The Breakers Read online

  “How was he killed?” I asked Jamie.

  “Stabbed in the stomach.”

  Above the sheet they’d draped over the fatal wound, I could make out another, oddly shaped lesion. “That doesn’t look like a stab wound on his shoulder.”

  “It’s not. We suspect it’s some kind of gang signature.”

  “He wasn’t a gang member.” There’d been no mention of any affiliation in the backgrounding Will Camphouse had done on him.

  Cooksen motioned to the technician inside and pointed out the wound. “Let’s take a closer look at that,” he said.

  The marking was reasonably fresh: three concentric circles around a dot. Something that resembled an arrow pierced the circles, upper right to lower left. The carved symbol stood out in stark relief against his white skin. The more I looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

  I’d seen something like that recently. But where?

  “So, Ms. McCone,” Cooksen said, “have you any information that may shed light on what happened to the deceased?”

  There was something about the inspector that I didn’t like. His raised eyebrows and the twist of his mouth were condescending. I glanced at Jamie; he shrugged, but I had the feeling he shared my opinion of Cooksen.

  “Mr. Kaplan called me sometime after ten p.m. on Saturday, August sixth,” I said, “and asked me to meet with him at his home, apartment five in the Breakers on Jardin Street. When I arrived there, he was gone.”

  “Why did he wish to see you?”

  “He didn’t say, specifically.”

  “Yet you went anyway.”

  “From what he did say, I assumed he had information on a missing person case I’m working.” I told him of Chelle’s disappearance, referred him to Cap’n Bobby. Then I asked, “When was Mr. Kaplan killed?”

  Jamie replied. “From what the preliminary coroner’s report tells us, he’s been dead since late Saturday. Possibly killed somewhere else and his body dumped in high weeds in that vacant lot. A dog walker taking a shortcut through the lot stumbled over it, literally.”

  Cooksen asked, “Are you sure you don’t know why Mr. Kaplan needed to urgently talk with you?”

  “I didn’t say it was urgent, Inspector.”

  “The lateness of the hour…”

  “Don’t you ever get calls at ten p.m.?”

  “Of course, but they’re usually emergencies.”

  “So you naturally assume Mr. Kaplan’s call was also an emergency.”

  “Not necessarily, but…”

  “But what?”

  Cooksen’s thin lips tightened. “I don’t have to explain my reasoning to you, Ms. McCone.”

  “Nor mine to you.”

  “As a citizen, you have a duty—”

  “Don’t give me any of that duty-as-a-citizen crap! What you’re asking is I knuckle under to a bully public official!” I glanced at Jamie and said, “I’m out of here.”

  Jamie caught up with me in the reception area. “Kind of harsh with Cooksen, weren’t you?”

  “Not harsh enough. He’s the kind of cop who enjoys bullying—witness, suspect, jaywalker, you name it. Watch him, because one of these days he’s going to take it too far. And the department will suffer for it.”

  Jamie frowned. “He’s not such a bad guy…”

  But the rest of what he said didn’t compute for me. Suddenly I was picturing the wound on Zack’s shoulder. And now I thought I knew where I’d seen one like it before.

  I hurried to the stairwell and out of the building to my car.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 11

  12:43 a.m.

  I pulled to the curb in front of the Breakers about two minutes before Hy arrived in his car. I’d called him after leaving the morgue, told him what had happened to Zack Kaplan, and asked him to meet me here with my new digital camera.

  He parked and got out, came up to me where I was leaning against Zack’s Jeep. “I assume you want to take photographs of that wall gallery.”

  “Right. Yesterday I asked Cap’n Bobby for a spare key to the place so we don’t have to enter by the crazy hole in the foundation.”

  “Who in hell created it, anyway?”

  “The hole? I would guess Zack Kaplan. As to why—who knows?”

  As I led him through the house, Hy was fascinated. “It’s an interesting place. What did Chelle intend to do with it?”

