Bannerman's Law (49 page)

Those two
might be the killers in the Lexus, he thought,
yawning. Maybe they also shot two women named Susan and Elena.

Ca
rl
a would tell him.

He yawned again.

He wished he'd thought to buy some coffee.

₃₇

Jack Scholl, special agent in charge of the Campus Killer
Task Force, had argued, pleaded, even threatened in his effort
to duck that assignment. He was told to take it or retire.

Scholl
's
duties, for the five years preceding the discov
ery of the second victim, had essentially been limited to public relations. He had become the unofficial spokesman
of the Los Angeles field office because he, unlike his boss,
was comfortable in front of cameras and because he
looked and sounded a bit like Efre
m
Zimbalist, Jr., of the
old FBI television series.

That resemblance, a measure of celebrity, and the fact
that he was, by bureau standards, independently wealthy,
caused him to be a frequent guest at civic and social func
tions. Scholl seemed to know everyone. Politicians whispered into his ear. Filmmakers sought his technical advice.
Religious leaders sought his moral voice.

His fellow agents were less than impressed. They re
garded Scholl as living proof that it was better to be lucky
than smart.

They remembered a time when he was considered a
marginal agent, just good enough to be allowed to put in
his twenty and retire. His run of luck had begun with a
weekend trip to Las Vegas. Scholl announced on returning
that he had won almost $10,000 at blackjack. That wind
fall served to explain how Scholl managed to live better
than most, drive a nicer car, take better vacations.

At about that time, he also began enjoying a series of well-publicized successes as a federal agent. He led several major drug raids and found two aging Nazi fugitives who were living in Los Angeles. Although Scholl
’
s boss was
inclined to count his blessings, he could not help wishing
that some of Scholl
’s
were more the result of competent
investigative procedur
e—t
eamwor
k—a
nd less the result of
anonymous tips.

Scholl's most extraordinary piece of luck came soon after the death of his father. The father, a widower, had
died some six years ago, leaving Scholl his Pasadena home
and everything in it. Everything
,
as it turned out, included an attic trunk containing his father's World War II memo
rabilia. It also contained three ro
ll
ed-up canvasses by
Corot and one Delacroix self-portrait. The paintings were
authenticated by the reputable firm of R
i
cha
r
dson-Ma
r
ek,
which also determined through the Internationa
l
Institute
for Art Research that they had never been reported stole
n
and had no claims against them. Richardson-Marek sold them to a Japanese auto parts manufacturer for more than
$2 million.

Scholl's boss was surprised that he stayed with the
bureau. His fitness reports, for all Scholl's luck, did not
auger promotion. The pension would be nice but no longer essential.
Scholl,
however, not only stayed but th
ri
ved. His
pool of informants seemed to grow in proportion to his
social and media contacts. Scholl's boss could only shake
his head.

After the second victim was found, and the FBI was
called in, Jack Scholl was his boss's choice to head th
e
bureau's end of the task force, primarily because no one
else wanted the job. Serial killer cases often dragged on
for years and were, in the end, usually solved by dumb
luck. The real job involved persuading the media that
progress was being made. In the event of an arrest, Scholl would be there, in front of the cameras, elbowing his way past whoever made it. That's what he was best at. In the
meantime, better him than to waste an agent who had
genuine talent.

Scholl could not have refused. The retirement option was unattractive because retirement would mean the end
of his usefulness to Theodore Ma
r
ek
.
And Ma
r
ek, as he'd
often pointed out, could always suddenly discover that the
Corots and the Delacroix were worthless forgeries and
urge a lawsuit by the Japanese buyer. There could be no
defense. A charge that Marek had provided them in the
first place would be equally ruinous. Scholl would be dis
graced. He would lose his pension as well.

But now, for the first time in his ten-year relationship
with Theodore Marek, providing him with files, doctoring
others, protecting
Marek's
friends and harassing his ene
mies, Jack Scholl began to feel that he might have the
upper hand.

By the time he'd made his visit to the apartment of the
Benedict girl, largely for the sake of procedure, he was
already satisfied that she was almost certainly the victim
of a copycat. When told by the superintendent that someone was already inside, he presumed the intruder to be a
relative but possibly a reporter. If the latter, his own entry,
gun drawn, all business, might lead to a very respectful
interview. Instead, those two women had humiliated him.

He knew all about them within the hour. Professional
assassins, both of them. He was astonished. Washington
was in an uproar. Why, they asked, had he not held them?

He would have.
Had
he known. Or had that Detective
Huff and those other smirking policemen not intervened.

Never mind
,
said Washington. Say nothing to the
media. Not even to the others on the task force.
Await
further instructions.

