John Penley’s work area consisted of two battered metal desks pushed together so that he faced his new partner, Detective Paula Newberry. The two desks were a study of contrasts in organization and individual styles. They reflected the personalities of their respective occupants. Penley’s well-ordered desktop had files stacked neatly in one corner with his computer angled precisely on the opposite corner. The blotter in the center held a single binder and a notepad. Paula’s desk looked like a photo from a FEMA disaster area. Crime-scene photos, computer printouts, reports, and files littered the surface. Her computer keyboard balanced precariously atop an overfilled in-box, and four paper coffee cups incubated a filmy layer over coagulated coffee remnants.
John and Paula were partners of last resort. She came from internal affairs after a short but rocky assignment investigating other officers, and most detectives welcomed her like a communicable disease. Paula was an outsider in a world that valued having your partner’s back above all else. The lieutenant paired them up, and his only direction to Paula was to “leave the IA baggage behind.”
Paula perched in an old desk chair she rescued from a thrift store. The chair lifted her five-three frame so that she could work at her desk without feeling like she was at the kids’ table at Thanksgiving. Most of her personal belongings rested in a box under her desk, uncertain if, or when, they would find a permanent place to rest. She examined a series of photos of the Cardozo crime scene she had placed on a whiteboard on the wall behind her desk. Paula didn’t look away from the graphic images of the mutilated torso when John Penley entered.
“Let me guess—Manny Contreras says he didn’t do it,” Paula said.
“That’s right. I’m thinking he might be playing it straight on this one. When did you get back home?”
“It was a five-hour drive to San Luis Obispo. You know they call that prison the ‘men’s colony’? Sounds nice, huh? Anyway, five hours down, ten minutes of testimony at a lifer hearing, then turn around and drive five more hours. I haven’t been home yet.”
“Is this the guy who killed his neighbor over an argument about their backyard fence? Is the Board of Parole Hearings gonna release him?”
Paula shrugged. “Don’t know. He’s old and sick, so they might give him a date. But anyway, about Contreras, he always has some angle going. What makes you believe him now?”
“If our victim was laying down on the gang business—and we’d have to get the Yolo County sheriff and West Sac. PD to confirm that—then I don’t see any benefit to a hit on Cardozo.”
“Why would Cardozo end up this way”—she gestured to the photos—“if it wasn’t about him?”
John lowered himself into the chair behind his desk and made sure that the notepad and files remained in place on the desktop. “Manny thought that Cardozo was onto a big score or something,”
“Like what?”
“He claimed he didn’t know. Some kind of job,” John said.
“Our other victims, Johnson and Mercer, didn’t have any score going on—anything we know about anyway. They were gang members, like Cardozo. All three ran with different gangs but had the same lifestyle.”
“Hustling, moving a little meth, some protection racket action. All the usual stuff.” John pointed at the photos from the Cardozo crime scene. “That is not your typical gang killing.”
“I don’t need the medical examiner’s official report to tell me Cardozo, Johnson, and Mercer were all killed by the same guy. We haven’t leaked the details of the murders, but this,” she said, pointing to a photo of the open carcass, “is our guy’s signature.”
“Question is, what’s our guy do with the parts he doesn’t leave behind?” John asked.
Paula swiveled in her chair. “Other than sending a message to gangbangers?”
“What? You think our killer is cleaning up the city? I mean, sure these victims had gang ties, but why them? They weren’t the worst of the worst.”
“Maybe he’s a vigilante, making a statement about gangs. Cardozo ran with the West Block Norteños, Mercer was a Crip, and Johnson was a Skinhead. I’d say it was a little equal opportunity roadside cleanup, except for the way they were mutilated,” she said.
“If this was gang on gang, we’d have heard about it. If this is some kind of gang move, what does it mean when the killer leaves you behind without your arms, legs, and gooey bits? Did the profile the lieutenant got from the FBI mention anything?”
