Authors: M.Z. Kelly
There’s an old saying that I’d heard somewhere about daylight bringing a sense of renewal and hope. I was feeling none of those things as the sun rose and a small army of crime techies trampled our crime scene, demonstrating they were careless and insensitive. The final straw came when one of the technicians took out his personal cell phone and began taking pictures of the victim when he thought no one was looking. I came up behind him and snatched his phone away.
“Hey, give me that back,” he demanded. The technician was probably in his mid-twenties, with a smirk that irritated the hell out of me.
“Don’t worry,” I said, placing the phone in my bag. “I’ll make sure it gets into the right hands.”
Bob Woodley, the on-scene supervisor, who had the personality of the dead bodies he often worked on, came over to me, demanding to know what was happening. I explained the situation, then said, “I going to personally give the phone to your department head. In the meantime, I want everyone to pack up.”
“What are you talking about?” Woodley demanded.
At five nine, I was a couple of inches taller than both men. I escorted them away from the victim and said to Woodley, “I’m talking about you packing up every baggie, brush, vial, camera, and glove that you brought with you and getting the fuck away from my crime scene.”
Woodley, who must have been taking assertiveness classes, took a step closer to me. “I’m not going anywhere. If we leave, who’s going to process the crime scene?”
I pulled my phone out. “Maybe your god damn supervisor.”
Leo had seen the confrontation and came over to my side, telling Woodley, “You heard the lady. Pack it up and get out.”
While Leo saw to it that Woodley and his staff left the area, I called the SID offices. I got hold of an analyst and told her I’d wait while she got her department head on the line. After being placed on hold for ten minutes, I finally got her boss on the line and explained what had happened. After some grumblings, I eventually got a promise that replacement staff would be sent to the scene.
While we waited for replacement SID staff to arrive, Brie came over and said she’d finished up with the victim. We took Bernie for a walk as she discussed her findings.
“I’m pretty sure a chemical compound was used on the girl, probably something like sodium hydroxide, or lye, but it was applied in such a way that it only dissolved the outer layer of her skin. He also used it to destroy her fingerprints.”
“Any theories about his motivation behind the display?”
We stopped and she looked at me. “I think what he did forms a killing ritual.” The morning was cool and she hugged her sides. “If I were a criminal profiler, I’d probably say that your subject has an extreme hatred of women, he was probably abused and molested as a child, and he’s ritualistically expressing his pent up anger and rage.” Brie smiled. “Since I’m not a profiler, I’ll just say that he’s fucking crazy.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard my friend cuss at a crime scene. It made me chuckle. “I can’t say that I disagree with you. Any thoughts about the removal of the heart?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Brie’s gaze had drifted over to the entrance to the cemetery. “I see that the press has already found us.”
I now saw there were about a half dozen satellite vans in the circular driveway. “They’ve probably been monitoring our radio calls. I’m sure it will be all over the news by evening.”
I looked back at Brie, holding on her eyes. My friend was battling stage four metastatic breast cancer, meaning that her cancer had spread throughout her body. Brie had told me that the chances of someone with her form of cancer surviving for five years was about twenty-two percent. While those weren’t great odds, my friend was a fighter. She also had a five-year-old named Lily in her corner—not to mention me.
“How are things on the home front?” I asked, moving our conversation in a personal direction.
“They’re good. Lily’s looking forward to a trip to Disneyland that I promised her. I’m going to ask my sister to go with us.”
Brie had recently told me that she wanted me to be Lily’s godmother. Unfortunately, due to my work schedule, I wasn’t able to make the Disneyland trip, but I promised to make it up to her later.
I glanced over and saw that Leo was with our lieutenant, Ozzie Powell. They were waving for me to come over and join them.
I told Brie, “I’ll catch up with you later, probably at the autopsy.”
As Bernie and I walked over to Leo and Oz, I had mixed feelings about seeing my lieutenant. I’d recently learned that Oz might have inside knowledge about the death of my love-dad that he’d kept from me. It’s a long story, so I’ll sort out the details later. I’d been off work for a few days and hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about what I’d learned.
After Leo and I filled the lieutenant in on our crime, I said, “Brie thinks lye was used on her skin. There’s no prints. Maybe we can get her photo out to the press, see if anyone recognizes her.”
Oz nodded. “And the…her heart. It was missing?”
Our lieutenant was in his sixties, with thirty-plus years on the job. He had snowy white hair and eyes the color of tropical water. Oz had a reputation for being a good guy in a department that sometimes didn’t have the best interests of line staff at heart. We’d had a good working reputation, until now.
Leo confirmed what he’d said. “Haven’t seen anything this bad since Duvall.”
Oz explained the reference for my benefit. “A case from the nineties. He went Jeffrey Dahmer on his victims.” The lieutenant went on about the case for a moment, before apparently realizing we were exhausted and in no mood to rehash old cases. “Why don’t you both go home and get a couple hour’s sleep, then we’ll meet back at the station later this afternoon.”
Leo went to pack up his belongings. That left me alone with Oz. I told him about my issues with SID and that replacement staff had been sent out.
“You did the right thing. If one of their staff was taking pictures of the victim with his personal cell phone, I’ll see to it that he doesn’t work here anymore.”
“I appreciate that.” My eyes held on him for a moment, before I broke eye contact.
“What gives?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Something’s on your mind, Kate. I’ve seen it for a few days now. What’s going on?”
“You always could read me.”
“It’s part of the job.”
I thought about showing him the group photograph I’d recently obtained. Oz had been with my love-dad and his killer shortly before his death. They were with a Hollywood starlet named Jean Winslow, who had possibly also been murdered.
