We made it back to the car, and I used Guillermo’s phone to call O’Neal. Fortunately, she was in the station, and as I talked to her it was easy to picture the version of her I’d seen in the other Los Angeles—the Brenda O’Neil who’d never gotten what she really wanted and probably never would, despite the faith an oddball detainee had shown in her while trying to coax her into giving him an extra phone call.
“You sure it’s the Mulligan woman?” she asked.
“Positive,” I said. “Room 254. You’re going to have the devil’s time getting past the desk clerk, but she’s there.”
“And where are you?”
“Just down the street. I think I’ll head back to a spot across the street from the lobby until you and your boys show up just in case I spooked her and she decides to try running before you get here. I want to see this through to the end.”
“Santa Monica’s a little out of my area,” she said. “I’m going to put in a call to the local branch out there. I’ll let the detective in charge know you’ll be hanging around so he doesn’t have his crew roust you for an onlooker.”
I thanked her and hung up.
We walked back to the front of the hotel, crossed the street, and waited.
And that was when Carmelita asked, “What do you suppose the Los Angeles Blasters are?”
I turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “The Blasters? Where did you hear about them?”
“When we were in the other world,” she said. “As we were walking past that traffic jam, more than one of the cars had their radio tuned to a news channel, so I could hear a couple of stories as we walked along.”
I realized this was quite possible with her better-than-human hearing. Not only had I not heard the same story even though I’d been right there beside Carmelita, but I hadn’t even noticed that there were radios playing in the stuck hovercars.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“That there’d been a theft from the future home of the Los Angeles Blasters. Is that demolitions? Explosives? The story talked about a construction site, but I was wondering why an explosives company would be such a big deal.”
“It’s a sports team. They’re building a stadium over what used to be Guillermo’s home in that world.”
“Oh,” she said, her expression suggesting she clearly didn’t like that bit of information.
We stood still for another minute or so, watching cars travel past us. I checked left and right frequently, expecting to see an approaching squad of black-and-whites. None were imminent, and so to keep from being bored, I asked, “Did they say what got stolen?”
“Stolen?”
“From the stadium.”
“Oh. Yes. It was a dump truck. That was why the story was getting attention. Someone broke into the place and drove off with a whole truck full of dirt from the construction site.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“What’s wrong?” Carmelita asked, clearly having seen a shift in my expression.
“It was Elsa,” I said.
“It was? How do you know?”
“I just do,” I said, my voice flattened.
My story about Guillermo having found the power source for his inventions in some remote location that had since been paved over to make way for a resort had been something Elsa seemed like she bought the night I was handcuffed to Jetpack Jed’s kitchen table. But she must have thought about it after the interrogation had finished. And I’d made reference to the stadium, too. She must have made the connection, probably after I’d zapped her and her new partner. I pictured her driving off in the dump truck, maybe breaking through the same fence I’d needed to hop on my first night in that world, the dirt in the back of the truck glistening with the little blue crystals that had made all the difference for Guillermo’s inventions—the greatest of which stood next to me now.
“Is that a bad thing?” Carmelita asked.
“It is.”
“Does this mean you have to go back?”
I sighed. In the distance, I spotted the first police car. “I think so,” I said. “There’s no Guillermo there, but she does still have Klaus’s journal.”
“But it’s in code.”
“It is. But other people can break codes. And even if building another crossover machine is beyond her skills, now that she’s got the Chavezium and knows what it can do, she can do a lot of damage in that world.”
I padded my coat pocket and the electronic gun she’d built without benefit of Chavezium. What could she do with an even stronger power source?’
“But if she can’t come back here, is it really a problem you have to solve?” Carmelita asked.
This was a good question. The easy answer would have been “no.” I hadn’t run into an easy answer I could live with in quite some time, though.
The police cars pulled up in front of the Tidepool Inn—two black and white squad cars and an unmarked sedan carrying a pair of detectives. The differences between these last two were impossible to ignore. When the driver got out of the car, I saw that he was in his late fifties and heavyset. O’Neil must have made good on tipping the detectives off to my presence, as he crossed the street to talk to me while his men staged outside their squad cars. His jowls and the bags under his eyes made him look like an aging bulldog, and when he got closer, I saw that his fedora looked like it had been run over by a car more than once.
His partner, on the other hand, was young and pretty. She wore her blonde hair down and her lipstick red, creating a stark contrast with her white skin. Her blouse and dress were neat and professional, and she walked with confidence while her counterpart shuffled in a way that made him look like he’d rather be anywhere else than where he was. My guess was that she was the junior partner, but that was only because she was younger. Everything else about her summoned a feeling that I’d rather trust my life or my case to her rather than the seemingly more experienced detective. He had driven the car, and it had been my experience that the senior always made the junior drive, but in this case I assumed that the frumpy old fellow wasn’t about to let a woman drive him around.
Once they crossed the street, my suspicions were confirmed. “You Strait?” the older detective said, taking the lead.
“Yes, sir. Jed Strait. This is my assistant, Miss Garcia. I can show you my license if you need it.”
