The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  Donovan swallowed, his mind in a scramble. Who the fuck was this guy?

  "I don't usually concern myself with the porn and prostitution business," the man said and lowered his sunglasses to wink.

  Donovan tried to smile one of his boyish smiles. Maybe this man was a disgruntled customer.

  "Look. If you're unhappy with our service, I can make it up to you," Donovan tried to reason.

  "Oh, I don't think so, Donny. But what I'd really like to know before we leave here is the answer to my second question."

  "Your second question?" Donovan echoed, trying to think back.

  "Yeah. What's your favorite kind of cookie?"

  "Chocolate chip," Donovan mumbled.

  "Okay," the man said in his cheerful tone. "How are you with Oreos? I love Oreos, myself."

  "Yeah. I like Oreos."

  "Are they your second favorite?"

  "Yeah. I guess."

  "You guess. You don't seem to know yourself too well." The man pulled a flip phone from his pocket, tapped the tiny buttons, and put the phone to his ear.

  "He likes chocolate chip and Oreo cookies." He lowered the phone and said to Donovan. "She wants to know how you feel about Nestlé Toll House, the premade kind in the tube?"

  Donovan nodded yes. Maybe this was some kind of elaborate joke.

  "The kid says yes. We'll meet you over there." He listened for a moment, then said to Donovan. "Milk, coffee, or tea?"

  "Milk."

  "He wants milk. Uh-huh. See you there." The man pocketed the flip phone. "Okay. Let's go."

  Donovan hesitated. "Is this, like, one of those pranks with actors?" He was beginning to relax. "You're an actor, right?" Possibly it was his dad's sick idea of a joke.

  The man's fist seemed to come out of nowhere, catching him hard in the jaw, and he stumbled back, shocked.

  "This is more like a dead girl thing." The man said. "As in four dead children found in beach chairs with colorful nails."

  "I had nothing to do with that," Donovan protested, his jaw tightening as it swelled. A fiery, desperate feeling swept over him.

  "Do you remember the directions I gave you?" The man said.

  Donovan nodded, cupping his jaw.

  "Let's move it out, then. Through the back door."

  Chapter 49

  They walked halfway down the block before they got to an old dark blue Toyota Yaris, a Lyft sticker on the back windshield. Another man was waiting in the car. He was big, too big for the vehicle. A tuft of chest hair stuck out the top of his T-shirt, and he wore sunglasses like the shorter man holding the gun to Donovan's bare skin under his shirt.

  "We're in the back," the man said to Donovan, opening the passenger back door for him. "Scoot all the way over. And don't try anything. The child locks are on."

  Donovan did as he was told. Seconds later, they pulled away and drove through town, getting on the 405 North and exiting at Sunset Boulevard. They headed west on Sunset until they made a right on Mandeville Canyon road and began climbing up through the community of wealthy estates nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains.

  Donovan stared out the window at landscapers wrapping up their work for the day, loading pickups, standing in clusters, talking. Their vehicle got the merest of glances as they sped by. Massive SUVs meandered down the canyon road, dwarfing the much smaller Yaris. Now and then, they passed a smaller sports car or a cyclist. They drove past a park where an older woman, fit and lean, walked two golden retrievers, their fur shiny and brushed smooth. They kept climbing until they were suddenly slowing and making a left into a gated driveway. The driver opened the gate with a remote. They pulled into an expansive front yard with miniature citrus trees, roses and lavender bushes, a stone fountain in the center. A palatial Mediterranean-style house sprawled elegantly along the back of the property.

  "Here's where we get out," the man said after they'd parked.

  The driver climbed out. He was a giant, easily six-five or six-six, with a broad barrel chest and thick hulk-like arms and legs. His features were just as stony as the shorter man’s, and Donovan knew, with mounting certainty, that he was in deep trouble as the giant opened Donovan’s door for him.

  He followed the men into the house through an expansive foyer and a Mediterranean-style living room. Elegant, arched sliding glass doors led to an even more expansive backyard. Donovan could just make out the corner of a swimming pool, with mosaic tiles decorating the rim.

