Milo said, “What’s Flick doing?”
Petra said, “Still just sitting there.”
Moe said, “What Doc said, bastard likes the process.”
Petra said, “Any ideas while we wait?”
Milo handed me the radio.
I said, “You could try to find out who he’s studying.”
“I would if I knew which house interested him.”
I said, “He’s likely parked right in front of it but you could expand it to one or two neighbors on each side then figure out the address spacing and make an educated guess.”
Petra said, “Why not? We may be here for a while. Uh-oh, scratch that, he’s moving again.”
Chapter 45
Cameron Flick drove assuredly to where Green Briar turned into Ramsey Drive, then onward to Escondido Drive and Haig Terrace, where he glided to a smooth stop at Ventura Boulevard, made an easy right, crossed to the left-turn lane, paused for the light at Sepulveda, and was back on the Pass moments later.
Petra radioed: “Maybe he’s going back home.”
This time she was right.
By the time the BMW pulled onto Flick’s street two blocks from its destination, Milo was waiting for it, concealed by the shadows of an obligingly massive deodar cedar tree sprouting from the front yard of Flick’s landlady’s house. Heavy branches hung nearly to the ground. Good cover in the darkness.
From where I sat in the Impala, he’d disappeared.
Alicia and Sean had also made it in time for Flick’s arrival. She’d parked four car lengths north of Flick’s residence, he the same distance south.
Petra and Raul had held back so Flick wouldn’t notice them following, and Moe’s drive took him a few extra minutes. All three were relegated to positions half a block north. Flick paid them no notice as he cruised by.
As the BMW swept onto the driveway, Alicia and Sean got out, armed themselves, and ran silently forward on rubber-soled feet.
Flick got out of the car, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. Carrying nothing. He’d walked a couple of bouncy steps before Milo materialized, Glock pointing, shouting.
“Police hands on your head where I can see them on your head now now now!”
Flick stood there, disobedient hands remaining at his sides. Clenched. Sean came up from behind and tackled him and while he was down, Alicia cuffed him.
They both yanked him up. Milo faced him.
I got out of the car just in time to hear, “Cameron Flick, you’re under arrest for four counts of murder. You have the right...”
If Flick remained stunned by capture, he wasn’t showing it. He sagged but not from despair. Wanting to increase the burden of his weight on Sean and Alicia. As Milo recited, he raised an eyebrow. Not the predator’s eyes from the art party. The blandness of his DMV photo.
He yawned.
“...anything you say can and will be—”
Flick smirked. A drawling voice said, “Like I never heard that on stupid TV.”
Milo said, “You’re going to hear it again.”
“That,” said Flick, “is because you’re a redundant moron.”
Suddenly his shoulders rose.
Alicia said, “What’s in your hands? Unclench them.”
Flick stiffened. Ignored the command. Sean forced his left hand open.
Nothing.
On to the right hand. Something fell to the ground.
White, a loose blossom.
Gripping a flower? No, a wadded tissue, unfurling. Alicia gloved up and tweezed it between her fingers.
Sniffed.
“Gross,” she said. “Talk about foreplay, Cammie.”
Return of the hunter’s eyes. Flick writhed and spat at her. Barely missed polluting her face.
Sean kicked Flick’s legs out from under him. Flick pitched forward and Sean guided him facedown onto the driveway.
Milo turned to Alicia.“You okay?”
She said, “Yeah. He’s good with a gun but his mouth is a joke.”
“I’ve got masks in my trunk.”
I went and fetched two.
Double-masked, cuffed, and prone, Flick seemed to wilt.
Milo called for a patrol car for transport.
Flick said, “You are all so incredibly stupid.”
Milo said, “Let’s start from the beginning. You have the right...”
“Lawyer,” said Flick. “Lawyerlawyerlawyerlawyerlawyer.”
Chapter 46
Nothing of interest was found in Flick’s car but for an amoebic stain near the front rim of the driver’s seat and several smaller speckles on the Oberlin floor mat below. All of it fluoresced blue under UV light, the way organic material does. It didn’t take long for the lab to get specific. Semen. Same for the tissue Alicia had retrieved.
Milo said, “Public bathroom, his car. What’s that, a danger thing?”
I said, “Like I said, a sexual component. Also, a mastery thing. The rules don’t apply to me.”
We were in an Italian place two blocks from the station, drinking coffee and eating almond biscotti.
I said, “Maybe that’s why he was driving slow. Timing it so he could finish in front of that house.”
He said, “Everything’s a production with this lunatic. Those people have no idea what they avoided.”
Those people were a family named Streicher, who lived in that house. The parents, city-employed accountants, had a seventeen-year-old daughter and a fifteen-year-old son, both of whom were enrolled at a prep school in Sherman Oaks.
Neither of the kids was Flick’s client but the girl had been cited as the ringleader of a mean clique that had tormented a junior at the same school named Shania Fellows. Who was a longtime client.
Self-described as proudly introverted, quantitatively aroused, and cerebrally-active, Shania had repeatedly posted about her oppressors on social media. Her parents had complained to the headmaster then griped online that no one seems to care about oppression if you’re sufficiently privileged.
“No one except Sir Cameron,” said Milo. “Someone files a complaint, he starts planning a permanent solution. While he rubs himself. Crazy. Is he?”
“With his level of premeditation?” I said. “Not even close. And even if his lawyer wants to try diminished capacity, I doubt Flick’s ego will allow him to go along with it. He’s heavily invested in being mentally superior.”
He laughed. “How many times did he call me an idiot before the black-and-white arrived?”
I said, “Maybe a dozen. Interspersed with his lawyer lawyer lawyer mantra. Who’s representing him?”
“Lance Guidot, court-appointed, not bad but not brilliant.”
“Then it won’t last long. Flick will downgrade him and want nothing to do with him.”
“He can switch counsel as much as he wants. We’ve got more than enough.”
That confidence came from the ballistics match and the treasure trove found at Flick’s home.
The converted garage was an open space kept up neatly and furnished minimally with contemporary pieces, including two wire-framed bookcases filled with math and science books that ranged from junior high to grad school level.
One exception to the minimalistic décor: a seven-and-a-half-foot carved mahogany armoire, ungainly and Victorian, that nudged the ceiling.
The inside rear wall of the oversized cabinet was faced with pegboard and outfitted with movable hooks and braces that supported the two pricey target pistols Flick had registered along with a forty-year-old long-barreled Colt six-shooter, a Glock not unlike Milo’s, a Benelli Super Black Eagle shotgun, and mounted dead center, a .308 Winchester Featherweight bolt-action rifle enhanced by a custom Cerakote camouflage finish. Next to the guns, heavy-duty bolt cutters.