by P. A. Brown
“I need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Hayward.” He glanced at Kyle. “If you’re not too busy.”
“No, that’s okay. We were just watching TV. Kyle, babe, you want to put the kettle on? Would you like coffee, Detective Laine?”
“Thanks, I’m fine. But you go ahead. This won’t take long.” David thought he heard Kyle snort as he vanished toward the kitchen. Neither Des nor David watched him go.
“What’s this about, detective?” Des signaled that David should precede him into the living room, where they had held their earlier interview. “Has something come up about those men who jumped us?”
“No, it’s not that, Mr. Hayward. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your friend, Mr. Bellamere.”
“Chris? What do you want to know?”
Kyle slipped onto the couch beside Des. On the wall behind them framed posters from a slew of old Hollywood sci-fi flicks lent an air of comic menace. Kyle leaned forward. “What’s the asshole done now?”
David flipped out his notepad and a pen and scribbled down the date.
“Why, Kyle? Are you aware of anything that would warrant police involvement?”
“No, he’s just a jerk. Full of himself.” Kyle smirked. “But then you two were getting pretty cozy the other night. Maybe he got full of something else.”
David ignored the crude insinuation, turning to Des.
“What about you? Have you seen Mr. Bellamere since I drove him back to his vehicle Monday night?”
Des shook his head. “I’ve been busy—”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“Sure,” Des said. “Talked to him the next day—”
“Yeah, after you spent half the night calling,” Kyle sounded bitter. “I kept trying to get him to bed, but he had to talk to Chris.”
Was the kid jealous? According to Kyle, Des and Chris had a relationship that spanned years. How could anyone compete with that kind of history?
David leaned forward. “You couldn’t reach Mr. Bellamere that night? How late are we talking here?”
Des shot Kyle a dirty look. “I thought he went home with you,” he said. The look Des gave David was shrewd and full of questions. “I saw you two kissing, you know. You can pretend I didn’t, but I know what I saw.”
“That may be, sir, but Mr. Bellamere and I went our separate ways once I dropped him off. How late did you try calling him?”
This time Des shrugged. “Two o’clock maybe. I talked to him early the next day.”
Des glanced at Kyle. “Babe, can you get me some of that coffee?”
David waited until the younger man left, since it was obvious Des didn’t want to talk in front of Kyle. Once he was gone, David asked, “He call you or you call him?”
“I called—no, wait...He called me.”
“What time was this?”
“Twelve, twelve-thirty.”
“Do you have call display? Where was he calling from?”
Des shrugged. “Work, I guess. You should come down to the store sometime. I’ve got some Perry Ellis that would look sharp on you—”
“Can you verify that he was calling from work?”
“What’s this about? So Chris called me on his cell.”
“So you can’t verify he was at work?”
“It was lunch time.” Des smoothed his fingers over his bare scalp. “Where else would he be? Jesus, if you knew Chris, you wouldn’t ask. The guy’s a fucking workaholic. He’s always at work early and stays late—works weekends, the whole nine yards.”
Kyle returned with two mugs of coffee. He handed one to Des.
“Thanks, hon,” Des said.
Kyle sat back down beside him, crowding close. Des patted his knee.
Not wanting to lose the momentum, David pressed on. “How often have you talked to him since then?”
“Not much. We don’t live in each other’s pockets, you know.” He glanced at Kyle, then back at David. “What exactly is it you think Chris did?”
“Just gathering information. My job is like working a jigsaw puzzle. Before I can start doing anything, I need to assemble as many pieces as I can.”
“And what piece does Chris represent?”
“Like I said. I’m just gathering information.”
David stood. He held out his hand to Des, who took it gingerly.
He left Des standing in the middle of his living room, surrounded by memorabilia from ancient films and dead actors. It struck David that the place was like a tomb, housing the immortal remains of the bygone famous.
Outside, David took a deep breath, tasting car exhaust and ozone. It was time to bring Chris in for some formal questioning, maybe a lineup with Leroy, the guy who could link the suspect with Jason Blake. But first, he had some legal issues to take care of. He wasn’t going to let Chris get off because he let himself get sloppy.
He headed back toward the station, where Martinez would be waiting with his pepper-laden pizza. Which David would force himself to eat, though he no longer had any appetite.
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CHAPTER 14
Friday, 7:45 am, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles CHRIS STARED DOWN at the folded parchment the sheriff’s deputy held out to him.
“Mr. Christopher Bellamere?” the deputy said.
“Y-yes? What is this—”
The sheriff pressed the folded paper into Chris’s hand. “This subpoena requires you to present yourself at the Northeast Community Police Station—”
“What?” Chris snatched the document and unfolded it. He read through the legalese as best he could. A lineup. They wanted him to show up for a lineup. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s not for me to say, sir.”
Chris stepped back inside his cool foyer and shut the door, before he could be tempted to share his thoughts with the uniformed jerk. Dazed, he scooped up his phone.
Des answered on the third ring. “I got trouble. I need a lawyer.”
“What’s wrong?”
Chris scrubbed his face with one hand, feeling the rasp of early morning beard. “I don’t know.” He told Des about the subpoena.