  "Take a right," the man with the gun said. "We'll be in the kitchen. She'll be here soon with your milk and cookies."

  Donovan hesitated, and the bigger man stepped closer to him. Prompted by the intimidating gesture, he moved in the direction the man with the gun suggested. They passed a dining room and a small bar with stools before stepping into the kitchen. He was directed to sit at a glass table near more arched sliding glass doors that led out to a small side garden. The bigger man stayed by the entrance to the kitchen. The shorter one took a seat at the table, gazing out the window for a moment.

  "Beautiful garden," he said conversationally. "You ever grow anything, Donny?"

  "No," Donovan said.

  "I love gardens. What's nice about Southern California is that you can keep a garden all year long." The man cocked his head and gave Donovan another tight smile, then got up and went to the fridge and pulled out a bowl of small cucumbers. "These are Persian cucumbers, fresh out of the garden." He laid several cucumbers on a cutting board and took a long sharp knife out of the knife block on the counter. Donovan watched him cut the fruit into rounds, quick and precise. He arranged the slices in a fan shape on a plate, took a lemon from a fruit bowl, sliced it into neat wedges, and arranged them around the cucumbers. The fruit formed an elegant, wavy pattern. Next, he salted everything and brought it over, offering the plate up to Donovan.

  "Have one."

  Donovan took a cucumber and nibbled at it, his heart in his throat. The man sat back down and bit into a lemon wedge, chewing the fruit before taking a cucumber. He did this several more times and then sat staring at Donovan with his flat, cold eyes.

  "What is it you want from me?" Donovan ventured.

  The man got up, took some glasses down from a cabinet, and pulled a ceramic pitcher out of the refrigerator. He poured them each ice water, slid Donovan's glass over to him, and winked.

  "Don't worry. It's Ketamine-free."

  "I didn't kill those girls," Donovan said.

  The man drank his water, eyes never leaving Donovan’s. He drank the whole glass without taking a breath and then poured himself more water and did it again.

  "I've gotta take a leak," he said. "Hey. Do you have to use the bathroom?"

  "What?" Donovan wasn't sure where this was leading.

  "Do you have to use the bathroom?" He said in a louder voice, enunciating his words.

  "No," Donovan said.

  "Okay." The man left.

  Donovan's eyes snaked over to the giant brute who hadn't moved from his post at the entrance between the kitchen and dining room. He hadn't removed his sunglasses, and his expression hadn't changed. Still, Donovan felt less scared of him than the shorter one.

  "Do you guys know my dad?" He asked.

  No reply.

  Donovan stared out the window at the garden and wondered if there was any way to escape.

  Five minutes later, his captor was back, whistling to himself. He slipped past Donovan, out to the garden, and Donovan watched him pick herbs, come back in, and place them on the counter. Next, he filled up a pot with water and began dicing an onion and garlic.

  The lack of anything happening other than cooking relaxed Donovan enough to think about his sister. She was supposed to meet Emma and Blue, get them to stay at Emma’s house in Santa Monica, where he'd planned to do away with them both. The fact that Emma’s family was now staying in Malibu was perfect.

  On the way up Mandeville Canyon he'd felt his phone vibrating in his pocket, sure it was his sister, wondering where he was and what
she should do next.

  The sound and smell of meat sizzling took him out of his thoughts. The pot of water boiled on the stove, and Donovan watched his captor snap a bundle of pasta in half and place it in the water, stirring it around. Then he heard the front door opening and a woman's voice calling out,

  "Hello?"

  "In the kitchen," the shorter man called back.

  "Smells lovely," the woman said.

  The sound of shoes slapping against the cement floor came closer, and then she was standing at the kitchen entrance with a Ralphs paper grocery bag in her arm. She set her bag down on the counter, and Donovan gaped for a moment, thoroughly confused. It was Gumption, the Bakers’ neighbor. The old famous artist woman who had taken in one of his dad's girls, Candace the junky. Gumption seemed to have a soft spot for pathetic young women. Candace had been pretty before she became an addict. She even used to be voluptuous, like Blue.

  "Hello, Donovan," Gumption said. She opened her grocery bag, taking out a gallon-size Ziploc bag full of chocolate chip cookies, fresh baked, with steam clouding the plastic, and two packages of Oreos, as well as a gallon of milk.

