Juliet watched her partner go over each name of each victim, his fingers bouncing over the first name and then the next, his brow furrowing, lips pursing. "All Eastern European," he finally said.
"Yes."
"Former Yugoslavia, mostly."
She nodded.
"How do you think that one is pronounced?" he asked, handing her the paper and pointing at the third name. Nastasja Prsljvic. She sighed.
"I have no idea."
"Me neither, but we'll find out. Have her parents been tracked down yet?"
"No. We're still looking. There's a decent-sized Eastern European neighborhood in Santa Barbara," she told him.
"Right. On Culver and on north to Grange and west to Chatham. I think the killer is operating in that area, anyway." He refused to say 'so far', and hated himself for thinking it.
"Right." Her cell chirped and she answered quickly, then nodded, scribbling something on her notepad. "Told you! They found the parents." She swallowed, realizing now that they were going to have to tell those poor people their daughter was dead.
"Yugoslavia has had a terrible history," Carlton said, reading from an article online. "That whole region has been nothing more than one huge domestic dispute since God was in shorts. And way back in the fifteen-hundreds, there was a terrible consonant outbreak that killed all their vowels. I swear it, O'Hara, an Irishman cannot handle vowel shortages. We just can't. We have enough trouble with not overcooking our food and letting the English run our lives."
Juliet smiled softly, and he went on, feeling weary, rubbing his face.
"We'll need a translator. I know that most Slavic languages can be translated by a Russian, at the very least, but maybe a Croatian or a Serb or something…?" He tapped the list with his pencil. "They were all from the former Yugoslavia, so obviously the killer is from that part of the world at least…that's the first clue. So we have sort of a who and sort of a what…just not a specific clue…which would be useful right now."
She nodded. "I'll see what I can find."
He nodded, and when Shawn and Gus came in, looking eager, he handed the list to Spencer. "All six victims."
Shawn read it over, and shook his head, handing the list back to him. "This is gibberish. What are their names?"
"Those are the names," Carlton pointed out. "And remember what I told you about being respectful of the dead?"
"Where are the vowels?" Spencer asked, looking at the list again.
"Well, the psychic is stumped at last – by surnames!" Juliet said with a laugh.
Spencer nodded, looking flummoxed but undefeated. Gus spoke up. "I know a pharmaceuticals rep who is…a little Croatian. Maybe he could help?"
"You mean a small Croatian, or he has some Croatian blood, like Tesla?" Spencer asked.
"Both, actually," Gus nodded.
"Every bit will help," Carlton nodded. Juliet took off to start doing some research. Gus headed off, making a call on his cell. The head detective sat down at his desk and went to an online translation sight, hoping maybe the 'listen' button would help him. He listened to the pronunciation of Prsljvic and rubbed his eyes, knowing his tongue would never wrap around that one. He knew only a few phrases of Russian that wouldn't get him anywhere, as they were all curse words. One phrase of French ("Quel 'enfer, c'est seulement au Canada", which had been a phrase he had used for his French oral in high school, when he had described the sale of Canada to the British), very little Spanish aside from a typical menu, and a smattering of German, a language he hated speaking under any circumstances, considering all the spitting involved. He doubted his fluency in Irish Gaelic would be of much use in this case. It hadn't been before, except when he'd gone to Ireland to see his ancestral thatch-roof cottage in Cill Chiaráin- Mo Dhia! Mo sinsear a bhí chomh bocht is nathracha!
"Hey, Lassie, I was looking up your new neighborhood online and saw that a couple of murders happened at your house," Shawn said, breaking into his thoughts. Ireland's greens and sorrows faded away and he was back in his chair at the station, looking up at Spencer.
Carlton shot to his feet. "You're the one who put the pot on the stove, aren't you? Already breaking into my house, are you, you sniveling little…"
"Hey, hey, wait a minute, Lassie! I didn't break into your house. And what about the pot on your stove? Was it a pot for cooking, or was it pot for smoking, because if it's the latter, then…well, it's legal, 'medicinally' – wink, wink - in California, which begs the question: if you've got glaucoma, what are you doing with the police department when your vision is that bad?"
Carlton ran a hand through his hair. "Never mind."
