Bannerman's Law (16 page)

She offered them coffee, seating them in the h
i
gh-
ce
i
l
in
ged living room as she went to the kitchen for it.
Molly looked around the room. The carpet, the furnishings,
seemed expensive for a student residence. Well used, al
though not shabby. A large
-
screen television sat at one
end. Movie memorabilia on the walls. Unlike Lisa's, these
posters were originals and had been carefully framed and
mounted. Two other young women, housemates probably,
had excused themselves when she and Ca
rl
a entered. The young man who had answered the door was now sitting,
arms folded, on the bench outside.

Di
Di Fene
r
ty returned
,
holding a tray. She was a big
girl, large boned, with a
f
riendly open face that reminded
Molly of an Aer Lingus commercial. She was dressed,
unlike the others, as if for church or business. She wore
a dark green suit, white blouse, no jewelry but for a gold
crucifix at her throat and a Ro
l
ex on her wrist. She could
not keep her eyes off Carla.

”
I apologize for Kevin
,”
she said, tilting her head
toward the porch.
“
He lives two doors down. He's been
sort of watching over me since
.
.
.”

She stopped herself. She motioned toward the tray, urg
ing her two visitors to help themselves. She watched as
Carla sipped from her cup.

“
You're
.
.
.
very much like her
,”
she said.
“
She's
talked about you a hundred times. Until now, I almost
didn't believe you were real
.”

Molly was watching her, listening. Her sorrow, her own
sense of loss, was profound and genuine. There was no question that she and Lisa had been close. She was saying
now that they had been friends since high school. That
she knew
Carla's
father. She said this almost apologeti
cally, clearly aware that he and Carla had been estranged.
She was about to go out and visit him. It was why she
was dressed. Kevin wa
s
going to drive her.

Carla was listening, responding, putting her at ease. It
was necessary to do so because, with all the other emo
tions DiDi Fenerty was displaying, there was also an un
mistakable sense of awe. Molly could only imagine the
sort of stories Lisa had told her. But Lisa would have
heard them from her father, not from Carla.

”I
.
.
.
have some of her things here
,”
the young
woman was saying.
“
Just a Her
me
s scarf she lent me. A
few videotapes. And those Majorca pearls you sent her
from Spain last year. The police wanted
e
verything but I
wouldn't let them touch them
.”

”
Um
.
.
.”
Molly leaned forward.
“
What police
?”

“
An FBI agent called yesterday morning. It was just
after we heard about Lisa on the news. I don
'
t know how much sense I made. And then a detective came by yester
day afternoon
.”

“
Just one? By himself
?”

“
Yes
.”

“
What was he looking for
?”

DiDi Fene
r
ty turned, meeting
Carla's
eyes as if to ask
if she really wanted to hear all this. Ca
rl
a nodded
encouragement.

“
They both wanted pretty much the same thing
,”
she
answered.
' ‘
The one who called asked if I could help them reconstruct her movements over the past week or so. How
much had I seen of her and what did we talk about. Did
I notice anything unusual in her behavior. Especially, did
she sa
y
where she was going on Sunday. The detective
asked basically the same questions and he wanted to see
anything I had that belonged to her
.”

“
What did you give him
?”

“
Nothing. He was a sleaze. I didn't want him touching
her things. Kevin told him to go get a warrant. He said
he would
.”

“
That FBI agent who called
,”
Molly asked,
“
what did
you tell him
?”

The young woman eyed Molly curiously but answered
as best she could recall. They'd attended classes all week as usual. Both were going for the same master's degree.
Film and television. They'd talked, but not about anything
special. Mostly about Hollywood during the silent era. The
last time she saw Lisa was at noon on Saturday. Lisa
stopped by after their morning class to borrow her warm-
up suit. Then she left for work. Lisa worked Friday and Saturday nights for a catering firm in Westwood, making
hors d'oeuvres at parties, sometimes tending bar. DiDi went to Malibu for the weekend, to her parents' house
there. She returned Sunday night at about ten.

“
Wasn't there a
.
.
.”
Molly interrupted herself.
“
She
borrowed
your
running suit
?”

