The victim’s body was laid out like a corpse on an autopsy table, stiff-armed and -legged, a horrible life-size doll.
Homicide Lieutenant C. R. Molina stalked around the corpse lying on the pavement. The night was warm and dark, the shopping-mall parking lot empty except for the circle of police vehicles.
Forensics had done its grisly duty. Every iota of evidence had been photographed and collected. The meat wagon was waiting, along with Coroner Grizzly Bahr at the end of the ride. Then would come the Y-cut of the torso, the circular saw through the skull-top, and the corpse wouldn’t resemble a molded plastic doll anymore.
Molina could already hear the saw’s whine, scent the Febreze-laden, icy air of the city morgue. She was not quite ready to release this corpse from its state of suspended wholeness.
There was not a mark on the girl’s form. She was twenty or so, high-fashion-model thin, with her hipbones as prominent as an undressed department-store mannequin’s through her thin summer skirt, her small breasts supernaturally firm under the lacy top.
Her open-eyed face, though, was a mask of distortion and anguish. Most corpses, even victims of terrible accidents, even horribly damaged ones, were blessedly expressionless.
This girl, though, had stared death in the face and struggled to the moment of her last breath.
Molina was betting the Cause of Death was strangulation, from the inside out. Not a crime of passion, except for the ghastly repetition of these circumstances.
Beside the victim lay a naked Barbie doll—a tiny mini-me—its El Greco–lean torso and limbs an equally stiff version of the victim’s.
Unlike the dead girl, the Barbie doll wore marks of violence. Scarlet nail polish circled Barbie’s elongated neck at the throat, visible even beneath a tiny, throttling chiffon scarf. Scarlet nail polish dotted her tiny wrists, slashed across her slim-hipped, big-breasted torso. Her feet were half severed at the ankles, and screwdriver-size dents had impacted her face.
“Turns your stomach,” said an unexpected voice beside Molina.
She glanced at the man in shopping-mall civvies who’d appeared out of the black nowhere that was her crime-scene mind.
“What brought you here?” she asked the undercover narc called Dirty Larry.
“Heard it on the grapevine,” he answered. “Thought about your daughter.”
Molina’s hands fisted in the pockets of her khaki blazer.
“You are not a detective,” she told him in clipped, superior-officer rebuke. “You are on temporary traffic-accident duty. You have no reason to be here.”
“It is a parking lot, Loo,” he said.
“Not amusing.”
Molina walked away to quiet the hyper-heartbeat he had kicked up by mentioning her daughter, waving at the morgue attendants to claim the body. She’d wanted to be alone on the scene with it longer, but there’d be film and photos at 9:00 A.M. tomorrow.
Dirty Larry had bulled his way into her professional and personal life on sheer nerve and a smarmy hint of sexual interest. She’d let him ride that wave because she’d needed someone to do off-the-books investigating on Max Kinsella for her. She’d never trusted Dirty Larry. Now she had a disabled Max Kinsella for that kind of work, who was probably a lot better at it even without his former strength and memory. She harbored a huge need-to-know about Kinsella’s history since his spectacular fall from good health, but she could wait.
Dirty Larry was the impatient type. He followed her, still an irritant.
“You showing up at my crime scenes is getting old, Podesta.” She stopped and eyed the empty lot, wondering what the security cameras would reveal. “The first time was enterprising and ballsy. Twice gets irritating.”
“Kinda like your love life?”
Molina spun to face him. “Don’t tread on me. Or bring Mariah’s name into this crime scene. Thank God her disappearance was a misguided teen scheme and we found her quickly. You don’t have any children. You have no right to play on my parental concerns. What are you up to? It sure isn’t getting into my bed, the way you’re going.”
“No. I don’t have kids. I never married. Not with a job you can never bring home. Doesn’t mean I haven’t seen lots of kids wounded or killed by the drug trade. It doesn’t mean I don’t care as much as you do about catching this Barbie Doll Killer.”
“As much as me? Don’t you have enough grief fighting the drug wars? Why?”
“Look. I was there several nights ago when your daughter went AWOL and the mutilated Barbie doll was found in Mariah’s bedroom. She’s young for this perp’s preferences—thirteen—but how old is this dead girl? Seventeen? Twenty, tops? You’ve gotta admit to the facts.”
“Which are?” Molina used her lowest “show-me” tone.
“The Barbie Doll Killer has been circling the Southwest to the California state line for years, targeting young women who audition at shopping malls for reality-TV shows that offer them a grab at fame. Vegas is at the center of the pattern now, with two shopping-mall Barbie murders, and so is your daughter.”
“You think I need assistance putting patterns together, Officer Podesta? I’m the homicide cop. You’re moonlighting. Undercover narcs are not needed or wanted on my crime scenes.”
“I might have some offbeat insight.”
“Mentioning my daughter is not going to get me to listen. I take it as a distraction.”
He leaned close, took her elbow. “I know you’ve got to concentrate on your objectivity, Carmen. Let me look out for Mariah. You’re too close, too professional.”
“You’re too close,” she said, jerking her arm out of his confidential custody.
“You’re losing it,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Get off my crime scene.”
“I know this guy. He operates like someone high on cocaine. He can’t stop himself. We’ve got to do it.”
