He called at noon, just as she was finishing a quick lunch of toast, a green apple, and strong coffee. She chewed fast, swallowed. “Where are you?”
“Downtown.”
“Second day, running?”
“Maybe the last day,” he said.
“How’s it going?”
“They’re being… thorough.”
“You can’t talk freely.”
“I can listen.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Eric.”
“For what?”
“Your having to go through this because of- ”
“No sweat. Got to go.” In a softer voice: “Honey.”
Google pulled up zero on Kurt Doebbler- an achievement in itself because the search engine was a monstrous cyber-vacuum cleaner.
She supposed the absence of a personal website was consistent with Doebbler’s asocial personality. But his name did come up on the Pacific Dynamics homepage. One of many names on a roster of the company’s “Senior Staff.”
Kurt was listed as senior engineer and technical designer on something called Project Advent. No details on what that was. The bio did note that Doebbler had “interfaced” with the 40th Engineering Battalion at Baumholden Army Base, in Germany. Having spent his high school years as an Army brat near Hamburg, and speaking fluent German, “Kurt was a natural for the assignment.”
That seemed odd. American Army engineers would speak English.
Was Kurt into hush-hush stuff?
Something else to make her life more difficult?
She read on: B.S. from Cal Tech, M.S. from USC- Isaac’s alma mater.
Speaking of which, she hadn’t talked to Isaac since Friday. With nothing to show there was no sense bothering the kid. According to the bio, Kurt Doebbler was well-regarded as a systems designer who’d worked at Pacific Dynamics for fifteen years. Meaning soon after grad school. No listing of prior employment as a cable dude. But why would there be?
She printed the info, reread it. The German connection got her going in a whole new direction, and she spent the afternoon making international calls until she reached the right person at the Hamburg Police Department.
Chief Inspector Klaus Bandorffer. It was the early morning hours in Germany, still dark, and she wondered what kind of chief inspector kept those hours. But Bandorffer sounded chipper, a professional but amiable fellow, intrigued by a call from an American detective.
Adding yet another potential infraction to her departmental jacket, she told him the June 28 cases were being actively and officially investigated and that she was the lead detective.
“Another one,” said Bandorffer.
“Another what, Chief Inspector?”
“Serial killer, Detective- is it Connor?”
“Yes, sir. You’ve got a lot of serials in Hamburg?”
“Nothing active, right now, but we have our share,” said Bandorffer. “You Americans and we Germans seem proficient at growing such sociopaths.”
A spooky thought. “Maybe we’re just good at detecting patterns.”
Bandorffer chuckled. “Efficiency and intelligence- I like that explanation. So you believe you have a suspect who may have lived in Hamburg?”
“It’s possible.”
“Hmm. During what time period?”
Kurt Doebbler was forty. “High school years” meant twenty-two to twenty-five years ago. She gave Bandorffer those parameters and the details of the head-bashing.
“We had such a murder last year,” he said. “Two drunks in a beer hall, brains knocked clear out of the skull. Our killer’s an illiterate carpenter, never been to the United States… Your suspect’s family name is Doebbler, Christian name Curtis?”
“Just Kurt. With a K.”
Click click click. “I find nothing under that name in my current files but I will check retrospectively. It may take a day or so.”
Petra gave him her home number and her cell and thanked him profusely.
Bandorffer chuckled again. “Times like these, we efficient, intelligent law officers must cooperate.”
She tried every cable outfit in L.A., Orange, Ventura, San Diego, and Santa Barbara Counties, dealing with paper-pushers at Human Resource Departments, lying when she needed to.
No record of Kurt Doebbler ever working as an installer or any other type of employee. Which didn’t mean much; she hadn’t expected them to keep records that old.
And that was it.
Still, Doebbler was all she had. Especially for his wife’s killing.
Worse came to worst, she could stake out his house June 28. Hope for a miracle and prepare herself for disappointment.
Maybe it was time to try Isaac. He’d had a few days to mull. Perhaps a high I.Q. could accomplish what her average little brain couldn’t.
He’d probably been by the station yesterday and learned about her suspension. Whatever his issues were with that Jaramillo loser, she knew that hearing about her plight would upset him. In her self-obsession, she’d neglected to consider that. Some babysitter she’d turned out to be.
It was six-fifteen P.M. and all the university departments were closed. She phoned the Gomez residence and Isaac picked up, sounding sleepy. Dozing in the middle of the afternoon?
“Isaac, it’s- ”
A loud, flapping yawn drowned her out. Like a horse’s neighing, kind of gross. This was a side of Isaac she hadn’t seen.
He said, “You, again?”
“Again?”
“This is Klara, right? Listen, my brother’s- ”
“This is Detective Petra Connor. You’re Isaac’s brother?”
Silence. “Hey, sorry, I was sleeping, yeah, I’m his brother.”
“Sorry for waking you. Is Isaac there?”
Another yawn, then a throat clearing. The guy’s vocal tones were a lot like Isaac’s. But deeper, slower. Like Isaac on downers.
“He ain’t here.”
“Still at school?”
“Don’t know.”
“Please tell him I called.”
“Sure.”
“Go back to sleep, Isaac’s brother.”
“Isaiah… yeah, I will.”
At eight P.M. she fought the urge to throw together a lonely gal, out-of-cans dinner and went out. If she was forced to live like a civilian, she might as well reap the benefits.
She drove around the Fairfax District for a while, considering the Grove or one of the places on Melrose. Ended up at a little kosher fish restaurant on Beverly where she and Stu Bishop had lunched from time to time. The owner’s father, a doctor, was a colleague of Stu’s ophthalmologist dad. Petra had returned by herself because the place was close to her apartment, had sawdust floors, fresh, tasty, cheap food, and a counter pickup policy that avoided chitchat with the waitstaff.
Tonight, the owner was out and two Hispanic guys in baseball caps were running the place. Lots of people and noise. Good.
She ordered grilled baby salmon with a baked potato and slaw, snagged the last vacant table, and sat next to a Hasidic family with five tiny, rambunctious kids. The black-suited, bearded father pretended not to notice her, but when she caught the eye of the pretty bewigged mother, the woman smiled shyly and said, “Sorry for the noise.”
As if her progeny were responsible for all the din.
Petra smiled back. “They’re cute.”
Bigger smile. “Thank you… stop it, Shmuel Yakov! Leave Yisroel Tzvi alone!”
By nine forty-five she was back at her place. Eric’s Jeep was parked on Detroit and when she cracked her door, he got up from her living room couch and hugged her. He had on a tan suit, blue shirt, yellow tie. She’d never seen him in light colors and it gave his skin a little earth tone.
“It wasn’t necessary to dress for me, big boy.”
He smiled and removed the jacket.
“Aw,” she said.
They kissed briefly. He said, “You eat yet?”
“Just finished. You were figuring on going out?”
“Out or in, doesn’t matter.” He moved his mouth toward hers again. She turned her head to the side. “My breath smells of fish.”