Take a step. Her legs shuffled forward. The movement made her woozy, but she kept at until she made it to the window.
Debi pulled the gauzy white curtains back and stared at a wall of trees with a dirt wall behind them. She’d seen this kind of house before.
Janie and she’d had cheap fun sometimes on the weekends going to open houses pretending they were a lesbian couple looking to buy a home. They’d munch on the free snacks and pretend to be house hunting. They’d seen some stilt homes where one side of the house was built into the hillside.
Her phone.
Where was her phone? Had they taken it away from her along with her clothes?
She patted the bed for any hard objects, but it was all soft and lumpy. They would never leave her phone behind. Debi knew she’d been a stupid girl. She was going to pay for that stupidity a thousand times over.
She gingerly sat on the bed, her body broken and bruised, and sobbed. She sobbed for the naive girl she’d been. Sobbed for her body. Sobbed because she didn’t know what else to do.
Two years. She’d made her life in Los Angeles for two years and she’d been happy, for the first time in her short life. And now?
Was she going to die here?
There were fates much worse than death, a small voice whispered in her mind. You are going to wish you were dead.
Debi pushed the voice away. She wasn’t going to despair. Not yet. She turned to the door and found herself staring at a small black hole above the door jamb.
She slid off the bed and lurched to the door to get a better view.
The hole was glass and if she looked at the right, angle she saw the lens behind it. Whoever had her, had taped her misery.
Debi wasn’t tall enough to get a better look at it. Instead, she flicked the camera off. Then smiled.
She spit on her thumb and then standing on her tip toes, her body screaming in the most excruciating pain, smeared the glass with her spit.
To hell with them. Debi Mills was going to survive this somehow and get the hell out. A spark of fury ignited deep within her soul. She nurtured it and fanned its flames.
She would get out of here or die trying.
25
Day 4
Harri Harper parked in front of Stephen Ladner’s apartment building and pointed to the second floor.
“His apartment is right there,” she said.
“Some rough digs,” Tom said, squinting against the morning light up to the second floor. “Maybe we should have called.”
“I’m telling you; the guy doesn’t leave the place. Prepare yourself for the smell,” Harri said as she exited the cruiser.
“Can’t be that bad,” Tom said as he followed her into the building.
“Hope you’re okay throwing out that fancy suit.”
“He’s a smoker?”
“Chain smoker,” Harri said as they climbed the stairs to the second floor.
“He’s unemployed still?”
“That’s what he told me.”
Harri banged on the door like she had the last time.
“Stephen Ladner. It's Detective Harriet Harper with the LAPD,” she yelled.
They waited a moment. The door stayed shut.
“We don't have probable cause if he doesn't open up,” Tom said.
Harri tried the doorknob. It was locked. She banged on the door until her fist hurt. The racket finally brought out Stephen’s next-door neighbor. The woman was in her forties with rollers in her hair, wearing a vintage-style waitress uniform. Harri thought she either worked at one of the retro diners in town or could also be an actor getting ready for a day of work on set.
“You police?” she asked in a gruff Brooklyn accent.
“LAPD,” Tom said. “Is Stephen home?’
“And where were you last night?” she demanded.
Tom and Harri gave her their full attention.
“What do you mean?” Harri asked.
“There was a big fight over there last night,” she said.
“What time?” Tom asked, flipping open his notebook.
“Around one in the morning. My bedroom is against his living room and I could hear voices and thumps all night.”
“Did you call the police?” Harri asked.
“I called the nonemergency number and reported a fight. I didn’t want him to get in any more trouble.”
“More trouble?” Tom asked.
“He’s in a spiral,” the neighbor said. “Things just keep going from bad to worse for that guy.”
“How many people did you hear in there?” Harri asked.
The neighbor crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against her doorjamb and sighed.
“Sounded like three guys? Stephen and two others. At first it was just loud voices and then, I don’t know. Like things getting knocked over. I heard Stephen shout ‘stop’ and ‘get out’. This was late, and I had to take one of my pills to get some sleep. I know I heard Stephen laughing at one point and then, I don’t know.”
“What do you not know?” Tom asked impatiently.
“I think I heard Stephen scream, but I don’t know. I was drifting off to sleep. I could have just dreamed it.”
“Have you seen or heard him this morning?” Harri asked.
“No,” she said. “It’s been quiet since I’ve been awake.”
Harri looked at Tom. “We just got our probable cause,” she said.
Tom nodded. “Who's the property manager here? We’re going to need to get into that apartment,” he said.
“Oh, that's Matthew Harold,” the neighbor said. “He’s downstairs. I can get him for you.”
“Yes, do that.” Tom said.
She left Harri and Tom standing at Stephen’s door and disappeared down the stairs.
“That’s not good news,” Harri said, biting her lip.
“Let's hope he’s still alive,” Tom said.
If Stephen had been in a drag out fight with two men, Harri doubted he would have come out the winner. No question what they were looking for.
Matthew Harold, a portly man with a receding hairline approached them carrying a bunch of keys.
“Roberta says your finally here about the ruckus last night,” he said.
