Evidence (22 page)

“It’s
not done that way.”

“She
was an embarrassment, so no sense calling attention to her before the next
begging session at Congress.”

“Whatever,”
said Lindstrom. “I really wish you’d stop bitching, because I didn’t cause any
of this. All I’m after is enough data to write her damn epitaph. What else do
you have?”

“Nada.”

She
toed her bag closer. “I did some checking and the owner of the property might
be of interest.”

“Really,”
said Milo. Grinning, his hands had curled into massive flesh-mitts, pink and
glossy and twitching. Like a pair of Christmas hams revivified by some mad
scientist.

Gayle
Lindstrom watched them, fascinated.

Milo
stood. “Special Agent Lindstrom, I believe we’re through here.”

“Oh,
Jesus,” she said. “What’s
with
you?”

“First
you say you’ve told me everything, then you toss in your own little morsel to
spice up the bullshit. Unlike the Bureau, I don’t have years to put up with
gamers.”

Lindstrom’s
jaw jutted. “I never used the word
everything
.”

“Well,
that sure clarifies it,” he said, heading for the door.

Gayle
Lindstrom said, “I am
not
gaming you. I didn’t say anything in the
beginning because I assumed you knew about the owner. After you didn’t say
anything, I thought you didn’t so I told you, okay?”

Silence.

“I
didn’t think I had to
spoon
-feed you basic—”

“Who owns the property, Gayle?”

“You
really don’t know?”

Milo
smiled.

“C’mon,”
said Lindstrom. “Just like you, I’m a salaried employee far from the top of the
food chain. You want to keep picking at me, I can’t stop you, but it won’t
close your double homicide. You want me to go first, fine? Prince Tariq of
Sranil, aka Teddy.”

Milo
sat back down. “More coffee, Gayle? We’re nothing if not hospitable.”

Lindstrom
gaped. “Not that it matters, but I only learned about him right before I came
over here. You don’t consider him a suspect. Not directly, I mean. He’s back in
Sranil.”

Milo
said, “He’s alleged to have killed another girl.”

Lindstrom
sat up. “Who, where, when?”

“Don’t
know, don’t know, around two years ago. It’s still at the rumor level, a
foreign national, maybe a party girl, maybe Swedish.”

“Who’s
your source?”

“Someone
who heard a rumor.”

“Who?”

Milo
shook his head. “We’ve got secrecy issues, too. For all I know, it’s baloney
but the timing’s right: just when construction stopped on Teddy’s shack. And he
rabbited back home right after.”

“Then
Doreen ends up there.” Lindstrom shook her head. “I’m not seeing any obvious
link.”

“Anything
related to Sranil ever come up in Doreen’s stories?”

“Nope.
And that I can be sure of because soon as I found out about Teddy owning the
property, I re-read every damn word in her file.”

“But
she did talk about foreign terrorists confederating with local eco-nuts.”

“It
never came to anything, plus she never mentioned anything about Asians or
Swedes or Ugandans or Lithuanians.”

“Just
Ahmed,” said Milo.

“Quote
unquote ‘al-Qaeda types.’”

“Sranil’s Muslim, Gayle. And the sultan’s got two
groups of extremists itching to cut his head off and get control of all his
oil. One of them’s fundamentalist.”

“Interesting,”
said Lindstrom. “You’re really thinking this could be political?”

“God,
I hope not. Doreen ever travel abroad?”

“Never
even had a passport.”

“Same
question, Gayle.”

“I
just told you—oh. No, Lieutenant Sturgis, as far as my peon status can carry
me, I’m unaware of the Bureau or anyone else furnishing her funny travel
papers.”

Milo
said, “So someone upstairs could’ve granted it.”

“Sure,
but why would the Bureau help her evade when we were paying her to blab and she
hadn’t come through? The only time she could’ve traveled abroad would’ve been
between splitting on us and now.”

“Exactly,”
said Milo.