The young woman glanced down at her own body,
acknowledging its size.
”
I know
,”
she said.
”
I asked her why. She
said she'd tell me later
.”

Molly retu
rn
ed to her train of thought, tossing her head
toward the large-screen television.
“
Wasn't there a movie
being shown here Sunday at nine?
Flesh and the Devil
?”

DiDi blinked, then realized how Molly must have known that.
“
Kevin
,”
she nodded toward the porch,
“
brought some friends over. They use my TV because it's
the biggest one around. He told me he invited Lisa. He said he left word on her machine but she never
...
I
mean, by that time
.
.
.
” She didn
'
t finish.

Molly shifted gears.
“
Do you have a word processor,
DiDi? With a hard
disk
?”

“
Yes
.”

“
So you have backup software for it
?”

“
Sure. FastBack Plus
.”

“
Did Lisa
?”

“
Lisa copied mine. We'd each do full backups once a
week and swap the backup disks after our Saturday morn
ing class
.”

Molly almost smiled. She'd guessed correctly. The
DF/
F
B
she'd found scratched on a box in Lisa's desk was
shorthand for DiDi Fene
r
ty
/
FastBack. Backup software
was expensive. The student who owned it, and DiDi
seemed to have mor
e
money than most, would share it
with others. The makers of backup software usually rec
ommended that copies of hard disk files be stored at a
different location, ideally a safe deposit box, to guard against loss due to fire or theft.

Car
l
a put down her cup.
“
Does that mean you have a
copy of everything that was on Lisa's computer through
Saturday morning
?”

DiDi nodded.
“
And she has everything that was on
mine
.”

Molly shook her head.
“
I'm afraid yours were dam
aged. Someone was careless with them
.”

The younger woman looked at her, oddly again, then
shrugged. The loss was not important to her. She could
quickly run another set. But now she was wondering how a full box of disks could have been ruined accidentally.
And what could be on Lisa's disks that could possibly
shed any light on her murder. The newspapers said she was a random victim. Same as the other six.

“
This detective who came
,”
Molly asked,
“
did he
know that you had copies of Lisa's files
?”

“
He didn't seem to. He asked for notebooks, diaries,
things like that. I didn't mention her computer files be
cause her personal correspondence, maybe letters to
you
”—s
he looked at Ca
rla—“
is probably on them
.”

“
Thank you
,”
Molly said to her.
“
And this detective
never asked for them
?”

“
No
.”

“
What was his name, by the way
?”

“
He didn't say. He waved a badge and an ID card but
I couldn't read it
.”

“
Can you describe him
?”

“
Medium height, stocky, maybe forty, needed a hair
cut. A slob
.”

“
How about the one who called? Could it have been
the same man
?”

“
No. The FBI agent was polite, well-spoken. His name was Harris. He said there was an outside chance that Lisa
might have known her killer and that's why it was so
important that they know every place she might have been,
who she talked to, during the past week
.”

Molly nodded, thoughtfully.
“
Do you know where
these parties were? The ones Lisa worked
?”

Di
D
i's shrug said it was just a job. Probably not
worth mentioning.

Molly tended to agree, although there was always the
chance that she met her killer at one of them.
“
What's
the name of the catering firm
?’'

”Um
.
.
.”
The young woman tried to think.
“
Let me
look in the yellow pages. I'd recognize it if I saw it
.”

Molly raised an eyebrow.
“
The FBI agent didn't ask? Or the detective
?”

”I don't think so. No
.”

Molly resisted a glance at Ca
rl
a.
“
Can you boot u
p
Lisa's disks for me
?”
she asked.

The young woman hesitated. She looked at Carla as if
for permission. Carla gave it. Still, she waited.
“
Could I ask you something
?”

“
Sure
.”

“
What's going on here
?”

“
We don't know
,”
Molly answered.
“
Someone got
into
L
isa's apartment and took some things. We think he
also destroyed her computer files. It's possible that the FBI agent was right
.”

“
That she knew the Campus Killer
?”

“
It's possible
.”

”
I don't think so
.”

“
Why
?”
Molly asked.

