by J. R. Rain
Sweat poured from my brow. I finished off the first Frapp-uccino and started on the second. I also started on the Oreos. I was soon buzzing on caffeine and sugar and wishing like hell the convenience store also sold Vicodins.
You got issues, man.
I also thought about Gregory Ladd. He was certainly big enough to abduct Miranda, but that didn’t mean much since there didn’t appear to be any sort of struggle in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. But that didn’t mean there hadn’t been a struggle, either. Milton the bum wasn’t sure what he had seen. First she had been leaving Trader Joe’s, and the next thing he knew she was in the van.
He’s also a drunk.
Sure, I thought. But he was there; he had seen something.
Ladd had been her boss once. Maybe he had a secret crush on her. Maybe he loved her from afar and couldn’t stand the fact that she was making movies with someone else. Or dating her ex-boyfriend again.
And now that ex-boyfriend was dead.
I tapped my fingers on my super-heated steering wheel. I drank some more of the Frappuccino. Sweat rolled down into my ear. I shivered.
I didn’t like how Ladd referred to Miranda in the past tense. As if he knew something had happened to her. As if he knew something had happened to her. As if he might be personally responsible for something happening to her.
I tapped some more on the steering wheel.
He had been jealous or irritated or angry that she had left his production company to make movies elsewhere, that much was obvious to me. But perhaps it went deeper. Perhaps he missed making movies with her. Perhaps he was secretly in love with her.
I didn’t know, but I was beginning to think that Miranda was destined to attract the crazies. Perhaps Ladd, like every other male who had crossed paths with her, had fallen victim to her charm and beauty. But he, unlike the others, had taken things a step further.
Like kidnap?
Maybe.
My cell rang. I looked at the faceplate and saw that it was Miranda’s mother, Dana Scott. I flipped it open.
“Miss Scott,” I said.
“Mr. King, this is Dana Scott.”
“I would never have guessed.”
But she wasn’t listening, or, more likely, she couldn’t quite hear me.
“You there, King?” she asked.
“I’m here.”
“...barely hear....”
Sigh. I sat up straighter and held the phone out at a different angle, hoping that this would somehow help the reception. Amazingly, it did.
“Can you hear me now?” I asked.
“Yes, there you are,” she said, her voice coming in sharp and clear. “Mr. King, I’m calling you off the case.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your services are no longer needed, Mr. King.”
“Has Miranda been found?”
“No.”
“Then how could my services no longer be needed?”
“Did I or did I not hire you?”
“You did.”
“Then I can fire you as I see fit.”
“That’s certainly your prerogative, yes.”
“Then consider yourself fired, Mr. King.”
“How about no.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t consider myself fired.”
“Are you misunderstanding me?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re fired, Mr. King.”
“I disagree,” I said. “At least tell me why—”
“Just get off the fucking case,” she screamed, cutting me off, and had her phone been an old-fashioned phone she would have slammed it down. Instead, she merely clicked off vehemently.
I snapped shut my phone and wondered what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Fifty-one
Two hours and another box of Oreos later, the black Mercedes SL500 finally exited the studio gates and hung a right. I almost cheered. I knew my relieved stomach did. I fumbled for the keys, gunned the car, and whipped out of the gas station, hanging what could only be described as a suicidal left turn onto Melrose. Cars honked, tires squealed, and somehow I made it out of the gas station alive.
Way to stay inconspicuous, King.
Luckily, this was L.A. and honking horns were the norm. Once settled in traffic, and ignoring the glares and fingers of the recently cut-off, I eased close enough to the Mercedes to verify that it was indeed the LADSTER. Once verified, I fell back a few car lengths, and soon discovered that Gregory Ladd was not your typical L.A. driver; meaning, he drove slowly and was generally a peach on the road.
My cell rang again. I snapped it open.
“King,” I said.
“King its Keys.”
“We sound like a bad mattress commercial,” I said.
“Yeah, no shit. Anyway, remember that case we talked about?”
“No, remind me.”
“Don’t fuck with me, King. I’ve got something for you.”
Ladd hung a right and I followed him north up Vine.
“Go on,” I said.
“My client just called me again.”
“The one who hired you to follow me.”
“Yeah, that one.”
“You on the case again?” I asked.
“No, but my client asked for a referral.”
“What do you mean?”
“My client asked, rather discreetly I might add, that if I knew of someone who could convince you to stay off a case.”
“Convince as in dead?”
“That’s how I took it, but then again maybe my client just wants you roughed up a little.”
“Hard to rough me up when I’ve got my cane.”
“That’s how I figure it,” he said.
“So did you give this person what they wanted?”
“Hell, no. I know some shooters, but I don’t throw work their way.”
“Business and ethics, I’ll be damned.”
“Look, King. The next guy she calls may not be as morally upstanding as me. The next guy she calls may find someone to do you.”
“She?”