  "Dear, get me a plate and a glass for our guest," she said to the brute.

  He did as he was told.

  "There's been a mistake," Donovan appealed to her. "I didn't hurt anyone. I had nothing to do with the suicides."

  Gumption placed some cookies on his plate and poured him milk.

  He stared down at the plate with growing alarm.

  "You staying for dinner?" The shorter man asked Gumption.

  "No, I need to get back home. The girls are on their way over, and possibly your sister," she spoke to Donovan.

  He felt the blood drain from his face.

  Donovan made to stand, and the bigger man came toward him. He sat back down. "I need to go to the bathroom," he muttered.

  "Sure," his captor said. "Phone." He held out his hand.

  Donovan thought about lying, then thought better of it, and handed over his phone.

  "What's your password?"

  Donovan kept his lips clamped tight.

  "You know, I find I enjoy my food best with all my teeth intact."

  "It's, uh, 76779."

  The man punched in the number. "You want to escort our guest to the bathroom?" He said to the big guy before giving the pasta a stir. "It's to the left, just after the dining room," he added.

  Wordlessly, the giant gestured for Donovan to go ahead, coming up behind him.

  It was a narrow, dark, windowless half bathroom.

  And when Donovan shut the door to take a piss, he farted long and loud, his stomach churning.

  Chapter 50

  The thought that something wasn’t right nagged at Posie. For a few hours now, she had been trying to reach Donovan. At one point, she called her dad, but he didn't pick up either. Then she remembered him mentioning to their mom that he might go to Vegas. He was opening a new brothel with a group of young Thai girls he'd brought to the US.

  It had been their dad's idea that Posie and Donovan work on recruiting girls for a select group of clients who were requesting real sugar babies. Young. These men would pay triple, quadruple the market value for girls thirteen, fourteen years old.

  "What about Wren?" Her dad had suggested. "She's a cutie."

  Posie had felt a twinge of something she couldn't define when her dad brought up Wren. She and Wren had been friends for years, along with Poppy. Hanging out with Wren was a way to escape the darkness that sometimes threatened to consume her, the darkness that was her family, and the type of business they ran.

  In the late nineties, her parents, Skip and Trisha Jenner, had opened a video store in Burbank that featured pornographic films. Trisha was barely eighteen, and Skip a savvy twenty-five-year-old. He'd taken out a loan on the house in Santa Monica he'd inherited from his grandparents.

  As the business took off, they expanded into other aspects of the adult sex industry until they had crossed over into the criminal realm. The Jenners used the legal aspects of what they had created as a front for the more lucrative sex trafficking and underage prostitution. As the years went by, Skip Jenner did business with increasingly more powerful and dangerous men.

  What had started out as something fun and quirky for their mother had turned into an enterprise she feared and couldn't get away from. Trisha Jenner had even tried to run away once with Posie and Donovan. Their dad sent his henchmen to hunt her down and beat her to the point of hospitalization.

  Posie remembered visiting her mother at Saint John’s Health Center, Trisha’s face swollen and bruised, stitches running across her forehead like a wide ugly zipper. Her left leg and right arm were in a cast. Posie had felt small and helpless, sitting by her mom's bed, while her dad removed the plastic sleeve from a bouquet he'd picked up at the supermarket. He'd placed the flowers in a plastic hospital pitcher filled with water. Smiling, he'd said to their mother, “Try it again, and I'll make sure they complete the job.”

  She never tried again. In fact, Trisha Jenner became a shell of herself, wiling away her time on valium, drinking vodka and champagne in the evenings, and smoking pot before bed. Posie's mom did a lot of shopping and watched a lot of television. She had no friends and seemed to like it that way.

  Over the last few years, Posie had grown closer with her brother and father, coming to despise her mother, who, from what she could see, had given up on life. Yes, the business was unsavory on a certain level. Still, Posie had met women who told her they felt empowered working for her dad. The money they made allowed them to pursue their dreams in other entrepreneurial pursuits. Some women had even partnered with Skip Jenner to become madams of their own brothels. There was Mia, for instance. Wasn't she paying off an expensive college tuition? Not only was she paying off her college, but she had a luxury condo, and Blue got all the perks of her sister's lavish lifestyle.

