Bad Love (41 page)

“Welcome home, boys and girls.”

I put my bags down. “Did you hear about Donald Dell?”

Milo nodded.

“What?” said Robin.

I told her.

She said, “Oh . . .”

Milo said, “Nuestra Raza. Could be the father-in-law.”

“That’s what I figured. It’s probably why Evelyn postponed her appointment with me. Rodriguez told her they had to leave Wednesday. And why Hurley Keffler hassled me — where is he?”

“Still in. I found a few traffic warrants and had one of the jailers lose his paperwork — just another few days, but every little bit helps.”

Robin said, “It never ends.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “There’s no reason for the Priests to bother us.”

“True,” said Milo, too quickly. “They and the Raza boys will be concentrating on each other now. That’s their main game: my turn to die, your turn to die.”

“Lovely,” said Robin.

“I had some Foothill guys drop in on them after Keffler’s bust,” he said, “but I’ll see if I can arrange another visit. Don’t worry about them, Rob. Really. They’re the least of our problems.”

“As opposed to?”

He looked at the tape recorder.

We sat down. He punched a button.

The child’s voice came on.

Bad love bad love.
Don’t give me the bad love.

I looked at him. He held up a finger.

Bad love bad love.
Don’t give me the bad love . . .

Same flat tones, but this time the voice was that of a man.

Ordinary, middle-pitched, male voice. Nothing remarkable about the accent or the timbre.

The child’s voice transformed — some kind of electronic manipulation?

Something familiar about the voice . . . but I couldn’t place it.

Someone I’d met a long time ago? In 1979?

The room was silent, except for the dog’s breathing.

Milo turned the recorder off and looked at me. “Ring any bells?”

I said, “There’s something about it, but I don’t know what it is.”

“The kid’s voice was phony. What you just heard might be the real bad guy. No bells, huh?”

“Let me hear it again.”

Rewind. Play.

“Again,” I said.

This time, I listened with my eyes closed, squinting so hard the lids felt welded together.

Listening to someone who hated me.

Nothing registered.

Robin and Milo studied my face as if it were some great wonder. My head hurt badly.

“No,” I said. “I still can’t pinpoint it — I can’t even be sure I’ve actually heard it.”

Robin touched my shoulder. Milo’s face was blank, but his eyes showed disappointment.

I glanced at the recorder and nodded.

He rewound again.

This time the voice seemed even more distant — as if my memory was spiraling away from me. As if I’d missed my chance.

“Goddammit,” I said. The dog’s eyes opened. He trotted over to me and nuzzled my hand. I rubbed his head, looked at Milo. “One more time.”

Robin said, “You’re tired. Why don’t we try again in the morning?”

“Just once more,” I said.

Rewind. Play.

The voice.

Completely foreign now. Mocking me.

I buried my face in my hands. Robin’s hands on my neck were an abstract comfort — I appreciated the sentiment but couldn’t relax.

“What did you mean
might
be the bad guy?” I asked Milo.

“Sheriff’s scientific guess. He tuned it down from the kid’s voice using a preset frequency.”

“How can he be sure the kid’s voice was altered in the first place?”

“Because his machines told him so. He came across it by accident — working on the screams — which, incidentally, he’s ninety-nine percent positive are Hewitt’s. Then he got to the kid chanting and something bothered him about it — the evenness of the voice.”

“The robot quality,” I said.

“Yeah. But he didn’t assume brainwashing or anything else psychological. He’s a techno-dude, so he analyzed the sound waves and saw something fishy with the cycle-to-cycle amplitude — the changes in pitch within each sound wave. Real human voices shimmer and jitter. This didn’t, so he knew the tape had been messed with electronically, probably using a pitch shifter. It’s a gizmo that samples a sound and changes the frequency. Tune up, you’ve got Alvin and the Chipmunks; tune down, you’re James Earl Jones.”

“Hi-tech bad guy,” I said.

“Not really. The basic machines are pretty cheap. People attach them to phones — women living alone wanting to sound like Joe Testosterone. They’re also used for recording music — creating automatic harmonies. A singer lays down a vocal track, then creates a harmony and overdubs it, instant Everly Brothers.”

