The Wedding Guest

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Telephonic approval’s in place contingent on my filling out the papers perfectly when I get back to the office and don’t add anything. Let’s take a closer look at Mr. Lotz’s manse.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  At the door to building A, he phoned Pena and got voicemail. Muttering, “Not a promising start to our relationship, Bob,” he tried again with the same result. Glaring, he said, “One more time…there you are, Bob. We’re ready to get into Lotz’s place. Like now…yes, I have a warrant…see you out front.”

  Whatever Pena said made him smile.

  I said, “Penitence?”

  “More like terror. He impresses me as a guy who’ll always be afraid of something.” He tapped his foot and scrolled through his email. “Crap…crap…crap…all crap. The disinformation age.”

  The door opened and Pena came out. “I called the company about the feed. Person in charge was out.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Sandra Masio.”

  “What’s her number?”

  “Got it on speed dial, don’t know it by heart.”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Back in my office.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Ground floor of B,” said Pena. “So I can be in the center of things.”

  “Here’s my card, Bob. Find the number and email it to me while we look over Mr. Lotz’s grand palace.”

  “He never complained about living there.” Pena licked his lips. “Nothing like this ever happened.”

  I said, “How long have you been working here?”

  “Four years.”

  A year and a half before Cassy Booker’s death. “How many deaths have there been during that time?”

  Pena blinked twice. “Why would there be deaths, sir?”

  “Four years, lots of people,” I said. “Things happen.”

  “What I meant was no employees ever”—Pena looked at the floor—“did what he did.”

  I said, “What about resident deaths?”

  A beat. “There was a professor—an old guy, visiting from somewhere, U. put him up here for a year. Right after I started he had a heart attack. He was old.”

  His eyes raced to the left, faltered, reversed direction, and slid past my scrutiny.

  Milo said, “What else, Bob?”

  “A little later there was one other one.”

  “A professor?”

  Head shake. “A student, don’t know exactly what happened. The EMTs took her away, later the family came and took her stuff without talking to me. Company didn’t hold her to the lease.”

  “Big of them,” said Milo. “How’d she die?”

  “No one told me, sir,” said Pena. “They took her in an ambulance and she never came back.”

  “You weren’t curious.”

  Pena tried out a smile, ended with a queasy parting of lips. “You know what they say about the cat.”

  I said, “Did this girl die two and a half years ago?”

  Milo’s eyebrows rose.

  Pena chewed his lips. “That sounds about right. I wasn’t here, someone else did the 911.”

  “Who was that?”

  “I had an assistant.”

  “You don’t anymore?”

  “Not necessary.”

  “Corporate downsizing.”

  “I don’t know what it was, but he’s gone and I don’t need it,” said Pena.

  “He met the parents.”

  “Don’t know what he did, just the 911. Back then I was also supervising some Section Eights the company has downtown.”

  Something he’d just said he’d avoided.

  Milo said, “What’s your former assistant’s name?”

  “Kramer.”

  “First name.”

  “Pete. He was part-time.”

  I said, “What was the girl’s name?”

  “It’s important?” said Pena.

  Milo said, “Maybe, maybe not. We can check county records, but it’d be easier if you just told us.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure, but like I said, don’t know their names, even the ones living here now. Unless they cause big problems, there was this kid, son of an ambassador. Long name I couldn’t pronounce, called himself Tim. Him I remember, nothing but problems. We finally expelled him.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I started.”

  Clear memory of four years ago.

  I said, “The girl who died, which building and unit did she live in?”

  “Building B,” said Pena. “The unit I can’t tell you. Don’t even remember the floor—it wasn’t One, that I can tell you, my office is on One, she wasn’t near there. Maybe Two. Probably Three. I’m pretty sure not Four.” He scratched beneath his lower lip. “I want to say Two or Three.”

  Another failed smile. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Was her name Cassandra or Cassy?”

  Milo’s eyes widened.

  Robert Pena said, “Like I said…maybe. Could be, sounds right. Like you said, you can check records.”

  “Right,” said Milo. “And what you can do is unlock that gate and the metal door and give the company another call about the camera feed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pena trudged off.

  Milo turned to me. “What was that all about?”

  “Maxine told me a girl in the same program as Amanda had committed suicide. I ran some searches and found her name. Cassy Booker. Pena seemed evasive about other deaths, so I gave it a shot.”

  “Same program as Amanda. She write an essay, too?”

  “As a matter of fact, she did.”

  He folded his arms across his barrel chest. “You didn’t think to say anything because…”

  “The case was going in a lot of directions and at the time it didn’t seem to clarify anything.”

  “Protecting my feeble brain from too much input?”

  “Trying to be efficient, Big Guy.”

  “Hmph.”

  “I’m still not sure it’s relevant. College student suicide isn’t all that rare—five to ten per hundred thousand, meaning two to four a year on a campus the size of the U.”

  “But now you’re asking Pena about it.”

  “Long as we had him, I figured why not.”

  He stared at me. “You don’t see Amanda as Princess of Doom.”

