Marge yawned and rubbed her hands together. It was still dark, dawn a good half hour away, as she sat in the passenger seat of the unmarked and listened to static coming over the squawk box. Not a lot of calls at this hour. Even perps got tired.
She stared out the windshield. The Mercedes 450 SL now had company—three cruisers flashing their blues, a meat wagon, the police photographer’s Camry, a lab-tech van, and Pete’s old unmarked.
“You want your dinosaur mug back?” she said to Decker. “It’s in the trunk.”
Decker reclined the driver’s seat as far back as it could go. “Keep it.”
Marge said, “Prelim hair analysis of Ness and company should be done today. Maybe between that and this scene, we’ll come up with physical evidence that points a finger.”
“That’d be nice.” Decker put his hands behind his head. “Someone should search Merritt’s premises ASAP—his main office and his condo. See if we can’t find something. As far as questioning the family goes, Burbank will probably do that. It’s their jurisdiction. It’s a small department but they’ve got seven people in Crimes Against Persons who rotate into Homicide.”
“Homicide’s part of CAPS?”
“Yeah. The division’s too small for a separate Homicide detail. Anyway, the bureau’s sending out a duo. Guy I spoke to definitely wants it, but he’s happy to cooperate, especially after I explained the circumstances. They should be here in a few minutes.”
“What are their names?”
Decker pulled his notebook from his pocket. “I talked to a Justice Ferris.”
“Justice or Justin?”
“Justice—as in blind.” Decker sat up. “What a mess!”
“Should I go through all of Merritt’s patient files?”
“Yeah, we should start fresh … even though I think the crimes are related.”
“We have a robbery and rape and now a homicide.”
“A messy homicide. Not to mention a crazy horse.” Decker smoothed his mustache. “Marge, why had Lilah suddenly agreed to go out to dinner with Merritt after all these years?”
“Like she said, does she need an excuse to hook up with her brother? Especially after he called her in his soothing voice.”
Decker let out a small laugh.
“What?”
“Soothing voice,” Decker said. “When I talked to Goldin, he specifically used the word soothing to describe Kingston Merritt with his patients. Sounds like Merritt could be a charmer if he wanted to be.”
“Think he wanted something out of Lilah?” Marge said.
“Maybe.”
“You know, Pete, when I first met Merritt, he claimed he didn’t even know about the rape. He’d come to the spa at Davida’s request.”
Decker nodded. “So what kind of business could Merritt have with Davida?”
“Who said they had any business, Rabbi? Maybe he was just paying Ma a visit.”
“Didn’t Merritt say his mother called him down?”
“Yeah.”
Decker said, “He had business with Davida. And then after all these years, he suddenly wanted to reconcile with his sister. I’m beginning to put more credence in Freddy Brecht’s words. I think Davida and Merritt were up to something. I think Merritt wanted something out of Lilah.”
“Pete, he was genuinely upset by Lilah’s attack.”
“Or he just faked it well. Acting’s in the genes.”
Marge said, “I’ve seen everything, so I’ll believe anything. But my gut is telling me Kingston didn’t rape his own sister.”
“But say he had something to do with the theft. Like I said before, someone hired thugs and they raped Lilah as an afterthought.”
Marge stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out a stick of gum. “Okay, let’s assume Merritt was behind the burglary.”
Decker said, “The only two things we know about in the safe are the jewels and the papers, right? So let’s run with the jewels first. Assume Merritt stole the jewels for money. He was always hard up according to Brecht and his bank account was none too padded. Davida found out about it and that’s why they were meeting at the spa. She wanted her jewels back. Merritt played innocent, Davida got mad and had her own kid whacked. That would explain the robbery and Merritt’s death. If Merritt hired thugs, it could possibly explain the rape.” He paused. “Only problem with that scenario is that if Davida had Merritt whacked, she still wouldn’t get her jewels back.”
“Someone tossed his office, Pete. Maybe someone was looking for them.”
“But only Merritt’s office was tossed. Not the front office, not the ORs.”
Marge said, “If I were Davida and I wanted my jewels and I suspected my son of lifting them, I’d just turn him in to the police.”
“She didn’t want a family thing getting out.”
“But she was willing to murder for it? Draw attention to herself …”
Decker said, “Okay, scratch whacking Kingston for the jewels. I’m sleep-deprived and my ideas are fucked.”
Marge laughed.
“So let’s run with the memoirs,” Decker said. “Keep it basic. Say Merritt stole the memoirs. We know how Lilah felt about the papers. And I remember Lilah telling me that her mother had a fit when Davida found out about them. Suppose Davida wanted them, too. Merritt decided to play the two of them against each other—very easy to do because mother and daughter are in pit-bull competition. Merritt’s twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the highest bidder, holding out for big bucks. That’s why he’s in sudden communication with mother and sister.”
Marge considered his reasoning. “Then we’d have to assume that there’s something very important in those memoirs—probably something damaging to Davida. And we’d have to assume that King knows there’s something very damaging. How would he know what the damaging thing is if the memoirs were in Lilah’s possession all these years?”
“He stole the memoirs and read them.”
“But why bother stealing them unless he already knew there was something juicy in them, Pete? Something that Davida would be willing to pay money for.”
Decker’s brain was buzzing. Slow down. Don’t have to make sense out of all of it. Just try to make sense out of some of it.
“How about this?” Decker said. “Merritt is hard up for cash so he has thugs steal the jewels. The thugs steal the jewels, rape Lilah, and maybe the inner safe was open so they take the memoirs, too. What the hey. Merritt reads the memoirs. Bingo, he has something more valuable than the jewels—something negotiable.”
Marge said, “Okay, he knew that Davida would pay big bucks for the memoirs. Why would Lilah pay bucks for them?”
“Because Merritt knew that Lilah was obsessed with her father, Marge. You should have heard the way she talked about him. She idolizes him. Her first husband told me she felt the same way back when he was married to her.” Decker paused. “So Merritt’s setting the women against each other, one of them gets sick of the game playing and has him whacked.”
Marge didn’t respond.
“I’m just talking off the top of my head,” Decker said. “You know, we haven’t even thought about Freddy Brecht. He really hated Merritt.”
“Brecht’s hatred seems long-standing. Why would he suddenly murder now