L a Requiem (1999) (38 page)

I finished my water, then went back into the living room as she put down the phone.

Dolan said, "We've got to go to Rampart."

"Why?"

"Because that's where Sobek was busted as a juvenile. The Juvie Section there will know where to find his sheet. They might have it loaded on their system, but maybe somebody will have to dig through paper."

"I thought you said we'd need a court order to get at the juvenile stuff."

She frowned, annoyed. "I'm Samantha Dolan, you idiot. Get up to speed."

And this woman wanted to sleep with me.

The Rampart Division station house is a low-slung, brown brick building facing Rampart Street a few blocks west of MacArthur Park, where Joe Pike had first met Karen Garcia.

We parked in a small lot they have behind the place for officers, then entered the division through the back. This time Dolan didn't tell me to keep my mouth shut and try to look smart. Looking smart would be out of place in a station house anyway.

Dolan badged our way into the Juvenile Section, which was microscopic in size, just four detectives attached to the robbery table in the corner of a dingy room. Where Parker Center and the Robbery-Homicide offices were modern and bright, the detective tables at Rampart seemed faded and small, with outdated furniture that looked as tired as the detectives. Rampart was a high crime area, and the detectives there busted their asses, but the cases rarely made headlines, and no one was lounging around in six-hundred-dollar sport coats waiting to be interviewed on 60 Minutes. Most of them just tried to survive their shift.

Dolan zeroed on the youngest detective in the room, badged him, and introduced herself. "Samantha Dolan. Robbery-Homicide."

His name was Murray, and his eyebrows went up when she said that.

"I know you, don't I?"

She gave him the smile. "Sorry, Murray. Don't think we've met. You mean from the TV show?"

Murray couldn't have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. He was clearly impressed. "Yeah. You're the one they made the show about, right?"

Dolan laughed. She hadn't laughed when I'd mentioned her show, but there you go. "These Hollywood people, they don't know what being a detective really means. Not like we do."

Murray smiled wider, and I thought if she told him to roll over and bark, he wouldn't hesitate. "Well, that was some case you put together. I remember reading about it. Man, you were news."

"Hey, it's just Robbery-Homicide, you know? We get the hot cases, and the press tags along. No different than what you do here."

Dolan didn't look good playing modest, but maybe that was just me.

Murray asked how he could help her, and Dolan said that she wanted to look at an old juvie packet, but she didn't have a court order for it. When Murray looked uneasy about that, she grew serious and leaned toward him. "Something we got down at Parker Center. Headline case, man. The real stuff."

Murray nodded, thinking how cool it would be to work the real stuff.

Dolan leaned closer. "You ever think about putting in for RHD, Murray? We need sharp cops who know how to make the right call."

Murray wet his lips. "You think you could put in a word forme?"

Dolan winked at him. "Well, we're trying to find this kid, you see? So while we're reading his file, maybe you could run a DMV check and call the phone company. See if you can't shag an address for us?"

Murray glanced at the older detectives. "My supervisor might not like it."

Dolan looked blank. "Gee. I guess you shouldn't tell him."

Murray stared at her a moment longer, then got busy.

I shook my head. "You're something, all right."

Dolan considered me, but now she wasn't smiling. "Something, but not enough."

"Let it go."

She raised her hands.

Twenty minutes later we had the file and an interview room, and Murray was making the calls.

Laurence Sobek had been booked seven times from age twelve to age sixteen, twice for shoplifting and four times for pandering. The DOB indicated he would now be in his late twenties. Abel Wozniak was twice the arresting officer, first on the shoplifting charge, then later for the second pandering charge. Sobek's most recent booking photo, taken at age sixteen, showed a thin kid with a wispy mustache, stringy hair, and aggravated acne. He looked timid and cowed.

At the time of his arrests, he had lived with his mother, a Mrs. Brasilia Sobek. The record noted that she was divorced, and had not come to pick up her son or meet with the officers any of the seven times.

Dolan scowled. "Typical."

Murray interrupted us, knocking once before opening the door. He looked crestfallen.

