Milo hauled a struggling, howling Donny Rader to his feet. “Hold still and shut it.”
“Fuh you.”
O’Shea walked the girl out of the house. He looked stunned. “You got to see this.”
Milo said, “Check it out, Alex.”
The house was a sty. Piles of trash blanketed the floor and the furniture. The air was putrid with rotted food, body odor, weed, a medicinal smell that might’ve been poorly cut cocaine.
A cat-urine stench that might’ve been cats or crystal meth.
O’Shea had seen and smelled worse, so that wasn’t it.
Not wanting to disturb potential evidence, I stepped carefully over the garbage. Then I saw it. Hanging from a low rafter, the feet dangling a few inches from the floor.
A human skeleton, wired and braced by a steel rod running parallel to the spine.
Stripped and clean but for hair left on the head. Long hair. Dark, curly.
Full-sized skeleton. I guessed it shorter than me by at least six inches.
The pelvic arch left no doubt: female.
The jaws had been positioned to create a gaping cartoonish grin. Exaggerated glee that was the essence of horror.
I made my way through the slop-heap, got right up to the skeleton. Sniffed.
New smell.
Pleasant, sweet. Herbaceous.
Honeybees buzzing in the hive.
CHAPTER 55
Milo plastic-tied Rader’s ankles and belted him into the brown van’s second row. Tyler O’Shea positioned Sally up front as a sentry. She enjoyed snapping and growling at the now cringing, weeping actor.
Allowing himself the luxury of an unlit cigar clenched between tight jaws, Milo played the phone, calling in jail transport, crime scene techs, the coroners.
The chief’s office, almost as an afterthought. The boss was out; Milo declined to leave a message.
Tyler O’Shea continued to guard the girl in the bikini.
Barbara “Brandi” Podesky, self-described as a “performer and dancer,” had no wants but a warrant did pop out of the database: failure to show up for community service on a first-offense marijuana bust. She’d be heading to West L.A. lockup. The news stunned her and she began whining that she was cold.
O’Shea checked out her body, said, “We’ll get you something soon.” Not a trace of sincerity.
Milo went to look at the skeleton, emerged seconds later and positioned himself in the doorway. Chewing his lip and wiping his face, he got back on the phone. As he waited for a connection, his facial muscles relaxed and something aspiring to be a smile stretched his lips.
“Ms. LeMasters? Milo Sturgis … yeah, I know it has been, but not to fret, how’re your ace-reporter chops this beautiful day? And are you still in love with your husband? … Why? Because trust me, Kelly, you’re gonna dig
Just as he clicked off, the chief beeped in. Milo began to supply details I already knew so I left him there, figuring to walk off some excess energy.
I circled right of the car-crush. Came face-to-face with Prema Moon.
Milo had instructed her to stay behind. Some leading women didn’t take well to direction.
“Where is he?” she said.
“In the van, but you need to stay away.”
“Why wouldn’t I stay away? So. It’s over.”
For the justice system, it was just beginning.
I said, “Yes.”
No response for a second. Then she winked at me. Turned her back and tossed her hair and offered a frisky shake of her perfect rear.
Laughing-a giddy, knowing, brittle sound-she walked off the set.
CHAPTER 56
On TV, it would have been a cinch.
The female skeleton’s DNA tracked to Qeesha D’Embo, that of the baby in the park was linked to both Qeesha and Donny Rader. Bloodstains, bone fragments, skin flakes, and hair found in the double garage that Rader had set up as his taxidermic workshop belonged to mother and child.
Several of the women located through Mel Wedd’s little blue book confirmed that Rader had often retired to the dark, dingy, space after partying, demanding to be left alone with his “projects.”
The bullet pulled from Mel Wedd’s brain matched a.45 in Rader’s firearms closet. Rader’s collection consisted of thirty-seven poorly maintained weapons included an Uzi and a Russian assault rifle.
Milo had hoped that the.22 bullet pulled from Adriana Betts would match the gun he’d taken from Rader. But it didn’t, couldn’t be traced to any of Rader’s armaments. That lent credence to the notion that someone else, most probably Melvin Jaron Wedd, had murdered her.
Most probably at Rader’s request, but good luck proving that.
The more I thought about Rader’s and Wedd’s identical SUVs, the stronger the hero-worship scenario got. But Deputy D.A. John Nguyen didn’t like it, was intent upon finding something more ominous and premeditated.
“I need creepy psycho stuff, Alex. Give me Manson, bloodlust, a folie a deux, the works.”
Milo said, “Seems creepy enough as is, John.”
“Never enough.” Nguyen grinned. “Maybe I’ll get a book deal out of it.”
Reality was, the case would stretch on for months, maybe years. Donny Rader, despite being buttressed by an army of high-priced legal talent, had failed in his request for bail. But the special cell he occupied at the men’s jail put him safely away from the gangbangers and the lunatics and the trophy-hunters, and stories had begun to circulate about special privileges for the star, mailbags overflowing with love letters sent by severely disturbed women all over the world, female deputies charmed by the artfully slurring actor.
Kelly LeMasters got a serious book deal from a New York publisher and quit the
The smart money had Rader avoiding trial via diminished capacity, serving some time in a cushy mental hospital, maybe eventually getting out.
I wasn’t so sure. Then again, I’d been wrong about so much.
At this point, I could live with that.
One month and five days after Rader’s arrest, I drove to Western Pediatric Medical Center, looked for Salome Greiner, found her again in the doctors’ dining room. Late in the day for lunch. Just her and her Jell-O, cottage cheese, and tea. As if she never left the place.
I sat down across from her.
She said, “The prodigal psychologist returns.”
I said, “Jimmy Asherwood was a wonderful man who led a tragic life. I can see why you’d want to protect him. I have no desire to smear his memory. He did nothing to deserve that. Quite the contrary.”
She sighed. For all her vitality, an old woman. I felt like a troublesome son. Continued, anyway.
