L.A. Confidential Part 41

Blood fingerpainted around their limbs, red on white, intricate designs identical to the p.o.r.nographic ink shots, limb spreads identical to the Hudgens severings.

Ed mangled his fingers slamming the cabinet, Code 2'd to Hanc.o.c.k Park.

A party at Preston Exley's mansion: valets parking cars, music in the back--probably a rose garden bash. Ed went in the front door and stopped short--his mother's library was gone.

Replacing it: a long s.p.a.ce eclipsed by a model--lengths of highway over papier-mache cities. Directional markers at the perimeters--the entire freeway system.

Perfection--it jerked him out of his filth-picture haze. Boats in San Pedro Harbor, the San Gabriel Mountains, tiny autos on asphalt. Preston Exley's greatest triumph on the eve of its completion.

Ed pushed a car--ocean to foothills. His father's voice: "I thought you'd be working South Central today."

Ed turned around. "What?"

Preston smiled. "I thought you'd be making up for your recent bad press."

Non sequiturs--the Atherton photos came back. "Father, excuse me, but I don't know what you're talking about."

Preston laughed. "We've seen each other so seldom lately that we've forgotten the amenities."

"Father, there's something--"

"I'm sorry, I was referring to Dudley Smith's statement to the _Herald_ today. He said the reopening investigation was being centered on the southside, that you're looking for another Negro gang."

"No, that's not the way it's going."

Preston put a hand on his shoulder. "You look frightened, Edmund. You do not look like a ranking policeman and you did not come here to enjoy my completion celebration."

The hand felt warm. "Father, outside of the Department, who's seen the old Atherton photographs?"

"Now I'll say 'what?' You're referring to the photographs in the case file? The ones I showed you and Thomas years ago?"

"Yes."

"Son, what are you talking about? Those photographs are sealed LAPD evidence, never released to the press or the public. Now tell me--"

"Father, the Nite Owl is collateral to several other major crimes, and Negro gangs have nothing to do with it. One of them is--"

"Then explain the evidence the way I taught you. I've had cases like--"

"n.o.body has ever had a case like this, I'm a better detective than you _ever_ were and _I've_ never had a case like this."

Preston clamped both hands down--Ed felt his shoulders go numb. "I'm sorry for that, but it's true and I've got a five-year-old mutilation homicide connected to the Nite Owl case that says so. The victim was cut _identically_ to Loren Atherton's victims and _identical_ to some ink-embossed p.o.r.nographic photographs tangential to the Nite Owl. Which means that either somebody saw the Atherton pictures and took it from there or you got the wrong suspect in '34."

The man didn't even blink. "Loren Atherton was incontrovertibly guilty, with a confession and eyewitness vertification. You and Thomas saw his photographs, and I doubt seriously that those photographs have ever left the Homicide pen downtown. Unless you hypothesize a policeman killer, which I find absurd, then the only explanation is that Atherton showed the photographs to some person or persons prior to his arrest. _You_ got the wrong men in your glory case--I did not make that error. _Think_ before you raise your voice to your father."

Ed stepped back--his legs brushed the model, broke off a piece of freeway. "I apologize, and I should be asking your advice, not competing with you. Father, is there anything about the Atherton case you haven't told me?"

"Apology accepted, and no, there isn't. You, Art and I went over the case constantly during our seminar period, and I expect that you know it as well as I do."

"Did Atherton have _any_ known a.s.sociates?"

Preston shook his head. "Emphatically no. He was the very model of a psychotic loner."

A deep breath. "I want to interview Ray Dieterling."

"Why? Because one of his child stars was killed by Atherton?"

"No, because a witness identified Dieterling as a K.A. of a criminal tangential to the Nite Owl."

"How long ago?"

"Thirty years or so."

"This person's name?"

"Pierce Patchett."

Preston shrugged. "I've never heard of him and I don't want you bothering Raymond. Emphatically no, a thirty-year-old acquaintances.h.i.+p does not warrant bothering a man of Ray Dieterling's stature. _I'll_ ask Ray about him and report back to you. Will that suffice?"

Ed looked at the model. Hypnotic: L.A. grown huge, Exley Construction containing it. His father's hands, gentle now. "Son, you've come very far and you've earned my respect absolutely. You've taken a beating for Inez and those men you killed, and I think you're bearing up strongly. For now, though, I want you to consider this. The Nite Owl case got you where you are today and a quick resolution on the reopening will keep you there. Collateral homicide investigations, however compelling, might seriously distract you from your main objective and thus destroy your career. Please remember that."

Ed squeezed his father's hands. "Absolute justice. Remember that?"

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Both crime scenes sealed--the printshop, the pad next door. One Mann sheriff--a fat guy named Hatcher. A lab man talking nonstop.

