The Big Nowhere (15 page)

Danny thought of 2307, vomit traces lost in the blood. “What about the stomach bites?”

Layman said, “Not human, but human. I found O+ saliva and human gastric juices on the wounds, and the bites were too frenzied and overlapping to make casts from. But—I got three individual tooth cuts—too large to ascribe to any known human dental abstract and too shredded at the bottom to identify on any single-tooth forensic index. I also took a glob of dental mortar paste out of one of the wounds. He wears dentures, Danny. Most likely on top of his own teeth. They might be steel, they might be some other synthetic material, they might be teeth fashioned from animal carcasses. And he’s rigged up a way to mutilate with them
and
swallow. They’re not human, and I know this doesn’t sound professional, but I don’t think this son of a bitch is either.”

Ellis Loew performed the ceremony in his office, Mal and Dudley Smith official witnesses. Buzz Meeks stood by the conference table, right hand raised; Loew recited the oath: “Do you, Turner Meeks, hereby swear to loyally and conscientiously perform the duties of Special Investigator, Grand Jury Division of the District Attorney’s Office for the City of Los Angeles, upholding the laws of this municipality, protecting the rights and property of its citizens, so help you God?”

Buzz Meeks said, “Sure.” Loew handed him an ID holder replete with license photostat and DA’s Bureau shield. Mal wondered how much Howard Hughes was paying the bastard, guessing at least three grand.

Dudley joined Meeks and Loew in a back-slapping circle; Mal credited an old rumor still holding: Meeks thought he was behind the shooting that got him his pension, Jack D. blowing it, then forgetting his grudge when the okie was no longer LAPD. Let him think it—anything to keep his new colleague as far away as two cops working the same job could be.

And Dudley. And maybe Loew now, too.

Mal watched the three share a toast, Glenlivet in crystal glasses. He took his notepad down to the far end of the table, Meeks and Dudley trading one-liners, Ellis shooting him a scowl that said, “Let’s work.” Loew’s half nod acknowledged that their bad blood was just temporary. Mal thought: he should owe me, now I owe him. He picked up his pen to doodle, his knuckles throbbed, he knew Loew was right.

After the thing with Celeste, he’d driven around directionless until his hand started swelling, the pain brutal, blunting all his frantic plans to make it up to his son. He hauled to Central Receiving, flashed his badge and got special treatment: an injection of something that sent him higher than ten kites, teeth fragments pulled out of his fingers, cleansing and suturing and bandaging. He called the house and talked to Stefan, rambling about why he did it, how Celeste had hurt him worse, how she wanted to separate the two of them forever. The boy had seemed shocked, dumbfounded, stuttering details about Celeste’s bloodied face—but he’d ended the conversation calling him “Dad” and saying, “I love you.”

And that little injection of hope made him think like a policeman. He called Ellis Loew, told him what happened, that lawyers and a custody battle were coming, don’t let Celeste file charges and gain an advantage. Loew took the reins, driving to the house and shepherding Celeste to Hollywood Presbyterian, where her lawyer was waiting. The man took photographs of her bruised and bloody face; Loew convinced him not to let Celeste file criminal charges on a ranking DA’s Bureau investigator, threatening reprisals if he did, promising not to intercede in the custody case if he agreed. The attorney did agree; Celeste’s broken nose was set and two dental surgeons worked on her nearly destroyed gums and bridgework. Loew, enraged, called the pay phone where he was waiting and said, “You’re on your own with the kid. Never ask me for another favor.”

He drove back to the house then, finding Stefan asleep, breathing Celeste’s old country sedative—schnapps and hot milk. He kissed the boy’s cheek, moved a suitcase full of clothes and Lesnick’s files to a motel on Olympic and Normandie, made arrangements for a woman cop he knew to check on Stefan once a day, slept off the painkiller on a strange bed and woke up thinking of Franz Kempflerr.

He couldn’t stop thinking about him, and he couldn’t put together any rationalizations that said Celeste was a liar. He did put together a series of phone calls that got him a lawyer: Jake Kellerman, a pragmatist who said continuances were the smart money, postpone the custody trial until Captain Considine was a grand jury hero. Kellerman advised him to stay away from Celeste and Stefan, said he’d call him for a strategy meeting soon—and left him with a Demerol hangover, aching knuckles and the certainty he should take the day off and stay away from his boss.

He still couldn’t shake Kempflerr.