  “She told Cap’n Bobby she was going to renovate it and sell it to a company that manages facilities for disabled veterans.”

  “He’s the one who still owns it?”

  “Yeah. He claims he’ll put off the closing until she returns—but who knows when or if that’ll be.”

  Hy heard the forlorn tone in my voice and hugged me around the shoulders.

  We went upstairs. Chelle’s quarters were as I’d left them. I turned on the lights, then removed the screen from the montage wall. Hy stood staring at the ugly array of clippings and photos, his mouth twisted in distaste.

  The montage blurred for me in the poor light. The killers’ photos melded into one horrible image of evil. My brow grew damp and I felt the first symptoms of vertigo. Then the bad feelings ebbed, and my focus became sharp as I scanned the old clippings.

  After a while I shook my head. “I thought I saw something more here, but now it doesn’t stand out.”

  “Maybe you didn’t see it on that wall but somewhere else.”

  “Maybe, but I’m pretty sure it was here…”

  “These monsters all seem familiar—the Manson family, Dan White, Scott Peterson. No gang killers, though.”

  “Dammit, all the details in these newspaper photos look blurry in this light. I was afraid of that.”

  “Hence the camera.”

  “Right. I’ll take close-up shots of everything here. The details should be clear in the pics.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Hy continued staring at the wall. “Who the devil constructed this thing?”

  “I wish I knew. I’ve canvassed as much of the neighborhood as I can, put operatives on it too. Our researchers haven’t come up with a connection either.”

  “Then you and I had better come up with one.”

  I photographed the wall and surrounding areas. Hy nosed around and said, just as I finished, “Hey, look at this.”

  He was standing at the far end of the wall, pointing up toward the ceiling.

  “The paper’s curling there, as if somebody ripped it.”

  “Can you see behind what’s torn?”

  He searched in his pockets, took out a penknife, and probed. “Strange. It looks like there’re more items behind these. Maybe a whole other collage.” He probed some more. “Yeah, that’s what I think it is.”

  “If so, it should be preserved as is.”

  “Preserve it on film. Then I’ll pull this top layer down.”

  I took a picture of the curling paper, the flash once more reflecting brightly off the sinister images. Then Hy began delicately peeling off the surface material. I crowded against him, peering up to see what he’d revealed.

  Scenic pictures of the sea and sand and wildflowers. The Breakers in its heyday, formally attired ladies and gentlemen flocking to its doors. Familiar faces I’d seen in a social history of the city: Haases and Lilienthals and Crockers, the women all impeccably coiffed and gowned. No killers or other criminals there, just a historical version of the local social register. An early photo of the Cliff House, wreathed in fog.

  I said, “So somebody saw this wall and decided to create one with a different motif.”

  “Radically different.”

  “I need to talk with Patrick about that ledger of former tenants of Cap’n Bobby’s, but I’ll get to that in the morning.”

  8:11 a.m.

  We’d been so tired when we got home that we went straight to bed. I was awake at seven, though, with speculations about the investigation crowding my thoughts. Hy was still deeply asleep, the house chilly and the cats snuggled warmly against me. I lay there for a
time sorting through what I knew and didn’t know so far.

  Two possibilities, that either Damon Delahanty or Tyler Pincus was involved in Chelle’s disappearance, were now definitely out. I’d checked my voice mail on the drive home. Will had called around eleven. Damon Delahanty, he’d found out, had been incarcerated for the past three weeks in a Clark County, Nevada, jail for armed robbery, bail having been denied. And Tyler Pincus, the magician, had been traveling throughout the Bay Area, trying to salvage his sagging career. Will had been thorough, confirming each man’s present whereabouts with the appropriate people.

  “Frustrating” was the word for the rest of what I knew. Plenty of questions but no clear-cut answers.

  Zack Kaplan had been murdered four days ago, the same night he disappeared from the Breakers. Why? Something to do with the “right to disappear” note? Or for some other reason?

