Chapter 46
The next morning Morris brought Parker along with him to Stonehedge’s Malibu address, and as promised the actor prepared an early breakfast of bacon, farm-fresh scrambled eggs, and waffles with strawberries that he grew himself and a sauce made out of Vermont maple syrup, melted butter, and Grand Marnier. Morris had to admit the bacon was damn good. Thicker cut, smokier, and tastier than he’d ever had. Parker concurred as he attacked with vigor the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon that Stonehedge put down for him, and didn’t want to give up on it even after it appeared that he’d come close to licking the enamel off the plate. The waffles were also damn good. When Morris asked why that was, the actor winked and told him it was a recipe he’d gotten in Paris, and the chef had sworn him to secrecy. Morris didn’t push it. They were good, but nothing he couldn’t live without. He wondered how a guy who liked good food as much as Stonehedge kept so lean. A supercharged metabolism. If it was being chemically helped, Morris hadn’t seen any evidence of it.
Brie Evans joined them, but she stuck to coffee. She seemed exceptionally brittle, as if those girls’ deaths were weighing heavily on her. Even so, she was gorgeous. Maybe her melancholy made her even more so. Morris asked her about what she’d picked up from Courtney Williams, and he didn’t get much more than what Stonehedge had already told him, only that she thought Courtney had started acting anxious that night shortly before ten o’clock.
“Any guesses why?”
Her soft brown eyes fixed on Morris’s flinty gray ones. “She had plans to meet someone. I’m sure of it.”
“You didn’t ask her about it?”
She shook her head.
“Williams didn’t drop any hints about her plans?”
The actress offered him a sad, subdued smile. “Nothing,” she said.
So that was it. Very likely Courtney Williams had made plans to meet with the killer at ten, but maybe not. At least it gave Morris an investigative thread to pull on.
After breakfast Brie offered to drive Parker to the town beach while Stonehedge and Morris looked at the surveillance video. They spent an hour doing that, fast-forwarding at times, rewinding, looking at the edges of when the girls arrived and when they left. While the video showed some cars passing by the quiet, remote Malibu road, it didn’t show anyone lurking in the bushes. Stonehedge moved the video to a flash drive for Morris, who, after nodding thanks, left to collect Parker. He found the dog sunning on the deck and looking pooped.
“He spent forty-five minutes attacking the waves,” Brie explained. She looked to be in better spirits. An hour alone with Parker could do that to someone. “He’s a tough little guy, but in the end the waves kept knocking him on his butt.”
“He must’ve spotted a school of mackerel, and thought he’d do some fishing. Maybe he thought that’s where Philip’s world-class bacon came from.”
Brie laughed, and Parker’s ears perked up at the word bacon.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “In any case, I hosed the saltwater and sand off of him and he should be dry now.”
Morris thanked her for the dog-sitting and coaxed a reluctant Parker to his feet. He couldn’t blame the dog. Given a choice of catching some rays in Malibu with a gorgeous actress or hunting a crazed serial killer, almost any sane person or dog would make the same choice.
* * *
Morris was a half hour away from MBI with Parker snoozing on the passenger seat when he stopped at a red light. He was going to use the opportunity to call Walsh, but she beat him to the punch.
“I was just going to call you,” he said.
“And yet I was faster on the draw.” She paused a beat, told him she was at MBI waiting for him, then added, “I heard this morning from Detective Wringer at Malibu PD. The alibis for everyone at Fineries check out.”
“Not a big surprise,” Morris said.
“Not much of one.”
“Unless one of them was in Seattle last Tuesday.”
“Only if you assume the same killer is responsible for all the murders,” Walsh responded.
“Ah, you’re a skeptic.”
“And you’re a true believer.”
The light turned green and traffic started rolling again. The woman in the silver Mercedes next to Morris gave him a nasty look for being on his cell phone. He ignored her.
“It all fits, Annie,” he said.
“I know that we can create a convincing narrative so it does. But Morris, it could also turn out to be a coincidence where we have two or more psychos at work. We’ve both seen stranger things during our time on the force.” A heavy sigh rumbled out of her. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. Odds are it’s going to be one guy responsible. I’m just saying we should work these murders in Malibu independently of the others. If the murders in Seattle, Roseburg, or San Luis Obispo lead us to our killer, great, but I don’t want anything slipping through the cracks.”
“Nothing’s going to slip past us. We’re catching him. Sooner than later.”
“I hope so. Why were you going to call me?”
Morris told her about the girls spending the evening at Stonehedge’s, and Brie Evans’s observation regarding Courtney Williams.
“You think she invited the killer to the property?”
“It’s worth checking out. We need her recent credit-card charges and cell-phone records. Dickerson didn’t offer the house to Mia until Friday morning, so we’re talking a small window where Williams—or any of the other three—could’ve met the killer and invited him to join the party. If it was Williams, and we can trace her to a bar or restaurant or coffee shop during that window, we might find where she met the killer.”
“We’ve got all of their cell phones. I talked with forensics this morning. There’s nothing on the phones that’s going to help us. They were a tight clique, and all of their calls and texts from Friday through Saturday were to each other.”
“Credit-card records, then.”
“I’ve already put in a request for all of their banking and credit-card records.”
“Push Hadley harder. Let him earn his hefty paycheck for once. We’re on a clock here, Annie. This psycho is going to be killing again soon.”
“I know.” She let out another heavy sigh. This one deeply felt. “I’ll bug Hadley. I’m sure he’ll love me for that.”
“If nothing else, he should respect your initiative. I’ve got more surveillance video for us to give your video-forensics people. This is from outside Stonehedge’s gate. I didn’t see anything, but maybe they’ll spot something.”
The patrolmen, when they canvassed the area, collected surveillance video from all the nearby houses. In that neighborhood, everybody other than the property where the girls were killed seemed to have surveillance video. That property would’ve normally had video also, but Dickerson hadn’t turned on security yet.
“You’re thinking the killer was staking out Philip Stonehedge’s home, and decided to go after those girls instead?”
“I’m thinking it’s a possibility, but I’m also thinking the odds are better the killer went to Malibu that night to kill those girls. But as you said, we can’t let anything slip through the cracks.”
“Okay. I’m going to call Hadley now and pester him. I’ll let you know when I get those records.”
Walsh disconnected the call on her end. Morris soon found himself smiling. It wasn’t much, but the image of Hadley’s beefy, round face reddening with annoyance was at least something.
The nap had done Parker a world of good, and the bull terrier seemed his usual clownish self by the time Morris pulled into his reserved space at work.
Walsh was waiting for them when Morris and Parker walked into MBI’s lobby. She showed her best poker face, but Morris knew she had something. He raised an eyebrow.
She said, “What do you think, Divine’s on Vine a likely place for a twenty-two-year-old girl to give a guy on the make her phone number, maybe even invite him to crash a party in Malibu?”
Morris smiled thinly. “Hadley came through for once?”
“No. Let’s not have any crazy talk. I got the credit-card reports from Felger. I didn’t ask him how he got it.”
“Smart. I never ask him, either. Some things we’re just better off not knowing. To answer your earlier question, I’d have to think Divine’s would be a perfect place for that.”
“That’s my thought also.” Her green eyes glistened like emeralds right then, and a hard smirk twisted her lips. “Courtney Williams had a hundred-and-sixty-eight-dollar charge at Divine’s that was put through Friday night at eight-fifty-seven.”
“What time do they open?”
“Eleven.”
Morris checked his watch. It was a quarter to ten, and Divine’s was no more than a fifteen-minute ride.
“Let’s head over,” he said. “See if we can talk to them before they start letting in customers.”