Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (6 page)

Not all the mothers stayed for the class. Munch liked
to watch the little girls prance around and was always amazed at the
depth of Miss Kim's patience. This morning all the girls were
instructed to take a colored scarf from a large cardboard box. That
alone took forever, with the little girls arguing over what color
they wanted and telling stories about their dogs or their grandpa's
car or some other damn thing. Miss Kim took it all in stride. She had
to be on something—Munch had decided long ago. Nobody was that
mellow, were they? Asia scratched her knee, and her stocking twisted
to reveal the run creeping up her ankle. She appeared not to notice,
thank God. Munch sneaked a look at the mothers crowded with her in
the small anteroom. She always felt like such an impostor in their
company, with her short, black-lined finger-nails, lack of stretch
marks, and no wedding ring. Look for the similarities, not the
differences, she told herself.

She was standing next to a tall woman with short hair
who she'd noticed drove a diesel Mercedes. They saw each other every
week, had a nodding acquaintance, but had never exchanged names.

"Those ballet shoes sure wear out fast, don't
they?" Munch said.

"Yes," the woman said. "And last week
the stupid maid put them in the washing machine."

"
Imagine," Munch said. She couldn't think
of anything else to say The woman checked her diamond-studded watch
and left. Munch kept her hands in her pockets. It wasn't that she was
ashamed to be a mechanic. She just didn't want anyone to see her
hands, not make the connection, and think she was dirty. There was a
difference between stained and dirty.

The dance class finished the final exercise. Before
the last strains of music had died away, Asia was at her side,
pulling her arm, cheeks flushed.

"
Remember, you promised," she said.

"I didn't forget," Munch said. She smiled
down at Asia. The little girl's clear brown eyes brought a swell of
warmth to her chest. What perfect skin she had. "There's nothing
I'd rather do in the whole wide world than spend the day with you."

They walked hand in hand back to the car. The day was
warm, gently breezy. "How about the park?" Munch asked.

"
Yeah! " Asia yelled, leaping high and
swiping at something imaginary in the air. They went to the little
park on Alla Road near Marina Del Rey. The little girl played on the
swing set and made new friends, quickly establishing herself as their
tribal leader.

How does she do that? Munch wondered, wishing she'd
remembered to bring a set of overalls and a sturdier pair of shoes
for Asia. Miss Diesel Mercedes probably had the maid pack a suitcase
whenever she went out.

After the park, they went to Uncle John's Pancake
House for lunch and had the usual argument over the value of french
fries as a vegetable. They compromised on scrambled eggs and hash
browns. Munch ordered coffee and finished what Asia left.

They got home at noon. The first thing Asia asked
when they turned up the street was also the burning question on
Munch's mind. U .

"Where's the limo?" the girl said.

Munch's first theory was that it had been stolen. The
idea following that initial supposition made much more sense. Ellen.
Fucking Ellen.

Munch pulled into the driveway and got out. She
walked over to the spot where the limo had been parked and noticed
puddles ringed with soap suds on the asphalt. Asia let herself out of
the car, walked up to Munch, and grabbed her hand.

"Let's go inside and see if anyone left us a
note," Munch said, unlocking the front door. Once across the
threshold, Munch pointed Asia toward her room, and told her, "Change
your clothes. "

Seconds later a scream erupted from Asia's room.
Munch was there in less than a second. Asia pointed at the line of
what appeared to be human heads adorning her dresser. Two wore wigs,
the third was bald and on closer inspection turned out to be made of
Styrofoam. A suitcase lay open on the floor.

Munch lifted one of the wigs—the blond one—off
its form and held it out for Asia's inspection.

"See? Just a wig."

"
Whose stuff is this?" Asia asked.

"My friend, the one I was telling you about."

"Where is she?"

"
That's what I want to know. Change your
clothes. I've got some calls to make."

She sat down at the dinette table that doubled as the
limo office. When she reached for the phone, she saw a sheet of limo
stationery folded in half. Her name was scrawled across the front.
She recognized Ellen's handwriting.

Hi, we got a job. Your honey, Derek, helped me get
the limo ready. Is he a hunk or what?Anyway, the guy said he would
pay cash and that the two of you had an arrangement. I am not back by
tonight, I'll call in. Thanks again for everything. I will make you
proud.
 
 

CHAPTER 5

Detective Mace St. John of L.A.'s elite Robbery
Homicide Division stood at the entryway of the apartment, studying
the scene before him. He liked to orient himself for a minute before
the first walk-through of a homicide scene. Detective Tiger
Cassiletti loomed behind him, rocking on the balls of his size
twelves, seconds away from crashing into his boss and sending them
both sprawling through the doorway.

"We've got one in the bathroom and one in the
bedroom," Cassiletti said.

"
Yeah, I know." Mace had been briefed on
the phone. Two victims, both women in their twenties. The first they
found in the bathtub, her multiple stab wounds washed free of blood.
The second was on the bed in the bedroom. She, too, had been washed,
and the twelve puncture wounds in her neck, back, and buttocks
covered with white adhesive tape. Neither the tape dispenser nor the
weapon had been found at the scene, leading the police to believe
that the killer had taken both with him. Later, at the coroner's
office, the tape would be removed a strip at a time and the torn
edges pieced together. For whatever it was worth, the order in which
the pieces of tape were torn would be re-created and cataloged. The
murders had been discovered in the early hours of the morning
following a tip from an anonymous male caller. It was the Hollywood
Division's jurisdiction, but Parker Center's Robbery Homicide
Division (RHD) had been asked to step in. RHD handled high-profile
cases: serial murders, celebrity-involved felonies.