Going over Lesnick’s files was just a distraction. He was getting a case on Claire De Haven, every notation on her tweaked him; he knew direct questioning was out for now, that finding an operative should be his main priority. Still, putting together the woman’s past was enticing, and when he hit a piece of information he’d overlooked—Mondo Lopez bragging to the shrink about a dress he’d shoplifted for Claire’s thirty-third birthday in May of ’43, making her exactly
his
age—he took the woman and the Nazi down to the main public library for research.

He scanned microfilm for hours, banishing the German, bringing the woman into focus.

Buchenwald liberated, the Nuremberg trials, the biggest Nazis stating they just followed orders. The incredible mechanized brutality. Sleepy Lagoon a just cause championed by bad people. A hunch that Claire De Haven made the society pages as a debutante; confirmation in summer 1929: nineteen-year-old Claire at the Las Madrinas Ball—blurred black and white that only hinted at who she was.

With Kempflerr eclipsed by Göring, Ribbentrop, Dönitz and Keitel, the woman came on that much stronger. He called the DMV and got her driver’s license stats, drove to Beverly Hills and kept her Spanish manse under surveillance. Two hours in, Claire left the house—her picture a prophecy of beauty fulfilled. She was trim, auburn-haired with just a few streaks of gray, and wore a face that was natural beauty and the best that money could buy—but
strong
. He followed her Cadillac down to the Villa Frascati; she met Reynolds Loftis there for lunch—the Mr. Dignity type he’d seen in a dozen movies. He had a drink at the bar and watched the two: the switch-hitter actor and the Red Queen held hands and kissed across the table every few minutes; they were undoubtedly lovers. He remembered Loftis to Lesnick: “Claire is the only woman I’ve ever loved”—and felt jealous.

Glasses and ashtrays hit the table; Mal glanced up from his doodling—swastikas and hangman’s nooses—and saw his fellow Red chasers looking at him. Dudley slid a clean glass and the bottle down. Mal slid it back and said, “Lieutenant, you blew it for us with the Mexicans. This is for the record. I say no direct interrogations until Meeks gets us some hard criminal stuff that we can use, like indictment threats. I say we hit lefties outside UAES exclusively, turn them as friendly witnesses, get them to inform and plant a decoy as soon as we find one. I say we cover ourselves on the Mexicans by planting some lines in the political columns. Ed Satterlee’s pals with Victor Reisel and Walter Winchell, they hate Commies, the UAES probably reads them. Something like this: ‘LA City grand jury team slated to investigate Red influence in Hollywood scotched due to lack of funds and political infighting.’ Every Pinko in the UAES knows what happened at Variety International the other day, and I say we put a lid on it and lull them to sleep.”

All eyes were on the Irishman; Mal wondered how he’d field the gauntlet—two witnesses to irrefutable logic. Dudley said, “I can only apologize for my actions, Malcolm. You were circumspect, I was bull-headed, and I was wrong. But I think we should squeeze Claire De Haven before we pull back and go sub rosa. She’s the fulcrum to snitch the whole brain trust, she’s a virgin as far as grand juries go, breaking her would demoralize all those sad excuses for men in love with her. She’s never been braced by the police, and I think she damn well might fold.”

Mal laughed. “You’re underestimating her. And I suppose you want to be the one to do the bracing?”

“No, lad, I think you should be the one. Of all of us here, you’re the only one who comes off as even remotely idealistic. A kid gloves cop you are, kid gloves with a cruel streak. You’ll nail her with that great right hook I’ve heard you’ve got.”

Ellis Loew mouthed the words, “Not me,” hard eyes on Mal’s end of the table. Buzz Meeks sipped Scotch. Mal winced, wondering exactly how much Dudley knew. “It’s a sucker play, Lieutenant. You screwed up once, now you’re asking me to compound it. Ellis, a direct approach is bullshit. Tell him that.”

Loew said, “Mal, control your language, because I agree with Dudley. Claire De Haven is a promiscuous woman, women like that are unbalanced, and I think we should risk the approach. In the meantime, Ed Satterlee is trying to co-opt a man for us, a man he knew in the seminary who’s infiltrated Communist cells in Cleveland. He’s a pro, but he doesn’t work cheap. Even if the approach with De Haven fails and the UAES is alerted to us, he’ll be able to get next to them so subtly that they’ll never know it in a million years. And I’m sure we can get the money for our decoy from Mr. Hughes. Right, Buzz?”

Buzz Meeks winked at Mal. “Ellis, if this babe is a roundheels, I wouldn’t be sendin’ in a seminary boy to work her. Howard himself might do the trick. He likes poon, so maybe you could send him in in disguise.”