Crime Scene 1: the back room at Rapid Bob's Printing. Bud scoped Dudley nonstop, flas.h.i.+ng back to _his_ pitch: "We thought you were going to kill him, so we stopped you. I'm sorry if we were untoward, but you were a handful. Hinton is a.s.sociated with some very bad people, and I'll elaborate in all due time."

He didn't press it--Dud might have stuff on him.

Lynn in custody.

Exley's slap in the face.

The lab man pointed to a rack of dumped shelves.". . . okay, so the front of the shop looked hunky-dory, so our perpetrator didn't bother with it. We found cigarette b.u.t.ts in an ashtray here, two brands, so let's a.s.sume the Engleklings were working late. Let's a.s.sume the perpetrator picked the front door lock, tiptoed up and got the drop on them. Glove prints on the jamb of the connecting door, so that backs it up. He comes in, he makes our boys open those cabinets I showed you, he doesn't find what he wants. He gets p.i.s.sed and yanks those shelves to the floor, glove prints on the fourth shelf up indicate a right-handed man of average height. The brothers open the boxes that spilled off--we got a whole load of smudged latents that indicate Pete and Bax were a bit panicked by this time. So, the perpetrator obviously didn't find what he wanted and marched our boys across the driveway to their apartment. Gentlemen, follow me."

Out the door, across an alley. The lab guy carried a flashlight; Bud stuck to the back.

Lynn c.o.c.ky--convinced she could beat truth juice with her brains.

Dud probably had his own insider leads--but he still kept talking up n.i.g.g.e.rs.

The lab man said, "Note the dirt on the driveway. On the morning the bodies were found our tech crew discovered and photographed three sets of footmarks too shallowly placed to make exemplers from. Two sets walking ahead of a single set, which indicates a march at gunpoint."

Over to a bungalow court. Dudley stone quiet--on the plane he hardly talked.

Would _Whisper_ hit?

Play the stiff under the house against Exley--HO W?

Tape on the door--Hatcher peeled it off. The lab man opened up with a pa.s.s key. Lights inside--Bud squeezed in first.

A shambles--all forensicked up.

Blood spills on a wall-to-wall carpet--tape-marked. Gla.s.s tubes on the floor--circled, held in see-through evidence bags. Scattered around: photo negatives--dozens---cracked, scalded surfaces. Overturned chairs, a dumped dresser, a sofa with the stuffing ripped out. Tucked in the largest rip: a gla.s.sine bag tagged "Heroin."

The lab guy spieled. "Those tubes contain chemicals that we've ID'd as antipsychotic drugs. The negatives were mostly too blurred to identify, but we were able to figure out that most of them were p.o.r.nographic photographs. The images were mostly burned off with chemicals taken from the refrigerator in the kitchen: our boys owned a whole cornucopia of corrosive solutions. I'll hypothesize here: Peter and Baxter Englekling were tortured before they were shot to death--that we know. I think the killer showed them each negative individually, asked them questions, then burned them--and the pictures. What was he looking for? I don't know, maybe he wanted the picture partic.i.p.ants identified. We found a magnifying gla.s.s under the couch, so I'm leaning toward that theory now. Also, note the plastic bag marked 'Heroin' extruding from the couch, the contents of which, of course, we locked up. Four bags total in a safe little hidey-hole. The killer left a small fortune in salable dope behind."

Into the kitchen, more chaos, the icebox open--spilling tubes, bottles marked with chemical symbols. Stacked by the sink: something like printing press plates.

The tech man pointed to the mess. "Another hypothesis, gentlemen. In my crime scene report you'll note that I've listed no less than twenty-six separate chemical substances found on the premises. The killer tortured Pete and Bax Englekling with chemicals, and he knew which chemicals would scald flesh. I'd call his torture method a means of opportunity, so I'm betting the man had an engineering, a medical or a chemistry background. Now the bedroom."

Bud thought: PATCHETT.

Back to the bedroom, blood drops in the hall along the way. A small room, a twelve-by-twelve slaughterhouse.

Two body outlines-one on the bed, one on the floor, dried blood tape-to-tape both places. Clothesline sash wrapped around the bedposts; more sash on the floor; taped circles on the bedsheets, the floor, a nightstand by the bed. A bullet hole circled on one wall; a forensic display on a corkboard: more scalded negatives.

