Demolition Angel (14 page)

“Casper all the way.”

The portrait showed a white male approximately forty years of age with a rectangular face hidden by dark glasses and a baseball cap. His nose was undistinguished in shape and size, as were his lips, ears, and jaw. It worked out that way more times than not. If a wit saw no identifying characteristics, the portrait ended up looking like every other person on the street.
The detectives called them “ghosts” because there was nothing to see.

Kelso scowled at the portrait some more, then shook his head and sighed deeply. Starkey thought he was being an ass.

“It’s nobody’s fault, Barry. We’re still interviewing people who were in the laundry at about the same time. The portrait is going to develop.”

Marzik nodded, encouraged by Starkey’s support, but Kelso didn’t look impressed.

“I got a call from Assistant Chief Morgan last night. He asked how you were doing as the lead, Carol. He’s going to want a report soon.”

Starkey’s head throbbed.

“I’ll go see him whenever he wants. That’s not a problem.”

“He won’t just want to look at you, Carol; he’ll want
facts
, as in
progress.”

Starkey felt her temper starting to fray.

“What do you want me to do, Barry, pull the perp out of my ass?”

Kelso’s jaw knotted and unwound like he was chewing marbles.

“That might help. He suggested that we could forestall the ATF taking over this case if we had something to show for our efforts. Think about it.”

Kelso stalked away and disappeared into his office.

Starkey’s head throbbed worse. She had gotten so drunk last night that she scared herself and had spent most of the morning worried that her drinking was finally out of hand. She woke angry and embarrassed that Pell had once more been in her dreams, though she dismissed it as a sign of stress. She had taken two aspirin and two Tagamet, then pressed into the office, hoping to find a kickback on the RDX. She hadn’t. Now this.

Marzik said, “Kelso’s a turd. Do you think he talks to us like that because we’re women?”

“I don’t know, Beth. Listen, don’t sweat the picture. Pell has three other likenesses that he’s going to deliver. We can show those to Lester. Maybe something will click.”

Marzik didn’t leave. Starkey was certain that she needed another breath mint, but wouldn’t take one with Marzik standing over her.

“Even though Lester didn’t get a face, he’s solid on the cap and long-sleeved shirt.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got him set up to come in this afternoon to look at the tapes. You see anything last night?”

Starkey leaned back to stay as far from Marzik as possible.

“Not on the wide shots. Everything is so murky you can’t really see. I think we need to have them enhanced, see if that won’t give us a better view.”

“I could take care of that, you want.”

“I already talked to Hooker about it. He’s had tapes enhanced before when he was working Divisional Robbery over in Hollenbeck. Listen, I need to check the NLETS, okay? We’ll talk later.”

Marzik nodded, still not moving. She looked like she wanted to say something.

“What, Beth?”

“Carol, listen. I want to apologize for yesterday. I was a bitch.”

“Forget it. Thanks for saying so, but it’s okay.”

“I felt bad all night and I wanted to apologize.”

“Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Don’t sweat the picture.”

“Yeah. Kelso’s such a turd.”

Marzik took her portrait and went back to her desk. Starkey stared after her. Sometimes Marzik surprised her.

When Marzik wasn’t looking, Starkey popped a fresh Altoid, then went for the coffee. When she checked the NLETS system on the way back to her desk, this time something was waiting.

Starkey had expected one or two hits on the RDX, but nothing like what she found.

The California State Sheriffs reported that Dallas Tennant, a thirty-two-year-old white male, was currently serving time in the California State Correctional Facility in Atascadero, a facility for prisoners receiving treatment for mental disorders. On three separate occasions two years ago, Tennant had exploded devices made with RDX. Starkey smiled when she saw it was three devices. RDX was rare; three devices meant that Tennant had had access to a lot of it. Starkey printed off the computer report, noting that the case had been made by a Sheriff’s Bomb and Arson sergeant-investigator named Warren Mueller out of the Central Valley office in Bakersfield. Back at her desk, she looked up the phone number in her State Law Enforcement Directory, then called the Central Valley number, asking for the Bomb and Arson Unit.

