San Diego Noir

by Maryelizabeth Hart

  I let my hand drop and stepped back, reassuming the mantle of officer of the law, even though, technically, I wasn’t. “We’re finished. You the manager?”

  He nodded, an absent gesture. His attention was entirely taken up by the surroundings.

  Humans, I thought. So nervous around death.

  Maggiano finished his study of the alley and returned his attention to me. “Do you know what happened?”

  “Other than the brutal death of a protected Licensed Worker?” I asked, giving the sarcasm free rein. “That’s pretty much it.”

  He started, his surprise quickly masked by the standard obsequious hotel manager mien—bland, professional. He placed his right hand on his breast, again giving the short head bow. A flash of gold caught my eye. A Patek Philippe added another few thousand to the overall cost of his ensemble. I knew the Leaf must pay well, but if this was the kind of clothing and jewelry afforded by the manager, I was in the wrong business. Hell, all a person needed to manage a hotel like this was the ability to tolerate the vagaries of the wealthy, both human and fae, and be able to provide whatever amusement they required. That I had in spades. After all, I played PR flunky for nearly twenty years at Mesa division, this would be cake. It was a thought.

  I realized I needed to question the man since he was already here. I’d hoped to freshen up a little before doing my bit, but what the hell? I never looked a gift opportunity in the mouth.

  “Mr. Maggiano,” I said, adopting my most pleasant PR- type voice. “If you could spare me a few moments?” I motioned toward the door, indicating we should step inside.

  An hour later, I wished I’d just gone home when Abe did. It was as if I’d opened a dam.

  “I’ve worked with them for years. And nothing like this …” He shuddered, a delicate move in harmony with his natty appearance. I suppressed the desire to roll my eyes and sigh. He’d been saying pretty much the same thing for the past sixty minutes. My instinct was to let him ramble, let him keep talking. Sometimes, we caught the bad guys by just letting them ramble. In this case, I was getting nowhere fast. Just talking in circles about how much he respected the Pros, how the hotel business would suffer, etc., etc. Ad nauseum. With every gesture of his hand, the gold flash of his watch reminded me how ridiculous it all seemed. This impeccably dressed man, smelling of the same signature scents as the air around him, so rattled he’d lost all composure.

  I slid a little forward in my seat, a comfortable leather armchair in an elegant cream color, the standard leaf image twining up the wooden legs, stamped into the back. I needed to stop this inane chatter and get the hell out of here. My nostrils were clogging up, the lavender permeated everything. I realized that it was just my own reaction; humans and many fae would barely even notice, but I’d been here so long, my sense of touch so sensitive, that even the air molecules irritated me. I noticed that Maggiano kept a bottle of the hand lotion on his desk.

  A buzzing vibration at my hip interrupted my attempt to stop Maggiano’s overshare. Nonetheless, he stopped talking as I pulled the phone from my pocket. The text was short. Traces of vanilla & lavender oils—skin, hair, lungs. Suffocated b4 wounds. The message came from one of my buddies at the crime lab. I quickly sent my own text, this one to Abe.

  Glad for the fae funds that had kick-started a supreme effort to fund crime labs, I turned to Maggiano with a smile, now recognizing something my tired brain had overlooked.

  “Apologies, Mr. Maggiano,” I said. “Work.”

  He gave me a small smile. “I understand.”

  I returned his smile with one of my own, employing my best trust me vibe. “I’m afraid the circumstances prevented me from paying you a compliment, Mr. Maggiano.”

  He looked puzzled but didn’t say anything.

  “The hotel,” I said, nodding toward the other part of the lobby area. “So beautiful. A lovely setting.”

  Maggiano preened. “We do our best, detective. Our patrons enjoy the finer things.”

  “Of course.” I leaned forward a little, as if to invite his confidence. “That lovely scent,” I said, and drew in a big breath, allowing a look of pleasure on my face.

  “Yes?” Maggiano beamed. “It is delicious, is it not?”

  “Indeed. Is it possible …” I dropped my voice to just above a whisper. “Would it be possible for you to share the secret of the scent?” I leaned closer, preparing myself.

  He swallowed hard and began to shake a little.

  “He was a good boy,” Maggiano said in a quiet voice. “They all are. Such good boys to have such horrible—” His voice broke as he stifled a sob.

  “You knew him?”

  “All of them,” he said. “This last one, Donal, had just begun here at the Leaf. Until last month, I was concierge at the Ivy Branch. When I got promoted to the Leaf as manager, I would see some of the other regulars on occasion at the bar.”

