Jonathan Kellerman - Survival Of The Fittest

And now I knew where I'd seen the bearded man.

I was out the door now, breath stuck somewhere down in my chest, walking down the black street as fast as I could on ice-cold legs. Forcing myself to take slow, deep lungfuls of the sweet, dirty air.

I drove the hell out of there.

At Sunset and Vine, I called Milo's cell phone with the one Daniel had given me.

“Where are you?”

“Fifty feet behind you,” he said. “You didn't stay long.”

I told him why.

“Baker,” he said, and I knew he was remembering.

Baker's love of games. The porn-stuffed locker.

“Sure he didn't see you, Alex?”

“I can't be sure but I don't think so. It makes some other things fall into place- let's talk somewhere private.”

“Go home, I'll meet you.”

“Which home?”

“Which do you want?”

“Andrew's place,” I said. “This could take time and there are things Robin doesn't need to hear.”

At Genesee, I put the Karmann Ghia in the garage and was inside the apartment just before midnight. Past Robin's bedtime but I called her anyway, certain the conversation would be monitored by who-knew-how-many people at the Israeli Consulate.

“Hullo.”

“Hi, hon. Were you asleep?”

“No, waiting,” she said, stifling a yawn. “ 'Scuse me. Where are you, Alex?”

“The apartment. I may be here for a while. If things stretch too late I may just stay here. By the way, this is a high-tech party line.”

“Oh,” she said. “So when will you know? If you're coming home?”

“Why don't you just assume I won't be. I'll call you as soon as I can. Just wanted to say I love you.”

“Love you, too. If you can make it home, please do, Alex.”

“I will.”

“The main thing is you're safe.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

I made instant coffee in the kitchen and sat on the dusty couch.

Baker. The bearded man. Houseguests. How many others?

Had Farley Sanger been at the party?

Vehicle in the garage.

Chevy van?

Because I remembered Wilson Tenney's driver's-license photo.

Mid-thirties, mid-sized, clean-shaven, long, light brown hair.

Cut the hair, grow a beard. Someone besides me had been aiming for disguise.

Baker and Tenney and Zena.

Maybe others.

A killing club.

Zena's place a refuge. Their safe house.

I thought of the atmosphere at the party.

Eat, drink, make merry; no paranoia, no suspicion. Most of the Meta people had no idea what the splinter group was doing for fun.

Games… Tenney had removed himself from the action, sitting in a corner alone. Reading. As he'd done at the park where Raymond was abducted.

Your basic loner… going downstairs with Wes Baker.

Impromptu conference of the club within a club.

A tight little murderous cell.

Baker and Tenney in Zena's bedroom, behind a locked door. Zena had been angry but she hadn't protested.

Knowing she was outranked.

Baker, the leader. Because of his charisma and his police experience.

A teacher, a trainer in police technique.

Who better to subvert the police?

Teacher and students…

Baker and Nolan?

Code 7 for hookers? Something worse?

Two cops in a park.

A young girl strangled and left stretched out on the ground.

Sweeping up.

Easy job for two strong men.

Could it be?

I thought of Nolan's suicide, so public, so self-debasing, executing himself in front of the enemy.

Like every suicide, a message.

This one said soul-rotting, strangulating guilt. The ultimate atonement for unredeemable sin.

A law-and-order guy. A smidgen of conscience had remained and the magnitude of his violation came to haunt him.

He'd passed sentence on himself.

But something didn't fit: If Nolan was aiming for expiation, why hadn't he gone public, exposed the others, prevented more bloodshed?

Because Baker and the others had some kind of hold on him… the photos? On-duty liaisons with teenage hookers.

Polaroids left in a family album.

Placed there deliberately for Helena to find. Not by Nolan. By people who didn't want her to probe further.

Break-ins at Nolan's place and Helena's house, days apart. Now, it seemed ridiculously coincidental. Why hadn't it bothered me then?

Because burglaries in L.A. were as commonplace as bad air. Because Helena was my patient and I couldn't talk about what went on in therapy unless lives were at stake. So I'd denied.

It had worked so well- shutting my mouth, driving Helena out of therapy. Out of town.

But, no, it still didn't make sense. If Nolan had been consumed by guilt over murder, dirty pictures wouldn't have stopped him from incriminating the others.

I was still struggling with it when Milo rang the bell.

He was carrying his vinyl attachÉ and sat right down next to me.

“There's something I need to tell you,” I said.

“I know. Dahl. When you told me about Baker, my mind went on overdrive.”

He unzipped the case, removed a sheet of paper, and gave it to me. “Here's why it took me an hour to get here.”

Photocopy of some kind of chart. Horizontal grid on the upper three-quarters, several columns below a ten-digit numerical code and the heading DAILY FIELD ACTIVITIES REPORT. At the bottom, a series of boxes filled with numbers.

The top columns were labeled SPEC. SURVEY, OBS., ASGD ACT., TIME OF DAY, SURVEY SOURCE AND CODE, LOCATION OF ALL ACTIVITIES, TYPE OF ACTIVITY, SUPERVISOR AT SCENE, BOOKING, CITATION. Baker's name in every SUPERVISOR slot.

“Baker and Nolan's work log,” I said.

“Daily report- the D-FAR,” said Milo. “They're handed in at the end of each shift, stored in the station for a year, then moved downtown. These are Baker and Dahl's for the day Irit was murdered.”

Everything in perfect block letters, the time notated militarily: 0800 W L.A. ROLL CALL TO 1555 SIGN-OFF.

“Neat writing,” I said.

“Baker always printed like a draftsman.”

“Compulsive. The type to sweep up.”

He growled.

I read the report. “First call's a 211 suppression- armed robbery?”

He nodded.

“Wilshire near Bundy,” I went on. “It lasted nearly an hour, then a 415 call- disturbing the peace, right?”

“It could mean anything. This one was near the Country Mart, but see here where it says “no 415 found' under TYPE OF ACTIVITY? And no booking data in column 7? It didn't pan out.”

He stabbed the paper with his index finger. “After that, they did traffic stops, ten of 'em in a row- Baker was always one for giving lots of tickets- then another no-arrest 415 in the Palisades, then lunch.”

“At 1500,” I said. “Three P.M. Late lunch.”

“They list no Code 7s all day. If it's true, they were due for a break.”

My eyes dropped to the final notation before checkout.

“Another no-action 415 at 1530,” I said. “Sunset near Barrington. Are false calls that common?”

“Common enough. And it's not only false calls. Lots of times 415s end up just being an argument between two citizens, the officers calm 'em down and move on, no arrests.”

I scanned the sheet again. “There are no details on any of the calls beyond the street location. Is that kosher?”

“On a no-arrest it is. Even if it wasn't kosher, with Baker being a supervisor, there'd be no one looking over his shoulder unless something iffy happened- brutality complaint, that kind of thing. Basically, D-FARS are stashed and forgotten, Alex.”

“Wouldn't the calls come in through the dispatcher?”

“For the most part, but cruisers also get flagged down by citizens or the blues see things on their own and report to the dispatcher.”