Sacred and Profane (23 page)

“I need all
of his tax forms, not just the 1040s,” Decker said to the voice on the other end. “Yes, ma’am, state as well as federal for the last thirty years—”

The voice grew shrill.

“I realize it’s a hell of a lot of information,” he said, peeved, “so instead of arguing about it, why don’t you program it into the computer and quit wasting time? This is a homicide investigation…Oh, and any army records you can dig up.”

A curt reply, then a click.

“Fuck you,” he said, slamming down the receiver. He picked it up again and dialed the county assessor’s office.

“This is Detective Sergeant Peter Decker of LAPD Homicide. Has Ms. Crandell returned from her morning break?”

He sipped his coffee as the woman put him on hold.

“This is Ms. Crandell,” a birdlike voice tweeted.

“This is Detective Sergeant Decker of LAPD—”

“Yes, Sergeant. I have the information you asked about.”

God bless the competent few. They may not inherit the earth, but they make it an easier place in which to live.

“Great,” he said, grabbing a pencil.

“Mr. Cecil Pode acquired the house on Beethoven Street twenty-two years ago in joint tenancy with his
wife, Ida. Ten years ago—let’s see, that was 1977—it was reevaluated for tax purposes after major capital improvements were made and…” she paused “…and the ownership was changed from joint tenancy to sole ownership.”

“What kind of capital improvements?” Decker asked.

“I don’t know.”

“So Cecil Pode’s lived in that residence for the past twenty-two years?”

“I don’t know where he actually lived. But he did pay his property tax for those years.”

“Thank you.”

Decker hung up and Marge walked over. “Rina called again,” she said to him.

“I’ll get back to her.”

“You’re not being nice.”

“I said I’ll call her. What do you have, Marge?”

“We struck out, Peter. I couldn’t find out any of Pode’s film investors. Confidential.”

“Damn.” Decker lit a cigarette. So he’d die of lung cancer. He had no one to live for anyway. “Did you ever get a chance to talk to the streetwalkers in Hollywood about the Grandpas?”

She pointed her thumbs downward. “Their lips were zipped. A couple of young ones—their ID says eighteen but their faces say at least a couple of years younger—got very nervous when I mentioned Maurice. But they denied knowing anyone by that name. I got the impression that these old farts were paying them lots of money, maybe scaring them also.”

“Did you tell them about Kiki?”

“They knew about her. ‘Aw, too bad. She was a nice kid, but kinda dumb. I take care of myself better than she did.’ I’m sorry I couldn’t do better—”

“No, no.” He crushed his cigarette out in an ashtray.
“I really don’t like working Homicide. I’ve got to finish the case just to be rid of it and this division.” He looked at her. “I’m going to talk to Arlington.”

“Don’t chance it without departmental okay, Pete.”

“A cop died during that shoot-out.”

“Yes, I know. The whole department knows. But Arlington didn’t pull the trigger.”

“He was there. Someone’s got to crack his nuts.”

“Patience. The timing’s wrong. If anyone comes within a mile of him, he screams harassment and makes a phone call. You get dressed down. What’s the point?”

The phone rang.

“Decker,” he said.

“Is
Detective
Sergeant Peter Decker there?”

He stared at the receiver and shook his head. “This is Sergeant Decker.”

“This is Ms. Lotta from the Hall of Records. You asked about the Podes’ marriage, birth, and death certificates?”

“I sure did. What do you have for me?”

She cleared her throat.

“Mr. Cecil Pode married Miss Ida Brubaker in Fresno, California, on June 21, 1955. Mrs. Ida Pode’s death certificate was signed on May 17, 1977. Cause of death was indeterminate because she was burnt up so badly. She was identified through dental records.”

“Any names of surviving kin?”

“If there are, I don’t have any. All I deal with is certificates. I have no access to obituaries, Sergeant.”

“Do you have the name of the dentist who made the identification?” Decker asked.

“No. The death certificate was signed by the ME.”

“That’s fine, Ms. Lotta. What about the birth certificates?”

“There’s a registration of birth for a Dustin Pode, but
I didn’t find any other children born to them. That doesn’t mean there are no other children. It only means Dustin Pode was the only child born in L. A. County.”

“Thank you.”

