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  An idea was forming in Lani’s head. She’d work on it before speaking to Leo about it.

  But Leo was on the same track. In the car, heading for the broadcast complex, he said, “This may be a frame-up, Lani.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. For sure, Dick Hale is not the original Ripper.”

  * * *

  “This is too absurd for words,” Dick said. “Both of you get out of my office, I have work to do.”

  Leo tossed the verified bank statements onto his desk.

  Dick paled and started to sweat. He opened his mouth to speak.

  Lani held up her hand and said, “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed ... ”

  But Dick wasn’t hearing a word. He had fainted.

  * * *

  “I tell you, I did not kill Tammy Larson!” Dick shouted at the cops in the interrogation room. “Tammy was a high-class hooker. I paid her a thousand dollars a month for ... services. And she rendered them well.”

  “Dick,” his attorney said.

  “No,” Dick said. “I want my name cleared in this mess.”

  Brownie entered the room and whispered for a moment into Lani’s ear. She nodded and said, “Dick, you are under arrest for the murder of Tammy Larson.” She waggled her finger at a uniform. “Book him.”

  It took three cops to drag the screaming, kicking, struggling, and fighting Dick Hale out of the interrogation room.

  “He’s a vain, arrogant man,” Leo said, after Brownie told him what he’d whispered to Lani. “But he’s not stupid. He’s really a very bright person. He’s being set up.”

  “I agree.”

  Bloody clothing had been found in the trunk of Dick’s car. The blood was a match with Tammy’s type. Her fingerprints were on the dash. Hair found in the car matched hers. She had been taperecording their visits together, and the tapes were very explicit, although Dick was not very inventive with his lovemaking. And two very sharp and very bloody knives were found in a drawer in Dick’s desk in his office.

  Things did not look good for Dick Hale.

  * * *

  Carla Upton pulled Stacy in to take over as general manager of KSIN FM and Cathy Young—Frenchy’s live-in girlfriend—was brought up from the part-timers to fill Stacy’s on-air slot. Cathy was very good, with a husky, sexy voice and an easy, on-air demeanor.

  With Dick in the bucket (bail had not yet been set), conditions eased up at KSIN. Oddly enough, ratings went up for the broadcasting complex—AM, FM, and TV.

  Lani and Leo ran every employee of the complex, and they all checked out. DJs are a nomadic bunch, tending to move around quite a bit. The cops carefully checked past employment history. Everything proved out to the good.

  “Well, that’s it for the employees,” Lani said, hanging up the phone, after speaking with the general manager of a radio station in New Orleans. “They’re in the clear. We’re right back to square one.”

  “I was sure it was one of them,” Leo said.

  “So was I. But, no. By the way, Dick passed the polygraph and the PSE.” Psychological Stress Evaluator. Many believe it far more effective and accurate than the polygraph. “The judge is going to set bail today.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for the man, but he’s had a rough time of it in jail.”

  “Is he still in isolation?”

  Leo nodded his head. “Ever since he got raped. First day in lockup. He’ll be out this afternoon.”

  “First we arrest the man for murder, and now I feel an obligation to prove he didn’t do it.”

  “Is he going to sue?”

  “Yeah,” Lani said. “Papers already in the works. And that’s not the only thing in the works.” Leo looked up at her. “Dick’s wife left him. Threw all his clothes out in the front yard. His lawyer has rented him a house up in the hills.”

  “Like the little girl on the salt box: when it rains, it pours.”

  * * *

  Dick was told by his attorney—the best in California and one of the best in the nation—to go home and stay home. Don’t leave the house. Have groceries delivered.

  One week after Dick was released from jail, a man who had been out of town on an overseas business trip returned, read the paper, and immediately drove to the sheriffs office and asked who was working the Dick Hale case. He was pointed to Leo and Lani.

