Mary, Mary (5 page)
NINE O’CLOCK,
and all was not well, to put it mildly.
LAPD detective Jeanne Galletta’s handshake was surprisingly soft. She looked as though she could give out bone-crushers if she wanted to. Her orange short-sleeved turtleneck showed off her biceps. She was slim, though, with a strikingly angular face and the kind of piercing brown eyes that could make you stare.
I caught myself midstare, and glanced away.
“Agent Cross. Have I kept you waiting?” she asked.
“Not very long,” I told her. I’d been in Galletta’s position before. When you’re a lead investigator on a high-profile case, everyone wants a piece of your time. Besides, my day was almost over. Detective Galletta would probably be up all night. This case warranted it.
The mess had landed in her lap about twelve hours ago. It had originated at the West Bureau, in Hollywood, but serial cases were automatically transferred downtown, to the Special Homicide Unit. Technically, “Mary Smith” couldn’t be classified as a serial killer until there were at least four attributed murders, but LAPD had decided to err on the side of caution. I agreed with the decision, not that anyone had asked me for an opinion.
The media coverage on this one, and the subsequent pressure on the department, was already intense. It could go from intense to insane soon, if the e-mails to the
Times
got out.
Detective Galletta led me upstairs to a small conference room turned crisis room. It acted as a makeshift clearinghouse for all information related to the murders.
One entire wall was already covered with police reports, a map of the city, sketches of the two crime scenes, and dozens of photographs of the dead.
A wastebasket in the corner overflowed with empty cups and greasy restaurant takeout bags. Wendy’s seemed to be winning the battle of the burgers at this precinct.
Two detectives in shirtsleeves sat at a large wooden table, both of them bent over separate piles of paperwork. Familiar, depressing.
“We need this space,” Galletta said to the detectives. There was nothing overly aggressive about it. She had the kind of unassuming confidence that made bullying unnecessary. The two men cleared out without a word.
“Where do you want to start?” I asked her.
Galletta jumped right in. “What do you make of the sticker thing?” She pointed to an 81/2 x 11 black-and-white photo of the back of a movie seat. It had the same brand of kiddie stickers on it as the ones left on Antonia Schifman’s limo. Each sticker was marked either
A
or
B
.
One of the stickers showed a wide-eyed pony, and the other two a teddy bear on a swing. What was with the killer and children? And mothers?
“It feels awfully heavy-handed to me,” I told her. “Just like everything else so far. The overwrought e-mails. The shootings at close range. The knife work. Hell, the celebrities. Whoever’s doing this wants to go big. Very high-profile.”
“Yeah, definitely. But what about the kiddie stickers themselves? I mean, why stickers? Why that kind? What’s with the
A
’s and
B
’s? Must mean something.”
“She’s mentioned the victim’s kids both times. In the e-mails. Kids are a part of this puzzle, a piece. To be honest, I’ve never come across anything even remotely like it.”
Galletta bit her lip and looked at the floor. I waited to see what she would say next.
“We’ve got two threads here. It’s all film industry, Hollywood, at least so far. But there’s the mother thing. The kids. Never mentions the husbands in either e-mail.” She spoke slowly, mulling it over, the way I often did. “She’s either a mother herself or has a thing for mothers. Mommies.”
“You’re assuming Mary Smith is a woman?” I asked.
DETECTIVE GALLETTA ROCKED
back on the heels of her Nikes, and then she looked at me quizzically. “You don’t know about the hair? Who’s been briefing you, anyway?”
I felt a pang of frustration about my own time being wasted again. I sighed, then asked Galletta, “What hair?”
She went on to tell me LAPD had found a human hair under one of the stickers at the movie theater in Westwood. Testing indicated it was Caucasian female, and it was
not
Patrice Bennett’s. The fact that it was trapped on a smooth, vertical surface under the sticker gave it some pretty good weight as evidence, though certainly not ironclad.
I juggled this new information with what I already knew as I gave Galletta my own take on Mary Smith. It included my gut feeling that we shouldn’t rule out either sex just yet.
“But you should take everything I tell you with a grain of salt. I’m not an all-science kind of guy.”
She smirked, though the effect was pleasant enough. “I’ll take that into account, Agent Cross. Now, what else?”
