Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (23 page)

"I've read about you over the years," Bart said. "I never understood why you enjoy going after murderers so much."

"I don't enjoy it," Mark said.

"C'mon, Mark. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you don't get any pleasure out of it at all? Not even the chase?"

Mark avoided his gaze. "What do you know about Joanna Pate?"

Bart smiled to himself and wagged a scolding finger at Mark, but he answered the question anyway.

"Last I heard—and we're talking forty-three years ago—she got knocked up by one of the doctors she was sleeping with."

"Do you remember which one?"

"No, but I sure remember her," Bart said. "She was a hell of a babysitter."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Lieutenant Steve Sloan spent most of his day discovering that Brooke Haslett was a woman without an enemy in the world, with the exception of the person who murdered her.

All her ex-lovers remained friends with her. Her professors at Cal State Northridge described her as intelligent, enthusiastic, and popular. And she was well liked at the Nordstrom store where she worked.

It wasn't until he was in the middle of a phone call interviewing a fourth coworker of Brooke's that he noticed the possible connection between her job and her killing.

His pen ran out of ink and he was reaching for a fresh ballpoint when he knocked over the Haslett file and the pictures of the items gathered at Point Dume spilled out on the floor.

And he saw the photo of the button from a Stanton-brand raincoat, a line sold exclusively at Nordstrom.

Brooke worked in the men's department.

Steve immediately asked Nordstrom for a list of customers who'd bought Stanton raincoats in the last twelve months. Even if the killer had bought a coat from her, his name wouldn't show up on the list unless he'd used a credit card for the purchase.

Steve doubted the killer would be so careless, but he had to check anyway.

In the meantime, he looked at Brooke's boyfriends, coworkers, and teachers to see if any of them had a history of sexual assault or violent crimes.

He came up empty.

So he checked to see if her killing matched the characteristics of any other unsolved murders in California or nationwide, on the off chance that she was the latest victim of a serial killer from outside Los Angeles.

He found no matches.

The more Steve looked into her life, the more he came to believe she wasn't killed by someone who knew her. She was killed for what she symbolized: a link to the past.

Steve called Pelican Bay Penitentiary and requested a list of Carter Sweeney's visitors over the last year. Sweeney had had only one visitor—his lawyer.

The prison was screening Sweeney's mail, so Steve asked the warden if they'd seen any mention of Mark Sloan or any of the people he was involved with in 1962.

The warden said Mark's name had appeared, but only in legal documents and trial transcripts that Sweeney's defense attorney had sent his client in preparation for their latest appeal.

Steve was satisfied, at least for the moment, that Carter Sweeney wasn't behind Brooke Haslett's murder and that the killer wasn't anyone else in her life.

That meant he was back where he'd started. Back to his father and a string of murders that occurred while Steve was a baby.

Back to the list of names from Mark Sloan's past. Mark was talking to Alice Blevins and Bart Spicer, so that left only one person for Steve to interview.

Joanna Pate, the former nursing student, babysitter, and teen call girl.

Steve had made only a cursory effort to find her before. Now he would have to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. He unearthed files from Community General's nursing school to locate her parents, but they'd both died years ago. A little more digging revealed that Joanna was an only child, so he couldn't locate her through her siblings either. She must have lied when she told Mark she was the oldest of three children and therefore an experienced babysitter.

On the assumption that she probably got married, Steve used LAPD's computers to access wedding license databases throughout California from 1962 to 1972, the odds being that she was most likely to have wed while still in her twenties.

When he found no mention of her in the California databases, he widened his search to marriage licenses granted in other states, starting with Nevada, and he immediately scored a hit.

Joanna Pate had married Nelson Lenhoff on June 17, 1963, at a drive-through chapel on the Las Vegas strip.

On a hunch, Steve checked the roster of doctors on the Community General staff in 1962 and found a Dr. Nelson Lenhoff in the pediatrics department.