Lindstrom
thought about that. “Okay, I’ll make some calls, promise to give you righteous
info. Fair enough?”

He nodded.
“After Doreen asked to be moved away from Seattle, where’d you safe-house her?”

“Sorry,
not authorized. But trust me, it wasn’t anywhere outside the continental U.S.”
Smiling. “Think acres of plains, not a mountain in sight.”

Milo
said, “Not here in L.A.”

“Not
even close.”

“Seeing
as you just read every damn word of the file, is there anything in there about
a gal-pal who
had
traveled abroad? Or
came
from abroad?”

“Swedish
party girl? Negative, yet again,” said Lindstrom. “You’ll have to believe me on
this, but that file contains squat-all international intrigue associated with
Doreen Fredd. And you’ve got no serious evidence Prince Teddy actually offed
anyone. But even if he did, how would it connect to Doreen and Backer two years
later? Burning
down a big showy house, I can believe.
They probably did that back in Bellevue and God knows how many other times. But
targeting Teddy, specifically? This turning into some obnoxious 007 deal? I’m
not seeing it.”

Milo
said, “What if Doreen and Backer somehow found out about the alleged murder and
tried to cash in? From what you know about her, would that make sense?”

“Blackmail
… sure, why not? She wasn’t a woman of high character.” She sat forward. “She
and Backer hooked up more for old times’ sake, decided to do more than eat
dandelions and screw? Hey, anything’s possible, but there’s nothing along those
lines that I can help you with.”

“Does
the name Monte appear anywhere in your files?”

“Nope.
Who is he?

“Maybe
no one, Gayle.”

“Obviously,
you
think he’s someone.”

“What
happened to the other two kids Doreen and Backer hung with back in Seattle?”

“Dwayne
Parris and Kathy Vanderveldt? They both went off to college and got on the
straight and narrow. She was pre-med, he was pre-law. Tell me about Monte.”

“Just
a name that came up in a tip.”

“As…”

“Someone
who might’ve known Doreen.”

“Might?
That mean you don’t think the tip’s solid?”

Milo
gave her the details.

“Geezer
without a cell,” she said. “Monte. Nope, doesn’t ring a bell, but the moment I
get back, I’ll re-read the file, just in case it slipped by me. We’re talking
seven-hundred-plus pages.”

“Doreen
was small-time but she merited an encyclopedia?”

“One
thing we’re good at is churning paper.” Lindstrom smiled. “Poor trees.”

We
stood in front of the station and watched Lindstrom drive away in a
government-issued Chevy.

Milo
said, “How much of that was real?”

“Who
knows?”

A
woman exited the staff parking lot, crossed the street, and brushed by us,
setting off a zephyr of Chanel No. 5. Thin, pinch-featured, with a well-styled
mop of flame-colored hair sharpened by a deep green suit and a yellow scarf
patterned like a rattlesnake. She carried a bag even larger than Lindstrom’s,
maintained a high-stepping walk as she flung the station door open.

I
said, “It probably is in Lindstrom’s best interests to cooperate. You clear
Doreen, she makes headway on her pile of punishment.”

The
station door opened and the redhead charged toward us, bag swinging, hair
bouncing. “Lieutenant Sturgis? Clarice Jernigan, from the coroner’s.”

“Doctor.”

“I
was testifying around the corner, thought I might as well talk to
you in person. The receptionist told me I’d walked right
by you.” Khaki eyes studied me.

“This
is Dr. Delaware, our psych consultant.”

“We
can sometimes use help on suicides. Would you mind if I talked to the
lieutenant in private?”

Milo
said, “Anything I know, Dr. Delaware’s going to know.”

“There’s
nothing psychological about what I have to say, Lieutenant.”

“Sorry,
Doc. It ain’t done that way.”

Dr.
Clarice Jernigan slid her bag to the sidewalk. “Sure, what the hey. I opened
Mr. Backer’s head and retrieved bullet frags. Definitely .22s, lab’s trying to
reassemble so if you get a weapon, they can run a match.”

