by Sheila Lowe
“You mean he doesn’t believe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?”
“Uh, no. In this business, imitation is forgery.”
“Okay, I get that. I’m a handwriting analyst, so forgery is something I understand very well.”
“A handwriting analyst? Seriously? You mean, if I sign my name, you can tell me all about myself?”
“Not all about yourself, but a little bit.” Claudia rarely agreed to do a quickie analysis, especially on just a signature. She was hoping that if they got a little friendlier, Tabbie might provide some information about Viper that she could take back to Jovanic. That would be even better than learning about Crash.
Grabbing up a flyer and a pen lying on her equipment cabinet, Tabbie turned it onto the blank side and got to work. She took her time drawing her name in purple ink, adding a twinkling star as the i dot and another at the end of “Tabitha.” She handed it to Claudia with obvious pride.
The showy flourishes were more like a drawing than a natural signature. Because the style acted like a mask, attempting to conceal, rather than reveal, the writer’s true nature, handwriting analysts called it “persona writing.”
“This is a constructed signature,” Claudia said. “It’s not the real you. What it tells me is, you want to come across as strong and powerful and sexy—which of course you are—but inside, you feel kind of small, like maybe there’s something lacking. You use your outer appearance, your image, to compensate for what you think is missing.”
As she finished, Tabitha was staring at her, openmouthed. “Omigod, that is so true! How did you know that?”
Claudia gave her a knowing smile. “It’s my job to know it.” She pulled a business card from the purse slung over her shoulder and handed it to her. “In case you ever decide to have a whole analysis done.”
“Wow, thank you so much! I’m gonna do that.”
“You’re welcome. So, Viper—”
“Well, like I said, he’s not here today. He was here yesterday, but I heard he’s got some troubles.”
“Troubles?”
“Yeah, one of the girls who worked for him. She got herself killed.”
Claudia didn’t think she was talking about Angel. She took a chance. “You mean Darla?”
Tabbie’s eyes widened. “You knew Darla?”
“I heard the cops don’t know who did it. Have you heard anything?”
“Nobody’s talking about it.” Tabbie shook her head. “You just can’t tell with some of these guys. You do everything you can to protect yourself, but maybe one of her customers followed her home. She got popped right in her own house.”
“She worked for Viper for a long time, didn’t she?”
“On and off since high school, whenever she needed the extra cash. We used to party together back then. Thought we were the shit, makin’ it with the older guys.” While she spoke, Tabbie the businesswoman kept an eye on passers by, no doubt looking for paying customers.
Claudia, recognizing that their conversation time was limited, improvised as fast as she could. “Was that when Gerald Harris was around, too?” she asked, recalling the name from the article in Shane Oliver’s journal.
Tabbie shot her an odd look. “That crazy dude? Wow. I haven’t thought about ol’ Gerry in forever. He and Viper used to be like, best buds. ‘Course, Viper wasn’t Viper back then. He was just Al. And Darla was this juicy little piece of tail and both of ‘em wanted some of it.”
Tabbie’s gaze took on the far off look of one revisiting the distant past. “I tried telling her she shouldn’t mess with those dudes, but she wasn’t about to listen. She started gettin’ crazy on both of ‘em. Then it was on, girl. War, with a capital W. In the end, Gerry got beat down so bad, he was—” She pointed to her head and made a twirling motion. “Never the same after that. So, how’d you know them?”
“Oh, you know, same crowd, but I’m a little older than you and Darla.”
“I think—” Tabbie broke off as the artist at the other table hailed her.
“Hey, Tab. Customer.” A man had stopped at the booth and was looking pointedly at Tabitha. Without a backward glance at Claudia, Tabitha put on a big smile and went to work.
***
Jovanic texted her to meet him at the concession stand. While the three of them chowed down on hotdogs and ice cream cones, Claudia reported on her conversation with Tabitha and Jovanic groused that he was not having any luck getting anyone to talk. Annabelle felt the need to remind him that it was because everyone could tell he was a cop.
Ignoring the teen, Jovanic put his mouth close to Claudia’s ear. “I want you to come with me to the Dragon House booth,” he spoke in a voice low enough that only she could hear. “You and Annabelle are going to be my props.”
“Your what?”
“I’m gonna act like I’m taking pictures of you, but I’ll actually be aiming at the guys in the booth behind you.”
Claudia laughed. “A reverse photo bomb?”
“Exactly. I want to see who Viper hangs out with, get some pics. Get him to talk, get a little rapport going.”
“By rapport, you mean rattle him?”
It was Jovanic’s turn to grin, only his had a vulpine quality. “Hey, if my presence causes him to do something he wouldn’t normally do, that’s not on me.”
“Except according to Tabbie, he’s not here today.”
Jovanic gave a philosophical shrug. “So, let’s see who is.”
***
Two youngish men were manning the Dragon House booth. Both wore sleeveless T-shirts that displayed full sleeve tattoos. One was busy working on a woman who was face down on his table, naked aside from a string bikini bottom. He was outlining a black and pink lotus design that started on her spine and wove across her back, down her hips. The other man was sitting on a stool, staring into the distance.