“
Just from the way she was acting all week. She was
on to something and excited about it but it had to do with her master's thesis and it wasn't anything scary. Besides,
anything on those disks was probably already there before
she went to work Friday evening
.”

“
She never told you what she was on to
?”

“
I'm not sure she knew, exactly. She wanted every
thing I had on a silent film star named Nellie Da
m
eon and
someone named D'A
r
conte. Him, I never heard of. If I
had to guess, I'd say she learned something about Nellie that's never been published. If that's true, it would have
helped her grade
.”

DiDi Fene
r
ty heard her own use of the past tense. She
fell silent for a long moment.

“
Molly? Are you
.
.
.”
She paused, searching for the
proper words.
”
I don't know exactly what I'm asking but
are you
.
.
.
like the CIA? Like Carla here
?”

“
We're not CIA
.”

”I meant, sort of
.”

“
Not even a little
.”

The young woman sipped from a cup gone co
l
d.
“
Let
me ask in another way
,”
she said, her voice at the edge of choking.
“
If you were to find the piece of shit who
killed Lisa, would you hand him over to the police
?”

Molly would rather have not answered that question.
An answer would amount to a promise that, in all likeli
hood, she would be unable to keep. And which, otherwise,
might one day be incriminating. Still
.
.
.

“
Eventually
,”
she said at last.
“
We'd hand him over
eventually
.”

Joseph Hickey, formerly of the LAPD, badly needed to
relieve himself. There was always the curb. College kids
did it all the time. The problem was that kid sitting on
the porch, showing off his muscles. That kid, he thought
darkly, was becoming a pain in the ass.

First he says no, you can't come in, go get a warrant.
“
I'll give you a warrant
,”
he muttered.
“
Size twelve,
right in your balls
.”

Yesterday, for two hours, Hickey had waited up the
street for the weight lifter to leave so he could give it one
more shot. Lean on the Fene
r
ty girl. Threaten to bust her
for interfering with an investigation. But the big kid stayed
there. So did half the kids in this neighborhood at one
time or another. Coming in groups. Bringing food. Half
of them crying. With that crowd there was no chance of
going in thro
u
gh a window either. But if he did, then
what? What does he look for? Even Dunville couldn't
tell him.

All Dunville knew, from the calendar on the dead girl's
wall, was that they were friends. Tennis with DiDi. Party
at DiDi's. DiDi's birthday.
Fenertys'
thirtieth anniversary.
“
These aren't just friends
,”
Dunville had said.
“
These
are best friends and best friends talk, especially when
they're both into movies. Find out what she knows. Earn
your money
.''

“
I've earned my fucking money
,”
Hickey said aloud.
“
And you're going to be paying it for fucking ever
.”

The Fenerty girl didn't know shit. He was sure of that
even before he rang her bell because he'd listened in when Dunville called her, pretending he was FBI. After the call, Dunville gets real pleased with himself until he
's
reminded
that the real FBI will probably drop around sooner or later once they hear her name on the answering machine, not
because they think it means anything but because it's
something to do. When that happens, Hickey said to Dun
vi
ll
e, don't you think they'll get curious about who this Agent Harris was? You don't think they'll wonder why
anyone would care what Lisa Benedict was doing for the
whole week before a serial killer was supposed to have
picked her out, totally spur of the moment?

Go talk to her, Dunville says. See what she knows,
Dunville says. And he did. And she didn't know shit. Then
Dunville says
make sure.

Hickey knew what he meant. But he wasn't about to
do it. It probably would be next weekend, if then, before
he could catch her without a crowd around her anyway.

He had started out for Sur La
M
er that morning, to
meet with Dunville, to try to make him see that enough
was enough, when he picked up the police call on his
radio,
Federal agents need assistance,
giving the Benedict
girl's address, which he knew because he'd just cleaned
it out two nights before. He sees two women, one in
handcuffs
...
she could be the dead girl
's
sister
.
.
.
still
dumping all over the two federal agents. This now looks interesting. Now maybe he has something to tell Dunville after all. He follows them and, sure as shit, they make a
beeline for the Fene
r
ty girl's house. He'd better stay with
them. See who they are, where they're going.