  “I was actually wondering if she’s a potential suicide.”

  “Why? The program’s too much stress?”

  “Her affect’s off—flat, withdrawn. At her brother’s wedding she opted out emotionally. You could see it as hostility but it could be serious depression.”

  “Or she’s just got a weird personality.”

  “Weird people can get depressed.”

  His arms tightened, bunching his jacket sleeves. “Sad, not a brat, huh?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “You took your cautious pills today.”

  “Take ’em every day.”

  He freed his arms, began finger-counting. “On the other hand, her brother’s wedding is totally ruined by a murder involving heroin and fentanyl and she doesn’t appear to give a damn. A few days later a junkie who just happens to clean up her building spikes himself to death. If we find Lotz died from the same cocktail as Red Dress, I’m breathing hard. We find out so did this Cassy Booker, I’m hyperventilating.”

  “You see Amanda as a dope dealer?”

  “I don’t see anything, I’m just feeling weird.” He slipped on rubber gloves. “You’re obviously not, good for you. I’m gonna go excavate.”

  “Want help?”

  “No, too cramped in there.”

  * * *

  —

 
I get paid irregularly and stingily by LAPD but refuse to go on the department payroll because it would kill my spirit and radically slash my income. The uncharted arrangement Milo and I have makes a lot of what I do—driving him around, questioning witnesses, inspecting crime scenes—a potential violation. That’s never caused a problem because Milo’s solve rate is astonishing and the chief thinks I’m part of that—he’s the one who tried to lure me into civil servitude.

  On top of that, for all its paramilitary stance, LAPD flexibility is commonplace even when there’s scant benefit to the department. A glaring example is celebrities swapping ride-alongs for autographs and selfies cops can show their kids.

  Back in 1991, a charming, good-looking Austrian writer named Jack Unterweger came to L.A. on a magazine assignment about international law enforcement and got chauffeured around the downtown red-light district by veteran detectives. Unterweger turned out to be a sexual sadist who’d strangled seven women in Europe and he used what he’d been shown to savage three additional victims.

  Despite that, no change in policy resulted, because L.A. is Improv City: Reinvent yourself, make up the rules as you go along, all the while inhaling whatever whiff of fame you can suck from your aspirational bong.

  I’m fully at ease tossing victims’ residences, not so much standing around and doing nothing as Milo pulled a peeved solo.

  No problem, it would pass.

  * * *

  —

  I walked around the parking garage until I snagged some bars on my phone, checked my mail and my messages, wrote a few replies. Then I looked up Academo, Inc.

  Closely held corporation in Columbus, Ohio. Scant info beyond a couple of articles in business magazines that specialized in financial porn.

  The forty-five-year-old brainchild of an Ohio State alum and benefactor named Anthony Nobach, the company was presented as a model of entrepreneurial spirit. Born to humble beginnings, Nobach had earned spending cash as a freshman by charging fellow students modest fees for locating cheap housing. The following year he created a moving company named Cheap Tony’s with rates tailored for students.

  By the time Nobach graduated, he’d amassed several parcels of depressed real estate near campus and was converting slums and tear-downs to low-rent student rentals. His next step was rehabbing a failed government housing project bought on the cheap and creating a private student dorm, with much of the cost absorbed by the university and a federal housing grant.

  Academo now owned and operated mega-structures in Boston, Cleveland, Syracuse, Rochester, Bloomington, Salt Lake City, Tucson, L.A., and San Diego. Anthony Nobach, described as “religious and a model of mid-Western probity,” remained as CEO. A younger brother, Marden, was the chief operational officer.

  Online consumer ratings were the predictably meaningless mix of adoration and excoriation. Overall grade: 3.5 stars.

  Keywording academo inc and death produced nothing. So did substituting suicide and murder for death. An image search pulled up shots of other properties. The company favored characterless structures with the same unbroken façade as the building we were in.

  I called Maxine Driver and asked her if the students in the DIY program knew one another.

  She said, “No idea. What’s cooking?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “When dinner’s ready you’ll ring the bell?”

  “Your reservation has been duly noted.”

  With Milo already cranky, I figured an overstep wouldn’t make much difference and phoned Basia Lopatinski at the coroner. Away from her desk, voicemail. I asked her to look up Cassy Booker’s file.

  Heading back to Michael Lotz’s room, I entered the utility area and came face-to-face with Milo, flush-faced, waving a piece of paper.

  “Where’d you go? Look at this!”

  CHAPTER

  21

  Memo paper torn from an ACADEMO, INC., pad.

  The logo a Greek Revival building fit for the Ivy League, below that: We house the leaders of tomorrow.

  Below that, clumsy block lettering in red ballpoint.

  An address on Corner Avenue.

  Then: aura 8–10 Sat pm.

  I said, “Lotz’s handwriting?”

  Milo said, “Matches his DMV signature and the ink’s the same as an Academo pen in one of his drawers.”

  He shook the paper, green eyes incandescent. “You still feeling cautious? What this look like to you?”