“A lineup?” Des sounded agitated. That didn’t help. “He sure didn’t let any grass grow under him, did he?”
“What? Who?”
“That cop, David, came by our place last night, asking all kinds of questions.”
“David?” Chris’s gears did a rapid shift. “What the hell did you tell him?”
“Nothing!”
“The fuck. You must have said something—”
“I swear I never said anything.”
“Goddamn it, Des—” Chris pressed the fingers of his left hand against his eyelids, flashes of light exploded behind his eyes. “I need a lawyer. You gotta help me.”
“S-sure. I’ll find somebody, I got some connections.”
“Good.” Chris hung up before he said something he’d regret. He slumped down in the nearest chair, cradling his head in his hands.
Now what? Go to work like nothing was happening? What the hell was he supposed to do? Put his life on hold while he sorted this mess out?
What did David think he had done?
*****
Simon Weiss didn’t look like a Beverly Hills lawyer. He was a short, balding man with a pronounced gut and a fringe of white hair that stuck up on either side of his round head like a pair of soft horns. But he dressed the part. A twenty-five-hundred-dollar Versace suit worn with Italian leather shoes and a tie that would have set Chris back a day’s pay. He sat behind an acre-sized desk of granite and steel that held nothing but an off-white phone, an ornate letter opener that looked like it dated back to Washington’s day, and an exquisitely framed, professional studio shot of an unsmiling woman and two unsmiling children, a boy and a girl. The rest of the office held only framed prints of a Stanford law degree and a couple of pictures of presidents, past and present, and of the current California governor.
Simon held out his hand. They sh
ook and Simon pointed to an oxblood leather chair.
“Please, Mr. Bellamere. Have a seat.” Chris sank into the supple leather. He set his laptop case beside him on the Berber rug. “I think I’m about to be screwed,” Chris said, ignoring the startled look the man gave him. “I want you to stop them.”
Friday, 4:40 pm, Northeast Community Police Station, San Fernando Road, Los Angeles
DAVID LED LEROY Gillie into observation room 2. Martinez was already there, along with Simon Weiss, Bellamere’s lawyer, and Barry Lords, the assistant D.A.
Leroy bobbed nervously in place, his Adam’s apple convulsing when he caught sight of the polarized-glass window separating them from the room next door.
From his vantage point behind Leroy, David watched a uniformed cop lead six men into the room beyond the glass.
There were lines on the wall to mark off heights and more marks to tell members of the lineup where to stand. It still took the uni a few minutes to get them all in place and facing the mirror. David recognized a couple of beat cops picked to be in the lineup because they bore enough of a resemblance to Bellamere’s overall coloring and body shape to satisfy the high- priced legal help Bellamere had shown up with less than an hour ago.
“No one inside the room can see us in here, Mr. Gillie,” David said. “You’re quite safe.”
Leroy puffed out his skinny chest, a pouter pigeon determined to show how tough he was. “I know that. I watch Law ’n’ Order.”
David suppressed a grin at the indignation in the young man’s voice. “Okay, Mr.
Gillie. Take your time. We’ll have each man step forward in turn. Look them over and tell us if any one of them looks like the man you saw Jason Blake with. It’s important that you be sure of your identification, so again, take your time.”
“Please, Detective Laine,” Bellamere’s lawyer said. “No coaching of the witness.”
David didn’t bother protesting. Instead he reached forward and depressed the intercom button. “Put ’em through their paces, Officer Larch.”
Then he stepped back, leaving Leroy at the window.
Each man’s number was called and he stepped forward, into the light. Bellamere was third in line. He wore the blue jeans he’d been told to wear. Eight-hundred-dollar jeans?
David wondered. Even in this crowd of look-alikes he stood out, like a diamond among pieces of colored glass.
He turned to find Bellamere’s lawyer watching him with cool eyes. David felt as though his desires were written all over his face. A warm flush crept up his neck.
“Number three, step forward,” Larch’s voice could easily be heard over the intercom.
Bellamere stepped into the full light. David held his breath. Then, rather than risk betraying more than he already had, he focused all his attention on Leroy.
The young man leaned forward, looking for all the world like a little kid staring at a roomful of puppies. And Bellamere was clearly his favorite.
“Turn to the right, number three,” Larch said. “Now step back. Number four, step forward.”
Leroy suddenly bolted forward, his finger stabbing at the window. “That’s him.
That’s the one I saw Jay with.”
“Which one is that, Mr. Gillie?” Ice settled in David’s gut. But he had to hear the words. “I need you to say the number, sir.”
“Three. It’s number three. That’s the guy you want, isn’t it?”
“Thank you, Mr. Gillie.” David clamped down on his own disappointment. He glanced at Bellamere’s lawyer. “As I see it, that’s two for two. We can now place your client with two of our deceased victims.”
Martinez’s smile was wolfish. “We’ll see you in court, counselor.”
The lawyer glanced at Leroy, then at David. His face held only boredom. “I doubt it, detective.”
Once Weiss was gone, Martinez’s grin threatened to split his dark face in half. “You did great, kid,” he said to Leroy. Then to David: “Let’s go get those warrants.”
