“An initiation thing?”
“Yeah, they start em young. Automatics in the diapers. Speaking of which, I caught my little truant bastards on the Palms robbery-thirteen and fifteen. No doubt they’ll get referred for some kind of therapy.
Want a referral?”
“No, thanks.”
“Cynic.”
“Was there gang activity where Paprock was killed?”
“A little, on the fringes. It’s mostly working-class toughnorth end of Van Nuys. No one made the gang assumption in that one, but maybe if Van Nuys had talked to Southwest, they would have. Neither of them knew about the other case-still don’t.”
“Going to tell them?” I said.
“First I’m gonna read Shipler’s file thoroughly, see what I can pull out of it. Then, yeah, I’ll have to tell them, do the old network blah blah. Both cases are real cold-be interesting to see what kind of responses I get.
Hopefully the whole thing won’t deteriorate into endless memories.
Though if bad love’ shows up anywhere in Stoumen’s file, we’ve got interstate blah blah,” “Hear from Seattle, yet?”
“Very briefly. They’re sending down records-it’ll probably take a week or so. Both detectives on that one are retired and unavailable.
Probable translation: burnouts gone fishing. If anything provocative comes up in the file, I’ll bug em anyway.”
“What about the FBI records on other bad love’ murders?”
“Not yet. Theitt gears grind slowly.”
“A real estate agent, a janitor, and bad love,’ ” I said. “I still think it has something to do with that conference. Or de Bosch himself-Paprock and Shipler could have been his patients.”
“So why would someone kill them?”
“Maybe it’s another patient, mad about something.”
“Then what’s your connection?”
“I don’t know. … Nothing makes sense, dammit.”
“You learn anything from Jeffers?”
“No one at the center remembers Hewitt having any friends.
e gave me a name Hunter with the people But she referred me to Hewitt’s lawyer and and possible address.” I described my enco under the freeway.
“Gritz,” he said. “As in hominy.”
“With a z.” Could be a first name or a last, or just a nickname.”
“I’ll run it through.”
“The kid I spoke to said he’s been gone about a week. He also said Gritz was talking and singing about getting rich.”
“Singing?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Oh those romantic hoboes, strumming around the campfire.”
“Maybe Gritz had some kind of job lined up, or maybe it’s baloney. The kid could very well have been putting me on. For what it’s worth, he said he’d ask around, I should come back later.”
“Getting rich,” he said. “Ez@eryone talks and sings about it. That Calcutta place might be the dregs, but it’s still L.A.”
“True,” I said. “But wouldn’t it be interesting if Gritz really did expect to get paid for something-like killing my koi, and other nasties.”
“Hitman on a fish? So who’s doing the hiring?”
“The anonymous bad guy-I know, it’s a ridiculous idea.”
“At this point nothing’s ridiculous, Alex, but if someone was looking to hire a nighttime skulker, would they choose a homeless nutcase?”
“True. … Maybe what Gritz was hired for was to scream on tape-to imitate Hewitt because he knew what Hewitt sounded like.”
“Imitate?” he said. “Those voice tracks sounded identical to me, Alex.
Though we may never be able to verify it. I talked to the voiceprint guy over at the sheriff’s, and screams are useless, legally. In order to make a match that can be used in court, you need two samples, minimum of twenty words on each and the exact same phrases. Even then, it gets challenged a lot and thrown out.”
“What about for nonadmissible comparison?”
“Matching screams is still an iffy business. It’s words that have unique characteristics. I asked the sheriff to give a listen any way.
He said he’s backlogged but would try to get to it eventually. …
Why would someone want to imitate Hewitt?”
“I don’t know-I can’t help but think the tape’s part of a ritual.
Something ceremonial that means something only to the killer.”
“What about the kid on the tape?”
“Could be a homeless kid-someone from Little Calcutta or some place like it. Living down there could explain the robot quality of the voice-despair.