  Posie told herself these things to reason out her life, to cancel out the memories of the broken, drugged-out women who also worked for her father—women she'd caught brief glimpses of but whom she'd never had contact with.

  Years of neglect by one parent, over-indulgence by the other, and growing up in a lascivious adult world had shaped her character. Mostly, Posie was spoiled. She’d learned to dissociate when she needed to, and rationalize the unpalatable.

  Over the past year, Posie had helped Donovan market the online Candy Porn business, a lure to phish for girls. But once Donovan had begun to groom Wren, things had gotten out of hand.

  Wren wasn’t as pliable as he thought she would be, and she started to talk about her concerns, not just with Posie, but Poppy as well. Posie tried to salvage the situation, play down some of the sexual favors Donovan had begun asking of Wren. She’d told her brother to slow down, suggesting he take Wren to DisneyLand, get her to relax.

  Wren's mistake had been to confide in Poppy, and Poppy wouldn’t stop asking questions.

  "Get rid of her," Skip demanded of Donovan.

  “He just has to break up with Wren,” Posie had said. “Please don’t do this.”

  Her father had thrown her a tight smile, jaw clenching, then pulled out his wallet, handing her a Chase Visa card. “Take yourself shopping. Your brother and me need to talk. Trish!” He’d yelled over his shoulder. A moment later, her mother had come from the bedroom, rumpled and heavy-eyed. “Why don’t you take Posie shopping? Get her whatever she wants.”

  “What, now?”

  “Yes! Now!”

  “Dad, please,” Posie had begged. “She’s my best friend.”

  When he’d grabbed her upper arm, squeezing until Posie thought he might pop her muscle, a fear she had never experienced before shot through her chest. Her father’s normally easy-going features had turned to a white mask of rage. But when he talked, it was in a low, calm voice, the same voice he’d used at the hospital years ago.

  "I can't have your friend running to the police. Understand? It's over. We've been patient with her. I'
m done being patient. So. Find. Another. Friend.” With each word, he’d flicked his fingers against her forehead. “Got it?”

  Posie had nodded numbly.

  Then to Donovan. "You fucked up. Now you’re going to take care of it."

  But the problem hadn't ended with Wren and her staged suicide. Poppy had continued to pester Posie about Wren until Donovan came up with the idea to harass her into silence by blackmailing Poppy over her use of the porn site. It had worked, until one of Skip's men, a hacker who helped Donovan run the Candy Porn website, and who had written the virus which contained a keylogger used to access Candy Porn’s users’ computers, alerted Donovan to a problem. Poppy was spending a lot of time incognito, researching blackmail and when to go to the police. And so she had to be dealt with, too.

  Each time Posie thought they'd taken care of the problem, there was another kid to deal with.

  Now there was that letter Poppy wrote, a letter in Samantha Baker's possession. Donovan had used the same blackmailing technique on Sam and Emma to keep them quiet until they could get rid of them. Blue would have to go, too. Posie hated to think about it. She'd come to like Blue.

  Skip Jenner had counseled that the suicides were still working. With a whole social justice movement springing up in reaction to them, Donovan and Posie could take advantage of the opportunity and dispose of the others in the same way.

  "It's too risky if kids disappear and bodies are discovered," he'd told them. "Then the police start to investigate for murder. And guess what? Suicide doesn't look like suicide anymore."

  Lately, her father had returned to his easy-going nature, ruffling her hair, piling on the compliments, telling Posie and Donovan he was proud of them, and Posie ate it up. It helped her to compartmentalize, rationalize. It’s either us or them, she’d begun to tell herself.

  Trisha was sometimes around when they talked over the waterside suicides and made plans, but she never took part in the conversations or seemed to care. She'd pour herself a vodka and wander away to stand on the balcony and stare out at the ocean. Posie hated her mother for her apathy. She hated Trisha Jenner for living in her own little world. How many kids did she and Donovan have to murder before their mother took an interest or said anything?