I would have thought my explanation would have been sufficient. That Chase might have thanked me for my time and consideration and moved on. At least, my experience had taught me that was what a normal person would do.
When I got home, I found Misty sitting on the couch with Charlie and the cat. The three of them were watching a Lakers game. Charlie glanced in my direction, waved a long, skinny arm over his head, then stared back at the TV. So much for my concern about being missed.
Misty smiled then hollered over the back of the sofa, “How’s the investigation going?”
“Who said anything about an investigation? How did you—”
“Tyler called.” Misty got up off the sofa, waddled into the kitchen, and turned on the coffeemaker. “I didn’t want the phone to wake Charlie, so I answered. Didn’t think you’d mind. He wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten about meeting with that private investigator. What’s his name? Chance? Chase? Or something like that?” The light on the coffeemaker indicated ready, and she pressed the button. “Black, right? No cream. No sugar.” She handed me the cup. “Nothing wrong with a gal who likes her whiskey straight, her men wild, and her coffee black. Enjoy.”
I sighed. I was going to have to get used to Misty’s puttering, at least for a while. I took the cup, opened the refrigerator and added cream. I refused to be that predictable.
“His name’s Chase, Misty, and as far the investigation goes, it’s not. He had a few questions for me about what I’d seen. That’s it. Nothing more. Right now, the police are calling it a suicide, and for the time being, until I learn differently, that’s as far as it goes.”
I didn’t think it was necessary to add that I thought the investigator was odd. Or that I had as many doubts about him as I did the police report on Bruno’s death. But Misty seemed to have picked up on that. She took a step in my direction and shook a finger at me.
“But that’s not what you think, is it? I know when you’re not sure about something. You get that faraway look in your eye. And right now, your mind’s back with that body on the Hollywood Sign and that investigator. Admit it.”
I grabbed her finger, squeezed it gently, and stared into her cloudy eyes. I didn’t want to get into anything concerning the case or Chase and certainly not in front of Charlie. Not now. I had barely five hours before I had to be back to the station for my new show, and I wanted to enjoy what free time I had left.
“You’re wrong, Misty. The only thing I’m thinking about right now is spending the afternoon with my son.” I let go of her hand and, taking my coffee, headed towards the couch. “But, if you like, you can make some popcorn and come sit down with us.”
From the kitchen, I heard Misty. “Say what you will, Carol, but I’ve got a feeling about this. That man’s going to call again. And when he does, you best be prepared.”
CHAPTER 7
Misty was right. Chase did call. He called in the middle of my new show, LA’s Soapbox, exactly like he said he wanted to do. But the fact of the matter was, by the time he called I wasn’t so sure it was all that bad. I needed something. My show was dying, generating about as much interest as an LA weather report in the middle of August, and for that, I blamed Tyler. Tyler was convinced Sunday nights needed to be a chatty wrap-up of LA City Council’s news and views, and being as this was my first time as a solo anchor, he took it upon himself to assign a topic. A capsule summary of LA’s new river project, its growth and development in relation to the California State Water Conservation Corp. No matter how much research or life I tried to bring to the subject, it was a dud. And judging from the lack of callers, it was generating zero interest. Even my producer, Matt, looked as though he was about to fall asleep.
Finally, when a single white light on the switchboard lit up, I lunged for it. I took the call myself, not waiting for Matt to set it up.
“Welcome to LA’s Soapbox, your chance to sound off. This is Carol Childs, and with whom am I speaking?”
“Gerhardt Chasen.”
“Gerhardt Chasen?” I nearly choked on his name, but I was live on-air, and there wasn’t time for surprise. I collected myself and said, “Mr. Chasen, how may I help you tonight?”
Much as I disliked the thought of putting Chase on the air, I didn’t feel I had much choice. What was I going to do? He was my first and only caller, and I was twenty minutes into a monolog about a river project that was drier than the LA riverbed itself.
“I’ve been listening to your show, and while I’d like to be calling in offering my two cents about this river project, I’ve got another issue I’d like to discuss. Something far more pressing. I hope you don’t mind giving me a few minutes. I’m sure your listeners would find what I have to say interesting.”
I swallowed hard and hoped for the best, vowing to myself I’d do everything I could to control the conversation.
“All right, and what is it you would like to talk about?”
“Murder, Ms. Childs. Or more specifically, I’d like to talk about that body that was found on the Hollywood Sign last Friday morning.”
I was about to say the police had ruled that death a suicide and politely dismiss him, but Chase didn’t give me the opportunity.
“And add to that a series of grisly, gangland-style murders I’ve been investigating that I believe LAPD doesn’t want you or me to know about.”
At the mention of grisly, gangland-style murders and the LAPD, the phone lines lit up like a landing strip at LAX. And Matt, who had been only half awake, nearly fell off his stool. His head jerked back so suddenly he had to grab the control desk to steady himself. I had no doubt Chase had stacked the calls. There was no reason for the phone lines to be jammed. Not that quickly. The only possible cause was that Chase had alerted his social media contacts he planned to be on the air and wanted them to call in. Matt shot me a thumbs-up.