Loew rolled his eyes; Dudley Smith laughed, like he’d heard a real knee-slapper at the Elks Club smoker. Meeks winked again, testing the water—were you the one who got me shot to shit back in ’46? Mal thought of his custody juice riding with a cracker buffoon, hatchet cop and hard-on lawyer. It wasn’t until Loew banged the table to dismiss them that he realized he would be meeting the Red Queen face to face, his own pawn to operate.

Danny spent the next morning at his apartment, updating
his
file, all new stuff on the two new victims tied in to
his
case.

Twenty-four hours in, he had this:

No ID on victims two and three; Doc Layman, as a City pathologist, was privy to Hollywood Squad summary reports and would be calling when and if the bodies got names. He had already called to say that Sergeant Gene Niles was heading the LAPD investigation, deemed it lowball and was short-shrifting it so that he could return to a fur warehouse robbery that promised some newspaper ink to make up for the Brenda Allen smear that cost him his wife and kids. Uniformed cops were rousting winos in Griffith Park and getting nowhere; Niles himself had rubber-hosed two Sterno jockeys with child molester jackets. Layman’s seventeen-page autopsy report—which
did
tag the smaller of the two men as dying of a barbiturate OD—was ignored by Niles and the handful of uniformed flunkies detached to work under him. The Doc was convinced that a “Reverse Black Dahlia Syndrome” was in effect—the three stiffs found so far had received a total of four inner section newspaper columns, city editors shying away because Marty Goines was trash and the whole thing was queer shit that you couldn’t print without the Legion for Decency and Concerned Catholic Mothers on your ass.

Captain Dietrich had heard him out yesterday, facts, theories, omissions, lies and his giant lie—the doughnut stand whopper to cover him on 2307 Tamarind, still unreported. He’d nodded along, then said he’d
try
to get the interagency ball rolling with LAPD. Sheriff’s dicks were out of the question—the three other men on the station squad were deluged and the County Detective Bureau would deem the Goines job too Mickey Mouse and messy now that City cops were involved. He had a pal working Hollywood daywatch—a lieutenant named Poulson who’d stayed tight with Mickey C. despite Brenda A. He’d talk to the man about the two departments putting a Homicide team together, and again stated that he thought it would come down to the quality of the victims. If two and three were hopheads, ex-cons or queers—forget it. If they were squarejohns—maybe. And unless the case got some juice, with an LAPD/LASD team formed, he was off it in ten days, Martin Mitchell Goines, DOD 1/1/50 tossed into the open file.

On his evidence gathered at 2307 Tamarind:

With two exceptions, just repeat stuff, what Hans Maslick called “double negatives to prove positives.” He had gotten an unknown set of prints that matched with the taller dead man’s missing finger; Layman had also rolled both stiffs. The white paste residue he bagged was obviously the denture adhesive that led Doc to his 99 percent sure denture theory. Leo Bordoni did not touch print-sustaining surfaces while he was in the room; the three sets of clothes had to be left behind in case the killer was captured and specifically confessed to leaving them folded atop the toilet. The dust and dirt trace elements were useless until he got a suspect to run comparisons on—leaving him only two jumps on LAPD and the killer: his photos of the blood streaks and his chance to canvass Tamarind Street solo if the City bulls softpedaled their investigation. Nightmares and big jeopardy.

After leaving the morgue yesterday, he drove to a camera shop and paid quadruple the normal fee to $$$ his rolls of film developed immediately. The man at the counter looked askance at his raggedy state but took his money; he waited while the job was done. The camera man handed the prints and negatives over an hour later, commenting, “Them walls what you call modern art?” He’d laughed and laughed and laughed himself home—his chuckles dying out when he tacked the photos to a corkboard evidence display he’d erected beside his file boxes.

Blood in glossy black and white was jarring, unnatural, the pictures things he could never let anyone see, even if he busted the combined homicides wide open. Thinking of them as his alone was comforting; he spent hours just staring, seeing designs within designs. Drip marks became strange body appendages; spray streaks were knives cutting at them. The eye circuits got so illogical that he turned to his case history text: blood spray marks exemplified. The cases elaborated were all German and Eastern European, psychopaths enacting vampire fantasies, spraying their victim’s blood on convenient objects, asserting their lunacy by creating pictures of little or no significance. Nothing resembling the formation of the letter W; nothing pertaining to dentures.

Dentures.

His one hard lead to come out of victims two and three.

Not human.

They could be steel teeth, they could be plastic teeth, they could be teeth ripped out of animal carcasses. The next investigatory step was a complete paper chase: men capable of making dentures cross-probed against “tall, middle-aged,” “gray-haired,” “O+ blood” and time frame opportunity.

