Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [113]
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I’ve been up thinking about it,” he said.
“Family is family,” I replied on cue. “I love your kids, I don’t want them exposed to this crap.”
Suddenly Mike stood and ripped down Ray Brennan’s picture.
“Hey!” I said.
“This is crap! I don’t want it in my house!”
“You’re right,” I said, taking the crumpled photo from his hand. “This is bad, bad, toxic stuff. We can’t let it contaminate your family.”
He gestured helplessly.
“The problem is, this guy kills girls. I know he did the one who was found in the park.”
Mike rubbed his hair. “Which one who was found in the park?”
His ignorance of the latest murder confirmed what Jason said: the Bureau had dropped the case.
“Another victim, named Arlene Harounian. She was asphyxiated, possibly during the sex act. Ray Brennan took her picture, just like Hugh Akron takes pictures of girls, promises them modeling careers—”
“You have to give this up.”
“I know Brennan photographed both victims. The question is, where? How does he find them? How does he get them to pose? Because, I’m telling you, he’s going to take another girl.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Mike suddenly. “I have to be up in three hours.”
I told him I would be out by the weekend.
The next day Mike called from the office.
“Hugh Akron says there’s a thing called photo swap meets. They have them every two weeks, at different locations around southern California. They’re like swap meets, where photographers and models get together. It’s supposed to be legit. He says that’s where he goes to meet models, and he’d be pleased to take me along.”
“You declined.”
“There’s an organization.”
Mike gave me the website.
I understood that it was a parting gift.
Subj: RE: PHOTO DAY
From:moose@sunshinephotoclub
To: 70Barracuda@hotmail.com
Dear Ana,
Don’t call it a “swap meet,” we are not a “swap meet,” since “swap meets” are places where photographers trade and sell camera equipment. No shooting is done at a “swap meet.” Our club sponsors Photo Days, which are actual photo shoots, for photographers and models. Are you interested in modeling? The female models are admitted free. All of our models are female, as men don’t like to take pictures of other men. Our next Photo Day is this Sunday. Click on the link. It’s a lot of fun. I would like to welcome you personally. Please provide a physical description of yourself.
This would be one of those subcultures where you’d want to put on rubber gloves before typing a reply.
I downloaded the Sunshine Photo Club’s calendar of events. Counting back every Sunday for two months, I got to the week of Juliana’s abduction. There was a Photo Day scheduled that Sunday in Veterans Park. Juliana had been taken the following Tuesday. She had never mentioned a photo shoot. She did not say she wanted to be a model. If the theory was that Brennan stalked these shoots, why had he been trolling the Promenade?
I flipped back through my personal calendar and noted that was the weekend when Andrew and I were supposed to ride his Harley in a police fund-raiser. But we did not ride the Harley because it had rained. It was raining all weekend. It had rained the weekend before.
I had gone swimming in the pool in the rain.
The police fund-raiser had been canceled.
The photo shoot was undoubtedly canceled, too.
Ray Brennan was hungry. His pattern had been disrupted and he had to look outside his comfort zone.
The Promenade was not his hunting field. We had been misled by our own assumptions. Juliana had not been the pattern. She had been the exception to the pattern.
I dug out the crumpled program for Arlene Harounian’s memorial service, which was still inside my jacket pocket. The two girls who had spoken about Arlene wanting to be a model were listed in the order of events as Remembering Arlene by Jane Latsky and Muriel Fletcher. Directory assistance gave me four Latskys in the area. I told young Jane I was a reporter for a local paper and wanted to know if her friend Arlene had ever