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The case received media exposure: TV, print, online digests, a few bloggers rehashing what they’d read. With the news cycle reduced to twenty-four seconds, the story lost currency nearly immediately. No attempt by self-labeled activists to make something of the officer-involved shooting. Maybe for the same reason or because Rooney Gilmore’s criminal history made him an inapt victim.
Milo kept me informed with occasional calls but we had no face-to-face contact, swamped as he was with completing the murder book and arranging for the transfer of evidence from Inglewood’s jurisdiction to L.A.’s.
The move was a formality because the Honda and everything collected from Rooney Gilmore’s filthy room at the King Henry Motor Lodge was destined to end up in the same place no matter who sent it: the county crime lab at Cal State L.A. But rules are rules.
Gilmore’s weapons would eventually be shipped to the FBI to see if a match could be made to other crimes. The revolver, specifically, would be compared with the bullets recovered at the three cold robbery-homicides. New Orleans PD, learning of those cases from Moe Reed, theorized that Nicole Fontenot’s murder had started out as a robbery but that Gilmore had failed to catch her inside the bar and when sheresisted reopening, he’d shot her. But, as their public relations officer was careful to point out in a press release, the truth would likely never be known.
One of the calls Milo did make filled me in on his final chat with Doug March, whom he reached in Columbus, Ohio. March had listened patiently, then said, “I’m finding myself feeling sorry for her. Thank God he didn’t kill me. Appreciate your letting me know.”
He’d also reached Claudio Aggiunta in Florence who’d alternated between profuse thanks and weeping.
“He was with his parents, lots of tears in the background, that was a tough one.”
—
His next communication was a text asking if I minded calling Kathy Bookbinder. I said sure and reached her in her office at Chandler.
She said, “Yes, I read about it, but thanks. Even though it’s what I expected, it made me sad. But also glad that I got out of that cesspool.”
Even while contending with small-print torment, Milo made a point of going to the lab, eager to examine the contents of each evidence box as it was opened. What he got for his efforts was rancid clothing, food wrappers, empty beer bottles, a packet of methamphetamine, a bottle of pills that turned out to be codeine, another containing Oxycontin, and a few primitive hand-drawn cartoons of guns, knives, clubs, axes, skulls, and blood drips. The kind of art you get from angry ten-year-old boys.
Finally, at the bottom of the last carton, something he could use.
Two computer-generated maps, one leading to the church where Richard Barlett had worked, the other, dated weeks later, to the mansion occupied by Doug and Meagin March. Crudely drawn skulls and crossbones on each.
A shakily scrawled message on the map to Meagin.
avendge Daddy!!!!
—
Three days after the story died, Milo received an email that he forwarded to me with the headingStill tied up. You mind handling this, also?
The message had been sent by a woman from Gainesville, Florida, named Felice Heidl. I read what she had to say, sent her my number and told her she was free to call.
Two hours later, she did.
“Doctor? This is Felice Heidl.”
“Hi. Thanks for getting in touch.”
“I figured I should. I didn’t figure I’d be talking to a psychologist, but that’s great, the cops having someone like you. I guess you’d be the right person to talk to, anyway.”
“Anything you want me to pass along to Detective Sturgis, I will.”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
I said, “What would you like to tell me about Rooney?”
“Rooney,” she repeated. “It’s been a long time since I fostered him but thinking about it, I can’t say I’m shocked. About what happened.”
“How long did you foster him?”
“A little over a year,” she said. “After they released him from the facility. We were doing that, back then, my husband and I. Taking on high-risk cases. Bill’s a pastor, we’d done missionary work in some pretty rough places and thought we were equipped.”
She sighed.
I said, “Rooney was a challenge.”
