"He surprised the Ardullos, too," I said. "Sheriff Haas said they left their doors unlocked."
"Everyone's nightmare. Right out of a splatter flick."
The eucalyptus forest appeared, a big gray bear split by a yawning mouth of road.
"So," he said, "was he crying real tears?"
"Copiously. But I'm not sure it was remorse. When he turned and stared at me, I started to feel something else: self-pity. The Jesus pose fits that, too. As if he sees himself as a martyr."
"Sick bastard," he said.
"Or maybe," I said, "hearing the kids' names evoked an overpowering memory. Recall of not acting alone. Of taking the rap for something the Crimmins brothers put him up to. Maybe he communicated that to Claire. I didn't see anything close to speech, but with a lowered dosage..."
He cooled his hands on the air-conditioning vent. "Why do you think Dollard turned so hostile?"
"Antsy about our return visit. Something to hide."
Milo didn't answer. We exited the forest and summer light whitened the windshield.
The trees shimmered as they broiled. I could sense the heat trying to claw its way in.
"What about some kind of hospital scam?" I said. "Financial mismanagement. Or
trafficking in prescription drugs. Claire found out about it and that's what put her in jeopardy. Maybe Peake knew, too. Learned someone was going to hurt Claire and the
'prophecy' was his way of warning her."
We were free of the hospital grounds, heading toward the sludge yards and the freight barns. I wondered where the rear forest behind the annexes led, was unable to see the tall dark trees from here.
"How would Peake find out?" he said.
"Loose lips. Everyone assumes he's vegetative, can't process. I saw enough today to convince me that's not true. If Dollard was involved in something illegal, he might've said or done something that Peake noticed."
"That careless?"
"How many cases have you closed because someone was careless?"
"Peake warns Claire," he said. "Now he's a hero?"
"Maybe on some level, he bonded with Claire. Appreciated the attention Claire was giving him."
"Then why warn Heidi?"
"Claire wasn't at work that day, so Peake did the next best thing: told her assistant. Not a clear message, because he was struggling to talk through the
Thorazine haze and his neurological problems."
"Everyone treats Peake like he's wallpaper, but he's sucking up information."
"He's functioned like wallpaper for sixteen years. It wouldn't be hard to get complacent. That could be why Dollard was so upset when he saw Peake playing Jesus.
Now he realizes Peake's capable of more. He's nervous, doesn't want us back there.
Look how he bad-mouthed us to Aldrich. And Aldrich played into it. Or Aldrich is part of it."
"Big-time staff racketeering?"
"Like you said, it's not a tight ship. Either way, Dollard just got what he wanted.
We won't get through those gates again without a court order."
" 'Bad eyes in a box,' " he said. "That has Peake knowing someone is gonna gouge
Claire's eyes and stash her somewhere closed. I might be able to buy Dollard blabbing to some compadre in general terms about getting Claire, but I can't see him laying it out in detail."
I had no answer for that. He pulled out his pad, made some notes, closed his eyes, seemed to doze. We reached the freeway. I floored the Seville, crossed over to the fast lane, sped to the interchange, headed west on the 10, past the old brick buildings on the fringes of downtown, surprise survivors of the big quake. A huge blowup of a movie poster had been painted on one of them. Some hypertrophied bionic cop flashing fire from gun-barrel knuckles. If only it were that easy.
Milo said, "Dollard a scamster... our Mr. Wark, his partner. But what about
Richard, the Beatty twins? How do they connect to any hospital racket?"
"Don't know," I said. "But if Wark is Derrick Crimmins, his working there makes sense on another level: he was drawn by Peake's presence, just as Claire was.
Because Peake's rampage made a major impression on him. And if my guess about his being Peake's drug source sixteen years ago is right, that would fit with the racket being a dope thing. Dol-lard smuggles out pharmaceuticals, hands them over to Wark, who sells them on the street. Wark had enough money in that Bank of America account to cover the gear rental when Vito Bonner called to validate the check. So he's got
some sort of cash source. Being the outside man would also make Wark the perfect choice for ambushing and murdering Claire. Dol-lard alerts Wark, gives Wark Claire's address from personnel files; Wark stalks her, kills her in West L.A., dumps her in her own car. No reason for anyone ever to connect it to Starkweather. What's the mantra everyone there keeps reciting? 'It couldn't be related to her work.' I looked around the hospital today to see if anyone fit Wark's physical description. The only one tall and thin enough is Aldrich, but he's too old, and I doubt Wark would masquerade as a doctor-too risky. But there are over a hundred people on staff and we've run into maybe twenty."
"And we get no access to the personnel records." Milo punched the dashboard lightly.
Keeping his arm stiff; I knew he wanted to hit much harder.
"How about approaching it another way?" I said. "Let's assume Peake's presence is what attracted Wark to Starkweather initially. But he also needed money, and the job had to be something he could qualify for quickly. That would eliminate anything with extensive training-doctor, psychologist, nurse, pharmacist-and leaves lower-level positions: cooks, custodians, gardeners, psych techs. A would-be producer down on his luck might see the first three as beneath him. Psychiatric technician, on the other hand, has some cachet, could be construed as almost-a-doctor. And psych techs are licensed by the state. The medical board keeps a roster."
Milo's smile spread very slowly. "Worth a try."
The movie-poster mural flashed in my head. "Another reason for Wark to take the job: if he sees himself as some dark-side cinema auteur, what better place to dredge up bloody plots than Starkweather? That could explain Richard and the Beatty twins: they're part of Wark's film game."
"The snuff extravaganza, again-we're all over the place with this."
"Like you said, drill a few wells..."
