Hangman (15 page)

“Whose phone number? Reffi?”

“Yes.”

“He’s probably back in Europe, but I’ll give you whatever number I have.”

“Thank you very much. Also you said someone just quit yesterday morning?”

“Yes. Eddie Booker. He just made it under the wire for his free lunch. I thought he needed the money, but he said he was out of here. I don’t blame him.”

“Could I have his number, too?”

“Sure.” He searched a list, wrote down the numbers, and gave them to Decker.

“Thank you. Can you tell me who was working here on Sunday?”

“It wasn’t me.” He checked the books. “It was Booker. Ah, this makes sense. He completed his shift, worked through the night, and clocked out Monday morning. Then he quit.” Zatch looked at Decker. “Eddie’s a good man. He’s been married for twenty years and has children. He goes to church.”

That meant nothing. More than one serial killer had been a deacon. What caught Decker’s attention was Booker’s timing. Not only that he worked the night Terry had disappeared, but that he quit the next morning.

“Thanks for your help,” Decker said.

“No problem, Detective. At least I do something useful other than sweat.”

ADRIANNA’S HONDA REMAINED
parked in its spot, undisturbed, until the tape’s time read 2:14 Monday afternoon—the time that Adrianna was found dead. At that point, Marge turned off the machine. “She never made it to her car.”

Oliver stood up and stretched, blinking to bring moisture to his dry eyes. “Could she have left the hospital from a different door?”

“Only one way to find out.” Marge held up the cassette tapes.

“What time is it?”

“About ten of five.”

“Aren’t we supposed to meet up with Aaron Otis and Greg Reyburn?”

“I’ve got to check my messages. They’re supposed to call me when they get into town. My cell is dead in here.”

“So they could have called and you wouldn’t have known about it?”

“Exactly. Let’s take a break. I’ll check my phone.”

Just as Marge stood up, Povich returned. “Any luck?”

“We’ve gone through the most important tape once,” Oliver said. “We did see Adrianna park her car and go into the hospital at around quarter to eleven. We didn’t see her coming back to her car on this tape.”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t leave,” Marge said. “But now we need to check all the other hospital entrances and exits. That’s going to take a long time. It would be helpful if we could view the tapes at our station house. That way I could put a lot of people on them and move this along at a quicker pace.”

“Eventually the hospital is going to have to give them to us,” Oliver said. “They’re evidence.”

“Evidence to what?” Povich said. “There was no crime here.”

“We don’t know that,” Marge said. “If we check all the other tapes and maybe see her
leaving
through another exit—not only would it be helpful to our investigation, it might clear the hospital of any wrongdoing. But since we haven’t seen her leave, we need to view all the tapes.”

Povich drummed the table. He said, “You take a break. I’ll call
management and see if you can take them. But one thing. If you view them at the police station, I want to be there. Then I think I can talk them into it.”

“No problem.” Marge shook his hand. “You’re welcome to come with us.”

Oliver said, “We’ll miss Peter, but somehow we’ll have to get along without him.”

With his eyes glued to the monitor, Peter gave a wave.

I
T WAS AFTER
seven by the time Decker made it back to the station house. The squad room was quiet with a few stragglers, including Wanda Bontemps, a recent transplant to Devonshire homicide. She and Decker had worked together on the Cheryl Diggs case back when Chris Donatti had been not much older than Gabe. Chasing down a killer had led Decker into Wanda’s district. There had been tension between them at first, but by the time the case had been solved, Decker had been won over by her professionalism. He’d gone to bat for her when she had wanted to transfer into the detectives’ division, and she’d been loyal to him ever since.

In her late forties, Wanda was five six with a spread around the middle. She had recently taken to push-ups and it showed in her muscular arms. She had mocha skin, dark eyes, and very close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair with just a touch of blond.

“Have a second, Loo?”

“Sure.” Decker took out his keys and unlocked his office door. “Come on in.” He sat at his desk and Wanda sat opposite with papers in her hands. “What’s up?”

Wanda checked her notes. “I’ve been looking through hanging deaths. Almost all have been suicides or accidental—autoerotic asphyxiation. It’s really rare as a method of suicide for women. I was able to find two homicides by hanging, but both of them old, old cases done in South Central.”

Decker had taken out a notepad. “Open cases?”

“Yes. The wisdom at the time was that it was a serial killer because both of the women had been prostitutes.”

“How long ago are we talking about?”

“Twenty-five years.”

“Doesn’t sound like a good match to Adrianna’s case.”

“That was my feeling.”

“What about hangings outside of L.A.?”

“That was my next step. To murder someone that way is really weird, so maybe it’s a serial killer who recently moved into the area.”

“Lovely,” Decker said. “But valid.”

“Also, even though no one from the cable company was in the area on Monday, I did find out from the foreman that a private audiovisual company was wiring the house for flat screens and computers. His name is Rowan Livy. I have a call in to him.”

“Good. And who told you about him?”

“The foreman.”

“Chuck Tinsley or Keith Wald?”

“Tinsley.”