"Doesn't have a California driver's license and never had one. The phone company never heard of him, either. I'm really sorry about this, Samantha." He was seeing his chance at the hot stuff fizzle and melt.

"Don't worry about it, bud. You've been a help."

The booking sheets showed that his mother had lived in an area of South L.A. called Maywood.

I said, "If she's still alive, maybe we can work through the mother. You think she's still at this address?"

"Easy to find out."

Dolan made a copy of the booking photo, then used Murray's phone to call the telephone company.

As Dolan called, Murray sidled up to me. "You really think I got a shot at Robbery-Homicide?"

"Murray, you've got the inside track."

Three minutes later we knew that Laurence Sobek's mother was still down in Maywood.

We went to see Drusilla Sobek.

Detective Murray was disappointed that he could not tag along.

Drusilla Sobek was a sour woman who lived in a tiny stucco house in a part of Maywood that was mostly illegal aliens come up from Honduras and Ecuador. The illegals often lived eighteen or more to a house, hot-bedding their cots between sub-minimum-wage jobs, and Drusilla didn't like it that they'd taken over the goddamned neighborhood. She made no bones about it, and told us so.

She peered at us heavily from her door, her flat face wrinkled and scowling. She was a large woman who filled the door. "I don't want to stand here all goddamned day. These Mexicans see me here with this door open, they might get ideas."

I said, "These folks are from Central America, Mrs. Sobek."

"Who gives a shit? If it looks like a Mexican and talks like a Mexican, it's a Mexican."

Dolan said, "We're trying to find your son, Mrs. Sobek."

"My son's a faggot whore."

Just like that.

When she'd first come to the door, Dolan had badged her, but Mrs. Sobek had said we couldn't come in. She said she didn't let in strangers, and I was just as glad. A sour smell came from within her house, and she reeked of body odor. Behind the hygiene curve.

I said, "Can you give us an address or phone number, please?"

"No."

"Do you know how we can find him?"

Her eyes narrowed, tiny and piglike in the broad face. "There some kind of reward?"

Dolan cleared her throat. "No, ma'am. No reward. We just need to ask him a few questions. It's very important."

"Then you better look somewhere else, lady. My faggot whore son ain't never even been close to important."

She tried to close the door, but Dolan put her foot in its base and jammed the sill. Dolan's left eye was ticking.

Drusilla said, "Hey! What the hell you think you're doing?"

Dolan was a little bit taller than Drusilla Sobek, but a couple of hundred pounds lighter. She said, "If you don't get the stick out your ass, you fat cow, I'm gonna beat you stupid."

Drusilla Sobek's mouth made a little round O, and she stepped back. Surprised.

I started to say something, but Dolan raised a finger, telling me to shut up. I shut.

She said, "Where can we find Laurence Sobek?"

"I don't know. I ain't seen him in three or four years." Drusilla's voice was small now, and not nearly so blustery.

"Where was he living the last time you knew?"

"Up in San Francisco with all those other faggots."

"Is that where he's living now?"

"I don't know. I really don't." Her lower lip trembled and I thought she might cry.

Dolan took a breath, forcing herself to relax. "Okay, Mrs. Sobek, I believe you. But we still need to find your son, and we still need your help."

Drusilla Sobek's lip trembled harder, her chin wrinkled, and a small tear leaked down her cheek. "I don't like being spoken to in such a rude manner. It ain't right."

"Did you ever have an address or phone number for your son?"

"Yeah. I think I did. A long time ago."

"I need you to go look for it."

Drusilla nodded, still crying.

"We have his booking photo from when he was sixteen, but I'd like a more recent picture, too. Would you have one of him as an adult?"

"Uh-huh."

"You get those things. We'll wait here."

"Uh-huh. Please don't let in the Mexicans."

"No, ma'am. You go look."

Drusilla shuffled away into her house, leaving the door open. A fog of the sour smell billowed out at us.

I said, "Christ, Dolan, you're harsh."

"Is it any wonder her kid turned out screwed up?"