Needles in a haystack.

Yesterday, he had taken his first step, checking dental lab listings in the seventeen separate LA City/County Yellow Pages. There were a total of 349, plus, in consideration of a possible animal carcass angle, 93 taxidermists’ shops. A phone call to a lab picked at random and a long talk with a cooperative foreman got him this information: the 349 number was low; LA was the big league for the denture industry. Some labs didn’t advertise in the Yellow Pages; some dentists had denture makers working in their offices. If a man worked on human dentures he could apply the same skills to animal or plastic teeth.
He
didn’t know of any labs that specialized in animal choppers, good luck Deputy Upshaw, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

It was a ride to the Station then. Karen Hiltscher was just swinging back on duty; he brought candy and flowers to chill down her curiosity over Tamarind and any poutiness for the largest deluge of shitwork he’d ever tossed her way:
all
individual station and Sheriff’s Bureau files checked for men with dental lab work histories, plus eliminations against blood type and physical description; calls started to his list of dental labs for breakdowns of male workers with the same physical stats. The girl took the goodies while a group of muster room loungers guffawed; she seemed hurt and miffed, didn’t mention 2307 and agreed in a Bette Davis bitch pout to make the queries in her “spare time.” He didn’t press; she knew she had gained the upper hand on him.

Danny finished up his file work, thinking of Tamarind Street as virgin canvassing territory, wondering if the burglary partner Leo Bordoni mentioned applied to the case, if he was or wasn’t connected to the burn-faced boy from Marty Goines’ past. His paperwork now totaled fifty-odd pages; he’d spent fifteen of the past twenty-four hours writing. He’d resisted the impulse to scour around Tamarind, wait, look, talk up the locals, jump the gun on LAPD. If Niles had gotten a lead on the place, Doc Layman would have called him; most likely the street was just existing, business as usual, while its residents forgot minor occurrences that might crack his case. Phone the Lexington Hospital lead to Dietrich, making like he just got the call at home, then brief Karen on the lie? Or do it after, no risk on the skipper handing the job to his LAPD pal, the interagency gig
he
asked for?

No contest. Danny drove to Hollywood, to Tamarind Street.

The block
was
business as usual, warmer than two days ago, foot traffic on the sidewalk, people sitting on front porches, mowing lawns and trimming shrubs. Danny parked and canvassed, straight zero into mid-afternoon: no strange occurrences in the neighborhood, no strange vehicles, no info on Marty Goines, nothing unusual going on at 2307 Tamarind, garage apartment rear. No loiterers, no strange noises, zero—and nobody mentioned his tan Chevy parked streetside. He was starting to feel cocky about his maneuvering when an old lady walking a miniature schnauzer responded to his lead question with a yes.

Three nights ago, around 10:00, she’d been strolling Wursti and saw a tall man with beautiful silver hair walking back toward the garage at 2307, a “weaving drunk” on either side of him. No, she had not seen any of the three men before; no, no strange noises from the garage apartment followed; no, she didn’t know the woman who owned the front house; no, the men did not talk to each other, and she doubted she would be able to ID the silver-haired man if she saw him again.

Danny let the woman go, went back to his car, hunkered down to keep a fix on 2307. Instincts hit him hard:

Yes, the killer staked out the pad to see if cops showed up. Yes, he had the Griffith Park dump site already planned. Goines’ name never made the papers, he was simply a vagrant, the killer knew his murder spot wasn’t compromised by Goines’ publicity. The only known Goines associates who knew of Mad Marty’s demise were the jazzmen he had questioned, which eliminated jazzbos as suspects—with Goines ID’d by the law, no smart killer would bring future victims to the man’s apartment.
Which meant that if no heat appeared in force on Tamarind Street, the killer might bring other victims here. Hold the lead safe from LAPD, stay staked out, pray the killer didn’t witness his or Bordoni’s break-in and today’s canvassing, sit tight and he just might waltz right into your life with number four on his arm.

Danny held, eyes on the house, rear-view adjusted to frame the driveway. Time stretched; a wrong-looking man strolled by, then two old ladies pushing shopping carts and a gaggle of boys wearing Hollywood High letter jackets. A siren whirred, getting closer; Danny thought of code three trouble down on the Boulevard.

Then everything went very fast.

An old lady opened the 2307 front house door; an unmarked prowler jammed into the driveway. Sergeant Gene Niles got out, looked across the street and saw him—a sitting duck in the car he’d had at Griffith Park yesterday morning. Niles started to head over; the old woman intercepted him, pointing toward the garage apartment. Niles stopped; the woman grabbed at his coat sleeves; Danny flailed for lies. Niles let himself be led down the driveway. Danny got bad heebie-jeebies—and drove to the Station to lay some cover.