  “But you didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”

  He shook his head again. “Not a thing, detective. I wish I could’ve stopped …” He sighed and wiped his brow. “I’m sorry. This is just so terrible. If there’s nothing else, might I return to the day’s business?” Another flash of gold, the Patek Philippe shining in the light. “They were all good boys, if only …”

  I nodded. “Sure, that’s fine, Mr. Maggiano.” I dug out a card and presented it to him. “If you think of anything, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  He took the card and tucked it into his jacket pocket, the silver gray of the suit material soft in the dim lighting.

  “Thank you, detective. I certainly hope you catch the man who did this.”

  I stood and offered my hand. “I will, Mr. Maggiano, I will.”

  “Why?” I asked. “They were good boys.” I deliberately repeated his own words back to him. “They were legal.”

  He struggled, tried to pull his hand out of my grip. I simply waited until he eventually realized there was no way he’d win this. I was stronger.

  He bowed his head and I let him go. All bravado left him, and he looked like used-up rag.

  “How did you … ?”

  “The oil in the lotion,” I said. “The lavender scent is everywhere in the hotel, but the oil in that lotion is on your hands, and on Donny’s body.”

  He seemed to accept my very simple explanation. Yes, it was that and then some.

  “Did you get blood on your watch?” I asked, probing.

  He glanced at his wrist then frowned. “How did you know that?”

  “It’s gold,” I said. “Everything else you’re wearing today is gray and shades of silver. Gold doesn’t match and you look like the kind of man who would never be caught dead—”

  He gasped, his eyes growing wide as I continued to explain. He’d given little away in his speech, but everything else pointed to him. The lotion, the watch, his nervousness. The fact that he’d been a concierge at the hotel where the other two men had worked. That he knew Donny’s legal name—something that was only on his license paperwork.

  “All I wanted to do was help them,” he stated.

  “Help them what?” I was genuinely confused.

  “Get out of this life. This depravity. Selling their bodies to men and women old enough to be their fathers, their mothers.”

  “They were fae,” I reminded him. “Donny was entering his second century. The others were older.”

  “They were boys,” he insisted. “They bore the mark of Sodom on their wrists.”

  “You’re part fae yourself. That’s how you were able to remove the tattoo.”

  “My mother was half fae,” Maggiano admitted. “She was once a licenser. She taught me the ritual to remove the marks.”

  “You drugged them?”

  “With absinthe and sleeping pills.” He sent me a pleading look. “I didn’t want them to suffer. After they were asleep, it was easy. A pillow on their faces, then I took them to the alley. Lay them gently down.”

  “Gently?” I slammed my han
ds against the polished wood of his desk. “Both Donny’s legs were broken. His face and body were mutilated. That’s brutality.”

  Maggiano shuddered and slumped into quiet sobs. “It was the only way,” he managed to whisper. “The only way.” He peered up at me again. “Don’t you see? They would’ve just woken up.”

  Not trusting myself to do or say anything for fear I’d tear the man apart just like he had Donny and the others, I simply walked around behind the desk and with movements borne of long practice, cuffed Maggiano’s wrist to his chair. “Detective Abrams is on his way,” I explained. “You are under arrest for the murder of Donal ap Dylan, Bowen ap Calhoun, and Nolan ap Braden. You will be read your full rights upon processing.” I shoved him into a corner and walked out of his office. I couldn’t stand the cloying scent anymore, nor the sight of this man who’d killed so brutally, snuffed out three fae lives with little remorse.

  I strolled out into the San Diego dawn, clearing my lungs of lavender and replacing it with the fresh seaborne air.

  “He’s inside,” I said as a squad car pulled up and two officers sprang out, “cuffed to his chair.” The officers pushed past me. I tucked my hands into my pockets and turned south. Six-fifteen. If I judged it right, I could make the three blocks to Richard Walker’s just in time for pancakes.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  GABRIEL R. BARILLAS grew up in Southern California. He began coming to San Diego on vacations, then on business, and finally stayed because of the girl. He divides his time between Los Angeles and one of the most beautiful places in the world, North San Diego County.

  ASTRID BEAR had a girlhood crush on Sherlock Holmes and Ellery Queen. She lived in San Diego from 1980 until 1987 and was married to San Diego native Greg Bear in the Jesse Shepard House, the setting for her story here.

  LISA BRACKMANN is a native San Diegan who worked her way through college thanks to a summer job at the worldfamous San Diego Zoo. She currently lives in Venice, California, but is still a Padres and Chargers fan, though she’s pretty sure that if either ever wins a championship, it is a sign of the coming Apocalypse. Her debut novel was 2009’s Rock Paper Tiger, and “Don’t Feed the Bums” is her first published short story.

