“Freddie was right. He did see Gabi with Miles before she disappeared. They were at the club, just like he said, and they were talking with someone, only it wasn’t Diamond. It was Tony Domingo. And Miles is afraid if he says anything, Gabi may show up dead.”
“He thinks she’s still alive?” Tyler asked.
“He’s hoping she is.” I explained Miles’ financial troubles and how Gabi had suggested he go see Tony for a loan. “And once Tony realized Miles was a surgeon, he set him up with Dr. Diamond.”
Tyler started counting on his fingers. “So now you’ve got Diamond, or a Gable lookalike, getting into a black Rolls Royce outside of Holly’s cottage the night of the pub crawl. And we know from the plates on the car that it’s registered to Dr. Diamond. Then you’ve got Diamond, again with his car, the night Tony disappeared outside the City Grill in Century City. And now Ericson’s telling you Tony set him up to meet the Mad Doctor?” He held up three fingers and I nodded.
“Believe me, it goes a lot deeper than that. Diamond’s into some real insidious stuff, and he needed a surgeon to help him with one of his business ventures. So, he pulled some strings at the university, maybe made some philanthropic donations to the center—not anything out of the ordinary, for the doctor anyway—but just enough to get Miles transferred from his surgical residency inside UCLA to the university’s transplant team.”
“Damn.” Cupid stood up and emptied another of the sugar packets into his coffee and shook his head. “This is so much more interesting than spinning records.”
I ignored the comment and continued. “Which he did because it just so happens that one of Dr. Mad’s business ventures is, in addition to the kidnapping and trafficking of young women,” I paused, “the selling and transport of their organs.”
There was silence in the studio. Both men looked at me. Stunned.
Tyler was the first to speak. “You’re telling us Dr. Ericson told you Diamond is involved in the buying and selling of human organs?”
“Not the buying,” I said. “Just the selling. He’s got all the organs he needs.”
Cupid nearly choked on his coffee. “You mean he’s—”
“Murdering the young women who work for him,” I said.
I explained how Miles started to get suspicious when Diamond asked him to look in on certain patients and noticed that those patients were all getting organs from young, female donors.
“As for how Diamond found his patients, I think he did it the same way he found the young women he’s using. He sets up a website. Only this time, it’s for people desperate for black market organs. People not willing to wait and who will pay any price for what they need. Then, he suggests his client enroll in an organ transplant program somewhere in the country. The centers are geographically located throughout the US, and if his client is accepted—meaning healthy enough for surgery—they’re put on a waiting list until a suitable organ is available. After that, all Diamond’s got to do is ensure one of the girls, who he’s already matched for blood and tissue type, has an accident. The girl arrives at the hospital, most likely brain dead or close enough that she’s beyond hope, and coincidentally, she’s got a donor card with a fake ID in her wallet. After that, an attempt is made to contact her next of kin, and, of course, none is found and her organs are harvested.”
“And time is of the essence,” Tyler said.
“Exactly, and once the organs are harvested, they’re immediately transported to the nearest hospital, which in our case just happens to be the transplant center where Diamond’s client is ready and waiting.”
“Dammit,” Tyler said. “He’s even got the helicopter service to help with the transport.”
“That he does,” I said.
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Cupid put his cup down on the console. “Miles tells Gabi what’s going on and she goes to Tony and tells him she suspects Diamond’s up to no good, and ’fore you know it, she’s off the radar.”
“Which explains why Tony called me,” I said. “He’s a former client, and he probably heard my broadcast about Monica Channing’s disappearance. And with Gabi gone and Diamond sitting on the police commission, he knows he can’t go to the police—not without word getting back to Diamond—and he’s starting to get worried, so he calls me. Figures maybe the press can help.”
“And Miles is afraid if he says anything, he’ll get his girlfriend back...in pieces.” Cupid picked his cup up again and took a long swig of his coffee. “Maybe in an organ transplant box. Signed, sealed and delivered. Gruesome.”
I put my elbows on the console, my head in my hands. The pieces weren’t fitting. I still had questions.
“Okay, let’s just say, for lack of a better word, Diamond is recycling his girls and selling their organs to the highest bidder. Then why not Monica? Young healthy girl, you’d think her heart and lungs would bring a good fee. So, why then did her body show up in Stone Canyon last Friday?”
“Maybe ’cause she wasn’t.”
“What? You don’t think Diamond kidnapped her and was planning to use her as part of his sex trafficking ring?” I shook my head and explained how the coroner had found a tattoo on the inside of Monica’s wrist. “The police believe whoever’s trafficking these girls uses it to brand them. For all I know it might indicate their blood and tissue type. Monica had one, right here.” I pointed to the inside of my wrist. “The police didn’t want that information made public and the judge wasn’t about to dwell on his daughter’s connection to any human trafficking ring. So it was hushed up.”
“I didn’t mean she wasn’t kidnapped, or a victim of some sex-trafficking ring, for that matter, but maybe she wasn’t all that healthy.” Cupid reached for the newspaper and spread it out on the console. “Maybe the reason Diamond didn’t use her body was because she wouldn’t have made a good organ donor. Look at this.”