Chase carefully laid out his theory. How he believed Bruno had been brutally murdered by a drug cartel trying to make headway into the Hollywood club scene, where Bruno had worked as a bouncer. With the calls stacked, I felt I had no choice but to keep Chase on the air. The first rule of radio was to keep your listeners engaged, and he had definitely done that. I figured the best thing to do was to join forces with him on the line and together we could field calls. The first seemed relatively tame. No doubt a staged call. The next claimed to be a close friend of Bruno’s who said there was no way Bruno would have committed suicide. Two other calls followed saying much the same. Then Chase segued into the cases of the two other men whose deaths he was following up on. How both men appeared to have died under peculiar circumstances. But when he referenced the bizarre tabloid reports of their deaths, that’s when things started to turn into a free-for-all.
Listeners began calling in with even more bizarre tales. Stories about friends and relatives who had also disappeared. Those kidnapped by aliens, eaten by wolves, or extraterrestrials suspected to be living amongst us as shapeshifters. My worst fear that my program would become a late-night horror show with tales of alien abductions and conspiracy theories was becoming a reality. I had to put a stop to it. I was just about to say good night to Chase and suggest we return to our original topic concerning the LA River when Matt interrupted.
“Carol, I’m sorry to break in, but we have a caller on line two. She wants to talk about the body on the Hollywood sign. She says she was there, and she knows who murdered Bruno Sims and why.”
I glanced at the clock. It was 11:52. I had less than eight minutes to go before I had to sign off, and since the woman hadn’t mentioned anything about aliens, I took the call.
“Welcome to the Soapbox. This is Carol Childs. May I ask your name and where you’re calling from?”
There was a pause, followed by a heavy coughing like the caller was trying to clear their throat.
“Honey, I’m from everywhere and nowhere, but most people don’t see me, not anymore. I’m
at that age where women like me simply disappear into the background.”
Her voice was unusually deep. Gravelly, like rocks in a cement mixer, churning. From the sound of it, I figured her to be a heavy smoker. Probably one of those two-pack-a-day types and somewhere in her late sixties or maybe older.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I said. “Per—”
“It happens.” She snapped back. Her voice like an ax hitting a block of wood. Harsh. Sudden and hard.
“You’re too young to know, but a couple years from now you’ll understand. Those heads that used to turn when you walked in a room, those smiles you’d get? They don’t come so often. Sometimes not at all.”
I paused and glanced over at Matt. Did he have a caller ID on the phone? He shook his head no.
“Okay, if you won’t tell me where you’re from, can you at least give me a name?”
“If it’ll make you feel better, you can call me Mustang Sally.”
“Mustang Sally? That’s unusual. I take it that’s not your real name?”
“It’s a name. In my line of work, I can’t afford to use my real one. None of us do. But I didn’t call in to play name games.”
“No, you didn’t. And we don’t have a lot of time. So, Sally, do you mind if I call you Sally for short?
“Whatever you like.”
“My screener tells me you know why Bruno was killed and who did it. Suppose you tell us what you think.”
“I don’t just think, Ms. Childs. I know. And I can tell you Bruno Sims deserved exactly what he got. And so do a lot of other men like him. Men like that don’t know how to treat a woman. And he was just an example.”
From within my headset, I could hear Chase. He whispered, “Ask her to tell you something about the scene, Carol. Something to prove she was really there and that this isn’t just some prank call.”
“What do you mean by an example, Sally? Why would Bruno have been an example?”
“’Cause of what that man did. It’s why he had that silly clown’s nose on his face. We marked him a fool, and he died one.”
There had been no mention of the red clown’s nose in the paper. The LA Times hadn’t run the photo of his body on the sign, and the story about Bruno’s death had run in the back of the city section, below the fold. It included very few details. Simply that the former Hollywood stunt man and bodybuilder had died. News organizations rarely listed suicide as a cause of death for private individuals. Respect for their privacy and the fear of copycat killings, particularly with something like a body hanging on the Hollywood Sign, was always an issue. The only pictures of Bruno that had surfaced had run on the internet—by less scrupulous organizations—and in those, his face was hidden by the angle of his arm. Unless Mustang Sally really had been there, as she claimed, there was no way she would have known about the clown’s nose.
“Who…wha—Excuse me?” I leaned forward to the mic, my hands to my headset. “Are you saying you killed Bruno Sims?”
“Bruno Sims was a Neanderthal. A macho pig. A waste of mankind. He didn’t deserve to inhabit the planet any longer. I simply did us all a favor and settled the score.”
I pressed my headphones closer to my ears. This was insane. It wouldn’t be the first time a late-night caller had called in, using the anonymity of radio to confess to a crime, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My first thought was that the caller was high, drugged, or calling from inside a mental health center and reaching out to a world she no longer had access to. Matt was usually better at screening the calls. But this one had slipped through, and with a steady stream of blinking lights in front of me, I asked another question.
“Sally, why would killing Bruno be doing us a favor?”
“Because he was an ass—”
I hit the delay button, deleting any attempt she might make to describe Bruno using any of the FCC’s seven forbidden words. Asshole wasn’t one of them, but she was treading close.