“You heard the fight, too?” Harri asked.
“Whole damn building heard it, probably.”
“Why didn't you call 911?” Tom asked, exasperated.
“Stephen’s not a bad guy, but he’s got a mouth on him. Especially when he drinks, which he’s been doing a lot of lately. He's had his problems since he lost his job and the last thing he needs is to be arrested,” Matthew Harold said.
Roberta the neighbor shook her head emphatically at that and Harri had to really hold her tongue and not snap back a nasty remark. How were they supposed to help people if they didn’t know they were in trouble?
Matthew pushed past her and unlocked the door for them.
“Please stay outside,” Tom asked politely.
Matthew and Roberta nodded and huddled in front of her open door.
Tom and Harri stepped into Stephen Ladner’s living room. The room had the familiar smell of cigarette smoke and body odor. Another new smell blended in with them. It was one that unfortunately Harri knew well.
The smell of death.
“We’re too late,” she said.
Tom picked up the smell, too. He dialed headquarters as they carefully picked their way through the living room into the bedroom.
“Oh no,” Harri said.
Stephen Ladner, all six-foot-five of him, hung from a rope tied to a metal bar in his bathroom doorway. Harri found it surprising the bar was able to hold all his weight. Yet, it did.
His face was purple, and his swollen tongue protruded grotesquely out of the side of his mouth. The sickly sweet smell of alcohol and nicotine leaching from the body mixed with the very beginning stage of decomposition was causing the putrid stench.
“It's Detective Tom Bards. I need units, coroner, and CID to 18975 Wilton Place,
Apartment 23. Detective Harriet Harper is on scene. Suspicious death.”
They listened to the radio squawking as dispatch sent the requested units. Harri picked her way through the living room back to Roberta and Matthew Harold still standing outside.
“Could you please go back to your apartments for now. Unfortunately, we have a body in there,” she said.
Roberta gasped and her hand fluttered to her mouth. She turned pale as Harold took her other hand.
“We’ll need to take your statements. Will you be able to hang around for a while?
“Oh, I should have called 911,” Roberta said. “Why didn’t I call 911?” she asked and hurried back to her place, closing the door behind her.
Matthew Harold looked like he was going to be sick.
“Is it Stephen?” he asked.
“Do you know if Stephen Ladner had any next of kin?” Harri asked. She had met Stephen and could make the ID, but it was preferable to have a family member do it.
“Not that I know of,” Matthew Harold shook his head. “I’ll check the lease.”
“Thank you. What apartment are you in?” she asked.
“Number one, downstairs.”
“We’ll be down to speak with you soon.”
When Harri finished with Matthew Harold, she returned to the living room, putting her gloves on to make sure she didn’t contaminate the crime scene.
“I'm not seeing a computer in here,” Tom said.
“He had files all over the desk and chair when I saw him yesterday.”
Tom turned to the empty desk. “That desk?”
“I couldn’t have told you the color of the wood from all the files stacked on that desk. There was a laptop and a printer, too.”
“Whoever was in here did a thorough clean-up job, Tom said.
“See a phone anywhere?” Harri asked.
“Nope,” Tom answered as he looked in the bedroom. “No phone. CID is on the way to do their thing. If it’s in here, they’ll find it.”
Harri sighed heavily. This case was becoming such a scramble. She hated thinking ill of the dead, but she wished again that Stephen Ladner hadn’t tried to outsmart everyone. He thought he’d play games and win, but he wasn’t winning any games now.
“Could this be a suicide?” Tom asked.
“The man I spoke to was definitely not suicidal,” Harri said. “He wouldn’t commit suicide by hanging, either. He’d pop some pills. Hanging takes effort and determination. This guy was lazy, feeling sorry for himself. What I could see him doing is calling someone who had a lot to lose to blackmail them.”
“He was that desperate?” Tom asked.
“Definitely,” Harri said. “Sounds like his neighbors thought so, too. How would you go about hanging someone that tall?
“Well, it was me, I’d come behind him and choke him unconscious first. Get him incapacitated, so he’s easier to handle. Then I’d drag him over to the bathroom and hoist him up. We’ll have to see if the rope is his. Doubt his friends would have brought one with them.”
Harri stood next to Tom, looking at what was left of Stephen Ladner. It was times like this that Tom’s experience really made itself evident. He could look at a crime scene and easily imagine how it all came together.
“What if they drugged him first? Then you’d only need one man.”
“Good point. Without drugging, I think it would take two men.”
“Why?
“One of ‘em had to be at least as tall as me,” Tom nodded. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to hoist him up and pull the rope around him.”
Harri nodded. “Stupid.”
“Talking about him or yourself?” Tom asked.
“Both of us,” Harri said. “Him for playing games and not giving up his information. Me for not putting protection on him.”
“Protection from whom, Harri? We don’t have the full story. He refused to help us, remember. I'm not sure what you could've done to help him,” Tom said.
Harri didn’t respond. She had another death on her conscience and focused on filing that away to be dealt with later.
“He could have been drugged, too. Made him compliant enough to put that noose around his neck and string him up.”
