The Murder Book

We rode in silence.

"He sounds like a complicated man," I said.

"He was a freak, Alex. Pilfered death shots from the evidence room and cataloged them for personal enjoyment. For all I know he got a sexual kick out of the book, then he grew old and couldn't get it up anymore and decided to share." He frowned. "I don't think Marge knew about the murder book. He wouldn'ta wanted her to think of him as a freak. That means someone else sent it to you, Alex. She made like the two of them had built this little domestic cocoon, but I think she was real wrong."

"Another woman," I said.

"Why not? Someone he visited when he wanted out from hilltop nirvana. This is a guy who tumbled with whores in the backseat while on duty. I don't have that much faith in transformation."

"If there was another woman," I said, "she might live far from Ojai. This is a small town, too hard to be discreet. That would explain the L.A. postmark."

"Bastard." He cursed under his breath. "I never liked the guy, and now he's yanking my chain from the grave. Let's say he did have some big moral epiphany about Janie. What does the book communicate? Where am I supposed to take it? Screw this, I don't have to play this game."

We didn't talk until I was back on the freeway. At Camarillo, I shifted to the fast lane, pushed the Seville to eighty. He mumbled, "Pedal to the metal… bastard starts feeling righteous, and I've got to jump like a trained flea."

"You don't have to do anything," I said.

"Damn right, I'm an Amurrican. Entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of unhappiness."

We crossed the L.A. county line by midafternoon, stopped at a coffee shop in Tarzana for burgers, got back on Ventura Boulevard, hooked a right at the newsstand at Van Nuys, continued to Valley Vista, and on to Beverly Glen. Along the way, I had Milo call my service on his cell phone. Robin hadn't called.

When we reached my house, Milo was still in no mood to talk, but I said, "Caroline Cossack sticks in my mind."

"Why?"

"A girl poisoning a dog is more than a prank. Her brothers are all over the papers, but she doesn't get a word of newsprint. Her mother ran a debutante ball, but Caroline wasn't listed as one of the debs. She wasn't even included in her mother's funeral. If you hadn't told me the poisoning story, I'd never know she existed. It's as if the family spit her out. Maybe for good reason."

"The neighbor- that cranky old lady doc- Schwartzman- might've been overly imaginative. She had no use for any of the Cossacks."

"But her most serious suspicions were of Caroline."

He made no move to exit the car. I said, "A girl using poison makes sense. Poisoning doesn't require physical confrontation, so a disproportionate number of poisoners are female. I don't have to tell you psychopathic killers often start with animals, but they're usually males who dig blood. For a girl that young to act out so violently would be a serious red flag. I'm wondering if Caroline's been confined all these years. Maybe because of something a lot worse than killing a dog."

"Or she died."

"Find the death certificate."

He knuckled his eyes, looked up at my house. "Poison's sneaky. What was done to Janie was blatant- the way the body was dumped in an open spot. No way did a girl do that."

"I'm not saying Caroline murdered Janie by herself, but she might've been part of it- might've served as a lure for whoever did the cutting. Plenty of killers have used young women as bait- Paul Bernardo, Charlie Manson, Gerald Gallegos, Christopher Wilding. Caroline would've been the perfect lure for Janie and Melinda- a girl their age, outwardly inoffensive. And rich. Caroline could've stood by and watched as some-one else did the wet work or participated the way the Manson girls did. Maybe it was a group thing, just like the Mansons, party scene gone bad. Females are affiliative- even female killers. Group settings lower their inhibitions."

"Sugar and spice," he said. "And the family found out, put the screws on with the department to hush up the case, locked Crazy Caroline away somewhere… the ghoul in the attic."

"Big family money can furnish a really nice attic."

He accompanied me inside, where I went through the mail and he got on the phone with County Records and Social Security. No death certificate on Caroline Cossack; nor had she received a social security number or a driver's license.

Melinda Waters had received a card at age fifteen, but she'd never driven in California or worked or contributed payroll tax. Which made sense if she'd died young. But no certificate on her, either.

"Disappeared," I said. "Melinda probably died the same night Janie did, and Caroline's either very well hidden or she expired, too, and the family hushed it up."

"Hidden as in hospitalized?"

"Or just watched carefully. Rich kid like that, she'd have a trust fund, could be living in some Mediterranean villa with twenty-four-hour supervision."

He began pacing. "Little Miss Nowhere… but at some point, when she was a kid, she had to have an identity. Be interesting to pinpoint when exactly she lost it."

"School records," I said. "Living in Bel Air would've meant Palisades or University High if the Cossacks chose public school. Beverly, if they played fast and loose with residency forms. On the private side, there'd be Harvard-Westlake- which was Westlake School for Girls, back then- or Marlborough, Buckley, John Thomas Dye, Crossroads."

He flipped open his pad, scrawled notes.

"Or," I added, "a school for troubled kids."

"Any particular place come to mind?"

"I was in practice back then, can recall three very high-priced spreads. One was in West L.A., the others were in Santa Monica and the Valley- North Hollywood."

"Names?"

I recited, and he got back on the phone. Santa Monica Prep was defunct, but Achievement House in Cheviot Hills and Valley Educational Academy in North Hollywood were still in business. He reached both schools but hung up frowning.

"No one'll give me the time of day. Confidentiality and all that."

"Schools don't enjoy confidentiality privileges," I said.

"You ever deal with either of the places, professionally?"

"I visited Achievement House, once," I said. "The parents of a boy I was seeing kept holding the place over the kid's head as a threat. 'If you don't shape up, we'll send you to Achievement House.' That seemed to scare him, so I dropped by to see what spooked him. Talked to a so-cial worker, got the five-minute tour. Converted apartment building near Motor and Palms. What stuck in my mind was how small it was- maybe twenty-five, thirty kids boarding in, meaning it had to cost a fortune. No snake pit that I could see. Later, I talked to my patient and turns out what he was worried about was stigmatization. Being thought of as a 'weirdo-geek-loser.' "

"Achievement House had a bad reputation?"

"In his mind, any special placement had a bad reputation."

"Did he get sent there?"

"No, he ran away, wasn't seen for years."

"Oh," he said.

I smiled. "Don't you mean 'Ah'?"

He laughed. Got himself grapefruit juice, opened the freezer and stared at the vodka bottle but changed his mind. "Ran away. Your version of loose ends."

"Loose ends were a big part of my life, back then," I said. "The price of an interesting job. As it turns out, this particular kid made it okay."

"He stayed in touch?"

"He called after his second child was born. Ostensibly to ask about how to handle sibling jealousy. He ended up apologizing for being a surly teen. I told him he had nothing to be sorry about. Because I'd finally learned the whole story from his mother. His older brother had been molesting him since he was five."

His face got hard. "Family values." He paced some more, finished his juice, washed the glass, got back on the phone. Contacting Palisades and University and Beverly Hills High Schools, then the private institutions. Putting on the charm, claiming to be conducting an alumnus search for Who's Who.