  TAFY CANNON has lived in a San Diego beach town for over twenty years and wrote all of her thirteen published mysteries within two miles of the Pacific Ocean. Her work has been nominated for Agatha and Macavity Best Novel awards, and Blood Matters won the San Diego Book Award for Best Mystery/Thriller.

  DIANE CLARK’S adopted hometown has been San Diego since 1977, and the military is a big part of it—from North Island in Coronado to Camp Pendleton. Her husband David is a second-generation San Diegan and she has drawn on deep family memories of World War II for this story. She has spent her entire working career as a writer or editor, and is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

  DEBRA GINSBERG is the author of the novels The Neighbors Are Watching, The Grift, and Blind Submission, as well as three memoirs, including the best-selling Waiting. She has lived in San Diego for half her life, features it prominently in her fiction, and believes strongly that it lives up to its designation as America’s Finest City.

  MARYELIZABETH HART is co-owner of Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego’s genre bookstore for readers of stories of “martians, murder, magic, and mayhem.” She works as the store’s events coordinator and newsletter editor, and is also a reviewer for Publishers Weekly.

  GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD is the author of eleven crime novels, including six in the Aaron Gunner series, two in the Joe and Dottie Loudermilk series, and three stand-alone thrillers. His first Gunner short story, “And Pray Nobody Sees You,” won both a Shamus and Anthony award for Best Short Story; the story is included in Lyrics for the Blues. His latest novel is the urban crime drama Cemetery Road.

  CAMERON PIERCE HUGHES is a native San Diegan who reviews books for January Magazine, Crimespree Magazine, the pop culture website CHUD.com, the Philadelphia City Paper, and other places. His first piece of fiction, “The War Zone,” can be read in Damn Near Dead 2 from Busted Flush Press. He has been an Internet journalist since 2006. And yes, he worships the sun and talks about the weather a lot. He hates rain.

  MORGAN HUNT’S stint in the navy brought her to San Diego, where she lived for twenty-seven years, and where she set her Tess Camillo mystery series. She found work in the city as a technical writer, copywriter, video scriptwriter, instructional designer, and medical editor. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, and she’s written for Writer’s Digest. Now a resident of Ashland, Oregon, she is finishing a mystery screenplay.

  KEN KUHLKEN’S novels have won the St. Martin’s Press/ PWA Best First P.I. Novel contest and been selected as finalists for a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and a Shamus Award for Best P.I. Novel. His California Century novels, featuring detective Tom Hickey and sons, are: The Loud Adios, The Venus Deal, The Angel Gang, The Do-Re-Mi, The Vagabond Virgins, and The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles.

  MARTHA C. LAWRENCE grew up in a haunted house in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Inspired by her plentiful psychic experiences around San Diego County, she wrote the Elizabeth Chase mystery series, which earned nominations for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Shamus, and Nero Wolfe awards. A former acquisitions editor for Simon & Schuster and Harcourt publishers, she is also the writing partner of best-selling business author Ken Blanchard.

  MARIA LIMA is a writing geek with one foot in the real world and the other in the make-believe. Though her Blood Lines series is set in the Texas Hill Country, San Diego is also a city of her heart. She loves downtown and the crazy, awesome people who hang out there. If it weren’t for that pesky thing called “needing to make a living,” she’d be in San Diego every day.

  JEFFREY J. MARIOTTE lived in San Diego for twenty-four years. During his time there, he managed one bookstore, opened independent specialty bookstore Mysterious Galaxy with his wife and another partner, helped build two publishing companies into industry powerhouses, fathered two children, and became a professional writer. He has published dozens of novels, even more comic books, and a double handful of short stories. For more information, visit jeffmariotte.com.

  T. JEFFERSON PARKER’S eighteen novels include Silent Joe and California Girl, both winners of the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Parker is midway through a four-book Border Quartet that deals with how the drug wars in Mexico are impacting the United States. The first, Iron River, was published in 2010, and the second, The Border Lords, in early 2011. He has lived in San Diego County since January of 2000.

  LUIS ALBERTO URREA is the author of The Queen of America, a sequel to the best-selling The Hummingbird’s Daughter. He is also the author of the best sellers The Devil’s Highway and Into the Beautiful North. His story in Phoenix Noir won an Edgar Award. Urrea was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and moved to San Diego at the age of five. He spent much of his boyhood in National City and Shelltown.

  DON WINSLOW is the author of fourteen novels, including The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Dawn Patrol, and The Gentlemen’s Hour, all set in San Diego. When not writing, he likes driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway on his quixotic yet noble search for the perfect fish taco. He lives on a small ranch in San Diego County.

  Also available from Akashic Books

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