Chapter 11

'You didn't ask me down here just to pick my brains about the college bowls, Arvo,' said Joe Westinghouse. 'What's on your mind?' Joe and Arvo sat in a bar on Broadway-Joe's choice- a dim, quiet place for serious drinkers and adulterous couples. It was a vinyl and moulded-plastic kind of place, nothing special, but nobody bothered you if you wanted to drink and talk.

Or just drink. Nobody came here to make deals; nobody talked on cellular phones or taped away at notebook computers over cocktails; there wasn't even a pianist. Soft elevator music permeated the smoky air like a whore's caress. The bartender had his back turned; he was polishing glasses and watching a small TV with the sound turned off. The Kings were playing the Maple Leafs in some weird time zone somewhere across the country, Arvo had a soft spot for the Leafs. Detroit was only a couple of hundred miles from Toronto, after all, and LA was a long way from both places.

Still, when it came to baseball you could keep your Blue Jays, Dodgers and Angels; he was a Tigers fan all the way. It was mid-afternoon. Apart from the bartender, the waitress, a few pairs of illicit lovers and a seasoned alcoholic at the bar knocking back the Martinis as if they were going out of style, Joe Westinghouse was a detective with Robbery-Homicide Division. He and Arvo had consulted on a case once before. They shared an interest in football and baseball and had been to games together now and then.

Joe had been to UCLA on a football scholarship until he tore up his knee. Joe was tall and broad-shouldered, his skin the colour and texture of well-tanned leather. His cropped black hair was sprinkled with grey at the temples, and his deadpan eyes occasionally twinkled with humour. Arvo thought he looked a bit like Dave Winfield, Also like a baseball player, Joe wore a lot of gold -watch-band, wrist button-down shirt, where Arvo couldn't see.

Joe was working on rye and ginger, and Arvo was drinking coffee. They had been playing catch-up on sports and department gossip for half and hour, bitching about the brass, but now, it was time to get down to business. 'Okay. You're right,' Arvo. 'It's about that body your guys found on the beach near Pacific Palisades a couple of days ago.'

Joe took another sip of rye and ginger. 'Uh-huh.' 'You know anything about the case?' Let's say I've got a passing interest.' 'Anything on it yet?' Joe squinted at Arvo for moment, swirling the ice in his drink, then seemed to decide to cut him a bit of slack. Must have been those great seats to the Dodgers' last game of the season, Arvo thought. The waitress came by in her black fishnet tights and pink tube-top. 'Youse guys all want another? she asked.

'Why not?' said Joe. He's paying.' She smiled and went to fetch their drinks, wobbling on her high heels. Joe and Arvo watched her go. A body like hers took work, lots of it. Joe raised his eyebrows. They waited until she had set the fresh drink in front of Joe, refilled Arvo's coffee cup and tottered off again, then Joe said, 'Okay. Shoot. What do you want to know?'

'Have you ID'd him yet?' Joe nodded. 'That was easy part. Prints on file. Name's John Heimar, Caucasian male, just turned nineteen last October.' 'What's his bodyguard?' 'Exactly what you'd expect of good-looking kid from the boondocks come to find fame and fortune in the city of sin.' 'He worked the streets?' 'Uh-huh. The Boulevard.'

Arvo nodded. He knew Joe meant the stretch of Santa Monic Boulevard that passed through West Hollywood, big gay cruising area. A saccharine string arrangement of 'All My Loving' drifted across the room like a bad smell. Arvo winced and sipped his coffee. 'Where's he from?' Joe rubbed his eyes then spoke in a monotone, as if he had heard it, seen it and said it all before. 'Grew up in Magic City, Idaho.

Would you believe that? Middle-class parents, ordinary decent folks who didn't know what to do with a wayward kid. Pop runs the local hardware store and Mon teaches kindergarten. Real Leave It To Beaver shit. It seems Magic City, Idaho, didn't have whatever magic it took to keep young Johnny around,' cause he kept on running away since he was thirteen. New York once. Chicago twice.

New Orleans. San Francisco. He wound up out here a couple seven years ago. Lived on the streets ever since. Hollywood Division's had him in and out like they've got revolving doors. Nickel-and-dime stuff, mostly. Shoplifting, a little dealing. Nothing violent.' 'So what happened?' Joe shrugged, tapped out a Winston and lit it. Arvo licked his lips. He'd given up smoking three years ago, when he moved out to LA to join the TMU, but he hadn't gotten rid of the craving yet.