We stood there in the sun for almost fifteen minutes until Drusilla Sobek finally shuffled back to the door, like a sensitive child who had disappointed her family.

"I got this old address up there with the faggots. I got this picture he gimme two years ago."

"It's a San Francisco address?"

She nodded, her jowly chin quivering. "Up with the faggots, yeah."

She handed the address and the picture to Dolan, who stiffened as soon as she saw them. I guess I stiffened, too. We wouldn't need the address.

Bigger, stronger, filled out and grown, and with much shorter hair, we recognized the adult Laurence Sobek. He worked at Parker Center.

Final Action

Laurence Sobek, his true name and not the name by which he is currently known, finishes stapling black plastic over his windows. He has already nailed shut every window but the small one in the bathroom, leaving only the front door as a point of egress. It is sweltering in the converted garage.

The plan was simple and obvious once Sobek lifted De-Ville's case file from the records section. There in black and white he knew all the people who had helped the Sex Crimes detectives put the Coopster into prison where he died, all the people who had lodged complaints or made statements, and fed the Coopster to the prison population like a sacrifice. Sobek designed the sequence of homicides to take advantage of the weaknesses in LAPD's system: He started with the peripheral complainants it would be impossible for LAPD to connect, intent on working steadily up the food chain until it was too late to stop him even when the Task Force finally realized what was happening.

Now, thanks to Cole and that bitch Dolan, he must spare the remaining minor players, and kill the people he holds most responsible. The lead Sex Crimes detective, Krakauer, died of a heart attack two days after he retired. (All to the good, as Krakauer was the only person with even a remote chance of tying together the names of the early victims.) Pike had arrested the Coopster, then sat in the witness chair at his trial and hammered the nails into De Ville's coffin, but Pike is now a fugitive.

That leaves one other.

The apartment now sealed, Sobek pulls De Ville's case file from its hiding place in the closet, along with the brittle, yellowed newspaper articles about De Ville's arrest. He has read these a hundred thousand times, touching the grainy photographs of the Coopster being led from the motel in handcuffs.

He touches them again now. He hates Wozniak, who spotted him at a Dunkin' Donut shop that day, and manipulated him into revealing what he knew. This asshole is using you, Wozniak had said. What this guy is doing to you is wrong, he said. Help me help you.

The Islander Palms Motel. Arrest. Prison. Dead.

Sobek closes his eyes, and puts away whatever is left of his feelings for DeVille. He has studied Pike, and learned well. Abandon humanity. Feel nothing. Control is everything. If you are in control, then you can re-create yourself. Become larger. Control everything.

Sobek closes his eyes, steadies his breathing, and feels an inner calm that only comes from certainty. He admires himself in the mirror: jeans, Nikes, gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cropped. He runs a hand over his quarter-inch hair, and imagines that he is not looking at Laurence Sobek, but is seeing Joe Pike. He flexes. The red arrows he had painted on his deltoids are gone, but he thinks that when this is over, he will have them tattooed there permanently. He rubs at his crotch, and enjoys the sensation.

Control.

He places the dark glasses over his eyes.

He has a cut-down double-barrel shotgun that he lifted from the Parker Center evidence room, and a box of twelve-gauge shells filled with #4 buckshot. He pulls the weight bench to the center of the floor, then fixes the shotgun to it with duct tape. He runs a cord from the knob to both triggers, rigged so that the gun will go off when the door opens, and pulls back the hammers.

He lays out the evidence that he wants Cole and the police to find, then lets himself out the back window. He will never return to this place.

Laurence Sobek drives away to do murder.

Chapter 34

Dolan ripped away from Drusilla Sobek's house like the queen of the Demolition Derby. She was so excited she was shaking. "We got the sonofabitch. Right under our own goddamned noses, but we got him."

"No, Dolan, we don't have him yet. It's time to take it inside."

She glanced at me, and I knew what she was thinking. That she'd like to snap the cuffs on him herself and cut Krantz and Bishop and their whole damned Task Force out of the bust.

"This is what you wanted, Samantha. This is going to get you back on the team, but not if you piss off Bishop even more than he already is."