“I think there’s something…” I took a breath, trying to find the words to explain what I was feeling. I decided the timing wasn’t right and changed the subject. “I’m just worried about Brie,” I finally said. “She’s going through a rough time with her chemo and trying to work. I think it’s taking a lot out of her.”
Oz nodded, his blue eyes holding on me. “I’ll have a talk with her. She’s part of Section One now. I can reduce her hours, work around any medical issues.”
“I appreciate that.”
His eyes were still fixed on me. “You sure there’s nothing else?”
“I’m sure. See you this afternoon.”
***
Bernie and I got home a little before ten. I had moved into the Starlight Mobile Home Park in the middle of Hollywood a few days earlier and still had boxes stacked everywhere. The park was considered a historical landmark. It consisted of dozens of vintage trailers manufactured around the middle of the last century. I’d recently met a few of our neighbors and had found that most of the inhabitants of the Starlight looked like they’d been manufactured a couple of decades before their trailers.
My friends, Natalie Bump and Mo Simpson, had been able to rent a home that was right next to mine, thanks to my boyfriend Noah having connections to a woman who owned the homes. My coach, as they called the units, was something called a Delta Queen. Back in its day, the Queen was considered luxurious quarters, but it lacked any present day amenities such as a dishwasher and decent sized closets. While our new homes had reasonable rents, they also had a unique location, overlooking a cemetery. We’d speculated that if you lived at the Starlight and passed on, your body was simply thrown over the fence, where you spent eternity.
I had just slipped into my jammies when I heard a knock on my door. I opened it to find Harv Lundquist, the Starlight’s manager, standing there.
“Your friends are meeting with the residents’ council,” Harv said. “I thought you might want to be there.”
The manager of our park was around eighty, about five feet tall, with green eyes that were about the same color as mine. He had about a dozen strands of white hair meticulously combed over a dome that looked like a speckled egg.
“What’s the meeting about?” I asked, yawning. Bernie had come over to investigate, pushing his head between the doorjamb and my leg.
“They want to evict you and your friends.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What for? We just moved in.”
“Section 1191 of the Starlight Code of Ethics; conduct detrimental to the health and welfare of the other residents.”
“What the hell does
that
mean?”
Harv patted his speckled head. “Your friend Natalie was sunbathing by the pool yesterday. I’m afraid Maude Finch, the president of our council, and some of her friends aren’t happy about it.” Harv smiled. “Me, on the other hand, I thought it was the best thing to happen around here since Nixon was elected president.”
I exhaled and pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache surfacing. “Let me get some clothes on and I’ll come over.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’d slipped into a dress and did what I could with hair that was forever in rebellion. I found my friends sitting like a couple of accused prisoners in a meeting room at the Starlight clubhouse. From where I stood, at the back of the room, it was all blue hairs and bald heads, sitting like an elderly jury ready to pass judgment.
“Our lawyer just got here,” Natalie said, standing and pointing at me.
Natalie was in her early twenties, blond, and gorgeous. She was a native of Manchester, England, where she’d spent her formative years with a truck driving father. The experience had left my friend with a colorful vocabulary and an attitude that held nothing in reserve.
All heads turned in my direction, as Maude Finch stood and said to me, “I heard you’re a cop, not a lawyer.”
Bernie whined, maybe thinking I should give a speech like one of those talk show celebrity lawyers.
“This is Kate Sexton,” Mo said. “She’s our representative when it comes to legal matters.”
My heavyset African-American friend was also on her feet. Mo was big and loud, and sometimes prone to physicality, if the situation warranted it, and sometimes even when it didn’t.
I suppressed images of her putting Maude in a headlock as I walked to the front of the room and Mo continued, now demonstrating that the knowledge of a few legal terms can be a dangerous thing. “We demand us a writ of habeas corpus. And, believe me, this room looks like it’s full of a bunch of corpses.”
“Can you please explain what’s going on here?” I said to the president of the residents’ council before my friends could offend everyone again.
“What’s going on here,” Maude said, “is an eviction proceeding. You, your friends, and that vicious dog of yours have three days to vacate the premises.”
“Or what?” Natalie demanded. “You can’t just put us out on the street.”
“You can go live in a shelter with the rest of your kind,” Maude said. There were several shouts of encouragement, supporting her position.
“We got rights,” Mo said. “We want due process. Tell ‘em, Kate.”
I tried to keep my voice even. “According to Madeline Dupree, who rented our coaches to us, our units are grandfathered in, without any age or pet restrictions. You can’t evict us without just cause.”
Natalie started clapping. “Listen to the lady or she’ll throw all your old asses in jail for violating our rights.”
“And we’ll sue for pain and suffering,” Mo added, “We’ll end up owning this park and all your coaches.”
That got the crowd going. Several people stood up and claimed they were going to counter sue for slander. A shouting match then ensued, with Maude and her cohorts claiming they were going to hire their own lawyer. Mo then got into the legal war of words with them and said they were guilty of something she termed
property malfeasance
.
“You’re nothing but a bunch of old torts,” Natalie said, putting her own legal spin on the battle, even though I doubted that she knew the difference between a tort and a tart.
The verbal scrum continued for another twenty minutes before Maude Finch made her pronouncement, “You have three days to vacate the premises. In the meantime, we will be forced to seek legal recourse.”
“That’s the only kinda intercourse you’re gonna get,” Natalie said, wagging a finger at Maude. “I’ll bet you haven’t been laid since the pyramids were built.”