estate. For thirteen years, alimony had been paid monthly to Helen Balch, of Duluth, Minnesota. For the last nine, he’d also divvied up to Amber Leigh Balch.
Helen’s name conjured up a middle-aged woman, the dutiful first wife. The house bought fourteen years ago-right after the marriage? If so, dissolution had taken place one year later.
Amber Leigh sounded like an industry pseudonym. Petra saw a homewrecker with big hair, long legs-probably blond, because Lisa and Ilse said he liked blondes. Big-chested bimbo, a face not quite pretty enough. That hadn’t lasted long, either.
Two thousand a month to Helen; fifteen hundred to Amber.
His take-home was a little over eight thou a month. Lease payments on the Lexus were six hundred. Take away that and spousal support, and he cleared thirty-nine hundred a month. For the last few years, he’d received tax refunds of twenty grand or so. Not poverty, but chicken feed by industry standards. By Ramsey standards.
No obvious signs of big-ticket hobbies or conspicuous expenditures. Did he play the track? Sniff coke? Had he accumulated a money stash? Augmented it with skim?
She searched every corner of the room, found no bankbooks or investment material. Unlike Lisa, no plans. Had she been his launderer?
Then she’d demanded more. Or tried to blackmail Balch. Money and passion; had to be.
A door slammed. She looked out the window and saw Wil heading for the garage. He pushed a remote and the door slid open. No car that she could see. She returned to the tax files, labeling each carton. Onward.
The first of the empty bedrooms was just that. In the second, though, she found more booty on the closet shelf: three shoe boxes of loose photos. First came thirty-year-old professional shots of football teams, high school and college, the faces too small to make out, then home-camera jobs showing Ramsey and Balch in full athletic gear, giant padded shoulders, tight waists.
Tall, Dark, and Handsome and his flaxen-haired buddy, both grinning, cocky, ready to take on the world.
After that came wedding snaps, Balch still lean and tan, wearing a powder-blue tux, a ruffled shirt, and an unsure expression. Helen turned out to be slender, attractive, with short dark hair and a prim mouth. Later photos showed her aging well, staying slim, sometimes wearing glasses. Holding a baby.
Wrapped in pink. A daughter. Balch had never mentioned a child during the interview, but why would he, they’d been focusing on other people’s lives. Petra remembered how he punted away personal questions. At the time, it had seemed aw-shucks. Now she understood.
Twenty or so pictures of the child, no name on the back of any of the pictures. A pretty dark-haired girl who favored her mother. Snapshots up till age eight or so, then nothing.
The divorce, or had it been worse-a death? Yet another loss in Balch’s miserable life?
Box number two contained smaller versions of the celeb shots Petra had seen on Balch’s office wall. Mostly Ramsey, a few of Balch. Various photographers, Hollywood and the Valley.
The last box was nearly empty. Just a wedding portrait, photographer’s stamp from Las Vegas-a Vegas connection. Balch in a dark suit and white banded-collar shirt, pink-faced, puffy, slightly off-kilter, towering over Amber Leigh, who was tiny and Asian, with incredible cheekbones and breasts that screamed augmentation. Not what Petra had pictured, but definitely bimboistic.
He married dark-haired women but killed blondes.
Beneath the photo was an envelope dated three years ago.
Loopy childish handwriting addressed to Mr. G. Balch at the Saddlewax address. On the return side, Caitlin Balch, no address; Duluth, Minnesota, postmark.
The same handwriting on a single sheet of lined notepaper.
Dear Dad,
Well, Im graduating from Junior High and I won an award for band, but I don’t think you care about that. You never call or come here anymore and you never send the alemoney on time and with Mom being sick that makes it really hard for us. Im only writing this because Mom said I should, you should know when your daughter graduates.
You don’t care. Right?
Your daughter (I guess)
Caitlin Lauren Balch
Pathetic. Had he ever answered? No further correspondence said probably not.
No shots of Lisa. Or Ilse Eggermann. That would have been too much to hope for.
If he’d been obsessed with either of the dead women, he’d probably destroyed the evidence. Or taken it with him to play with.
Petra bound all the shoe boxes with rubber bands and was carrying them out when she heard Wil shout.
He’d laid it all out on the floor of the garage.
Six handguns-two revolvers and four automatics-three rifles, two shotguns, one an expensive Mossler. Boxes of ammo for everything. The garage smelled of gun oil.
Tool rack on a wall above an empty workbench, two large toolboxes full of assorted gizmos, a pair of fishing- tackle boxes, six fishing rods, seven reels.
“Deep-sea and lake,” said Wil, appreciatively. “Good lures, too. Hand-tied. And look at this.”
Knives. Petra counted thirty-two.
Bucks, fighting daggers, long-bladed boning knives Wil said he’d taken from the tackle boxes.
“The man likes to shoot and cut, Petra. There’s blood on the boning blade. Might be trout; then again, maybe not.”
“Fishing and hunting,” said Petra. “Maybe he’s got himself a little cabin up in the woods.”
“That’s all we need, one of those nature boy-survivalist deals. Better take our time with all this. I’m gonna put on fresh gloves, get my video cam.”
It was 8:14 when they finished. The house had grown almost unbearably hot, and Petra’s nose had gotten accustomed to the smell.
Wil said, “We earned our keep,” and clicked the TV on, again, switching channels from an oral-sex pretzel to local news. “Just in case something broke. It seems to be the way we find out anything.”
The news was all crime-a nine-year-old girl abducted in Willow Glen, a drive-by in Florence, and another db out in Angeles Crest, but nothing on Lisa or William Bradley Straight.
“Work, work, work,” said Wil, yawning and pulling down his sleeves. He’d folded his linen jacket and placed it on the mantel, over a protective layer of LAPD plastic. He looked as tired as Petra felt.
He yawned again, and she said, “I know we’re supposed to start casting the net on Balch, but I for one need some food-”
He held up a silencing finger. Something on the TV had turned him wide-awake.
“… white male,” the reporter was saying. “No name has been released yet, but sheriff’s deputies have described the victim as unusually large, over six feet and three hundred pounds or more. The body parts were separated, but hadn’t yet been scattered in this remote area of the forest. The Boy Scouts who may have disturbed the killer report seeing a car drive off quickly, with its lights off. That’s it for now, Chuck. We’ll keep you posted.”
Fournier gunned the remote, speeding through channels. Three other news shows, but either the dismemberment had already been covered or only one station had the story so far.
“What?” said Petra.
“Six feet, three hundred pounds,” he said. “Maybe it’s a coincidence, but that’s real damn close to the size of Buell Moran, the fool who was looking for the Straight kid. The one who probably killed the kid’s mother. I mean, I know this country’s got an obesity problem, but… We were figuring he’d heard about the beach tip and headed west. If he did, maybe he met someone he thought could help him but didn’t. I’m not saying it is him-lots of bikers get dumped in Angeles Crest, plenty of them are big-but it’s too cute to ignore.”
“Much too cute,” said Petra. “Enter it in a baby contest.”
“And here’s another thing, Petra. Dismemberment and Angeles Crest reminds me of something I dealt with years ago, working on those Russian cases. Russians loved to cut up the bodies. We walked in on one of them doing it. They concentrate on the head and the fingertips, think it screws up IDs. And they were using Angeles Crest, had just discovered it. The guy who gave me the tip on the kid is Russian. First time I met him, I had a feeling about him. Con eyes.”
