“If he wasn’t involved, what’s the connection?”
“He may have complained about his sister’s attack and unwittingly given the suspect ideas. For your sake I’m not going to say more.”
“Multiple murders,” she said. “How many?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh shit, Alex. What exactly is it you want to know now?”
“There had to be a witness the night Vicki was brutalized and dumped. My money’s on your source. Whom I’m assuming is the staffer who found the body.”
Silence.
I said, “Lee, I need to know what he or she saw.”
“You realize the position you’re putting me in?”
“I do and I’m sorry, but one way or the other it’ll come out.”
“Oh God — next time you call me make sure it’s just a mundane referral.”
“Promise.”
“Multiple murders,” she said. “Okay, no promises, give me a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Lee.”
“Guess I should say, You’re welcome.”
“A few minutes” turned to five, ten, fifteen. At eighteen I was ready to leave. As I got to my feet, the phone rang.
A woman’s voice, tremulous and high-pitched, said, “Dr. Delaware?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just you there?”
“Absolutely.”
“I hope that’s true.”
“It is.”
“I hope... okay, this isn’t going to take long and don’t try to trace this phone, it’s not mine. I am the person who saw what happened the night Vicki Saucedo was dumped. And you need to keep me out of it. Swear you will.”
“I’ll do my best but I can’t guarantee anonymity if the cops dig deep.”
“I’ll take my chances with the cops,” she said. “Because frankly they don’t seem very competent.”
Intake of breath. Long exhalation. “Okay. Here it is: I did not see the poor woman get discarded, just a car speeding through the parking lot, and that led me to look around for a problem. We get homeless and other problems in the lot after dark so I’m security-conscious. Carry pepper spray, try to be aware of my surroundings. The car was really going fast, I figured stupid kids joyriding, next time they could kill someone. So I tried to write down the license plate and managed to get five out of seven numbers. Then I found poor Vicki and dialed 911 and went to get the staff from the hospital. Culver City cops showed up and they had a really bad attitude. I literally had to push myself on them just to get their attention. Finally some guy in a uniform wrote down what I told him and made me feel stupid for not getting the make and model. Then he told me with incomplete plates, there was little they could do. Not exactly digging deep, huh?”
“Shameful,” I said. “Did you ever inform the family?”
“A few days later, I felt it was my duty,” she said. “Her parents were too upset and so was her sister. Just devastated. But her brother seemed approachable so I gave him the information.”
“How’d he take it?”
“What do you think? He was upset. Angry. But in a quiet way. He struck me as the quiet sort but who knows, it was hardly a normal situation.”
Click.
I tried the number. Blocked. Returned to Milo’s office.
Chapter 39
He typed away, finally pushed away from his keyboard.
“Mr. Flick does not live in Hollywood but he’s close enough, near Fairfax and Pico. He was kind enough to legally register two weapons six years ago, a Pardini and a Hammerli, both super-expensive target pistols.”
“No rifle.”
“Big shock, huh? But owning weapons like that tells me he’s a serious marksman who practices. Maybe we can find which range he uses. Not that I’d choose to nab him there, can you imagine? But it’s possible someone’s seen him with the rifle. So what were you just up to?”
I repeated what I’d learned.
He said, “But I’m not supposed to look into it.”
“If it turns out the brother actually contracted Flick, look to your heart’s content,” I said. “If we’re talking some sort of volunteer mission on Flick’s part, I don’t see the point.”
He grunted. “So how’d Flick — or the brother — I.D. O’Brien with only a partial?”
“They’re both math people. Don’t imagine basic hacking with some algorithm is beyond either of them.”
“Your Jane Doe was victimized a year ago. Why wait till now to shoot O’Brien?”
“Joy of the hunt,” I said. “Planning, stalking, staking out. And now that I think about it, a lot of advanced math is like that. Problems that take a long time to solve.”
“Maybe that or O’Brien will still come back to Boykins protecting Keisha.”
“Either way, you’ve got Flick to focus on.”
He faced his desk, spun around and looked at me again. “Ye olde anonymous informant, huh? That’s actually not so bad, I can just list it that way in the murder book, we do it all the time. So okay, thanks. Meanwhile I’ve called another meeting.”
“When?”
“An hour. Tell me you’ve got no patients.”
“Not today.”
“Perfect. Everyone’s hyped and rarin’ to go. Including ol’ Buck but he won’t be here. In South Dakota visiting a daughter.”
He looked at his Timex. “Fifty-six minutes. Let’s get nourished.”
We left the station and walked north to Santa Monica Boulevard. Milo’s a regular at most of the restaurants on a four-block westward stretch, leading to consistent VIP service and sometimes hero worship. But he turned east and stopped a few feet from Butler where a painted banner on a Technicolor food truck proclaimed
TASTEE BITES!!!
A gorgeous young woman in a red Tastee Bites T-shirt worked the counter. A second beauty queen in matching tee, white shorts, and high-tops was outside the truck, taking orders from the half a dozen people lined up at eleven a.m. Including two uniformed officers who nodded at Milo.
The women also nodded and the one on the sidewalk hurried up, exultant. “The usual, Lieutenant?”
“You bet, Sasha.”
“Great! And to drink?”
“Large Coke.”
“Perfect! And for you, sir?”
I said, “Roast beef sandwich sounds good.”
“Awesome! It is good! And to drink?”
“Iced tea.”
“Sweetened?”
“No, thanks.”
“Large?”
“Sure.”
“Beautiful!”
This time Milo took the stairs with no complaint. This time we used the big interview room to polish off lunch.
Flex space given a new meaning.
No false promises about my sandwich; generously dimensioned, amply stuffed with rare roast beef, and augmented by some sort of hand-whipped horseradish sauce. All of which was appreciated because sloshing coffee was the only thing in my gut.
Milo’s breakfast burrito was the size and shape of a lumbar cushion. He sized it up the way a coyote assesses a rabbit.
When we were through eating, he said, “Hold on, right back,” and returned with an enlarged version of Cameron Flick’s DMV photo. Wheeling one of the whiteboards to center stage, he taped the image dead center.
Nothing noteworthy about the face. On the bland side, really. Even the eyes were unremarkable. Medium brown, slightly down-slanted, neither angry nor kind. Just a pair of eyes, free of that cold forever-stare some witnesses report encountering when faced with evil.