"Hey, hey, wait a minute…what about the pot? C'mon, Lassie, tell me!" Shawn begged. "I'm…genuinely concerned here. I mean, really, I am. Really!" He dogged Lassiter's steps as the older man snatched up his jacket and headed for the doors. "Really, dude. C'mon! What about this pot?"
"We got up this morning and there was a pot of water, boiling on the stove," Carlton finally told him, exasperated and frankly desperate enough by now to get that little mystery solved. There had to be a rational explanation for it. There had to be.
"Uh…really? Creepy. No bunny, right? "
Carlton shook his head.
"And…er…we?"
"Never mind."
"Hey, wait…was Marlowe…?"
"I've got business elsewhere."
Carlton arrived back at his condo before lunch, and went around to the back, checking for unfamiliar footprints. Unfortunately, it had rained again last night and there were none. His back patio was clean – not a single footprint there, either. He went in through the back and checked the doors for any sight of anybody forcing their way in, but again, nothing. He stood in his living room, rubbing his forehead and knowing he was wasting time on this ridiculous thing while a man and his wife were being told their daughter had been murdered. He turned to head back out the back door and almost screamed in terror when he came face to extremely wide chest with a modern-day version of the Brute Squad.
"I'm Grady," the man said, shifting his feet. He was tall enough that Carlton had to step back and tilt his head back a little to look the man right in the eye.
"Good God," Carlton gasped. The guy was at least six feet seven inches. Taller than McNabb!
"No. Grady."
"Right. Right."
"I'm the caretaker 'round here. I tend the gardens and the yards, mend whatever needs mended outside, that kind of thing."
"Right. Great."
"Who are you?"
"Carlton Lassiter, SBPD."
"What's an Esbeepeedee?"
"I'm a detective…Santa Barbara Police Department." Never get snarky with a man that size, Carlton thought. He knew he was a pretty tough SOB in his own right, but he was also not stupid.
"Oh."
"Have you ever seen or heard of recent break-ins around here?" Carlton asked Grady. The mahogany-skinned man studied him with benign interest. Carlton gauged him to be around sixty, but clearly as strong and healthy as a bull, and he was toting a huge gas-powered leafblower. It looked like the guy could use it to take flight, frankly.
"No."
"Right. Well, that's good. Great to hear."
"Did somebody break into your house, Mr Esbeepeedee?"
"Lassiter," Carlton correctly, in as gentle a voice as he could considering his growing distress. "And yes. I think so. Maybe you could keep an eye out for anything suspicious? Flying pots…footprints…prancing garden topiary?" he said, nodding toward the line of molded trees in the back of the property. Elephants, deer, a horse, a dragon, and so on, were all over the lush gardens, which were extremely well maintained. There was also, according to what the woman from the real estate office had said, a maze somewhere out there. He had no interest in exploring it. In fact, the very idea of a garden maze kind of gave him the creeps.
"I can," Grady nodded.
"Great. Thanks. I…I have to go now because I…uh…have to go. See ya 'round!" He galloped away, around the condo, and back to his car. He was driving out of the parking lot when he looked through his rearview mirror and saw Grady standing in his front yard, blowing offending leaves off the perfectly coiffed grass.
Carlton glanced at the translator Gus had brought in, and saw that the little man seemed very, very nervous – tugging at his necktie, licking his lips, and clearing his throat. "What's the matter with you?" Carlton asked him, feeling no need for niceties now.
"I'm just nervous."
"About what? You do speak Croatian, right?"
"Of course!"
"So what's to be nervous about? They speak, you tell us what they're saying. We speak, you tell them what we're saying. Sounds extremely easy."
"Well, see, I am Croatian…at least…uh…partly. I grew up in Uruguay."
"Uruguay?"
"Yes. See, my mother was Uruguayan. She grew up in Uruguay, and her mother was from Germany…"
"And how far up your family tree are we going before we get to a name without vowels?" Carlton asked him, becoming impatient.
"Uh…well, her mother was from Croatia. Her father was from Germany. They kind of…ended up in Uruguay…after the war."
"So your great-grandfather was a Nazi, I'm assuming?"
