‘Mr Durrant asked him about it and says Garland was very vague. He said something about how he’d met some guy and they were exploring ways of working together. He got the impression Garland regretted bringing it up and tried to change the subject. The last time they spoke was on the phone. Mr Durrant says he asked how the partnership was going and Garland said that he couldn’t talk about it. That was the last he heard from him.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Mr Durrant says the trips to LA were often cut short because his father, Len Durrant, and Ethan’s father, Zachary Garland, didn’t get on. Mr Durrant says his dad warned his kids to steer clear of Zac Garland because he was trouble.’
‘Did he say what he meant by that?’
‘He was reluctant but said that Zac Garland was the black sheep of the family. He said that his Aunt Veronica, Ethan Garland’s mother, had committed suicide when Ethan was young and everyone blamed Zac for driving her to it. He pretty much said that Zac was always screwing around – women would call the Garland house looking for this guy or that guy. The names varied but Veronica was sure Zac was just giving them aliases. And he was violent. He says everyone was kind of scared of the guy and that one night, when Len Durrant was drunk, he told Mike that he was sure Zac had done something terrible but had gotten away with it.
‘Zac had been in insurance, made plenty of money from it but was always on the move from one firm to another, one customer to the next.’
‘Did he say anything about how Ethan was when his mother killed herself?’
‘Yes. He says Ethan blamed his mom. That he’d always blamed her for his dad not being home and then he blamed her for committing suicide. Mr Durrant says Ethan and his father were very close and Ethan would never hear a bad word said about him. I asked him if he would be surprised if Ethan had gotten himself into any serious trouble. Right away, he said he would but then he stopped and corrected himself.
‘He says that Ethan had a temper and he was Zac Garland’s son. So, nothing would surprise him.’
Oh, I think it would, O’Neill thought. I think it would.
CHAPTER 7
The house on Finley Street had been in lockdown since Garland’s body was found, everything being photographed and documented. Salgado and O’Neill switched back and forth between the house and LAPD headquarters on West Street where they’d bagged an office that they were sharing with computer techs, principally Kurt Geisler, and had regular visits from the criminalists. They’d also picked up a hitchhiker from CCSS, the cold case section of Robbery Homicide. Charlie Randall had been stationed with them on the likelihood that some of the body parts might belong to old investigations and he’d bring what knowledge he could.
They’d begun to put together an investigation board, or a ‘crazy wall’, as Salgado preferred to call it. It didn’t have anywhere near as much on it as any of them would have liked. A head shot of Garland, pics of the more gruesome parts of his collection. It needed to grow or else it would be shut down, as would their case. There were resources for a potential serial killer but not much for a weirdo who collected freaky shit. They had to prove they were after the former.
Which meant that Elvis was greeted like a hero home from the war when he came through the office door. The fact he was carrying a bag of doughnuts and a four-cup tray of coffees helped too.
‘I got Ms Donut’s finest dough-and-sugar in a variety of flavours. I got a latte macchiato, an americano, a flat white and a doppio. If you want sugar in that, you got doughnuts. And I got DNA results. If you want to nominate someone for a pay raise or a Nobel Prize then my name’s Elvis and I’m here all week. Questions?’
‘Is the americano a blonde roast like I asked?’
‘Salgado, can it.’ O’Neill got on the case. ‘Elvis, what’s the results?’
‘Nothing final.’ He began handing over coffees as he talked. ‘But I know how impatient you investigating types get so I come bearing information that you may find useful. Tests aren’t complete on the body parts, but I can tell you one thing.’
Elvis paused to hand out doughnuts, and for dramatic effect.
‘The five body parts come from five different people. I can confirm that you have five different victims. All unrelated.’
Salgado pumped a fist and didn’t care if anyone noticed. He wanted this to be big.
‘You have four male victims and one female. We are not at a stage where we can try for matches but we will be very soon. When that happens, you will be the first to know. And before anyone asks, no we don’t know how old they were, we don’t know if they had an Irish grandmother or if they’re directly descended from either Africa or George Washington. We should have full results by late this evening.’
‘Five victims,’ Salgado repeated.
‘Don’t try to sound so happy about it,’ O’Neill cautioned. ‘I don’t think the mayor is going to declare a public holiday to celebrate.’
‘You know what I mean. Garland is our guy. He’s done this. Five of them. What else have you got for us, Elvis?’
The criminalist held his arms wide, as if offended. ‘Coffee, doughnuts and DNA aren’t enough for you? Tough crowd. Okay, I also have the autopsy report on Garland. Full and official results to follow, but I have the headlines. Basically, as expected. He had a massive coronary, didn’t stand a chance. No suspicious circumstances.’
He paused to let that sink in. ‘He’d had no history of treatment, nothing picked up on previous physicals. There was chronic heart disease, but it was never likely to show except on the table after he’d been cut open. The pathologist said he had a ticking time bomb inside him and didn’t know it. No way he was dodging this one.’
‘Fuck him,’ Salgado muttered. ‘Respectfully.’
‘Nice, Detective. Nice. Unless you need me for anything else then I’m going to have myself a doughnut then I will have left the building. That DNA won’t test itself.’
‘Good work, Elvis. And thanks for the doughnuts and coffee. I’ll write to the Nobel committee. Sweden, right?’
‘Right. Don’t forget the stamp.’
As Elvis turned away, Salgado saw the IT tech twitching to get into the conversation, sheets of paper in his hand.
‘Okay, Geisler, what you got? Elvis has set the bar pretty high.’
‘Well, I ain’t got doughnuts.’
‘You lose.’
‘I figured. What I’ve got is an update on Garland’s PC and not much of it is good news. All I have in the way of search history is a very limited session but even that means we caught a break. I’ve printed out everything from that and I’ve emailed copies to you both too.’
‘A limited session doesn’t sound like a break,’ Salgado complained.
‘Yes, I know,’ Geisler replied patiently. ‘But it’s way better than nothing, which is what we were supposed to get. My guess is he habitually locked this room behind him when he went upstairs into the house so as to safeguard whatever he was viewing or searching. Where we got the break was that he never made it back down so couldn’t log off.’
‘How would the computer wipe his history?’