She didn't like it much, but she finally went along. "This guy works the day shift, so he's probably at Parker Center right now. I'm putting this on Bishop's desk in person. We've got the files and Wozniak's book. I'm giving Bishop the whole load, and fuck Krantz."

"Whatever. I've got to use a phone. Stop somewhere."

"Use mine. It's in my purse."

"I'd rather use a pay phone. It won't take long."

She glanced at me like I was crazy. "Sobek is there right now."

"I need a phone, Dolan."

"You're going to call Pike."

I just looked at her.

"Ifuckin'knewit."

She jerked the Beemer into the nearest gas station, blasting past a crowd of people waiting to board a bus. She screeched up to the pay phones, and left the engine running.

"Don't take all goddamned day."

I did the same thing I'd done before, calling Pike's man, giving him the pay phone's number, then hanging up. Pike called back in less than two minutes. From the static I could tell he was on a cell phone.

"We were right, Joe. It's Sobek."

"Is he in custody?"

"Not yet. I wanted to tell you that we're bringing it to Bishop now. If we get lucky, Sobek will cop to Dersh. If not, maybe we'll find something that links him to it and clears you."

"It's going to bring up Woz."

"Yeah, it is. We've got to show Wozniak's notebook to tie Sobek to DeVille, and to Wozniak. Once the story breaks, they're going to dig into what happened between you in that room. I just wanted to warn you. After we're finished with Bishop, I'll call Charlie, then go see Paulette and Evelyn so they aren't caught flat."

"You won't have to. I will."

I didn't know what to say, but I smiled.

Dolan blew her horn.

Pike said, "It's been a long time. I guess it's time we spoke."

"Okay, but stay safe until this guy takes the weight for Dersh. You're still wanted, and we don't know what we'll get from him."

When I was back in her car, Dolan swerved through the gas station, cut in front of the bus, and blasted toward the Los Angeles River.

"Dolan, have you ever killed anybody in this thing?"

"Cinch your belt tighter if you're scared. You'll be fine."

I glanced at her and she was smiling. I guess I was smiling, too.

When we reached Parker Center, Dolan didn't bother going into the parking lot; she put it in the red zone out front. We trotted in, Dolan badging us past the desk guard. I looked at everyone we passed, wondering if Sobek would be standing there when the elevator doors opened, but he wasn't.

We pushed into Robbery-Homicide, Watts and Williams raising their eyebrows when they saw us. Dolan steamed straight into Bishop's office, surprising him on the phone.

Dolan said, "We've got the shooter."

He covered the phone, annoyed. "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"

She put the photograph of Laurence Sobek on his desk. "His real name is Laurence Sobek. Here's another picture when he was booked under his true name as a juvenile. He's our shooter, Greg. We got him."

Bishop told whoever was on the phone that he'd get back in five and hung up. He leaned closer to the pictures. Sobek had gained muscle and changed his appearance, but when the pictures were side by side you could tell they were the same guy.

"This is Woody something."

I said, "You know him as Curtis Wood. He's a civilian employee here. He pushes the mail cart around."

Krantz and Watts appeared in the door, Williams standing on his toes to see past them.

Krantz said, "Is there a problem, Captain?"

Dolan laughed. "Oh, please, Krantz. Like you could do something."

"They say he's our shooter, Harvey." Bishop squinted up from the pictures. "Where'd you get this booking picture?"

I said, "Sobek's juvenile record. We got the recent picture from Sobek's mother."

I showed them the pages we'd copied from Abel Wozniak's notebook, pointing out the passages about Sobek and De-Ville, and their relationship, then the copy of Sobek's juvenile record showing Wozniak as one of his arresting officers.

Even as I said it, Krantz made a sour face as if he'd bitten into a rotten carrot. "All this proves is we've got someone working here under a false name. For all you know, he changed it legally because of the problems he had as a child."

"No, Krantz, we've got more than that."

Dolan said, "You find a connection yet between the six vies, Harvey?"

