Brown and McQue had each dropped ten ongoing cases on her desk and told her to learn the books. She had to familiarize herself with the details of each case and was given the responsibility of entering all new reports, case notes, and information as the investigations developed. Starkey had so much reading to do it made her eyes cross, and when she read, she wanted to smoke. She snuck out to the parking lot fifteen or twenty times a day, which had already caught Griggs’s eye. Jesus, Starkey, you smell like an ashtray.
Eff you, Griggs.
Starkey palmed a cigarette from her bag for her third sprint to the parking lot that day when Lieutenant Poitras came out of his office. Christ, he was big. The sonofabitch was pumped-out from lifting weights like a stack of all-terrain truck tires.
Poitras studied the squad room, then raised his voice.
“Where’s Bobby? McQue on deck?”
When no one else answered, Starkey spoke up.
“Court day, Top. He’s cooling it downtown.”
Poitras stared at her a moment.
“You were with Bobby on the house up in Laurel, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pack up. You’re coming with me.”
Starkey dropped the cigarette back in her purse and followed him out.
4
THE LATE-MORNING sun bounced between sycamores and hundred-foot eucalyptuses as I drove up Laurel Canyon to the top of Lookout Mountain. Even with the heat, young women pushed tricycle strollers up the steep slope, middle-aged men walked listless dogs, and kids practiced half-pipe tricks outside an elementary school. I wondered if any of them knew what had been found up the hill, and how they would react when they heard. The family-friendly, laid-back vibe of Laurel Canyon masked a darker history, spanning Robert Mitchum’s lurid “reefer ranch” bust to Charlie Manson creeping through the sixties rock scene to the infamous “Four on the Floor” Wonderland Murders starring John “Johnny Wadd” Holmes. Driving up through the trees and shadows, the scent of wild fennel couldn’t hide the smell of the recent fire.
The address Lou gave me led to a narrow street called Anson Lane cut into a break on the ridge. A radio car was parked midway up the street with a blue Crown Victoria behind it. Poitras, a detective I knew named Carol Starkey, and two uniforms were talking in the street. Starkey had only been on the bureau for a few weeks, so I was surprised to see her.
I parked behind the Crown Vic, then walked over to join them.
“Lou. Starkey, you driving now?”
“I shot Griggs for the job.”
Poitras shifted with impatience.
“Catch up on your own time. Starkey rolled out with Bobby when the uniforms phoned in the body. They were on it until the task force took over.”
“All of a day and a half. Fuckers.”
Poitras frowned.
“Can we watch the mouth?”
“Sorry, Top.”
Poitras turned toward the house.
“You wanted to see what we have, this is it.”
The house was a small Mediterranean with a Spanish tile roof heavy with a mat of dead leaves and pine needles. The lot was narrow, so the living quarters were stacked on top of a single-car garage. The garage door was splintered as if a latch had been pried, probably so the police could gain access. A rickety stair climbed the entry side of the garage to a tiny covered porch. On the far side of the garage, a broken walk disappeared between overgrown cedar branches where it ran alongside the garage. A single knot of crime scene tape was still tied to the garage, left by whoever pulled down the tape.
Poitras squinted up at the house like it was the last place on earth he wanted to go.
“Starkey can lay out the scene for you, but we don’t have any of the forensics or case files. Downtown has everything.”
“Okay. Whatever you have.”
“It’s going to be hotter than hell up there. The AC’s off.”
“I appreciate this, Lou. Thanks. You, too, Starkey.”
Poitras stripped off his jacket, and we followed him up.
Stepping into the house was like walking into a furnace. A ratty overstuffed chair had been pushed against a threadbare couch and a coffee table. Swatches of cloth had been cut from the arms and the back of the chair, leaving straw-colored batting bright against stained fabric. The stains were probably blood. Light switches, door jambs and the inside front doorknob were spotted with black smudges from fingerprint kits. More black was smudged on the telephone and coffee table. Starkey immediately took off her jacket, and Poitras rolled up his sleeves.
Starkey said, “Bleh. This smell.”
“Tell him what you found.”
Starkey glanced at me as if she wasn’t sure how to start.
“You knew this guy, huh?”
“I didn’t know him. I worked for his lawyer.”
Just being asked if I knew him seemed to imply we were friends, and left me feeling resentful.
Poitras said, “Describe the scene, for Christ’s sake. I want to get out of here.”
Starkey moved to the center of the room, indicating an empty spot on the floor.
“The chair was here, not over by the couch. Once the body was out, the SID guys moved things around. He was here in the chair, slumped back, gun in his right hand-”
She held out her right hand with the palm up, showing me.
“-a Taurus.32 revolver.”
“The chair was in the middle of the floor?”
“Yeah. Facing the television. A bottle of Seagram’s was on the floor by the chair, so he had probably been hitting it. As soon as Bobby saw the guy he said that stiff’s been here a week. It was a mess, man.”
“How many shots fired?”
Poitras laughed, and moved closer to the door.
“You think he had to reload?”
Starkey said, “One spent, up through the bottom of his chin. Wasn’t much blood. A little on the floor here and up on the ceiling-”
She indicated an irregular stain on the floor, then a spot the size of a quarter on the ceiling. It looked like a roach.
Poitras spoke from the doorway. Sweat had beaded on his forehead and was running down his cheeks.
“The coroner investigator said everything about the body, the gun, and the splatter patterns was consistent with a self-inflicted wound. We haven’t seen the final report, but that’s what he told them here at the scene.”
Starkey nodded along with him, but said nothing. I tried to imagine Lionel Byrd slumped in the chair, but his image was formless and grey. I couldn’t remember what Byrd looked like. The only time I had seen him was on a videotape of his confession to the police.
I considered the neighboring houses. From the front door, I saw the roof of the black-and-white and the houses across the way. A woman was standing in a window across the street, looking down at the police car. Safe in her air-conditioning.
“Anyone hear the shot?”
Starkey said, “Remember, the guy had been dead for a week before we found him. No calls were made to 911, and none of these people remembered hearing anything on or around the day of death. Everyone was probably buttoned up from the heat.”
Poitras said, “Tell him about the pictures.”
Starkey had been watching me, but now she glanced at the floor. She seemed uncomfortable.
“He had an album with Polaroid pictures of his victims. There were seven pages with a different vic on each page. We thought they were fake. You see something like that, you think it’s gotta be phony, like that porno stuff with girls pretending to be dead? We didn’t know the shit was real until Bobby recognized one of the girls. It was fucking disgusting.”
“The mouth.”
I said, “Where did you find the album?”
“On the floor by his feet.”
Starkey positioned herself as if she was sitting in the chair and touched the top of her left foot.
“Here. We figured it slid off his lap when he went for the gold-”
She suddenly glanced up.
“He only had one foot. The other was screwed up.”