Cupid pointed to a black and white photo of Monica, at three years old, sitting on a tricycle in front of her family home. “It says here, shortly after this picture was taken, Monica was hit by her mother’s car as she was pulling out the drive and was hospitalized in critical condition for several weeks. What if something happened back then? Maybe something her family’s kept secret? Could be she had a blood transfusion, or maybe she even had an organ transplant. Maybe contracted something that would have made her high-risk and Diamond knew he couldn’t use her. Things like that happen. It might explain why her family’s been so protective of her.”
“And...it might explain the virginity pledge.” I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Both Tyler and Cupid looked at me.
“What?”
I shared how I’d met Monica’s friend Bethany at my son’s game and that she had confided in me about Monica’s affair.
“That is, if you can call it that. She said Monica had met someone online. I’m pretty sure it was Diamond, and that he met her and thought she’d be good for business. Pretty girl, maybe not too smart, but who’s definitely making herself available to him. He wines and dines her. Exactly like Freddie said. Brings her down to the club, shows her off in front of couple of men. Only she gets serious and confides in him. She tells him that she’s ill. I mean, the girl had daddy issues and suddenly she’s in love with him. Or at least she thinks she is. But he dumps her and then…” I paused. Something Tyler had said this morning fit perfectly.
“What is it, Carol, what are you thinking?”
“Oh my God. This is perfect. It was what you said about King representing Diamond in a case before Judge Channing. King said Diamond was upset with the verdict and blamed the judge. Maybe he figured a way to hurt him. He couldn’t use Monica, not like he had wanted. He couldn’t use her as a sex slave and later murder her and harvest her organs. She’d be too high-risk. But he could use her to get to the judge. She landed in his lap, perfectly. Coming back to him, right after Judge Channing hands down his verdict and�
��”
Cupid stood up, and staring at the newspaper, stirred his coffee. “Oh, that’s beyond cruel. Can you imagine? Diamond loses a case before the girl’s father. She probably doesn’t know anything about it, and he tells her something like he’s going take her away. Romances her a bit. Gets her into that helicopter of his and then flies her out over her folks’ home, opens the chopper door and out she goes.”
He dropped the stir-stick from above his head and Tyler and I watched as it landed on the console.
Splat!
Tyler looked at me. I could see he was weighing his options. Considering carefully how he wanted to proceed. I knew corporate had been on him to dial back on hard news, and that he’d been covering for me, pushing me to get as much as I could on the air about the missing girls. I didn’t want this to be the reason he pulled back, not now.
I stood up, my hands in front of me. “Don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”
“Carol, I need you to take some time off.”
“No way,” I shook my head. “I’m in the middle of an investigation. We’re getting close. You can’t possibly expect me to stop what I’m doing, not now.”
Tyler put his hand up to stop me. There was no point in arguing.
“I’ll fill in with Cupid for the next couple of days. We’ll issue a statement. Explain that you’ve been working too hard, that you’re suffering from exhaustion. That you’re taking some much-needed time off. It’ll give me some breathing room with corporate anyway. And who knows down the road, a report like this might lead to an award. Something I might like and the station needs.”
“But—”
Again with the hand, this time closer to my face.
“Look, yesterday Diamond comes in my office and says he wants to thank you and then subtly says something about your daughter. You and I both know he was sending a message. What we need to do is send one back. Let him think you’re scared. That you don’t plan on pursuing Hollywood’s Missing Girls. That after yesterday’s news update you went off the deep end, suffered a breakdown. I’ll put out a press release, something about your taking a little R&R time, and fill in with a bunch of crap about the station’s new direction. Our new lighter, friendlier chick-lite news and talk format, while you go home and—”
“But—”
“Don’t worry. LAPD’s not issuing any updates on the investigation. They’ve got a blackout on anything to do with the story and until they’re ready to talk, nobody else in town is doing anything with it. There’s too much else in the news to cover. So we’ll just let this die down a bit.”
“But I can’t just go home. Not really. Not now.”
“Hear me out. The police—far as we know—don’t suspect Diamond; he’s one of their own. But the FBI’s doing their own investigation and I wouldn’t be at all surprised, close as you are to them, if you haven’t found a way to funnel a little inside information concerning Diamond’s involvement.”
“I left a brief message. It’s not quite the type of thing I could go into on a voicemail. What was I supposed to say? ‘I think Dr. Diamond, a respected member of the police commission, is really more of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and we need to talk, ’cause LAPD’s sure not returning any of my calls.’ I don’t think so.”
Tyler stood up and began to pace. “It’ll take some time for the FBI to sort through things. Even if they suspect Diamond, they’re not going to just run over and make an arrest, they’ll need evidence. But in the meantime, if Diamond thinks you’re not working the story, he may try to clear up a few more loose ends, like he did with Tony and Freddie. And, if we’re lucky, he’ll get careless. In the meantime, you could continue with your investigation, under the radar, without anyone either here at the station or inside LAPD knowing what you’re up to. With you out of sight and off the air, nobody’s going to bother you.”
“And me?” Cupid pointed to his chest. “What am I supposed to do? What about my idea for a station promotion with my fans, the Red Hatted Ladies, and the march down on Hollywood Boulevard Saturday night? We’re supposed to pass out flyers with Leticia and Brandy’s photos on them.”