"That's sort of what we never talked about, in my family. By the time the Mossad found him, he didn't even remember his name. Grandma always figured it would have been easier to just put a frog in his colostomy bag and be done with it."
Patience. Carlton let a few seconds tick by. "Do you actually speak Croatian?"
"Uh…some of it might get a little…lost…English is my first language. Spanish is actually my second language, then German, then...uh…Croatian."
Tick, tick, tick. "Should I go look for a dictionary?"
"No, no, I'm sure I can do this!"
Their Uruguayan-Teutonic-Croatian proved relatively helpful, even if he confused 'shoe' with 'spouse' at one rather critical point. He managed to process rapid-fire Croatian to Carlton, who scribbled furiously as the old couple talked, both of them frantic, hopeful, frightened and in for a heartbreak. He hadn't had the heart to ask them any questions. Maybe later. Maybe never. He figured he wouldn't be able to answer any questions for a few decades if somebody murdered his daughter…
They were standing in the morgue now, looking at the remains of a sixteen-year old girl. Carlton had tried to prevent the parents of the girl from coming down to make a positive ID – dental records had proven beyond any doubt who she was – but they had insisted on seeing their daughter. The moment Woody pulled the drawer open and removed the sheet, the woman started sobbing hysterically, crossing herself again and again, while the father just stood there, staring down at his only daughter's…body, or what was left of her. He saw Spencer pale and turn away. Carlton, meanwhile, just looked down at the girl, taking in her browned, shriveled skin and her hollowed-out eye sockets, with puncture wounds making little slits in the remaining skin where the eyes had been…
Carlton had seen numerous scenes like this. He was supposed to be used to them. Hardened, even. He remembered Victoria telling him once, when he'd come home after finding the body of a young woman in a steam trunk, that he smelled like death itself, and had been appalled that he hadn't gone upstairs and vomited up everything he'd eaten in the past week. He hadn't been able to explain why he didn't, but she had not had any interest in hearing him say why. By then, she didn't want to hear him explain anything.
There were no little jokes or cute quips from Shawn, either. Guster was nowhere in sight, being unable to cope with the sight of a dead body. Carlton was actually glad for Spencer's partner, because at least he wouldn't be having nightmares tonight. He looked at the psuedopsychic and caught the younger man's expression. He looked…sick.
Finally, Woody pushed the drawer closed again and a uniformed officer took the sobbing couple back upstairs. Carlton checked his watch and sighed, rubbing his forehead.
"What kind of sick bastard murders a sixteen-year old girl?" Shawn asked him.
"The same kind of sick bastard that murders anybody else, I suppose," Carlton answered. He felt so old. So worn down. He was forty-two, he had a constant pain in his left shoulder that prevented him from being able to tip his head back any more, so he couldn't drink the last dregs from a bottle. His knees clicked when he climbed stairs. He found it harder and harder to go to sleep at night, and ten times harder to wake up in the morning. He was finding more and more gray hairs…but at least he wasn't losing any hair. No…he was actually finding hair in his ears now...
"Buzz said once…" Shawn said, scratching the back of his neck. "Buzz said that he thought you were a robot, Lassie, but that can't be the case. You're more like…a warhorse. A mean one - that bites and kicks and stomps. Drags the wounded soldier out of the field alive, though. Gets the job done, no matter what, and then goes right back to the battlefield. Got scars all over you, huh?"
"A few."
"Been shot?"
"Four times."
"Jesus!"
Carlton looked around the morgue. Somehow, in this room, taking God's name in vain seemed a little…disrespectful. But he nodded. "I seem to recall saying that name a few times, first time I was shot. I took a bullet between my ribs, left side. Second time, I lost consciousness too soon to say anything about it – took a slug right above my left collarbone." He caught Shawn's uneasy smile. "Third time, it was in my leg and it barely missed the femoral artery. If it had hit…"
"You'd've died," Shawn said simply, but he looked…horrified.
"Yep. Fourth time, it was just a shoulder wound. A little nick. Nothing serious. O'Hara freaked when she saw all the blood. She blackmailed me into going to the hospital."
"How'd she do that?" They started walking up the stairs.