He put down the receiver, scribbled a few notes, and dialed Parker Center—Police Statistics.

“Casey? Pete. Can you get an obit for me? Yeah…Ida Pode—Peter-Ocean-David-Edward—died May 17, 1977 in a fire. I know she was survived by her husband and son, I want to find out if there were any other children in the family…. Yeah. Thanks, I’ll hold.”

He tucked the receiver under his chin, rubbed his hands together, and waited.

“Margie, did the original fire report say where Ida Pode died?”

“I think they found the body—or what was left of it—in bed.”

“Sure?”

“No. I’ll look it up again.”

Casey came back on the line.

“The woman left behind her husband and two sons—Dustin, 22, and Earl, 17.”

Bingo!

“Thanks, Casey.” Decker hung up.

“What did he say?” Marge asked.

“Dustin has a little brother, Earl.”

“Aha. So whose bones are in deep freeze?”

“Either Dustin’s or Earl’s. And the living Dustin is either Dustin or Earl. What I need are their respective sets of dental X rays to make a positive ID, and to do that, I need the family dentist.”

Decker lit a cigarette and ruminated.

“Jesus, seems I’ve been talking to a lot of tooth jockeys these past couple of weeks. Might as well make an appointment for a cleaning.”

“Bowl ’em over with your grin.”

Decker laughed.

“Problem is, Marge, if I call up the living Dustin and ask for his family dentist, he’s going to get suspicious if he’s really Earl. I have to do it on the sly without his catching on.”

“You know,” Marge said, “the 1040s sometimes list the name of the accountant who prepared the tax forms. You could probably get the name of Pode’s insurance carrier from him. If Pode had dental insurance, we could trace the dentist from insurance records.”

“Good point, except their 1040s are in transit.”

“The medical charts!” Marge shouted.

“Of course!”

He opened his file, pulled out Dustin Pode’s folder, and took out the chart. Ten minutes later he plunked the medical files back into the folder and closed the drawer.

“No such luck?”

“You’d think a pediatrician would have at least listed the kid’s dentist.”

Decker knitted his brow and thought. “How about this? Cecil lived in the same house for the past twenty-two years. I bet the boys went to the local high school. And I bet they filled out health forms. Maybe I’ll check it out while I’m waiting for the tax records to come in.”

“Okay,” Marge said. “And while you’re at it, take a look at the yearbooks and get a picture of Earl.”

His phone rang again. MacGruder from Culver City PD.

“Thanks for returning my call,” Decker said.

“No problem, Sergeant. The bomb wasn’t triggered by a timing device. It was detonated by a remote-control unit—a BSR. One of those fourteen-button jobs that can turn on your jacuzzi by phone while you’re still at the office.”

“Long range of operation?”

“Miles.”

“Which means the button could have been pushed from almost anywhere.”

“Yep.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“Now what?” Marge asked.

“Bomb was set off by a long-range remote-control unit,” Decker said. “The person could have been anywhere when he pulled the trigger.”

“I don’t think the person was just anywhere, Pete.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “Someone was watching the place and didn’t want us to get hurt.” He thought a moment. “The whole thing’s ridiculous, Marge. If you want to destroy evidence you don’t do it in broad daylight. Besides, nothing incriminating was left. If you want to scare off a cop you don’t do it by nearly blowing his head off. Way too unpredictable and way too messy. And it attracts too much attention.”

“Maybe Dustin blew it up for insurance?”

“Cecil rented the place. There wasn’t more than a couple grands’ worth of photographic equipment in there. You don’t blow up buildings to collect two g’s.”

“But someone was trying to prove a point.”

“Right. Someone was struttin’ his stuff.”

Sitting in the registrar’s office of Mar Vista High, Decker tried not to stare at the dowdy, graying lady with thin, cotton candy hair. But she was so full of nervous energy, he couldn’t help sneaking in sidelong glances.

“Can I get you some coffee in the meantime, Sergent?” she said, jumping out of her seat.

“No, thank you,” he answered. She sounded like Aunt Bea in the old Andy Griffith show. “While I’m waiting,
I’d like to look through some yearbooks. Where do you keep them?”

“Last year’s is right on my desk,” she said, pulling out a drawer.