Claudia positioned herself and Annabelle to the side of the men, pretending to pose for a photo. Jovanic, pretending to capture the scene, but actually pointed his viewfinder behind them. She gave him a big, fake smile and told Annabelle to smile, too. Annabelle gave her patented ‘I’m so freaking bored’ sigh and stared straight at him.
Jovanic clicked a few pictures and put his phone away, then casually approached the seated man. He wore an Ivy cap pulled low over suspicious eyes. Large bore holes along his ears graduated in sizes from smaller on the rim to one inch circles in the lobes. A gingery chin curtain jerked their way with a silent question.
“Hey man, how you doin?” Jovanic said. He got a grunt in response, but the man stood up and came over to them.
“What’s up?”
Jovanic pulled Claudia close to him. “My girlfriend’s thinking about getting her first tatt.”
“Yeah?” The eyes narrowed to a squint, checking her out.
“She’s interested in getting a sugar skull.”
“That so?” The man pointed to a thick portfolio that lay open on a folding table. Raw sketches of tattoos on one page, photos of the finished product on the facing page. “Help yourself, see if there’s something you like.”
Claudia started paging through the book, pointing out some of the flowery designs to Annabelle, who was more interested in the darker patterns. With one ear tuned to Jovanic’s conversation with the man, she heard him ask if Big Carl was around. Since Big Carl was still in custody, she knew he was just trying to get the guy talking.
“What do you want with Carl?” The artist asked.
“Just wanted to say a friendly hello.”
“Ain’t here.”
“How about Bobby. Is he around?”
“Nope.”
“No Viper, either, I bet?”
“Ya just missed him.”
Jovanic shook his head like he couldn’t
believe his bad luck. “Serious? I missed all of ‘em?”
“Viper left about thirty minutes ago. Went back to the shop.”
“Okay, dude, thanks.” Jovanic turned to Claudia. “Find anything you like, babe?”
“The one I wanted isn’t in this book.” She looked at the guy. “I have a pretty specific sugar skull in mind.”
“If we showed you a picture, would you be able to copy it?” Jovanic asked.
“Sure. We can do anything, bring it on.”
“I got it right here.” Jovanic got out his phone and accessed the postmortem photos he had shot of Angel in the trash dumpster. The one he selected displayed the dirty green rim in the foreground and the sugar skull that covered her upper arm. He turned the phone to show the artist.
Ivy cap glanced at the screen. He took a step backwards as if he had been punched. “What the fuck?”
Jovanic turned, taking Claudia and Annabelle with him, and walked away.
***
They had exited the exhibit hall and were headed to the parking lot when Annabelle’s phone sounded. She checked the screen, shrugging that she didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?” Annabelle listened with a scowl, then shoved the phone at Claudia. “It’s for you.”
“For me?” Claudia took the phone and held it to her ear. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Jamie.”
“Jamie! Where are you? We’ve been worried.”
“Can you come get me? I’m scared. This dude is kinda whack.”
A vein in Claudia’s temple started throbbing. It felt like a dejá vu experience, reminding her of the time Angel had called her late at night, asking for help, and she had said no. “What happened? Are you safe right now?”
“I ditched him when he went out back. I’m at the 7-Eleven gas station.”
“Where? What city?”
“I’m in bumfuck Lancaster.” Her previous indifference had been replaced with a whine. “I hadda come. He said he’d give me a ride and I didn’t have any place to go. I didn’t know he was gonna come all the way out here.”
Lancaster was located in the high desert, at least a hundred miles north of Pomona.
“Why did you leave Kelly’s house? You could have stayed there for a few days.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t gonna work. Anyhow, my car’s over by your place. I went to get it, but someone stole my keys and shit out of it.”
“Your backpack is in my house. All you had to do was knock on the door.”
“Aw, fuck me! It’s your fault I don’t have my wheels. You have to come pick me up.”
Catching sight of Jovanic’s face, which held a scowl as deep as Annabelle’s. Claudia held up a finger to let them know she would not be long. Picking up Jamie in Lancaster was the last thing she wanted to do, but the truth was, she had taken Jamie’s keys, which meant she was at least partly responsible. “We’re in Pomona. That’s almost a two-hour drive.”
“But I already tried everyone and my battery’s getting low on my phone.” Jamie heaved a dramatic sigh. “Guess I’ll have to hitch a ride back to Venice.”
“Wait. Don’t do that. Give me the address.”
The girl recited the street corners where the gas station was located. She added, “There’s some weird guys looking at me. I’m gonna go in the store and wait. Hurry up, okay?”
Claudia clicked off and handed the phone back to Annabelle, whose face was still screwed into an angry glare. “She wants you to go get her?”
“Yes. She says she’s scared of the guy who gave her a ride up there.”
“She’s not scared, she’s just using you because she doesn’t want to be there.”
