Forgetting the new assignment for the time being, his fantasy continued. He saw her remove the panties, slowly sliding them down. Oh, Jesus, she was looking back at him now, smiling, inviting him to join her. The little slut was taunting him, begging him for it. Home alone, the parents at work and nothing to do for the straight-A student other than to tease grown men.
She needed to get it, and get it good. Get it and then pay for her sins, the lustful little bitch. He would let her have her pleasure, but then she would be a filthy little whore who would never keep their secret. So, he knew what had to be done. The play had now been written and only needed to be acted out.
Leonard opened his eyes and looked back at the closed front door once more. He tucked the letter into his pocket, pulled his keys from the ignition, and stepped out of the car. One last look in all directions, and his decision was made. He walked directly to her door.
10
PHILIP CHANEY ANSWERED the door wearing a polo shirt, khaki shorts, and casual leather slip-on shoes with no socks. He could have fit in at the beach, at the tennis courts, in the mall, and at the country club. His hair was thick and dark and combed back from his tanned and freckled forehead. He looked familiar to me at first, but then I realized he just had that look you see in any catalog selling yuppie clothing or miracle drugs for erectile dysfunction disorder. I pictured him with a sweater tied around his neck and a million-dollar smile, but he wasn’t smiling or sporting a sweater.
Ray introduced us as Detectives Cortez and Jones, and waited for him to invite us in. Mr. Chaney seemed to consider the situation for a moment before opening the door wider and stepping aside, wordlessly indicating we could enter. He closed the large, heavy door behind us, and finally spoke when he suggested we could join him in his office.
We followed him to a room that was furnished in dark wood and leather. An imposing desk sat in front of a giant bookcase. Ray accepted Chaney’s gesture to have a seat. I ignored it and walked over to study the books. What someone reads can offer a lot of insight to their character and personality. I could feel Mr. Chaney’s eyes on me as he walked around and took a seat behind his desk in the large leather chair. It occurred to me his chair likely cost more than what I had paid to have my new apartment furnished with a sofa, recliner, and forty-inch flat-screen television. When Ray spoke, I glanced from the bookcase to see Mr. Chaney’s eyes still upon me. He didn’t look away when our eyes initially met, but slowly he turned his attention to Ray, who was asking the preliminaries: full name, date of birth, occupation . . .
I drifted toward the unoccupied chair and stood beside it, watching Mr. Chaney and waiting for his full reply. I was very curious about his occupation; his book collection had offered no clues. His demeanor had not yet hinted at the loss of a loved one, and I had a suspicious feeling about the man.
Leaning back in his chair, appearing disinterested with his hand supporting his face, Mr. Chaney said, “I invest.”
Ray watched him without responding. The two sat silent as if both were waiting for the other to speak. Finally, Ray glanced down and made a note in the silence. I pulled the chair further from the desk, took a seat and crossed one leg over the other, making myself comfortable. I set my notebook on his desk, moving a framed picture to do so, but with purpose. Chaney watched me and I could tell it bothered him, but he wasn’t going to mention it.
After a moment, I looked over at Ray and said—as if I had forgotten, “Oh, sorry, partner. I told you I’d keep the notes.” I retrieved my notebook from Chaney’s desk without putting the framed picture back in place.
Ray looked over and I nodded.
He continued: “May I ask what type of investing you do?”
“What does that have to do with my wife missing, Detective Cortez?”
I noted that he remembered Ray’s name without being provided a business card. Some people were just good at that; I wasn’t. Usually the people who were good at that were people who had attended courses that teach you to be good at that. Like salesman and politicians.
“We don’t know what information is going to be relevant to our case,” Ray said. “It’s likely that some of the answers to our questions won’t provide any relevance at all, but we never know. Especially in the beginning stages of an investigation.”
Chaney bounced the back of his chair back twice and then came to rest in an upright position, moving his arms onto the desk in front of him. “Look, Detectives Cortez and Jones, I am more than willing to answer your questions, but I would also like to have an honest dialogue about the woman who was found murdered in the industrial area over the weekend. There were photographs in the newspaper and it appeared to be my wife’s car. There’s no word on my wife and the Missing Persons unit passed my case over to you gentlemen at the Homicide Bureau. I am not ignorant of your methods and processes, and I assume you are considering me a suspect until you can prove otherwise. As such, I have notified my attorney of the situation, and against his advice, I am willing to speak with you. But make no mistake, I realize you will consider me a suspect in my wife’s death, so please let’s speak as adults and not play games. Now, what may I tell you that will allow you to not waste more of your time or mine, so that you can proceed with your investigation?”
Ray looked over at me and then back to Chaney. Raymond Cortez, who was warm and friendly, the type of person for whom you’d want to buy a drink or whose hand you’d want to shake when you met him. This time, his tone was much more like the tone I would use.
“Okay, let’s get to it then. Start with your first date and bring it up to the last time you saw her, and don’t leave anything out. How’s that sound, Mr. Chaney?”
