The White Angel Murder Read online

  Melissa drove up in her car and parked. She saw Stanton and waved, a slight smile on her lips as she saw them walk toward her.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey. I just wanted to see him. Where’s Jon Junior?”

  “He’s at day care.”

  “Since when do you put him in day care?”

  “Just a few times a week so I can do my yoga.”

  “Melissa, we talked about this.”

  “Not now, Jon. I don’t want to hear it. I have a life too. It can’t all be spent at home.”

  Stanton looked down to Mathew who was hugging his leg. He had moonlighted early in his career as a bodyguard, a bouncer and even a night watchmen at a warehouse so that they would never have to put their kids in day care. He had done two years in Special Victims and had seen the videos of what happened when monsters were left alone with children and thought nobody was watching.

  “Let’s go Matt.”

  “I want to go with dad.”

  “You’ll see him on the weekend. Come on.”

  Mathew begrudgingly let go of his father’s leg and got into the car. He smiled and said bye and watched Stanton as they pulled away. Stanton turned toward his own car when he saw some boys in football uniforms assembled on the school’s field. On the sidelines the parents had gathered and were chatting. He walked onto the field and stood farther away than the other parents but close enough to listen in on their conversations. It was mundane and obvious but he ached to join them. To brag about his son’s time in the forty meter dash or how they had been practicing tackling in the backyard. But he knew that wasn’t his destiny. That was now Lance’s … if he wanted it.

  27

  Stanton went home and flopped on the couch. He thought about turning on the television, the mindless banter might distract him, but decided against it. He just lay there, listening to the sound of traffic outside and children yelling as they got home from school.

  He was twirling his keys in his hand when he suddenly realized that he hadn’t checked the mail in a long time. There was nothing he was expecting and he had no inclination to see anything anyone had sent him, but there was a purpose in it that he wanted right now. Like crossing something off a to-do list. He rose and went outside and downstairs to the line of metal boxes. He opened his and saw that the mailman had crammed everything inside, wrinkling and folding most of his mail. He pulled out the advertisements and mailers and threw them in the trash the complex provided next to the boxes. As he walked back to his apartment he flipped through the rest of the mail. It was primarily bills, one letter from the UCLA psychology department asking him to donate as an alum. There was a handwritten letter addressed to him with his last name misspelled. He opened it as he climbed the stairs.

  Before anything else, the signature line screamed to him and the rest of the mail dropped out of his hand:

  Sincerely,

  Francisco Hernandez

  *****

  Stanton sat on his couch and read the letter twice before laying it on the table and going out to the balcony. He watched some children playing in the complex’s playground and then went inside and read it again.

  I’m sorry it had to come to this. This fucking department don’t have room for cops like us. Assistant Chief Anderson was the one that told me not to put in that stuff about the vic and the cop.

  Sincerely,

  Francisco Hernandez

  The return address was the Orange County address for Disneyland and no name was listed. Stanton folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He knew Anderson. He came up through Vice; An eleven year stint when most detectives could only put in two or three. He was known in the department for his undercover work until he began to go prematurely bald and wrinkles began to show on his face. The end came when every prostitute on the street would greet him as “Officer.” He took a desk job after that and rose through the ranks with old fashioned brown-nosing and putting in long hours. But Stanton knew him to be a by-the-book policeman. There was a story that had come down about him: when he was a patrolman in Indiana he had promised his Captain that he would be back to the precinct at a certain time to chauffeur the governor to a function. He was running late and speeding to catch up. He glanced down for a second to change the radio and hit a cow in the road. The cow bounced off the car but not before shattering the windshield and emptying its bowels over the car.

  Anderson, unwilling to break a promise to a superior, drove the remaining ten miles to the precinct, cow feces flying off the car and into his face. That was always how Stanton had pictured him; a serious expression over a face covered in cow dung.

  Stanton picked up the letter and slipped it into his pocket before heading out the door and to his car.

  28

  Assistant Chief Rodney C. Anderson was in the men’s room when Stanton checked in with his secretary. He took a seat on one of the couches and waited. There was a coffee table in front of him and issues of law enforcement magazines from across the country lay across it. There were a few issues of Guns and Ammo and a hunting magazine called The Happy Outdoorsman. On the cover was a man dressed in full camouflage hunting gear holding up the severed head of a buck. Stanton turned it over.

  A few minutes later, Anderson walked up and said hello. He was tall and bald, slim at the shoulders with jowls that were just beginning to appear.

  “I was told you need to speak to me, Detective.”

  “I do. Mind if we talk in your office?”

  “Not at all.”

  His office was orderly and sparse. The only ornament that said anyone even occupied the space was a photo of Anderson and his wife on a boat. His arm was around her and he was smiling. It creased his face in a way that said he was not a man used to smiling.

  Stanton was seated across from him and Anderson took his time settling into his high-backed leather chair. He sat rigid and folded his hands across the desk. Stanton knew instantly he was a man that had served time, a long time, in the military.