“Yeah,” he said, and he was silent, or perhaps this was what is called a pregnant pause. At any rate, when he was done thinking about it, he said. “Yeah...she.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dana Scott,” he said.
I was silent. He was silent. The Mercedes drove steadily on. The early evening was bright and warm. Vine Street was surprisingly quiet, so I dropped far back a few more car lengths without fear of losing Ladd.
“I owe you one,” I said.
“Or two,” he said, and he hung up.
Chapter Fifty-two
Twenty minutes later, the LADSTER turned into Laurel Canyon. Unfortunately, due to the main road being partially washed away by a massive rainstorm last year, Ladd and I—and seemingly all of Los Angeles—were redirected along a narrow side street.
Presently, I was three car lengths behind Ladd, and so far the movie producer made no indication of spotting me. Admittedly, I seemed to have a natural knack for following people. Must be the stalker in me.
While we crawled up the canyon, I worked the phone. First I called Detective Colbert. He seemed overjoyed to hear from me.
“Just the man I wanted to talk to,” he said. “But I’m in the middle of something.”
“I have a request.”
“Can it wait?”
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Who’s life?”
“Mine.”
“It can wait,” he said, and hung up.
Five minutes he called back.
“We’ve got a body here,” he said.
“Whose body?”
“Kid named Bryan Barowski. We found your card in his wallet. You sure get around for an old guy.”
But I wasn’t really listening and I had no comeback to that. My lungs had stopped working and something inside me seemed to sink down, way down, and it continued sinking.
I heard myself saying: “He killed himself.”
“How do you know that?”
“Call it a hunch. How did he do it?”
“Gun to the temple. Left a note. Misses his brother, doesn’t want to live without him, made some horrible mistakes, tell his mother goodbye for him, yada yada.”
The weight was still there on my heart, on my lungs, and I wanted to pull over and get out of the car and breathe and maybe throw up.
Keep moving forward, King.
“What I don’t understand,” Colbert was saying, “is why I have to tell his mother that he loves her. Why the fuck couldn’t he call her before blowing his brains out?”
But Colbert’s merciless voice was getting smaller and smaller, and it was being steadily replaced by a tiny heartbeat. A fast and tiny heartbeat.
“I think I know who killed his brother,” I said.
“Who?”
And so I told him.
Chapter Fifty-three
Colbert went silent. I thought maybe I had lost him. I checked the phone’s connection. I hadn’t. Traffic was stopped. Just ahead, a small tractor was slowly reversing into traffic, its scoop full of dirt and debris, busy clearing off the road. A man with a hard hat held up a crossing guard stop sign.
“Miranda’s mother?” he finally said. “Dana Scott?”
“Yes.”
“You’re high, King.”
“Often, but not this time.”
He didn’t laugh, nor did I expect him too. I walked him through Dana’s strange behavior, from when she caught me going through Miranda’s drawer of letters, to her hiring Keys to follow me, to her relieving Keys of his duty once he had established I made contact with the surviving twin, and to her desire to keep me permanently off the case. I also told him about the stunt the twins had pulled in their teens, which resulted in a rape.
“That was five years ago,” said Colbert. “Why does the mother kill Flip Barowski now?”
“He and Miranda were seeing each other again.”
“And you know this?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been busy, King.”
“I happen to be an ace detective.”
“Whatever,” said Colbert. “So he’s dating her daughter again, big deal. That still doesn’t explain why she kills him.”
I heard Dana Scott’s words again: “I told him that if I ever saw him or his fucking perverted brother again, I would kill them both.”
And now they were both dead. As a parent, I knew I would have said the same thing. Hell, I probably would have followed up on it, too, especially after what the twins did to Miranda. Feeling like a rat, I told Colbert about the threat.
“You think she followed up on her threat?” he asked.
“I think so, yes,” I said.
“And then she tried to hire someone to stop you?”
“Appears so.”
“So the mother kills the new boyfriend, who is actually the old boyfriend, and then a few days later the daughter disappears.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I don’t see the connection,” he said.
“There might not be one, at least not directly related.”
“What the hell does that mean, King?”
“I’ll tell you when I know more.”
“When will you know more?”
“Soon,” I said, looking at the LADSTER three cars ahead. “Very soon.”
I heard him thinking on the line. I could almost see him shaking his head. Finally, he said, “Fine. Call me as soon as you find out anything.”
“You’ll be my first call, unless I need an emergency pepperoni pizza from Dominos.”
“Make it sausage, and I’ll spring for half,” he said, and clicked off.
Chapter Fifty-four
The tractor finished clearing the debris from the roadway, and the man in the hard hat flipped his sign around so that it now read SLOW. The long line of cars was moving again and I was giddy with excitement. Sitting in traffic drove me crazy, which is why I taught myself every side street in L.A. Now my motto is: all roads lead to home.