  The person who had decorated the wall had nothing to do with this crisis. Or had everything to do with it.

  The person who had called me claiming to be Chelle was a fake. Yes, but who was she, and how had she known enough about me and my investigation to attempt extortion?

  Chelle had written the note about the right to disappear. Or had she? But if not, who had, and why?

  Enough pointless speculating. Time to do something constructive, such as examine the photos that I’d taken at the Breakers.

  My camera was on the nightstand. I scanned the digital images, focused on individual areas of the wall montage. The clippings on the Scott Peterson case were the most recent, clustering in the upper right-hand corner and overlapping coverage on the Manson murders. Below them was a one-column piece on Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple dated a year before the tragedy in Guyana. Next to it was one of the Zodiac’s cryptograms, and above it a photo of the Zebra killers. The Milk/Moscone coverage was there, as was that of the 101 California shooting. But something…

  I shook Hy’s shoulder. “Ripinsky, wake up. Look at this.”

  “Huh? What?” He rose on one elbow and rubbed his eyes before staring at me as if I were an alien who had sneaked into his bed.

  “These pictures I took of the wall. Something’s missing.”

  “You sure do know how to wake a guy up.” He sighed and flopped back against the padded headboard. “What’s missing?”

  “Some of the clippings.”

  He took the camera from my hand and examined the image.

  “I could swear there was another clipping about the Manson Family,” I said. And there were two about Scott Peterson, now there’s only one. Check out this article on Felix Mitchell, drug dealer. See this line in the dust?”

  My finger traced it and he nodded.

  “And there’s considerable difference in shading above it where the removed clippings were pinned.” I closed my eyes and pictured the wall as I’d first seen it. “There was one on a case I’d never heard of before, illustrated with a drawing. It’s not here either.”

  “You remember what the drawing looked like?”

  “Sort of. I think it may have resembled the signature carving on Zack Kaplan’s shoulder, but I’m not quite sure.” I threw the covers back. “I’d better get moving.”

  “Where to?”

  “Cap’n Bobby’s. I have some questions for him.”

  “Want me to come along?”

  “Not necessary. You need to check in at the agency. Somebody’s got to run this business of ours.”

  10:10 a.m.

  When I arrived at Cap’n Bobby’s, he was seated in his wheelchair going over a pile of receipts with his waitress.

  Li said, “I think this supplier is padding his invoices.”

  “Match the next couple of bills with the orders and call him on it.”

  “The dishwasher—it’s wheezing again.”

  “Baby it along—we can’t afford a new one.”

  “Right.” Li went to the back room and Bobby waved me over.

  I sat down at the table beside him. “Did you hear about what happened to Zack Kaplan?”

  “Was on the morning news. Too damn bad—he was a nice guy.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”

  “No. Like I said, he was a nice guy; hard to imagine him making any serious enemies. He didn’t have much money and no credit cards—when I asked him to pick up something I needed, he’d borrow mine. He studied all the time, was determined to finally get his degree, so he didn’t socialize much.” He paused. “Must’ve accidentally crossed paths with some psycho. You know, a random thing—wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I took out a pad of paper and sketched the wound I’d seen on Zack’s shoulder. “Does this symbol look familiar to you?”

  He studied it, then shook his head. “Can’t say as it does.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. What’s it supposed to be?”

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  “Is it important?”

  “Whoever killed Zack carved it into his shoulder.”

  “Jesus. Guy must be some kind of monster.”

  “That’s just what I’ve been thinking.”

  11:15 a.m.

  At the agency I checked with Ted about Cap’n Bobby’s ledgers. His Botany 500 attire was subdued today—except for a pink-and-orange tie. I’d seen this before when he was about to transition from one fashion statement to another: elements of the current style would disappear, and one day there he’d be in all-new regalia. I hoped this time it would be less like Mannix’s TV attire.