“You’re too old for your own good,” said Claudia, with a feeling that Annabelle was probably right. She turned to Jovanic. “If we called the cops up there—”
He was already shaking his head before she finished her sentence. “They’re not a taxi service. She’s seventeen, she went with the guy willingly. She apparently left him under her own steam. Under those circumstances, the cops aren’t going to do anything.”
“Cops are useless,” Annabelle muttered under her breath.
Claudia ignored the remark. “Looks like I’m stuck, then. Good thing we brought both cars. C’mon Annabelle, let’s go.”
“No way.”
“What?”
“I’m not going. She snitched out Angel and got her killed. I don’t want to ever see her again.”
“In that case, you’d better apologize to a certain cop for your rudeness. Maybe he’ll be nice enough to give you a ride home.”
“You’re really going to go get her?”
“Looks that way.”
Jovanic threw up his hands in a gesture of disgust. “Jesus, Claudia. She got herself there. Don’t you think she could find her own way back?”
“You’re choosing her over me?” Annabelle’s voice caught on her words. Before she could prevent it, Claudia grabbed her and gave her a hug. “That’s a choice I don’t have to make, and if I did, of course I would choose you, silly girl. But right now, you have another ride home. Her keys are in our house; I don’t want to be responsible for her hitchhiking.”
She turned to Jovanic and pressed a quick kiss against his lips. He did not kiss her back and she almost reconsidered. But it was too late, she had promised Jamie. “Can I count on you two not to kill each other on the way home?”
Chapter Thirty
Annabelle maintained a stony silence, seething over what she saw as Claudia’s betrayal for most of the ride back to Playa de la Reina. How could she prefer that skanky bitch? Jamie thought she was such a hard ass. She wouldn’t have gone with the dude if she was scared. Annabelle was serious about what she’d told Claudia: Jamie was just manipulating her to get a ride, and in her opinion, Claudia had fallen for it.
She was pretty sure Joel would rather not have been forced into taking her with him, but there was no way she was gonna sit in the same car with Jamie, not even if she had to walk all the way home. It was bad enough having to ride in the Jeep. Her anger with Joel for not arresting Viper was tearing her up inside. The cops knew he was a stone-cold killer. Why didn’t they do something about it?
A little voice inside her head whispered that she and Angel had never been best friends, and that Angel had left her alone in Crash’s van, but that didn’t matter. The cops should have beat Viper to death, the way he had done Angel.
Joel’s words came back: Angel was strangled.
Annabelle’s stomach lurched. Without warning, her vision went black. Her fingers and the palms of her hands tingled as heat rose up her neck and into her cheeks. She quickly turned her face to the window, struggling not to let it show. She was counting on Joel not noticing how her breathing was getting shallow and faster. He had the radio jacked up loud on a seventies station and was singing under his breath to some song that sounded like ‘Me and Mrs Jones,’ so she figured she was safe.
Dr. Gold and Claudia had explained to her what post traumatic stress disorder was—like when soldiers went to war and saw abominable things, and when they came home they kept getting flashbacks. Dr. Gold had given her treatments for it and she had improved over the past few months. The nightmares, which used to come almost every night, had been getting fewer and farther between. But since Angel—
Guilt and remorse clogged her throat, but it was not Angel’s face she saw. The scene looped and looped like a horror movie until she wanted to scream for it to stop. She told herself that it was just a memory imprint; that what she was seeing had happened two years ago and was long past. But to Annabelle, every time the movie ran in her head, it was as real as if it were once again unfolding in front of her.
Why had she not tried harder to stop him? She had jumped on his back and b
eat her fists against his head, but he had been oblivious, throwing her off as if she were of no more consequence than a fly. Snatching the leather belt Annabelle had lovingly made in art class he had looped it around his victim’s neck…
Annabelle jammed her fingers into her ears, but she could not block out the cries for help, the sounds of struggle as he twisted the belt tighter, tighter. She could still hear the choking sounds weakening into gasps; the killer’s panting. Her own whimpers.
“Hey, are you okay?”
She suddenly realized that Joel had turned off the radio and was darting concerned looks at her between watching the freeway traffic. What had she done to bring his attention to her? Annabelle gulped a deep breath and tried to sound casual. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? I thought you yelled something.”
“I guess I fell asleep.”
“Nightmare?”
He sounded sympathetic, and she glanced at him under her lashes. Even though she was mad at him, she really liked him a lot. But she could not share what was going on inside her head. She went for offhand. “I guess so. I don’t remember.”
Joel reached over and gave her knee a pat. “I know it’s been the pits for you, kiddo. I’m doing everything I can to fix it. Just hang in there. It’s all going to be okay.”
“Angel’s dead. It’s not okay for her.”
“You’re right about that. All we can do is try to get some justice for her.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
He kept the radio turned off for the rest of the ride, but neither of them had much to say to the other after that, and the awkward silence dragged until he stopped at the curb in front of Claudia’s house.
“I’m gonna go change and then I’m going to watch the game,” Joel said. “Do you have something to keep you busy?”