“None,” Jacob said.
“Hey, now. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You didn’t drive a hundred twenty miles to enjoy my boat.”
“Put yourself in my position,” Jacob said. “What would you think?”
“What do I think? I think your vic was a bad guy and he probably did a bunch of bad things in addition to killing those girls. I think he maybe did some of those bad things to other bad guys, because that’s who bad guys like to hang out with: other bad guys. They get together and do bad things. It’s like Satan’s bowling league. Then one time you drop a ball on your friend’s foot, or maybe a whole bunch of feet, and he, or they, do what bad guys do, or at least this variety of bad guy. They get mad and chop someone’s head off.”
“You find that satisfying?”
“I find pot roast satisfying,” Ludwig said. “I find that plausible.”
Jacob said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
Ludwig was expressionless, rolling the cigar in his mouth.
“Whoever waxed my guy left a message,” Jacob said. “‘Justice.’”
Ludwig said nothing.
“Now put yourself in my position. What do you think?”
“You didn’t think it was worth mentioning that?”
“What do you think now?”
“I thought this was a clean swap.”
Jacob did not reply.
Ludwig sighed. “Probably I’d think the same thing as you. But look. I’m telling you, I know every single one of those girls’ families. It wasn’t none of them did this.”
“What about friends? Boyfriends?”
“A little credit, please. Those were the first guys that got looked at. O’Connor squeezed them. As did I, multiple times. They don’t fit.”
“Maybe they don’t fit the original murders, but they might fit this. In fact, if they did fit the originals, I’d lean toward ruling them out, because what kind of sense does that make?”
“They don’t fit any murders,” Ludwig said. “I mean it. Leave them the hell alone.”
A silence.
Jacob was about to apologize when Ludwig said, “Which profile did you match?”
“Pardon?”
“There’s two,” Ludwig said. “Which one.”
Jacob said, “Two what.”
Ludwig smiled. “Right. Okay.”
“What,” Jacob said again.
“There were two DNA profiles,” Ludwig said. “Anal semen and vaginal semen. Completely different.”
“Shit,” Jacob said.
“Yup.”
“Two guys?”
Ludwig chuckled smoke.
“And you didn’t think it was worth mentioning that?” Jacob asked.
“Fair is fair, Detective.”
“You have an interesting notion of fairness.”
“I acquired mine same place you did: the Los Angeles Police Academy. And what’s unfair? You said clean swap and that’s what you got. Your bullshit for mine.”
Jacob shook his head. “Anything else you want to share?”
“I’ll tell you the identity of my secret crush.”
“Look—”
“It’s Salma Hayek.”
“The word ‘justice’ was burnt into a kitchen countertop,” Jacob said. “And it was in Hebrew.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“I don’t have a guess,” Ludwig said. “Hebrew?”
“Nobody told me about two guys,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, cause that information was never released, not even internally. You have to read the case file. Have you read the case file?”
“I haven’t had a chance yet.”
Ludwig sighed. He stubbed out his cigar, drained his iced tea, and stood up. “You kids.”
Chapter eighteen
They caravanned to a cul-de-sac in El Cajon, septuplet ranch houses worshipping a teardrop of molten asphalt. Jacob could understand why Ludwig preferred the boat: it was easily fifteen degrees hotter out here than it had been down by the water.
Inside, the blinds were drawn, the air-conditioning going full bore. Ludwig stooped to pet a languid sheepdog before leaving Jacob in the kitchen.
“One minute.”
While Jacob waited, he checked out the photo propped next to the coffeemaker. The Ludwigs had bred for maximum blond: missus was as towheaded as mister, and the boys they’d produced looked like a Nelson cover band. Fresh tulips above the sink implied that Mrs. L had made it through whatever illness had caused the D to take retirement. Some woman was resident, anyway. Girlfriend? Second marriage? Jacob knew better than to ask. All happy families might be alike, and every unhappy family unhappy in its own way, but since there are no happy families, you never can tell.