He shook his head and then said, “Harris.” Then he half nodded toward his partner, barely acknowledging her presence. “My partner,” he offered.
“Wanda Dietrich,” she said with a smile and a nod for both myself and Carmelita.
I returned the gesture while Harris kept talking. “O’Neil out of central says you got our little bird caged up in that place,” he said.
“If by ‘little bird’ you mean Katrina Mulligan, then yes,” I said. “That’s true. She’s in Room 254.”
“You seen her? Talk to her?”
“Miss Garcia did,” I said.
“And is Miss Garcia certain?” he asked, a look of dubious disgust on his puffy face as he considered Carmelita. I’d probably dragged him away from a nice cup of coffee, and he looked none too happy about it.
“Detective O’Neil also mentioned Mr. Strait to me,” Dietrich said. “She said he wouldn’t have put in the call if it wasn’t the real thing.”
Harris got a condescending smile on his face and rolled his eyes at this, both gestures hidden from his partner.
“Fine,” he said. “I got no warrant, but we’ll see what kinda stink we can make. You all wait here, though.” He pointed to Carmelita and me. “This goes down the crapper, and it’s you two who I’m hauling in. You get me?”
“Absolutely,” I said. Dietrich caught my attention, and I saw it was her turn to roll her eyes now—her way of telling me not to worry about her blowhard partner. I gave her a quick nod to show I’d caught the gesture but didn’t want to do anything to signal to Harris that anything had passed between his partner and me.
Without another w
ord, the older detective turned away, leading Dietrich and the uniformed officers into the lobby of the Tidepool. Once they were inside, I signaled to Carmelita that we should cross back to the hotel’s side of the street, as I wanted to see exactly what happened if the cops should emerge with Katrina; even though I’d failed to follow Imelda’s orders, I figured if I could give her some specific details about what transpired, it would help me make the case that I should be paid regardless.
I expect that inside the lobby there were words with the clerk, probably threats from the detective, and then acquiescence from the little man who likely wished he’d never seen my face today. At any rate, the police didn’t come back out again right away, which told me they’d made it past the desk.
When they did emerge almost ten minutes later, it was with this world’s Katrina Mulligan, her hands cuffed in front of her. First, Harris and Dietrich filed out—the older detective barely acknowledging me and his partner giving me an appreciative smile and a nod. Then two uniformed cops came out with Katrina between them, each with a hand firmly on one of her upper arms. The last two officers ended the parade, closing the lobby door and then going around their compatriots to open the back door of one of the cruisers.
This version of Katrina was nothing like the meek and broken woman whom Carmelita and I had found in the other world. She wore make-up and expensive clothes. The fancy dress had short sleeves, and it was easy to see that her arms—below the restraining hands of the officers who flanked her—were not marred by needle marks or bruises. Her hair was coiffed and she wore an extravagant necklace, a fancy brooch, and at least three diamond rings.
More importantly, I saw that her nose was perfectly straight.
“You bastards!” she hissed. “I’ll see every one of you loses his badge over this! You can’t treat me this way. I’ve got rights! I’ve got rights, I tell you!”
The cops forced her into the car as she continued shouting, “I didn’t do anything wrong! You’ll never prove it! You hear me? Never!”
This last bit came as the door was closing, and all I was left with while watching from the sidewalk was the woman’s beautiful face twisted into a snarl of rage as she kept cursing the cops and her fate from the back seat of the car.
The cars started, and they drove off.
“It looks like I’m going to get paid after all,” I said to Carmelita as we started walking down the street.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, Peter Mulligan didn’t do it, and my guess is that it won’t take long for Harris and Dietrich to get Katrina to spill the whole thing—although I expect most of the credit will go to Dietrich.”
“You’re saying this world’s Katrina is guilty and the one we spoke to isn’t?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
We reached the corner and turned it, heading to my car.
“But how can you be so sure?”
“Did you see this one’s nose? Straight as a ruler.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The other Katrina had her nose busted up by her husband. The same way he smashed Penny King’s face into the steering wheel. A fit of anger and a pattern of behavior. He did it once and got away with it, but the second time, breaking her nose wasn’t enough. He needed more, and he got it. Do you think that woman we just saw would have put up with that kind of treatment?”
“A lot of women do.”
We had reached the car now and slid into the front seat. As Carmelita started the car, I said, “But that woman?”
She thought about it for a moment as she checked the mirrors and got ready to pull away from the curb. “I guess not,” she said.
“Not to mention,” I went on, “if this Katrina wasn’t in love with Penny King the way our other one was—and I really doubt she was—then there’s a good chance she was jealous of the set-up her husband had made with the actress. If she resented having to share her husband, then she might have turned violent to settle things. Maybe Penny staying out late on her last night on earth caused a dust-up between the Mulligans. And maybe after that, Katrina had enough. I can imagine her lying in bed, angry after arguing with her husband, and then Penny has the nerve to come knocking on the door at 1:30 in the morning. Peter said Katrina was with him in bed all night, but he wouldn’t be the first husband who failed to notice the wife slipping away for mischief while he stayed wrapped in the arms of Morpheus. She does the deed, goes back to bed, and in the morning panics when the chauffeur finds the body.”