Paula pulled a thick file folder from one of the piles on her desk, which caused a mini–paper avalanche. She ignored the disarray, thumbed open the file, and glanced at the contents. “The usual psychobabble about a loner with narcissistic tendencies. Here we go—the profiler said the mutilation could be symbolic of a ‘psychic injury’ experienced by the subject, or displaced rage. Killers who display their victims in this manner often experience abandonment by parental figures.”
“Doesn’t tell us much we didn’t know.”
“Other than he may have ‘mommy issues.’”
“The lieutenant told them about the gang connection on the first two victims, right?” John said.
She flipped a page, ran a finger down the print. “Yeah, the profiler said further field intelligence from the gang unit is needed to rule out racially motivated gang activity. Get this: ‘Considering the symbolic nature of the mutilation, investigators should consider the victims were chosen specifically. The killer literally spilled their guts, indicating they may have been seen as informants.’”
“Cardozo takes the racial angle off the table. Black, white, and now Hispanic victims. From my dealings with Cardozo, I didn’t take him for a snitch. Contreras seemed to back that up.”
“Would Contreras tell you if dearly departed Daniel Cardozo was an informant? If he wasn’t, then we have a killer taking out gang members at random. How do you warn anyone when you don’t know what the killer wants? I’m not ready to admit this guy is a Zodiac or Son of Sam targeting gangsters at random.”
“How can you work like that?” John said, indicating her desk.
“What are you, my mother? I have a system that works for me—that’s what matters.”
“Your desk looks like an episode of Hoarders. It—”
“Rubs your OCD the wrong way? Get over it.” She flicked her hand dismissively.
“I’d hate to see your house. I hope you have GPS on your cell phone so the rescue crews can find you when you get lost in your living room.”
“Are you done?”
“For now.”
Paula glanced back at the file in her hand. “We interviewed the Johnson and Mercer next of kin for any connection to one another. I seriously doubt they ran in the Yolo County gang circles with Cardozo. Maybe Cardozo’s wife can tell us something about Daniel’s decision to turn his back on the homeboys. That had to have pissed off someone.”
“Maybe,” John said. “Manny Contreras thought it had nothing to do with the West Block Norteños.”
“What else is he gonna say?” Paula swung her hands open wide to emphasize her point, knocked her computer keyboard off its perch, and sent it clattering to the floor.
“Would you at least get rid of those coffee cups before they spill all over the files?”
Paula retrieved the keyboard and tossed it on the desktop, where it toppled over one of the paper cups. The thick, dark-brown sludge remained solidly adhered to the bottom reaches of the container. She grabbed it along with the others that littered her work area and disposed of them in her trash can. Paula held the can up. “Happy now?”
“A little.”
“As I was saying, Contreras and all his gang buddies will say nothing to implicate Daniel Cardozo in their business. The Yolo County DA would swarm all over them for any violations of the injunction.”
“Were you able to locate who reported finding the body?”
“An anonymous caller. Didn’t call nine-one-one but called in on a direct line to the watch commander.”
“So no recording?”
“And no trace on the number. The caller said where to find the body, and the first black-and-white found Contreras. No one else was there,” Paula said.
“What time was the call?”
“Four fifteen in the morning.”
John’s desk phone rang, and he picked it up. “Penley.”
He listened to the caller and shifted his eyes to Paula. “Where can we meet?” Another pause, then he said, “How about thirty minutes? Fine—see you then.”
“That was Cardozo’s wife. Manny Contreras told her that she should call us and talk.”
“You mean he told her what to say. We should pull Contreras back in for obstruction. He’s tainted our investigation talking to the next of kin,” Paula said.
“Why don’t we hear what she has to say before you go all medieval on his ass? She sounded like she wanted to talk—”
“Oh, she will. Whatever Manny told her to say.”
“I’m interested in what she knows about Mercer and Johnson. If she can lead us to a connection there, I don’t care what Contreras told her.”
“Where we meeting her?” Paula stood and grabbed her jacket from a pile of shoes and sweats on the floor behind her desk.
John opened a desk drawer and removed a fresh notebook, tucking it in his jacket pocket. “She’s staying with her mom, here in Sacramento. The projects off Broadway.”
Paula shrugged into her jacket. “Neutral territory, at least.”