I spent the next quarter hour inspecting the master bedroom and the remainder of the second floor, then headed back downstairs. Barrello followed me through a cluttered utility room into the garage. The Pratts’ cars, a brand-new Audi and an older Plymouth Voyager showing considerably more wear, sat like dusty sentinels in their spaces. In the remaining area, beside a neat arrangement of bicycles, I found a workbench with tools hanging in pegboard outlines, plastic hardware containers in pigeonholes, and power tools neatly arranged on racks and shelves. I shook my head in admiration, recalling my own messy workshop at home. After locating a button beside the light switch, I opened the garage door and made my way to an electrical panel on the far wall. “This where he shut off the power?” I asked.
Barrello nodded. “As you can see, it ain’t that easy to find.”
“No,” I agreed. “Can’t see the guy turning on lights to look for it, either.”
I stepped around the cars to the workbench, noticing the partly assembled hull of a model sailing ship-it’s masts, gaffs, and bowsprit already in place. A set of plans and parts from a model kit lay beside it, along with an oak rudder and a handful of miniature teak planks that apparently Mr. Pratt had been shaping using the kit pieces as templates. I opened a number of drawers, finding their contents perfectly arranged, immaculate.
“You seen enough?” asked Barrello impatiently. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Yeah. I’m finished.”
After returning to the utility room door, I hit the garage-opener button and started to follow Barrello inside. Something caught my attention. I reentered the garage and hit the button again.
“Kane. You comin’?”
“Give me a second.”
Barrello returned, watching curiously as I pulled on a pair of latex gloves, grabbed a stepladder from the corner, and removed the light cover on the door-opener motor.
“What’re you doin’?”
“The light on the opener’s out. The one in the Palisades was out, too. Probably doesn’t mean anything, but as anal as this guy Pratt seemed to be… Hmmm, what have we here?”
One of the two bulb receptacles on the front of the opener was empty. As Barrello moved closer, I pried something from the empty fixture with the tip of my pen.
“What’d you find?”
“Potato,” I answered, tossing Barrello a brown, shriveled chunk of vegetable. “Good for getting out broken bulbs. Appears that Mr. Pratt tried to change a dead bulb and wound up twisting it off in the socket.” I attempted to screw out the other bulb, holding it close to the stem. It wouldn’t budge.
I crossed to the workbench, returning with a pair of insulated pliers. After inserting the tool’s beaks into the vacant socket, I twisted, unsuccessfully trying to unscrew the broken bulb remnant. “You might want to have your guys dust the cover and remaining bulb,” I suggested as I stepped down from the ladder.
“Think the killer messed with them?”
“Maybe. We have a car missing from the Palisades house,” I answered. “It’s possible that the guy originally planned on stealing one of the Pratts’ cars, too. Maybe he intended to stash the bodies in the trunk and then hide the car, and he didn’t want the lights coming on when he opened the door.”
“So why didn’t he?”
“Hide the bodies? Who knows? Maybe he changed his mind. Hell, the guy’s a psycho-maybe he came down here to run around naked in the moonlight and didn’t want anybody watching. Bottom line, if he did mess with the lights, he went to a lot of trouble to make sure they couldn’t be fixed before he came back.”
“Pretty far-fetched. If he didn’t want the lights coming on, why didn’t he simply unscrew them? Or better yet, open the door manually?”
“I don’t know. I admit it’s a long shot, but something’s going on. Let me make a call and see what we come up with at the Palisades scene.”
“Go ahead,” said Barrello doubtfully.
I retrieved my cellular phone from the front seat of the Chevy. Returning to the shade of the portico, I punched in Paul Deluca’s number.
Deluca, who for the past hour had been at the Palisades crime scene awaiting the arrival of a technician from the security company, sounded testy when he answered. “I phoned that hump twice to remind him,” he complained. “Son of a bitch still forgot. I hate putting up with that kinda crap.”
“That’s why we’re getting the big bucks, Paul. Listen, go out to the garage and examine the door-opener lights. They’re dead, and I want to know if they’ve been tampered with. And don’t screw up any possible prints.”
“Don’t worry,” said Deluca. “I have done this kinda thing before. By the way, the missing car turned up. It’s in a Santa Monica body shop.”
“One mystery down. I still want the opener examined. Do it now, okay? I’ll wait for you to call back, so don’t take all day.”
After closing the garage and relocking the house, Barrello exited the front door in time to hear the last of my conversation. “So are we gonna cooperate on this?” he asked.
“Think you can handle working with a hotshot big-city detective such as myself?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said dryly. “What’s first?”
I thought a moment. “For one, we can have our labs cross-compare all physical evidence. We’re currently examining the Larsons’ personal records, and we’ll be interviewing every friend and family member we can turn up. I’m sure you guys have already done the same, so let’s cross-check those areas, too. It would be helpful to establish a link, even if it’s only marginal.”
“So we’re goin’ on the assumption that the killer knew both families?”
“Oh, he knew them,” I said, my eyes searching a ridge west of the house. “Maybe only peripherally, but he knew them. The women are the key. You don’t turn up two women that beautiful at random. He selected them, stalked them, and when the time was right, he killed them.”
Noting my stalking reference, Barrello glanced up at the ridge, where the framed skeletons of three homes under construction were silhouetted against the skyline. “Think he lives in the complex here?”
“Not necessarily, but close enough to know the area. By the way, I talked to a kid at the gate. Anybody can get through, especially in the morning when work crews arrive.” My cellular phone rang. I flipped it open. “Deluca?”
“The one and only, paisano, ” Deluca answered. “That prick from the security company finally called. He’s on his way.”
“What about the utility light on the door opener?”
“It was out, like you said. I pulled the cover and found what appeared to be two dead bulbs. I tried one in a house lamp, where it worked fine. But get this. As I was unscrewing the other bulb, I discovered that a wire had been cut on the light unit and tucked back into the housing.”
“Good work, Paul. Get SID out there again. Have them dust the bulbs and light cover, and anything else on the opener the guy might’ve touched. As a matter of fact, have them take the whole thing back to the lab. I want all doorknobs in the house examined for fibers, too.”
“Anything else?”
I thought a moment. “Sample any oil and radiator coolant drips in the garage.”
“I’m on it.”
I broke the connection, then looked over at Barrello. “The light on the Palisades opener was disabled. On purpose.”
Barrello nodded. “I’ll have our guys go over the Pratts’ opener. Doorknobs, too. Could be we’re on to something.”
“Maybe.” I glanced at my watch, realizing there was no way I would avoid freeway traffic on the return trip to West LA-especially if I stopped to have the Chevy checked. “Time to hit the road. I’ll be in touch.”
Barrello shoved his hands into his pockets. “Hey, Kane?” he said, gazing back at the house. “What’d you mean when you said it made sense? You know, when you found the fibers on the bathroom doorknob?”
“Simple. I’m betting those fibers will match the clothesline rope our guy used.”
“Gee, I’ll alert the media.”