She got back on the phone, prepared to waste more time.
But four Pacific detectives later, something did come up.
A three-year-old unsolved cutting of a pretty blond girl on the southern tip of Venice, near the marina, handled by a D-II named Phil Sorensen, who said, “You know, when I heard about the Ramsey girl, it struck me, but ours was a German girl, Lufthansa stewardess on vacation, and our leads pointed to an Austrian boyfriend, baggage handler, returned to Europe before we could talk to him. We put wants out with the Austrian police, Interpol, all that good stuff, never found him.”
“What made him a suspect?” said Petra.
“The girlfriend the vic was traveling with-another stew-said he showed up unannounced at their hotel all upset because the vic-Ilse Eggermann’s her name-had left Vienna without telling him. Ilse told the friend they’d fought a lot, the boyfriend had a bad temper, roughed her up, she dumped him. The last straw was having to work in first class with a black eye. Still, when the boyfriend showed up in L.A., he was able to convince her to go out with him. They left at nine P.M. She was found at four A.M., body dumped in a parking lot near Ballona Creek. We traced the boyfriend’s flight-he’d come in on Lufthansa the previous morning, employee discount. No checked-in luggage, and he never registered at any hotels or motels here in L.A.”
“So he intended it to be a short trip,” said Petra. “Accomplished what he wanted and split.”
“That’s what it looked like.” Sorensen sounded like an older man. Gentle voice, slow talker, slightly hesitant. Stew, not flight attendant.
“How was Ilse dressed when you found her?” said Petra.
“A nice dress, dark-blue or black. Black, I think. Very pretty girl; she looked very nice. Considering.” Sorensen coughed. “No sexual assault. We didn’t need to sherlock to establish her being with the boyfriend-Karlheinz Lauch- that night. The waiter who served them dinner, Antoine’s on the pier at Redondo Beach, he remembered them, because they didn’t eat or talk much. Or tip. We figured Lauch was angling for reconciliation, it didn’t work, he got upset, drove her somewhere, killed her, and dumped her. What he drove, I don’t know, because we could never trace a rental car and he had no known associates in California.”
Sorensen’s voice had risen a bit. Lots of details at his fingertips for a three-year-old crime. This one had stayed with him.
“She was found at four,” said Petra. “Any idea when she was killed?”
“The guesstimate was two, two-thirty.”
Early morning, just like Lisa. Dumped in a parking lot. And the Ballona Creek marshlands were a county park, like Griffith. “Lots of stab wounds?”
“Twenty-nine-clear overkill, which would also fit the boyfriend. Add the domestic-violence history, and it seemed pretty clear. Sound at all like yours?”
“There are definite points of similarity, Detective Sorensen,” said Petra, keeping her voice steady. Looked at a certain way, it was a damn Xerox.
“Well, you know these guys,” he said. “The woman-haters. Tend to fall into patterns.”
“True,” she said. “Where did this Lauch handle baggage?”
“Vienna airport, but he had family in Germany. After the crime, he didn’t return to work or to his hometown. We checked with other airlines too, but no dice. He could have changed his name or just rabbited to some other country. Would have been nice to go over there and nose around personally, but you know the chance of prying a European trip out of the budget. So we had to rely on the Austrian police and the Germans, and they weren’t all that interested, because the crime took place here.”
“If Lauch is working baggage under another name, he’s eligible for an employee discount,” said Petra. “Maybe he’s still flying back and forth.”
“And ended up in L.A. again and did a repeat?”
“I sure hope not, Phil, but with what you’ve told me, it looks like we’re going to have to check him out all over again. Could you please fax me his data?”
“Give me an hour,” said Sorensen. “Wouldn’t that be something, the guy having that kind of nerve. Of course, first you’d have to establish Lauch was here when the Ramsey girl was killed, then you’d have to connect him with her-meanwhile, you’ve got DV on the husband. Sounds like fun.”
“Big fun. Thanks for your help, Phil.”
“Hey,” he said, “if by some miracle it ends up helping you, it’ll help me, too. It always bothered me, not being able to close that one. She was a nice-looking girl, and he turned her into something horrible.”
It was 1 P.M., time to start looking for Darrell/Darren the film editor, but now she wanted to wait around until Karlheinz Lauch’s data came through the fax.
The Ilse Eggermann news was a surprise, but Sorensen was right: The points of similarity could be explained by domestic-violence patterns, the same old tragedies, all the way back to Othello.
Or statistical fluke-seek and ye shall find something. Over a three-year-period, L.A. saw well over three thousand homicides. One similar in all that time wasn’t the stuff of the Guinness Book.
Meanwhile, she’d reach the rest of the Pacific detectives, do follow-up on some Valley D’s she’d missed the first time around, maybe pay another telephonic condolence call to Lisa’s family in Chagrin Falls, see if Mrs. Boehlinger was available, find out when the parents were coming out to see what was left of their daughter.
Did Mrs. B. feel as strongly about Ramsey as her husband?
Petra sorted out her own feelings about the guy: providing an alibi right off, letting them know about Lisa’s drug problems, going over their heads to Schoelkopf. The subtle Don Juan stuff he’d thrown her way.
It smelled of ego, real narcissism. Did that make him someone who’d go berserk if a woman angered or rejected him?
Hard to say, but in her mind, Ramsey had done nothing to dispel suspicion. Despite Ilse Eggermann, the actor was clearly the main man.
She played out a scenario in her head: Lisa, like Ilse Eggermann-like so many battered women-had somehow allowed her ex to talk her into a date. Renewal of old passions, or maybe Ramsey’d tossed her the ultimate female bait: the chance to talk things out.
Because once upon a time there’d been chemistry between them, and chemicals didn’t disappear, they just faded. Because memories could be selective, and women kept hoping men would change.
A date… where? Not at a restaurant-somewhere private. Romantic. Secluded.
Not the Calabasas house, too risky. Even if Greg Balch was lying for his boss, someone else could have taken note-the guard, a neighbor. The maid.
Petra remembered how squirrelly Estrella Flores had been. Definitely worth a recontact, but how to do it without alerting Ramsey? And something basic needed to be added to the list: talk to the night-shift guard at RanchHaven. A glaring omission. The hands-off policy was really mucking things up.
So many things to do… she returned to her last-date melodrama. Where would Ramsey have taken Lisa?
Did he have another home, a weekend hideaway? Didn’t actors always have weekend places?
The beach? The mountains? Arrowhead, Big Bear? Or up north-Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez. Lots of industry folks had gotten into the ranch thing…
The beach would probably be Malibu. Waves crashing, smooth sand, what could be more romantic?
She made a note to search records for every real estate parcel Ramsey owned.
Go with the beach, for the moment. She pictured it: Ramsey and Lisa on an overstuffed sofa in some wood- and-glass thing on the sand. The three c’s: champagne, caviar, coke. Maybe a nicely hissing fireplace. Ramsey turning on the charm.
Lisa responding? That sexy little black dress riding up on her thighs? Chemistry… helped along by fish eggs, Moet amp; Chandon, and Medellin’s finest? Or another kind of incentive: money. Lisa had a job, but Ramsey still provided the bulk of her income.
The purchase of love? Same old story? Petra felt sad, then reminded herself not to judge. If her own phone rang on a particularly lonely and/or horny night and it was Nick on the other end, saying, “Hey, Pet,” what would she do?
Hang up on the selfish fuck and wish she could make his ears bleed.
Back to Malibu. Tides crashing, tender reminiscence, the nudge toward intimacy.
Ramsey makes his move.