“B and A. Hennessey.”

“Warren Mueller, please.”

“Yeah, he’s here. Stand by.”

When Mueller came on, Starkey identified herself as a Los Angeles police officer. Mueller had an easy male voice with a twang of the Central Valley at the edges. Starkey thought he had probably grown up downwind of one of the meatpacking plants up there.

“I’m calling about a perp you collared named Dallas Tennant.”

“Oh, sure. He’s enjoying a lease in Atascadero these days.”

“That’s right. Reason I’m calling is I got a kicker saying that he set off three devices using RDX. That’s a lot of RDX.”

“Three we know of, yeah. Coulda been more. He was buying stolen cars from some kids up here, hundred bucks, no questions, then driving’m out into the desert to blow’m up. He’d soak’m in gas first so they’d burn, you know? Crazy fool just wanted to see’m come apart, I guess. He blew up four or five trees, too, but he used TNT for that.”

“It’s the RDX that interests me. You know where he got it?”

“Well, he claimed that he bought a case of stolen antipersonnel mines from a guy he met at a bar. You believe that, I got some desert land up here I’ll sell you. My guess is that he bought it off one of these meth-dealing biker assholes, but he never copped, so I couldn’t tell you.”

Starkey knew that the vast majority of bombings were the result of drug wars between rival methamphetamine dealers, many of whom were white bikers. Meth labs were chemical bombs waiting to happen. So when a meth dealer wanted to eliminate a rival, he often just blew apart his Airstream. Starkey had rolled out on almost a hundred meth labs when she was a bomb tech. Bomb Squad would roll even for a warrant service.

“So you think you could still have a guy up there with RDX to sell?”

“Well, that’s possible, but you never know. We didn’t have a suspect at the time, and we don’t have one now. All we had was Dallas, blowing up his goddamned cars. The guy’s your classic no-life, loner bomb crank. But the guy stood up, though, I’ll give’m that. Wherever he got it, he didn’t roll.”

“Did he have any more RDX in his possession at the time of his arrest?”

“Never found any of his works. Said he made everything at home, but there was no evidence of it. He had this shithole apartment over here out past the meat plant, but we didn’t find so much as a firecracker. We couldn’t find any evidence of these mines he claimed to have bought, either.”

Starkey considered that. Building bombs for bomb cranks like Dallas Tennant was a way of life. It was their passion, and they inevitably had a place where they built their bombs, in the same way that hobbyists had hobby rooms. Might be a closet or a room or a place in their garage, but they had a place to store their supplies and practice their craft. Such places were called “shops.”

“Seems like he would’ve had a shop.”

“Well, my personal feeling is that he was butt-buddies with the same guy sold him the RDX, and that guy packed up when Dallas was tagged, but like I say, that’s just my feeling.”

Starkey put that in her notes, but didn’t think much of Mueller’s theory. As Mueller had already pointed out, bomb cranks were introverted loners, usually of low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy. They were often extremely shy and almost never had relationships with women. Sharing their toys didn’t fit with the profile. Starkey suspected that if Tennant didn’t cop to his shop, it was because he didn’t want to lose his toys. Like all chronics, he would see explosions in his dreams, and probably spent much of every day fantasizing about the bombs he would build as soon as he was released.

Starkey closed her pad.

“Okay, Sergeant, I think that about does it. I appreciate your time.”

“Anytime. Could I ask you something, Starkey?”

“I’ve asked you plenty.”

He hesitated. She knew in that moment what was coming, and felt her stomach knot.

“You being down there in L.A. and all, you the same Starkey got blown up?”

“Yeah. That was me. Listen, all I’ve got here is what the Sheriffs put out on the kicker. Could you fax your casework on Tennant to give me a little more?”

“This about that thing happened down there in Silver Lake?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sure. It’s only a few pages. I can get to it right away.”

“Thanks.”

Starkey gave him the fax number and hung up before Mueller could say any more. It was always like that, even more so from the bomb techs and bomb investigators, from the people
who lived so close to the edge but never looked over, in a kind of awe that she had.