  “Dick Hale didn’t kill that girl,” he told them. “I saw Tammy in the parking lot of her apartment complex about seven thirty that night. I know them both. I like—liked—Tammy; I couldn’t tolerate Dick Hale. He’s the world’s greatest craphead. My girlfriend lives at that apartment. I had just visited her to say goodbye—I was going out of town for a couple of weeks—and was walking to my car, when I saw Tammy. Some fool had blocked me in—parked behind my car—and I had to wait for them to return before I could leave. I spoke to Tammy. She didn’t reply; acted like she was in some sort of trance. She was just standing there, a blank expression on her face. Kind of scared me; like she was on drugs or something. I got in my car and waited. A dark-colored car pulled up beside her, and she got in. It was a woman driving. They, ah, embraced and kissed and drove off. I waited and waited for the jerk to come move his car. After about thirty minutes, I started back into the apartment building. Dick Hale drove up in his Cadillac and rode up in the elevator with me. I spoke, but he didn’t. He acted like he was in a trance; just like Tammy. Like he was hypnotized. I didn’t think much about his not speaking. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. I was curious about what he was doing there. I got off on the same floor as he did and stalled around on the floor. I’d heard that Tammy had been doing some hooking. I’d heard she had four or five fairly well-to-do clients. Dick had a key to Tammy’s apartment and unlocked it and went in. He came back out in about a minute and just stood there in the hall. He looked ... dazed. Looked right at me and didn’t seem to see me. It was really weird. Sort of scared me. He got into the elevator and I got into the other one and rode down to the ground floor. I watched him walk back to his car and drive away. In the opposite direction Tammy and the woman had taken.”

  Leo had the citizen’s statement typed up, and the man signed it. Said he would be in town and would be willing to be called as a witness.

  “This is getting strange,” Brownie said, after reading the statement. “Could one—or more—of Tammy’s clients have been a woman?”

  “Or is the Ripper a woman?” Lani added.

  “Or is the Ripper actually two people?” Leo said. “Like Jim and Jack Longwood. Or four or more people? One or more of them a transvestite?”

  “Jesus!” the sheriff said. “Why didn’t these New York State weirdos stay home? We have more than our share without adding to it.” He got up and walked out.

  “He does have a point,” Lani muttered.

  * * *

  Cal Denning awakened from his coma with a bad headache. The first thing he asked about were his cats. The doctors assured him his pets were being taken care of, and that they were all fine and healthy. They also assured Cal that he would make a fast and complete recovery.

  The problem was, Cal had lost a lot of memory. There were many things he simply could not recall.

  “That’s common with this type of injury,” the doctors told Leo and Lani.

  “Will his memory return?” Lani asked.

  The doctor shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. No way of telling. We don’t know if he wants to remember. That plays a big part in memory return.”

  “Can we see him?” Leo asked.

  “Oh, sure. But only for a few minutes.”

  Cal greeted Leo warmly and gave Lani a visual inspection. He liked what he saw. Nearly everyone did.

  “The doctor says you don’t remember the attack,” Leo said. “Is anything coming back to you?”

  “The doc is full of shit,” Cal said. �
��I never told him that. I remember getting bashed on the noggin. I just can’t remember anything for several days before the attack.”

  “Did you get a look at your attacker?” Lani asked.

  “No. I remember one of my cats making a dash for the kitchen. Then everything went black.”

  Lani showed him the slip of paper found in his personal effects.

  “That’s my handwriting, all right,” Cal said. “But I never heard of anyone named Tammy Larson. I mean... I guess I have, I wrote it down, I just can’t remember it. What about her?”

  Leo looked at the doctor standing near the bed, and the doctor nodded his head.

  “She’s dead. Looks like the Ripper—or a copycat—got her. Dick Hale was arrested for her murder.”

  “Trickie-Dickie?” Cal was clearly startled. “I find that very hard to believe. Dick’s a jerk, but he faints at the sight of blood. I mean that. I’ve seen him hit the boards there at the station. Just ask anyone there.”

  Leo and Lani exchanged glances. Lani said, “Are you telling us that everyone employed at the broadcasting complex knew this about Dick, and yet no one came forward to tell us about it?”

  “Hey, no one there gives a shit what happens to Dick Hale,” Cal said. “Or his wife, or his kids. If you’re asking whether any employee would stand by and let Dick Hale go to prison or the gas chamber for a crime he didn’t commit ... I would say yes.”

