The Golem of Hollywood

Chapter eighteen

They caravanned to a cul-de-sac in El Cajon, septuplet ranch houses worshipping a teardrop of molten asphalt. Jacob could understand why Ludwig preferred the boat: it was easily fifteen degrees hotter out here than it had been down by the water.

Inside, the blinds were drawn, the air-conditioning going full bore. Ludwig stooped to pet a languid sheepdog before leaving Jacob in the kitchen.

“One minute.”

While Jacob waited, he checked out the photo propped next to the coffeemaker. The Ludwigs had bred for maximum blond: missus was as towheaded as mister, and the boys they’d produced looked like a Nelson cover band. Fresh tulips above the sink implied that Mrs. L had made it through whatever illness had caused the D to take retirement. Some woman was resident, anyway. Girlfriend? Second marriage? Jacob knew better than to ask. All happy families might be alike, and every unhappy family unhappy in its own way, but since there are no happy families, you never can tell.

Ludwig clomped in, schlepping a cardboard file box. He dumped it on the kitchen table and arched his back. “I made copies of everything before I left.”

“Need a hand?”

“Yeah, okay.”

There were thirteen boxes, one for each of the victims and four overflow. As Jacob ferried them from the garage, he noticed a curtained corner, a workbench and plywood table visible through a crack.

It reminded him of his mother’s old setup, and he remembered Ludwig’s comment to the reporter who’d asked how he planned to spend his free time.

Take up a hobby.

Jacob remarked on it to Ludwig, who snorted.

“That clown didn’t print the rest of my answer. He goes, ‘What hobby?’ And I go, ‘I dunno, something mindless. Like journalism.’”

Jacob laughed.

“Got to keep busy,” Ludwig said, and he pulled the curtain aside.

What lay beyond was not the stuff of carved ducks. It was more like Divya Das’s second bedroom, or a hybrid of the two.

There were hand tools, hardware, clamps, a glass cutter, a Shop-Vac — their purpose evident in several half-constructed shadowboxes.

There were also specimen jars, tweezers, magnifying glasses. Shelves of thick books with weak spines and USED stickers. The Handbook of Western Butterflies. North American Lepidoptera. The Audubon Society Guide to Insects and Spiders.

Jacob picked up a shadowbox containing three monarchs and a hand-lettered placard that read D. plexippus.

“Beautiful,” he said.

“I told you, I’m bored. I never knew a thing about any of this until I moved down here. I never had the time. These days, it’s all I have. Do yourself a favor. Stay in L.A.”

Ludwig said, “Anyway, that’s the way it makes sense to me.”

They were at the kitchen table, the dog at their feet, coffee cold, boxes exploded, paper towers occupying every chair except the two they were sitting on.

“A power struggle,” Jacob said.

“Guys working in pairs, you’ve got a leader and a follower. There’s always going to be internal tension. Twenty years of staying quiet, that’s no small thing. Figure them arguing about something, going back and forth at each other, this and that, and one of them gets nervous and goes, ‘I’ve got to take him out before he takes us both down.’”

“You think the message was a blind,” Jacob said.

“It worked, didn’t it? You’re here asking about the victims. Or try this on: Guy A feels remorse, but instead of going to the cops he turns around and kills guy B. In his mind, that’s justice.”

“The cop who responded to my scene said it was a woman who called it in,” Jacob said.

Ludwig said, “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“To me that’s a reason to revisit some of the victims’ families.”

Ludwig nodded slowly. “Okay, maybe. But these people have suffered, you keep that right smack in the front of your mind.”

“Promise,” said Jacob. “Any suggestion where I should begin?”

A silence.

Ludwig said, “I hesitate to even mention this.”

Jacob said nothing.

“One of the vics had a sister who was mentally ill. We never considered her for the original killings because, in the first place, she had no history of violence, and in the second place, we were only looking at men — we had semen. I guess it’s not impossible to fit a crazy woman to yours. Just cause she’s had some problems—”

“I know,” Jacob said. “I get it.”

“She’d have to succeed in tracking the guy down where we failed, and if she’s anything like I remember, that’s out of the question.”

“Fair enough,” Jacob said. “Let me talk to her, at least.”

“Go easy, would you?”

“I promise. What’s her name?”

“Denise Stein.”

“Janet Stein’s sister,” Jacob said.

Ludwig nodded.

Jacob said, “Did you ever look at anyone who spoke Hebrew?”

“Someone Jewish, you mean?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Who else speaks Hebrew?”

“A classically trained priest, a Bible scholar. You come across anyone like that?”

Ludwig was laughing. “Maybe I should be looking at you, Detective Lev. No. I don’t remember anyone like that. If there was, it’d be in there somewhere.”

Warily, Jacob regarded the mess.

Ludwig said, “Best of luck. Don’t forget to write.”

They repacked the file boxes and loaded them into the Honda: four in the trunk, two belted in the passenger seat, and seven stacked in the back.

A station wagon pulled into the driveway, and a slightly older version of the woman from the family photo got out, carrying a Gap bag and a supermarket rotisserie chicken.

“He’s taking it off my hands,” Ludwig said to her, thumbing at the boxes.

She beamed at Jacob. “My hero.”

Her name was Grete. She insisted Jacob stay for dinner. While they ate, she asked if Jacob intended to take her husband’s bugs, too. “Pretty please,” she said.

“She won’t let me bring them in the house,” Ludwig complained.

“What sane human being would?”

“I think it’s good to have a hobby,” Jacob said. “Better that than gambling.”

Grete stuck out her tongue at him.

“Listen to the man,” Ludwig said. “He’s a bright one.”

Jacob showed him the photos of the insect from the cemetery.

“Any idea what that is? I think I have an infestation.”

Ludwig put on his reading glasses. “I can’t tell the scale.”

Jacob demonstrated with his fingers. “About yea.”

Ludwig arched an eyebrow. “Really. That big...? Well, tell you what: e-mail them to me, and I’ll think on it. Don’t get your hopes up, though. It’s black, it’s shiny, it’s got six legs. Could be a lot of things. You know how many species of Coleoptera there are? About a hundred jillion. They once asked this biologist what his study of nature had taught him about the Creator. He said, ‘God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.’”

“Can we please, please talk about something else,” Grete said.

Jacob asked about their kids.

The younger son was at UC Riverside, the elder a sous chef in Seattle.

“You must eat well when he comes home.”

“I won’t let him in my kitchen,” Grete said. “He destroys it. He’ll use every single pan I own to make a salad. He’s used to other people cleaning up after him.”

“Like father, like son,” Ludwig said.