To Die For (9 page)

FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1994, 12:25 P.M.

This woman could have lived another twenty years, Greco thought as he peeled off the disposable paper jumpsuit, plastic apron, and mask. She was in amazing shape for a woman of 66. She didn't have an ounce of fat on her. She would have had a long life ahead of her if she hadn't been killed by this monster.

The amount of force the killer used to brutalize June was just sick. The way the phone cord was so tightly wrapped, it looked like she had been in a lot of pain. In a way, he hoped he never got over being upset by seeing that. He was disgusted by this killer and tormented by questions. Whose hand held the bottle? Whose hands grabbed June's neck and then coiled the telephone cord around it? Having no appetite for lunch, Greco drove straight back to the Department and booked the evidence from the autopsy—June's clothing and vials of her blood. The crime lab technician who took the photos would develop the film and deliver the prints next week.

Haunted by the images from the autopsy, Greco sat down at his desk to write his report. He had to write down the start time of the autopsy and the times when certain organs were examined, to summarize and describe the findings. Marianne Stam, the DOJ criminalist, had been right. At the crime scene, she had noticed purplish marks on June's neck that resembled fingernail marks. The pathologist found that June had died of manual and ligature strangulation as well as blunt force trauma to the head. At the crime scene, Greco saw that June bore no defensive wounds. The pathologist confirmed that. Greco typed it into his report. This killer had so overpowered June that she was unable even to fight back, leaving no scratching or bruising on her hands or forearms. If the marks on June's neck did come from fingernail marks, it was impossible to tell whether they were from the killer or from June trying to pull the cord off her neck, which would explain why she bore no defensive wounds. Greco thought June knew her killer. That would explain the lack of a forced entry and why June didn't try to get her gun.

When he finished, he worked on a few leads from the phone calls, did some follow-up on the theft of Norma's car in Los Angeles and tried calling Jeri several times. Still no answer. He was starting to get concerned. Maybe she and Russell went out of town for a few days. Greco decided to stay late and work on his other cases.

Marianne Stam called late in the day with some results from the crime lab. No discernible fingerprints from the June Roberts crime scene. That wasn't unusual. Despite the frequency with which TV detectives find perfect fingerprints, getting good ones is unusual in real life. Stam was about to examine the hair and fiber evidence but had forgotten to get control samples. Could Greco go back to June's house and get a few fibers of carpet from each room?

Greco said he would, but when he hung up the phone, his heart sank. The family was going to think he was an idiot. It was after 6 p.m. He wondered if they were still at the house. Greco hoped that maybe Linda or her sister would pick up the phone, but he was out of luck. He could practically hear Van Owen smirk when he told him what he wanted. Van Owen said he was glad Greco called, because Van Owen was going to call him anyway. He didn't say why. Greco said he would come out right away. This time, Greco's insecurities were tempered by his desire to be sympathetic to the families. They were entitled to a little anger, he reasoned, and some of it might get misdirected at him. He wanted to be understanding, reassuring.

When he got there, Van Owen suggested that he'd missed more evidence. Greco was horrified.

“We moved the couch and there was quite a bit of glass there,” he said, motioning to the shattered glass streaked with blood. Greco said he would collect it.

“Aren't you going to take the chair?” Van Owen said, nodding at the heavy chair to which June had been tied. Greco agreed immediately, even though he thought that the chair would yield nothing of evidentiary value. The criminalists had already tested the chair for blood—it was all June's—and fingerprints—there were none. He was there when the criminalists collected bloodstains from the chair. But he wanted to appease Van Owen. Using the evidence kit from his trunk, he picked up the glass first, then turned his attention to the chair. There was simply no way to pick it up without contaminating it: the chair was too large. He carried it out the door, down the driveway, and into his trunk, where it was certain to pick up carpet fiber and hair from his own car.

It was so big, it stuck out of his trunk. He used rope to tie the chair in the trunk and went back inside to collect the carpet fibers he'd come for in the first place. Van Owen had disappeared into the house somewhere. Greco quickly visited each room, pulled tufts of carpet fiber with tweezers, wiping and cleaning them before collecting each separate sample. Marianne Stam would use them as control samples, comparing them with fibers found at the crime scene to see if they came from a source other than June's own home. Greco carefully labeled each envelope. Julie, who had apparently been working in another room, greeted Greco as he was packing up his kit. They exchanged a few words and Greco left, pulling away from the curb with the chair sticking out of his trunk.

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1994, 3 P.M.

Greco hung up the phone. He still couldn't reach Jeri and didn't know what to make of it. He'd spent most of the day doing follow-up and running down a few of the phoned-in tips; they were all dead ends. The photo lab technician said the crime-scene photos would be developed by Wednesday. Greco had avoided looking at the stack of cases that he'd largely ignored for the past two weeks while working on the homicides. He reached for the first file when the phone rang. It was Linda Dorsey. She'd returned home to San Diego over the weekend and was wondering if there was anything new on the case.

Greco told her that he was looking at every possible angle and lead, but there was still no break in the case.

“Well, what kind of progress have you made on the credit cards?”

The words stung Greco like a slap.

“What credit cards?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Well … you know, Mom's credit cards,” Linda asked. “We got the letter from the bank saying there was unusual activity on the cards after Mom's death. Charles said he talked to Wyatt, your supervisor.”

“Well, I'm sorry I can't give you an update right now, but I'll let you know as soon as I hear something,” Greco told her. “We'll take care of it from here. Thanks for the call.”

Greco hung up the phone feeling humiliated. So, Van Owen went over his head and talked to Wyatt. Big surprise. But why didn't Wyatt come to him with the information? Even if a disgruntled relative goes to someone else in the department, all critical data needs to be funneled through the primary investigator. This was his investigation. Linda assumed that if her family convoyed important information to someone in the department, it would be shared. The fact that it did not reach Greco at all was embarrassing, and reflected badly on the department as well as on him. That made him angry.