“He’s on my turf now,” she said. “For the second time, yes, and he’s come out of the Malibu Barbie closet. So far he’s left a dead body and mutilated Barbie doll images. This time, this crime scene, it’s come together, doll and human victim. Go play with your shattered headlights and tire patterns. I’ll do what my gender is supposed to do best from birth—play with dolls.”
* * *
All the lights were off at Molina’s modest bungalow near Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and School when she pulled her old Volvo into the driveway. The time must be snagged close to either side of midnight, she thought, too tired to check her watch. She was even too weary to maneuver the car into the garage and weave her way through the laundry room into the house. She’d use the front door and her key.
Mariah had a new overnight “housekeeper” now, Angela Ortega, a single homeowner in the neighborhood and former beat cop going for a law degree. What a find! Angela could burn the scholar’s midnight oil while watching Mariah, and was young and attractive enough to earn Mariah’s teen fascination. Angela made a great role model, and she’d been tops on the firing range.
Molina let the heavy driver’s door slam shut. Gotta find time to shop for a new car someday soon, she thought. Get Mariah in on the hunt. Something “cool” she could drive in … gosh, learner’s permit in two years only? Dread.
“Got a minute?” a low voice asked.
Molina didn’t think; she just spun, Glock out of its paddle holster to face the male voice at the level of her head, which was about six feet. Big guy could mean big gun.
“Tough night.” The voice hadn’t tensed at all.
Her shoulders dropped. A little. “Kinsella. Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a cop?”
“Didn’t want to wake the house. Figured you wouldn’t either. Smooth, fast draw, though. Very Wild West.”
“When you said ‘Tough night,’ just now. It wasn’t a question.”
“No, I followed Podesta to your crime scene.”
“You were lurking in that parking lot, too? You want to be considered a suspect?”
“Nothing new for me with you, I’m told. You wanted him followed.”
“So … where did Larry come from?”
“I’d hesitate to call it stalking…”
“Pot calling the kettle black?”
“… but he keeps a close eye on your movements. Is it love or is it something else I should know about?”
She looked over her shoulder toward the house. She wasn’t ready to bring Mariah into yet another semisuspicious man’s knowledge bank.
“If letting that car door slam shut didn’t wake the house, our talking won’t,” he pointed out.
“I was … thinking.” She wouldn’t admit to the crime of “tired.”
“So was I. You don’t trust either this Dirty Larry guy or this Rafi Nadir. Why is your business, but major crime is your business, too. You think either one of them might be your Barbie Doll Killer?”
“Remote possibility.”
“Yeah. One’s your ex and one’s your … wannabe current.”
“I didn’t hire you for background checks, just keeping an eye on their whereabouts.”
“You know ‘the past is present’ in all police work.”
“In Shakespeare, too,” she said. “Don’t get fancy on me. So where were the boys earlier this evening? From the time it got dark?”
“As assistant security chief at the Oasis Hotel, Nadir gets assigned mostly night shifts.”
“So he was there?”
“No. He alternates from the three-to-eleven-P.M. shift to the eleven-P.M-to-seven-A.M. turn. He went out for dinner about eight.”
“Not at the Oasis? He’d get comped.”
“Nope. Nice restaurant in Henderson. Offers this fancy fondue of several courses, steak to strawberries.”
“I know the place.”
“Then you know the spread takes a couple hours or more to eat.”
“Rafi has an alibi. How nice for him. Still, was he alone?”
“Nope.”
She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t, and she wasn’t going to ask, man or woman? They both knew Nadir was her ex, ex-live-in anyway, and the last thing she wanted to look like in front of Max Kinsella was insecure. If you’re going to be a rattlesnake handler, don’t blink.
“What about Dirty Larry?” she asked.
“Love that street name. He’s more interesting than Nadir in another way. I got on him as soon as Rafi was settled down with his appetizer course of exotic dipping vegetables, rutabagas, and snow peas.”
“That sounds so disgusting,” she said.
“The place is all the rage. Lots of couples get engaged there.”
Molina bit her lip. Was Rafi courting some … woman? Good! Maybe he’d forget his shared custody hopes for Mariah. Not likely on second thought. He’d have better luck if he was settled and married. Unlike a working mother with a demanding 24/7 job.
“Dirty Larry was another story,” Kinsella went on. “As soon as Rafi was snuggled in with his flame-melted cheeses and chilled wine courses, I looked up Podesta. He has a police radio in his car, which was sitting on the fringes of that mall parking lot when you pulled into it after the uniforms had answered the alarm.
“He has a police radio in his personal vehicle?”
“Yeah. Big old Impala. Kinda cool. Almost Barracuuudah.”
“Only to overage juvenile delinquents.” She peered toward the street. “What are you driving now?”
“You’ll never see it. Ditto Nadir and Podesta. Isn’t that what you hired me for? To be an unseen man of mystery?”
“I hired you to report without any fancy frills. So Larry was on the crime scene before I got there? For how long?”
“Long enough to have done the deed and faded into the wings until you saw him arrive later.”
“But you were there at the same time, too.”
“Ay, there’s the rub.”
“Not Shakespeare again.”
“Appropriate for the tragic death tonight.”
“Yes. It is all about the victim. Wait! Are you leaving?” The dark near her seemed less dense.
“I’m going home,” his voice said, fading, “to put Elvis on the sound system.”
“You listen to Elvis?”
“‘Suspicious Minds,’” Max Kinsella said. “Classic.”