Krantz stared at her, suspicious. You could tell he wanted to say they weren't connected, but he knew she wouldn't have asked if she weren't about to drop a bomb. Instead, he glanced at me. "What's your connection in all of this?"

"If Sobek did the six vies, then he probably killed Dersh, too."

Krantz scowled at Bishop. "We're being scammed. This is just some bullshit Cole cooked up to save Pike."

Bishop was looking dubious, but Stan Watts grew thoughtful. "How are they connected?"

Dolan said, "Leonard DeVille was the pedophile in the motel when Abel Wozniak was killed. Wozniak and Pike had gone in there on a tip, possibly from Sobek, looking for a little girl named Ramona Escobar."

Watts nodded. "I remember that."

"Cole worked backward from Dersh, asking who'd have a motive and why would they put it on Pike."

Krantz said, "This is bullshit. Pike killed that man."

Bishop raised his hand, thinking about it.

Watts looked at me. "How'd you make the jump to DeVille?"

"I wasn't thinking the connection was through DeVille. I was thinking it had to be through Wozniak, but it turned out to be the other."

Dolan went on. "We tried to pull DeVille's case file out of stores, but it's missing. Sobek could've slipped in there and lifted it. I ordered this copy up from the DA's section. This is the witness list from that case file. All six vies are on this list."

Bishop stared at the witness list without expression for almost thirty seconds. No one else in the room moved, and then Bishop quietly said, "Fucking-A. Goddamned fucking-A. All six victims are right there."

As Krantz read it, Watts and Williams looked over his shoulder, Williams making a whistling sound.

Bishop said, "Okay, this is looking good. This is major, but what have you got that locks Sobek to the killings?"

"So far just what you see here. The relationships. You'll need to bring Sobek in and sweat him. You've got more than enough for warrants to search his home and automobile."

Williams was still with the list, shaking his head. "This fuckin' guy I see every day. We were just talkin' about the new Bruce Willis movie."

Krantz jutted his jaw. He hated giving anything to Dolan or me, but he could read Bishop, and he knew Bishop wanted it. "It's good, Captain. Let's find Sobek or Wood or whatever his name is and get him in here. I can get a phone order for the search, and get that done while we're talking to him."

Bishop picked up his phone. No one said anything while he spoke, but Stan Watts caught Dolan's eye and winked. She smiled when he did. After a couple of minutes, Bishop wrote something, then put down the phone. "Wood didn't come in today. He didn't come in yesterday or the day before, either."

Krantz peered at Dolan. "I hope you didn't do anything to make him bolt."

"We didn't go near him, Harvey, and no one could've tipped him. We didn't see his mother until twenty minutes ago, and she doesn't know how to contact him."

Bishop said, "Now, Harve, let's not make accusations. I think Sam's done a good job here."

Krantz smiled, smooth and friendly, and squarely in Bishop's butt.

"I wasn't accusing you, Samantha. This is good work. This really is." He turned to Bishop. "But we've got to take this a step at a time now. If this stands up, and I believe it will, Samantha, then this man is a civilian employee of the Los Angeles Police Department. He was murdering people while he worked here, and he was using our information sources to do it. If we're not careful, we could have another public relations nightmare on our hands. We need to match his prints. We've got to field some physical evidence, maybe correlate the daytime homicides with the days this guy had off or missed work, that kind of thing. Then hope for something physical when we raid his home."

He looked at Dolan, then the others, like he was trying to drive home a point. In command and on top of things.

"If he's not here, we have to find him, and that might take time. I want to move fast, but I don't want to lose this guy because we didn't get all the signatures we should've, and I don't want him tipped because word leaked out." Krantz looked at Dolan when he said that, and she turned red.

Bishop laced his fingers, nodding. "Okay. How do you want to play it, Harvey?"

"Let's keep it small until we know what we're dealing with. Just us, and maybe two radio cars, but let's not make a big show with SWAT. If something goes wrong, the press will be all over us. Until he's in custody, I don't want him to know we're on him. If we miss the guy, the press will have it all over the air and he could slip through our ringers."