The killer's signature mirrored a similar unsolved
case that had crossed Mace St. John's desk when he'd first
transferred to RHD in December. For a while, the suspect was being
called "The Christmas Killer" except by one detective who
dubbed their offender "The Maytag Man" became he cleaned up
after himself. Mace had been in no mood to joke and had declared that
thereafter the murderer would only be referred to as "The
Band-Aid Killer".

As with the previous homicide, the killer had washed
the victims' bodies postmortem. dressed the wounds, and then
positioned their bodies so that their right hands, palms down, rested
above their left breasts.

All the women had also been sodomized. At the
December homicide scene, the forensic people had collected semen
samples and combed pubic hair, looking for whatever part of himself
the rapist/murderer might have left behind. The coroner had found no
bite marks; their absence again surprised him. Because of the degree
of overkill as evidenced by the number of stab wounds, he
characterized the murderer as impulsively sadistic. Those kinds were
usually biters.

Any communication with the media was to be
preapproved by press relations, Captain Earl had cautioned needlessly
Actually, it was almost an insult. As if Mace had ever talked out of
school. Like he'd do anything to help a murderer—especially an
animal such as this one. But it was a tense time in the city. Mayor
Bradley was concentrating every effort to make Los Angeles appear
welcoming and safe for the upcoming 1984 Olympics. The bums had been
packed up and shipped to a tent city. Commercial traffic now ran in
the wee hours of the morning, leaving the freeways as open as Mace
had ever seen them. The last thing the city fathers wanted was
reports of a maniac killing women inside their own homes. Still
standing in the doorway of the apartment, Mace and Cassiletti each
pulled on a pair of latex surgical gloves. Mace studied the front
room.

The apartment was filled with inexpensive furniture,
much of it dusty. A blue-and-gold silk scarf was draped over the
shade of the lamp on the small table trapped in the corner between a
couch and an armchair. The cushions weren't dented, he noted. The
zipper on the center couch cushion was facing out. The Scientific
Investigation Division photographers arrived and performed their
duties in the bathroom and the bedroom. Mace told them to document
the living room and kitchenette as well. Mace and Cassiletti waited
till the flash stopped popping, then walked into the bathroom. The
first thing Mace noticed was how the dead woman in the bathtub had a
foot draped languorously over the edge of the tub. Her eyes were
open, punctuated by dark smears of mascara under the lower lash
lines. God, she was young

"Whose little girl were you?" he asked out
loud.

He bent over to study the aftermath of the killer's
carnage. There were twelve X's of white tape adhered to the woman's
ghostly white torso. He peeled back one of the dressings on her
abdomen. Radiating out from the puncture wound he found bruising,
indicating that the hilt of the weapon had struck the surface of the
skin. He searched her chest, hoping to find a clean kill wound,
wondering how many stabs she'd been alive to feel. The medical
examiner would check for that and note it in his report.

Mace looked up, following the seashell pattern of
wallpaper to where it met the ceiling. Half his brain wondered if
this had been her last sight. The analytical half knew something was
missing: blood spatter on the walls.

"Don't forget the traps," he told the SID
crew. "I want all of them: sink, tub, toilet."

"
Kitchen, too?" a tech asked.

"
Yeah, kitchen, too," he answered. "Rush
the tox reports on the victims," Mace told Cassiletti. "And
I want comparisons on the hair and semen."

Cassiletti pulled out his notebook and scribbled.
"Anything else?"

"
Let's check out the other one."

As they started to leave the room, the phone mounted
on the wall next to the toilet rang. Mace lifted the receiver
carefully from its cradle, knowing his gloves would not add new
prints but not wishing to smudge any that were already there. He
answered the phone with a simple "Hello".

"Uh, is the lady of the house in?'

"
Who is this?'

"
A friend of Raleigh Ward's."

"
Can I tell her what this is regarding?

"
Um, well, actually I'm trying to track Raleigh
down, and I, um . . . Listen, can I give you my name and number, and
maybe she could just give me a call, you know, as soon as she can."

"
Sounds like a plan," Mace said, pulling
out his notepad and a pen. "Go ahead."

"All right, my name's Munch, and the number is—"

"Munch? Munch Mancini?" Mace asked.
Cassiletti's head swung around at the sound of the name. Mace pointed
at the receiver for the big man's benefit.

"Who is this?" she asked.

"Mace St. John."

"
Mace? What are you doing there? How have you
been?"

Mace pictured her as he'd last seen her. Was it five
years ago? Longer? He had stopped in at the garage where she worked
just to say hi, see if she was okay. She was, and it had been
gratifying to see. Taking the time to call on her had been his wife
Caroline's idea. Caroline, the ultimate social worker, lived by her
own idealistic, if naive, credo that in giving you received. It had
taken him a few years, but he had finally managed to exhaust her deep
wells of compassion.

"
Mace?" Munch asked again. "You still
there?"

Cassiletti's head was also cocked in question like
some six-foot-four puppy dog.

"Yeah, I'm here. What's new with you?" And
what are you doing calling into a homicide scene? "You still in
the Valley?"

"
No, I moved back to the west side. Didn't you
get my Christmas card?"

"
Oh, yeah, that's right. Go ahead and give me
your address again." He took down her information, writing with
the phone cradled carefully between his ear and shoulder.

Cassiletti made a move as if to hold the phone to
Mace's ear. Mace frowned and waved him away. Munch also provided her
new phone numbers and work address. He looked up into the mirror of
the medicine cabinet but saw only the dead girl in the tub behind
him.

"
So how well do you know the women who live
here?' he asked.

"
I don't even know their names. Did something
happen?"

"What was that name you said when you first
called?"

"Raleigh Ward," she said. "He's a
customer."

"
What kind of customer?"

"I have a limo business. Hey, wait a minute. Are
you still working Homicide?"