Bad Love

I drove away from the clinic stroking the dog and thinking of the child's voice on the tape. I wasn't hungry but figured I'd need some lunch eventually. Spotting a hamburger stand farther up on Sepulveda, I bought a takeout half-pounder. The aroma kept the dog awake and drooling all the way home, and a couple of times he tried to stick his nose in the bag. Back in the kitchen, he convinced me to part with a third of the patty. Then he carried his booty to a corner, sat, masticated noisily, and promptly went to sleep, chin to the floor.

I phoned my service and found out Milo had called back. This time he answered at Robbery-Homicide. 'Sturgis.'

'How's it going, Joe Friday?'

'The usual buckets of blood. How's by you?'

I told him about receiving the tape. 'Probably just a prank, but imagine getting a kid to do that.'

I expected him to slough it off, but he said, ' 'Bad love'? That's weird.'

'What is?'

'Those exact same words popped up in a case a couple of months ago. Remember that social worker who got murdered at the mental health center? Rebecca Basille?'

'It was all over the news,' I said, remembering headlines and sound bites, the smiling picture of a pretty, dark-haired young woman butchered in a soundproof therapy room. 'You never said it was your case.'

'It wasn't really anyone's case because there was no investigation to speak of. The psycho who stabbed her died trying to take another caseworker hostage.'

'I remember.'

'I got stuck filling out the paperwork.'

'How did 'bad love' pop up?'

'The psycho screamed it when he ran out after cutting Becky. Clinic director was standing in the hall, heard him before she ducked into her office and hid. I figured it was schizo talk.'

'It may be something psychological- jargon that he picked up somewhere in the mental health system. 'Cause I think I've heard it, too, but I can't remember where.'

'That's probably it,' he said. 'A kid, huh?'

'A kid chanting in this strange, flat voice. It may be related to a case I'm working on, Milo. Remember that file you got me- the woman murdered by her husband?'

'The biker?'

'He's been locked up for six months. Two months ago he started asking for visitation with his daughters- around the same time as the Basille murder, come to think of it. If Becky's murderer screaming 'bad love' was in the news, I guess he could have taken notice and filed it away for future use.'

'Intimidate the shrink- maybe remind you of what can happen to therapists who don't behave themselves?'

'Exactly. There'd be nothing criminal in that, would there? Just sending a tape.'

'Wouldn't even buy him snack bar demerits, but how could he figure you'd make the connection?'

'I don't know. Unless this is just an appetizer and there's more coming.'

'What's this fool's name, again?'

'Donald Dell Wallace.'

He repeated it and said, 'I never read the file. Refresh me on him.'

'He used to hang out with a biker gang called the Iron Priests- small-time Tujunga bunch. In between prison sentences, he worked as a motorcycle mechanic. Dealt speed on the side. I think he's a member of the Aryan Brotherhood.'

'Well, there's a character reference for you. Let me see what I find out.'

'You think this is something I should worry about?'

'Not really- you might think of locking your doors.'

'I already do.'

'Congratulations. You going to be home tonight?'

'Yup.'

'How's Robin?'

'Fine. She's up in Oakland, giving a seminar- medieval lutes.'

'Smart kid, working with inanimate objects. All right, I'll come by, rescue you from your hermitude. If you want me to I can fingerprint the tape, check it against Wallace's. If it's him, we'll report him to his keepers, at least let him know you're not going to roll over.'

'Okay- thanks.'

'Yeah… don't handle it anymore, hard plastic's a real good surface for preservation… Bad love. Sounds like something out of a movie. Sci-fi, splatter flick, whatever.'

'I couldn't find it in any of my psych books, so maybe that's it. Maybe that's where Becky's murderer got it, too- all of us are children of the silver screen. The tape was mailed from the Terminal Annex, not Folsom. Meaning if Wallace is behind it, someone's helping him.'

'I can check the rest of his gang, too. At least the ones with records. Don't lose any sleep over it. I'll try to get by around eight. Meanwhile, back to the slaughter.'

'Buckets of blood, huh?'

'Big sloshing buckets. Every morning I wake up, praise the Lord, and thank Him for all the iniquity- how's that for perverse?'

'Hey,' I said, 'you love your work.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah, I do. Demotion never felt so goddamn glorious.'

'Department treating you well?'

'Let's not lapse into fantasy. The department's tolerating me, because they think they've wounded me deeply with their pissanty pay cut and I'll eventually cave in and take disability like every other goldbricking pension junkie. The fact that one night of moonlighting more than makes up for the difference in take-home has eluded the brass. As has the fact that I'm a contrary bastard.'

'They're not very observant, are they?'

'That's why they're administrators.'

• • •

After he hung up, I called Evelyn Rodriguez's house in Sunland. As the phone rang, I pictured the man who'd carved up her daughter playing with a tape recorder in his cell.

No one answered. I put the phone down.

I thought of Rebecca Basille, hacked to death in a soundproof room. Her murder had really gotten to me- gotten to lots of therapists. But I'd put it out of my head until Milo reminded me.

I drummed my fists on the counter. The dog looked up from his empty bowl and stared. I'd forgotten he was there.

What happens to therapists who don't behave themselves…

What if Wallace had nothing to do with the tape? Someone else, from my past.

I went into the library and the dog followed. The closet was stacked with boxes of inactive patient files, loosely alphabetized with no strict chronological order, because some patients had been treated at several different time periods.

I put the radio on for background and started with the A's, looking for children whom I'd tagged with psychopathic or antisocial tendencies and cases that hadn't turned out well. Even long-term deadbeats I'd sent to collections.

I made it halfway through. A sour history lesson with no tangible results: nothing popped out at me. By the end of the afternoon, my eyes hurt and I was exhausted.

I stopped reading, realized grumbly snores had overpowered the music. Reaching down, I kneaded the bulldog's muscular neck. He shuddered but remained asleep. A few charts were fanned on the desk. Even if I came up with something suggestive, patient confidentiality meant I couldn't discuss it with Milo.

I returned to the kitchen, fixed kibble and meatloaf and fresh water, watched my companion sup, burp, then circle and sniff. I left the service door open and he bounced down the stairs.

While he was out, I called Robin's hotel in Oakland again, but she was still out.