Alex Delaware: Evidence Part 34

"Definitely a male?"

"Why? You got a bad girl in your sights?"

"Square in our sights. Looks like she burned down the big house early this morning."

"The same one?" said Kammen. "Where the bodies were?"

"Yup."

"Whoa, it's complicated out in L.A. What time did the house fry?"

"Three a.m."

"Then Hoodie's not your torch, no way he could be here close to midnight and get back in time. You can't get a direct flight out of here that late and even if you made it to Seattle, what with drive time and airport time and two-plus hours of fly time? I'll send you the tape so you can judge for yourself, but this is a guy. Unless your bad girl has broad shoulders and humongous hands and walks like a guy." Chuckle. "Then again, you're in L.A."

Milo said, "I'm sure you're right, but our girl does have theoretical access to a private jet."

"Oh," said Kammen. "Yeah, you're L.A. But even so, it would be a h.e.l.l of a squeeze. Tell you what, though, I'll call general aviation at our airport, see who flew in and out and from where."

"Thanks."

"h.e.l.l of a thing, someone beating us to the storage bin. We would've gone in at a normal time but we didn't want the husband to show up. Can't help it if the G.o.ds weren't smiling. Bye."

The car grew silent.

I said, "Two people do the murder, two people manage the arson and recover the money. Maybe Helga's not as antisocial as she claims."

"d.i.c.k and Jane murder duet?"

"Down from a quartet. Helga paid Backer and Doreen to torch Teddy's real estate. Gave them a cash deposit, meaning the total payment might have been more."

"Six-figure job, no shortage of motivation," said Milo. "Helga hires them but in the process learns enough about arson to make the two of them unnecessary and gets rid of them. Then she sends her buddy to get the dough back. How would she know where Backer stashed it?"

"That's the kind of info a fellow might divulge when bargaining for his life. Or watching his girlfriend get raped by a gun. Same for the location of the storage locker key. If Backer was carrying it on his person, that made it even easier."

"h.e.l.luva lot of effort to burn down a heap of wood." Reaching back, he retrieved his attache case, found the Gemein family photo.

I said, "Helga lied to everyone about applying for the Kraeker expansion contract. The place means something to her, maybe because that party was the last time the family was together. As cold as she is, she loved her sister. Dahlia may have been the only person she ever loved. Take that away, you focus your anger, destroy what you can."

"Sutma. For all we know, Helga's got a secret religious side, gets off on visions of Teddy never entering heaven." He studied the shot some more. "Look at how they're positioned: Dahlia's standing away from the rest of them."

"But she's also standing closer to Helga than to Mom."

"Maybe that's 'cause Mom looks like she's got all the charm of frozen halibut. Dad, on the other hand is more ... cod. And Helga's our shark." Grinning. "How's that for dime-store psychoa.n.a.lysis? What I'm wondering is whether the revenge plot is Helga's thing or a family affair."

"We can't eliminate Mom and Dad's involvement, and one way or the other it's family money that funds Helga's lifestyle. Dahlia's, too, including this house, which is immaculately maintained. Be interesting if the neighbors remember any of the Gemeins living here."

"We'll start canva.s.sing soon as the house is cleared." Another glance at the little colonial. "Only thing missing is the picket fence."

Checking his watch, he followed up with the bomb squad. They were a couple of minutes away, arriving with high-tech toys and three of their best canines.

A couple of minutes turned into fifteen. Then, twenty-five. Milo fidgeted, smoked, made another call. One of the high-tech toys needed last-ditch tinkering. Milo spat out an expletive, bounded out of the car, and began knocking on doors. I caught up.

Ten minutes later, three neighbors had confirmed that Helga Gemein lived in the house, but they'd seen no sign of any other occupants.

A rangy woman sucking on a pink Nat Sherman said, "She changes her looks. One day it's blond, the other day it's brunette, next time it's red. I figured her for an actress, or trying to be."

Back at the car, Milo said, "Whole collection of wigs. So why the h.e.l.l would she shave her head in the first place?"

"Maybe a rite of self-denial," I said.

"Giving up hair for Lent?"

"Or until she got the job done."

The bomb squad arrived, checked out the perimeter, returned to the front. The red door was unlocked and pushed open with a long pole, everyone standing back.

No explosion.

A lieutenant stuck his head in, ventured inside, came out giving the thumbs-up.

The dogs ambled in. The dogs were interested.

CHAPTER.

29.

Dahlia Gemein was gone but the house remained hers in spirit.

Lacy linens, pastel walls, a cheerful country kitchen that looked as if it had never been used. Cute little wicker tables were crowded with cute little gla.s.s figurines; clear preference for dolphins and monkeys. Half a dozen amateurishly daubed, pale blue abstractions bore a Dahlia signature. A tiny golden sun dotted the i.

Drawers and closets were filled with expensive clothing, much of it bearing German or French labels. No family photos, but two nail holes in the center hallway said something had been removed.

Despite the girlie decor, the house felt hollow, temporary.

The dogs had sat down in nearly every room, prompting a five-hour search that unearthed nothing in the furnished s.p.a.ces. But a vacuum of an empty bedroom produced coppery lint among the meager dust. Barely visible to the eye, the snippets of metal had been sucked up from the crack between the floor and the shoe molding. The bomb tech's best guess was granulated waste from clipped wires and when the dogs really took a liking to the adjoining bathroom, a forensic plumber was summoned.