Monday, 10:15 am, Lincoln Boulevard, Venice, Los Angeles CHRIS SPENT MONDAY morning trapped in the subbasement of the Venice Savings and Loan, where he had struggled for hours to fix a mysterious software glitch that had invaded the bank’s main database, threatening their data integrity. Thank God for backups and redundant systems. They hadn’t lost a single byte of customer information. Chris had tested it a half a dozen times against their latest backups and found no corruption anywhere. Finally he was able to have the bank manager sign off on the work and could crawl back to DataTEK to find out what new disasters awaited. He knew it was going to be that kind of week.
He climbed back into daylight and blinked at the midmorning sun burning through the sullen layer of smog hanging over the beach town. The man who had envisioned Venice a century ago had seen something that would rival the Italian city of the same name. A Venice West with canals filled with boats and pretty people riding upon the placid waterways. Well the canals were still there, but the only thing floating on them was refuse and the people were anything but pretty.
His BlackBerry vibrated as he stepped off the elevator at DataTEK. “Chris here.”
“Chris!” It was Des, panic-stricken and frantic. “What’s going on? Two cops were just at the store looking for you. Kyle called and said there was someone at our place too.”
“What—”
He lapsed into uneasy silence when two uniformed cops stepped out of his cubicle.
Behind them stood a pale-faced Becky and someone he wouldn’t have wanted to see under any circumstances, and especially not these: a smug-looking Tom Clarke.
“Christopher Bellamere?” the older of the two cops said. He nodded slowly, wondering whether even that admission might be too much information.
“We need you to come with us, sir,” the older cop said. “Right now.”
The younger one, a huge, burly guy who looked like his hobby was lifting refrigerators, closed his hand over Chris’s wrist, pulling the BlackBerry away from his ear. Chris could faintly hear Des screaming something about David, then the device was wrenched away from him and the voice stopped.
Weakly he tried to shake off the fridge lifter. “Hey, I was talking to someone.”
“You can call anyone you want later, sir. Right now we need you to come with us.”
“What is this about?”
“You’ll find out everything you need to know at the station.”
Chris was tempted to refuse. If he put up a fight would they drag him out? No one had said anything about arresting him and they seemed polite enough. What if he insisted on calling Simon?
“What station?” he asked, hating that his voice still sounded weak. God, they probably already had him pegged as some kind of pansy faggot.
“Northeast,” the older one said, his voice still polite, despite the contempt that radiated off him.
They steered him back into the elevator. Chris stared at the silver-paneled door, embroiled in his own thoughts, only belatedly realizing the fridge lifter was talking to him.
“Do you have your car keys, sir?”
“Car keys? What for?”
The other cop handed over a folded legal-sized piece of paper. Chris stared at it like it might open up and bite him.
“We have a warrant to impound you vehicle. Please give me your keys, sir.”
Chris could almost hear the unspoken “faggot” in his words. He resisted arguing, and held his silence all the way down to the Northeast Community Police Station. Simon would have been proud.
They put him in a room with a single, scarred table surrounded by four equally battered chairs. A large, fingerprint-smeared window took up one wall; Chris watched enough TV to know it was two-way glass. Who was on the other side? David? He stared at the metal bolts on the table. It added a grim overtone he didn’t like one bit. What the hell did they do with those? Handcuff people to them?
He kept waiting for David to appear and tell him it was all a mistake. But when the door opened it w
as to reveal a stout, florid Latino man in a muddy green jacket and a lemon-yellow shirt over blue-and-green checkered pants.
David’s partner.
Chris couldn’t remember his name. He watched the fashion-challenged man set a briefcase on the table and pull out a chair, glancing only briefly at Chris before opening the case and shuffling through some papers in it.
Chris could stand it no more.
“Who are you?”
David’s partner blinked at him. Surprised he’d speak up? He went back to shuffling paper, then slid his oversized rump into the chair. Before Chris could speak again he drew out a tape recorder and set it on the table between them.
“You mind if we record this session?”
“Why?”
“For your protection, as well as ours. This way no one puts words into anyone’s mouth. Fair enough?”
“Tell me who you are, first.”
“I’m Detective Martinez Diego of the Los Angeles Police Department. That answer your question?” Martinez indicated the recorder. “Shall we continue?”
Chris debated telling him to go to hell. But he was sick of not knowing what was going on. If this guy could tell him anything it would be worth the hassle. Hell, Chris hadn’t done anything. He had nothing to hide.
He temporized. “I want to call my lawyer.”
“Fair enough,” Martinez said. “Call him.”
But when Chris connected with Weiss’s law offices a placid-voiced woman told him that Mr. Weiss was in court all day and would not be available until much later. Did he wish to leave a message?
What Chris wanted was to talk to his damned lawyer; instead all he said was, “Sure, tell him Christopher Bellamere called.” He fixed Martinez with a jaundiced eye. “And the cops have dragged him back down here. I want him to find out why they’re still hassling me.”
He hung up and glared at the fat cop. “Go ahead.”
Martinez flipped on the recorder and immediately repeated his name, rank, and the day’s date and time.
“You want some coffee while we wait for your lawyer?”
“No. Why am I here?”