tomorrow sound?” Smiling broadly and pushing a strand of platinum hair behind her ear.
Dent smiled back, indicating he understood all, was in fact the most empathetic man in all of San Diego, then shook his head. “Unfortunately, this is a homicide and with these types of cases, murder and all, my boss thinks it’s best we get right on them.” He shrugged. Mr. Agreeable.
“Unh-hunh.” Ms. Lemon’s tongue popped out, licking a corner of her plummy lipstick-smudged mouth. “Well I’m busy right this minute, but if you want to come back in a while . . .”
“No problem, I’ll read a magazine while you wrap up whatever you were doing. Heard voices so I assume I caught you in a meeting.” He waved at the door. “By the way, your note says you’re out. I guess you forgot to take it down when you got back.” Dent strode to the door, “Let me get it for you,” removed the sign, “don’t want to chase away any sales,” and handed it to Ms. Lemon, who’d turned to look down the hallway at that closed door.
Ms. Lemon took the note and sighed. Said, “I’ll need a moment,” and stalked down the hallway, squeezing the note in her fist. It was a tiny ball when she reached the door, knocked once, and slipped within.
Dent sat on the couch, smiling while selecting last month’s San Diego Magazine, one with a cover featuring summer casseroles, and was halfway through Avocado Delight when Ms. Lemon returned; the lipstick was wiped from her face and her collar corrected. “Now what can I do for you, Detective . . . What was your name?”
“Dent. I want to find out a little about Mr. Mirabella.”
“Yes, I know, but you said it was a homicide. I thought it was suicide.”
Dent nodded, because that’s exactly what Decker had told the press. The judgment being that if someone wanted Mirabella’s death to look like suicide, it was best to keep them thinking the cops believed the same. “That’s right, but we have to be thorough. Anyway, tell me about Mirabella. First off, I figure he paid his rent on time and he paid cash. Am I right?”
“Yes, but how did you know he paid cash?”
Dent shrugged. “Lucky guess. How long did he live there?”
“Five months the first of September.”
“Unh-hunh. And do you recall how his credit looked when he moved in?”
Joyce Lemon studied Dent’s eyes. Making a decision. “He had excellent credit.”
And deciding wrong. Dent said, “How much was the deposit?”
“That’s confidential.”
“Confidential? It’s a deposit. Why’s it confidential?”
“I don’t own these homes, Detective, I manage them and see they’re occupied.”
“But if I was planning on renting one, you’d tell me what the deposit was. That’s the way it works, right?”
“Yes, but you’re not planning on leasing one of these places. I’ll need permission from the owners before I can release that information.”
Dent nodded. “That’s a nice car you have out front. The BMW’s yours?”
Ms. Lemon nodded cautiously. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking about the fact that a Seven-series BMW costs quite a lot. Big payments. You making payments on it?”
“That’s a personal question I don’t deign to answer,” Ms. Lemon said. Way she said it, Dent knew the woman was paying every month.
“Look,” Dent said, “I’ll level with you. I know Pedro Mirabella didn’t have a credit history, excellent or doodly-squat. So, basically, I know you lied to a peace officer, which is currently against the law. If convicted, the sentence is up to one year in the Los Colinas women’s facility in Santee.” Dent let that little nugget sink before saying, “Wanna know why I think you lied?”
Joyce Lemon said nothing. All big blue eyes. Amateur.
“How’s this: you discovered Pedro Mirabella had no credit history and told him you couldn’t rent to him. Now Pedro, he’d probably heard that before, what with the economy and landlords being really tight about who they rent to, but he wanted that place. I mean, it’s got one heck of a view, you know what I mean?”
Eyes, the woman nothing but eyes. Nervous eyes.
“So,” Dent continued, “Pedro offered bonus cash up front or a little extra every month on the rent to let him in the place. You’re thinking this is too good to be true, he’s paying cash, so what’s the deal, no way anybody’d know, including the IRS. Nobody gets hurt, right?”
Scared eyes.
“But your clients you work for, they certainly wouldn’t appreciate finding out that you let some no-credit loser move in. Am I right?”
Joyce Lemon said nothing and Dent knew he was.
“Ms. Lemon, don’t make me elaborate on withholding information and how it affects the previous lie and the sentencing portion of the trial.” Dent making stuff up as he went along.
Obviously, the woman didn’t watch L.A. Law and knew zilch regarding Miranda rights, because she immediately said, “Fifteen thousand. He gave me fifteen thousand for the deposit”
Dent whistled. “Wow. For most folks that’s a regular down payment. The fact he paid all that cash, didn’t you wonder where he got the money? Just a little?”
Joyce Lemon said nothing.
“He by any chance fill out an application, give any names as credit references?”
She shook her head.
“Hunh. Well, thank you for all your help. I’ll just let myself out.” Dent crossed the little office, opened the door and stood there regarding Joyce Lemon. “Oh, by the way? You missed two buttons. Here and here.” Dent smiled. “Have yourself a nice day, ma’am.”
DRIVING HOME, DENT WAS ABLE to resolve three things. One, because of the cash, Mirabella was doing crime. Two, the crime was probably drug-related and Mirabella’s murder had something to do with drugs. And three, because the man was an accountant, that something was probably on the computer. In the form of a file.
Dent glanced at his watch. It was 5:30, it was Sunday and he was tired. But tomorrow we’ll take a look at that computer . . . Maybe find out what he was killed about . . . And maybe even who did it.
CORNER OF HOMICIDE, staring at monitor at seven in the morning, Dent was dialed into a database allowing him to read about Pedro “Peter” Mirabella, the stiff from Wind-N-Sea.
According to the Feds, Mirabella was born in Mexico City, son of a prominent politician who’d been snared in one of Mexico’s generational corruption sweeps, when the PRI looks to dust off its image a little. Papa Mirabella had pissed off somebody with political cajones, got set up, yanked out of office and tossed in the slam on a lifer. Typical Mexico.
Before the bottom fell out, Papa Mirabella sent Pedro to Harvard, then the Wharton School of Business. Pedro graduated with honors, top 5% of his class, but while his classmates were entering Big 8 accounting firms on the bottom floor, Mirabella was entering the crime world at the penthouse. In ‘86, he was RICO’ed for a money-laundering scheme for the Gambino family. Refusing to flip on his bosses, Pedro ended up getting 3-5 for racketeering and doing 19 months at a Club Fed facility in upstate New York.
Upon release, Mirabella disappeared from the FBI radar screen. He resurfaced in ‘91, a DEA report connecting him with the Cali Cartel. The report had Mirabella leaving the cartel in 1992 and disappearing again, and the last report, dated July ‘93, put him back in Mexico City.
Dent stretched, staring at the screen but not seeing it. Seeing Mirabella’s house in his mind’s eye, facing the Pacific, three-thousand-square feet of house in an expensive neighborhood. Rented. Dent smiled, because that’s how anybody dodging the IRS does it. If a guy’s got illegal income and no way to claim it, he rents. Maybe buys through some fish stupid enough to put it in his own name and try working some bullshit scheme to rent it back to a guy like Mirabella. Mirabella maybe giving thirty percent as a buyer’s fee. Dent glanced down at Walt Bishop’s report. ‘94 Porsche 956 in the garage. Dent thought, Ten to one you leased it. Pulling a phonebook from a shelf beside the monitor, he opened it to the L’s and found Lemontree Leasing.
LEMONTREE LEASING was a cottage-like affair in La Jolla with a Beemer and a Cadillac parked out front; the Beemer with a LEMONTREE LEASING sticker in the rear window.
A note on the cottage’s door informed Dent somebody would be ‘Back in one hour- Showing Property.’ On impulse, he tried the door, found it unlocked and entered. Inside were lots of plants but no sign of any lemon trees or leasing agents. Through a window, Dent could see into a private office. Empty.
He called out, “San Diego PD. Anybody here?” and heard a thump, like something had fallen over. He thought of the sign on the door and put a hand on the butt of his .45. “San Diego PD. Anybody here?” He moved so he could see down a hallway, in the direction of the thumping. A couple of open doors were on the left, one closed at the end with a sign on the door stating: Joyce Lemon, Broker. Hearing voices through the door, Dent loosened the .45 in its holster, said, “San Diego PD . . . who’s back there?” and started down the hall.
Abruptly, the door opened and a platinum blonde in her fifties exited the office, pulling the door closed behind her. “Can I help you?” Out of breath in a gold lamé pantsuit, buttons up the front, the collar of the suit disheveled and plum-colored lipstick smudged around her mouth.
“I’m Detective Dent with San Diego PD investigating a homicide. I want to ask some questions about a dead ex-tenant of yours.”
“Oh. Mr. Mirabella.” The woman kind of turned her head to the side, glancing behind her . . . Who’s in the office? . . . and back at Dent. Clasping her hands together, smiling a big real-estate agent’s smile, she said, “Maybe we could talk about this later, schedule an appointment? How’s tomorrow sound?” Smiling broadly and pushing a strand of platinum hair behind her ear.
Dent smiled back, indicating he understood all, was in fact the most empathetic man in all of San Diego, then shook his head. “Unfortunately, this is a homicide and with these types of cases, murder and all, my boss thinks it’s best we get right on them.” He shrugged. Mr. Agreeable.
“Unh-hunh.” Ms. Lemon’s tongue popped out, licking a corner of her plummy lipstick-smudged mouth. “Well I’m busy right this minute, but if you want to come back in a while . . .”
“No problem, I’ll read a magazine while you wrap up whatever you were doing. Heard voices so I assume I caught you in a meeting.” He waved at the door. “By the way, your note says you’re out. I guess you forgot to take it down when you got back.” Dent strode to the door, “Let me get it for you,” removed the sign, “don’t want to chase away any sales,” and handed it to Ms. Lemon, who’d turned to look down the hallway at that closed door.
Ms. Lemon took the note and sighed. Said, “I’ll need a moment,” and stalked down the hallway, squeezing the note in her fist. It was a tiny ball when she reached the door, knocked once, and slipped within.
Dent sat on the couch, smiling while selecting last month’s San Diego Magazine, one with a cover featuring summer casseroles, and was halfway through Avocado Delight when Ms. Lemon returned; the lipstick was wiped from her face and her collar corrected. “Now what can I do for you, Detective . . . What was your name?”
“Dent. I want to find out a little about Mr. Mirabella.”
“Yes, I know, but you said it was a homicide. I thought it was suicide.”
Dent nodded, because that’s exactly what Decker had told the press. The judgment being that if someone wanted Mirabella’s death to look like suicide, it was best to keep them thinking the cops believed the same. “That’s right, but we have to be thorough. Anyway, tell me about Mirabella. First off, I figure he paid his rent on time and he paid cash. Am I right?”
“Yes, but how did you know he paid cash?”
Dent shrugged. “Lucky guess. How long did he live there?”
“Five months the first of September.”
“Unh-hunh. And do you recall how his credit looked when he moved in?”
Joyce Lemon studied Dent’s eyes. Making a decision. “He had excellent credit.”
And deciding wrong. Dent said, “How much was the deposit?”
“That’s confidential.”
“Confidential? It’s a deposit. Why’s it confidential?”
“I don’t own these homes, Detective, I manage them and see they’re occupied.”
“But if I was planning on renting one, you’d tell me what the deposit was. That’s the way it works, right?”
“Yes, but you’re not planning on leasing one of these places. I’ll need permission from the owners before I can release that information.”
Dent nodded. “That’s a nice car you have out front. The BMW’s yours?”
Ms. Lemon nodded cautiously. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just thinking about the fact that a Seven-series BMW costs quite a lot. Big payments. You making payments on it?”
“That’s a personal question I don’t deign to answer,” Ms. Lemon said. Way she said it, Dent knew the woman was paying every month.
“Look,” Dent said, “I’ll level with you. I know Pedro Mirabella didn’t have a credit history, excellent or doodly-squat. So, basically, I know you lied to a peace officer, which is currently against the law. If convicted, the sentence is up to one year in the Los Colinas women’s facility in Santee.” Dent let that little nugget sink before saying, “Wanna know why I think you lied?”
Joyce Lemon said nothing. All big blue eyes. Amateur.
“How’s this: you discovered Pedro Mirabella had no credit history and told him you couldn’t rent to him. Now Pedro, he’d probably heard that before, what with the economy and landlords being really tight about who they rent to, but he wanted that place. I mean, it’s got one heck of a view, you know what I mean?”
Eyes, the woman nothing but eyes. Nervous eyes.
“So,” Dent continued, “Pedro offered bonus cash up front or a little extra every month on the rent to let him in the place. You’re thinking this is too good to be true, he’s paying cash, so what’s the deal, no way anybody’d know, including the IRS. Nobody gets hurt, right?”
Scared eyes.
“But your clients you work for, they certainly wouldn’t appreciate finding out that you let some no-credit loser move in. Am I right?”
Joyce Lemon said nothing and Dent knew he was.
“Ms. Lemon, don’t make me elaborate on withholding information and how it affects the previous lie and the sentencing portion of the trial.” Dent making stuff up as he went along.
Obviously, the woman didn’t watch L.A. Law and knew zilch regarding Miranda rights, because she immediately said, “Fifteen thousand. He gave me fifteen thousand for the deposit”
Dent whistled. “Wow. For most folks that’s a regular down payment. The fact he paid all that cash, didn’t you wonder where he got the money? Just a little?”
Joyce Lemon said nothing.
“He by any chance fill out an application, give any names as credit references?”
She shook her head.
“Hunh. Well, thank you for all your help. I’ll just let myself out.” Dent crossed the little office, opened the door and stood there regarding Joyce Lemon. “Oh, by the way? You missed two buttons. Here and here.” Dent smiled. “Have yourself a nice day, ma’am.”
DRIVING HOME, DENT WAS ABLE to resolve three things. One, because of the cash, Mirabella was doing crime. Two, the crime was probably drug-related and Mirabella’s murder had something to do with drugs. And three, because the man was an accountant, that something was probably on the computer. In the form of a file.
Dent glanced at his watch. It was 5:30, it was Sunday and he was tired. But tomorrow we’ll take a look at that computer . . . Maybe find out what he was killed about . . . And maybe even who did it.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
ONE MONTH TO MIDNIGHT- Chapter 3
FRIDAY, AUGUST 5th
IN RUDY JUAREZ’S OFFICE, Dent sat in an orange shell-shaped chair listening to Rudy read through Celeste Parks’ case-file and craving a hit of scotch. It wasn’t until Rudy came to the toxin that thoughts of scotch receded from mind.
“Natural toxin? You mean like snake venom?”
“Or a spider or plant. Stimulates the body into producing large amounts of coagulants that kept the victim from bleeding to death immediately.” Rudy flipped a page. “Said toxin was injected through two holes at the base of the victim’s neck, perfectly spaced.” A photo showed Celeste Parks’ neck enlarged about three times with a ruler beside it.
“Looks like a vampire bit her.”
“A little. We’re running more tests, get a better bead on the toxin.” Rudy flipped another photo in front of Dent, this one showing the pentagrams. “The incisions are in fives, forming pentagrams. Eighty pentagrams with four radii off the belly button. The numbers are either divisible by or into twenty and I believe there’s a twenty-based number system. Regardless, there’s obviously some logic attached to the perp’s methodology, perhaps witchcraft or Satanism.” Rudy returned to his notes. “Victim blood-alcohol was point-one-one. Also found traces of cocaine. Abrasions on her wrists indicate she was cuffed.”
“Any sign of rape?”
“Well, the victim apparently was planning on sex . . . a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly were found in the vaginal cavity. But there’s no evidence of sexual intercourse whatsoever. No clues on the drink glasses and the fiber sweep netted nothing useful. Tent stakes are high-quality, get them at any good camping supply store and nothing yet from the shower.” Rudy closed the folder. “If Parks’ story checks out like you think, then what?”
Dent shook his head, feeling scotch-thoughts rising in the back of his brain. “We’re checking M.O.’s with Gideon Pope at the Bureau. Got a date book I’m working through, see if anything comes up. Story’s been leading off every newscast, so maybe someone’ll call saying they saw something.” Standing up, he said, “So far, though, we’ve got nada from that.” Dent shrugged. “We keep working and see what happens.”
Rudy followed Dent out. “Why don’t you come by for dinner next week. Carmen has a girlfriend she’d like you to meet.”
“Maybe in a couple weeks, Rudy, I’ve got this case and a lot of work to sort through and progress reports—”
“Put it off and come over. Carmen’s girlfriend is supposed to be a real dish.”
Dent smiled. “Maybe when things calm down.”
“You know . . . that’s just what you’ve been saying since it happened. You need to get over it, Vince, put it behind you. It’s been nearly a year.”
“I know how long it’s been, Rudy. And right now, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Rudy frowned, shaking his head. “Yeah . . . yeah, you always say that, too.”
A HASTILY SCRIBBLED NOTE taped to Dent’s phone said McClain had received a tip from a bartender at an upscale La Jolla bar called George’s and was on his way over, so . . .
For the next hour, Dent methodically dialed his way through Celeste Parks’ date-book, leaving messages on machines, talking to people. Trying to keep his mind off the image of a cinnamon-colored Buick LeSabre coming up over the hill and down Narragansett, the sun glinting off a chrome bumper. Re-living standing on the lawn, suitcases in hand, Gloria at the trunk of the car. Dent would dial a number, talk to someone and scratch the name off the list. Hang up and in his mind’s eye see the LeSabre weaving, see the little Christmas tree deodorizer swaying from the mirror. Dial another number, leave a message and remember yelling at Gloria, her head down in the trunk as she reached for the bottle of Napa white. Remember dropping the suitcases and running towards her, screaming, “GLORIA!”
McClain slumped into a chair and threw his feet on the desk. Frowning. “Friggin AC in my truck’s on the fritz and it’s like two hundred degrees outside. Feel like I’m driving a black tank in the middle of a friggin Iraqi heat wave and it’s probably gonna cost two-hundred frigging bucks to fix the thing because, of course, the warranty was up seventy-frigging-six miles ago.” McClain shook his head. “Anyway, dude, I spoke to a Julian Bennet, the bartender at George’s who called in. Says Mrs. Parks was there Wednesday night until after nine. Remembers she had a coupla tequila sunrises.”
“She come in with anybody?”
“Doesn’t think so. Says she stepped onto the patio to have a cigarette. Then some dark-haired dude in an Armani suit took a couple more sunrises to the patio. On her tab. Mrs. Parks paid the bill and Bennet doesn’t know if they left together.”
“What’s the guy look like?”