  “The man is that hated?” Leo asked.

  “He’s that hated,” Cal said flatly.

  * * *

  Linda Arkin left work at the expensive boutique in the mall and was seen driving off. At seven that evening her father called the police and the sheriffs office to report his daughter missing. At nine o’clock the next morning, a very hysterical teenage girl called the sheriff’s office.

  “I beg your pardon?” the deputy asked.

  The girl repeated her statement.

  “Stay on the line,” the girl was told. The deputy handed the phone to a female. “Talk to her. Calm her down.” He ran up the hall toward the offices of Lani and Leo.

  “You’re not serious?” Lani blurted.

  “I’m as serious as a crutch,” the deputy said. “The girl’s on the line now.” He shouted the last, for Leo and Lani were already running for the front door of the station.

  CHRIST IS COMING! the billboard proclaimed. ARE YOU READY?

  “I hope she was,” the CHP man muttered, looking at the billboard.

  Linda Arkin’s nude body, minus her face, was nailed to the billboard.

  “It’s like a ... crucifixion,” Leo said.

  Sheriff Brownwood drove up. He got out of the car and stared pale-faced at the bloody sight. “Get your pictures taken and get her down from there, goddamnit!” he shouted.

  “Too late,” the CHP man said. “Here comes the press.”

  “Shit!” Brownie said.

  * * *

  MONSTER ON THE LOOSE silently screamed the town’s daily newspaper. The only reason they didn’t print the picture of Linda’s naked and crucified body was fear of a lawsuit. But the event was printed in graphic detail.

  “Sells newspapers, I suppose,” Lani said.

  Leo snorted in disgust and threw the newspaper in the wastebasket.

  Brownie appeared in the doorway. “ME fixed the time of death between eight and ten last night. The girl had been raped and, ah, sodomized. Among other things. And we have a witness who places Dick Hale near the scene at nine o’clock last night. Driving around alone. Go pick the stupid son of a bitch up, and bring him in.”

  * * *

  In the basement of the home, the Ripper looked at the face of Linda Arkin, floating in clear preservative, and smiled. The face was just too lovely for words. It was exquisite. The loveliest of them all. The Ripper kissed the coolness of the glass jar and sighed. “Mine forever,” the Ripper said. “Forever and ever.”

  * * *

  “You go to hell!” Dick shouted at Leo and Lani from behind the closed front door. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Dick—” Leo said patiently.

  “No!” he shouted. “You know what was done to me in jail! Those goddamn nigger savages used me like a woman. I’ll kill you, before I let you take me back to that place. I’ve got a gun. I mean it.” A few members of the press were beginning to gather.

  “Let’s back off and call for a unit,” Lani suggested. “They can park out front and make sure he doesn’t run, until we talk to Brownie.”

  The sheriff was at the scene in twenty minutes, and so were the press, print and broadcast. “Dick,” Brownie called from outside the front door. “I promise you we won’t put you in general population. But you’ve got to come in with us.”

  “I’ll die first!” Dick shouted.

  “You were seen near where the girl’s body was found nailed to that billboard, Dick,” the sheriff persisted.

  “That was a setup and I can prove it!”

  “How, Dick?”

  Brownie, Lani, and Leo heard the dead bolt click open. “You three can come inside. But I’ve got a gun in my hand, and I won’t hesitate to use it. You better believe that.”

  “Hell, I don’t blame him,” Brownie whispered. “Not after getting gang-shagged by that pack of scum in jail.”

  “Sheriff, I heard him call those poor unfortunates you have locked up niggers!” a reporter yelled from the road. “I’m going to see that the FCC hears about this.”

  “Yeah, you do that, you son of a bitch!” Brownie muttered.

  “I bet he’d change his song and dance routine if we put his cherry ass in lock-up,” Leo uncharacteristically said, glancing at the oh-so-politically-correct reporter.

  “I’d give a hundred dollars to see it,” Lani added.

  Brownie and Leo looked at her and smiled. Like so many cops, they had very little use for the nation’s liberal press.

  “Dick,” Brownie called. “We’ll come in. But we’re armed, and we intend to remain armed.”