“Do you have a media plan?”
I wanted to emphasize it as her plan, completely her show, which it was, of course. This was going to be my first and last day on the Mary Smith case. If I played it right, I wouldn’t even have to say that out loud. I would just walk away.
“
Here’s
my media plan.”
Jeanne Galletta reached up and flipped on a wall-mounted television. She punched through several channels, stopping wherever there was coverage of the two murders.
“The shocking double murder of actress Antonia Schifman and her driver . . .”
“We’re taking you live now to Beverly Hills . . .”
“Patrice Bennett’s former assistant on the line . . .”
Many of them were national broadcasts, everything from CNN to E! Entertainment Television.
Galletta pushed a button that muted the sound.
“This is the kind of crap that some reporters live for. I’ve got a twenty-four-hour detail on both crime scenes just to keep these assholes away, plus the damn paparazzi. It’s totally out of control, and it’s going to get much worse. You’ve been through it. You have any suggestions?”
Did I ever. We had all learned a few painful lessons about the double-edged sword of media coverage with the D.C. sniper case a few years back.
“Here’s my take on it—for what it’s worth, and I hope it’s something. Don’t try to control the coverage, because you never will,” I told her. “The only thing you can control is what crime-scene information gets out there. Put a gag order on everyone connected to the case. No interviews without specific permission from the department. And this might sound a little crazy, but get a couple of people onto a phone detail. Call every retired officer you can find. Tell them not to make any comments to the press, nothing at all. Retired cops can be one of your biggest problems. Some of them just love making up theories for the camera.”
She gave me another sly smile. “Not that you have an opinion about all this or anything.”
I shrugged. “Believe me, most of it was learned the hard way.”
While I spoke, Detective Galletta paced slowly in front of the big wall board. Absorbing the evidence. That’s the way to do it. Let the details gather in the corners of your mind, where they’ll be when you need them. I could already tell that she had good instincts. Healthy cynicism for sure, but she was also a listener. It was easy to see how she’d come into her position so young. Now, could she survive
this?
I said, “Just one more thought. Mary Smith is probably going to be watching what you do. My suggestion is, don’t disparage her or her work publicly, at least not yet. She’s already playing it as a media game. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s true. I think so.”
Detective Galletta stopped and looked up at the silent TV images. “She’s probably eating this all up with a spoon.”
My thought, too. And this monster needed to be fed very, very carefully.
This
lady
monster?
IT WAS JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT
when I finally got back to the hotel at Disney and received some more bad news. It wasn’t just that Jamilla had flown back to San Francisco. I already knew that much and figured I was in the doghouse again with Jam.
When I entered the hotel room, I saw that Nana Mama was fast asleep on the sofa. A cluster of pale-blue crocheting was still wrapped around her fingers. She slept peacefully, like a child.
I didn’t want to disturb the poor girl, but she came awake on her own. It had always been that way with Nana. When I was little, all I had to do was stand next to her bed if I was sick or had a nightmare. She always said that she watched over me, even while she was sleeping. Had she been watching over me tonight?
I stared at the old woman for a quiet moment. I don’t know how most people feel about their grandparents, but I loved her so much it hurt sometimes. Nana raised me from the age of nine. I finally leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
“Did you get my voice mail?” I asked.
Nana glanced absently at the hotel phone, with its flashing red message light.
“I guess not,” I said with a shrug.
She put a hand on my forearm. “Oh, Alex. Christine was here at the hotel. She came, and she took Little Alex back to Seattle. He’s gone.”
My brain had a quick does-not-compute moment. Christine wasn’t due to pick Alex up for another two days. She currently had custody of our son, but the trip to Disneyland had been talked out and agreed to. She even said it was a good idea.
I sat down hard on the edge of the couch. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, she took Alex home? What’s going on? Tell me everything.”
Nana shoved her crocheting into a tapestry bag at her side. “I was so mad, I could’ve spit. She didn’t seem like herself at all. She was shouting, Alex. She shouted at me, even at Janelle.”