“Bennet didn’t get a good look.”
Dent said, “I’ve been to George’s, it’s a little place. Tell me how this guy stood right in front of Bennet and got two drinks without the guy getting a look?”
McClain shrugged. “According to Bennet they were busy that night. Says he wasn’t paying attention to anything but pouring drink. Mrs. Parks was a regular, sat at the bar when she got there, so that’s why he remembered her.”
“What about a waitress working the patio?”
“Yup. Name’s Andrea Rice. But guess what? She’s in Australia. Flew out yesterday.”
Dent drummed his fingers on the desk. “Alright. See what you can do about tracking her down. Maybe she’s on some tour or sightseeing expedition and we can get a hold of her. Maybe she and the Australian authorities can do up a composite. Will Bennett do one?”
McClain nodded. “But I don't think it’ll be worth a lot. Says he can’t remember what the guy really looked like. Guy’s a friggin pinhead.”
Dent turned his head, gazing out the window at the El Cortez. On the sidewalk below, a meter maid was talking to a uniformed cop, smiling and laughing a lot, opening and closing her ticket-book. “Why don’t you see if Mister Magoo will sit with Mister Jackson anyway. Make a pretty picture so I can show the Lou we’re doing something.”
*
“ . . . and I know he’s in there,” a brunette in jeans and a blazer was telling the secretary as Dent topped the stairs at the third floor of the San Diego Museum of Man, “because I saw his goddamn BMW in the lot.” The brunette with her back to Dent, facing down an older gal with steel gray hair.
The older gal saying, “And I’m telling you, Ms. Blackfoot, he’s not here. If you wish to make an appoint— Now wait a minute, you can’t go in there.”
Dent watched Ms. Blackfoot make a beeline for a door marked Dr. Frederick J. Newhouse, Curator in polished bronze. The secretary bounced from her seat—surprisingly fast for an old gal— and grabbed Ms. Blackfoot’s arm. More surprising still was Ms. Blackfoot’s deft evasion and the hard shove that sent the woman back into her wheeled desk chair and rolling into the wall as the brunette threw open the office door and entered.
Ms. Blackfoot’s voice saying: “Newhouse? Newhouse, you better not be hiding in here you crooked asshole.”
The old gal looked over at Dent. “If you need something it will have to wait.” Rushing into the office, she said: “I’ve already buzzed security, Ms. Blackfoot, I want you to know that.”
Dent drifted toward the office as Ms. Blackfoot’s voice said: “Good, call the cops, I don’t care. I just want a couple words with the sleaze-bag.”
“I told you,” Old Gal’s voice said, “Dr. Newhouse is not here . . . Excuse me, Ms. Blackfoot . . . Excuse me . . . You can’t just go opening his drawers— please stop . . . Don’t do that!”
From the doorway, Dent watched Ms. Blackfoot pull papers from the desk, glance at them and toss them on the floor. He had a clear view of her now, the dark complexion and hair pulled away from her face in a ponytail showing off high cheekbones.
“Asshole’s probably got them locked in a safe at his frigging ranch house.” She threw another handful of papers on the floor. “Asshole.”
Jingling keys announced the security guard’s arrival, a black guy with a walkie-talkie in hand.
“Where is she?”
“In here, Roger,” Old Gal called. She looked over at Ms. Blackfoot. “You can stop now, Ms. Blackfoot . . . Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here.”
Ms. Blackfoot glanced at another handful of papers and threw them on the floor. Roger the security guard circled the desk, reaching for her arm . . .
“Touch me,” Ms. Blackfoot said in a low menacing voice, “and your balls are table coasters.”
Roger the Security Guard looked at Old Gal, who shrugged, and Roger backed off.
Dent watched Ms. Blackfoot glare at the papers on the floor before she said, “You tell the crooked SOB I’ll be back.” Dent got out of the way as she stalked past, catching a whiff of some delicate perfume he was trying to identify as she slung a satchel purse over her shoulder and stormed to the head of the stairs. Descending, her voice echoed in the stairwell: “Asshole!”
Dent smiled . . . Now there’s a woman with fire in her belly . . . watching Old Gal and Roger the Guard pick up papers, just the tops of their heads visible over the desk. He knocked on the door jam. “San Diego PD? I have an appointment with Dr. Newhouse.”
Old Gal peered over the desk. “Dr. Newhouse should be back any—wait, there he is.”
Dent turned to see a guy in chinos, polo shirt and a smug half-smile emerging from a side-door.
He glanced at the stairwell and back at Dent. “I gather you’re with the police?”
Dent flashed badge. “Dent, Homicide.”
“Yes, Mrs. Thoreau told me you’d called.” Newhouse entered his office. “Gwen, I’ll take care of those papers while the detective and I talk.” He waved at a chair. “Excuse me a moment, Detective.”
Newhouse followed Roger and Mrs. Thoreau out. Dent heard them speaking in hushed tones as he sat glancing at all the stuff on the walls: a tomahawk, spears and shields, animal skins with stick-figure pictures. Beside Newhouse’s desk was a headdress on a stand, the kind chiefs in the movies wear, feathers red and white, with little black spots here and there. The whole headdress was maybe six feet long. He was admiring it up close when Newhouse’s voice said,
“That’s a Cheyenne war bonnet.” Newhouse stood beside Dent and nodded at the war bonnet. “Its owner was White Buffalo, credited with vanquishing 63 foe-men. He died in 1875 at a godforsaken place called Arroyo del Diablo. The black spots—” gesturing with a tanned hand “—are White Buffalo’s blood, killed by a U.S. Cavalry officer by the name of Jacob Sullivan-Smits, one of the butchers of Sand Creek.” Newhouse shook his head. “To the point, Captain Sullivan-Smits claimed the bonnet as a trophy and it was part of the Sullivan-Smits’ estate at the time his granddaughter died. I’m helping her heirs find a buyer. The offer includes Sullivan-Smits’ journal.”
“Why’re they selling it off?”
Newhouse smiled. “Before killing White Buffalo, Jacob spent a couple hours practicing his knife throwing. Cheyenne legend has it that as White Buffalo was about to die he cursed Sullivan-Smits’ children that they would never ‘walk the earth like men.’ Legend, of course, and there’s no mention of the curse in Sullivan-Smits’ journal, but an interesting fact is that many of his descendents are confined to wheelchairs. A couple generations passed before it was finally diagnosed as multiple sclerosis.” Newhouse reached out as if to stroke the bonnet before pulling his hand away. “Just a myth, but the Sullivan-Smits seem to have had enough of White Buffalo’s war-bonnet. I’m lending my considerable expertise and contacts in finding a buyer.” He circled his desk, picking up papers from the floor and tossing them on the desk. Sinking into a high-back chair, he said, “You’ve come to talk about Mrs. Parks.” Shaking his head. “A horrible tragedy. What can I do to help?”
“For starters, tell me how you two knew each other.”
“I met Mrs. Parks six years ago at a symposium in Phoenix. Since then, we’d worked together on fundraising mostly. Celeste was one of our most loyal benefactors for what we do.”
“Which is what? You’re the Curator of the museum, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I oversee the museum here. I’m also executive director of the Preservationist Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the Native American legacy.”
“Which does what?”
Newhouse slipped on a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses and began sorting papers. “In the main we locate and identify Native American archaeological sites, then petition for their closure to trespassers until they can be properly investigated.” Still sorting. “Too often, precious glimpses into the heritage of our land’s native inhabitants are destroyed by ignorant people in dune-buggies tearing up the remains of ancient enclaves and drinking Budweiser.”
“And people like Mrs. Parks supplied the money for your efforts. Like cash cows.”
Newhouse stopped sorting. “I don’t care for your tone, Detective, but it’s roughly correct. I must stress, though, that without money, items such as that pot there—” waving at a pot with black zig-zaggy lines like the ones at the Parks’ house “—might be on somebody’s balcony. A five-hundred year old pot predating Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World manufactured by a people, the Anasazi, who have for all intents vanished from the face of the earth growing a creeping charlie.”
Saying it like Dent should care.
Dent didn’t care. Dent said: “So when was your last contact with the victim?”
Newhouse stared at the headdress a moment. “It’s been a few weeks.”
“You remember what you talked about?”
“An off and on project we’ve been working in east Arizona— we’ve had changes to our staffing and she was afraid we’d get behind. Our permit runs out later this year.”
“Did you have a disagreement?”
Newhouse shook his head. “Quite the contrary. It was very productive. Celeste and I worked very well together.”
“Where were you Wednesday night between 11 p.m. and 3 in the morning?”
“Until after midnight, watching Letterman. Then I was in bed with my wife.”
“She’ll remember this?”
“Of course. I’m quite remarkable in bed.”
Dent frowned; he didn’t need to hear that. “Mrs. Parks had display cases full of Indian stuff. You help her get them?”
“The war bonnet being the exception, I’m not usually involved in private acquisitions.” He started sorting papers again. “She acquired her collection through antiquity auctions.”
“You familiar with the three masks?”
The sorting stopped as Newhouse looked at Dent, seeming surprised at the question. “You mean the Kwiatlu’s? Of course.”
Dent shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s what they’re called. She had three masks in a display case. Whoever killed her left with them. They a big deal?”
“Greed, Cowardice and Disharmony? Why they're fabulous. I didn’t know they’d been stolen.” Papers slipped from his fingers to the desk. “My God.”
Like somebody had stuffed the Mona Lisa down their drawers and walked out the Louvre.
Dent said, “So what’s so special about these masks?”
“The masks were commissioned by a Kwiatlu chieftain for the English admiral, Lord Albright.
They were offered as a gift at a potlatch, a celebration marked by acts of giving. The participants sought to out-do one another in generosity, also burning valuable items as sacrifices to the spirits. Anti-materialism, really. After the potlatch, Lord Albright took his masks and ships up the coast where he and his men were massacred by a rival tribe, the Tuhlingit. The masks were returned to the Kwiatlu as a rebuke by the Tuhlingit.”
All these goddamn weird-ass Indian names.
Dent said, “Phrase Indian-givers comes to mind.”
“Detective . . . the Kwiatlu were anything but Indian-givers. Sadly, around the turn of the century the potlatches were deemed a federal crime. Think about it, the act of giving articulated by white man’s law into crime. Pretty Republican, don’t you think?”
Dent said nothing; he agreed, but who needed to let a guy like Newhouse know? “Let’s say whoever murdered Mrs. Parks wanted to sell the masks. How would he go that?”
Newhouse’s brow furrowed. “I think he’d have a pretty rough go with it. See, when an antiquities house sells or buys an artifact, they keep a strict record of where the artifact was obtained, how. They also keep a description of the item itself against forgery. Now, there aren’t many places dealing in such costly and unique collectibles, so if the person who murdered Celeste tries to sell to one of the houses, you’ll find out pretty quickly who he was.”
“Can you give me a list of all these houses? I’d like to call them, let them know to keep an eye out for the masks.”
“I can have Gwen draw something up. It might take a day or so.”
“Fine. Now what about if he wanted to sell them to a private owner? An individual?”
“Again, you’re talking about people who’ve often bid on the same items at auction. I assure you, Detective, these masks are well known by the prominent collectors who knew Celeste. If someone offers the masks for sale, I’m certain the person will notify the authorities.”
Dent said nothing. Wondering how fast a guy would call the cops if he’d just spent two million and suddenly finds out how the seller got them, knowing he’d lose the masks and maybe the money too. “What if the murderer kept the masks? Do they have any special significance or’re they just art?”
Newhouse smiled, like he was enjoying some private joke. “These particular masks represent weaknesses in man and are more than just art. Things the Kwiatlu found evil . . . found in the English.” He leaned back, hands clasped with his index fingers pointed up and resting against his chin. “When storytellers spun their yarns, often they were in effect subtle morality plays. Dancers acted out elements of the story while lending instruction. Masks were believed to transfer the spirit into the dancer so great power and respect are attributed to the masks. Masks are intrinsic to the very nature of the Northwest tribes, who were perhaps the finest craftsmen of masks in the world. The art melded with the religion.”
Dent squinted at the Cheyenne war bonnet, trying to make sense of what Newhouse was saying. “The murderer removed her as yet un-located face and carved cuts into her body in the form of pentagrams . . . four hundred cuts in all. You see a possible connection?”
Appearing horrified, Newhouse said, “My God. But, no, I don’t know. Why?”
“Thought it was maybe some Indian ritual thing. Thousand cuts or something.”
Newhouse shook his head. “It’s not part of any culture I’m familiar with. But then, my focus is on artifacts. I could give you a name of someone who might be able to help, in case there’s something I’m missing— though the chances of something like that are quite slim.”
“Anything you can do to help.”
Newhouse pulled a sheet of blue paper from his desk and Dent thought about Ms. Blackfoot and the papers, wondering what she was looking for. “I’ll write his name on the back of this flyer.” He wrote it and handed the flyer to Dent. “I must warn you that he’s a little tough to work with, but he knows his field. He’s over at State.”
Dent looked at the name. Dr. Benjamin Stack. The paper was a heavy bond with little flecks of texture. He turned the paper over and saw an announcement for some fundraiser in late September, the location on a street called Newhouse Way, with a map . . .
“Newhouse Way?”
Newhouse smiled. “A hard-pan road out near Superstition Mountain in the Anza-Borrego desert. I have a house there on a hundred acres. I had the road graded so I took the liberty of naming it. Like the flyer? I did it on my Mac.”
“Yeah, it’s great.” Dent folded the flyer and shoved it in a coat-pocket. Laying a business card on the edge of the desk, said, “Let me know when you get that list together.” Rising from the chair, he nodded at the war bonnet. “Bet the transaction fee you’re getting for that baby’s gonna pave the whole road. Maybe get to put Freddy on the street sign.”
When Newhouse’s face got kind of pinched looking, Dent knew he’d guessed about right, thinking Ms. Blackfoot was right, too.
Guy’s an asshole.
*
EVEN OR SO BLOCKS FROM THE MUSEUM OF MAN, Flannigan's Alehouse was packed. Bad thing about the place? Lawyers. All kinds of them, all chattering like rats, discussing the next drug-dealer they were gonna get off on a bad-warrant claim or some personal injury asshole deciding how’d he spend his fee from the out-of-court settlement. The lawyer’s came for the sandwiches and salads, not because they were good but because they were cheap; Dent came because he was on the clock and wouldn’t see any cops. Sitting at the bar— a Glenfiddich in front of him, Black Magic Woman in his ears— Dent assembled the pieces of the case in his mind. He finished his Glenfiddich in three pulls and ordered another, listening to the samba beat of congas, Carlos Santana and his guitar slow-noting it through the key of E.
If the Perp knew her, knew the value of the masks, was this guy another collector? Dent tried imagining having the kind of money to buy the masks, 3 million, and couldn’t do it. Also couldn’t see setting himself up by leaving a solid connection for someone to follow. Dent thinking this sipping scotch and listening to Carlos . . .
Gotta black magic woman got me so blind I can't see—
. . . while all around him were lawyers in their thousand-dollar Versacci’s . . .
— that she's a black magic woman and she's trying to make a devil out of me.
. . . the lawyers specializing in drug-dealers, were in fact on retainer to drug-dealers, all these shallow shit-bags intoxicated on money, success and attitude . . .
Ms. Blackfoot sat off to one side, shoulder against a wooden pillar of the bar. She was smoking a cigarette and staring off into space, head moving subtly to Carlos and his beat . . .
Dent drained his Glenfiddich thinking maybe the perp simply stole the masks for the money. All the guy would need was someone interested in the masks, maybe someone out-country, Hong Kong, South Africa or Italy. Maybe Newhouse. Dent made a mental note to have McClain check Celeste Parks’ phone records, see if Newhouse’s name came up in the last week. Have McClain call the guy’s wife and verify his claim of being home Wednesday.
Marvin the bartender set a fresh one on the bar, no napkin. “Keep the tab going, Vince?”
“Right.” Dent sipped his drink and set it down. Lifted it up, making a wet ring, and set it down again. Thinking: Newhouse is an asshole.
The thought made him think of Ms. Blackfoot. She was now in conference with one of the lawyers, guy probably telling her all about his vacation villa in Belize . . . then, just like that, she raised her right hand into a fist, elbow on the bar, and slowly unfurled her middle finger like a flag; her middle finger flying free and unfettered and the guy staring at it like Francis Scott Key. Dent smiled.
The lawyer shook his head. Said something which induced a shrug from Ms. Blackfoot before turning and shoving off from the bar.
Ms. Blackfoot dragged on her cigarette and went back to staring off into space.
In his mind’s eye, Dent saw her storming into Newhouse’s, tossing papers on the floor, cursing the guard in that low voice . . . Touch me, and your balls are table coasters . . .
Dent grabbed his scotch and started off into the sea of lawyers like a guy swimming in the Tijuana River, jostling through the toxic crowd until he got up beside Ms. Blackfoot.
Dent saying, “Guess the guy in the suit doesn’t like birds.”
Ms. Blackfoot raised the cigarette to her lips, and drew on the cigarette. Exhaling, her head swiveled a little and out the corner of her eye, she looked him up and down. Then redirected her gaze again out over the bar. “Little old to just be getting out of law school aren’t you, sport? When’d you get that suit . . . year Carter got elected?”
Dent looked at his jacket. It was a gray-green tweedy thing Gloria’d bought him shortly after they were married. “I think it’s Reagan-era.”
“First term or second?”
“The Governor years.”
Ms. Blackfoot smiled a little.
Dent said, “You know, I’ve seen you before.”
Ms. Blackfoot looked at Dent. “Been using that line since Reagan was governor, too?” Ms.
Blackfoot smiled wearily. “Listen, sport. I just came to have a glass of wine, so don’t start with me. I’m tired. I’ve had a rough day. I’m in a bad mood and I’ve had it up to here with horny lawyers, greedy money-grubbers and with all men in general . . . the notable exception being that bartender over there. Now, why don’t you go run along and talk about sports or rutting or suing people blind or whatever else lawyers talk about.”
“You were at Newhouse’s office today, right?”
A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Ohhhhh, now I remember. So what’s the story? Newhouse acquired scruples and sent you to get me?”
“What do you think?”
Ms. Blackfoot studied Dent. Turning her gaze again to the bar, she smiled. “Not a chance.” Then, sharpening the cigarette’s ash along the ashtray edge into a point, she said, “So what’s the deal? Why’d you follow me?”
“I didn’t. So happens I stop by here for the occasional drink.”