“The one who found the body,” Decker said. “We should talk to him again. Maybe he’ll remember something when he’s not as frazzled. And first on the scene is always suspicious.”

“Agreed. I also had a chat with Bea Blanc—the victim’s sister. She and Adrianna haven’t been close for years. Bea’s a stockbroker—married with a couple of kids—and the two of them lead very different lives. She didn’t know much about Adrianna’s personal comings and goings.”

“Did you detect any animosity between them?”

“Not when I spoke to her. She seemed pretty broken up.”

“So as a source of information, she’s a bust, and as a suspect, she’s way down on the list.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. Good work. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment. I thought I’d join the others in the view room and look at the tapes of St. Timothy’s exits and entrances. So far it appears that Adrianna never made it back to her car. Marge and Oliver want to know if Adrianna left the hospital at all.”

“I thought the hospital wasn’t going to release them to us.”

“Apparently they had a change of heart. You want to come in and take a look?”

“Maybe in a minute. I’ve still got a couple of calls to make. Tell them I’m here in case anyone wants to talk to me.”

“Will do.”

After Wanda left, Decker started calling maintenance personnel from the hotel. His first call went out to Eddie Booker. A kid whose voice sounded like he was in the throes of adolescence answered the phone. “My mom and dad just left for vacation.”

“Do you know when they’ll be back?” Decker asked.

“I dunno. You can talk to my grandmother. She’ll be back in an hour.”

“Can I leave you my number and have her call me at her earliest convenience?”

“Uh, I don’t have a pencil. Should I get one?”

“Please.” Decker gave him the number, thanked the kid, and hung up, knowing that there was a good chance that Grandma wouldn’t get the message. His next call was to Reffi Zabrib. Gregory Zatch, the head security guard, had said that Zabrib had gone to Europe. So Decker wasn’t surprised that the line had been disconnected. Since Zabrib had quit when Terry was still around and about, he wasn’t high on the list.

There were still six more people to call from maintenance as well as fifteen from housekeeping. Decker was about to make another phone call when there was a knock on his door frame. Marge came in, rubbing her eyes.

“We’re taking a break. Want to see the movies?”

Decker checked his watch. “I think I’ll drop by my house and see if my wife still remembers me. What’s the status? Wanda told me that Adrianna never made it back to her car.”

“We saw her pull up, park, walk to the elevator door.”

“And that’s the last you’ve seen of her?”

“So far we haven’t seen her walking through any of the hospital parking lots. She wound up at the construction site. At some point, she had to leave the hospital. The problem is that the cassettes aren’t that clear. There are plenty of people going in and out that we can’t identify.”

“Or someone carried her out under the radar. Adrianna seemed to have suffered a bloodless death. That’s strangulation or poison. There are lots of ways to get hold of potent chemicals inside a hospital.”

“Povich said that there are cameras on the narcotic cabinets. I’ll take a look at them. See who’s been checking out the strong stuff. When are the tox reports due in?”

“Not for another couple of weeks,” Decker said. “What’s happening with Aaron Otis and Greg Reyburn? Shouldn’t they be in town by now?”

“Their car broke down about fifty miles north of Santa Barbara. It’ll take until tomorrow to fix it. It’s almost easier for Oliver and me to drive up than to wait for them to come down, but I figured it would be more professional to interview them here.”

“It can wait until the morning. Have you had any luck locating Garth Hammerling?”

Marge shook her head. “What about this, Pete? What if after Adrianna called Aaron, Garth called her back and told her that he had cut short his vacation just to talk to her. Maybe she didn’t want to meet with him at home, so they agreed to meet at the hospital.”

“Go on.”

“They meet and they talk and then they fight. Something bad happens and Adrianna dies. Garth panics, and somehow gets rid
of her. I bet he’d know how to get her out without being noticed.”

“But a call from Garth didn’t register on Adrianna’s phone.”

“So maybe he called Adrianna at the hospital because he knew she wouldn’t answer his calls on her cell.”

“It took him at least three, four hours to come down to L.A. If she was waiting that long for him in the hospital, someone would have seen her at that time.”

“Could be that she was dog tired and went to sleep in an on-call room while she waited.”

“Go back to St. Tim’s and try to find out if someone saw Adrianna after her shift ended.”

“We need to do that anyway.” Marge paused. “If that did happen, one of the security cassettes should show Garth entering the hospital. So I probably should be looking for him as well.”

“Yep.”

“Except I have no idea what Garth looks like except for a crummy DMV photo.”

Decker opened his desk drawer and took out some pictures. “I borrowed these from Adrianna’s apartment. Try Facebook and see if Garth is a member. We can probably pull up some more recent snapshots from the computer. Also…and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. See if the guy posted anything recent.”

“That’s a good idea,” Marge said. “People are always exposing themselves metaphorically. These days privacy is as quaint as a Victorian swoon.”

HE PULLED UP
at eight-fifteen, noticing that Hannah’s car was absent from the driveway. When Rina greeted him at the door, he said, “Just the two of us?”