Cigarettes, he remembered, went especially well with coffee. With alcohol, too. And after dinner. Not to mention sex. 'You tell me,' Joe said, blowing the smoke out. 'Just plain bad luck I guess.' 'Sex crime?' 'Looks like it.' 'How was he killed?' 'According to the coroner's office, somebody slit his throat from behind with a very sharp knife and stabbed him in the chest and neck. Then cut him up with some kind of saw or serrated blade.

Arms. Legs. Head. Torso. Put him together again on the beach like jigsaw puzzle and half buried him in the sand.' He shook his head slowly. That throat?' said Arvo. 'That's pretty common in homosexual homicides, isn't it?' 'Uh-huh. Shrink says it got something to do with the mouth and throat connection with oral sex.' Joe shrugged. 'I don't know about that. All I know is I've seen too much of it.

You get it in a lot of high-octane emotional murders, too, mostly domestic. Seems when people see red they ain't for the throat and chest with a knife. What the experts call the "overkill" element. Means the poor fucker's dead before the last fifty stab wounds.' 'Any fingertips? Footprints?' Joe shook his head. 'No physical evidence at all. Not yet.' 'Was Heimar killed on the beach?'

Joe tapped a column of ash into the glass tray. 'Nope. Not enough blood. He was just...reassembled...there. With about much success as Humpty Dumpty.' 'Where he was killed, there'd be a lot of blood, right?' 'Yup. But so far we've got diddly. No suspects and no idea where it happened. Could've been some other beach, maybe the desert, up in the hills, or anywhere else out the wilds. Could've been in some apartment for all we know. Or a house.

A nice house somewhere in the 'burbs like Palos Verde or San Marina. People'd be surprise some of the things going on there behind locked doors out in the 'burbs. Gacey. Dahmer. Who the fuck knows anything any more?' Joe tossed back the rest of his rye and ginger and crunched the ice cubes. He waved for the waitress and she brought another. Arvo stuck with coffee. 'So what's your interest?' Joe asked finally.

'Sarah Broughton.' Joe nodded. 'Right. She found the body. She wouldn't have been receiving any unwanted attention from warped members of viewing audience lately, would she? Arvo smiled. 'You got it. Nasty letters.' Joe cocked a finger at him and chicked his tongue. 'I'm not a hotshot detective with RHD for nothing man.' 'There's nothing concrete,' Arvo said. 'It's just- 'Too much of a coincidence?' 'That's right.' 'Do you think there's a connection?'

'No,' said Arvo. 'People who write weird letters are generally wimps. They'd be no more likely to commit murder than a nun would. But like you said, it's too much of a coincidence. I have to check it out.' Joe nodded. 'Uh-huh. Never did trust those nuns,' he said. 'Anyway, a team of detective canvasses the Boulevard strip, and they could come up with is that a couple of other street kids saw John Heimar getting into a car about eight o' clock on the night he was killed.

They figured he'd scored, of course. Needless to say, none of them was especially forthcoming.' 'Did they get the make?' 'Yeah. It's blue-green-black Ford Chevy convertible sedan pick-up truck from Japan.' Arvo laughed. 'Okay, Sorry I asked. You said eariler you thought it was a sex crime. Any other evidence yet, apart from the MO?' '

Some. The kid had been sodomized sometime before death, but there's no telling when, or how willing he was. And there's no evidence at all to show that he was forced. Given the victim's line of business I'd say it's likely enough he'd been with at least a couple of other chickenhawks earlier that night, wouldn't you? On the other hand, you sometimes get cases where the john cuts off the guy's air supply from behind with some sort of ligature while he butt-fucks him.

Supposed to be a real turn-on. Something like that could have happened, gone too far, then the john panicked and tried to cover up, make it semen from two different sources in the anus. Either he hadn't heard of AIDS or he liked to take risks. Or maybe the rubber had a hole in it.' 'Was he HIV positive?' 'Nope. They ran that test pretty quickly.' Arvo took a sip of tepid coffee and pulled a face. 'What was the time of death?' he asked.