“Sure,” said Robin. “Shifters are used all the time. I’ve seen them interfaced with amps so guitarists can do multiple tracks.”

“Lyle Gritz,” I said. “The next Elvis. . . . How’d the sheriff know which frequency to tune down to?”

“He assumed we were dealing with a male bad guy using a relatively cheap shifter because nowadays the better machines
can
be programmed to include jitter. The cheap ones usually come with two, maybe three standard settings: tune up to kid, tune down to adult, sometimes there’s an intermediate setting for adult female. By computing the pitch difference, he worked backwards and tuned down. But if our guy’s some sort of acoustics nut with fancy equipment, there may be other things he’s done to alter his voice and what you heard may be nowhere near his real voice.”

“It may not even be his voice that he altered. He could have shifted someone else’s.”

“That, too. But you think you might have heard him before.”

“That was my first impression. But I don’t know. I don’t trust my judgment anymore.”

“Well,” he said, “at least we know there’s no actual kid involved.”

“Thank God for that. Okay, leave the tape with me. I’ll work with it tomorrow, see if anything clicks.”

“The screams being Hewitt, what does “ninety-nine percent’ mean?”

“It means the sheriff’ll get up on the stand and testify it’s highly probable to the best of his professional knowledge. Only trouble is, we need to get someone on trial first.”

“So I was right, this isn’t some homeless guy. He’d need a place to keep his equipment.”

He shrugged. “Maybe he’s got a secret den somewhere and that’s where he’s hiding out right now. I had talks about Gritz with detectives at other substations. If the scrote’s still lurking around, we’ll hook him.”

“He is,” I said. “He hasn’t completed his homework.”

I told Milo what I’d learned in New York.

He said, “Pseudo-burglary? Sounds hokey.”

“New York cops didn’t think so. It matched some previous break-ins in the neighborhood: jimmied locks, people on vacation, a glass of soda left on the bedroom nightstand. Soda from the victim’s kitchen. Sound familiar?”

“Were any of the other burglaries in the papers?”

“I don’t know.”

“If they were, all we’ve probably got is a copycat. If they weren’t, maybe our killer has a burglary sideline. Why don’t you get a hold of some four-year-old papers and find out. I’ll phone New York and see if Gritz’s name or Silk-Merino’s shows up on their blotters around the time of Rosenblatt’s fall.”

“He’s been pretty careful about keeping his nose clean so far.”

“It doesn’t have to be a major felony, Alex. Son of Sam got busted on a parking ticket. Lots of cases get solved that way, the stupid stuff.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll hit the library soon as it opens.”

He picked up his cup and drank. “So what’s Rosenblatt’s motive for jumping supposed to have been?”

“Guilt. Coming to grips with his secret criminal identity.”

He scowled. “What, he’s standing there, about to glom jewelry, and he suddenly gets a guilt flash? Sounds like horseshit to me.”

“The family thought so, too, but the New York police seemed convinced. They told the widow if she pressed the issue, everyone’s name would be dragged through the slime. A private investigator she hired told her the same thing, more tactfully.”

I gave him names and he jotted them down.

Looking into his coffee, he said, “You want, there’s still some in the pot.”

“No, thanks.”

Robin said, “Another fall — just like the other two.”

“Delmar Parker’s run off the mountain,” I said. “That has to be the connection. The killer was traumatized in a major way and is trying to get even. We’ve got to find out more about the accident.”

Milo said, “I still haven’t had any luck locating Delmar’s mother. And none of the Santa Barbara papers covered the crash.”

“Out of all those Corrective School alumni,” I said, “someone’s got to know.”

“Still no files, anywhere. Sally and the gang pried up Katarina’s floorboards. And we can’t find any records, yet, of de Bosch applying for government funds.”

Over the rim of his cup, his face was heavy and beat. He ran his hand over it.

“It bothers me,” he said. “Rosenblatt — an experienced psychiatrist — meeting someone in a strange apartment like that.”

“He was experienced, but he had a soft heart. The killer could have lured him there with a cry for help.”

“That’s not exactly standard operating shrink procedure, is it? Was Rosenblatt some kind of avant-garde guy, believed in on-the-scene treatment?”