Starkey refilled her coffee and brought it into the stairwell where she stood smoking with three Fugitive Section detectives. They were young, athletic guys with short hair and thick mustaches. They were still enthusiastic about the job and hadn’t yet let themselves go, the way most cops did when they realized that the job was bureaucratic bullshit that served no purpose and did no good. These guys would bag their day at two in the afternoon, then head over to Chavez Ravine to work out at the Police Academy. Starkey could see it in their tight jeans and forearms. They smiled; she nodded back. They went on with their discussion without including her. They had made a collar that morning in Eagle Rock, a
veterano
gang member with a rep as a hard guy who was wanted for armed robbery and mayhem. The mayhem charge meant he’d bitten off a nose or an ear during one of the assaults. The three Fugitive cops had found him hiding under a blanket in a garage when they made the pinch. The tough
veterano
had pissed his pants so badly that they wouldn’t put him in the car until they’d found a plastic trash bag for him to sit on. Starkey listened to the three young cops relive their story, then crushed out her cigarette and went back to the fax machine. Another cop story. One of thousands. They always ended well unless a cop took a bullet or got bagged in an unlawful act.

When Starkey got back to the fax machine, Mueller’s casework was waiting in the tray.

Starkey read it back at her desk. Tennant had an arrest history of fire starting and explosives that went back to the age of eighteen and had twice received court-mandated psychiatric counseling. Starkey knew that the arrests had probably started even earlier, but weren’t reflected in the case file because juvenile records were sealed. She also knew this because Mueller’s notes indicated that Tennant was missing two
fingers from his left hand, an explosives-related injury that occurred while he was a teenager.

Mueller’s case involved interviewing a young car thief named Robert Castillo, who had stolen two of the three cars that Tennant destroyed, along with photographs of the demolished cars. Mueller had been summoned to the Bakersfield Puritan Hospital Emergency Room by patrol officers, where he found Castillo with a windshield wiper blade through his cheek. Castillo, having delivered a late-model Nissan Stanza to Tennant, had apparently stood too close when Tennant destroyed it, caught the blade through his face, and had been rushed to the hospital by his friends. Starkey read Mueller’s interview notes several times before she caught something in the Castillo interview that reinforced her belief that Tennant still maintained his shop. She decided that she wanted to speak with him.

Starkey looked up the phone number for Atascadero, called, and asked for the law enforcement liaison officer. Police officers couldn’t just walk in off the street to speak with prisoners; the prisoner had the right to have counsel present and could refuse to speak with you. Atascadero was a long way to drive just to be told to fuck off.

“You have an inmate up there named Dallas Tennant. I’m working an active case here in Los Angeles that he might have information relating to. Would you see if he’d talk to me without counsel?”

“Would you still want to see him if he demands counsel?”

“Yes. But if he wants to play it that way, I’ll need the name of his attorney.”

“All right.”

She could tell by the way the man paused that he was writing. Soft music played behind him.

“When would you want to see him, Detective?”

Starkey glanced at the clock on the wall and thought about Pell. “Later today. Ah, say about two this afternoon.”

“All right. He’s going to want to know what it’s about.”

“The availability of an explosive called RDX.”

The liaison officer took her number and told her he’d call back as soon as possible.

After she hung up, Starkey got a fresh cup of coffee, then went back to her desk, thinking about what to do. LAPD policy required detectives to always work in pairs, but Marzik had interviews and Hooker was going to see about the tape. Starkey thought about Pell. There was no reason to call him, no reason to tell him any of this until it was over and she had something to say.

She found his card in her purse and paged him.

Starkey completed the evidence transfer request, which she faxed to the ATF regional office in Miami, then waited for Pell in the lobby. The drive from downtown L.A. to Atascadero was going to be just over three hours. She had thought that Pell would want to drive, because men always wanted to drive, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I’ll use the time to read Tennant’s case file, then we can work out a game plan.”

There he was with the game plan again.

She gave him the report, then maneuvered out of the city and up the coast along the Ventura Freeway. He read without comment, seeming to take forever to get through the six pages. She found his silence irritating.

“How long is it going to take you to read that, Pell?”