  “A game plan.”

  He crossed himself. “Hell, yeah. Unless Lotz was on the invite list, he was a very bad boy. And he doesn’t sound like some homicidal mastermind. More like the type who could be bought. Maybe by a resident who does have a high IQ.”

  “Amanda commissioned a hit on Red Dress?”

  “She’d have the opportunity to know Lotz. Yeah, she’s young, but she’s also a brain with abnormal emotions, so why not? It makes other stuff fall into place. Like Garrett’s squirrelly look when we mentioned Poland. That coulda been him knowing something nasty about baby sis. Or he’s involved more directly. As in Red Dress is a girl from his past who threatened to embarrass him on his big day. For all his Joe Nerd thing, maybe he’s got some bigger secrets than his wife’s Vegas fling.”

  He took the paper back. “I got sidetracked to the Rapfogels because Denny’s a dog and Corinne pointed me toward him. But looks like it’s the wholesome Burdettes I need to focus on. As in back to Pa Walton and his farm animals. Because vets use fentanyl, easy enough for Amanda to waltz into a barn, lift what she needs, and pass it along to Lotz. Maybe he kept some for himself and that’s how he ended up dead. Or she hot-shotted him to clear her tracks.”

  He took a breath, flapped the paper against his thigh. “I’m not making sense?”

  “You’re making a lot of sense.”

  “But?”

  “No buts.”

  “This is a game changer, Alex. I find out any of the Burdettes visited Warsaw—hell, if they like to polka I’m on them.”

  “Anything else come up in Lotz’s room?”

  “His wallet had an expired Discover card and I found five fifties behind a bunch of underwear.”

  “Lots of cash for a junkie to keep around.”

  “Exactly, money’s like water to them. So it had to be a recent cash infusion. Everything else I found is: stash of baggies, two dozen disposable hypos, another scorched spoon, collection of disposable lighters, more candy and cookies, also with his skivvies. All I’ve got left is pawing under the bed, then looking at the bathroom. I find a guitar string, I’m Nirvana-bound.”

  “Good luck.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “For what?”

  “You don’t mind getting dusty, you can do the bed. Bathroom’s too gross, I’ll do that.”

  “All is forgiven?”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Slip of the tongue.” As we returned to Lotz’s hole, I told him about calling Lopatinski.

  He said, “Great idea!”

  That level of glee, I kept one thought to myself: Still no I.D. on the victim.

  I followed his lope back to the room. In the doorway, he said, “I’m having second thoughts about you getting under the bed, amigo. Those are nice pants.”

  “Protect and serve. As in you,” I said. “Give me gloves.”

  * * *

  —

  Everything he’d found was tagged and bagged and arrayed neatly in a corner of the cramped room.

  I said, “Have you flipped the mattress?”

  “Yeah, but not the spring. Sure you want to do it?”

  The “nice pants” were black jeans. My shirt was ash-colored chambray. Both would dust off.

  “No prob.”

  He went into the bathroom and I pushed the mattress half off the box
spring. Lifting one side revealed a partial view of dust motes and a trio of dead roaches, maybe cousins of the tribe in the stairwell.

  From the bathroom, Milo said, “Gimme a break. Old junkie and his cabinet’s got nothing but aspirin and shaving stuff and a stick of Mennen…okay, here we go, conveniently behind the stick. Ciprofloxacin, prescribed last year at a clinic in Venice. What’s that, Alex? Like methadone?”

  I said, “Antibiotic.”

  “What do the pills look like?”

  “Round, white, a number on one side.”

  “Hmm…maybe they’re real, I’ll have the lab verify…looks like Lotz was old-school, didn’t get into the prescription game.”

  I said, “Heroin’s relatively cheap nowadays. If he’s got a reliable supplier, why mess with anything new?”

  “A stodgy type, huh? Okay, time to check the toilet tank…nothing. You finished?”

  “Halfway there.” I walked around to the other side of the bed, lifted the mattress on a notably more generous supply of motes, along with woolly swirls of dirt, six dead roaches, three dehydrated M&M’s—orange, blue, brown—and an errant baggie.

  Right half of the bed, if you were lying down. If Lotz was right-handed like ninety percent of the population, the side he’d favor.

  I began probing the dirt, found nothing in the first couple of piles. But as I nudged the third, a sharp white corner asserted itself like a tiny shark fin.

  I tweezed it out, setting off a tiny dust storm.

  Another remnant from an Academo notepad, folded in half.

  Black-and-white photocopy of a six-month-old California driver’s license issued to Suzanne Kimberlee DaCosta. Thirty-one years old, five-seven, one twenty-four, black, brown, address on Amadeo Drive in Studio City.

  Familiar face, pretty even under heartless DMV lighting.

  Now Red Dress had a name.

  I said, “No protection but I’ve definitely served.”

  Milo stepped out of the bathroom. I showed him the license.

  He put his palms together. “Thank you, God. And your personal assistant, this guy.”

  He turned away quickly but I’m pretty sure his eyes were wet.