It didn't take long for him to find remnants of a petroleum-based gelatinous substance: rubbery remnants sc.r.a.ped from the drainpipe of the sink.

"Like someone washed their hands of the stuff," opined a bomb-squad cop. "Like that gal in the play, Lady Macbeth."

Milo said, "That a.s.sumes our gal feels guilty. More likely, she just wanted to be squeaky-clean after a hard day's work."

The bomb guy said, "You're figuring this was her chem lab?"

"You're not?"

"I'd expect more trace, no matter how well she scrubbed up."

"The dogs like it here."

"The dogs can sniff half an atom divided by a zillion. She tracks in a molecule, they'll react. To me this feels more like the place she came home to after the chem lab. If I were you, I'd keep looking. Maybe tube your suspect on the six o'clock and see if anyone recognizes her."

Milo phoned Public Affairs. A lieutenant there said, "This is something I'm going to have to check out with the bosses."

"Why?"

"Foreigner? Big money? You really need to ask?"

Ambitious fingerprinting and DNA swabbing by the crime lab techies continued into the evening. Plenty of hits in all the expected places, at least six different print patterns but a predominance of two. If Dahlia and Helga Gemein were ever found, chemistry would confirm what was already known.

The VINs of the Boxster and the bike in the garage matched vehicles Dahlia Gemein had registered three years ago. The paper on both had lapsed. DMV had sent a couple of reminders before consigning the matter to the black hole of government records.

Nothing but oil stains in the otherwise spotless garage. The dogs walked through the s.p.a.ce nonchalantly.

The bomb guy said, "She wanted to set up shop, this would be a perfect place. I'd definitely be looking elsewhere."

Milo gave a courtesy call to Gayle Lindstrom, was pleased to get voice mail. He tried Reed. "Finished with Meneng?"

"Long finished and back at the station, Loo."

"How'd lunch go?"

"I suggested a coffee shop, she pushed for the Pacific Dining Car on Sixth, ran up an eighty-dollar bill. Surf and turf, plus all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs but no new info."

"Big appet.i.te for a small girl."

"She doggie-bagged nearly all of it, talked the whole time about wanting to be an actress," said Reed. "I think she gave it all up to you."

Milo said, "The good news is one way or the other, you'll get reimbursed for the grub. The bad news is 'the other' might mean Uncle Milo sh.e.l.ling out."

"No way, Loo. It was my decision."

"You bet way, Moses, Uncle Milo takes care of his troops. The other good news is I won't snitch to Dr. Wilkinson about you chomping steak with a hottie."

"I had soda water," said Reed. "The eighty was all her. She'll probably get a week of calories out of that doggie bag. So what do you want me to do next?"

"Start a real estate search for any properties owned by the sultan of Sranil, we already know Teddy has nothing obvious on file."

"Local or national?"

"Start local, work your way out. I'm sure His Imperial Poobah is layered up thicker than a Sherpa in winter, but we need to try. Start with Masterson, tell the battleax who works the phones that someone's on the rampage against their star client, but don't say who. Also, have Sean do a few drive-bys on Borodi and the surrounding streets, just in case La Balda returns to the scene."

"You figure she might've gotten a s.e.xual thrill from the torch?"

"This was personal, Moses, there's all kinds of thrills."

He got out to check on the crime scene techs. An hour or so more. As he returned to the car, Officer Chris Kammen rang in.

No planes from Southern California had flown in last night to the general aviation section of the Port Angeles airport. Kammen had taken the extra step and checked with SeaTac: Not a single flight to L.A., Burbank, or Ontario departed late enough to accommodate the luggage thief's near-midnight departure from the storage unit, let alone the drive to Seattle.

"So you're definitely dealing with two separate suspects, Hood-boy could've blown into our town at any time. We're no L.A. but we don't have the available manpower to search every dark corner. Specially without what the city council calls a compelling reason."

"Fair enough," said Milo. "Once I get a suspect, we can cross-reference."

"Hey," said Kammen. "Optimism. I once read about that."

Milo's second try at Public Affairs was met with a secretary's curt "We're working on your request."

"Working, how?"

"You'll be notified in due time, Lieutenant."

Clicking off, he muttered, "Time to pole-vault over their little pea-heads," and dialed Deputy Chief Weinberg to press for a news feed featuring Helga Gemein's photo. Toning down the spiel he'd given Judge LaVigne, he made it through one sentence before Weinberg broke in.

"P.A. already called me. Don't play games."

"No one's told me anything, sir."

"Guess there's nothing to tell," said Weinberg.

"The answer's no?"

"You can't be serious, Sturgis."

"Given what we found at the house, it seems the next logical step-"

"A foreign national? From a prominent family? You're asking me to create an international terrorist scare on the basis of copper dust?"

"It's more than a scare, sir. My suspect's already killed three people."

"I haven't heard evidence linking her to any murders. Even on your arson, it's all air. A woman jogging? Pardon me if I'm not awestruck. And even if she did do the torch, what does that come down to? Getting rid of an eyesore the neighbors are happy to see gone. Wire dust and something goopy in a pipe? For all we know, it's rubber cement, she liked putting together model airplanes."

"The dogs reacted, sir."

"I love dogs," said Weinberg. "But they're not infallible. What if she spilled kerosene trying to clean off beach tar? Believe me, that would make them sit on their little canine rumps."