'Between about eleven that night and two in the morning. Wouldn't say any closer than that.' 'That's three hours after the kid was picked up.' 'Uh-huh.' 'Nobody saw him after he got into that unidentified car around eight?' 'Only the killer.' 'Any signs of torture?' 'Nope. Clean as a whistle. Under the sand, the kid was buck naked. Apart from the stab wounds and old needle-mark or two, his body was in pretty good shape.'

'Are you running DNA tests on the semen?' Sure. Like I said, they got two different samples already. But you know as well as I do, Arvo, that shit takes times. Especially the way things are backed up right now, Thirty-eight homoicides last weekend. Thirty-eight. Can you believe it?' You can only push the coroner's office so hard. Those guys are up to that eyeballs in stiffs.

Plus it takes so long toxicology to get the result from some of these things.' Four businessmen came in, laughing and joking, fresh from the office by the looks of their clothes. Joe looked at his watched. Just gone three. 'After-work crowd,' he said. 'They get in early on a Friday. Sometimes they get here so early they just sort of merge right in with the late-lunch crowd.' ' I guess it's not often you get homosexual killer writing love letters to a beautiful actress, is it? Joe asked.

Arvo shrugged. 'Statistically speaking no,' ' Fuck statistics,'. 'Still no. Like I said, letter-writers don't usually do much more than write letters. I'm poking around. All I'm looking for is some connection between Sarah Broughton and Heimar, and it doesn't look as if there is one.' 'if there is, I don't see it.' 'Me, neither. What's your theory?' 'Sex killer of some kind.

Got to be. And he's so proud of his handiwork he wants people to admire it. Peacock mentality.' 'Pretty limited audience.' Joe shrugged. 'Maybe.' Then he paused. 'These letters the actress has been getting. Anything there?' Arvo shook his head. 'I've only seen one, and it's pretty low-level stuff. How did she react at the scene?' 'As you'd expect. I didn't get there till later, but according to the first officer she was pretty shaken up.'

'She a suspect?' 'Come on Arvo, what do you take us for? She wouldn't be in England right now if she was, would she? When they'd got her calmed down, the detectives who caught the squeal had a good look around her place. No blood, nothing. Do you figure the stiff for her pen pal? He comes visiting and she kills him, then cuts him up, buries him under the sand and conveniently finds him on her morning run?'

Arvo visualized the scene, too, and couldn't help but laugh with Joe at the farcical absurdity of it. When they had calmed down, Joe knocked back the dregs of his drinks and stood up. 'Got to go, old buddy,' he said. 'Or Mary will have my ass. Booked off early. It's little Sue's birthday party today and I promised I'd be there. Six. Can you believe it? Seems only last week she was crawling around on all fours and running through a six-pack of Huggies a day. Anyway, don't be a stranger.'

Arvo stood and shook hands. 'You, too,' he said. 'Any chance of a look at the crime-scene photos?' Joe looked at his watch. 'Sure, I'll make a call and have copies sent over. And...'Joe paused and turned on his way out. 'Keep me informed.' He pointed a finger at Arvo and cocked it. 'I mean it.' 'Will do. And thanks.' When Joe had gone, Arvo found he had no desire to stay in the bar any longer.

The smoke had thickened since the after-work crowd had started to arrive, and some moron had arranged . 'Suspicious Minds' for accordion and strings. Probably made a fortune out of it, too. Welcome to hell. He had some leftover pizza and couple of bottles of Sam Adams lager in the fridge at home, and the previous night he'd set his VCR to tape I Married a Monster From Outer Space. If he hadn't screwed up on the settings, it should be right there in the machine waiting for him.

He'd seen it when he was a kid, but after Nyreen, the title took on a whole new perspective. Arvo couldn't see any link between a homosexual murder and the letters Sarah Broughton had been receiving. Despite the publicity given to exceptions, the rule was that celebrity stalkers were rarely violent; on the other hand, male prostitution was certainly a high-risk profession, AIDS not being the only danger. It attracted more than its fair share of violent weirdos and thrill killers.

So John Heimar's number had come up. As Joe said, that was just his bad luck. But as he walked out onto Broadway, Arvo couldn't help but wonder. The body had been placed where someone would have the shock of finding it, that was for certain. The killer obviously had a theatrical flair and needed an audience, if only of one. What Arvo had to ask himself was why he had selected that particular stretch of beach, where Sarah Broughton went for her morning run.