“Wait for someone to choke on their martini olive so you can sue the bar— though judging by that suit, you haven’t won too many cases lately.”
What a bitch, Dent thought, deciding he liked her. “So what’s your story? Newhouse is looking at what, sexual harassment, wrongful termination? Sharpie in the slick suit wanted a fifty-fifty split, you gave him the bird, and now you’re pissed off at lawyers in general?”
“And you’d be willing to overlook my animosity to the profession for the fifty-fifty split?”
“It’s not my type of case.”
“No? Too sophisticated? Or not enough potential for the big bucks?”
Dent studied Ms. Blackfoot studying him, thinking her eyes were a shade of green he couldn’t nail down in the half-light of Flannigan’s. “What I can’t figure’s why Newhouse crossed you. I’m of the opinion you’re not the type takes a lot of crap from a guy like him.”
Ms. Blackfoot smiled, stubbing out her cigarette, and sipped her wine. Turned on the stool, appraising Dent again. “And what I can’t seem to figure out is how a guy who seems to be a straight shooter could work for an egotistical, smooth-talking little turd like Newhouse. What are you, a real estate lawyer helping him with his stupid road?”
“Not a chance.”
“No? Not your kind of case either, hunh. So what do you do, environmental protection lawsuits or civil rights causes or what?”
“I’m a cop.”
Ms. Blackfoot stared right back, then slowly shook her head.
Dent said, “You don’t like cops?”
“No, I have no problem with cops. My father was a cop.” Ms. Blackfoot smiled. Shaking her head again. “The suit. The suit should have tipped me off. Very stereotypical old-timey cop. Well done.”
Dent shrugged.
Ms. Blackfoot said, “Why’d you follow me?”
“I didn’t.”
“You just happened to be at Newhouse’s, then here. Pure coincidence, right?”
“I come here sometimes. You came here. It’s coincidence running into probability.”
“So I’m supposed to believe you’re a cop who likes to hang out with lawyers. Some kind of cop-to-lawyer outreach program? You’re leading the touchy-feely part of the program?”
Dent smiled. “I’m a guy who likes to drink alone.”
Ms. Blackfoot studied Dent, a lie-detector type of studying, with her eyes flicking between his— left eye, right eye, left eye, right— until she suddenly smiled, extending her hand. “Lucy Blackfoot.” Her hand was semi-rough and the grip firm.
“Vince Dent.” Dent looked up as Marvin the Bartender said to Ms. Blackfoot: “Miss? Guy there wants to buy you a drink.” Marvin yanked a thumb over his shoulder at a lawyer-type with a deep tan smiling at Ms. Blackfoot. Lots of perfect teeth. Marvin said, “You want it?”
“Tell him no thanks, I'm a big girl, I can buy my own drinks.”
Marvin nodded. “Had a feeling that's what you'd say.”
Lucy Blackfoot looked at Dent. “What were you doing at Freddy’s?”
“I wanted to talk with him about Celeste Parks. You know her?”
Lucy Blackfoot’s eyes pinched with surprise, maybe suspicion. “I know Mrs. Parks. Why, she hasn’t done something, has she?”
“You don’t know?”
Lucy said, “Know what?” bringing the cigarette to her lips, dragging—
“That’s she’s been murdered?”
—and stopping abruptly, her mouth open and smoke sifting out, swirling above their heads as she sat there wearing the clinical description of dumbfounded. “I just spoke with her last week— how?”
Dent sketched out the case.
Lucy, looking shocked, said, “I was on a dig in Arizona. I got here this morning and I’ve been so focused on my own problems that . . . Oh my god, that poor lady, I can’t believe someone would do something like that.”
“How well’d you know Mrs. Parks?”
“Only professionally. Occasionally she’d come out to the site, basically take pictures of finds and stuff. And she was passionate about Indian affairs. Wait. Is Freddy a suspect?”
“Should he be?”
Lucy stared off over the bar a moment before shaking her head. “Honestly, Freddy’s an asshole, but Freddy’s also a wimp. He’s too squeamish about blood for something like that.”
“How do you know that?”
“Freddy and I go back a bit. Here, let me give you an example.” Sharpening the tip of her cigarette into a point as she collected her thoughts, Lucy said, “Okay, last month, Freddy and I were out near the Chocolate Mountains, investigating a potential dig-site, when a coyote bolted jumped right in front of us. The coyote was hit and yanked up into the fan belt, blood and fur all over the engine compartment. It messed up the belt, and in the desert, with engines always on the verge of overheating; we’d never make it back to the highway unless we got that belt back on. Problem was, even though it was Freddy’s car, he refused to fix it. Just sat on a rock fanning himself with his ridiculous pith helmet, saying I worked for him and it was part of my job to get the belt back on.” She finished her wine. “Anyway, I managed to get the courage to get in there and re-attach the fan-belt while Freddy fanned himself and offered useless suggestions.”
“The chivalrous knight.”
“The big fat weasel. But considering that, I really don’t think he murdered Mrs. Parks.”
“Do you know about these Kwiatlu masks that were stolen from the Parks home?”
Lucy shook her head. “That’s northwest Indian. I’m southwest, mainly Anasazi.”
“How about a Dr. Benjamin Stack over at State? Is he a resource?”
“Ben’s the best, but he does Pre-Columbian. Did Freddy give you his name?”
“He said Dr. Stack might know something about the ritualized style of the incisions.”
“Maybe. Ben’s a genius. But the way you described it, it doesn’t sound Pre-Columbian to me, it sounds like witchcraft.”
Dent nodded. Figuring next he’d have to find a witchcraft expert, wondering how he go about doing that, maybe look in the yellow pages under WITCH. “So tell me,” he said, “why were you in there kicking papers around?”
Lucy shrugged. “Let’s say we’re not seeing eye to eye on something.”
“He fire you?”
“I quit.” Lucy lighted her cigarette with a book of matches labeled Flannigan’s Alehouse . . . Good Spirits, Great Spirit, little shamrocks sprinkled around the words. “We disagreed over policy. I didn’t like it so I quit.”
Lucy watching the bar. No eye contact.
“So why all the paper kicking?”
Lucy exhaled politely away from Dent before turning to regard him. “You’re not afraid to stick your nose into other people’s business, are you?” A little crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Is this line of questioning part of an investigation?”
“Basic curiosity. So why were you kicking papers back there?”
“Pardon me, Colombo, but I’m not in the habit of telling people I’ve just met about my personal business, cop or no cop. I’m funny that way.”
Not uptight about it, just matter-of-fact.
“Mind if I ask what you did for Newhouse?”
“You’re a persistent one aren’t you? Ever try sales?”
“Police raffle tickets count?”
“Bet you’re a one-man laugh riot down at the precinct house.”
Dent shrugged. “So what did you do for Newhouse?”
“Alright, you win. I’m an anthropologist specializing in the Anasazi. For the last few months I’ve headed up Freddy’s projects on the Arizona-New Mexico border.”
At that moment, Dent’s pager chirped with a number that turned out to be Lieutenant Deck, followed by 911. Excusing himself, Dent used the payphone in the bathroom.
Decker saying, “We got a guy over at Wind-N-Sea’s an apparent self-inflicted gun-shot.”
“I’m kind of busy, Deck, working the Parks case.”
“Well I got no one else, so your team’s it. Make an appearance and be done with it. Probably an open and shut suicide, you’re in, you’re out.”
Dent thought about how long it’d take to get to Wind-N-Sea and about how many times he’d heard Decker say, ‘You’re in, you’re out’. Dent said, “We got any witnesses?”
“At the present time, no.”
“So we don’t know for certain that it’s a suicide.”
“At the present time, no.”
“Unh-hunh. Alright, I’m gonna finish talking to a woman who worked for this Dr. Newhouse I spoke with today. Guy knew Celeste Parks, he’s an Indian mask expert.”
Then Dent swam back through the polluted sea of lawyers and back to where Lucy was . . . gone. Her Marlboro Lights no longer on the bar, satchel purse nowhere to be seen. He said to
Marvin, “You know when she left?”
“Soon as you went to the head.” Marvin shrugged. “Sorry, brother. That’s women.”
*
THE DEAD GUY WAS SLUMPED over in one of those ergonomically designed desk chairs, back of the chair against the desk and the desk facing the Pacific, with a miasma of blood and brain splattered on the window and falling sun seeping through the splatters. A computer was on the desk, more blood and brains on the monitor. In the corpse’s right hand was a nickel-plate .357 Chief’s Special, resting in his lap. Gathered around the corpse were Dent, McClain, Sheila Simpson and Walt Bishop; Jerry DiGraggario in the corner inspecting a set of golf clubs.
“Who found him?”
Walt Bishop said, “Plant guy.”
“Plant Guy?” Dent said. “What the hell’s a Plant Guy?”
“Guy comes in twice a week and waters and dust the plants. Says he dusted Mirabella’s plants on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
Mirabella being the corpse.
Dent said, “You’re telling me people pay other people to dust their plants?”
“Guy talks to them too, tells them what good plants they are.”
Dent scrubbed a hand across his face. “Sheila, what’s the TOD?”
“I’m gonna guess mid-day.”
Corner of his eye, Dent saw Jerry DiGraggario pull a golf club from the bag. “Must be our week to scout the rich and the dead. Anybody know what a place like this goes for?”
Walt Bishop said, “I’m betting it goes a million.”
McClain, shaking his head, said, “The guy didn’t buy it.”
“How do you know?” Sheila Simpson said.
“Sticker in the window says: If you’d like to rent this house, call Lemontree Leasing.”
Dent nodded, impressed at McClain’s observance; having noticed the sticker himself coming in and making the same deduction. He turned, watching Jerry DiGraggario swing the club in a long, perfect arc ending over his shoulder. Swing it again. Three more times, the last one really throwing in his hips—
“Jerry, what the hell’re you doing?”
DiGraggario shrugged, sighting down the club’s shaft. “Trying out these clubs. They might show up at an estate auction or something. Check em out, pretty sweet set a Pings.”
Another swing. Graceful the way he swung it, ending over his right shoulder. Smooth.
“That’s evidence, Jerry.”
“That’s why I’m wearing my rubbers.” DiGraggario raised his hand, waggling his fingers in latex gloves. “See, no problem.”
“Would you put the goddamn club away, please.” Dent shook his head. “Look, I’m heading back to the office. McClain, did you talk to that bartender Bennet about the sketch yet?”
“He’s working the lunch shift, said he’d be by round five.”
“Okay, Walt, I want you and Arnold-frigging-Palmer here to wait until the stiff’s out, then seal the place.” Dent turned to DiGraggario. “Don’t touch anything. No clubs, no televisions, no stereos . . . You remember the time we couldn’t get that goddamned stereo turned off, with the sound on full blast?”
Outside, walking down the steps, beneath a canopy formed by the green leaves and carnelian blossoms of a coral tree, Dent thought about Jerry DiGraggario screwing with the club, thinking about DiGraggario swinging the club, the graceful arc and about Mirabella with the nickel-plate .357 in his lap . . .
Dent turned and re-entered the house.
“Jerry . . . you’re left-handed, right?”
The question caught everyone off guard, McClain, Bishop, Sheila and most of all DiGraggario, who dropped the golf ball he was dicking with. The golf ball rolled across the floor and up against the toe of Dent’s shoe. Dent looked up as Jerry DiGraggario said, “Hey, look, Sarge, that’s my golf ball, I brought it with me, I wasn’t mess—”
“Those clubs are lefties, right?”
“Yeah, sure, but . . . wait . . . you’re not calling the off-hand phony suicide gig, are ya?”
Everyone looked at the corpse— and the phone rang, freezing everyone. It rang again as Dent crossed the room and, using a hanky, picked up the cordless.
A voice saying out of the phone: “Hey, Mr. Mirabella? It’s Benny at CompUSA, you brought your laptop in this morning? Look, we got the problem worked out. Like I said, no problem, it was your Windows driver that was corrupted . . .”
Dent kept listening, knowing for certain as the guy talked that Mirabella hadn’t committed suicide because . . . No one takes a laptop to get fixed if they’re planning on killing themself.
Listening to Benny ramble and thinking: You’re in, you’re out . . . Shit.
*
DENT DIDN’T MAKE IT downtown until about six.
He wasn’t sure if it was the job, the long week, or maybe just the heat, but he’d had a headache building all day at the base of his neck, spreading out and gaining strength in pulsing thrusts. Not a hangover snake, this was more like a piston beating on the back of his skull. He fished around for the half-full bottle of Excedrin he’d bought last week, washing them down with lukewarm coffee. Then called Dr. Stack and was told by the receptionist Dr. Stack was on a field trip, said she’d have the doctor call back first thing Monday.
Dent started calling through Celeste Parks’ date-book again, making notations on a notepad. Midway through, McClain flopped into his chair with a disappointed look on his face and a sheet of paper in hand. “That was Bennett.”
“And?”
“And,” McClain said, “we did a composite and it ain’t worth dick on a stick.”
The sketch was rendered by a composite kit consisting of numerous small tiles, each selected feature individually chosen to match, and the man staring at Dent was dark-haired with a strong chin. His face was angular, as was his nose, but the parts didn’t seem to work together.
“Something doesn’t look right. Looks hinky.”
“No shit, it’s hinky. Optimistically speaking, I was hoping for more. Despite what Bennett the pinhead said. And check this: I made some calls for the waitress on the patio. Not good. Left for the outback this morning. No telephone. No radio. No nothing.”
Dent described what he’d learned at Newhouse and from Lucy Blackfoot.
“You see a connection between that and the masks?” McClain asked.
“Not off hand. But let me ask you this: How much you think a museum curator makes?”
“I don’t know, forty, fifty thousand tops. Why?”
“Guy’s got a BMW, a Range Rover and a desert ranch house, he’s making more than forty or fifty grand.”
“You think this guy did her, stole the masks and he’s gonna sell them?”
“Maybe. But why don’t you run him, see if anything comes up, while we’re running a background on Mirabella.”
HOMICIDE WAS BASICALLY EMPTY by the time Dent finished his reports and a pair of memos a little after 7:30. Downstairs, in the Sally Port, things would just be starting to heat up for the regular cops— Perverts, Prostitutes and Perps on parade.
Outside, the city loomed like a great concrete-and-steel petrified forest, the windows of the tall buildings glowing like squared, molten leaves. Stepping into the slanting shadows of late afternoon, a cool breeze swept in off the water to the west and rustled his hair as he walked to his car parked beneath the lean shadow of a solitary palm tree.
*
UP NARRAGANSET AVENUE, rolling up through apartment buildings and small houses with narrow driveways, Dent saw an elderly couple walking a dog, saw a guy with a hose turn from washing his minivan, some boys sitting on mountain bikes challenging each other to a ‘speed-run’ to the bottom of Narragansett, happy people Dent viewed with a sense of detachment like a man gazing at a photograph of the moon, knowing it’s there, but what’s it really matter, it’s so far away?
He wheeled the Sprint into the driveway and killed the motor, not moving, hearing Santana doing Oyé Como Va on the radio, smelling wild honeysuckle and roses in the warm evening air drifting over from the Chiles’ yard next door. He squinted through the passenger window at a sky water-colored in yellows and oranges and purples before his eyes fell to the brown-bagged bottle of Glenfiddich on the passenger seat and Suzie Cruz’s cigarette-raspy voice cruised in with, “Alright, that’s Artist-of-the-month Carlos Santana finishing up ten in a row. And there’ll be plenty of water tomorrow for everyone at the Street Fair but don’t forget the sunscreen—”
Dent killed the monologue and trudged up the walkway to his $171 three-bedroom, one-car hermitage. Inside, Bixby was bouncing around, his tail wagging and tongue hanging.
Dent’s living room? Lots of pictures on a shelf and a good percentage of the people in the pictures dead; a dusty bottle of Napa white at one corner of the entertainment center; ten-months-thick dust coating the furniture.
Dent followed Bixby into the kitchen.
Dent’s kitchen? Dishes piled in the sink; a ten-months-old shopping list secured to the refrigerator by a Chargers magnet; a ten-months-old note saying, “Two more days till Napa!” in a woman’s hand; empty bottles of Glenfiddich across top of the fridge.
Dent fed Bixby and cracked the seal on the Glenfiddich, pouring three fingers before topping off at a whole hand. Then boarded the LaZBoy.
The first sip slid into his stomach as he flipped on the tube— CNN, a reporter talking about the impending baseball strike. Bixby came in and lay beside the LaZBoy on his back, staring upside down at flickering images on the screen.
“I don’t know how you can watch like that.”
Bixby’s tail wagged slowly. Dent took another sip, this one easier as the blue light of the television filled the darkening room, the drone of the voices, the warmth of the house, the long week and the scotch all conspiring to summon lethargy . . .
DARKNESS SUFFUSED by the dim blue hue of the Sony. Voices.
On the TV, more about the baseball strike and whether Congress would step in. Dent switched it off, padding into the kitchen, past the portrait of Gloria smiling and alive, her face done in fast, sweeping lines and hot colors, Joanie Wright’s style. Dent wondered briefly if Joanie was up and about, thought about maybe walking next door and saying hello.
Instead, he poured another round of Glenfiddich into the glass and leaning against the sink, sipped scotch while in his mind’s eye a cinnamon-colored Buick LeSabre blossomed, the LeSabre looming over the crest of Narragansett Avenue. Dent took another sip and saw the swaying Christmas tree deodorizer. Another sip and he heard his own shouts. Not loud enough, they’d been far from loud enough against the LeSabre’s racing motor and the squeal of braking tires clawing at pavement, the squeal suddenly replaced by the crash of metal slamming into metal and flesh, the crunching crash tearing through his mind every bit as vividly as it had that day and binding with the scream of Gloria’s dying. Dent tilted his head back, sucking scotch down into his belly and trying not to hear that screaming in his head, Gloria’s scream, that sharp, drawn-out, ten-months-long-gone scream starting high, rising higher and—Snick—cut off.
Dent drained the last of the scotch. With two hands to control the shaking, poured more scotch . . . The Buick LeSabre crests the hill . . . pouring until scotch rose to the rim of the glass . . . Sunlight glints off the chrome and a Christmas tree deodorizer sways like a pendulum back and forth, back and forth . . .
Dent guzzled the scotch, get it into his blood stream fast as he could, get as much alcohol up into his brain stem, drown out the sights.
. . . Gloria’s head down in the trunk as she wrestles for the bottle of Napa white . . .
The sounds.
Squeal of braking tires . . . Long scream cut off . . . SNICK . . . and then silence . . .