"She said that my right to kill you if you hurt her would be revoked. It was still only a tiny nick and I was out within an hour."
Shawn looked at Carlton for a moment, and finally, his mouth twitched into a grin. "That'd do it, though, eh, Lassiter? You'd love to empty your firearm into my gorgeous, hairy chest, wouldn't you?"
Carlton rolled his eyes. "I've been shot six other times, but I was wearing the Kevlar vest for those. Lots of bruising, but I was back to work the next day. Like I was gonna sit around watching TV." Carlton thought about his recent decision to have a life. If he were shot tomorrow (and he lived) he would happily take the time off. He would sit on his couch and let Marlowe dote on him and watch TV and just rest.
Still, he had no intention of getting shot. He was going to have a life, but he wasn't going to be forced out of the career he had built for himself here. It was simply that now, he had a life at home, away from this heavily-tiled, God-forsaken place, and he was eager to leave at the end of the day. Then he would definitely sit in front of the TV and rest, and eat dinner with Marlowe and go up to bed with her and fall asleep with her arms around him after they had doted on each other in a proper fashion.
At the top of the stairs, Shawn looked at Carlton, taking in his sharp suit and black and blue tie, and shiny black shoes. "You never stop, though, do you?"
"Never stop what?"
"Fighting."
"No. Why would I do that?" What a ridiculous question.
"Well…don't you get tired? Day in, day out, coming in here, seeing all…that…" he pointed downstairs. "It must wear you down."
"It does. But unlike you, Spencer, I'm obligated. It's my duty. I took an oath. It may sound boring and corny and archaic to you, but I take it seriously. It's how a man behaves when the times get hard that proves what kind of man he is. Otherwise he's not a man and he's good for nothing at all."
"And what do you think makes a man, Lassie?" Shawn said, finally shaking off his unease from downstairs.
"A man is what he fights for, Spencer."
"Detective Lassiter?"
Carlton looked up from his Philly cheesesteak and studied the man standing at his desk. He was wearing Federal black, with black tie and black shoes and black shades. Great. Serial killer rule book, top of the list of Things To Do: Bring in the FBI.
"I'm Agent John Whitestone, from the FBI."
"Whitestone…" Carlton stood up, and politely clasped Whitestone's hand with his own, and flinched at the man's strong grip. "Lassiter."
"I've heard about you."
"Fabulous."
"That was not the term used when they told me about you," Whitestone said, taking his shades off. He was strongly built, dark-haired, green-eyed, probably about forty. "I'm with the FBI's serial killer profiling unit. I would like to start working on a profile of the one you're contending with." He had a strange accent that Carlton couldn't quite place. And his hair seemed unkempt. Or maybe it just wasn't quite controllable.
"Have at it." Carlton's cell phone rang. Whitestone raised his eyebrows when he heard The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's famous theme, and Carlton answered. "What?"
"Mr Lassiter, this is Mrs Claypoole, from the real estate agency. Returning your call…"
"I don't have time to talk to you now."
"I've been trying to contact you all day!"
"Well, then. I'm It, in this game of phone tag now. I'll call you back." He hung up and looked at Whitestone. "We'll show you what we've got."
Juliet came around the corner, excitedly waving a folder in her hands. "Carlton! We've got a lead. A tiny one, but one just the same and…uh…" She paused when she saw Whitestone, who raised one eyebrow at her. "Hi."
"This is Agent Whitestone…FBI," Carlton said distractedly, taking the file from her and flipping it open. "What lead?"
"The girls…all dark haired, all tallish and slim, pretty…" She continued to stare, wide-eyed, at Whitestone. "They were all sort of…runaways, or just loners. One girl's parents said she was just sort of slow, and odd…"
Carlton read over Juliet's report, accustomed to her girlish handwriting, but there were a few words he couldn't quite decipher and he knew he would have to get her to translate. Maybe she knew Croatian.
"So the killer prefers victims that are isolated and socially inept," Whitestone said. He took the folder from Carlton, who eyed him coldly, and was surprised when Whitestone actually looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry. Force of habit. When you're finished reading it, may I see?"
Juliet was still staring at Whitestone as he leaned back against Carlton's desk, looking relatively relaxed. She cleared her throat. "So…uh…are you from the local field office?"
