L a Requiem (1999) (12 page)

Grudging. Not confirming anything I'd said. Not even putting it on Krantz. She was some tough cookie, all right.

Dolan started the car, and ten minutes later we pulled down into the long curving drive that led to the rear parking lot of the L.A. County medical examiner's office behind County-USC Medical Center.

Dolan said, "You been here before?"

"Twice."

"I've been here two hundred times. Don't try to be tough. If you think you're going to bar's, walk out and get some air."

"Sure."

The rear entrance opened to a yellow tile hall where the smell hit us like a sharp spike. It wasn't terrible, like bad chicken, but you knew you were smelling something here that you wouldn't smell any other place. A combination of disinfectant and meat. You knew, on some primitive level deep in the cells, that this meat was close to your own, and that you were smelling your own death.

Dolan badged an older man behind a counter, who gave us two little paper masks. Dolan said, "We've gotta wear these. Hepatitis."

Great.

After we put on the masks, Dolan led me along the hall through a set of double doors into a long tile cavern with eight steel tables. Each table was surrounded by lights and work trays and instruments, not unlike those you see in a dentist's office. Green-clad medical examiners were working on bodies at each table. Knowing that they were working on human beings made me try to pretend that they weren't. Denial is important.

Krantz and Williams were clustered at the last table with the Buzz Cut and his two buddies. The five of them were talking with an older, overweight woman wearing lab greenies, surgical gloves, and a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. She would be the medical examiner.

Karen Garcia was on the table, and even from across the big room I could see that the autopsy was complete. The medical examiner said something to two lab techs, one of whom was washing off Karen Garcia's body with a small hose. Blood and body fluids streamed along a trough in the table and swirled down a pipe. Her body had been opened, and a blue cloth fixed to cover the top of her head. The autopsy had happened without me.

The Buzz Cut saw us first, and tipped his head. Krantz turned as we approached. "Where the hell were you, Cole? The cut was at nine. Everybody knew that."

"You were supposed to call me. You knew her father wanted me here."

"I left word for you to be notified. No one called you?"

I knew he was lying. I wasn't sure why, or why he didn't want me at the autopsy, but I was as sure of it as I've ever been sure of anything. "What am I supposed to tell her family?"

"Tell'm we fucked up. Is that what you want to hear? I'll explain it to her father myself, if that's what you want." He waved at the body. "Let's get out of here. This stink is ruining my clothes."

We went back into the tile hall, where we pulled off the masks. Williams gathered the masks from everybody and tossed them in a special can.

I stepped up to the Buzz Cut. "We haven't met. I'm Elvis Cole, employed by the family. Who are you?"

The Buzz Cut smiled at Krantz. "We'll wait hi the car, Harvey."

The Buzz Cut and his two friends walked away.

I turned back to Krantz. "What's going on with you, Krantz? Who are those guys? Why didn't you want me here?"

"Our lines got crossed, Cole. That's all there is to it. Look, you wanna go back in there and inspect the body, help yourself. You wanna talk to the ME, talk to her. The girl died of a .22 just like we thought. We recovered the bullet, but it's probably too deformed to give a rifle pattern. I don't know yet."

Williams shook his head. "No way. There won't be a pattern. Trust me."

Krantz shrugged. "Okay, the expert says no way. What else you want to know? There was no sign of a struggle or of any kind of sexual assault. We lasered the body for prints and fibers, but it was a wash. Look, Cole, I know you were supposed to be here, but you weren't, and what were we supposed to do? We lose our turn, it might be another three, four days before we can work into the schedule again. You wanna go see the bodies they got stacked in the cooler?"

"I want the autopsy report."

"Sure. You want the report, fine. Might be tomorrow or the next day."

"I want the crime scene report, too."

"I already said you could have that, didn't I? We'll print out a copy for you when we get the autopsy report. That way you'll have everything. I'm really sorry about this, Cole. If it's a problem for the old man, I'll tell him I'm sorry, too."

"Everybody's sorry, that it?"

Krantz grew red in the face. "I don't need lip from some freelance like you. All you are is a peeper. If you'd been a cop, you'd know we're busting our asses. Bruly and Salerno are knocking on every door up at the lake. No one saw anything. We've interviewed two dozen people so far, and no one knows anything. Everybody loved this girl, and no one had a motive to kill her. We're not just sitting around."

"Did you ask Dersh about the SUV?"

"C'mon, Cole. Get off of that."

"What about the homeless guy? Anyone question him?"

"Fuck you. I don't need you telling me how to do my job."

Krantz and Williams walked away.

"This is bullshit, Dolan, and you know it."

Dolan's lips parted as if to say something, then closed. She didn't seem angry now. She looked embarrassed, and I thought if they were keeping secrets, she was part of it.

We drove back to Parker Center at the same furious pace, but this time I didn't bother asking her to slow down. When she let me off in the parking garage, I walked up to my car, where it had spent the noon hour parked in the sun. It was hot, but at least nobody had slashed the interior. Even parked at the police station, that can happen, and does.

I pulled out of the lot and drove exactly one block, then pulled to the curb in front of a taco shop, and used the pay phone there to call a friend of mine at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Five minutes later I had Eugene Dersh's home and work addresses, and his phone number. The addresses were the same.

I called him, and said, "Mr. Dersh, my name is Elvis Cole, calling from Parker Center. Be all right if I dropped by and asked you a couple of follow-up questions about Lake Hollywood? It won't take long."

"Oh, sure. Are you working with Stan Watts?" Watts had been the one who interviewed him.

"Stan's down here at Parker Center, too. I was just talking with him."

"You know how to get here?"

"I can find it."