Dent guzzled scotch, vainly trying to obliterate the memory from his mind before the screams came, before that long last terrible scream.
Before the dying.
IN RUDY JUAREZ’S OFFICE, Dent sat in an orange shell-shaped chair listening to Rudy read through Celeste Parks’ case-file and craving a hit of scotch. It wasn’t until Rudy came to the toxin that thoughts of scotch receded from mind.
“Natural toxin? You mean like snake venom?”
“Or a spider or plant. Stimulates the body into producing large amounts of coagulants that kept the victim from bleeding to death immediately.” Rudy flipped a page. “Said toxin was injected through two holes at the base of the victim’s neck, perfectly spaced.” A photo showed Celeste Parks’ neck enlarged about three times with a ruler beside it.
“Looks like a vampire bit her.”
“A little. We’re running more tests, get a better bead on the toxin.” Rudy flipped another photo in front of Dent, this one showing the pentagrams. “The incisions are in fives, forming pentagrams. Eighty pentagrams with four radii off the belly button. The numbers are either divisible by or into twenty and I believe there’s a twenty-based number system. Regardless, there’s obviously some logic attached to the perp’s methodology, perhaps witchcraft or Satanism.” Rudy returned to his notes. “Victim blood-alcohol was point-one-one. Also found traces of cocaine. Abrasions on her wrists indicate she was cuffed.”
“Any sign of rape?”
“Well, the victim apparently was planning on sex . . . a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly were found in the vaginal cavity. But there’s no evidence of sexual intercourse whatsoever. No clues on the drink glasses and the fiber sweep netted nothing useful. Tent stakes are high-quality, get them at any good camping supply store and nothing yet from the shower.” Rudy closed the folder. “If Parks’ story checks out like you think, then what?”
Dent shook his head, feeling scotch-thoughts rising in the back of his brain. “We’re checking M.O.’s with Gideon Pope at the Bureau. Got a date book I’m working through, see if anything comes up. Story’s been leading off every newscast, so maybe someone’ll call saying they saw something.” Standing up, he said, “So far, though, we’ve got nada from that.” Dent shrugged. “We keep working and see what happens.”
Rudy followed Dent out. “Why don’t you come by for dinner next week. Carmen has a girlfriend she’d like you to meet.”
“Maybe in a couple weeks, Rudy, I’ve got this case and a lot of work to sort through and progress reports—”
“Put it off and come over. Carmen’s girlfriend is supposed to be a real dish.”
Dent smiled. “Maybe when things calm down.”
“You know . . . that’s just what you’ve been saying since it happened. You need to get over it, Vince, put it behind you. It’s been nearly a year.”
“I know how long it’s been, Rudy. And right now, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Rudy frowned, shaking his head. “Yeah . . . yeah, you always say that, too.”
A HASTILY SCRIBBLED NOTE taped to Dent’s phone said McClain had received a tip from a bartender at an upscale La Jolla bar called George’s and was on his way over, so . . .
For the next hour, Dent methodically dialed his way through Celeste Parks’ date-book, leaving messages on machines, talking to people. Trying to keep his mind off the image of a cinnamon-colored Buick LeSabre coming up over the hill and down Narragansett, the sun glinting off a chrome bumper. Re-living standing on the lawn, suitcases in hand, Gloria at the trunk of the car. Dent would dial a number, talk to someone and scratch the name off the list. Hang up and in his mind’s eye see the LeSabre weaving, see the little Christmas tree deodorizer swaying from the mirror. Dial another number, leave a message and remember yelling at Gloria, her head down in the trunk as she reached for the bottle of Napa white. Remember dropping the suitcases and running towards her, screaming, “GLORIA!”
McClain slumped into a chair and threw his feet on the desk. Frowning. “Friggin AC in my truck’s on the fritz and it’s like two hundred degrees outside. Feel like I’m driving a black tank in the middle of a friggin Iraqi heat wave and it’s probably gonna cost two-hundred frigging bucks to fix the thing because, of course, the warranty was up seventy-frigging-six miles ago.” McClain shook his head. “Anyway, dude, I spoke to a Julian Bennet, the bartender at George’s who called in. Says Mrs. Parks was there Wednesday night until after nine. Remembers she had a coupla tequila sunrises.”
“She come in with anybody?”
“Doesn’t think so. Says she stepped onto the patio to have a cigarette. Then some dark-haired dude in an Armani suit took a couple more sunrises to the patio. On her tab. Mrs. Parks paid the bill and Bennet doesn’t know if they left together.”
“What’s the guy look like?”
“Bennet didn’t get a good look.”
Dent said, “I’ve been to George’s, it’s a little place. Tell me how this guy stood right in front of Bennet and got two drinks without the guy getting a look?”
McClain shrugged. “According to Bennet they were busy that night. Says he wasn’t paying attention to anything but pouring drink. Mrs. Parks was a regular, sat at the bar when she got there, so that’s why he remembered her.”
“What about a waitress working the patio?”
“Yup. Name’s Andrea Rice. But guess what? She’s in Australia. Flew out yesterday.”
Dent drummed his fingers on the desk. “Alright. See what you can do about tracking her down. Maybe she’s on some tour or sightseeing expedition and we can get a hold of her. Maybe she and the Australian authorities can do up a composite. Will Bennett do one?”
McClain nodded. “But I don't think it’ll be worth a lot. Says he can’t remember what the guy really looked like. Guy’s a friggin pinhead.”
Dent turned his head, gazing out the window at the El Cortez. On the sidewalk below, a meter maid was talking to a uniformed cop, smiling and laughing a lot, opening and closing her ticket-book. “Why don’t you see if Mister Magoo will sit with Mister Jackson anyway. Make a pretty picture so I can show the Lou we’re doing something.”
*
“ . . . and I know he’s in there,” a brunette in jeans and a blazer was telling the secretary as Dent topped the stairs at the third floor of the San Diego Museum of Man, “because I saw his goddamn BMW in the lot.” The brunette with her back to Dent, facing down an older gal with steel gray hair.
The older gal saying, “And I’m telling you, Ms. Blackfoot, he’s not here. If you wish to make an appoint— Now wait a minute, you can’t go in there.”
Dent watched Ms. Blackfoot make a beeline for a door marked Dr. Frederick J. Newhouse, Curator in polished bronze. The secretary bounced from her seat—surprisingly fast for an old gal— and grabbed Ms. Blackfoot’s arm. More surprising still was Ms. Blackfoot’s deft evasion and the hard shove that sent the woman back into her wheeled desk chair and rolling into the wall as the brunette threw open the office door and entered.
Ms. Blackfoot’s voice saying: “Newhouse? Newhouse, you better not be hiding in here you crooked asshole.”
The old gal looked over at Dent. “If you need something it will have to wait.” Rushing into the office, she said: “I’ve already buzzed security, Ms. Blackfoot, I want you to know that.”
Dent drifted toward the office as Ms. Blackfoot’s voice said: “Good, call the cops, I don’t care. I just want a couple words with the sleaze-bag.”
“I told you,” Old Gal’s voice said, “Dr. Newhouse is not here . . . Excuse me, Ms. Blackfoot . . . Excuse me . . . You can’t just go opening his drawers— please stop . . . Don’t do that!”
From the doorway, Dent watched Ms. Blackfoot pull papers from the desk, glance at them and toss them on the floor. He had a clear view of her now, the dark complexion and hair pulled away from her face in a ponytail showing off high cheekbones.
“Asshole’s probably got them locked in a safe at his frigging ranch house.” She threw another handful of papers on the floor. “Asshole.”
Jingling keys announced the security guard’s arrival, a black guy with a walkie-talkie in hand.
“Where is she?”
“In here, Roger,” Old Gal called. She looked over at Ms. Blackfoot. “You can stop now, Ms. Blackfoot . . . Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here.”
Ms. Blackfoot glanced at another handful of papers and threw them on the floor. Roger the security guard circled the desk, reaching for her arm . . .
“Touch me,” Ms. Blackfoot said in a low menacing voice, “and your balls are table coasters.”
Roger the Security Guard looked at Old Gal, who shrugged, and Roger backed off.
Dent watched Ms. Blackfoot glare at the papers on the floor before she said, “You tell the crooked SOB I’ll be back.” Dent got out of the way as she stalked past, catching a whiff of some delicate perfume he was trying to identify as she slung a satchel purse over her shoulder and stormed to the head of the stairs. Descending, her voice echoed in the stairwell: “Asshole!”
Dent smiled . . . Now there’s a woman with fire in her belly . . . watching Old Gal and Roger the Guard pick up papers, just the tops of their heads visible over the desk. He knocked on the door jam. “San Diego PD? I have an appointment with Dr. Newhouse.”
Old Gal peered over the desk. “Dr. Newhouse should be back any—wait, there he is.”
Dent turned to see a guy in chinos, polo shirt and a smug half-smile emerging from a side-door.
He glanced at the stairwell and back at Dent. “I gather you’re with the police?”
Dent flashed badge. “Dent, Homicide.”
“Yes, Mrs. Thoreau told me you’d called.” Newhouse entered his office. “Gwen, I’ll take care of those papers while the detective and I talk.” He waved at a chair. “Excuse me a moment, Detective.”
Newhouse followed Roger and Mrs. Thoreau out. Dent heard them speaking in hushed tones as he sat glancing at all the stuff on the walls: a tomahawk, spears and shields, animal skins with stick-figure pictures. Beside Newhouse’s desk was a headdress on a stand, the kind chiefs in the movies wear, feathers red and white, with little black spots here and there. The whole headdress was maybe six feet long. He was admiring it up close when Newhouse’s voice said,
“That’s a Cheyenne war bonnet.” Newhouse stood beside Dent and nodded at the war bonnet. “Its owner was White Buffalo, credited with vanquishing 63 foe-men. He died in 1875 at a godforsaken place called Arroyo del Diablo. The black spots—” gesturing with a tanned hand “—are White Buffalo’s blood, killed by a U.S. Cavalry officer by the name of Jacob Sullivan-Smits, one of the butchers of Sand Creek.” Newhouse shook his head. “To the point, Captain Sullivan-Smits claimed the bonnet as a trophy and it was part of the Sullivan-Smits’ estate at the time his granddaughter died. I’m helping her heirs find a buyer. The offer includes Sullivan-Smits’ journal.”
“Why’re they selling it off?”
Newhouse smiled. “Before killing White Buffalo, Jacob spent a couple hours practicing his knife throwing. Cheyenne legend has it that as White Buffalo was about to die he cursed Sullivan-Smits’ children that they would never ‘walk the earth like men.’ Legend, of course, and there’s no mention of the curse in Sullivan-Smits’ journal, but an interesting fact is that many of his descendents are confined to wheelchairs. A couple generations passed before it was finally diagnosed as multiple sclerosis.” Newhouse reached out as if to stroke the bonnet before pulling his hand away. “Just a myth, but the Sullivan-Smits seem to have had enough of White Buffalo’s war-bonnet. I’m lending my considerable expertise and contacts in finding a buyer.” He circled his desk, picking up papers from the floor and tossing them on the desk. Sinking into a high-back chair, he said, “You’ve come to talk about Mrs. Parks.” Shaking his head. “A horrible tragedy. What can I do to help?”
“For starters, tell me how you two knew each other.”
“I met Mrs. Parks six years ago at a symposium in Phoenix. Since then, we’d worked together on fundraising mostly. Celeste was one of our most loyal benefactors for what we do.”
“Which is what? You’re the Curator of the museum, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I oversee the museum here. I’m also executive director of the Preservationist Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the Native American legacy.”
“Which does what?”
Newhouse slipped on a pair of tortoise-shell eyeglasses and began sorting papers. “In the main we locate and identify Native American archaeological sites, then petition for their closure to trespassers until they can be properly investigated.” Still sorting. “Too often, precious glimpses into the heritage of our land’s native inhabitants are destroyed by ignorant people in dune-buggies tearing up the remains of ancient enclaves and drinking Budweiser.”
“And people like Mrs. Parks supplied the money for your efforts. Like cash cows.”
Newhouse stopped sorting. “I don’t care for your tone, Detective, but it’s roughly correct. I must stress, though, that without money, items such as that pot there—” waving at a pot with black zig-zaggy lines like the ones at the Parks’ house “—might be on somebody’s balcony. A five-hundred year old pot predating Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World manufactured by a people, the Anasazi, who have for all intents vanished from the face of the earth growing a creeping charlie.”
Saying it like Dent should care.
Dent didn’t care. Dent said: “So when was your last contact with the victim?”
Newhouse stared at the headdress a moment. “It’s been a few weeks.”
“You remember what you talked about?”
“An off and on project we’ve been working in east Arizona— we’ve had changes to our staffing and she was afraid we’d get behind. Our permit runs out later this year.”
“Did you have a disagreement?”
Newhouse shook his head. “Quite the contrary. It was very productive. Celeste and I worked very well together.”
“Where were you Wednesday night between 11 p.m. and 3 in the morning?”
“Until after midnight, watching Letterman. Then I was in bed with my wife.”
“She’ll remember this?”
“Of course. I’m quite remarkable in bed.”
Dent frowned; he didn’t need to hear that. “Mrs. Parks had display cases full of Indian stuff. You help her get them?”
“The war bonnet being the exception, I’m not usually involved in private acquisitions.” He started sorting papers again. “She acquired her collection through antiquity auctions.”
“You familiar with the three masks?”
The sorting stopped as Newhouse looked at Dent, seeming surprised at the question. “You mean the Kwiatlu’s? Of course.”
Dent shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s what they’re called. She had three masks in a display case. Whoever killed her left with them. They a big deal?”
“Greed, Cowardice and Disharmony? Why they're fabulous. I didn’t know they’d been stolen.” Papers slipped from his fingers to the desk. “My God.”
Like somebody had stuffed the Mona Lisa down their drawers and walked out the Louvre.
Dent said, “So what’s so special about these masks?”
“The masks were commissioned by a Kwiatlu chieftain for the English admiral, Lord Albright.
They were offered as a gift at a potlatch, a celebration marked by acts of giving. The participants sought to out-do one another in generosity, also burning valuable items as sacrifices to the spirits. Anti-materialism, really. After the potlatch, Lord Albright took his masks and ships up the coast where he and his men were massacred by a rival tribe, the Tuhlingit. The masks were returned to the Kwiatlu as a rebuke by the Tuhlingit.”
All these goddamn weird-ass Indian names.
Dent said, “Phrase Indian-givers comes to mind.”
“Detective . . . the Kwiatlu were anything but Indian-givers. Sadly, around the turn of the century the potlatches were deemed a federal crime. Think about it, the act of giving articulated by white man’s law into crime. Pretty Republican, don’t you think?”
Dent said nothing; he agreed, but who needed to let a guy like Newhouse know? “Let’s say whoever murdered Mrs. Parks wanted to sell the masks. How would he go that?”
Newhouse’s brow furrowed. “I think he’d have a pretty rough go with it. See, when an antiquities house sells or buys an artifact, they keep a strict record of where the artifact was obtained, how. They also keep a description of the item itself against forgery. Now, there aren’t many places dealing in such costly and unique collectibles, so if the person who murdered Celeste tries to sell to one of the houses, you’ll find out pretty quickly who he was.”
“Can you give me a list of all these houses? I’d like to call them, let them know to keep an eye out for the masks.”
“I can have Gwen draw something up. It might take a day or so.”
“Fine. Now what about if he wanted to sell them to a private owner? An individual?”
“Again, you’re talking about people who’ve often bid on the same items at auction. I assure you, Detective, these masks are well known by the prominent collectors who knew Celeste. If someone offers the masks for sale, I’m certain the person will notify the authorities.”
Dent said nothing. Wondering how fast a guy would call the cops if he’d just spent two million and suddenly finds out how the seller got them, knowing he’d lose the masks and maybe the money too. “What if the murderer kept the masks? Do they have any special significance or’re they just art?”
Newhouse smiled, like he was enjoying some private joke. “These particular masks represent weaknesses in man and are more than just art. Things the Kwiatlu found evil . . . found in the English.” He leaned back, hands clasped with his index fingers pointed up and resting against his chin. “When storytellers spun their yarns, often they were in effect subtle morality plays. Dancers acted out elements of the story while lending instruction. Masks were believed to transfer the spirit into the dancer so great power and respect are attributed to the masks. Masks are intrinsic to the very nature of the Northwest tribes, who were perhaps the finest craftsmen of masks in the world. The art melded with the religion.”
Dent squinted at the Cheyenne war bonnet, trying to make sense of what Newhouse was saying. “The murderer removed her as yet un-located face and carved cuts into her body in the form of pentagrams . . . four hundred cuts in all. You see a possible connection?”
Appearing horrified, Newhouse said, “My God. But, no, I don’t know. Why?”
“Thought it was maybe some Indian ritual thing. Thousand cuts or something.”
Newhouse shook his head. “It’s not part of any culture I’m familiar with. But then, my focus is on artifacts. I could give you a name of someone who might be able to help, in case there’s something I’m missing— though the chances of something like that are quite slim.”
“Anything you can do to help.”
Newhouse pulled a sheet of blue paper from his desk and Dent thought about Ms. Blackfoot and the papers, wondering what she was looking for. “I’ll write his name on the back of this flyer.” He wrote it and handed the flyer to Dent. “I must warn you that he’s a little tough to work with, but he knows his field. He’s over at State.”
Dent looked at the name. Dr. Benjamin Stack. The paper was a heavy bond with little flecks of texture. He turned the paper over and saw an announcement for some fundraiser in late September, the location on a street called Newhouse Way, with a map . . .
“Newhouse Way?”
Newhouse smiled. “A hard-pan road out near Superstition Mountain in the Anza-Borrego desert. I have a house there on a hundred acres. I had the road graded so I took the liberty of naming it. Like the flyer? I did it on my Mac.”
“Yeah, it’s great.” Dent folded the flyer and shoved it in a coat-pocket. Laying a business card on the edge of the desk, said, “Let me know when you get that list together.” Rising from the chair, he nodded at the war bonnet. “Bet the transaction fee you’re getting for that baby’s gonna pave the whole road. Maybe get to put Freddy on the street sign.”
When Newhouse’s face got kind of pinched looking, Dent knew he’d guessed about right, thinking Ms. Blackfoot was right, too.
Guy’s an asshole.