Why would Wyatt leave him in the dark? And if he wasn't telling him about the credit cards, what was he doing with the information? Was he chasing down the credit cards himself? As a supervisor, Wyatt hadn't interviewed the witnesses. Supervisors ask for briefings, or they just ask how the case is going—they don't grab files or phone messages off your desk or investigate your case without your knowledge. A supervisor's function is not to take over your job.

Greco didn't want to believe that his supervisor was trying to take control of the case. He knew he had to talk to Wyatt. There were much better things to do than muck around in petty office politics. If there was some crazed serial killer out there, they needed to be pooling resources and solving these murders, not hoarding clues.

Greco started categorizing various significant points about the credit card information. First of all, the killer was one cold-hearted customer to paw through June's cards, picking and choosing, instead of just grabbing the whole purse and looking through it later. Second, it pointed to a potential motive for June's murder. The activity on the cards seemed to be high enough to trigger a letter to the cardholder from the bank's fraud unit. Last, and most important, the person using the cards, Greco hoped, had to be the killer. If the murderer had gone from store to store to store, maybe enough clerks and cashiers had seen this person and could work with a police sketch artist to create a composite drawing. It was obvious that running down the credit cards could be a shortcut to the killer.

He didn't see Wyatt McElvain until late in the afternoon.

“There was an elderly woman found dead. I think you should go out and look into it,” he said.

Greco nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Where?”

“Off Wilkerson and Fourth. Found dead in her bathroom. She'd had health problems,” he said. He gave Greco the address. “It's an unattended death.”

Greco stopped in his tracks. He knew the address. It was a retirement home. Why was he being asked to deal with this?

“Why doesn't James go?” Greco asked.

“He's coming with me,” Wyatt said. “Besides, I think you should go.”

Greco wasn't going to stand there and argue with his supervisor.

He went.

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1994, 7 P.M.

Greco was fuming. The elderly woman had been dead in her bathroom for two weeks. It was obvious she'd had medical problems. The coroner declared it an unattended death. There was no crime scene; there would be no autopsy.

Anyone could have handled it. He'd wasted hours of his time, hours that had taken him away from doing follow-up on the murders. This was just baloney. Not that dealing with the retirement home death was unimportant it just wasn't something he needed to be spending his time on when he had two homicides. If he'd had doubts about Wyatt's intentions before, they disappeared. He was convinced that Wyatt wanted to run with his information and solve the case. He didn't want to think that the homicides were being taken out of his hands, but that was the only conclusion he could draw. Still, Greco knew that his lack of experience and insecurity jacked up his feelings of paranoia. Greco knew that solving a high-profile case could make or break someone's career. As in any office or any other workplace, politics plays a factor in police work. Neither Wyatt nor Greco was naïve about the value of self-promotion. He intended to speak to Lieutenant Henry Gaskins about the Roberts family and the credit cards. If they didn't want him on this case, then they should give it to someone else.

When he got back to the office, he ran into Julie, the community service officer who'd helped handle the influx of phone calls from the public.

“Hey, good break on the murders, eh?” she said with a smile.

Greco stared at her, wondering why on earth everyone else knew what was going on with his cases but him.

“Yeah,” Greco said. “Thanks. Do you know if Wyatt's still around?”

“I heard he was chasing down the credit cards,” she said.

*   *   *

Wyatt and James were leaving Temecula, where they'd interviewed the owner of Baily's Wine Country Café and the theft reduction manager at Mervyn's. Both men, at the café and the department store, said they would look for the receipts bearing June's account numbers, and would tell the pertinent employees that the police wanted to speak with them.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1994, 9:10 A.M.

Greco, Wyatt McElvain and Henry Gaskins were sitting around the conference table at the Perris station.

Greco started in.

“I'm trying to define what my job is here. I don't understand why he's taking the credit cards and doing follow-up without my knowledge. I should be able to do my own follow-up. He didn't come to me. He didn't tell me anything about it.”

“Oh, you're overreacting,” McElvain said. “I'm just here to help you.”

Greco knew it was a lie.

“That's bullshit! You're not here to help me, you're here to promote yourself!” Greco said angrily, keeping his voice low. Gaskins sat back, watching, and let them have it out. He knew there had been tension between the two of them. For some reason, they didn't get along. Months ago, when they had a disagreement in the computer room, he had had to come in and tell them to cut their arguing out. Things had been simmering for a while.

“That's ridiculous!” Wyatt said. “That has nothing to do with it.”

“You know what? You can have it all. If you're going to continue to do your own investigation, you can go ahead and take the whole thing. It's yours.”

“Oh no, no,” Wyatt said. “I'm not here to take away your case. I'm just here to assist you. You're making a big deal out of nothing. I'm just helping you out.”

“That's a lie!”

Gaskins had heard enough.

“Joe,” Gaskins said. “You're the primary investigator. You're in charge of your own case. Wyatt is at your disposal. Wyatt, you're here to assist Joe. Your only responsibility is to oversee the investigation.”

That didn't satisfy Greco.

“If he's at my disposal, why is he telling me what to do? Why is he keeping information about my own case from me?”

“Joe, you're the primary, it's your case,” Gaskins said. “Wyatt is the case supervisor.”

“All a supervisor should do is ask how things are going; and I give him a briefing or a report on my progress,” he said. “At this point, I have no control over this aspect of the investigation because he kept this information from me so that he could work on it himself and try to solve the case.”

Wyatt shook his head.

“I was just trying to help,” he said.

The blow-up was over. Greco walked out feeling better for, if nothing else, standing up for himself. He didn't really want to give up the case—what would he tell the families? That he'd quit? He couldn't do that.