A corridor links Unsolved to a room lined with computers. A dozen screens glow green all day every day–dig the dozen clerks running record checks on permanent overdrive. The clerks– mostly women–hog the lunchroom from noon to 2 P.M. daily. They watch soap operas and pine for the candy-ass male stars– right down the hall from the ugly bulldog wall plaque.
Note to Sheriff Sherman Block: Vultures are more charismatic than bulldogs.
It’s early December. Deputies Gil Carrillo and Frank Gonzales have tickets for the annual Sheriff’s/LAPD fistfest. They’re primed for an evening of charity boxing–until Lieutenant Brown tells them they’re the first on-call team up.
It’s a given: Some geek will get murdered tonight and fuck up their fun.
Carrillo and Gonzales decide to stay home and rest. Gil lays some comedy on the deskman, Sergeant Mike Lee: I want a good night’s sleep and an indoor crime scene near my pad about io A.M. tomorrow. Joe Brown says he’ll place the order, ha! ha! ha!
Gil and Frank retire to their cribs. Gil’s about six foot three and massively broad. The earth shakes whenever he walks. He cobossed the LASD’s end of the Richard Ramirez “Night Stalker” serial killer task force back in the eighties, ran against Sherman Block in the last sheriff’s election, and glommed 17 percent of the vote. Frank’s picture should appear in every dictionary on earth, next to the words “Latin lover.” He is one handsome motherfucker. Carrillo and Gonzales bring vulture charisma to every case they work–but they’re pissed that they blew the fights off for nothing.
Because Gil’s wish comes true. His beeper beeps at 10 A.M.–it’s an indoor crime scene ten minutes from his pad.
The victim is Donna Lee Meyers, female Caucasian, age 37. She’s dead at her house in Valinda, a downscale San Gabriel Valley town.
She’s facedown on a green shag rug in the bathroom. She’s nude. She’s been stabbed between twenty and forty times. Defensive wounds on her hands and arms indicate an extended struggle with her killer.
Patrol deputies responded to the 911 call. The informant was Donna Lee Meyers’s father. He came to pick up his 3-year-old grandson and found the back door unlocked and the house filled with gas fumes.
The boy coughed and led him to the body. Every gas burner in the kitchen had been turned on and left unignited.
Carrillo and Gonzales arrive at the scene and get a rundown from the deputies. Their first collective hypothesis: The killer didn’t have the stones to ice a little child up front, so he juiced up the gas before he split. Their first collective instinct: The murder was unpremeditated, with a sharp instrument used as a weapon of opportunity. Their first collective decision: Stay outside and let the criminalists do their work first–don’t risk contaminating the crime scene.
The serologist takes blood samples off the rug and the surrounding area. The print man dusts and comes up with smudges and smears. A technician prowls with an Electrostatic Dust Lifter–a vacuum sealer–like device that transfers the outline of footprints to a cellophane dust-catching sheet. The coroner remains on hold–to remove the body when Carillo and Gonzales give the word.
Carillo and Gonzales canvass the neighborhood. The word on the street: Donna Lee Meyers did cocaine–and used to deal small quantities of it. Carillo and Gonzales take notes, write down names for backup interviews and compile a list of Donna Lee Meyers’s known associates. A friend of the victim’s shows up at the house–and appears to be genuinely shocked that Donna Lee is dead. Carillo and Gonzales take the man to a nearby sheriff’s substation and question him.
He tells them that he dropped by to pay Donna Lee back some coin, and cops to being a casual coke user. The man vibes totally innocent. Carillo and Gonzales let him go and hotfoot it back to the crime scene.
They view the body. A deputy tells them that the killer left the TV on for the kid. Coroner’s assistants take Donna Lee Meyers to the L.A. County Morgue.
The follow-up begins.
Carillo and Gonzales attend the autopsy and hear the cause of death confirmed. They locate the father of Donna Lee Meyers’s son and dismiss him as a suspect. A psychologist assists them in their dealings with Donna Lee’s little boy. The boy’s memories of that day are hellishly distorted. Gentle questioning elicits ambiguous responses.