*
EVEN OR SO BLOCKS FROM THE MUSEUM OF MAN, Flannigan's Alehouse was packed. Bad thing about the place? Lawyers. All kinds of them, all chattering like rats, discussing the next drug-dealer they were gonna get off on a bad-warrant claim or some personal injury asshole deciding how’d he spend his fee from the out-of-court settlement. The lawyer’s came for the sandwiches and salads, not because they were good but because they were cheap; Dent came because he was on the clock and wouldn’t see any cops. Sitting at the bar— a Glenfiddich in front of him, Black Magic Woman in his ears— Dent assembled the pieces of the case in his mind. He finished his Glenfiddich in three pulls and ordered another, listening to the samba beat of congas, Carlos Santana and his guitar slow-noting it through the key of E.
If the Perp knew her, knew the value of the masks, was this guy another collector? Dent tried imagining having the kind of money to buy the masks, 3 million, and couldn’t do it. Also couldn’t see setting himself up by leaving a solid connection for someone to follow. Dent thinking this sipping scotch and listening to Carlos . . .
Gotta black magic woman got me so blind I can't see—
. . . while all around him were lawyers in their thousand-dollar Versacci’s . . .
— that she's a black magic woman and she's trying to make a devil out of me.
. . . the lawyers specializing in drug-dealers, were in fact on retainer to drug-dealers, all these shallow shit-bags intoxicated on money, success and attitude . . .
Ms. Blackfoot sat off to one side, shoulder against a wooden pillar of the bar. She was smoking a cigarette and staring off into space, head moving subtly to Carlos and his beat . . .
Dent drained his Glenfiddich thinking maybe the perp simply stole the masks for the money. All the guy would need was someone interested in the masks, maybe someone out-country, Hong Kong, South Africa or Italy. Maybe Newhouse. Dent made a mental note to have McClain check Celeste Parks’ phone records, see if Newhouse’s name came up in the last week. Have McClain call the guy’s wife and verify his claim of being home Wednesday.
Marvin the bartender set a fresh one on the bar, no napkin. “Keep the tab going, Vince?”
“Right.” Dent sipped his drink and set it down. Lifted it up, making a wet ring, and set it down again. Thinking: Newhouse is an asshole.
The thought made him think of Ms. Blackfoot. She was now in conference with one of the lawyers, guy probably telling her all about his vacation villa in Belize . . . then, just like that, she raised her right hand into a fist, elbow on the bar, and slowly unfurled her middle finger like a flag; her middle finger flying free and unfettered and the guy staring at it like Francis Scott Key. Dent smiled.
The lawyer shook his head. Said something which induced a shrug from Ms. Blackfoot before turning and shoving off from the bar.
Ms. Blackfoot dragged on her cigarette and went back to staring off into space.
In his mind’s eye, Dent saw her storming into Newhouse’s, tossing papers on the floor, cursing the guard in that low voice . . . Touch me, and your balls are table coasters . . .
Dent grabbed his scotch and started off into the sea of lawyers like a guy swimming in the Tijuana River, jostling through the toxic crowd until he got up beside Ms. Blackfoot.
Dent saying, “Guess the guy in the suit doesn’t like birds.”
Ms. Blackfoot raised the cigarette to her lips, and drew on the cigarette. Exhaling, her head swiveled a little and out the corner of her eye, she looked him up and down. Then redirected her gaze again out over the bar. “Little old to just be getting out of law school aren’t you, sport? When’d you get that suit . . . year Carter got elected?”
Dent looked at his jacket. It was a gray-green tweedy thing Gloria’d bought him shortly after they were married. “I think it’s Reagan-era.”
“First term or second?”
“The Governor years.”
Ms. Blackfoot smiled a little.
Dent said, “You know, I’ve seen you before.”
Ms. Blackfoot looked at Dent. “Been using that line since Reagan was governor, too?” Ms.
Blackfoot smiled wearily. “Listen, sport. I just came to have a glass of wine, so don’t start with me. I’m tired. I’ve had a rough day. I’m in a bad mood and I’ve had it up to here with horny lawyers, greedy money-grubbers and with all men in general . . . the notable exception being that bartender over there. Now, why don’t you go run along and talk about sports or rutting or suing people blind or whatever else lawyers talk about.”
“You were at Newhouse’s office today, right?”
A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Ohhhhh, now I remember. So what’s the story? Newhouse acquired scruples and sent you to get me?”
“What do you think?”
Ms. Blackfoot studied Dent. Turning her gaze again to the bar, she smiled. “Not a chance.” Then, sharpening the cigarette’s ash along the ashtray edge into a point, she said, “So what’s the deal? Why’d you follow me?”
“I didn’t. So happens I stop by here for the occasional drink.”
“Wait for someone to choke on their martini olive so you can sue the bar— though judging by that suit, you haven’t won too many cases lately.”
What a bitch, Dent thought, deciding he liked her. “So what’s your story? Newhouse is looking at what, sexual harassment, wrongful termination? Sharpie in the slick suit wanted a fifty-fifty split, you gave him the bird, and now you’re pissed off at lawyers in general?”
“And you’d be willing to overlook my animosity to the profession for the fifty-fifty split?”
“It’s not my type of case.”
“No? Too sophisticated? Or not enough potential for the big bucks?”
Dent studied Ms. Blackfoot studying him, thinking her eyes were a shade of green he couldn’t nail down in the half-light of Flannigan’s. “What I can’t figure’s why Newhouse crossed you. I’m of the opinion you’re not the type takes a lot of crap from a guy like him.”
Ms. Blackfoot smiled, stubbing out her cigarette, and sipped her wine. Turned on the stool, appraising Dent again. “And what I can’t seem to figure out is how a guy who seems to be a straight shooter could work for an egotistical, smooth-talking little turd like Newhouse. What are you, a real estate lawyer helping him with his stupid road?”
“Not a chance.”
“No? Not your kind of case either, hunh. So what do you do, environmental protection lawsuits or civil rights causes or what?”
“I’m a cop.”
Ms. Blackfoot stared right back, then slowly shook her head.
Dent said, “You don’t like cops?”
“No, I have no problem with cops. My father was a cop.” Ms. Blackfoot smiled. Shaking her head again. “The suit. The suit should have tipped me off. Very stereotypical old-timey cop. Well done.”
Dent shrugged.
Ms. Blackfoot said, “Why’d you follow me?”
“I didn’t.”
“You just happened to be at Newhouse’s, then here. Pure coincidence, right?”
“I come here sometimes. You came here. It’s coincidence running into probability.”
“So I’m supposed to believe you’re a cop who likes to hang out with lawyers. Some kind of cop-to-lawyer outreach program? You’re leading the touchy-feely part of the program?”
Dent smiled. “I’m a guy who likes to drink alone.”
Ms. Blackfoot studied Dent, a lie-detector type of studying, with her eyes flicking between his— left eye, right eye, left eye, right— until she suddenly smiled, extending her hand. “Lucy Blackfoot.” Her hand was semi-rough and the grip firm.
“Vince Dent.” Dent looked up as Marvin the Bartender said to Ms. Blackfoot: “Miss? Guy there wants to buy you a drink.” Marvin yanked a thumb over his shoulder at a lawyer-type with a deep tan smiling at Ms. Blackfoot. Lots of perfect teeth. Marvin said, “You want it?”
“Tell him no thanks, I'm a big girl, I can buy my own drinks.”
Marvin nodded. “Had a feeling that's what you'd say.”
Lucy Blackfoot looked at Dent. “What were you doing at Freddy’s?”
“I wanted to talk with him about Celeste Parks. You know her?”
Lucy Blackfoot’s eyes pinched with surprise, maybe suspicion. “I know Mrs. Parks. Why, she hasn’t done something, has she?”
“You don’t know?”
Lucy said, “Know what?” bringing the cigarette to her lips, dragging—
“That’s she’s been murdered?”
—and stopping abruptly, her mouth open and smoke sifting out, swirling above their heads as she sat there wearing the clinical description of dumbfounded. “I just spoke with her last week— how?”
Dent sketched out the case.
Lucy, looking shocked, said, “I was on a dig in Arizona. I got here this morning and I’ve been so focused on my own problems that . . . Oh my god, that poor lady, I can’t believe someone would do something like that.”
“How well’d you know Mrs. Parks?”
“Only professionally. Occasionally she’d come out to the site, basically take pictures of finds and stuff. And she was passionate about Indian affairs. Wait. Is Freddy a suspect?”
“Should he be?”
Lucy stared off over the bar a moment before shaking her head. “Honestly, Freddy’s an asshole, but Freddy’s also a wimp. He’s too squeamish about blood for something like that.”
“How do you know that?”
“Freddy and I go back a bit. Here, let me give you an example.” Sharpening the tip of her cigarette into a point as she collected her thoughts, Lucy said, “Okay, last month, Freddy and I were out near the Chocolate Mountains, investigating a potential dig-site, when a coyote bolted jumped right in front of us. The coyote was hit and yanked up into the fan belt, blood and fur all over the engine compartment. It messed up the belt, and in the desert, with engines always on the verge of overheating; we’d never make it back to the highway unless we got that belt back on. Problem was, even though it was Freddy’s car, he refused to fix it. Just sat on a rock fanning himself with his ridiculous pith helmet, saying I worked for him and it was part of my job to get the belt back on.” She finished her wine. “Anyway, I managed to get the courage to get in there and re-attach the fan-belt while Freddy fanned himself and offered useless suggestions.”
“The chivalrous knight.”
“The big fat weasel. But considering that, I really don’t think he murdered Mrs. Parks.”
“Do you know about these Kwiatlu masks that were stolen from the Parks home?”
Lucy shook her head. “That’s northwest Indian. I’m southwest, mainly Anasazi.”
“How about a Dr. Benjamin Stack over at State? Is he a resource?”
“Ben’s the best, but he does Pre-Columbian. Did Freddy give you his name?”
“He said Dr. Stack might know something about the ritualized style of the incisions.”
“Maybe. Ben’s a genius. But the way you described it, it doesn’t sound Pre-Columbian to me, it sounds like witchcraft.”
Dent nodded. Figuring next he’d have to find a witchcraft expert, wondering how he go about doing that, maybe look in the yellow pages under WITCH. “So tell me,” he said, “why were you in there kicking papers around?”
Lucy shrugged. “Let’s say we’re not seeing eye to eye on something.”
“He fire you?”
“I quit.” Lucy lighted her cigarette with a book of matches labeled Flannigan’s Alehouse . . . Good Spirits, Great Spirit, little shamrocks sprinkled around the words. “We disagreed over policy. I didn’t like it so I quit.”
Lucy watching the bar. No eye contact.
“So why all the paper kicking?”
Lucy exhaled politely away from Dent before turning to regard him. “You’re not afraid to stick your nose into other people’s business, are you?” A little crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Is this line of questioning part of an investigation?”
“Basic curiosity. So why were you kicking papers back there?”
“Pardon me, Colombo, but I’m not in the habit of telling people I’ve just met about my personal business, cop or no cop. I’m funny that way.”
Not uptight about it, just matter-of-fact.
“Mind if I ask what you did for Newhouse?”
“You’re a persistent one aren’t you? Ever try sales?”
“Police raffle tickets count?”
“Bet you’re a one-man laugh riot down at the precinct house.”
Dent shrugged. “So what did you do for Newhouse?”
“Alright, you win. I’m an anthropologist specializing in the Anasazi. For the last few months I’ve headed up Freddy’s projects on the Arizona-New Mexico border.”
At that moment, Dent’s pager chirped with a number that turned out to be Lieutenant Deck, followed by 911. Excusing himself, Dent used the payphone in the bathroom.
Decker saying, “We got a guy over at Wind-N-Sea’s an apparent self-inflicted gun-shot.”
“I’m kind of busy, Deck, working the Parks case.”
“Well I got no one else, so your team’s it. Make an appearance and be done with it. Probably an open and shut suicide, you’re in, you’re out.”
Dent thought about how long it’d take to get to Wind-N-Sea and about how many times he’d heard Decker say, ‘You’re in, you’re out’. Dent said, “We got any witnesses?”
“At the present time, no.”
“So we don’t know for certain that it’s a suicide.”
“At the present time, no.”
“Unh-hunh. Alright, I’m gonna finish talking to a woman who worked for this Dr. Newhouse I spoke with today. Guy knew Celeste Parks, he’s an Indian mask expert.”
Then Dent swam back through the polluted sea of lawyers and back to where Lucy was . . . gone. Her Marlboro Lights no longer on the bar, satchel purse nowhere to be seen. He said to
Marvin, “You know when she left?”
“Soon as you went to the head.” Marvin shrugged. “Sorry, brother. That’s women.”
*
THE DEAD GUY WAS SLUMPED over in one of those ergonomically designed desk chairs, back of the chair against the desk and the desk facing the Pacific, with a miasma of blood and brain splattered on the window and falling sun seeping through the splatters. A computer was on the desk, more blood and brains on the monitor. In the corpse’s right hand was a nickel-plate .357 Chief’s Special, resting in his lap. Gathered around the corpse were Dent, McClain, Sheila Simpson and Walt Bishop; Jerry DiGraggario in the corner inspecting a set of golf clubs.
“Who found him?”
Walt Bishop said, “Plant guy.”
“Plant Guy?” Dent said. “What the hell’s a Plant Guy?”
“Guy comes in twice a week and waters and dust the plants. Says he dusted Mirabella’s plants on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
Mirabella being the corpse.
Dent said, “You’re telling me people pay other people to dust their plants?”
“Guy talks to them too, tells them what good plants they are.”
Dent scrubbed a hand across his face. “Sheila, what’s the TOD?”
“I’m gonna guess mid-day.”
Corner of his eye, Dent saw Jerry DiGraggario pull a golf club from the bag. “Must be our week to scout the rich and the dead. Anybody know what a place like this goes for?”
Walt Bishop said, “I’m betting it goes a million.”
McClain, shaking his head, said, “The guy didn’t buy it.”
“How do you know?” Sheila Simpson said.
“Sticker in the window says: If you’d like to rent this house, call Lemontree Leasing.”
Dent nodded, impressed at McClain’s observance; having noticed the sticker himself coming in and making the same deduction. He turned, watching Jerry DiGraggario swing the club in a long, perfect arc ending over his shoulder. Swing it again. Three more times, the last one really throwing in his hips—
“Jerry, what the hell’re you doing?”
DiGraggario shrugged, sighting down the club’s shaft. “Trying out these clubs. They might show up at an estate auction or something. Check em out, pretty sweet set a Pings.”
Another swing. Graceful the way he swung it, ending over his right shoulder. Smooth.
“That’s evidence, Jerry.”
“That’s why I’m wearing my rubbers.” DiGraggario raised his hand, waggling his fingers in latex gloves. “See, no problem.”
“Would you put the goddamn club away, please.” Dent shook his head. “Look, I’m heading back to the office. McClain, did you talk to that bartender Bennet about the sketch yet?”
“He’s working the lunch shift, said he’d be by round five.”
“Okay, Walt, I want you and Arnold-frigging-Palmer here to wait until the stiff’s out, then seal the place.” Dent turned to DiGraggario. “Don’t touch anything. No clubs, no televisions, no stereos . . . You remember the time we couldn’t get that goddamned stereo turned off, with the sound on full blast?”
Outside, walking down the steps, beneath a canopy formed by the green leaves and carnelian blossoms of a coral tree, Dent thought about Jerry DiGraggario screwing with the club, thinking about DiGraggario swinging the club, the graceful arc and about Mirabella with the nickel-plate .357 in his lap . . .
Dent turned and re-entered the house.
“Jerry . . . you’re left-handed, right?”
The question caught everyone off guard, McClain, Bishop, Sheila and most of all DiGraggario, who dropped the golf ball he was dicking with. The golf ball rolled across the floor and up against the toe of Dent’s shoe. Dent looked up as Jerry DiGraggario said, “Hey, look, Sarge, that’s my golf ball, I brought it with me, I wasn’t mess—”
“Those clubs are lefties, right?”
“Yeah, sure, but . . . wait . . . you’re not calling the off-hand phony suicide gig, are ya?”
Everyone looked at the corpse— and the phone rang, freezing everyone. It rang again as Dent crossed the room and, using a hanky, picked up the cordless.
A voice saying out of the phone: “Hey, Mr. Mirabella? It’s Benny at CompUSA, you brought your laptop in this morning? Look, we got the problem worked out. Like I said, no problem, it was your Windows driver that was corrupted . . .”
Dent kept listening, knowing for certain as the guy talked that Mirabella hadn’t committed suicide because . . . No one takes a laptop to get fixed if they’re planning on killing themself.
Listening to Benny ramble and thinking: You’re in, you’re out . . . Shit.
*
DENT DIDN’T MAKE IT downtown until about six.
He wasn’t sure if it was the job, the long week, or maybe just the heat, but he’d had a headache building all day at the base of his neck, spreading out and gaining strength in pulsing thrusts. Not a hangover snake, this was more like a piston beating on the back of his skull. He fished around for the half-full bottle of Excedrin he’d bought last week, washing them down with lukewarm coffee. Then called Dr. Stack and was told by the receptionist Dr. Stack was on a field trip, said she’d have the doctor call back first thing Monday.
Dent started calling through Celeste Parks’ date-book again, making notations on a notepad. Midway through, McClain flopped into his chair with a disappointed look on his face and a sheet of paper in hand. “That was Bennett.”
“And?”
“And,” McClain said, “we did a composite and it ain’t worth dick on a stick.”
The sketch was rendered by a composite kit consisting of numerous small tiles, each selected feature individually chosen to match, and the man staring at Dent was dark-haired with a strong chin. His face was angular, as was his nose, but the parts didn’t seem to work together.
“Something doesn’t look right. Looks hinky.”
“No shit, it’s hinky. Optimistically speaking, I was hoping for more. Despite what Bennett the pinhead said. And check this: I made some calls for the waitress on the patio. Not good. Left for the outback this morning. No telephone. No radio. No nothing.”
Dent described what he’d learned at Newhouse and from Lucy Blackfoot.
“You see a connection between that and the masks?” McClain asked.
“Not off hand. But let me ask you this: How much you think a museum curator makes?”
“I don’t know, forty, fifty thousand tops. Why?”
“Guy’s got a BMW, a Range Rover and a desert ranch house, he’s making more than forty or fifty grand.”
“You think this guy did her, stole the masks and he’s gonna sell them?”
“Maybe. But why don’t you run him, see if anything comes up, while we’re running a background on Mirabella.”
HOMICIDE WAS BASICALLY EMPTY by the time Dent finished his reports and a pair of memos a little after 7:30. Downstairs, in the Sally Port, things would just be starting to heat up for the regular cops— Perverts, Prostitutes and Perps on parade.
