“Always has been.”
She sat back down. Exhausted from the meeting.
Such fun, detecting.
With Omar Selden I.D.’d as the prime suspect for Paradiso, the logical step would’ve been running an immediate search for the mass killer. Instead, Petra had been ordered to clear paper, specifying how she’d come up with Lyle Leon as a witness. Then: sit tight until notified further by the Homicide Special Squad.
The call came on Thursday. Big-time meeting tomorrow at two P.M.
They’d adjourned an hour ago, at three. She and Mac Dilbeck and three golden downtown boys. The agenda, actually written on the whiteboard: “intradivisional interfacing.”
The three H-S detectives had turned out to be relaxed types, nothing but praise for the way Hollywood had come up with Selden. Petra figured it for total b.s. but smiled prettily. The confab ended up being Petra and Mac fact-sharing and the hotshots reciting everything they knew about VVO and other Westside/Valley gangs. They’d brought props- an easel, charts, statistics. The last sheet on the easel was a crater-pored blowup of Omar Selden’s soft, glaring face.
Seeing him like that, there was no other way to think of Selden but as a Seriously Bad Guy. Petra realized how close she’d been to evil and fought not to shiver.
At two fifty-eight, the head Downtown guy announced the plan, obviously preordained: The new San Fernando Valley Gang Unit would search for Omar Selden because, even if Selden was the shooter, he’d been accompanied by other bangers and the takedown required specialists. H-S would handle “formal liaisoning” with the gang squad and get back to Mac about a follow-up meeting for the entire “apprehension team.”
Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
Petra raised the issue of the missing Sandra Leon. The head Downtown guy said, “Wouldn’t you say she’s probably dead? We bring Selden in alive, maybe we’ll find out the details. That’s why it’s important to do it right.”
She left the conference room more worn-out than if she’d driven all over town looking for Omar.
Now she sat at her desk, thinking about the June brainings because there was nothing left to think about on Paradiso. The kill-date was seven days away and she and Isaac hadn’t sat down for a while.
She’d dropped the ball. But Paradiso had been the here and now, she could be forgiven.
Seven days; Lord help the next victim. Unless Isaac was wrong.
How could he be? The wound-stats were nearly identical.
That old gnawing feeling surfaced under her breastbone. Retrieving the June 28 files, she reviewed the cases yet again.
Concentrating on Marta Doebbler, lured out of the theater. Because she’d met Kurt Doebbler and he was weird.
Then: old man Solis and the phony cable guy. Coral Langdon, the dead dog. The more Petra thought about her dog-walking-killer scenario, the better it felt.
Nothing in common between the victims except a calculating, psychopathic flavor to the killings. Someone extremely clever, calculating, willing to shift his approach… chameleonlike.
Heterogeneous victims. Not a sexual thing? Or an ambisexual killer.
Or did it have to do with the challenge? Fun of the hunt?
Even so, there had to be something that tied the six dead people together.
She strained to come up with a unifying factor.
Half an hour later, it was killer six, detective zero.
Seven more days. Had the creep selected his quarry? What criteria did he use? What was it that marked them?
Why crack their skulls? A lot riskier than shooting or stabbing. That had to mean something.
Alex Delaware had told her about cannibals eating their victims’ brains in order to capture their souls. Was this some new-age cannibal thing?
Or was the killer boasting: I’m the brain.
A self-styled genius? Lots of psychos had inflated self-esteem. This one had gotten away with it for years, maybe he really was smart.
If so, her best weapon was a Big Brain on her side. Which she already had. But where was he?
All that youthful exuberance, the way Isaac had latched on to her like a puppy, why keep his distance now? Because she’d put him off? Or was it something to do with that facial bruise? No way did she buy his story about walking into a wall.
Some babysitter I am.
Was Isaac in trouble? She imagined a host of worst-case scenarios, pictured headlines, stories, her name paired with “neglectful cop.”
Councilman Reyes demanding her badge.
Now her stomach was a sloshing sack of acid.
Stop it, he’s fine. Working on his dissertation, gonna be a double-doctor one day. Why hang around here? You’ve given him no reason.
Or was Isaac making himself scarce because he couldn’t figure out June 28? If a genius couldn’t untangle the pattern, how could she hope to?
She placed the six files back in a drawer. Tried to rationalize away the stress-ache by reminding herself that she had produced Omar Selden.
The old-fashioned way. That would be useless for June 28…
She shifted her thoughts to Eric.
She hadn’t seen him since early Wednesday morning when he’d slipped away- limped away- from the station as Lyle Leon was being booked. Drawing Petra into the stairwell, kissing her briefly, then hurrying off.
One call since then. The message slip had greeted her when she arrived this morning.
I’ll be in touch soon. E.
Off doing his thing, whatever that was. Did that mean a prolonged retreat into one of those long, dark silences of his?
She tried to retrieve the taste of his lips on hers. Failed. Satisfaction over Selden began to tarnish. Because collaring the bastard wouldn’t bring back Marcella Douquette and the other Paradiso victims.
She phoned the Biostatistics Department at USC, was told Isaac was rarely in, but she could leave a message.
To heck with it, she’d kill the next hour driving the streets and pretending to be observing her turf. No, better to walk, bleed off nervous energy.
Collecting her purse, she left the station. Out in the parking lot, she saw two guys loitering by her car.
A pair of suits she didn’t recognize. Dark suits, badges on their breast pockets. Then she realized she had seen them before. The pair that had been shmoozing and laughing in the lot a couple of nights ago.
That time, they’d ignored her.
Now, they were waiting for her.
She walked straight up to them. Two mustachioed guys, one fair-skinned, one swarthy. Blue tie, blue tie.
The light one said, “Detective Connor? Lew Rodman, the gang squad.”
All business, no smile. The ’stache above his bloodless lips was the color of summer weeds. His partner’s was a black pencil line so thin it could’ve been grease pencil.
Gang guys wanting to talk to her directly about Selden instead of going through Metro? She had come up with the I.D. Nice to be appreciated.
She smiled. “Good to meet you guys. So what’s the plan on Omar?”
Rodman and Grease Pencil exchanged glances.
Pencil said, “Who’s Omar?”
Nothing appreciative in their eyes.
Petra said, “What’s this about?”
Rodman said, “Can we talk somewhere private?”
“If you tell me what it’s about.”
Rodman looked at Pencil. The dark-skinned man said, “It’s about an intern you supervise named Isaac Gomez.”
“Isaac? Is he okay?”
“That,” said Pencil, “is what we’re trying to find out.”
Their bronze Crown Victoria was parked at the far end of the lot. The car was stifling, meaning they’d been here for a while. Petra got in the back and Rodman and Pencil, identified as Detective II Bobby Lucido, sat in front and cracked their windows. Petra’s was inoperative and they made no effort to give her air.
She said, “It’s sweltering, push the release.” Rodman moved, a click sounded and now she could breathe.