“And you think the detectives will get Katrina to confess to all this?”
“They might. They might not. Either way, I’ll bet she gives them enough to work with that they start thinking differently about Peter. And once Imelda gets a whiff of what’s going on, she’s going to nudge the cops and the DA in that direction.”
“Which is good for you,” Carmelita said.
“Good for us,” I corrected.
She smiled at this. “Which way?” she asked when we got to the first major intersection.
“Keep going,” I said. “Up toward Sunset and then follow that to Hollywood.”
As we drove, she said, “What if you’re wrong, though? About Katrina, I mean.”
I shrugged. “Then I’m wrong. It’s up to the lawyers and the court to figure out. At worst, I tell Imelda my hunch, tell her I was worried Katrina was going to flee because she caught our scent, maybe that I was worried the desk clerk was going to warn her that someone was sniffing around after her. And that’s why I called the cops instead of her.”
“You think she’ll buy it?”
“I do. We’ll get paid. Don’t worry about that.”
It took almost an hour to reach Darkness. During that time, I called Imelda, wincing as she yelled at me when I dropped the news on her. When her flame started burning down a little, I fed her the new details I had, laying out the case I’d just made to Carmelita. By the time the call came to an end, I’d gotten Imelda to see the beauty of my interpretation of the facts, and I was reasonably sure she’d both accept the invoice I’d have Peggy type up and also keep me on her list of investigators.
As I clicked off the phone and coiled up the antenna, I saw it was almost four o’clock, which meant Sherise and Nicolai would already be at Darkness going through their usual routine of setting up for the night’s business.
“Let me see what’s going on,” I said as Carmelita parked in the alley behind the club. “If everything’s jake, then I’ll send you on your way. I should be able to get a ride home in the morning.”
Carmelita gave me a knowing smile, which made it seem like she was going to follow my instructions. But when she put the car in park and killed the engine, she opened her door to exit at the same time I did.
“What gives?” I asked. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“That’s what you think, Jed.”
I sighed and let her follow me to the club’s back entrance. Before I could knock on the chipped paint of the old metal door, the knob turned, and it opened with a squeak. Sherise was on the other side, dressed in blouse and denim, her keys in her hand. She looked momentarily stunned to see Carmelita and me standing there at the door.
“Jed!” she said, startled.
“Hi, Sherise,” I offered, trying to look for a signal in her expression to tell me whether she was glad to see me or not. All I got was surprise, though.
“Hello, Sherise,” Carmelita chimed in.
“Well, this is a surprise,” Sherise said. “I was just running out. I left the box of records at home, and I need to get them before I change. People have been asking for copies.”
“Ah,” I said, still looking for some unspoken bit of forgiveness in her eyes. “That’s good. Sorry if we startled you. I was just about to knock.”
“And don’t worry,” Carmelita added before Sherise could respond. “I’m not tagging along on your date with Jed.”
“Date?” Sherise asked, now turning an
incredulous gaze upon me.
“I never said it was a date, Carmelita,” I offered. “I just wanted to—”
“Either way,” Carmelita said, cutting me off. “Sherise, I’m fine with leaving Jed in your care, but there’s something I need to make sure you’re aware of before I go.”
“Carmelita, you don’t have to go into—” I tried interjecting.
She barreled right over me, though. “Jed’s been having moments where he’s not himself. Where he acts a little strangely and may be confused about things. He might even seem like he doesn’t know you for short periods of time, might ask you strange questions, might act…well, out of character, for lack of a better phrase.”
Sherise’s gaze shifted between Carmelita and me as she listened, varying degrees of incredulity visible in her eyes. When Carmelita was finished, Sherise asked her, “Did Jed put you up to this? To get him out of trouble?”
“Trouble?” Carmelita asked, sounding convincingly nonplussed. “No. I’m quite serious. I haven’t let him drive, and I don’t want you to, either. Not until we’re sure this has gone away.”
Sherise turned all her attention to me now. Concern had breached the incredulity in her eyes, and she put a hand lightly on my chest. “Jed? Is this for real?”
I sighed. “Yes. But it’s not as bad as Carmelita makes it sound.”
“We don’t know how bad it is,” Carmelita offered. “That’s why I’ve been keeping an eye on him. I’ll leave him with you if you promise to do the same.”
“I promise,” Sherise said, but her eyes didn’t leave mine as she answered Carmelita.
“All right, then,” Carmelita said. “I’ll go now, but please keep an eye on him. And Jed?”
“Yes, Mother?” I answered.
“You keep an eye out, too. For that man Hennigar, all right?”
“I will,” I said, wishing she’d kept quiet about the man who’d threatened Peggy and Cosmo Beadle.
Carmelita turned to go then. As she started my Winslow, Sherise said, “Who’s that?”
I shook my head. “Just a guy. He’s been nosing around, trying to get information on Elsa. He’s nothing to worry about.”
The Jetpack Boogie: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 4) Page 22