Some more pounding on the computer keys revealed that Dr. Lenhoff had a private practice in Pasadena until 1981, when he divorced his wife and moved to Florida.

By the time Steve came up with Joanna Lenhoff's home address, which was somewhere on the San Fernando Valley side of Coldwater Canyon, his neck and shoulders were sore and his eyes were stinging from the hours spent hunched over the computer. But he felt a sense of satisfaction that was stronger than his discomfort. He liked the methodical process of basic detective work, especially when it paid off.

Steve got up, stretched, took out the tiny bottle of Advil in his desk drawer and dry-swallowed a couple of tablets. He grabbed his car keys and decided to drive out to see Joanna Lenhoff without calling her first. In his experience, it was always better to catch people off guard and unprepared, especially when he expected them to lie.

* * *

Joanna Lenhoff lived in a small, unassuming Craftsman nestled in the curve of a narrow side street that wound from Coldwater Canyon to a dead end at the base of the Hollywood Hills. Sandbag dams, three or four bags long and two bags high, were laid at angles from the curb, creating steps that were intended to slow the flow of runoff down the street.

But the mud and water still clogged the gutters, one of which was right in front of Lenhoff's house, creating a deep mud puddle in the curve that submerged the sidewalks on both sides of the street.

Joanna's home wasn't in any danger of flooding. It was hunched up against the steep, craggy hillside and was surrounded by overgrown trees. A steep asphalt driveway led up to a detached garage, which was covered with dead leaves and bordered one end of her sliver of a backyard.

Steve parked in the driveway to avoid the mud and had to kick his driver's-side door open to keep it from immediately closing back on him as he got out of the car. Rain blew inside the car, drenching the seats and dashboard, but there was no way to avoid it. He climbed out, letting gravity slam the door behind him, and walked up railroad-tie steps that led to her front porch.

He was hunched over against the rain, so he didn't notice the note thumbtacked to the front door until he reached the porch. The white paper was so bright against the dark door it appeared to be illuminated. The words on the printer paper were printed in bold black twenty-point type.

DO NOT ENTER. THIS IS A CRIME SCENE.

CALL THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY.

The note wasn't signed. It wasn't necessary. Steve knew who'd written it.

He called for backup and drew his gun, more out of protocol than necessity. Whoever left the note did it on his way out, not his way in. Even so, there was no harm in protecting himself.

Steve braced his back against the wall and eased the door open with his free hand. The smell of rotting flesh hit him immediately. He holstered his gun, certain now that he wouldn't need it. He dabbed some Vicks VapoRub under his nose to combat the stench, put on a pair of disposable gloves from the ever-present stash in his jacket pocket, and went inside.

The air was still and heavy. He could almost feel it seeping past him, freed by the open front door. The chill from outside made him realize how warm it was inside the house. The heater had been cranked up. He could hear the patter of rain and the scratching of windblown tree branches against the house, and his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, but otherwise the house was silent.

It was more than that. It was lifeless.

The shades were drawn and it was dark, a gloominess that was deepened by the black leather furniture, paneled walls, and hardwood floors. Framed family photos of all sizes were propped on every flat surface and covered the walls. Joanna was in nearly every one of them. She was shown alone, with her two children, with an older couple he assumed were her parents. There were no pictures of her ex-husband. When Joanna walked through the house, gazing at those pictures, it must have been like walking past a hundred mirrors, each reflecting her image back at her from a different time.

He walked into the kitchen and jerked back, startled, the breath catching in his throat.

Joanna Lenhoff was lying on her back on the center island, her head lolling over the edge of the counter, facing the doorway, her wide, dead eyes staring right at him.

By the time Mark Sloan arrived at the crime scene, it was nightfall and the tiny street was completely clogged with official vehicles, their flashing, twirling, multicolored bubble lights casting an eerie strobe over the neighborhood.