“Make that three. Hannah’s gone, but we’ve got a boarder.”

Decker frowned. “Where is she?”

“At Aviva’s.”

“So why didn’t she take him with her?”

“I don’t know, Peter. Maybe she needed a little alone time. Why don’t you come in and close the door and we can talk inside. It’s okay to do that because you live here.”

The two of them walked hand in hand into the kitchen. Decker sat down where his dinner awaited him. It was hot and delicious: a Reuben sandwich complete with nondairy soy cheese, coleslaw, and a big juicy sour pickle. All too quickly, it was gone.

“Man, that was good.”

“You want another one?”

“No, one was quite enough.” Decker heard a lilting melody wafting through the air. He’d never heard electric guitar played so beautifully. “How’s the kid doing?”

“I fed him. He said thank-you.”

“Not much in the conversation department?”

“No, there was a little social banter. I asked him if the school was comfortable for him. If not, I’d look into something else, but he said he was fine with it, especially because everything was temporary.” She laughed. “He told me that it wasn’t all that different from Catholic school.”

Decker laughed. “How’s that?”

“Just that the rabbis reminded him of the priests. He said everyone was nice enough. Then he thanked me for the sandwich and started to eat. I told him I had a few calls to make. He said, don’t let me stop you. I figured it had to be a strain for him to make small talk, so I left him alone. When I came back, he thanked me and said the sandwich was terrific. Then he excused himself and has been playing Yonkie’s guitar for the last two hours. The kid has stamina.”

She poured both of them two cups of coffee and sat down.

“Have you made any progress finding Terry?”

“I’d let you know if I had.” Decker sipped coffee. “I interviewed several workers at the hotel where she and Gabe were staying. Everyone told me that the boy plays piano like a professional. Is having him here a strain?”

“Not really.”

“Rina, you must tell me. If you get any kind of bad feeling about him, we can send him to his aunt’s apartment. Because we really don’t know a thing about him except that he’s musical.”

“He seems to be okay. Maybe we should rent a piano for him.”

“A piano?”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you think that might be getting a bit overinvolved?”

“You brought him home.” When Decker didn’t say anything, she said, “Why don’t you talk to him and find out how committed he is to his playing? I’d hate to be the one to stall his progress, especially if he was one of those prodigy kids.”

“His development is not our responsibility.”

“It will be if he stays here.”

“And do we have to stop at a piano? What about a teacher? And what if he needs a special teacher who costs a fortune?”

“Why don’t we start with a piano,” Rina said.

“How much does renting one cost?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out.”

“And what do we do with a piano if his mother suddenly shows up, or if his father shows up, or if he decides to pick up and leave?”

“I took lessons when I was little. I’m not getting any younger. I think it’s time to get reacquainted with my creative side.”

WHEN DECKER KNOCKED,
the music stopped. A moment later, Gabe answered the door. “Hi.”

“You got a minute?” Decker crossed the threshold and sat on one of his sons’ twin beds. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Gabe laid the guitar down and kneaded his hands. “Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but we haven’t made much progress. We’ve talked to several people at the hotel today. Your mother was a friendly gal, especially to the staff, which might make our job easier.”

“How’s that?”

“They remember her.” Decker paused. “Maybe if I talk to enough of them, someone will remember something that you didn’t know about.”

“Like what?”

“Like your mother bringing a guest to her hotel room.” Gabe didn’t answer, so Decker said, “Do you remember her making contact with anyone other than family…maybe calling up an old friend?”

The boy shook his head no. “But I wasn’t always around. She rented a practice room for me at UCLA, so I was gone probably six hours a day.”

“So it’s conceivable that your mother had a life that you didn’t know about.”

“Like what are you saying? That she ran off with someone?”

He was clearly upset. Decker said, “I’m just saying since you weren’t around all the time, she could be hiding things from you.”

He nodded. “Mom could be secretive. But she wouldn’t just run off. First of all, if Chris found out, he’d kill…he’d be real angry. Probably he’d find her and get her back anyway, so what would be the point? Second, she wouldn’t leave without telling me.”

“That’s probably true. I’ve heard from everyone how devoted she was to you.”

Gabe was silent and sullen. Clearly Decker had hit a raw nerve. “I’ll keep you up-to-date. I’m sorry I don’t know more.” The boy was still sulking. “Wow, six hours a day. That’s a lot of practicing.”

“It’s about average.” Gabe shrugged.

“Did you practice that much back home?”

“I only went to school until one.” He paused. “Fine with me because almost all of high school is a total waste.”

“I think Hannah would agree with you there. Are most kids like you homeschooled?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want that. My father’s a night owl and often sleeps in to midmorning. He’s real sensitive to noise. When he
sleeps, he needs quiet, so it was good for me to be out of the house.”

“So how serious are you with your music?” Decker said.

The boy took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirt, and put them back on. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Do you want to be a professional musician?
Are
you a professional musician?”

“I think you’re asking me if I want to be a concert pianist. That’s an interesting question. You should probably ask my teachers if I have the chops.”

“Who were your teachers?”