“His wife said he was an orthodox analyst.”

“Those guys
never
leave the office, right? Need their couches and their little notebooks.”

“True, but she also said he’d been very upset by something that had happened in a session recently. Disillusioned. It’s a reasonable bet it had something to do with de Bosch. Something that shook him up enough to meet the killer out of the office. He could have believed he was going to the killer’s home — the killer could have given him a good rationale for meeting there. Like a disability that kept him homebound — maybe even bedridden. The window Rosenblatt went out of was in a bedroom.”

“Phony cripple,” he said, nodding. “Then Rosenblatt goes to the window and the bad guy jumps up, shoves him out . . . very cold. And the wife had no idea what disillusioned him enough to make a house call?”

“She tried to find out. Broke her own rules and listened to his therapy tapes. But there was nothing out of the ordinary in them.”

“This disillusioning thing definitely happened during a session?”

“That’s what he told her.”

“So maybe the session where he died wasn’t the first with the killer. So why wasn’t the first session on tape?”

“Maybe Rosenblatt didn’t take his recorder with him. Or the patient requested no taping. Rosenblatt would have complied. Or maybe the session was recorded and the tape got destroyed.”

“A stranger’s bedroom — that has almost a sexual flavor to it, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “The ritual.”

“Who owned the place?”

“A couple named Rulerad. They said they’d never heard of Harvey Rosenblatt. Shirley said they were pretty hostile to her. Refused access to the private detective and threatened to sue her.”

“Can’t really blame them, can you? Come home and find out someone broke into your place and used it for a swan dive. Was Rosenblatt the type to be a soft touch for a sob story?”

“Definitely. He probably got the same kind of call Bert Harrison did and responded to it. And died because of it.”

Milo said, “So why did the killer keep his appointment with Rosenblatt but not with Harrison? Why, now that I’m thinking about it, was Harrison let off the hook completely?
He
worked for de Bosch,
he
spoke at that goddamn conference, too. So how come everyone else in that boat is sunk or sinking and
he’s
on shore drinking piÑa coladas?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, that’s funny, don’t you think, Alex? That break in the pattern — maybe I should learn a little more about Harrison.”

“Maybe,” I said, feeling sick. “Wouldn’t
that
be something. There I was, sitting across the table from him — trying to protect him . . . he treated Mitch Lerner. He knew where Katarina lived . . . hard to believe. He seemed like such a sweet guy.”

“Any idea where he’s gone?”

I shook my head. “But he’s not exactly unobtrusive with those purple clothes.”

“Purple clothes?” said Robin.

“He says it’s the only color he can see.”

“Another weird one,” said Milo. “What is it about your profession?”

“Ask the killer,” I said. “He’s got strong opinions on the subject.”

We spent the night at Milo’s. After he left for work, I stayed and listened to the tape another dozen times.

The chanting man sounded like an accountant tallying up a sum.

That maddening hint of familiarity, but nothing jelled.

We returned to Benedict Canyon, where Robin took the dog to the garage and I called in for messages. One from Jean Jeffers
— No record of Mr. G —
and a request to phone Judge Stephen Huff.

I reached him in his chambers.

“Hi, Alex. I assume you heard.”

“Is there anything I should know other than what’s been on the news?”

“They’re pretty positive who did it, but can’t prove it yet. Two Mexican gang members — they’re figuring some kind of drug war.”

“That’s probably it,” I said.

“Well, that’s one way to settle a case. Any word from the grandmother?”

“Not a one.”

“Better off — the kids, I mean. Away from all of this — don’t you think?”

“Depends on what environment they’ve been placed into.”

“Oh, sure. Absolutely. Well, thanks for your help. Onward toward justice.”

Several more tries at the tape, then I left for the Beverly Hills library.

I scoured four- and five-year-old editions of New York dailies all morning, reading very slowly and carefully, but finding no record of any “East Side Burglar.”

No great surprise: the 19th Precinct serviced a high-priced zip code, and its inhabitants probably despised getting their names anywhere in the paper other than the society pages. The people who
owned
the papers and broadcast the news probably lived in the 19th. The rest of the city would know exactly what they wanted it to.