  “Nothing yet from Patrick on those ledgers,” he said, “but I’m expecting results soon. The problem is, business is booming and everybody’s overloaded.”

  “That’s not a problem, it’s a blessing.”

  I went down the hallway to my office. The air in there was stuffy, slightly smoky; there had been a big grass fire in Marin last night, according to the morning news, ravaging acres of land and destroying several homes. A typical late-August and autumn hazard here in northern California. The haze over the Bay was so thick I couldn’t see the top of Mount Tam. I fiddled with the airflow control, then sat down at my desk and started going through a new stack of paperwork that had appeared in my in-box. Mercifully, I was interrupted by Mick, who had just come into the agency.

  “Anything you need me for?” he asked.

  “Yes. Take a look at this symbol.” I showed him the sketch I’d drawn of the mark carved into Zack Kaplan’s shoulder.

  Mick leaned over my shoulder. “It looks like a single eye that’s been pierced with an arrow. Wait a minute.” He took out his iPhone and did a rapid Internet search. “Yeah, I thought so.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a version of the evil eye. You know, a curse believed to be cast by a malevolent glare, usually directed at a person when they are unaware. Many cultures believe that receiving the evil eye will cause misfortune or injury.”

  “Uh-huh. But that doesn’t explain what this one actually means.”

  Mick read off his screen. “Here’s more: in ancient Egypt, it was also considered to be a symbol of protection, royal power, and good health.” He added wryly, “In this country it could be a symbol for the one percent.”

  “So this superstition is mainly Egyptian?”

  “No, it’s worldwide, in its various forms. I can give you details—”

  “I don’t think I need to go into it so deeply. What I need is a lead to a disturbed person who believes in this stuff. Believes it enough to kill and then carve the symbol into his victims’ bodies.”

  “Victims? Why plural?”

  I shrugged. “Just a feeling I have. How about you check into it? If I’m right I can talk with their families and friends. Somebody’s got to know something.”

  “And what does this have to do with Chelle?”

  “I think the article that was removed from the killers’ wall was about crimes involving an evil eye symbol. Chelle might’ve read it and connected
the symbol with someone she knew. Someone she had reason to fear. That would explain why she fled.”

  “Not completely. Why wouldn’t she have come to you?”

  I thought back to where I’d been at the time of her disappearance.

  “Because I wasn’t available. Hy and I were up at his ranch, getting it ready for sale to the neighbors. We don’t have phone service there any more, and I’m sure Chelle didn’t have the neighbors’ number.”

  “Well, she could’ve called you on your cell—or Hy’s.”

  “You’re such a child of the tech revolution. She may have tried to, but such devices—unless they’re using a local provider—don’t work in isolated mountain areas.”

  “Then why didn’t she just go to the police?”

  “I’ve wondered that myself. A young person’s distrust of them? There’ve been a couple of incidents of cops sexually molesting young women in the past year, brutalizing people who shouldn’t even have been in custody. A lot of bad publicity. Or more likely she didn’t have time, or wasn’t sure until it was too late and she gave in to blind fear.”

  “But if whoever it was she was afraid of caught her at the Curley house, then—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  I still refused to consider that Chelle was dead and her body not yet found.

  The expression on Mick’s face told me he understood why I’d stopped him from voicing the possibility.

  1:05 p.m.

  I’d just come back from a solitary lunch at Angie’s when Ted stepped into my office and said, “Got a preliminary list of names and current whereabouts of former Breakers tenants from the ledgers. There’re more to come. So far, most of the names don’t appear on the databases we use. A lot of people who lived in that building seem to have been nomads.” He handed me a piece of legal paper.

  “Thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

  The list contained ten names—not many for the timeline. Three were still in San Francisco, one in Walnut Creek. I started with the SF residents.

  Gilda LaPaz: “I never knew anything about a strange wall. But then, my modeling career took me away fairly often…No, I don’t recollect anything about a tenant upstairs…I was busy working.”