Ludwig clomped in, schlepping a cardboard file box. He dumped it on the kitchen table and arched his back. “I made copies of everything before I left.”
“Need a hand?”
“Yeah, okay.”
There were thirteen boxes, one for each of the victims and four overflow. As Jacob ferried them from the garage, he noticed a curtained corner, a workbench and plywood table visible through a crack.
It reminded him of his mother’s old setup, and he remembered Ludwig’s comment to the reporter who’d asked how he planned to spend his free time.
Take up a hobby.
Jacob remarked on it to Ludwig, who snorted.
“That clown didn’t print the rest of my answer. He goes, ‘What hobby?’ And I go, ‘I dunno, something mindless. Like journalism.’”
Jacob laughed.
“Got to keep busy,” Ludwig said, and he pulled the curtain aside.
What lay beyond was not the stuff of carved ducks. It was more like Divya Das’s second bedroom, or a hybrid of the two.
There were hand tools, hardware, clamps, a glass cutter, a Shop-Vac — their purpose evident in several half-constructed shadowboxes.
There were also specimen jars, tweezers, magnifying glasses. Shelves of thick books with weak spines and USED stickers. The Handbook of Western Butterflies. North American Lepidoptera. The Audubon Society Guide to Insects and Spiders.
Jacob picked up a shadowbox containing three monarchs and a hand-lettered placard that read D. plexippus.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“I told you, I’m bored. I never knew a thing about any of this until I moved down here. I never had the time. These days, it’s all I have. Do yourself a favor. Stay in L.A.”
Ludwig said, “Anyway, that’s the way it makes sense to me.”
They were at the kitchen table, the dog at their feet, coffee cold, boxes exploded, paper towers occupying every chair except the two they were sitting on.
“A power struggle,” Jacob said.
“Guys working in pairs, you’ve got a leader and a follower. There’s always going to be internal tension. Twenty years of staying quiet, that’s no small thing. Figure them arguing about something, going back and forth at each other, this and that, and one of them gets nervous and goes, ‘I’ve got to take him out before he takes us both down.’”
“You think the message was a blind,” Jacob said.
“It worked, didn’t it? You’re here asking about the victims. Or try this on: Guy A feels remorse, but instead of going to the cops he turns around and kills guy B. In his mind, that’s justice.”
“The cop who responded to my scene said it was a woman who called it in,” Jacob said.
Ludwig said, “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“To me that’s a reason to revisit some of the victims’ families.”
Ludwig nodded slowly. “Okay, maybe. But these people have suffered, you keep that right smack in the front of your mind.”
“Promise,” said Jacob. “Any suggestion where I should begin?”
A silence.
Ludwig said, “I hesitate to even mention this.”
Jacob said nothing.
“One of the vics had a sister who was mentally ill. We never considered her for the original killings because, in the first place, she had no history of violence, and in the second place, we were only looking at men — we had semen. I guess it’s not impossible to fit a crazy woman to yours. Just cause she’s had some problems—”
“I know,” Jacob said. “I get it.”
“She’d have to succeed in tracking the guy down where we failed, and if she’s anything like I remember, that’s out of the question.”
“Fair enough,” Jacob said. “Let me talk to her, at least.”
“Go easy, would you?”
“I promise. What’s her name?”
“Denise Stein.”
“Janet Stein’s sister,” Jacob said.
Ludwig nodded.
Jacob said, “Did you ever look at anyone who spoke Hebrew?”
“Someone Jewish, you mean?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Who else speaks Hebrew?”
“A classically trained priest, a Bible scholar. You come across anyone like that?”
Ludwig was laughing. “Maybe I should be looking at you, Detective Lev. No. I don’t remember anyone like that. If there was, it’d be in there somewhere.”
Warily, Jacob regarded the mess.
Ludwig said, “Best of luck. Don’t forget to write.”