  “That’s fine. Just remember, so am I.”

  The front door opened.

  Chapter 10

  Dick stood in the foyer with a pistol in each hand. “Come on in,” he said. “Over by the phone in the den.” He stepped back and followed the trio of cops into the den.

  “I received the call last evening,” he said. “At the advice of my lawyer, I had that tape recorder installed. It’s a good one. Punch the play button.”

  It was a young woman’s voice on the tape, somewhat muffled. She said she had information that would clear Dick, and would he meet her at the crossroads near that old, abandoned service station. They heard Dick ask her what time she had, and the woman give the time. They heard Dick agree to meet her, and she hung up. Dick said, “This is a setup, and I know it. But I have to go.”

  Dick laid a small, portable cassette-recorder on the coffee table. “I talked the entire time I was gone,” he said. “I had KSIN FM on the entire time. BJ gave the time and temperature several times and played commercials. All this can be checked on the logs.”

  “You’re wising up, Dick,” Brownie said. “But if this happens again, call us first. I’ve told you repeatedly, I don’t believe you committed any of the murders. Now, I’m going to let slide the fact that you’re armed and you threatened us. But don’t you ever do it again.”

  “Goddamnit, Sheriff! Somebody is out to get me. To frame me. To frame me for something I didn’t do!”

  “That is our thinking, too, Dick. But the fact remains that you cannot threaten police officers with a gun and expect to get away with it.”

  “How about those goddamn savages who raped me in your jail, Brownie? Do they get punished?”

  Sheriff Brownwood faced the red-faced man. “Let me tell you something, Dick. You want to know what you can do about gang-rape in jails and prisons? I’ll tell you what you can do? And you can be the first to do it. It’ll make you a hero among the conservative voters and boost your ratings.”


  “You tell me; I’ll do it.”

  “You can editorialize. You can take a hard law and order stance and work the citizens up into a frenzy. Shake them out of their complacency. Interview kids and adults alike who have been tossed in the bucket and gang-raped. Get brutal with it. Get down dirty and raw with it. When enough of you broadcasters do that, the public will demand action. And the government will be forced to act. Get some of these federal judges off our backs and let us enforce the law. You know what I mean.”

  Dick shook his head. “I can’t do that. The government would pull my license.”

  “What?” Leo asked, startled by that remark. “What do you mean by that? Pull your license?”

  “It’s been tried by others,” Dick said, sitting down and wiping his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “You want to know what happens to broadcasters who come down too hard on the IRS? Hammer away at them? Demand change and less Gestapo-like power for the IRS? Funny things happen. Like they get audited, year after year after year. The government claims it doesn’t happen. But it happens. You want to know what happens when small independents like me start talking tough about crime, and why don’t we take a hard-line stance? Let’s put it this way: the major networks are all run by liberals. The news anchors are all sobbing-sisters. The commentators are all hanky-stompers. I defy any one of you to find me a true conservative with power on any network news program or talk show ... ” He paused for breath and for a drink of water.

  This was a side of Dick Hale that none of the three cops even knew existed, and they were fascinated. The man was actually making sense without being obnoxious or demeaning to anybody.

  “Are you all right in there, Sheriff!” the voice boomed over a bullhorn.

  “Handle that, Lani,” Brownie said.

  Lani walked to the door. “We’re all right! Everything is okay.”

  Brownie sat down and unloaded the pistols on the coffee table. “Go on, Dick. I never heard this side of you before.”

  “I know what people think of me,” Dick said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “And I know what I’ve turned into. And I don’t like it. I came back here and tried to run a real broadcasting complex. I tried for several years. I tried everything I knew to do. But that bitch Carla Upton blocked me at every turn. Believe me, gentlemen and lady, when your teenage daughter is fucking and sucking everything that wears pants, your only son is a queer, your wife is involved in some sort of a bizarre cult doing God only knows what, and your program director and major stockholder are both a couple of dykes, having an affair, you soon realize that the odds are stacked against you.” Dick tore open a pack of cigarettes and lit up. “Try living with all that for a while and see what you become ... before you judge me too harshly.”