"Okay. See you soon."

If Krantz wouldn't ask him about the SUV, I would.

Dersh lived in a small California bungalow in an old part of Los Feliz just south of Griffith Park. Most of the homes were Spanish stucco with faded tile roofs, and most of the people in the neighborhood appeared to be older, but as they died off, younger people like Dersh would buy their homes and renovate them. Dersh's house was neatly painted in bright Sante Fe earth colors, and, from the looks of the place, he had put a lot of work into it.

I left my car at the curb, went up the walk, and pressed the buzzer. Some of the yards still showed ash from the fire, but Dersh's was clean. He must've come out and swept. A welcome mat at the front door read Welcome Aboard.

A short, stocky guy in his late thirties opened the door and smiled out at me. "Are you Detective Cole?"

"I'm the detective."

He put out his hand. "Gene Dersh."

Dersh led me into an attractive room with bleached oak floors and brightly colored modern paintings over white walls. "I'm having coffee. Would you like a cup? It's Kenyan."

"No, thanks."

The room opened into another at the back of the house. It was fixed with a large art table, jars of brushes and colored markers, and a high-end PowerMac. Classical music came from the back, and the house smelled of Marks-a-lots and coffee. His home felt comfortable. Dersh was wearing pressed chinos and a loose knit shirt that showed a lot of chest hair, some of it gone gray. Ink smudges tattooed his fingers. He'd been working.

"This won't take long, Mr. Dersh. I only have a couple of questions."

"Call me Gene. Please."

"Thanks, Gene." We sat on an overstuffed taupe couch.

"Don't feel you have to rush. I mean, what a horror for that poor girl, murdered like that. If there's any way I can help, I'm happy to do it." He'd been like that in the interview with Watts, anxious to co-operate. Some people are like that; thrilled to be a part of a criminal investigation. Riley Ward had been more tentative and clearly uncomfortable. Some people are like that, too.

He said, "You aren't the first today. When you called, I thought you were more of the TV people."

"The TV people called you?"

He had some of the coffee, then put his mug on the table. His eyes were bright. "A reporter from Channel 4 was here this morning. Channel 7 called, too. They want to know what it was like, finding her body." He tried to make himself sound disapproving, but you could see that he was thrilled that newspeople with cameras and lights had come to talk with him. He would dine out on these stories for years.

"I'll check it out this evening. See if I can catch you."

He nodded, smiling. "I'm going to tape it."

"You were up at the lake on Saturday as well, weren't you, Gene?"

"That's right."

"You recall seeing a red or brown SUV up there, like a Range Rover or a Four-Runner or one of those things? Might've been parked. Might've been coming in or going out?"

Dersh closed his eyes, thinking about it, then shook his head, looking disappointed. "Gee, no, I don't think so. I mean, so many people drive those things."

I described Edward Deege. "You see a guy like that up there?"

He frowned, thinking. "On Saturday?"

"Saturday or Sunday."

The frown turned into a squint, but then he shook his head again. "Sorry. I just don't remember."

"I knew it was a long shot, Gene, but I was just wondering."

"Did that man or the car have anything to do with what happened?"

"Don't know, Gene. You hear things, you have to follow up, you know?"

"Oh, sure. I just wish I could help you."

"You know anyone else who might've been up there on Saturday?"

"Uh-uh."

"Mr. Ward wasn't with you on Saturday, was he?" If Ward was there, I could ask him, too.

"No. Riley came with me on Sunday. He'd never been up to the lake before. Can you believe that? Here's Riley, a native for chrissake. He lives, what, two miles from the lake, and he's never been there."

"I know people who've never been to Disneyland."

Dersh nodded. "Amazing."

I stood, and thanked him for his time.

"That's all you wanted?"

"Told you it wouldn't take long."

"Don't forget. Channel 4."

"I'll watch."

Dersh brought his mug of Kenyan coffee to the door. "Detective Cole? Are you going to be, ah, seeing the girl's family?"

"I will be. Yes."

"Would you tell them how sorry I am? And give them my condolences?"

"Sure."

"I thought I might drop around sometime, since I was the one who discovered her body. Me and Riley." . "I'll tell her father."

Dersh sipped at his coffee, frowning. "If I remember anything else, I'll be sure to call. I want to help you. I really want to help catch the person who did this."

"If you remember anything, give Stan Watts a call. Okay?"

"Stan, and not you?"

"It'd be better if you called Stan."

I thanked him again, then went out to my car. I hadn't really expected that Dersh would have seen the SUV, but, like I told him, you hear something, you have to run it down. Especially when the cops won't.

I said, "What was so hard about that, Krantz? It took fifteen minutes." The detective, talking to himself.

I worked my way out of the foothills south to Franklin, then east toward Hollywood. Traffic was terrible, but I was feeling better about things, even though I hadn't learned much. Doing is better than watching, and now I felt like a doer, even though I wasn't supposed to be. I thought that I might phone Dolan and tell her that Krantz needn't go back to Dersh about the car. I could probably sound pretty smug when I said it, but Dolan probably wouldn't be impressed. Also, they would find out I'd gone to see Dersh sooner or later. I thought my telling them would make Krantz a little less apoplectic, but you never know. I was hoping it would make him worse.

I left Franklin trying to get away from the traffic, but the roads stayed bad. Another sinkhole had appeared in Hollywood like an acne crater brought on by the subway construction, and Cal Trans had several streets blocked. I turned down Western to pick up Hollywood Boulevard, found the traffic even worse, then cut onto one of the little side streets there, hoping to work my way around the worst of it. That's when the same dark blue sedan that I'd been seeing in my rearview since I'd left the hills turned in behind me.