"Yes. Got out of Quantico a year ago."
"Oh, so you're kind of…new…?"
"No. Ten years there, working in the profiling unit. Before that, it was with the Johannesburg, South Africa police. Last year, I decided I was sick of shoveling snow and raking leaves and decided to move to California. New horizons, new atmosphere."
"Right."
"O'Hara, what the hell does this mean? 'The odious terry is thut a crouton is the keller'?"
"The obvious theory is that a Croatian is the killer'," she corrected, still studying Whitestone. He looked very federal, yes, but he also had pretty green eyes and a nice chin and his nose didn't look like a bet his parents had lost with God. He was very federally serious, but she caught a little hint of humor - and straightforward honesty - in his eyes that made her figure he would be easy to work with. Just like Carlton.
"Good. I was having trouble imagining a small piece of dried bread as a murderer." He went to hand the folder to Whitestone, but the FBI profiler was looking at Juliet. He paused, brow furrowing, and looked at them both. He cleared his throat – loudly – and they both jumped.
"Oh. Right." Whitestone took the folder and began reading. Carlton eyed his partner, who smoothed her hair back in a typically female 'I'm-totally-in-control-so-why-are-you-staring-at-me-like-that-and-by-the-way-stop-now?' fashion and sat down at her desk. She was online immediately. Whitestone moved out of Carlton's way and the detective sat down. "Your theory is very well-grounded," he finally said. "Now, we just need to start working on it."
"Thank you," Juliet said with a smile.
"One thing we learn, right off, is that when we hear hoofbeats, we think horses, not zebras."
"Bays, blacks, or chestnuts?" Juliet grinned.
Carlton couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Home. The scent of vanilla. Marlowe singing Sweet Dreams (a little off-key) in the kitchen, accompanied by a kind of low thumping. Alarmed, Carlton rushed into the kitchen and stopped in his tracks when he saw she was only chopping up green onions.
She turned and saw him, dropping pieces of onion on the floor. "Hi," she said with a grin, and bent to pick the bits of onion up.
"Hi."
"I met Mr Grady. Somehow, I feel safer knowing he's around, with his gigantic leafblower."
"Yeah, me too."
She came over to him, wearing an apron that looked to have been stained with some kind of sauce, and stood on her toes to give him a kiss, but she held her body away from him. As if he really gave a damn if he got Mystery Sauce on his suit. She minded, though, and backed away. "No way, Carlton. That's Hugo Boss!"
"He ain't the boss of me!" he growled at her, but she dodged out of his attempt to grab her and skittered back into the kitchen, giggling mischievously. He almost had her cornered when the phone began to ring. Growling at being interrupted at chasing his girlfriend, he snatched up the receiver. "Yeah?"
"Hey, Detective Lassiter, this is Woody."
"Yes, Woody," Carlton sighed, rubbing his forehead. A call from the ME couldn't spell good news. Then again, last time Woody had called him, he had been hoping Carlton would have lunch with him. For some reason, the Santa Barbara ME had kind of a weird thing about him that gave Carlton nightmares sometimes. He had refused, albeit as politely as he could, and then had needed aspirin.
"I'm afraid they've found another body. It's…uh…another girl. Seventeen. She was killed just this morning."
"Where was the body found?"
"In a trash-covered field near Rotham." Woody sounded thoroughly disgusted.
Carlton closed his eyes and thought of the streets of Santa Barbara, and their general locations – east, west, north, and south. Rotham was northwards, finally arcing west and into the same area where so many Eastern European immigrants were settled. He leaned against the wall, and felt Marlowe's fingertips brush his cheek. He looked at her, and she gave him a look that indicated it was all right if he went back to the station, and from the light in her eyes, he figured she'd keep the bed warm, too. She went back to the stove and resumed stirring something in a pot.
"That's seven, now."
"Right."
"I'll be right there."
Translations:
French: Quel 'enfer, c'est seulement au Canada – What the hell, it's only Canada
Irish Gaelic: Mo Dhia! Mo sinsear a bhí chomh bocht is nathracha! – My God, my ancestors were as poor as snakes!