  He took the letter out of the envelope and placed it on the desk. Anderson picked it up and read it. He didn’t flinch. Stanton was impressed that he showed no reaction at all. He just calmly placed it into his waste bin next to the desk.

  “I assume he sent that to you recently?”

  “I got it today. It was postmarked for yesterday, the day he was killed.”

  “What are you suggesting, Detective?”

  “Nothing, sir. I just wanted to talk to you about it.”

  Anderson took a deep breath and his hands went to his lap. He leaned back in his chair, looking at Stanton, but he guessed anybody could’ve been sitting in that chair and receiving the same look.

  “When I started in this department,” he said, “it was a whole different beast. There was … predictability in it. Most of the guys came from the armed services. Uh, were you in the service at all?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Helluva experience, Detective. Vietnam. You know I used to stick my rifle up and shoot without looking at what I was shooting at. I was an eighteen year old kid and what I did almost all day was shake.” He stood up and walked to a cupboard that was in a corner. He took out a clear bottle holding what appeared to be whiskey and poured a glass. He looked to Stanton. “A glass?”

  “No thank you.”

  He took three fingers of whiskey and came and sat back down. “Twenty-four hours a day, Detective, I shook. And I was always wet. If it wasn’t raining I was drenched in sweat. The humidity was something you can’t even imagine. The weather just stuck to you. You could taste it, it had a taste.” He took a long drink and placed the glass down on a coaster of the American flag he pulled out of a drawer. “Anyway, that’s all the past now. Most of the detectives I know up here want to get flashy positions so they can get the good jobs later. Guarding dim-witted celebrities or whatever. You know, that’s one of the hallmarks of a civilization in decline, when the celebrities are more revered than the day-to-day folks. Happened in Rome, happ
ened in Gaul, happened to the French and English.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anderson finished his whiskey. “So what is it you want, Detective Stanton? I know the chief suspended you. Do you want to be reinstated? At a higher grade, I’m sure?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want to find who killed Tami Jacobs.”

  Anderson looked at him a few moments and said, “Why? It’s one homicide. You got us by the balls on this thing and you don’t want to use it?”

  “No, sir. If I may be frank, I was retired before this case. I don’t care about my career. But the type of person that killed her is very rare. And very hard to catch. Given the timeline, I expect that since her death he’s killed anywhere from one to ten other girls depending on whether he is a plant or roving killer.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Plant killers fix themselves in one spot, like if they have a home somewhere. But roving or rogue killers travel around, usually in between cities and states and sometimes even in between countries and look for victims. Because law enforcement has been slow in communicating with disparate agencies, they go for years, sometimes decades, without getting caught.”

  “And you think that’s what you got here? A rogue?”

  “I don’t know what I have, sir. He’s extremely smart, probably trained or self-taught in forensics. There’s little physical evidence left. What I do know is that outside of a shark attack, I’ve never seen a victim as badly mutilated as this girl.”

  Anderson nodded as if he understood. “And all you want is to catch him? No fame or money?”

  “No, sir. I don’t even need my badge back. I just want to make sure I’m given access to a few things I may need.”

  “You shame me, son.” He leaned forward and placed his hands on the desk again. “Well you got your badge back. I’ll clear it with the chief. What else do you need?”

  “Why did you order that information be kept out of her case file?”

  “Because like Detective Hernandez, I was following orders too. And there’s only one person in this whole place that can give me an order I have to follow.”

  29

  Chief Michael Harlow’s home sat on top of a small hill overlooking the beach. It was upscale, more so than even a chief of police of one of the largest cities in the country could normally afford, and was filled with two children, a wife, and a mother-in-law with a live-in nurse.

  Stanton came to a stop in front of it and sat in his car a long time. He watched the neighbors come and go. A utility man was on a power line repairing what looked like damage from someone throwing items up there. A kids pair of shoes hung over one of the lines. This used to be a signal to potential buyers driving through that drugs were being sold. A sort of “open for business” sign. But that had stopped since law enforcement picked up on it. It was now red lighting on porches.

  Stanton guessed this neighborhood had some rowdy children; ones that had rich parents that were never around to see what it was exactly their children were doing. In many respects, though the media painted the poor as responsible for most crime, the rich committed just as much. But there were so few of them it didn’t seem significant.

  He could see the family having dinner and he pushed his seat back and listened to an Opera to Relax CD for forty-five minutes until they were done. The children ran off and Mrs. Harlow cleared the table and then began helping her mother back to the guestroom upstairs. The chief sat alone at the table sipping wine.

  Stanton knocked on the window to the kitchen rather than the front door. Harlow didn’t move and then eventually got up and opened the front door and stepped outside.

  “What’s going on, Jon?”

  “I need to speak with you. In private.”

  “If this is about reinstating you—”

  “I don’t care about that. I just need to speak for a few minutes.”

  “All right. Well come inside before one of my neighbors shoots you as a prowler.”

