“Shit. Captain, I want this one.”
“You can have it. No publicity, though. I don’t want another Black Dahlia mess.”
“What about another man to work with me?”
Dietrich sighed–long and slow. “If the victim warrants it. For now, it’s just you. We’ve only got four detectives, Danny. If this John Doe was trash, I don’t want to waste another man.”
Danny said, “A homicide is a homicide, sir.”
Dietrich said, “You’re smarter than that, Deputy.”
Danny said, “Yes, sir,” hung up, and rolled.
o
o
o
The day had turned cool and cloudy. Danny played the radio on the ride to Allegro; the weatherman was predicting more rain, maybe flooding in the canyons–and there was no news of the horrific John Doe. Passing the building site, he saw kids playing touch football in the mud and rubberneckers pointing out the scene of last night’s spectacle–an SID prowl of the lot would now yield zero.
The print wagon and abandoned Buick were up at the end of the block.
Danny noticed that the sedan was perfectly parked, aligned with the curb six inches or so out, the tires pointed inward to prevent the vehicle from sliding downhill. A psych lead: the killer had just brutally snuffed his victim and transported the body from fuck knows where, yet he still had the calm to coolly dispose of his car _by the dump scene_–which meant that there were probably no witnesses to the snatch.
Danny hooked his Chevy around the print car and parked, catching sight of the tech’s legs dangling out the driver’s side of the Buick. Walking over, he heard the voice the legs belonged to: “Glove prints on the wheel and dashboard, Deputy. Fresh caked blood on the back seat and some white sticky stuff on the side headliner.”
Danny looked in, saw an old plainclothesman dusting the glove compartment and a thin patch of dried blood dotted with white terrycloth on the rear seat cushion. The seat rests immediately behind the driver were matted with crisscross strips of blood– the terrycloth imbedded deeper into the caking. The velveteen sideboard by the window was streaked with the gelatinous substance he’d tagged at the morgue. Danny sniffed the goo, got the same mint/medicinal scent, clenched and unclenched his fists as he ran a spot reconstruction: The killer drove his victim to the building site like a chauffeur, the stiff propped up in his white terry robe, eyeless head lolling against the sideboard, oozing the salve or ointment. The crisscross strips on the seat rests were the razorlike cuts on his back soaking through; the blood patch on the cushion was the corpse flopping over sideways when the killer made a sharp right turn.
“Hey! Deputy!”
The print man was sitting up, obviously pissed that he was taking liberties. “Look, I have to dust the back now. Do you mind . . .”
Danny looked at the rear-view mirror, saw that it was set strangely and got in behind the wheel. Another reconstruction: the mirror held a perfect view of the back seat, blood strips and goo-streaked sideboard. The killer had adjusted it in order to steal glances at his victim as he drove.
“What’s your name, son?”
Now the old tech was really ticked. Danny said, “It’s Deputy Upshaw, and Side 18
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The don’t bother with the back seat–this guy’s too smart.”
“Do you feel like telling me how you know that?”
The two-way in the print wagon crackled; the old-timer got out of the Buick, shaking his head. Danny memorized the registration card laminated to the steering column: Nestor J. Albanese, 1236 S. St. Andrews, LA, Dunkirk-4619. He thought of Albanese as the killer–a phony car theft reported–and nixed the idea as farfetched; he thought of the rage it took to butcher the victim, the ice it took to drive him around LA in New Year’s Eve traffic. Why?
The tech called out, “For you, Upshaw.”
Danny walked over to the print car and grabbed the mike. “Yeah?”
A female voice, static-filtered, answered. “Karen, Danny.”
Karen Hiltscher, the clerk/dispatcher at the station; _his_ errand girl–occasional sweet talk for her favors. She hadn’t figured out that he wasn’t interested and persisted in using first names over the County air. Danny pushed the talk button. “Yeah, Karen.”