Washington, he thought at the time, was overreacting.
More than anything else, he decided, they were probably
afraid of two female vigilantes stirring up a media circus.
Avenging angels, going around executing suspects, that
sort of thing.

He had traced them, that afternoon, to the house of the
Fene
r
ty girl. She was their only lead, a name on the dead
girl's answering machine. But Fenerty claimed that she knew nothing, had told them nothing. The two women stayed only a few minutes, then left.

Scholl wa
s
sure that she was lying. For one thing, she
referred to them as Molly and Ca
rl
a. The reference
smacked of familiarity. For another, there was that beefy
young man on the porch who obviously gave an alarm
when he pulled up and there were two other men, swarthy,
hard-eyed, loitering inside. Unless Fenerty knew more than
she was saying, why should she feel the need for body
guards? Scholl returned to his office where he arranged, without benefit of court order, for a monitoring of Miss
Fenerty
’
s telephone.

The shocks, that evening, came in rapid succession.
Joe Hickey, a corrupt policeman now on
Marek's
payroll, slashed to death in the manner of the serial killer. Another
man, shown to be a KGB captain, shot. Two men, one
bleeding, seen stumbling from
Hickey's
apartment and
rushing off in a white Lexus.

Marek'
s son had a new white Lexus.

The two women, Benedict and Fa
rr
ell, positively identified as being on the scene. Benedic
t—
w
orks with a knif
e
—
almost certainly the killer of Hickey. Theodore Ma
r
ek,
calling, clearly shaken, demanding details on the people
involved, asking if the two who drove off had been identi
fied. Marek, according to Scholl
’
s readout, had called from
Sur La Mer.

Scholl knew little about Sur La Mer. Only that he was to respect, misdirect, or quash any inquiries that came through his office. He presumed it to be either the center
of
Marek'
s drug operations or a sort of convention center
for art forgers. Maybe
Marek's
son was the bleeder.
Maybe he's hiding out there.

The final shock, or series of them, came late that night.
A call from someone named Lesko, denying tha
t
the
woman killed Hickey, claiming that the Campus Killer did it, offering to catch and deliver him in return for certain guarantees. Also asking about Sur La
M
er. And acknowl
edging that this man, Bannerman, was in town.

Scholl had never heard of Bannerma
n—M
ama
'
s Bo
y—
before that morning. But Washington certainly knew him.
A renegade contract agent, apparently. And very possibly
a traitor judging by his involvement with the KGB. But
one with
“
friends
”
in the State Department. Probably peo
ple he's compromised.

As for that nonsense about the Campus Killer, thought
Scholl, it was absurd on its face. Too many inconsisten
cies. For one thing, no hair was taken. For another, Hickey was hardly a college girl. He was a tough, even brutal ex-police officer with a gun on his hip and yet he had been
subdued and tortured. Scholl could see no way in the
world that the Campus Killer, thought to be a young man of less than average
height, could
have done that by him
self. Those women did it. Probably with the help of their
hulking KGB friend.

And yet that moron, Huff, bought
Lesko's
story.

Washington was also buying it although their main con
cern seemed to be this Bannerman
’
s possible intentions
toward Sur La Mer. Ma
r
ek, no doubt, had friends of his
own in government.

What, Scholl wondered, was really going on here?

His best guess was that Marek had ordered the Benedict
girl killed. He had no idea why. Perhaps she was one of
his couriers. Tried to steal from him. Perhaps the Fene
r
ty
girl was another. That would make sense. She might know,
therefore, who was likely to be given the job of killing
Lisa Benedict.

Marek, in any case, gave the job to Hickey. The girl's sister returned the favor. Peter Marek and another ma
n—
Harry Bunce, like a
s
no
t—a
pparently walked in on her.
Perhaps Hickey had phoned them for help. Perhaps he spotted Ca
rl
a Benedict and the Russian as they pulled up
in that Chevrolet. Or perhaps Peter merely blundered onto the scene as the Russian was ransacking
Hickey's
apart
ment.

Regardless.

The key, from his point of view, was that Theodore
Marek had, in a rare lapse, left a trail leading back to
himself. This Campus Killer business was a ruse aimed
at giving Ca
rl
a Benedict and friends an unimpeded shot
at him.

So be it.

Scholl
w
ould cooperate with Huff. Up to a point. He
had lifted his surveillance of the Beverly Hills Hotel and
of the Benedict house in Sherman Oaks. He'd had a
tracking device wired to that woman's rented Chevrolet in case she was foolish enough to recover it. He would give
those people all the slack they needed until he was sure
where they were holed up.

He was almost sure already. Thanks to the Fene
r
ty girl.

Then he would tell Marek. And sit back and watch.
While they slaughtered each other.