Outside, the city loomed like a great concrete-and-steel petrified forest, the windows of the tall buildings glowing like squared, molten leaves. Stepping into the slanting shadows of late afternoon, a cool breeze swept in off the water to the west and rustled his hair as he walked to his car parked beneath the lean shadow of a solitary palm tree.
*
UP NARRAGANSET AVENUE, rolling up through apartment buildings and small houses with narrow driveways, Dent saw an elderly couple walking a dog, saw a guy with a hose turn from washing his minivan, some boys sitting on mountain bikes challenging each other to a ‘speed-run’ to the bottom of Narragansett, happy people Dent viewed with a sense of detachment like a man gazing at a photograph of the moon, knowing it’s there, but what’s it really matter, it’s so far away?
He wheeled the Sprint into the driveway and killed the motor, not moving, hearing Santana doing Oyé Como Va on the radio, smelling wild honeysuckle and roses in the warm evening air drifting over from the Chiles’ yard next door. He squinted through the passenger window at a sky water-colored in yellows and oranges and purples before his eyes fell to the brown-bagged bottle of Glenfiddich on the passenger seat and Suzie Cruz’s cigarette-raspy voice cruised in with, “Alright, that’s Artist-of-the-month Carlos Santana finishing up ten in a row. And there’ll be plenty of water tomorrow for everyone at the Street Fair but don’t forget the sunscreen—”
Dent killed the monologue and trudged up the walkway to his $171 three-bedroom, one-car hermitage. Inside, Bixby was bouncing around, his tail wagging and tongue hanging.
Dent’s living room? Lots of pictures on a shelf and a good percentage of the people in the pictures dead; a dusty bottle of Napa white at one corner of the entertainment center; ten-months-thick dust coating the furniture.
Dent followed Bixby into the kitchen.
Dent’s kitchen? Dishes piled in the sink; a ten-months-old shopping list secured to the refrigerator by a Chargers magnet; a ten-months-old note saying, “Two more days till Napa!” in a woman’s hand; empty bottles of Glenfiddich across top of the fridge.
Dent fed Bixby and cracked the seal on the Glenfiddich, pouring three fingers before topping off at a whole hand. Then boarded the LaZBoy.
The first sip slid into his stomach as he flipped on the tube— CNN, a reporter talking about the impending baseball strike. Bixby came in and lay beside the LaZBoy on his back, staring upside down at flickering images on the screen.
“I don’t know how you can watch like that.”
Bixby’s tail wagged slowly. Dent took another sip, this one easier as the blue light of the television filled the darkening room, the drone of the voices, the warmth of the house, the long week and the scotch all conspiring to summon lethargy . . .
DARKNESS SUFFUSED by the dim blue hue of the Sony. Voices.
On the TV, more about the baseball strike and whether Congress would step in. Dent switched it off, padding into the kitchen, past the portrait of Gloria smiling and alive, her face done in fast, sweeping lines and hot colors, Joanie Wright’s style. Dent wondered briefly if Joanie was up and about, thought about maybe walking next door and saying hello.
Instead, he poured another round of Glenfiddich into the glass and leaning against the sink, sipped scotch while in his mind’s eye a cinnamon-colored Buick LeSabre blossomed, the LeSabre looming over the crest of Narragansett Avenue. Dent took another sip and saw the swaying Christmas tree deodorizer. Another sip and he heard his own shouts. Not loud enough, they’d been far from loud enough against the LeSabre’s racing motor and the squeal of braking tires clawing at pavement, the squeal suddenly replaced by the crash of metal slamming into metal and flesh, the crunching crash tearing through his mind every bit as vividly as it had that day and binding with the scream of Gloria’s dying. Dent tilted his head back, sucking scotch down into his belly and trying not to hear that screaming in his head, Gloria’s scream, that sharp, drawn-out, ten-months-long-gone scream starting high, rising higher and—Snick—cut off.
Dent drained the last of the scotch. With two hands to control the shaking, poured more scotch . . . The Buick LeSabre crests the hill . . . pouring until scotch rose to the rim of the glass . . . Sunlight glints off the chrome and a Christmas tree deodorizer sways like a pendulum back and forth, back and forth . . .
Dent guzzled the scotch, get it into his blood stream fast as he could, get as much alcohol up into his brain stem, drown out the sights.
. . . Gloria’s head down in the trunk as she wrestles for the bottle of Napa white . . .
The sounds.
Squeal of braking tires . . . Long scream cut off . . . SNICK . . . and then silence . . .
Dent guzzled scotch, vainly trying to obliterate the memory from his mind before the screams came, before that long last terrible scream.
Before the dying.
Monday, August 01, 2005
ONE MONTH TO MIDNIGHT- Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Excerpt from ONE MONTH TO MIDNIGHT
A novel by C. William Boyer
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4th
SQUINTING THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD and the head-squeezing haze of a first-rate hangover-snake, Dent cut the engine and frowned.
It was a sprawling beach-front home with a paramedics van out front. The van's rear doors were open and a bunch of bullshit lookie-loos loitered outside the police ribbons with their arms crossed, the curious little pricks wondering when the news-vans would arrive and about the best place to stand in order to get on the 4:30 early edition. And all of it beneath the glare of a fat, pitiless lemon sun.
Dent threw open the door and, whammo, felt thick hot air go for him, nearly knocking him over with the sheer brute force of it. Simultaneously, the hangover-snake coiled a little more tightly around his pulsating skull, clenching and unclenching. Dent sat at the wheel . . . This is bullshit . . . before he glanced about, checking on the goddamn lookie-loos. A couple were watching him, so he scoonched over in the seat, pretending to grab something off the floor, and gunned down a hard swig of scotch from the flask. Then sat blinking at the dazzling sun.
“Another day, another goddamn dead body.”
Dent climbed out of his Chevy Sprint with the electric-blue factory paint-job. Soon as he did, that pitiless goddamn lemon sun started beating down on his head and the hangover-snake— Snake? Hell, it felt like a goddamned python wrapped round his skull— the snake surged with the heat and clenched a little harder. Squinting into the merciless sun, skull crushed by the hangover snake, Dent started to the back of the car . . . It’s gotta be a hundred, easy . . . stuck the key in the hatch’s lock . . . Goddamn Santa Anas, whole summer’s practically been one long heat wave . . . and popped the hatch. Standing strategically, so the raised hatch-back lid was between himself and those nosey goddamn lookie-loos, he ate three Tums and took another swig, then slammed the hatch lid closed . . . Sweet Jesus . . . and endured a wave of nauseating pain as the hangover-snake shifted its grip.
Dent popped a peppermint and stood cursing silently until the snake’s coils eased some, before stalking across the street and past the lookie-loos and their greedy eyes.
He entered the house into a long entryway lined by recessed display cases. The metallic scent of blood was strong and, beneath it, something sweet, like incense.
Least it was cool inside.
In the display cases, soft light caressed colored beads in wooden bowls and pottery. The glass in the last case was smashed out. Dent studied chips of safety glass scattered across the shelf along with three wire stands; whatever the stands once held was gone. Beside the stands lay a finely crafted gold clock with the word Tiffany etched into the base.
The entryway spilled down four steps into a sitting room populated by Navajo rugs, couches and two- dozen cactuses of different sizes and shapes of the Federally-protected variety filling more zig-zaggy pottery. A well-stocked wet-bar was on one wall, back of the bar buttressed by a 300-gallon aquarium— blue damsels doing flybys over coral and sea anemones. Beyond 70-foot picture window stretched the Pacific, surfers skating the faces of far off waves while golden bodies reclined on the sand.
In the main room, McClain was talking with Sheila Simpson from the coroner’s office and deputy D.A Harvey Dunkel; McClain, other side of a couch, gesturing at a sheet-shrouded body soaked, top to bottom, crimson. Bloody footprints surrounded the body.
“Gonna love this one, Vinnie,” Harvey Dunkel said, smirking. “Ape took part a her home in a doggy bag, maybe on account he wanted an open-face sanwich or something.”
Careful not to step on any bloody footprints, Dent squatted beside the body and raised a corner of the sheet. Pentagrams were carved into the skin starting at the belly button and radiating out, like the arms of a starfish, to spikes pinning the woman’s feet and hands to the floor. The arms and legs were severed at the shoulders and hips but left unmoved and though there was lots of cutting done to the face, the pale blue eyes were unscathed, free to sightlessly and lifelessly stare.
McClain said, “She was found this morning by the maid, Juanita Gonzalez. Says she left Mrs. Parks at 5:30 last night and when she returned this morning, found her like this and threw up. Officer Peña says she had chorizo for breakfast. Extra salsa.”
“Anybody see the rest of Mrs. Parks laying around anywhere?”
Harvey Dunkel said, “You mean like the missing Parks parts?” Smiling.
Not smiling, Dent said, “Anybody see the rest of her?”
And got silence. “Alright, this Gonzalez lady, she touch anything? We got any contamination?”
“Just the phone,” McClain said. “Says she came in, saw Mrs. Parks and immediately called 911. After the yak-attack. She’s still pretty spin-billy, back in the guest bedroom.”
Dent dropped the sheet. “Is there a Mister Parks?”
McClain said, “Away on business in Miami. Registered at the, uh . . . ” paging through his little notebook “ . . . at the Fisher Island Club. Hotel manager says Parks was in the bar last night sometime between 9 and 10 putting down whiskeys and that he was at breakfast this morning. His secretary’s got him booked on the first available. In like 8, 8:30.”
Dent jerked a thumb back at the entryway. “What was in the display case?”
Sheila Simpson said, “Maid said Indian masks. Super rare, high dollar stuff.”
Dent wandered over to the couches and a coffee table fashioned from marble, McClain following. Two glasses, highball and a zombie, rested on the coffee table, the zombie with lipstick along the rim and two inches of liquid; the highball was maybe whiskey and looked untouched. A gold or gold-plated ashtray beside the zombie held three skinny, half-smoked cigarettes, lipstick smearing the ends.
Dent followed bloody footprints into the bathroom. On the marble counter-top was a picture of an attractive, middle-aged couple. Dent peered at the blood-smeared handle on the walk-in shower door. Using a handkerchief, he opened the door; the shower within sparkled with antiseptic sterility and there was a noticeable smell of bleach. Dent watched a drop of waterfall from the showerhead to the floor. Reached down, using the handkerchief, and gave the shower-handle an experimental turn. Bamp, just like that, the drip stopped.
McClain said, “We’re supposed to use gloves, not hankies. This ain’t Murder She Wrote or Colonel Mustard killing the Mister Plum dude in the frigging conservatory with a lead pipe.”
Dent closed the shower door. Balled up the handkerchief and shoved it into his pocket. “FYI, Sport? It was Professor Plum.”
The guest bedroom? More Indian crap—cactuses and tricked-out zig-zaggy Indian pots. A small Mexican woman in a neatly pressed dress, white like a nurse would wear, sat hunched on the bed’s edge, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. A silver crucifix dangled from her neck.
“Ms. Gonzalez?”
The woman looked up at Dent with death-shocked eyes. “Mrs. Parks as me iron a dress for her when I almost leaving. Now she dead. She wearing the dress I iron. Now she dead.”
Dent nodded. “Did she mention who she was meeting?”
“No, she never tole me nothing like that.” Ms. Gonzalez chewed on her lower lip. “She did tell me put clean sheets on the bed when I get here this morning.”
“Clean sheets?”
“Sí. She always say that, chew know, when she have friends over.” Ms. Gonzalez twirled the crucifix nervously around a finger. “Chew know . . . Man friends? Sometimes they stay over. She tole me no tell Mister Parks nothing about no clean sheets.”
“Do you recall if the front dead-bolt was locked when you got here?”
“Locked. I remember looking in my purse for the key and think I left it at my sister’s when I watched her niño yesterday. I think maybe he took the key to play but then I fine it.”
“The side-door was open. Did Mrs. Parks use the deck at night?”
“Si. But she always lock it after. She very careful.”
“You see anyone suspicious in the last week, someone watching the house?”
Ms. Gonzalez shook her head, still playing with the crucifix.
“Did the Parks ever use the hall shower?”
Ms. Gonzalez shook her head again, “Never,” and suddenly glanced past Dent and down the hall. Her dark eyes grew wide and the crucifix-fidgeting intensified.
Just in time, Dent turned to see a gurney pushed by a paramedic. Looking to Ms. Gonzalez, now three shades paler, he said, “The Parks fight much, Ms. Gonzalez?”
“I never saw Mr. Parks yell or hit Mrs. Parks. I never see them fight, ever.”
“Hunh.” Dent started to hand a business card to Ms. Gonzalez, then pulled it back. “Ms. Gonzalez, where were you last night?”
“At my sister’s. I left at 11.” Looking puzzled. “Why chew ask? I doan kill no one.”
Ms. Gonzalez took the card and twirling her crucifix round her finger, started timidly down the hall. Watching her, Dent said to McClain, “Take the shower apart. If there’s a hair, a toenail clipping, a goddamn loogie, I want it. Get down in the trap and get anything’s in there.”
McCLAIN SAID, “This is the door. It was just like this.”
The sliding glass door was an inch ajar, sea breeze puffing through the crack and fighting the house’s death stench. Beyond the door was a red-wood hot-tub on a red-wood deck; a gate led off from the covered deck, giving way to the sand that gave way to the sea. Dent left the shade of the deck and sank into deep sand as the pitiless sun began beating down on his head and the hangover-snake clenched.
I need sunglasses . . . Or maybe a goddamn umbrella.
Dent squinted through the glare at the golden people lying on their beach towels, completely frigging immune to the heat. Shook his head . . . Lay around soaking up rays for twenty years . . . and began trudging up the beach . . . Pay through the nose for face-lifts the next twenty . . . slogging through sand, feeling it slithering into his loafers . . . Get polyps the size of Ross Perot cut off your face for the next ten . . . as his squinted eyes flicked from million-dollar beach houses to the sand—
“Hey, Vince, what’re you looking for?” McClain said, kicking up sprays of sand and drawing abreast.
Dent’s eyes flicked from sand to beach houses. He hesitated at a narrow alley leading between two houses. Looked up the beach . . . If the perp uses the back door, this is a good place to get back to the street . . . and started up the alley, eyes flicking left to right, observing, scrutinizing—
“You’re not talking now, are you? Off on one of your super-sleuth freaks, aren’t you?”
— peering down at the sidewalk, over at the fence, back down at the sidewalk—
“You know,” McClain said, “some days you can be a total asshole.”
— studying, memorizing, comparing—
“Right now, this’d be one of those days.”
DENT DIDN’T FIND JACK. He did make it back in time to see Celeste Parks loaded into the ambulance, in time to see the lookie-loos whipped into a frenzy by the sight of a corpse.
Goddamned vultures.
At his car, Dent studied the home’s impeccably landscaped lantana, pansies and African daisies huddling along the stucco wall. You one of those guy’s has a problem with divorce and the 50-50 split-it-up plan, Mister Parks? Dent’s thoughts circled back to Celeste Parks staked to the floor. He said to McClain, “Kahuna, I’ve got one big question.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“
Why’d the perp take her face?”
McClain frowned. “Dude . . . I’m not even sure I wanna know.”
DENT SAT ON A COUCH wedged into about a dozen throw pillows. Mrs. Kate Lipschke sat curled up in an armchair like a cat, a glass of Chardonnay in her hand.
“I called because I saw Celeste’s house on the news,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. It’s just a terrible, shocking thing.”
Dent nodded, and the motion knocked several pillows to the floor. Replacing a pillow, he said,
“Were you close to Mrs. Parks?”
“We met at the Bishop’s School in the second grade. Actually, we were competing for one boy’s attention . . . Michael Ryan. He’s a federal judge now, some say he’ll be the next Supreme Court justice.”
Dent pushed a throw pillow away, trying to make some room. “Did Mrs. Parks tell you about anyone she was seeing lately? New friends? A lover?”
Mrs. Lipschke sipped her wine and ran a finger at the corner of her lips, fixing her lipstick. “Detective, this is very hard for me, Celeste and I being as close as we were, but I should tell you that in the last few years she’d had more than the occasional fling.”
“She ever tell you any names?”
“Celeste was a lady, Detective. A lady never talks.”
Dent sipped his water, avoiding the sliced-lemons and thinking: That’s funny, I thought married ladies didn’t sleep around.
“She go anywhere in particular to meet these men?”
“Celeste simply went to a bar and picked out a man. In fact, she called last night asking if I’d cover for her, that if Davis asked, she was playing bridge with the girls all night.”
“Was she?”
“Not a hand.”
“Who else was with you last night?”
“Oh, Helen Meyers-Fitch, Trudy Timken, Babs McCoy. The whole gang.” Mrs. Lipschke glanced at Dent’s empty glass. Said, “More tap water, Detective?” and her tone clearly conveyed her annoyance at his earlier declining of the ‘ginseng-kiwi-papaya extract’ of her own design.
Dent shook his head. “Mrs. Parks say which bar she was going to?”
“No. But I know it was one in La Jolla, on Prospect.”
“Wasn’t she afraid she’d see somebody down there she knew?”
“Celeste liked La Jolla because the men are more cultured.” Mrs. Lipschke swirled the wine in her glass, watching it, saying, “As far as somebody seeing her in a bar—” now looking Dent in the eyes “— Celeste had Davis convinced we spread malicious lies about her. If someone claimed Celeste was with another man she’d deny it. And Davis would believe her, being, as he is, so consumed by his work.”
“Mrs. Lipschke, were they happy together, in your opinion?”
“Well, they certainly gave it that appearance, yes.”
“Then why was she seeing all these other men?”
Mrs. Lipschke held her glass in two hands, peering over the rim at Dent. “Detective . . . Davis’ passion was architecture and outside that he’s . . . oh, how should I put it? Stodgy? Celeste was a vivacious woman with a passion for men.” Mrs. Lipschke leaned forward, lowering her voice. “And between you and I? I don’t think Davis’ tiger’s got much roar any more, if you take my meaning. Celeste wanted a lion in the bedroom, she had Morris the cat.” Mrs. Lipschke ran her index finger around the rim of the glass before fixing her cornflower eyes on Dent that may or may not have been tinted contacts. “Is it true? About her face?”
Dent nodded.
Shaking her head slowly, Mrs. Lipschke sighed and said, “And after she just got her face-lift.”
Saying it without a trace of sarcasm.
THEY ROLLED SOUTH ON HARBOR DRIVE, Dent driving, McClain riding shotgun.
