The Case of the Vanishing Blonde by Mark Bowden

Author:Mark Bowden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2020-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

. . . A Million Years Ago

Vanity Fair, July 2012

Los Angeles Police Department detective Stephanie Lazarus has a very expressive, elastic face. At fifty-one she looks at least ten years younger. Her straight brown hair is shoulder-length, with bangs that fall at an angle to either side of her forehead, and her manner is outgoing and friendly. She is pretty, even as middle age has begun to tug at her face. She smiles and laughs easily and has a wide range of comical facial expressions but she is mercurial—she has a quick, harsh temper. She can also turn on a hard, weathered expression, a look that means business and that is useful for someone who has spent the last quarter century as a cop.

On the morning of June 5, 2009, Lazarus reported for work at the Parker Center, the LAPD administration building downtown, where she was surrounded by many of her longtime colleagues and friends. She was a respected, well-known figure in the department. No, more than that. In this close-knit world, she was in her own way legendary. She had worked her way up from a patrol car to heading the art-theft division, a fascinating job that was about more than crime fighting. It had a public-relations aspect to it, in that stolen art tends to be stolen from the homes and galleries of some of LA’s most notable citizens. It was a coveted job in the LAPD. There was no getting bogged down with a heavy caseload, no being under the thumb of a supervisor. The unit had only two detectives; they met fascinating people, and there was a great deal of freedom in choosing which cases to pursue. And there was no doubt Lazarus deserved it. In all of her years in the department, she had never had a disciplinary hearing. Not one. This was unheard of, and it had made Lazarus famous. She had covered most of the desired positions in the LAPD, in units such as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), Homicide, and Internal Affairs. She was widely known in the department and well liked, despite her gloss of perfection. She could be chipper and fun. She had married a fellow detective, and together they had adopted a child. She had survived a bout with cancer. Lazarus had started up the department’s childcare program, had initiated a child-safety/ ID program. She was one of those people whom it was, simply, a privilege to know.

When Detective Dan Jaramillo asked Lazarus for help that morning, she was predictably eager to oblige. He told her that they had arrested someone who had information about an art theft and asked her if she would go downstairs with him to the building’s basement jail facility to interrogate the suspect. They walked downstairs together, chatting amiably. Lazarus was led into a small interrogation room with pale blue walls and soundproof tiles from about waist level to the ceiling. Here Jaramillo introduced her to his partner, Greg Stearns.

They asked Lazarus to take a seat in the chair ordinarily given to the interrogatee.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.