He massaged his temples. "Okay, okay, enough talk, I need to do something. I put calls in to Miami and Pimm, Nevada, this morning. When we get back, I'll see if anyone called. And the psych board for that tech list. Though for it to be of any use, Wark would've had to register under that name or Crimmins, or something close."
He rubbed his face. "Long shots."
"Better than nothing," I said.
"Sometimes I wonder."
30.
WE WERE BACK in the detectives' room by two P.M.
Friday. Most of the desks were empty. Del Hardy's was next to Milo's, and Milo waved me to Del's chair. Del had partnered with Milo years ago-an early alliance cemented by mutual respect and shared alienation. Del had been one of the first black D's to get an assignment west of La Brea. Now he had plenty of black colleagues, but Milo remained a one-man show. Maybe that had wedged them apart, or perhaps it was Del's second wife, a woman with strong views on just about everything. Milo never talked about it.
I used Del's phone to call the state psychiatric board, got put on hold electronically. Milo's desktop was clear except for a message slip taped to the metal. He peeled it loose and read it, and his eyebrows arched.
"Callback from Orlando, Florida. Some guy named Castro 'happy to talk about Derrick
Crimmins.' "
He punched numbers, loosened his tie, sat down. A recorded voice of indeterminate gender told me my call would be accepted as soon as an operator was free. I watched
Milo's shoulders bunch as his call came through.
"Detective Srurgis for Detective Castro," he said. "Oh, hi. Thanks for calling back.
... Really? Well that's interesting-listen, could I put someone else on the line?
Our psychological consultant... Yeah, occasionally we do....Yeah, it's been helpful."
Placing a hand over the mouthpiece, he said, "Hang up and punch my extension number."
The recorded voice broke in, thanking me for my patience.
I cut it off, made the conference adjustment, introduced myself.
"George Castro," said a thick voice on the other end. "We all set now?"
"Yeah," said Milo. "Dr. Delaware, Detective Castro was just saying he's been waiting for someone to call him about Derrick Crimmins."
"Waiting a long time," said Castro. "This is like Christmas in the summer. Tell the truth, I gave up, figured he might be dead."
"Why's that?"
"Because his name never showed up in any crime list I could find, but bad guys don't just give up. And that kid was real bad. Got away with multiple murder."
"His parents," said Milo.
"You got it," said Castro. "Him and his brother-Cliff. Cliff was older, but Derrick was smarter. What a pair. Kind of a pre-Menendez Menendez, only the Crimminses didn't even come close to getting arrested. It was my curse. It's been jammed in my craw ever since. Tell me what you have him on, the little bastard."
"Nothing definite," said Milo. "Can't even find him. So far it looks like scamming and homicide."
"Well, that's our boy, to a T. I got to tell you, this really takes me back. I was new to Miami Beach. Did a year on Bunco, then Homicide. Moved down the year before from Brooklyn for the sun, never thought about what being named Castro would mean in
Miami." He stopped, as if waiting for laughter. "And I'm Puerto Rican, not Cuban.
Anyway, I worked some pretty ugly stuff up north. Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, East New
York. But none of the scum I met ever bothered me as much as those brothers. Killing your own folks for dough-dad and stepmother, actually. It was a Coast Guard case, because the boat blew up in the water-half a mile offshore-but we did the land work.
No doubt at all about it being dirty. Someone rigged a pipe bomb to the fuel tank, and the whole thing turned into sawdust. Three people died, actually. Old man
Crimmins, his wife, and some Cuban kid they'd hired to captain. They were out marlin fishing. Boom. Shreds of bone, and that's about it."
"Did the Crimmins boys build the bombs?"
"Doubtful. We had some theories about that-down here there's quite a few characters with explosives experience floating around. Mobbed-up types, druggies, Marielitos.
Alibis narrowed it down to half a dozen scrotes; we hauled 'em all in, but no one
talked. And no one's bank account had suddenly gotten fat. I had my eye on two of them in specific- pair of Dominicans with a dry-cleaning joint as cover. They'd been busted before on a nearly identical explosion in a clothing warehouse, weaseled out on lack of evidence. We pulled in every informant we had, couldn't shake a rumor loose. That tells me the payoff was big bucks."
"The boys had money?"
"Big allowances-fifty grand a year, each. Back then you could have someone taken out for a hundred bucks. One to five thousand would get you someone competent, fifteen a stone pro. We scoured the brothers' bank accounts, found some nice-sized cash withdrawals during the weeks before the explosion, but we couldn't make anything outa that because that's the way they lived in general: the old man gave 'em the fifty at the beginning of the year, they took out play money as they needed it-four, five a month. Spent every penny. So there was no change in pattern. They used a smart-mouthed lawyer, he didn't give us an extra syllable."
"You focused on them right away 'cause of the inheritance angle?"
"You bet," said Castro. "First commandment, right? Follow the honey trail. With the stepmother gone, they were the old man's sole heirs, figured to get millions. Also, their alibis were too damn perfect: both out of town, they made sure to let us know that first thing. It was like one minute of phony grief, then, 'Oh, by the way, we were in Tampa, riding motorcycles.' Showing us some admission ticket to a race they'd been in-all ready with it. And smirking-rubbing my face in it. Because we'd had contact before. Back when I was on Bunco. Which is the third thing that nailed them in my mind: they'd been bad boys before. Fraud. Like I said, murder and cons, perfect fit."
"What was the con?" said Milo.
"Nothing brilliant. They cruised the beach, picked up senile old people, drove them out to some swampland that they pitched as vacation lots. Then they'd head over to the marks' bank, wait while the marks withdrew cash for a down payment, hand them some bullshit deed of trust, and split. They preyed on real deteriorated old folk.