“We’ll still set up a station tent Saturday night. I’ll get promotions on it, and you and your Red Hatted lady-fans can pass out flyers, march, do whatever you like. But I need you to make this a station promo, not just about Hollywood’s Missing Girls. Give out keychains, t-shirts, signed photos of yourself and some of the other station personalities. Think you can do that?”
“Not a problem.” Cupid smiled and lifted both hands as though they were cuffed and he were surrendering. “Long as I got my Red Hatted Ladies with me.”
“You’re going to bury this,” I said.
“No, not really. In fact, nobody’s going to think we did anything more than follow our new corporate strategy for lighter, friendlier chick-lite news and talk. And far as your promotion goes, Cupid, I’ll have Kari Rhodes sit in from the studio Saturday night. She’s good on entertainment news, and she can cut to you for updates, interviews from fans on the boulevard and that type of thing. But beginning today, I want you to start to wean yourself away from this missing girls story. Mix it up with a little Hollywood gossip.” Tyler walked over to the computer screen next to Cupid and pulled up a list of news stories. “Look, we got a story right here. Be perfect for you. There’s a woman out in Thousand Oaks, got herself stuck in some guy’s chimney. Man says he met her online and she’s been stalking him. Do something with it. I don’t care what, but by the time Saturday night rolls around I want this Hollywood’s Missing Girls story to be just one of the stories we’re covering, not the story.”
Tyler started to walk toward the door. We were done.
“Wait, don’t go. What exactly do you want me to do? You can’t just leave me out in the cold. Where do I start? What do I do?”
He stopped at the door, and in his best Clark Gable impression looked at me and winked. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t really give a damn.”
“Ha. Very funny,” I said. “But you don’t really think I’m going to go home, do you?”
“Carol, I know you better than that. You’re not capable of it. I’m just hoping Diamond doesn’t know that.”
CHAPTER 24
I couldn’t remember when I’d left the station early enough to actually get home before dinner. The fact that Tyler was sending me home was really a good thing. I hadn’t had much quality time with my son since he’d come back from his college-bound football trip with his dad, and I was looking forward to a nice quiet dinner and the chance to catch up with him about the game and the trip.
But I was troubled. As much as I wanted to focus on home and Charlie, I couldn’t stop thinking about the investigation. Tony was missing. Freddie dead. And both of them on the same night. If Diamond was responsible, how did he do it? It was impossible to think that he could have been in two places at the same time.
I drove up Fairfax and stopped in at Dupar’s, next to the Farmer’s Market, and picked up a chocolate cream pie. It qualified as the decadent, chocolate, and gooey dessert I’d promised to bring Sheri in exchange for her making dinner, and with a little luck it would serve as a diversion. I decided I wasn’t going to say much concerning the investigation, or that Tyler had sent me home. I figured what they didn’t know at this point wouldn’t hurt.
What I didn’t know was just how helpful our dinner conversation might be. The four of us were sitting at Sheri’s dining room table, having just polished off the last of the eggplant lasagna, and I was about to get up and bring in the chocolate cream pie when I overheard Charlie and Clint talking about the USC/Boston College game.
“It was fake right, fake left.” Clint sounded enthusiastic.
“Yeah, Mom,” Charlie looked at me. “You should have seen it. SC’s down by three, and everybody’s standing up thinking the quarterback would throw the ball down the field but—”
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br /> “He handed the ball off to the tailback and he ran with it. He was wide open. Made a forty-yard touchdown.” Clint was gleaming with pride.
“Awesome play!” Charlie raised both his hands in the air, a victory salute.
“Fake right, fake left, huh?” I got up, cleared the dishes. I wondered if that’s what Diamond had done, faked me out with a fake right, fake left kind of play.
Sheri followed me into the kitchen as I went to retrieve the dessert. She was like a heat-seeking missile, on my heels, right behind me. She knew something was up.
“Okay, so what’s happening? And don’t tell me you can’t talk about it ’cause you’re never home this early and you’re obviously thinking about something. So what is it?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking how great your eggplant was. I never would have imagined the boys would clean their plate like that.”
“Stop it.” Sheri put her hand on top of mine. “Fess up, what’s on your mind?”
I took the pie out of the box. “Where’s your pie cutter?”
Sheri pointed the knife at me, blade first. I wasn’t taking it from her without an answer.
“It’s Freddie Bleeker,” I said. “He drowned last night.”
“No!” Sheri looked like she was about to fall over and balanced herself on the counter. “Did Diamond kill him?”
“If he did, he did it within an hour of kidnapping Tony. And I don’t see how that’s possible.”
I explained the timing. How we’d been parked outside the Century Grill at eight p.m. when we witnessed Tony being pushed into Diamond’s black Rolls.
“Thing is, I can’t figure out how he kidnapped Tony and, on the same night, got all the way across town and killed Freddie an hour later. The towel boy at the W says Freddie was alive when he left him around nine, and the coroner’s report says he drowned sometime shortly thereafter. I know he did it, but with traffic and no witnesses, it just doesn’t seem possible.”
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