“I need the ones from 1969 through 1978.”

“Oh dear,” the woman said, touching her cheek. She coughed, scratched her head, and rose from her seat. “Just a moment and I’ll see what I can do.”

Ten minutes later, she returned and said sweetly, “They haven’t forgotten about you, Sergeant. It takes a long time to find old records, especially health records. If you had asked for transcripts, it would have been easier. We have almost immediate access to transcripts, but you don’t need those, do you?”

“Not right now.”

She put an armful of annuals down in front of him. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

He went through Dustin’s first. The caption under the graduation picture stated that he was a member of the student council, the Spanish club, the honors club, the scholastic achievement organization, and the B-string football team. The portrait was stiff and unsmiling, but the handsome features shone through the somber pose.

He looked through the ’78 album—the year of Earl’s graduation—but not a trace of the younger brother could be found. Probably dropped out. He tried the ’77 yearbook. Nothing. But he was listed in the ’76 album, and much to his surprise, the picture of Earl was almost a duplicate of his older brother’s.

For starts, the physical resemblance was remarkable. Earl’s features were a little softer and less brooding, but the faces could have been Xeroxes. What was even more noteworthy were the activities that the younger brother had chosen—student council, the scholastic achievement
organization, Spanish club, and the B-string football team. The group picture showed him squatting in the front row, padded heavily and looking absurdly beefy under a thin face.

The brothers seemed to have followed the identical trail to a point. What had happened?

Nineteen seventy-seven was the year of the fire, the year of their mother’s death. And in ’77 Earl’d dropped out of school.

Decker stared at the team picture. Some of the boys had tried to look scary and menacing, often ending up looking tentative and scared.

And one looked unusually familiar.

Quickly Decker flipped the pages back to the eleventh-grade class roster.

Baby-faced Cameron Smithson.

The detective looked at the ’78 album. Smithson had graduated, but no honors were listed under his name. His only distinction was his position as a tailback, second string on the B football team. Closing the book, Decker frowned.

The hyperactive woman had come back smiling, with sheets of paper in her hand.

“Here are the records, Sergeant,” she said, rocking on her toes. “I told you we’d find them.”

He scanned through the health charts noting their illnesses—lots of flu, infections, colds, broken bones from falls. He knew some of those falls were manufactured—the results of abuse rather than accidents. Then he found what he was looking for. In fourth grade Dustin had lost a front tooth in a fight during recess. Next to the entry was the name of a dentist. Using the school phone, he made a call and arranged to see the man.

Onward and upward…

An hour later Decker left the office of David Bachman,
DDS. The dentist, an elderly blue-eyed leprechaun of a man, remembered both boys as being polite and slightly troubled. (“I’m no headshrinker, but I’ve seen an awful lot of people and have gotten to know human nature pretty damned well.”) Bachman said it would take a couple of days to dig up the records, but when he did, he’d send a copy over to Anne Hennon, whom he knew. (“A great-looking gal with a fine pair of gams.”)

As Decker got into his car his beeper went off. He called in from his car radio, and a moment later Marge’s voice was patched through the line.

“I’m over at Cecil Pode’s home,” she said. “The place was torched this morning.”

“I’ll be right down.”

“You can come down, Pete, but there’s nothing left except ashes. Mike and I are sifting through the rubble.”

“Arson?”

“Yeah. Incendiary material all over the place—rags and newspapers soaked with gasoline.”

“Have they determined the hot spots?”

“Three. In the bedroom, the kitchen—stove blew up—and the living room.”

“Anyone talk to Dustin Pode?”

“Someone from Culver City PD. Seems he was at work all morning. Security guard at his office says he checked in about six, around the same time as the fire.”

“Was the place insured?” he asked.

“Underinsured, Pete. Fact of the matter is Dustin had the place up for sale and had a prospective buyer. Guy who talked to Dustin said he sounded real pissed. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Check around and see if any fire starters have been spending a lot of cash lately.”

“Will do,” she said. “Are you going back to the station?”

“Probably,” said Decker. “Marge, when Mike’s done with Pode’s house, have him call Arnold Meisner and ask him to find Earl Pode’s medical records. Tell Mike to impress upon the doc that this is a homicide investigation and we need the chart ASAP.”