“I’m sorry, Sally, I understand you’re angry, but I need you to be careful with the words you use. If you continue, I’ll have to cut you off, and I really don’t want to do that.”
“Well, you asked. And since you won’t let me tell you what he was really like, let me say this, men like Bruno need to watch out. We’re mad as hell. Can I say that? And we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Sally’s impersonation of Howard Beale’s crazed speech from the movie Network echoed out over the airwaves like the deafening sound of a tsunami. I paused. The idea of what I was about to ask was so outlandish, I could scarcely believe it.
“Sally, Mr. Chasen has already said he believes Bruno’s death was the result of some gangland slaying. Are you telling me the gang involved is a group of angry women? That Bruno’s death was some revenge slaying by women who had a score to settle?”
“Surprised?” She responded with a slight lilt to her voice, a sense of sarcasm.
“You know the police believe Mr. Sims’ death was suicide.”
“Well, we wouldn’t be very good at what we do if they didn’t, would we?”
“We?” I could hear heavy breathing through the line and then nothing. The line had gone dead. “Sally?”
Matt tapped on the glass between the studio and the control room. We’d lost the call and time was running short. His fist was in the air, ready for the countdown. I had five seconds to go. Five…four…three…I had to think fast.
“Sally, we must have been disconnected, but if you can hear me, I hope you’ll call me back. You sound distressed, and I’d like to talk to you before you have any other ideas about doing the world another favor.”
CHAPTER 8
I was surprised when I closed out the show that Chase wasn’t still on the line. I expected once Mustang Sally had hung up, he’d be there. Anxious to talk. But he wasn’t. And when he didn’t try to call back, I was convinced he had set me up. Used me to hype the story for his own purposes. How perfect. A well-placed call, shortly before midnight, by a mystery caller who went by Mustang Sally and had a voice like that of a cement mixer. It had to be a hoax. Chase had either set it up or some random caller, the friend of a friend he’d tipped off about being on the show, had caught Chase’s report about Bruno’s death and called in, putting their own spin on the story. As for Sally, she was probably either an out-of-work actress, a crazy woman, or maybe just some prankster. Tyler had warned me, late-night callers lived in a world of their own.
I must have sat in the studio and waited for something to happen for a good twenty minutes, and when nothing did, I decided I had had enough for the evening. My head ached, and I promised myself I wasn’t going to think about Chase or Mustang Sally again until I’d had a good night’s sleep.
In fact, it was almost noon the next day before I thought about much of anything at all. I couldn’t believe the time when I rolled over and checked the clock on my bedside table. I had overslept. Someone had turned off my alarm.
“Misty?” I grabbed my robe and headed for the stairs. The only possible culprit was my new housekeeper. Clearly, I needed to establish some boundaries. Much as I enjoy sleeping in, a school day was not one of them, and I had missed breakfast with my son. We needed to talk.
From downstairs, I could hear Misty in the kitchen, chairs moving, water running. She must have heard me too.
She hollered back, “Carol, dear, you up? Come on down. We have company.”
I tugged on my robe’s tie, pushed my hair out of my face, and in a sleepy stupor started down the stairs toward the kitchen, still blurry-eyed. As I approached, I could hear Misty prattling on, something about unplugging my phone, making breakfast for Charlie, and not wanting to wake me.
Still only semi-alert, I noticed Sheri sitting at the kitchen table with Misty, a cup of hot coffee in front of her. On the table, her cake plate was filled with several slices of birthday cake left over from Charl
ie’s party. Seeing me, Sheri raised her cup, a morning greeting I wasn’t ready for.
“I came by to pick up my cake plate, and Misty invited me in.” She smiled sheepishly as though to say none of this was her idea, then nodded at the French doors standing slightly ajar. “And I’m not the only one.”
My eyes followed Sheri’s to the base of the door. Outside, I recognized a familiar looking pair of work boots, covered with dirt.
“Chase?” I adjusted the collar of my robe up around my neck and, crossing my arms, leaned back against the banister.
Chase entered the room. He still hadn’t shaved and was dressed exactly as he had been yesterday, in a pair of dusty cargo shorts.
“Morning, Carol.” He rolled what I was beginning to think of as his trademark sucker, from one side of his cheek to another, then removed it and smiled. From the dimpled grin on his face, I could tell he clearly enjoyed catching me so ill prepared.
Crossing my arms tighter, I fired back, “What are you doing here? How did you even know where I lived?”
“I’m a private investigator.” He took a step toward the table and put his hands on the back of the chair. “It’s my job to know things like that. And after what happened on the air last night, I thought it was important we talk. So I stopped by—thinking you might be up by now—had no idea you’d sleep so late. Misty invited me in.” He glanced at the cake in the center of the table, as though it were nothing out of the ordinary for him to be in my kitchen, then nodded to Misty, and asked, “May I?”
I glared at Misty. She turned her back to me and focused her attention on Chase like an honored guest. Then she took a piece of cake, put it on a plate, and handed it to him.
“Would you like a cup of my special tea to go with it?” she asked.
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s very hospitable of you.”
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