Back in the car, I reached from the passenger’s seat and took control of the air-conditioning. Ray seemed to be unaware of the stale heat that had awaited us inside the dark sedan.
Ray made a U-turn at the next intersection, the tires squealing against the concrete gutters that ran across the asphalt. As we slowly drove back toward the Chaney residence, both of us were staring at the house. He said, “I don’t like this guy at all.”
I was just about to respond to that statement when I saw a black four-door sedan pulling up to the curb and parking in the spot we had just vacated. Two men in shirts and ties, both wearing aviator sunglasses, stared at us as we continued creeping along past the home. Ray and I were both locked onto them, and as we passed, Ray said, “Copy the tag, five, Frank Edward Tom, three two nine. Five, Frank Edward Tom, three two nine.”
I repeated it as I wrote it in my notebook, “Five, Frank Edward Tom, three two niner . . . What was it, Ray, a Taurus?”
Ray was watching in his side-view mirror now as we approached the stop sign just a few houses away from the Chaney home. “Yeah, partner, Ford Taurus.”
I looked over my shoulder. Both men were pulling suit coats over their white dress shirts, standing on either side of the black sedan as they seemed to watch us. I didn’t see any badges or guns, but I might not have been able to at that distance. To me, they looked like feds. “Who the hell are those guys?”
“We’re going to have to find out, partner,” Ray said. “They look like feds to me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. What the hell would the feds be doing here? They don’t have jurisdiction on anything we have going.”
Ray accelerated away from the stop sign and glanced over. “They sure don’t, partner, but that never seems to deter them.”
I closed my notebook and leaned back in my seat, pulled my seatbelt on and adjusted the air vent to blow directly toward my face. I removed my fedora and placed it on my knee, loosened my tie and unbuttoned my collar.
Ray followed my lead and put his seatbelt on too. We were both old-school cops who had worked patrol back in the days when seatbelts were never worn by cops working in fast-paced areas. We were always more concerned with getting out of a radio car fast than being ejected from one during a crash. Being shot at or suddenly finding yourself in a foo
t pursuit was far more likely to happen than being hit by a bus, or anything else with wheels. Most of us were accustomed to only strapping in once we were out on the main streets or highways, or in a high-speed pursuit.
“What’d you think of him?” he asked.
“Chaney? I think he’s a pompous ass.”
Ray nodded. “What else? What do you think of his lack of emotion?”
“I found several things interesting, Ray, if you want to hear it.”
“Of course I do, partner. By the way, are you hungry?”
“I can wait, unless you’re starving.”
“Fine with me, we’ll wait.”
“Well, first,” I said, “his lack of emotion, as you pointed out, was very odd given the situation. When you explained the circumstances of the dead broad, pretty much laying it out that we believe it is his wife who was murdered but can’t prove it yet, I studied him, looking for anything I could read about him. There was nothing. I don’t think I’d want to play poker with that asshole, I can tell you that.”
Ray accelerated up the onramp to the southbound Golden State.
I continued: “His book collection was interesting.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I think so. He has textbooks on psychology, sociology, anatomy, physics, history—”
“So, he’s probably educated, that kind of goes along with the impression I had of him.”
“—everything from world history to American wars and even history of western civilization.”
“He’s well read.”
“But then he’s got books on gambling, everything from cards to the roulette wheel, books on odds and books on strategies—”
“Okay, and he gambles . . .”
“—casino guides and gambling vacation resort destinations. Books on race horses too.”
Ray stole a glance behind his shades, then looked forward again. “Race horses?”
“Then he had this collection of novels. From the looks of it, every single Louis L’Amour and Elmore Leonard. The L’Amour was a collector’s hardcover set. The Leonard books were paperbacks, but it looked like he had them all, from the early days of Westerns to his last books, the Raylan Givens series.”
“Raylan? Never heard of it.”
“You’ve seen the TV show, Justified?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Good show.”
“That’s Leonard’s character from some of his last novels. Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. The show is based off of those books.”
“Gotcha. I don’t read much other than reports or the daily racing forms.”
“He also had Hemingway, Twain, and Edgar Allen Poe, for the love of God. You bet on the ponies, Ray?”
“I do, but I’m no high roller. So, what are you making of all this, partner? I’m not sure I’m following you about all the books.”
I picked my hat up and turned it a quarter turn each direction, checking its shape before placing it back on my head now that I had cooled down. “Nothing. He’s just an interesting cat, that’s all.”
Ray chuckled. “Okay, partner. I thought you were going somewhere and I was lost.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, partner. Just didn’t want to be lost here. No offense, but I’m way more interested in the dudes in suits that showed up than I am his book collection.”
“Me too, Ray. Me too.”