McClain saying, “ . . . there’s no sign of tampering on the locks and the alarm system checks out.”
“Which might indicate she knew the perp, invited him in and they had a drink together.”
“Drinkie poo before hackie poo. Nice. But it’s possible some dude lurking in the bushes jumped her.”
“Maybe. But instead of punching in the disarm code, she’d hit the silent alarm. So let’s start with the assumption she invited the perp inside. They have a drink. Now, after he does his thing, the tidy little bastard takes a shower, which is a first.” Dent glanced over at McClain. “You look in the garage?”
“Yup. Beemer, Benz and a Jag. No empty spaces. So he didn’t park in the garage.”
Dent rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out a kink. “Garage door was latched from the inside, right?”
“Right. So he went out the back, onto the beach.”
On their right, three blondes in a convertible VW Cabriolet were grooving to some beat, hair flying in the wind. The driver screamed something at McClain and smiled.
Grinning, McClain waved as the girls blew kisses. The girl in back gestured for McClain to roll down the window. “Would you look at that,” McClain said, rolling down the window and grinning. "Pull up beside them, they probably want my number.”
“Why? You’ve got a fiancée.”
“C’mon, can’t deprive this girl a shot at meeting the next Hollywood heart-throb.”
Shaking his head, Dent edged the Sprint up beside the convertible. The girl in back yelled something Dent didn’t catch and started laughing as the convertible pulled away.
“What’d she say?”
McClain looked over. “She said, Nice car, does your Dad let you drive it on Saturday nights.” Shaking his head. “I can’t believe you drive this piece of shit, this is not a cop car. You’d never see Beretta or Serpico in a Chevy Sprint.”
“Yeah? Well I’m not Beretta or Serpico.”
“No shit, not when you’re driving a car with three cylinders of steam power.”
“You done?”
“Done.”
“Good. So let’s say the perp went out the back door, and it’s a fifteen, twenty-minute walk to the front of the house. Does that mean he didn’t park out front? Maybe he’s afraid someone’d recognize his car, so he parked around the corner?”
McClain, staring after the diminishing convertible, said, “Sure, he didn’t wanna try to get back to his car covered in blood in case a beach-person saw him, so he took the shower. If he parked around the corner, it’d be easier to get to his car going out the back and up an alley. The alleys are how we get back to the street after a wave session. If he parked on a side street, it means he cased it prior and plotted his bail-out.”
Dent shrugged. “Brings us to her date-book. You check it?”
“Last entry was July sixteenth. Said, Masks Arrive.”
“Three weeks ago. Maybe the same masks that were stolen?” Dent considered this a moment.
“No random murderer takes the masks. The perp understood their value. The masks are the nexus.”
“Maybe it’s some sort of freaky, ritual, witch-crafty shit maybe, right. He slashes all those weird-ass Satan-worshiper pentagrams into the body, takes her face, takes the masks. Bet the house he’s talking to God or the Devil. Y’ask me, it’s going serial.”
Out front of San Diego PD, Dent cut the engine, shaking his head. “I hate this crap.”
McClain nodded. “You’re telling me, dude. I’m scheduled to start vacation next week.”
PARKS STOOD BESIDE THE TABLE, his eyes traveling the length of the corpse.
Celeste Parks’ upper body was bare, a sheet bunched up just below her pubic hair. Pentagrams radiated from her belly button and up her arms, down her legs and disappeared beneath the sheet and her face was a mask of fibrous muscle and white bone, teeth bared in a deadly grin. A chocolate-colored mole shaped like a heart was above her left breast.
Parks' eyes locked onto the mole, staring at that chocolate mole . . .
He looked away. “Yes . . . Yes, that’s her. Now please, for God’s sake, cover her.” Staring at the wall, sobbing softly, he said with the deepest mortal’s anguish: “Please, please for the love of God . . . cover her.”
Dent nodded at the morgue technician, and a sheet was pulled over Celeste Parks’ leftovers.
THEY WERE IN A LITTLE INTERROGATION room off Homicide. Overhead, the fluorescent light sputtered intermittently. Parks sat in a chair beside McClain, across from Dent, cold coffee in a Styrofoam cup on the table before him. McClain had a notebook in hand and lollipop in his mouth.
“Mister Parks, tell me how you and your wife got along.”
Parks silently stared at the wall so long Dent was tempted to ask the question again. Finally, the man said: “We had occasional disagreements, like any couple.”
“You fought about communication, children, money?”
“We occasionally disagreed.”
“How long were you married?”
“26 years next month. They were the best years of my life. I’d never have become what I am without Celeste’s help.”
“You ever think about divorcing her?”
“I guess on a couple of occasions I gave it a passing thought— when Celeste was drinking too much she was tough to handle. Sometimes, when she’d had a bit much to drink, she’d create scenes, say something to someone that was inappropriate, tell them what she really thought rather than just making happy talk. In our social circle, that’s considered bad taste. Plus, Celeste wasn’t exactly herself when she was drinking. She was often angry. But she hasn’t had a drink in over a year. She’s been . . .” Parks stopped. Pursed his lips. “Celeste was seeing her therapist twice a week. Working out her anger.”
Dent scrubbed a hand across his face. “I gather you’re away from home a lot. Traveling. How’d Mrs. Parks feel about that?”
“She liked it. She spent the time with friends. And collecting her artifacts.”
“Did you ever think it was dangerous leaving your wife alone all the time in a house that big? Prime target for a burglary?”
Parks looked Dent hard in the eyes. “I had a top-of-the-line security system installed and a dozen guns hidden throughout the house so Celeste would be safe.” Looking down, he said, “But yes. Yes, I have thought about that all day.”
Dent nodded, sipping his coffee. Carefully set the cup on the table, finger loop pointed at Parks, and said, “How well do you think you knew your wife? Being away all the time?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“I’m asking if you knew who your wife associated with when you were away.”
“Her friends. Her girlfriends. I didn’t hire a private investigator to follow her around taking pictures if that’s what you mean, Detective. We spoke by phone daily. I trusted Celeste implicitly.”
Dent considered this, the words “trust” and ‘implicitly’, considered how he’d ask the next question, then said simply, “Where’d your wife tell you she was going last night, Mr. Parks?”
“She played cards with Mary Kate Lipschke and some other girlfriends. Bridge.”
Dent rubbed his eyes. The flickering fluorescent, a dozen cups of coffee, the hot long day, all conspired to make him feel edgy and very, very tired. “I spoke with Mrs. Lipschke. Babs McCoy, too. Your wife never played a single hand of bridge. Mrs. Lipschke claims your wife wanted her to cover for her, in case you called. Said your wife confided she was going to a bar on Prospect.”
Parks’ face was hard. “They lied. Celeste was at bridge.”
Dent waited.
Parks said, “Listen, let me make you understand something . . . I’m . . . I’m not going to sit here and allow Celeste’s memory to be torn apart by yours or anyone else’s lies—” his voice rising in volume “—by the slander and the jealousies of petty, soulless people. She doesn’t deserve this. She . . .” Parks stared at the wall. Took a breath and let it out slowly. Then said softly, “Celeste was a good woman.”
His eyes were wet with unresolved tears.
Dent studied this, studied the way the muscles in Parks’ jaw clenched and unclenched. Glanced up at McClain, who shrugged, and back at Parks. “Please listen to me, Mr. Parks. I want you to understand that neither Detective McClain nor I want to cause you any additional trauma. We’re trying to find out who murdered your wife. That means I need answers that require questions, and unfortunately those questions can be painful. But I don’t enjoy asking them.”
Parks looked Dent dead in the eyes and said in a weary voice, “Does it really make any difference, Detective?”
Dent decided it didn’t. Sipping lukewarm coffee, he said, “What can you tell us about the stolen masks. The ones in the case?”
Parks shook his head and smiled a bitter smile. “Ah. The masks. Celeste’s pride and joy. She really loved those masks, the whole collection, actually . . . she’d’ve had the whole house done like a tribal teepee if I’d hadn’t said something. Dragged me from a project on deadline to look at the masks when the guy delivered them. Wanted to know what I thought about them. If I could feel their power.”
“So what did you think?”
“I thought they were ugly as hell.” Parks shrugged. “But they were old, more than 200 years old. From some Northwest Indian tribe, Kwah-something or other, I don’t know.” Parks studied his hands, spread across the table. “God, but she loved those masks.”
“You know who she got them from?”
Parks shook his head. “Some antiquities house in San Francisco. She’d heard about them through her contacts in the Native American movement, she sponsored a few research projects. She was real big into the Indian thing. It was an obsession with Celeste. She was half-Cherokee and identified strongly with Native American causes.”
McClain, writing in his notebook, said, “Any idea what the masks are worth, Mr. Parks?”
“She paid 2.8 million for the three masks.”
McClain whistled. “Three of ‘em together?”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” McClain said, shaking his head. “Know what they’d go for on the black art market?”
“No, I don’t. We don’t involve ourselves in any black art markets, Detective.”
Dent said, “We’ll want to know who she paid for the masks so we can talk to them. Did she pay by cashier’s check or what?”
“I don’t know,” Parks said. “Celeste has . . . had her own accounts where she keeps her inheritance. She would have drawn against that. But good luck. She kept the bulk of her liquid assets in the Bahamas and they won’t tell me anything about her money, including how it was spent.”
Dent nodded. “There was a gold clock in the display-case used to smash the glass. Looked expensive. How much was it worth?”
“I paid seventy-five thousand for it, a birthday present for Celeste’s fortieth. A joke, you know .
. . Time and all. Why?”
“We wondered why someone would take the masks and leave something obviously as valuable as that clock. Any ideas?”
“Perhaps the person who stole the masks is an expert in Indian artifacts.”
“That’s what we thought. And your wife knew a lot of people like that.”
“She did. Maybe of those Indian people murdered her.”
“Do you know any of these people?”
“Unfortunately, I was never involved in Celeste’s hobbies, but their names are in her appointment book. I believe you mentioned earlier you’d confiscated it. That is how you located Mary Kate Lipschke and the rest of the witches’ coven, isn’t it?”
“She called us.”
“I see. Well, you might try her date book.”
The room was quiet except for the sound of McClain’s pen and the occasional sputter of the fluorescent light. Finally, Parks said, “Are there any more questions? Or are we done.”
Dent looked at McClain, who shook his head, and back at Parks. “You’ve been helpful. Elevator’s around the corner to your left. Press ‘L’ for lobby.”
“Detective, I’ll be staying at the Marriott in La Jolla if you need to reach me.”
Dent nodded. “Mr. Parks, we truly are sorry about your wife.”
Dent watched Parks hesitate— his back ram-rod straight in the wrinkly blue suit— then tacitly exit, the pneumatic-springed door closing slowly and firmly behind him.
McClain said, “Dude, I hate this frigging job, that’s why I let you do all the talking. I’m either getting transferred to vice or traffic or I’m quitting. I'm getting hypersensitive. It’s supposed to get easier, it’s getting harder. It’s weird.”
“You just have to focus on the job.” Dent shook his head. “But can you imagine hearing your spouse was cheating on you on top of the fact she was hacked up? Who would want to believe it?”
“And pride’s blind.”
Dent took a sip of coffee and set the coffee cup down just so. “Bottom line.”
McClain pulled the lollipop from his mouth, looked at it for a moment, twirling the stick in his fingers, and said, “We follow up, just to be thorough, but I think the bottom line is we’ll find the dude’s legit. He didn’t have jack shit to do with his wife’s getting vaped.”
Dent nodded. Glanced at his watch. 10:00. Took a last sip of bitter, cold coffee. Stretched his back. At 10:02, he got to wondering about those masks.
A novel by C. William Boyer
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4th
SQUINTING THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD and the head-squeezing haze of a first-rate hangover-snake, Dent cut the engine and frowned.
It was a sprawling beach-front home with a paramedics van out front. The van's rear doors were open and a bunch of bullshit lookie-loos loitered outside the police ribbons with their arms crossed, the curious little pricks wondering when the news-vans would arrive and about the best place to stand in order to get on the 4:30 early edition. And all of it beneath the glare of a fat, pitiless lemon sun.
Dent threw open the door and, whammo, felt thick hot air go for him, nearly knocking him over with the sheer brute force of it. Simultaneously, the hangover-snake coiled a little more tightly around his pulsating skull, clenching and unclenching. Dent sat at the wheel . . . This is bullshit . . . before he glanced about, checking on the goddamn lookie-loos. A couple were watching him, so he scoonched over in the seat, pretending to grab something off the floor, and gunned down a hard swig of scotch from the flask. Then sat blinking at the dazzling sun.
“Another day, another goddamn dead body.”
Dent climbed out of his Chevy Sprint with the electric-blue factory paint-job. Soon as he did, that pitiless goddamn lemon sun started beating down on his head and the hangover-snake— Snake? Hell, it felt like a goddamned python wrapped round his skull— the snake surged with the heat and clenched a little harder. Squinting into the merciless sun, skull crushed by the hangover snake, Dent started to the back of the car . . . It’s gotta be a hundred, easy . . . stuck the key in the hatch’s lock . . . Goddamn Santa Anas, whole summer’s practically been one long heat wave . . . and popped the hatch. Standing strategically, so the raised hatch-back lid was between himself and those nosey goddamn lookie-loos, he ate three Tums and took another swig, then slammed the hatch lid closed . . . Sweet Jesus . . . and endured a wave of nauseating pain as the hangover-snake shifted its grip.
Dent popped a peppermint and stood cursing silently until the snake’s coils eased some, before stalking across the street and past the lookie-loos and their greedy eyes.
He entered the house into a long entryway lined by recessed display cases. The metallic scent of blood was strong and, beneath it, something sweet, like incense.
Least it was cool inside.
In the display cases, soft light caressed colored beads in wooden bowls and pottery. The glass in the last case was smashed out. Dent studied chips of safety glass scattered across the shelf along with three wire stands; whatever the stands once held was gone. Beside the stands lay a finely crafted gold clock with the word Tiffany etched into the base.
The entryway spilled down four steps into a sitting room populated by Navajo rugs, couches and two- dozen cactuses of different sizes and shapes of the Federally-protected variety filling more zig-zaggy pottery. A well-stocked wet-bar was on one wall, back of the bar buttressed by a 300-gallon aquarium— blue damsels doing flybys over coral and sea anemones. Beyond 70-foot picture window stretched the Pacific, surfers skating the faces of far off waves while golden bodies reclined on the sand.
In the main room, McClain was talking with Sheila Simpson from the coroner’s office and deputy D.A Harvey Dunkel; McClain, other side of a couch, gesturing at a sheet-shrouded body soaked, top to bottom, crimson. Bloody footprints surrounded the body.
“Gonna love this one, Vinnie,” Harvey Dunkel said, smirking. “Ape took part a her home in a doggy bag, maybe on account he wanted an open-face sanwich or something.”
Careful not to step on any bloody footprints, Dent squatted beside the body and raised a corner of the sheet. Pentagrams were carved into the skin starting at the belly button and radiating out, like the arms of a starfish, to spikes pinning the woman’s feet and hands to the floor. The arms and legs were severed at the shoulders and hips but left unmoved and though there was lots of cutting done to the face, the pale blue eyes were unscathed, free to sightlessly and lifelessly stare.
McClain said, “She was found this morning by the maid, Juanita Gonzalez. Says she left Mrs. Parks at 5:30 last night and when she returned this morning, found her like this and threw up. Officer Peña says she had chorizo for breakfast. Extra salsa.”
“Anybody see the rest of Mrs. Parks laying around anywhere?”
Harvey Dunkel said, “You mean like the missing Parks parts?” Smiling.
Not smiling, Dent said, “Anybody see the rest of her?”
And got silence. “Alright, this Gonzalez lady, she touch anything? We got any contamination?”
“Just the phone,” McClain said. “Says she came in, saw Mrs. Parks and immediately called 911. After the yak-attack. She’s still pretty spin-billy, back in the guest bedroom.”
Dent dropped the sheet. “Is there a Mister Parks?”
McClain said, “Away on business in Miami. Registered at the, uh . . . ” paging through his little notebook “ . . . at the Fisher Island Club. Hotel manager says Parks was in the bar last night sometime between 9 and 10 putting down whiskeys and that he was at breakfast this morning. His secretary’s got him booked on the first available. In like 8, 8:30.”
Dent jerked a thumb back at the entryway. “What was in the display case?”
Sheila Simpson said, “Maid said Indian masks. Super rare, high dollar stuff.”
Dent wandered over to the couches and a coffee table fashioned from marble, McClain following. Two glasses, highball and a zombie, rested on the coffee table, the zombie with lipstick along the rim and two inches of liquid; the highball was maybe whiskey and looked untouched. A gold or gold-plated ashtray beside the zombie held three skinny, half-smoked cigarettes, lipstick smearing the ends.
Dent followed bloody footprints into the bathroom. On the marble counter-top was a picture of an attractive, middle-aged couple. Dent peered at the blood-smeared handle on the walk-in shower door. Using a handkerchief, he opened the door; the shower within sparkled with antiseptic sterility and there was a noticeable smell of bleach. Dent watched a drop of waterfall from the showerhead to the floor. Reached down, using the handkerchief, and gave the shower-handle an experimental turn. Bamp, just like that, the drip stopped.
McClain said, “We’re supposed to use gloves, not hankies. This ain’t Murder She Wrote or Colonel Mustard killing the Mister Plum dude in the frigging conservatory with a lead pipe.”
Dent closed the shower door. Balled up the handkerchief and shoved it into his pocket. “FYI, Sport? It was Professor Plum.”
The guest bedroom? More Indian crap—cactuses and tricked-out zig-zaggy Indian pots. A small Mexican woman in a neatly pressed dress, white like a nurse would wear, sat hunched on the bed’s edge, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. A silver crucifix dangled from her neck.
“Ms. Gonzalez?”
The woman looked up at Dent with death-shocked eyes. “Mrs. Parks as me iron a dress for her when I almost leaving. Now she dead. She wearing the dress I iron. Now she dead.”
Dent nodded. “Did she mention who she was meeting?”
“No, she never tole me nothing like that.” Ms. Gonzalez chewed on her lower lip. “She did tell me put clean sheets on the bed when I get here this morning.”
“Clean sheets?”
“Sí. She always say that, chew know, when she have friends over.” Ms. Gonzalez twirled the crucifix nervously around a finger. “Chew know . . . Man friends? Sometimes they stay over. She tole me no tell Mister Parks nothing about no clean sheets.”