Because of the flooding in front of Joanna's house, most of the police vehicles were parked where the side street met busy Coldwater Canyon Boulevard, creating a bottleneck for local residents trying to get past the road block to their homes. The steady downpour turned what would have been an irritating inconvenience for drivers into a commuter's nightmare, causing a massive traffic jam on the boulevard in both directions, north into Studio City and south into Beverly Hills.

Mark left his car in a church parking lot and walked to the house, his long overcoat getting soaked by the rain and splashed with mud by every car that passed on Coldwater Canyon Boulevard.

The officer manning the roadblock waved him through and he wove through the parked cars to Joanna Lenhoff's house. Someone had constructed a crude bridge made of plywood and sandbags over the torrent of water to the front steps.

When Mark reached the covered porch, he took off his wet overcoat and muddy shoes so he wouldn't leave tracks all over the crime scene.

He found Steve in the living room, conferring with someone from the crime lab. They'd already spoken on the cell phone, but the connection was bad, so Mark didn't know entirely what to expect. All he knew was that Joanna was dead.

Mark's attention was immediately drawn to the photos of Joanna on the walls. He could see the young woman he knew in all of them, despite her age, the lines on her face, the family and friends around her. Nobody looking at those pictures could ever have imagined that the refined, conservatively dressed woman at the center of each one had ever been a prostitute. She'd aged very well, a sixty-year-old who easily looked ten years younger.

Steve held a sealed, transparent evidence bag out to his father. The note was inside. Mark didn't read the words on the paper as much he felt them, clutching his throat like cold fingers, the past reaching out from the grave to strangle him.

"This was on the door when I arrived," Steve said. "It was written on her home computer. The message is still on the screen. Was the note on Whittington's door ever made public?"

Mark nodded. "It was in all the press reports."

"She's in there." Steve cocked his head towards the kitchen. "I'll be right with you."

Mark entered the kitchen, where Dr. Amanda Bentley was standing with her back to him, inadvertently blocking his view of the body. But the large amount of dried blood splattered on the tile floor indicated he should brace himself for the worst.

"How bad is it, Amanda?" Mark asked softly.

"Terrifying," Amanda said, stepping aside so Mark could see for himself. "Whoever did this knows how to use a knife."

Joanna Lenhoff was on her back on top of the center island.

On the cutting board, Mark thought.

She was naked from the waist up, her shirt and bra had been cut away, frayed halves of the clothing open like bloodstained wings on either side of her.

The killer had made a crude, Y-shaped incision with a kitchen knife, extending from each of her shoulders to her sternum and then down along the middle of her body to her waistline.

"He started my autopsy for me," Amanda said. "While she was still alive."

"Was she injected with succinylcholine?" Mark said, his voice hoarse.

"Probably." Amanda pointed out a tiny pinprick on Joanna's throat. "I'll let you know when I get the lab results."

There was a question Mark needed to ask, but he found it difficult, the words coming out slowly, barely audible. "Have you found anything inside of her?"

"Like another memory card?" Amanda asked. "Not yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't some nasty surprise waiting for me when I get her on my autopsy table."

"How long has she been dead?"

"A day," Amanda said. "Give or take a few hours."

Steve came in behind Mark. "She was posed for us. The killer wanted us to see her face when we came through the door."

"Brooke Haslett's murder was carefully staged for maximum dramatic effect, too," Amanda said. "The mermaid suit, the red hair, the location where the body was found."

"This killing is very different," Mark said, stepping out of the kitchen so he could think more clearly, undistracted by the horror of Joanna's body. Steve and Amanda followed him.

"Everything about Brooke's death was carefully planned long in advance," Mark said. "First, he had to find her, which couldn't have been easy. She was selected because of who she was and what she symbolized. He probably watched her for a long time, waiting for the perfect time and place to abduct her or lure her to him. He had the mermaid outfit and the memory card ready and waiting for when that right moment came. The victim, every detail of her death, the disposition of her corpse, and the discovery of her identity were all chosen to convey a specific message."