We wound slowly up through Laurel Canyon, picking up speed exponentially as vehicles veered off to the many residential side streets. Good for traffic; bad for me. Bad because I would soon be exposed, and that’s never a good thing.
When the last of the three cars between Ladd and myself turned into a long driveway, I immediately flipped on my turn signal. A moment later, I hung a right onto a random residential street. Ladd and his SL500 continued up the winding road.
I parked in front of a house along this side street, knowing that Ladd was getting away, but that was okay. Back at the gas station, with some time on my hands and a belly full of Oreos, I had called in Ladd’s license plate and fifty bucks later I had his current address. Well, current at least to the DMV.
Since I knew Laurel Canyon like the back of my hand, age spots and all, I knew he was heading home, or somewhere damn close to it. A decade or so ago I had dated a girl who lived up here. A trapeze artist who was just flexible but hyper-flexible, which means she could do the splits and then some. Yawza! Her home was up here, along with her practice equipment, and so on any given day neighbors could see her flying high through the air. I came up here and watched her practice as often as I could, and often caught myself drooling like an imbecile.
Maybe I should look her up someday.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and wondered what I hoped to find at Ladd’s house. I didn’t know. I hadn’t done a thorough background check on the man. He could have been married with five kids. He could have been pleasantly gay with five adopted kids. He didn’t look gay, and he hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring, and there hadn’t been any pictures of kids or wives or girlfriends or boyfriends on his desk. Of course, none of that meant anything, but sometimes it did.
Then again, I could have the wrong guy. After all, I was taking the word of a bum. A dying bum, no less. And was the word bum even politically correct these days? Residentially challenged?
After ten more minutes, I put my car back into gear and turned back onto the main road, which led deeper into the canyon. Traffic was lighter now, and moving fast. Being an old duffer, I rarely did anything fast, and that included driving.
Tough shit, folks. Reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Deal with it.
And they did, by riding my ass all the way to my next turn-off a few miles away, a turn-off that just so happened to be Ladd’s street.
Chapter Fifty-five
I drove slowly up the street, which was narrow and curved and rose steadily up into the surrounding hills. My heart, admittedly, was hammering in my chest.
The expensive homes up here were few and far between, their owners paying handsomely for privacy and acreage. Again, good for them, bad for me. As an investigator, sitting in my parked car, I would stand out like an old, wrinkled sore thumb. Well, maybe not that wrinkled.
Most of the residences had long driveways, with the houses tucked far back from the road. Sometimes I could just make out some of the houses at the far end of long, curved driveways. Big homes with great views. Big homes with lots of privacy. I understand wanting privacy. I get it.
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Or, in this case, if someone screams, and no one is close enough to hear it, how much of an asshole is Ladd? Perhaps not the most elegantly presented philosophical riddle, but you get my point. Privacy meant Ladd could be doing anything out here. Anything he wanted.
I continued up the hill, checking the addresses. Ladd’s house was coming up, just around the bend. I think I was holding my breath.
The curve in the road came and went, and there, appearing at the far end of a sweeping driveway, was Ladd’s sprawling home, a home that could have doubled as a compound for a Colombian drug lord.
I drove slowly past it, giving it only a casual glance, and immediately two things caught my eye. One, ther
e appeared to be a guest house behind the main home. Two—and this was a big two—a white cargo van was parked in the driveway. I didn’t see Ladd’s Benz, but it could have been parked inside the garage.
As I continued past, I noted the front yard of the property was not gated, and the house itself appeared oddly empty and devoid of life, but that was only my gut reaction to the place.
I continued past it and parked in a sort of dirt cul-de-sac at the top of the street. A handful of other cars were already parked here, and the cul-de-sac, I recalled, was actually the launching point to a fairly popular hiking trail down into the canyon. A trail that led away from Ladd’s home. The parked cars were a blessing. Now I could hunker down without drawing attention to myself.
Good for me.
I backed into an spot, and from this vantage point, I could look down onto many of the homes on the street below. But not Ladd’s. It was still hidden behind a dense thicket of trees and bushes.
Damn.
Laurel Canyon is comprised of a lot of hills, valleys and glens. This past winter had been a particularly wet one, and everything was still brightly green and verdant. That would all change once summer hit. Through my windshield, I watched a brown hawk slowly circle the sky. Somewhere out there something small and furry didn’t stand a chance.
I continued sitting there in the driver’s seat, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, wondering what the hell to do next.
The hawk continued circling. The sun continued setting. I was parked directly above Ladd’s spacious home, but I couldn’t see into it, although I had a hell of a clear shot of the main house’s roof and guest house’s roof.
Must be nice.
Of course, this coming from a guy who once owned something called Graceland. Another life, another time.
Another lifetime.
The hawk suddenly swooped low and hard, and disappeared behind a copse of trees. A heartbeat or two later, it appeared again, this time with something small dangling from its talons. I think it was a cottontail. Poor Peter. The hawk and its dinner rose higher and higher, then banked to port and was gone.