Dietrich was standing by the squadroom entrance, wolfing a cigarette; Danny took his arm and steered him to the privacy of his own office. Dietrich went with it, swinging around as Danny shut the door. “Lieutenant Poulson just called me. Gene Niles just called him, because he caught a call from Martin Goines’ land-lady. Blood and bloody clothes all over Goines’ apartment, a mile from Griffith Park. Our one and LAPD’s two were obviously snuffed there, you were seen staking the place out and rabbited. Why? Make it good so I don’t have to suspend you.”

Danny had his answer down pat. “A man from Lexington State called me at home this morning and told me he’d gotten a letter from Marty Goines, addressed to another patient. The return address was 2307 North Tamarind. I thought about that talk we had, greasing things with Poulson, us being cooperative even though Niles was pulling a snit. But I didn’t trust LAPD to canvass properly, so I did it myself. I was taking a breather in my car when Niles saw me.”

Dietrich picked up an ashtray and stubbed out his smoke. “And you didn’t call me? On a lead that hot?”

“I jumped the gun, sir. I’m sorry.”

Dietrich said, “I’m not sure I buy your story. Why didn’t you talk to the landlady before you canvassed? Poulson said Niles told him the woman was cherry—she was the one who discovered the mess.”

Danny shrugged, trying to belittle the question. “I knocked early on, but the old girl probably didn’t hear it.”

“Poulson said she sounded like an alert old dame. Danny, were you in the neighborhood knocking off a matinee?”

The question didn’t register. “What do you mean, a movie?”

“No, pussy. Your bimbo’s got a place near that doughnut stand where you heard the squeal yesterday, and Tamarind is near there. Were you shacking on County time?”

Dietrich’s tone had softened; Danny got his lies straight. “I canvassed, then I shacked. I was resting in my car when Niles showed up.”

Dietrich smiled/grimaced; the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, said, “Yes, Norton, he’s here,” listened and added, “One question. Have you got jackets on the two men?”

A long stretch of silence. Danny fidgeted by the door; Karen Hiltscher nudged it open, dropped a sheaf of papers on the Captain’s desk and walked out, eyes lowered. Danny thought: don’t let the skipper tell her I’ve got a woman; don’t let her tell him she fielded the call from Lex. Dietrich said, “Hold on, Norton. I want to talk to him first,” placed a hand over the receiver and spoke to Danny. “There’s an ID on LAPD’s two bodies. They’re trash, so I’m telling you now: no interagency investigation, and you’ve got five more days on Goines before I yank you off. The Sun-Fax Market was held up this morning and if we don’t clear it by then, I want you on that. I’m letting you slide for not reporting Goines’ address, but I’m warning you: stay out of LAPD’s way. Tom Poulson is a close friend, we’ve stayed friends despite Mickey and Brenda, and I don’t want you fucking it up. Now here, Norton Layman wants to talk to you.”

Danny grabbed the phone. “Yeah, Doc.”

“It’s your friendly City pipeline. Got a pencil?”

Danny fished pad and pen from his pockets. “Shoot.”

“The taller man is George William Wiltsie, DOB 9/14/13. Two male prostitution arrests, booted out of the Navy in ’43 for moral turpitude. The other man is address-verified as Wiltsie’s known associate, maybe his brunser. Duane no middle name Lindenaur, DOB 12/5/16. One arrest for extortion—June, 1941. The beef did not go to court—the complainant dropped charges. There’s no employment listed for Wiltsie; Lindenaur worked as a dialogue rewrite man at Variety International Pictures. Both men lived at 11768 Ventura Boulevard, the Leafy Glade Motel. LAPD is rolling there now, so stay clear. Does this make you happy?”

Danny counted lies. “I don’t know, Doc.”

From his cubicle, Danny called R&I and the DMV and got complete records readouts on victims two and three. George Wiltsie was arrested for soliciting indecent acts at cocktail lounges in ’40 and ’41; the DA dropped charges both times for lack of evidence, and the man possessed a lengthy list of traffic violations. Duane Lindenaur was DMV-clean, and had only the one dropped extortion beef Doc Layman mentioned. Danny had the R&I clerk break down the victims’ arrests by location; Wiltsie’s rousts were in City jurisdiction, Lindenaur’s was in the southeastern part of the County patrolled by Firestone Division. A request for a check of Lindenaur’s package got him the arresting officer’s name—Sergeant Frank Skakel.