  Stanton was led through Harlow’s home to a study off to the side of the living room. Books lined cherry wood shelves and a puffy brown leather couch took up an entire wall. Harlow sat down at an old desk and lit a cigar. He put his feet up and waited for Stanton to speak first.

  “You ordered Anderson to halt progress on the Jacobs case. Then you brought me in. You had to have known I would eventually find all this out. So that means you’re in trouble somehow and you thought solving this thing could get you out of it. My best guess is that you found out the cop she was dating was Noah and you didn’t want another body attributed to the San Diego PD. But why bring me in? What if I just went to IAD?”

  Harlow sat frozen. He took his feet off the desk and put his face in his hands, rubbing his eyeballs with his palms. “Christ. I was hoping you could handle this without finding out certain aspects of it. I had a sneaking suspicion you would but I had to risk it.” He put his cigar out in an ashtray and mumbled something under his breath. “But you’re wrong, that’s not how it was.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Harlow rose and shut the door. He came and sat down on the couch. Stanton saw his shoulders slump and his belly puffed out of his shirt as he stared at the carpet. In a few seconds, he had gone from a man in control to a man spinning wildly through the universe.

  “I met her at that restaurant. I was having lunch with Tommy. I think I actually offered him his position there.”

  “Who’d you meet there?” Stanton knew the answer but wanted to hear it from him.

  “I asked her out to dinner and we started talking on the phone. We would talk, get this, for two or three hours sometimes. When was the last time you talked to anyone for two or three hours? I felt like a teenager again.”

  “Say her name, Mike.”

  Harlow looked at him. You cruel son of a bitch, he thought. “Tami Jacobs. I was having an affair with Tami Jacobs.” He chuckled. “Would you believe me if I told you it actually made my marriage better. Swear to God. I was more attentive with Crystal. It felt like the time I would spend with her and the kids was more special. I can’t explain it. But that’s the way it was.”

  Stanton thought of the young girl in the sweatshirt, her arms thrown around her grandfather. The look of joy on her face at being able to spend a sun-filled afternoon with her family.

  “I can’t believe you can sit there and tell me this like it’s okay.”

  “I know it’s not okay, Jon. Hell, I knew it right when I started doing it. You asked and I’m telling you what happened.”

  “She was a kid. She was lost and looking for anyone to hold on to and you used her like trash.”

  “Hey, who the hell do you think you are? I cared for her. You think working three days a week at that shithole paid her rent? I bought her clothes when she needed, I took her out, I got her car fixed. I did everything I was supposed to do.”

  “Except save her life.”

  It was low and Stanton felt the pain of his words cut deep into his boss. He regretted saying it, but then thought that perhaps Harlow deserved it. That this might be the only time that someone will be able to say it to him.

  Harlow put his face in his hands again and they sat in silence. There was an antique clock on the wall and it was ticking softly. A shower started somewhere in the house and the groan of pipes ran through the room and then faded away.

  “You’re right about something though. I am in trouble, Jon. And I need your help.” He stood up and walked to a space behind the desk and knelt down. Stanton could hear the turn key to a safe and then a click and the creak of a metal door that needed to be oiled. Harlow came back with a small box. He opened it and showed him what was inside. They were letters. Stanton glanced through them. They were demanding different amounts of money.

  “After she was killed, I got one of these in the mail with a photo of me and her checking into a hotel. You gotta see, Jon, this was right after Noah. I mean right after. The med
ia was all over us, looking for anything they could use to show that we were all sick fucks like him. I couldn’t let this get out.”

  Stanton rose and began pacing. He had to move, to get blood flowing through him. He felt the softness of the carpet through his shoes and he looked to the walls, focusing on a single point of reference and keeping his eyes fixated before moving to another wall.

  The idea of the Chief of Police manipulating a murder investigation to cover himself …

  “You have to turn yourself in.”

  Harlow suddenly appeared pale. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Having your detectives selling steroids and you taking a cut is one thing. This is something else.”

  “Taking a—”

  “I’m not blind, Mike.”

  “No, you’re not. I’m sorry. These are things that just … not even Crystal knows these things about me.”

  Stanton sat back down on the couch and looked him in the eyes. “You need to turn yourself in and resign.”

  “Now hold on a second, Jon. We go back a long ways you and me. This ain’t just a Boy Scout solution to turn myself in and everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be thrown off the force. I’ll lose my pension. You know the forfeiture laws as good as me. All this,” he said, waving his hand around the room, “they’ll take it all and sell it at some fucking IRS auction. I got a family relying on me.”

  Stanton rose. “You let them down a long time ago. Turn yourself in, Mike. Or I will.” He got out to the hallway before Harlow was on his feet.

  “You’re not such a fucking saint! You got a good detective, a detective with a family, murdered for nothing.”

  “I didn’t get him killed, Mike. You did.”

  Stanton left the house and went to his car. He laid his head on the steering wheel and rested there. He remembered something his grandfather had told him: No one is what they want you to see. No one.