“What was she doing here, anyway? She wasn’t supposed to—”
“She came down early. That’s the worst part. Alex, I think she was coming to spend some quality time with you and Little Alex. With all of us. And then when she found out you were working, she completely changed. Turned into an angry hornet just like that. There was nothing I could say to her. I never saw anyone so angry, so changed.”
It was all coming too fast, and I struggled with a barrage of feelings. Most of all, I realized, I hadn’t even gotten to say good-bye to my son, and now he was gone again.
“What about Alex? How was he?”
“He was confused, and seemed sad, the poor little boy. He asked for you when his mother took him away. He said you promised him this would be a vacation. He’d so looked forward to it. We all did. You know that, Alex.”
My heart clenched, and I saw Alex’s face in my mind. It felt as though he was getting farther and farther from me, as if a piece of my life was slipping away.
“How were Jannie and Damon about it?” I asked then.
Nana sighed heavily. “They were brave soldiers, but Jannie cried herself to sleep tonight. I think Damon did, too. He hides it better. Poor things, they just moped around most of the night.”
We sat together on the sofa for a long, silent moment. I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here today,” I finally told Nana. “I know that doesn’t mean much.”
She took my chin in her hand and stared into my eyes.
Here it comes. Batten down the hatches
.
“You’re a good man, Alex. And you’re a good father. Don’t you forget that, especially now. You just . . . you have a very difficult job.”
A few minutes later, I slipped into the room where Jannie and Damon were sleeping. The way they lay on the covers, they looked like little kids again. I liked the visual effect, and I stood there, just watching them. Nothing ever healed me the way these two did.
My babies, no matter how old you are
.
Jannie slept at the edge of her bed with the comforter in a wad off to the side. I went over and covered her up.
“Dad?”
Damon’s whisper from behind caught me off guard. “That you?”
“What’s up, Day?” I sat down on the edge of his bed and rubbed his back. I’d been doing it since he was an infant, and wouldn’t stop until he made me.
“You have to work tomorrow?” he asked. “Is it tomorrow already?”
There was no malice in his voice. He was too good a person for that. If I was a pretty good father, Damon was a great son.
“No,” I told him. “Not tomorrow. We’re on vacation, remember?”
FOR THE SECOND DAY
in a row, I got a disturbing wake-up call.
This one was from Fred Van Allsburg, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. I had seen the name on organizational charts, but we’d never actually met or even spoken. Still, he treated me with a kind of instant familiarity over the phone.
“Alex! How are you enjoying the vacation?” he asked within seconds of saying hello.
Did everyone know my business? “Fine, thanks,” I answered. “What can I do for you?”
“Listen, thanks very much for making yourself available on Mary Smith yesterday. We’ve got a good jump on this case, and what feels like a relatively functional relationship with LAPD.
“Listen, I’ll cut right to the chase. We’d like you to represent us for the rest of the investigation out here. It’s big, and it’s important to us. And, obviously, to the director. This case is going to be huge, unfortunately.”
I thought of a line from
The Godfather: Part III—“just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
Not this time, though. I hadn’t slept much, but I did wake with a clear sense of what this day was going to be about—and it had absolutely nothing to do with Mary Smith, or any other heinous murder investigation.
“I’m going to have to give my regrets on this one. I’ve got family commitments that I cannot turn my back on.”
“Yes, I understand,” he said, too quickly to have meant it. “But maybe we could pry you away for just a while. A few hours in the day.”
“I’m sorry, you can’t. Not right now.”
Van Allsburg sighed heavily on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, his tone was more measured. I don’t know if I was reading him right, but I got a hint of condescension, too. “Do you know what we’re dealing with here? Alex, have you seen the news this morning?”
“I’m trying to stay away from the news for a few days. Remember, I’m on vacation. I
need
a vacation. I just came off the Wolf.”
“Alex, listen, we both know this isn’t over. People are dying here. Important people.”
Important people?
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Also, I’m not sure if he was conscious of it, but he seemed to start every other sentence with my name. I sort of understood the position he was in, the pressure, but I was going to hold firm this time.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “The answer is
no
.”
“Alex, I’d prefer to keep this between you and me. There’s no reason to go up to Ron Burns, is there?”
“No, there isn’t,” I told Van Allsburg.
“Good—,” he started in, but I cut him off.
“Because I’m turning off my pager right now.”
