“Nothing,” I said. “The mother was caring for the baby, but they’re living in filthy conditions out there. And the boy who might be the baby’s father has a cough that sounds tubercular.”
“Was the baby coughing?”
“Not yet.”
“For a tuberculosis investigation, you’d have to call public health.
Ask for a communicable disease officer.”
“There’s nothing you can do?”
“Doesn’t sound like there’s anything we should be doing, sir.”
“How bout getting the baby some shelter?”
“They’d have to ask, sir.”
“The baby would?”
“The legal guardians. We don’t just go out looking for people.”
Click.
The dial tone was as loud as the freeway. I felt nuts. How did the certifiable psychotics handle it?
I wanted to call Robin. Then I realized I hadn’t memorized my new phone number, didn’t even know the name of the house’s owner. I called Milo. He was at his desk and gave me the seven digits, then said, “Before you hang up, I just got through with Myra Paprock’s file. She wasn’t a therapist. Real estate agent, killed on the job. Showing a house and somebody cut her, robbed her, raped her, and wrote bad love’ on the wall with her lipstick.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Yeah. In the photos, the lipstick looks like blood.”
“Real estate agent,” I said. “That’s sometimes a second career. Maybe she worked as some kind of therapist first.”
“If she did it’s not down here in the file, and the Van Nuys guys seem to have done a pretty thorough job. Plus Shipler-the beating victim-wasn’t a shrink, either, so I don’t see any obvious mental health connection here.”
“What did he do?”
“Janitor. Night custodian at Jefferson High. I haven’t gotten his file yet, but I had a records clerk over at Central give me the basics.”
“Was he killed on the job, too?”
“Nope, in the comfort of his own home.”
“Where’d he live?”
“Budlong Avenue-South L.A.”
“Black?”
“Yeah.
“What happened to him?”
“Pounded to mush and the house was trashed.”
“Robbery?”
“Doubtful. His stereo, TV, and some jewelry were left behind.”
“What, then? Someone looking for something?”
“Or someone got really angry. I want to read the whole filegot a call in for it.”
“Real estate agent and janitor,” I said. “Doesn’t make any sense. Any connection between them?”
“Other than bad love’ on the wall, there doesn’t seem to be any.
Nothing matches. She was thirty-five, he was sixty-one. He was killed early morningright after he finished work on the nightshift-and she got it in the middle of the day. She was stabbed, he was clubbed. There were even differences in what the killer used to write bad love.”
Shipler’s was done in molasses from his fridge.”
“In both cases the killer was opportunistic-used something of the victim’s.”
“Weapons, too,” he said. “She was killed with a kitchen knife from the house she was showing, Shipler with a fireplace poker that was identified as his. So?”
“I don’t know, maybe it indicates some kind of power thingdominance over the victims-turning the victims against themselves. Like using my tree branch on the koi. Were there any bondage or S&M overtones to either murder?”
“Paprock’s bra was wrapped around her neck, but the coroner said it was done when she was already dead. Far as I can tell there were no sexual overtones at all to Shipler.”
“Still ” I said, “the message was important. It must mean something to the killer.”
“I’m sure it does,” he said, without enthusiasm.
“Did Shipler live alone?”
“Yeah, divorced.”
“What about Paprock?”
“No match there, either. Married, two kids.”
“If nothing was taken from Shipler’s house,” I said, “what was the assumed motive?”
“A gang thing-there was lots of activity in Shipler’s neighborhood, even back then. Lots more, now. Like you said before, a trashed house could mean someone looking for something. Central figured dope.
Figured Shipler was involved on some level and bad love’ was some sort of gangbanger slogan they hadn’t heard of yet. They checked it out with the CRASH detail and they hadn’t heard of it, but new stuff comes up all the time.”
“Did Shipler turn out to be involved in gangs or dope?”
“Far as I can tell, he had no record, but plenty of scrotes slip through the cracks. In terms of there being no burglary, Southwest figured it was punks panicking and leaving before they could take anything. Which is consistent with gang wannabees-new recruits out on a virgin adventure.”