Lab man: "Just glove prints and Englekling prints on the negatives, we dusted every one of them, then placed most of them back in their original locations. The ones on the board were found here in the bedroom, which as you can tell was where the torture and the killings took place. Now, those small circles on the bed and elsewhere indicate sections of torso, arm and leg tissue scalded off the Englekling brothers, and if you look closely at the floor you'll be able to see patches of singed carpet caused by chemical spills. Both men were shot twice with a silencerfitted .38 revolver. Baffling threads we took off the sh.e.l.ls indicate the silencer and indicate why no shots were heard. The bullet hole in the wall is our one real lead, and it's easy to reconstruct what happened. Bax Englekling got free of his bonds, got ahold of the gun and fired a wounding shot before the killer got the gun back and shot him. The sh.e.l.l we took out of the wall had shredded Caucasian flesh and gray arm hair stuck to it, along with 0-plus blood. Both Englekling boys were AB-minus, so we know the perpetrator was. .h.i.t. The blood drops leading out to the living room and the negatives that he took out to look at indicate that it wasn't a major wound. Lieutenant Hatcher's crew found a blood-soaked 0-plus towel in a sewer down the street, so that was his tourniquet. My last hypothesis is that this b.a.s.t.a.r.d really had a hard-on for those negatives."

Hatcher spoke up. "And we've got nothing. We've canva.s.sed two dozen times, we've got no eyewitnesses and those G.o.dd.a.m.ned brothers did not have a single K.A. that we've been able to turn. We hit doctors' offices, emergency rooms, train stations, airports and bus stations looking for sightings of a wounded man and got nothing. If the brothers had an address book, it was taken. n.o.body saw anything or heard anything. Like my science buddy says, our guy really had a b.o.n.e.r for those negatives, which might--and I emphasize 'might'--have something to do with our victims coming forth on that Nite Owl case of yours years ago. They had a dirty-picture theory then, right?"

Dudley said, "They did indeed, quite unsubstantiated."

"And the L.A. papers said you just reopened the case."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Captain, I regret that we didn't decide to cooperate with you earlier, but put that aside. Have you got anything to give me on the new end of your case that I can use?"

Dudley smiled. "Chief Parker has authorized me to secure a copy of your case file to read. He said that if I find evidential links to our homicides, he'll release a transcription of the Englekling brothers' 1953 testimony."

"Which you say pertains to p.o.r.nography, which our case sure as h.e.l.l does."

Dudley lit a cigarette. "Yes, if it doesn't pertain to heroin just as much."

Hatcher snorted. "Captain, if our boy got his chops licked over white horse, he'd have stolen that stuff stashed in the couch."

"Yes, or the killer was simply a frothing-at-the-mouth psychopath who evinced a psychopathic reaction to the negatives for unfathomable reasons of his own. Frankly, the heroin angle interests me. Have you any evidence that the brothers were either selling or manufacturing it?"

Hatcher shook his head. "None, and as far as _our_ case goes, I don't think it plays. Have you got a p.o.r.nography angle on the reopening?"

"No, not as yet. Again, after I've read your case file I'll be in touch."

Hatcher--ready to bust. "Captain, you came all the way up here for our evidence, and you got nothing to give in return?"

"I came up here at the urging of Chief Parker, who pledges his full cooperation should your case warrant reciprocity."

"Big words, sahib, that I don't like the sound of." Getting ugly--Dudley dug in with a big blarney smile. Bud walked out to the curb, dug in by their rental.

Scared, standing on GO.

Dudley walked out; Hatcher and the lab man locked the printshop. Bud said, "I don't follow you at all these days, boss."

"Starting when, lad?"

"Let's try last night with Hinton."

Dudley laughed. "You were your old cruel self last night. It warmed my heart and convinced me that the extracurricular work I have planned for you remains within your grasp."

"What work?"

"In due time."

"What happened to Hinton?"

"We released him well-chastised and terrified of Sergeant Wendell White."

"Yeah, but what were you pressing him on?"

"Lad, you have your extracurricular secrets, I have mine. We'll hold a clarification session soon."

GO. "No. I just want to know where we both stand on the Nite Owl. _Now_."

"Edmund Exley, lad. We both stand there."

"What?"--scared to his own ears.

"_Edmund Jennings Exley_. He's been your raison d'etre since b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas, and he's why you don't tell me certain things. I love you, so I respect your omissions. Now reciprocate my love and respect my lack of clarification for the next twelve days and you'll see him destroyed."

"'What are you--" a little kid's voice.

"You've never accorded him credit, so I'll tell you now. As a man he's less than negligible, but as a detective he far exceeds even myself. There. G.o.d and yourself witness plaudits for a man I despise. Now will you respect my omissions--as I respect yours?"

Past GO. "No. Just f.u.c.king tell me what you want me to do. Just explain it."

Dudley laughed, smiled. "Do nothing for now but listen. I've found out that Thad Green will be retiring to take over the U.S. Border Patrol later this spring. Our new chief of detectives will be either Edmund Exley or myself. His upcoming inspectors.h.i.+p gives Exley the inside track, and Parker favors him personally. I plan on using certain aspects of our mutually withheld evidence to clear the Nite Owl posthaste, establish myself as the new front-runner and ruin Exley in the process. Lad, bear with me for a few more days and I'll guarantee you your own personal revenge."