11
LEONARD WALKED CASUALLY out of the home into the back yard and around the side of the house. He stood for a moment at the gate leading to the front yard, looked over to see nobody around, and then quickly returned to his vehicle. He drove off immediately, but casually, so as to not draw unwanted attention, and worked his way over to the 210 freeway taking side streets. Then he headed south and east toward Pasadena where he would drop down the Glendale freeway into L.A.
He cruised along in the number two lane, going with the flow of traffic, blending in with his environment as he always did.
Leonard thought back to the Asian girl and retraced his steps in reverse. He walked through the gate into the backyard where he found the sliding glass door open, a sheer drape gently flapping outside from the flow of air. He remembered feeling that breeze when he came downstairs. It was the first time he noticed the open windows. It now occurred to him he could have as easily removed a screen and snuck in through the window, though ringing the bell had worked just the same.
He saw himself walk in through the open sliding glass door, proceed through the dining area, the living room, and up the stairs to the second room on the right. He stood at the threshold and saw her there on the floor where he had kissed her goodbye. She was still, at peace now, and there were no signs of violence to distort her beauty. He saw his hands closed around her neck, and he remembered squeezing tightly and seeing panic and excitement in her eyes. They were face to face, close, and intimate. It had been beautiful. He heard himself telling her not to fight it, to just let it happen, and soon she had. He grabbed her as she had gone limp and eased her to the floor.
Leonard reached into his pocket to double-check—unnerved for a moment as he didn’t recall if he remembered to take them—and he drew in a slow, easy breath as he felt the soft cotton panties with his hand. It excited him, and he now felt anxious to get back to the privacy and security of his home where he could close his eyes and give the memory the attention it deserved. They would be together forever now, and she would never be tainted by others, such as disgusting and horny little Asian boys.
12
FLOYD WALKED UP behind me in the bureau. I was sitting at my desk eating the tacos Ray and I had picked up from King Taco on the way back to the office.
“What are you up to, Dickie? You missed a good lunch at Manny’s, and holy shit you should see the little cha-cha working there now.”
I leaned to look past him. “No record, Ray.”
Floyd glanced over at Ray and back to me. I held up a taco. “We grabbed King Taco.”
“Yeah, but dude, I’m telling you, man, you should have seen this little—”
“Hey, aren’t you still married? I’m the one that should be checking out these single women.”
Floyd said, “I was just helping you out, scouting new talent. I’m like the scout sniper of Homicide Bureau, but instead of looking for the enemy, I’m trying to make friends. See?”
Ray, sitting at the computers along the wall behind us, and apparently not listening to anything Floyd was saying, said, “Well, shit, what do you make of that?”
I swiveled my chair to face his back. “What’s up?”
Ray glanced over his shoulder. “No record on file for that plate, Chaney’s mystery guests.”
“I guess they remain a mystery. Still think they’re feds?”
“I don’t know. Don’t feds register their cars?”
“What are you two idiots up to?” asked Floyd.
Ray was saying in the background he thought the feds registered their cars as I said to Floyd, “This Santa Clarita case, the husband is a strange one—”
“Yeah?”
“When we were leaving, two suits show up.”
“Feds?”
“That’s what we thought, but the plates come back no record. What’s your thought on that?”
Floyd was dipping his finger and thumb into a can of Copenhagen and looking around the room, checking everything out. “My thought is, fuck the feds, and that’s exactly what you need, a little Latina from the hood. Your record with white women is atrocious, pal.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. But what about the plates, do feds register their cars?”
Ray had walked over with a computer printout in his hand and waited.
Floyd was saying, “I don’t know. Why don’t you check with a DMV investigator. What’s the name of that guy we used to use? See if he knows. You still have a number for him?”
“I’ve got it somewhere,” I said.
Ray said, “That’d be good, partner. Let me know what you
come up with. This really bothers me now.”
Floyd said, “Hey, Dickie, speaking of girls you should meet, you know that little blonde with the gorgeous blue eyes, does the morning news on Channel Five?”
“No.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Yes, you do. I’ve told you about her . . . Jesus, I know I’ve pointed her out on T.V. Anyway, I actually met her yesterday, me and Mongo. And I’ll tell you what, if I were single like you, I’d be all—”
“The news girl?”
“Yeah, Dickie, I’m trying to tell you. Me and Mongo were leaving court yesterday and the news van was parked out front. She—this blonde I’m telling you about, Laura something—was standing next to the van looking hot. The side doors were open and a couple guys with microphones and cameras and shit were meandering about, like they were getting ready to cover a story, so I walked up and asked her if they were there for us.”
I shook my head and grinned. “Of course you did.”
“She says, ‘What case are you guys here on?’ I tell her whatever case she’s interested in, that’s what I’m here for. And then I told her I’d be more than happy to give her an interview, now or after drinks. She smiled, and I smiled back while Mongo stood there frowning. Reminded me of you, if you want to know the truth. Another asshole who doesn’t like fun. Anyway, that’s about it, we just shot the shit for a while and talked about her eyes.”
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