The Big Nowhere

Chapter Fifteen

Da

Twenty-four hours in, he had this:

No ID on victims two and three; Doc Layman, as a City pathologist, was privy to Hollywood Squad summary reports and would be calling when and if the bodies got names. He had already called to say that Sergeant Gene Niles was heading the LAPD investigation, deemed it lowball and was short-shrifting it so that he could return to a fur warehouse robbery that promised some newspaper ink to make up for the Brenda Allen smear that cost him his wife and kids. Uniformed cops were rousting winos in Griffith Park and getting nowhere; Niles himself had rubberhosed two Sterno jockeys with child molester jackets. Layman’s seventeen-page autopsy report—which did tag the smaller of the two men as dying of a barbiturate OD—was ignored by Niles and the handful of uniformed flunkies detached to work under him. The Doc was convinced that a “Reverse Black Dahlia Syndrome” was in effect—the three stiffs found so far had received a total of four i

Captain Dietrich had heard him out yesterday, facts, theories, omissions, lies and his giant lie—the doughnut stand whopper to cover him on 2307 Tamarind, still unreported. He’d nodded along, then said he’d try to get the interagency ball rolling with LAPD. Sheriff’s dicks were out of the question—the three other men on the station squad were deluged and the County Detective Bureau would deem the Goines job too Mickey Mouse and messy now that City cops were involved. He had a pal working Hollywood daywatch—a lieutenant named Poulson who’d stayed tight with Mickey C. despite Brenda A. He’d talk to the man about the two departments putting a Homicide team together, and again stated that he thought it would come down to the quality of the victims. If two and three were hopheads, ex-cons or queers— forget it. If they were squarejohns—maybe. And unless the case got some juice, with an LAPD/LASD team formed, he was off it in ten days, Martin Mitchell Goines, DOD 1/1/50 tossed into the open file.

On his evidence gathered at 2307 Tamarind:

With two exceptions, just repeat stuff, what Hans Maslick called “double negatives to prove positives.” He had gotten an unknown set of prints that matched with the taller dead man’s missing finger; Layman had also rolled both stiffs. The white paste residue he bagged was obviously the denture adhesive that led Doc to his 99 percent sure denture theory. Leo Bordoni did not touch print-sustaining surfaces while he was in the room; the three sets of clothes had to be left behind in case the killer was captured and specifically confessed to leaving them folded atop the toilet. The dust and dirt trace elements were useless until he got a suspect to run comparisons on—leaving him only two jumps on LAPD and the killer: his photos of the blood streaks and his chance to canvass Tamarind Street solo if the City bulls softpedaled their investigation. Nightmares and big jeopardy.

After leaving the morgue yesterday, he drove to a camera shop and paid quadruple the normal fee to have his rolls of film developed immediately. The man at the counter looked askance at his raggedy state but took his money; he waited while the job was done. The camera man handed the prints and negatives over an hour later, commenting, “Them walls what you call modern art?” He’d laughed and laughed and laughed himself home—his chuckles dying out when he tacked the photos to a corkboard evidence display he’d erected beside his file boxes.

Blood in glossy black and white was jarring, u

Dentures.

His one hard lead to come out of victims two and three.

Not human.

They could be steel teeth, they could be plastic teeth, they could be teeth ripped out of animal carcasses. The next investigatory step was a complete paper chase: men capable of making dentures cross-probed against “tall, middle-aged,” “grayhaired,” “O+ blood” and time frame opportunity.

Needles in a haystack.

Yesterday, he had taken his first step, checking dental lab listings in the seventeen separate LA City/County Yellow Pages. There were a total of 349, plus, in consideration of a possible animal carcass angle, 93 taxidermists’ shops. A phone call to a lab picked at random and a long talk with a cooperative foreman got him this information: the 349 number was low; LA was the big league for the denture industry. Some labs didn’t advertise in the Yellow Pages; some dentists had denture makers working in their offices. If a man worked on human dentures he could apply the same skills to animal or plastic teeth. He didn’t know of any labs that specialized in animal choppers, good luck Deputy Upshaw, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

It was a ride to the Station then. Karen Hiltscher was just swinging back on duty; he brought candy and flowers to chill down her curiosity over Tamarind and any poutiness for the largest deluge of shitwork he’d ever tossed her way: all individual station and Sheriff’s Bureau files checked for men with dental lab work histories, plus eliminations against blood type and physical description; calls started to his list of dental labs for breakdowns of male workers with the same physical stats. The girl took the goodies while a group of muster room loungers guffawed; she seemed hurt and miffed, didn’t mention 2307 and agreed in a Bette Davis bitch pout to make the queries in her “spare time.” He didn’t press; she knew she had gained the upper hand on him.

Da

No contest. Da