“Thanks—”

“I
also decided to do an autopsy on your Jane Doe, after all. As I’d assumed, no
big surprise in terms of COD. Manual strangulation, the finger marks are
obvious, but no prints or DNA, so maybe your bad guy gloved up. This was a
healthy young woman who met a rather unpleasant demise literally at the hands
of another.”

“We’ve
got a name for her, now, Doc. Doreen Fredd. Two
d’s.”

Jernigan
whipped out a BlackBerry, entered the information. “My report will be
forthcoming. Meaning whenever I can get to it.”

Milo
said, “That’s what you needed to tell me face-to-face?”

Jernigan
threw back her shoulders. “What I need to tell you is I made an error and
preferred not to address that fact over the phone.” Looking at me. I settled my
gaze on the parking lot and pretended to be elsewhere.

Milo
waited.

“I don’t
see it as a major faux pas, but you might as well know, in case it impacts how
you direct your investigation. As I told you, the rape kit was negative and my
initial evaluation was no sexual assault. But after opening her up, I did find
an abrasion in the vaginal lining, just under five inches in.”

She tossed the snake scarf over her shoulder. “So why
didn’t I spot it initially? Because it was on the roof of the vaginal vault,
kind of tucked away. A smallish but rather nasty snag wound consistent with
insertion of a hard object—no jokes, please. Something with a pointed extension
on the upper surface. My guess, confirmed by my tool-mark analyst, is the
barrel of a handgun with a sharp sight. Initially, I assumed a .22 because of
Backer. But after checking barrel lengths, I can’t see any .22 entering that
deeply without inflicting serious external damage to the labia. So we’re
leaning toward a larger-caliber revolver with a longer barrel and a prominent
sight, such as a Charter Arms Bulldog. In fact, we tried out a Bulldog and it
fit quite nicely with the abrasion.”

“Two
guns,” said Milo. “Little one for shooting, big one for raping.”

“To
me, Lieutenant, that smells of intimidation, rage, or maybe just plain sadism.
And, of course, now you need to consider two offenders. Do you concur, Dr.
Delaware?”

“Makes
sense.”

“Then
we’re all on the same page.” Jernigan checked her watch. “Needless to say, my
initial hypothesis will not appear in the report and I’d appreciate if the same
goes for yours.”

“Absolutely,
Doctor.”

“Just
to reassure you, I took another look at Mr. Backer as well. Examined his anus
and his mouth for any sign of assault by firearm or anything else. Pristine on
all counts, so whatever additional psychopathology was at play seems to have
been reserved for Ms. Fredd with two
d’s
. Have a nice day, gentlemen.”

“How’s
it going on Bobby Escobar?”

“So
far, Lieutenant, it’s going nowhere.” Angry smile. “Are you volunteering your
services? That deal still stands.”

“I
don’t think the Sheriff’s would appreciate my meddling, Doc.”

“No
doubt,” said Jernigan. “Then again, things get bad enough, everyone wants a
bailout.”

When
she was gone, he said, “When she admitted goofing, I was expecting something
about the vanished sperm stain.”

I said, “Maybe there’s just so much she can own up
to.”

“Gun
rape,” he said. “Two offenders or a single dominant blitz artist who managed to
cow Backer and Doreen all by himself.”

“Someone
with big bucks could afford to hire a team.”

“Teddy
and/or the sultan dispatched a hit squad.” He pressed his palms together,
looked up at the sky. “What did I do to offend you, Herr Kafka?”

Sean
Binchy showed up at Milo’s office brandishing a list of felons culled from
Beaudry Construction’s subcontractor list.

Nine
names, no Montes or close. Binchy had run down seven of the miscreants, ruled
them out, was headed to Lancaster to check out the last two—a pair of
cement-worker brothers arrested for stealing tools from a previous job.

Milo
said, “How’s Ricki Flatt doing?”

“Got
her set up in the Star Inn, paid for full cable, all the movie channels.”