Isaac Gomez had sent me an e-mail.
Dear Dr. D,
These are the open homicides with male victims that I was able to find for the time periods you specified, listed in chronological order. I used a geographical criterion of a quarter-mile radius. No cases were found on your exact streets. There’d obviously be a much higher frequency of closed cases.
1. Cherokee Avenue Locus:
A. Rigoberto Alfredo Martinez, 19, gunshot wound to the head
B. Leland William Armbruster, 43, gunshot wound to the chest
C. Gerardo Escobedo, 22, multiple stab wounds to the chest
D. Christopher Blanding Stimple, 20, shotgun wounds to head and torso
2. Hudson Avenue Locus:
A. Wilfred Charles Hong, 43, multiple gunshot wounds to head and torso
3. Fourth Street Locus: no open homicides
4. Culver Boulevard Locus:
A. D’Meetri Antoine Stover, 34, gunshot wound to the torso
B. Thomas Anthony Beltran, 20, gunshot wounds to head and torso
C. Cesar Octavio Cruz, 21, gunshot wound to the head (Beltran and Cruz were murdered during the same incident)
Best wishes and good luck,
Isaac
I forwarded the text to Milo, busied myself with paperwork for a couple of hours, got no callback.
Maybe he’d really gotten into a vacation mode.
Maybe I should, too. No more work over the weekend.
But Sunday morning I was up early, scanning cyberspace for the killings Isaac had found. Wilfred Hong’s unsolved murder was noted on a diamond dealer’s Web site. Gory details and warnings for his colleagues, but no new facts. None of the Hollywood cases were listed but the dual murder of Cesar Cruz and Thomas Beltran received notice in the Times archive. Cruz and Beltran were members of Westside Venice Boyzz with long police records, and their murders were termed “a possible gang retaliation slaying.” I crossed them off, along with Hong.
I clicked away until noon, trying different approaches to the remaining cases, starting with those in the Cherokee Avenue zone. Nothing on three of them, but I unearthed notice of Christopher Blanding Stimple’s death in a newspaper morgue at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Stimple, a Philly native and high school athlete, had been eulogized in a brief, paid-for obituary. His demise was listed as “accidental while Chris was visiting California.”
The family sanitizing the details of a shotgun homicide? No reason to do that in a case of murder, but suicide could inspire shame. Maybe the coroner had closed the case as self-inflicted but that conclusion hadn’t found its way into LAPD records. In any event, I couldn’t see Patty Bigelow blasting a twenty-year-old man with two barrels and crossed off Stimple.
At four p.m., I took a punishing run, showered, made coffee, straightened the house. At six thirty, Robin’s truck pulled up in front of the house.
She jumped out and hugged me hard. “Why do we ever stay apart?”
Moist cheek. Tears weren’t often part of Robin’s repertoire. I tried to draw her face away for a kiss. She hugged me tighter.
I’d made dinner reservations at the Hotel Bel-Air. She said, “I love that place but would you be disappointed if we just stayed in?”
“Shattered and ground to dust.” I canceled and called out for Chinese from a place in Westwood Village.
As she unpacked, she said, “Where’s Blondie?”
“Sleeping.”
“Smart girl.”
She bathed, towel-dried her hair, put on some makeup, and emerged wearing a white sleeveless shift and nothing else. We were kissing in the kitchen when the food arrived. I overpaid the delivery boy, let the food go cold.
By nine, we were sitting near the pond, tossing random bits of egg roll and noodles to the koi.
“They’re Japanese,” she said. “But they sure go for Mandarin.”
“Diversity has made its mark everywhere.”
“Ha…this is so wonderful.” She winced, rubbed the side of her neck.
“Sore?”
“Stiff from all the driving.” Crooked smile. “Also, that last position.”
“New one on me, too,” I said. “Creative.”
“Nothing ventured.”
I got up and massaged her upper shoulders.
“That feels good…a little lower-lower-perfect…I learned one thing over the weekend. The whole convention thing is getting old.”
“Too much like school.”
“Not just the lectures,” she said. “The social scene, too-who’s making money, who’s sleeping with who.”
“You made serious money on the F5,” I said.
“Nice big check for a working girl but petty cash for Mr. Dot-Com.” She rolled her head. “A little lower, still-yes…maybe he’ll even learn to play.”
“Not a note?”
“Not even a bad one. After he paid me, he wanted to have dinner. Discuss the historical roots of luthiery.”
“Good line.”
“Not good enough. I stayed in my room and watched movies.” Crooked smile. “Not much plot, but some interesting positions.”
“So I’ve seen.”
“Honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
An hour later:
“It is good to be home.”
“Alex,” she said, “I’m the one who was gone.”
“Whatever.”