But in the meantime, he really had to piss.

Hickey had to chance it. The risk was that muscles up there would spot him, maybe get curious enough to write
down his license plate.

Ahead of him was the intersection. He couldn't go
there, or even around the corner because a bunch of kids
there were tossing a Frisbee. In the yard to his right, two
old ladies were planting a bush. He'd like to have whizzed
into the hole they dug, or at least stepped behind his car but they'd be looking right at him. They'd probably turn their hose on him, the way things had been going late
l
y,
or shoot off their mouths at him. Better, he decided, to
walk back a few cars to where a hedge blocked their view.

H
i
ckey opened his door and eased himself out of his seat.
The pressure from his bladder made him waddle and his
reluctance to be seen made him crouch.

He spotted the plastic pizza sign, Italian colors, on top
of a Volkswagen three cars back. All he had to do, he
realized, was keep that sign lined up between him and
muscles. Joe Hickey minced to the front of the Volkswa
gen. He opened his fly. He released without aiming.

The amber stream hit asphalt, then changed its pitch as
it gathered force and snaked up over the front bumper and grill of the Volkswagen. A voice came from somewhere.
Sounded like
Hey.

Shit.

Some kid, sitting in th
e
Volkswagen, a pizza hat down across his nose. Hickey tried to ignore him, aiming down,
mostly, keeping his eyes on the porch where one of the women, the little one, had just come back out. Muscles
standing up, saying something to her, shaking her hand.
The ta
l
l one must be staying. Hicke
y's
stream wandered
again. Droplets of urine splashed high in the morning sun,
arcing onto the Volkswagen
’
s hood.

“
That's my
car
.”

Pizza hat's voice.
Shut up
,
kid.

Kid taps his horn.
Hey. Shithead. Don't do that.
Hickey
tries shaking a fist. But the kid taps again.

“
Shut the fuck up
,”
he hissed through his teeth. Hickey
cut off the stream. Hot liquid ran down the inside of his
trouser leg. He took two quick steps to the driver's win
dow. With his open hand, fingers wet, he slapped the face of the kid in the pizza hat and then seized his shirt by the
neck. He did this by feel. His eyes were on the porch.
That one woman was leaving now, keys in her hand, walk
ing toward the Chevrolet.

“
You gonna be nice? Or do I piss in your face
?”
Hickey twisted the collar,
jerking
it, still by feel.
A
choked
little squeak from inside. Hickey took it to mean yes.

He released his grip and hurried to the silver Honda.
Climbing in, he flipped his trunk release, which sprang
open. Then he stretched low across his front seat, pre
tending to busy himself at the glove box. He stayed that
way until he heard the sound of the Chevrolet driving past.

There was no doubt in Molly's mind that the man who called was not an FBI agent and that the one who visited was no detective.

The FBI, she knew, would never conduct an interview
on so serious a matter by telephone. Nor did police detectives
work alone except in routine interviews such as door-to-
door canvassing. Furthermore, if their purpose was indeed
to reconstruct Lisa's activities, they had asked all the wrong
questions and few of the right ones, especially the name
of the catering firm and the location of the party, which
might well have been the last place Lisa had been seen
alive.

It seemed to Molly that they were more interested in
finding out what, if anything, D
i
Di Fene
r
ty knew about
whatever it was that Lisa was working on. It also seemed
clear that whoever had searched Lisa's apartment had
found enough references to DiDi to conclude that they were close and were likely to have discussed it. If Lisa
died because of some discovery she'd made, that would
seem to put DiDi Fenerty in danger as well.

Still, Molly was not yet prepared to assume that some
one other than this serial killer was responsible for Lisa's death. She herself had once executed three men by means
of explosive darts. Their bodies hadn't even cooled before
other people were busy looting their files. Those killings
and the subsequent looting were unrelated. Lisa's death
,
in the same way, might simply have been a convenience
to someone else.

The burglar, in any case, who was probably that false
detective, would be a good deal easier to track down than a
serial killer. Lisa's files, she felt sure, would point the way.