“The use of the noose. It’s a unique way to kill someone,” Tom said.
“Like the girls.”
“Except the girls didn’t die from the noose. The drugs did him in. By the look on Stephen’s face, he died by hanging,”
Sirens sounded off in the distance, getting closer with each passing minute. The apartment would be crawling with the investigative team soon enough.
“I need to call Byrne.” Tom said with a tone of displeasure. “You need to go find Roxanne Miles.”
“He’s cleaning up his trail,” Harri said. “I’ll get her a protective detail.”
“We need her to give us names,” Tom said. “If Stephen Ladner died over that expose, she’s definitely next.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I get there,” Harri said and rushed back to the car, phone already in hand.
She shouldn’t have let Stephen Ladner call the shots. She should have called his bluff and come with a warrant that same day. Harri wondered if the men following her had been monitoring Ladner first. They couldn’t have known he gave her nothing. They would have assumed that he’d given her everything. Harri thought about what he’d said about not keeping the information in the apartment. She hoped that meant they’d gotten nothing out of Stephen Ladner.
Except his life.
Had Stephen made himself a target by trying blackmail? Harri couldn’t put it past him. He was an arrogant ass who really thought he had an ace up his sleeve. Where was that ace now? What had he done with all his research? These people had proven they would stop at nothing to keep the story buried, by any means necessary.
Harri clenched her hands around the steering wheel as she drove too fast to Roxanne’s house. Guilt and anger danced a jig in her mind. She jammed her foot on the gas and raced through traffic. She would not make the same mistake twice.
“Hang on, Roxanne. I'm coming,” Harri said aloud.
26
Day 4
Jake Tepesky arrived five minutes early for his interview with Ruby Collins, an executive at a production company called Ultra Entertainment. He discovered Jerome Wexler had invested in a film in the early nineties. Jake had spent a day researching the film to find all the major players on the film for him to interview. He hoped to start with any above-the-line women first because they would have a better read on a man like Jerome Wexler as opposed to a male producer who’d brought him on. Ruby Collins fit the bill.
The Ultra Entertainment production office was in Santa close to the pier on Second Street. Jake rarely visited Santa Monica and when he stepped out of the parking structure, he inhaled the salty air and his days as a carefree surfer came flooding back. He hadn’t surfed since Lauren disappeared. He couldn’t stand to be near the ocean because thoughts of what Lauren endured nearly broke him.
He focused on setting aside his rage. He stood next to his car and took three deep breaths to center himself. Then he smiled to no one to set himself for the task at hand. Jake took the stairs two at a time to the third floor where the production offices were.
He opened the door to the smell of coffee and doughnuts, making his mouth water. The office was a light and modern open floor plan, filled with film posters and décor. Most of the staff he could see were young and obviously stressed. He stood and listened to two unseen girls on the other side of a cubicle wall arguing over a script, going point by point through a scene. Jake squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of their voices and pushed thoughts of young lives brutally ended out of his mind.
He approached the receptionist. “Jake Tepesky here to meet with Ruby Collins,” he said.
Jake had learned years ago that most people in Hollywood got excited when he mentioned he was previously with the FBI. Especially the writers and creative executives. E
nough movies and books about serial killers were popular to make his former job sound exciting and exotic. If they only knew what true horrors still haunted his mind.
A dark-haired woman with a big smile came from the hallway behind the receptionist. Jake observed her as she approached him. She was petite and wore a hot pink and orange sweater with white capri pants and heels. She was tiny like a bird and, even though she looked to be in her late forties, Jake guessed she’d had some work done and was closer to early sixties. That age made more sense if she’d been executive producing films in the early nineties.
“I'm Ruby Collins. Jake Tepesky?” she asked.
“The one and only,” he said as he shook her hand. “Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me.”
“It's not every day I get to meet an honest-to-goodness FBI profiler. Are you a writer?” she asked as she motioned for him to follow her.
Jake laughed at that. “Nobody's ever asked me that question before,” he said.
“When I told a friend of mine, I was meeting with a former FBI profiler, she wanted your name and number immediately,” she said.
She took him over to a small conference room with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. The room also displayed two Oscars and several Emmys.
“Congratulations on your awards,” he said as he took the seat adjacent to hers.
“Thank you,” she laughed. “After close to thirty years in this crazy business I'm glad I finally got some shiny gold statues. Makes me feel so grown up.” Her laughter was deep and throaty.
Jake liked her immediately.
She motioned to a coffee maker and water pitcher filled with lemon water on the credenza behind them. “Would you like a coffee or water?” she asked.
“Neither. Thank you.”
“You wanted to talk about the production of The Last Spy?” she asked.
Jake nodded and opened his notebook.
“I’m actually more interested in one of your financiers, Jerome Wexler. It looks like it was the only movie he ever invested in,” he said.
“Oh, wow.” Ruby smiled tightly. “Blast from the past. What do you want to know about Jerome?” she asked.
The Broken Trail: A Chilling Serial Killer Thriller (Harriet Harper Thriller Book 3) Page 15