“Do you recall if the front dead-bolt was locked when you got here?”
“Locked. I remember looking in my purse for the key and think I left it at my sister’s when I watched her niño yesterday. I think maybe he took the key to play but then I fine it.”
“The side-door was open. Did Mrs. Parks use the deck at night?”
“Si. But she always lock it after. She very careful.”
“You see anyone suspicious in the last week, someone watching the house?”
Ms. Gonzalez shook her head, still playing with the crucifix.
“Did the Parks ever use the hall shower?”
Ms. Gonzalez shook her head again, “Never,” and suddenly glanced past Dent and down the hall. Her dark eyes grew wide and the crucifix-fidgeting intensified.
Just in time, Dent turned to see a gurney pushed by a paramedic. Looking to Ms. Gonzalez, now three shades paler, he said, “The Parks fight much, Ms. Gonzalez?”
“I never saw Mr. Parks yell or hit Mrs. Parks. I never see them fight, ever.”
“Hunh.” Dent started to hand a business card to Ms. Gonzalez, then pulled it back. “Ms. Gonzalez, where were you last night?”
“At my sister’s. I left at 11.” Looking puzzled. “Why chew ask? I doan kill no one.”
Ms. Gonzalez took the card and twirling her crucifix round her finger, started timidly down the hall. Watching her, Dent said to McClain, “Take the shower apart. If there’s a hair, a toenail clipping, a goddamn loogie, I want it. Get down in the trap and get anything’s in there.”
McCLAIN SAID, “This is the door. It was just like this.”
The sliding glass door was an inch ajar, sea breeze puffing through the crack and fighting the house’s death stench. Beyond the door was a red-wood hot-tub on a red-wood deck; a gate led off from the covered deck, giving way to the sand that gave way to the sea. Dent left the shade of the deck and sank into deep sand as the pitiless sun began beating down on his head and the hangover-snake clenched.
I need sunglasses . . . Or maybe a goddamn umbrella.
Dent squinted through the glare at the golden people lying on their beach towels, completely frigging immune to the heat. Shook his head . . . Lay around soaking up rays for twenty years . . . and began trudging up the beach . . . Pay through the nose for face-lifts the next twenty . . . slogging through sand, feeling it slithering into his loafers . . . Get polyps the size of Ross Perot cut off your face for the next ten . . . as his squinted eyes flicked from million-dollar beach houses to the sand—
“Hey, Vince, what’re you looking for?” McClain said, kicking up sprays of sand and drawing abreast.
Dent’s eyes flicked from sand to beach houses. He hesitated at a narrow alley leading between two houses. Looked up the beach . . . If the perp uses the back door, this is a good place to get back to the street . . . and started up the alley, eyes flicking left to right, observing, scrutinizing—
“You’re not talking now, are you? Off on one of your super-sleuth freaks, aren’t you?”
— peering down at the sidewalk, over at the fence, back down at the sidewalk—
“You know,” McClain said, “some days you can be a total asshole.”
— studying, memorizing, comparing—
“Right now, this’d be one of those days.”
DENT DIDN’T FIND JACK. He did make it back in time to see Celeste Parks loaded into the ambulance, in time to see the lookie-loos whipped into a frenzy by the sight of a corpse.
Goddamned vultures.
At his car, Dent studied the home’s impeccably landscaped lantana, pansies and African daisies huddling along the stucco wall. You one of those guy’s has a problem with divorce and the 50-50 split-it-up plan, Mister Parks? Dent’s thoughts circled back to Celeste Parks staked to the floor. He said to McClain, “Kahuna, I’ve got one big question.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“
Why’d the perp take her face?”
McClain frowned. “Dude . . . I’m not even sure I wanna know.”
DENT SAT ON A COUCH wedged into about a dozen throw pillows. Mrs. Kate Lipschke sat curled up in an armchair like a cat, a glass of Chardonnay in her hand.
“I called because I saw Celeste’s house on the news,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. It’s just a terrible, shocking thing.”
Dent nodded, and the motion knocked several pillows to the floor. Replacing a pillow, he said,
“Were you close to Mrs. Parks?”
“We met at the Bishop’s School in the second grade. Actually, we were competing for one boy’s attention . . . Michael Ryan. He’s a federal judge now, some say he’ll be the next Supreme Court justice.”
Dent pushed a throw pillow away, trying to make some room. “Did Mrs. Parks tell you about anyone she was seeing lately? New friends? A lover?”
Mrs. Lipschke sipped her wine and ran a finger at the corner of her lips, fixing her lipstick. “Detective, this is very hard for me, Celeste and I being as close as we were, but I should tell you that in the last few years she’d had more than the occasional fling.”
“She ever tell you any names?”
“Celeste was a lady, Detective. A lady never talks.”
Dent sipped his water, avoiding the sliced-lemons and thinking: That’s funny, I thought married ladies didn’t sleep around.
“She go anywhere in particular to meet these men?”
“Celeste simply went to a bar and picked out a man. In fact, she called last night asking if I’d cover for her, that if Davis asked, she was playing bridge with the girls all night.”
“Was she?”
“Not a hand.”
“Who else was with you last night?”
“Oh, Helen Meyers-Fitch, Trudy Timken, Babs McCoy. The whole gang.” Mrs. Lipschke glanced at Dent’s empty glass. Said, “More tap water, Detective?” and her tone clearly conveyed her annoyance at his earlier declining of the ‘ginseng-kiwi-papaya extract’ of her own design.
Dent shook his head. “Mrs. Parks say which bar she was going to?”
“No. But I know it was one in La Jolla, on Prospect.”
“Wasn’t she afraid she’d see somebody down there she knew?”
“Celeste liked La Jolla because the men are more cultured.” Mrs. Lipschke swirled the wine in her glass, watching it, saying, “As far as somebody seeing her in a bar—” now looking Dent in the eyes “— Celeste had Davis convinced we spread malicious lies about her. If someone claimed Celeste was with another man she’d deny it. And Davis would believe her, being, as he is, so consumed by his work.”
“Mrs. Lipschke, were they happy together, in your opinion?”
“Well, they certainly gave it that appearance, yes.”
“Then why was she seeing all these other men?”
Mrs. Lipschke held her glass in two hands, peering over the rim at Dent. “Detective . . . Davis’ passion was architecture and outside that he’s . . . oh, how should I put it? Stodgy? Celeste was a vivacious woman with a passion for men.” Mrs. Lipschke leaned forward, lowering her voice. “And between you and I? I don’t think Davis’ tiger’s got much roar any more, if you take my meaning. Celeste wanted a lion in the bedroom, she had Morris the cat.” Mrs. Lipschke ran her index finger around the rim of the glass before fixing her cornflower eyes on Dent that may or may not have been tinted contacts. “Is it true? About her face?”
Dent nodded.
Shaking her head slowly, Mrs. Lipschke sighed and said, “And after she just got her face-lift.”
Saying it without a trace of sarcasm.
THEY ROLLED SOUTH ON HARBOR DRIVE, Dent driving, McClain riding shotgun.
McClain saying, “ . . . there’s no sign of tampering on the locks and the alarm system checks out.”
“Which might indicate she knew the perp, invited him in and they had a drink together.”
“Drinkie poo before hackie poo. Nice. But it’s possible some dude lurking in the bushes jumped her.”
“Maybe. But instead of punching in the disarm code, she’d hit the silent alarm. So let’s start with the assumption she invited the perp inside. They have a drink. Now, after he does his thing, the tidy little bastard takes a shower, which is a first.” Dent glanced over at McClain. “You look in the garage?”
“Yup. Beemer, Benz and a Jag. No empty spaces. So he didn’t park in the garage.”
Dent rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out a kink. “Garage door was latched from the inside, right?”
“Right. So he went out the back, onto the beach.”
On their right, three blondes in a convertible VW Cabriolet were grooving to some beat, hair flying in the wind. The driver screamed something at McClain and smiled.
Grinning, McClain waved as the girls blew kisses. The girl in back gestured for McClain to roll down the window. “Would you look at that,” McClain said, rolling down the window and grinning. "Pull up beside them, they probably want my number.”
“Why? You’ve got a fiancée.”
“C’mon, can’t deprive this girl a shot at meeting the next Hollywood heart-throb.”
Shaking his head, Dent edged the Sprint up beside the convertible. The girl in back yelled something Dent didn’t catch and started laughing as the convertible pulled away.
“What’d she say?”
McClain looked over. “She said, Nice car, does your Dad let you drive it on Saturday nights.” Shaking his head. “I can’t believe you drive this piece of shit, this is not a cop car. You’d never see Beretta or Serpico in a Chevy Sprint.”
“Yeah? Well I’m not Beretta or Serpico.”
“No shit, not when you’re driving a car with three cylinders of steam power.”
“You done?”
“Done.”
“Good. So let’s say the perp went out the back door, and it’s a fifteen, twenty-minute walk to the front of the house. Does that mean he didn’t park out front? Maybe he’s afraid someone’d recognize his car, so he parked around the corner?”
McClain, staring after the diminishing convertible, said, “Sure, he didn’t wanna try to get back to his car covered in blood in case a beach-person saw him, so he took the shower. If he parked around the corner, it’d be easier to get to his car going out the back and up an alley. The alleys are how we get back to the street after a wave session. If he parked on a side street, it means he cased it prior and plotted his bail-out.”
Dent shrugged. “Brings us to her date-book. You check it?”
“Last entry was July sixteenth. Said, Masks Arrive.”
“Three weeks ago. Maybe the same masks that were stolen?” Dent considered this a moment.
“No random murderer takes the masks. The perp understood their value. The masks are the nexus.”
“Maybe it’s some sort of freaky, ritual, witch-crafty shit maybe, right. He slashes all those weird-ass Satan-worshiper pentagrams into the body, takes her face, takes the masks. Bet the house he’s talking to God or the Devil. Y’ask me, it’s going serial.”
Out front of San Diego PD, Dent cut the engine, shaking his head. “I hate this crap.”
McClain nodded. “You’re telling me, dude. I’m scheduled to start vacation next week.”
PARKS STOOD BESIDE THE TABLE, his eyes traveling the length of the corpse.
Celeste Parks’ upper body was bare, a sheet bunched up just below her pubic hair. Pentagrams radiated from her belly button and up her arms, down her legs and disappeared beneath the sheet and her face was a mask of fibrous muscle and white bone, teeth bared in a deadly grin. A chocolate-colored mole shaped like a heart was above her left breast.
Parks' eyes locked onto the mole, staring at that chocolate mole . . .
He looked away. “Yes . . . Yes, that’s her. Now please, for God’s sake, cover her.” Staring at the wall, sobbing softly, he said with the deepest mortal’s anguish: “Please, please for the love of God . . . cover her.”
Dent nodded at the morgue technician, and a sheet was pulled over Celeste Parks’ leftovers.
THEY WERE IN A LITTLE INTERROGATION room off Homicide. Overhead, the fluorescent light sputtered intermittently. Parks sat in a chair beside McClain, across from Dent, cold coffee in a Styrofoam cup on the table before him. McClain had a notebook in hand and lollipop in his mouth.
“Mister Parks, tell me how you and your wife got along.”
Parks silently stared at the wall so long Dent was tempted to ask the question again. Finally, the man said: “We had occasional disagreements, like any couple.”
“You fought about communication, children, money?”
“We occasionally disagreed.”
“How long were you married?”
“26 years next month. They were the best years of my life. I’d never have become what I am without Celeste’s help.”
“You ever think about divorcing her?”
“I guess on a couple of occasions I gave it a passing thought— when Celeste was drinking too much she was tough to handle. Sometimes, when she’d had a bit much to drink, she’d create scenes, say something to someone that was inappropriate, tell them what she really thought rather than just making happy talk. In our social circle, that’s considered bad taste. Plus, Celeste wasn’t exactly herself when she was drinking. She was often angry. But she hasn’t had a drink in over a year. She’s been . . .” Parks stopped. Pursed his lips. “Celeste was seeing her therapist twice a week. Working out her anger.”
Dent scrubbed a hand across his face. “I gather you’re away from home a lot. Traveling. How’d Mrs. Parks feel about that?”
“She liked it. She spent the time with friends. And collecting her artifacts.”
“Did you ever think it was dangerous leaving your wife alone all the time in a house that big? Prime target for a burglary?”
Parks looked Dent hard in the eyes. “I had a top-of-the-line security system installed and a dozen guns hidden throughout the house so Celeste would be safe.” Looking down, he said, “But yes. Yes, I have thought about that all day.”
Dent nodded, sipping his coffee. Carefully set the cup on the table, finger loop pointed at Parks, and said, “How well do you think you knew your wife? Being away all the time?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“I’m asking if you knew who your wife associated with when you were away.”
“Her friends. Her girlfriends. I didn’t hire a private investigator to follow her around taking pictures if that’s what you mean, Detective. We spoke by phone daily. I trusted Celeste implicitly.”
Dent considered this, the words “trust” and ‘implicitly’, considered how he’d ask the next question, then said simply, “Where’d your wife tell you she was going last night, Mr. Parks?”
“She played cards with Mary Kate Lipschke and some other girlfriends. Bridge.”
Dent rubbed his eyes. The flickering fluorescent, a dozen cups of coffee, the hot long day, all conspired to make him feel edgy and very, very tired. “I spoke with Mrs. Lipschke. Babs McCoy, too. Your wife never played a single hand of bridge. Mrs. Lipschke claims your wife wanted her to cover for her, in case you called. Said your wife confided she was going to a bar on Prospect.”
Parks’ face was hard. “They lied. Celeste was at bridge.”
Dent waited.
Parks said, “Listen, let me make you understand something . . . I’m . . . I’m not going to sit here and allow Celeste’s memory to be torn apart by yours or anyone else’s lies—” his voice rising in volume “—by the slander and the jealousies of petty, soulless people. She doesn’t deserve this. She . . .” Parks stared at the wall. Took a breath and let it out slowly. Then said softly, “Celeste was a good woman.”
His eyes were wet with unresolved tears.
Dent studied this, studied the way the muscles in Parks’ jaw clenched and unclenched. Glanced up at McClain, who shrugged, and back at Parks. “Please listen to me, Mr. Parks. I want you to understand that neither Detective McClain nor I want to cause you any additional trauma. We’re trying to find out who murdered your wife. That means I need answers that require questions, and unfortunately those questions can be painful. But I don’t enjoy asking them.”
Parks looked Dent dead in the eyes and said in a weary voice, “Does it really make any difference, Detective?”
Dent decided it didn’t. Sipping lukewarm coffee, he said, “What can you tell us about the stolen masks. The ones in the case?”
Parks shook his head and smiled a bitter smile. “Ah. The masks. Celeste’s pride and joy. She really loved those masks, the whole collection, actually . . . she’d’ve had the whole house done like a tribal teepee if I’d hadn’t said something. Dragged me from a project on deadline to look at the masks when the guy delivered them. Wanted to know what I thought about them. If I could feel their power.”
“So what did you think?”
“I thought they were ugly as hell.” Parks shrugged. “But they were old, more than 200 years old. From some Northwest Indian tribe, Kwah-something or other, I don’t know.” Parks studied his hands, spread across the table. “God, but she loved those masks.”
“You know who she got them from?”
Parks shook his head. “Some antiquities house in San Francisco. She’d heard about them through her contacts in the Native American movement, she sponsored a few research projects. She was real big into the Indian thing. It was an obsession with Celeste. She was half-Cherokee and identified strongly with Native American causes.”
McClain, writing in his notebook, said, “Any idea what the masks are worth, Mr. Parks?”
“She paid 2.8 million for the three masks.”
McClain whistled. “Three of ‘em together?”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” McClain said, shaking his head. “Know what they’d go for on the black art market?”
“No, I don’t. We don’t involve ourselves in any black art markets, Detective.”
Dent said, “We’ll want to know who she paid for the masks so we can talk to them. Did she pay by cashier’s check or what?”
“I don’t know,” Parks said. “Celeste has . . . had her own accounts where she keeps her inheritance. She would have drawn against that. But good luck. She kept the bulk of her liquid assets in the Bahamas and they won’t tell me anything about her money, including how it was spent.”
Dent nodded. “There was a gold clock in the display-case used to smash the glass. Looked expensive. How much was it worth?”
“I paid seventy-five thousand for it, a birthday present for Celeste’s fortieth. A joke, you know .
. . Time and all. Why?”
“We wondered why someone would take the masks and leave something obviously as valuable as that clock. Any ideas?”
“Perhaps the person who stole the masks is an expert in Indian artifacts.”
“That’s what we thought. And your wife knew a lot of people like that.”
“She did. Maybe of those Indian people murdered her.”
“Do you know any of these people?”
“Unfortunately, I was never involved in Celeste’s hobbies, but their names are in her appointment book. I believe you mentioned earlier you’d confiscated it. That is how you located Mary Kate Lipschke and the rest of the witches’ coven, isn’t it?”
“She called us.”
“I see. Well, you might try her date book.”
The room was quiet except for the sound of McClain’s pen and the occasional sputter of the fluorescent light. Finally, Parks said, “Are there any more questions? Or are we done.”
Dent looked at McClain, who shook his head, and back at Parks. “You’ve been helpful. Elevator’s around the corner to your left. Press ‘L’ for lobby.”
“Detective, I’ll be staying at the Marriott in La Jolla if you need to reach me.”
Dent nodded. “Mr. Parks, we truly are sorry about your wife.”
Dent watched Parks hesitate— his back ram-rod straight in the wrinkly blue suit— then tacitly exit, the pneumatic-springed door closing slowly and firmly behind him.
McClain said, “Dude, I hate this frigging job, that’s why I let you do all the talking. I’m either getting transferred to vice or traffic or I’m quitting. I'm getting hypersensitive. It’s supposed to get easier, it’s getting harder. It’s weird.”
“You just have to focus on the job.” Dent shook his head. “But can you imagine hearing your spouse was cheating on you on top of the fact she was hacked up? Who would want to believe it?”
“And pride’s blind.”
Dent took a sip of coffee and set the coffee cup down just so. “Bottom line.”
McClain pulled the lollipop from his mouth, looked at it for a moment, twirling the stick in his fingers, and said, “We follow up, just to be thorough, but I think the bottom line is we’ll find the dude’s legit. He didn’t have jack shit to do with his wife’s getting vaped.”
Dent nodded. Glanced at his watch. 10:00. Took a last sip of bitter, cold coffee. Stretched his back. At 10:02, he got to wondering about those masks.
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