Night Moves

by Jonathan Kellerman

“No, no, one.”

  “You brought all of this because…”

  Grinshteyn gave a sour look. “With please, you do more than they ask.”

  Milo flipped pages. “Okay, here we go.”

  Pointing to the bottom of one sheet. Nine p.m. call, the night of Chet Corvin’s murder.

  The client: Mr. Korabin. The destination, Whitely Avenue, just south of Franklin.

  Walking distance from the Sahara.

  Milo said, “Mr. Corvin.”

  “Yah, Lieutenant,” said Grinshteyn.

  Milo showed the driver Chet Corvin’s photo.

  “Nyo.”

  Out came Paul Weyland’s DMV.

  “Yah.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “He didn’t tip me,” said Grinshteyn. “Bastards you remember.”

  Milo’s attention returned to the log. Eyes widening as they found the pickup address, Marquette Place, Pacific Palisades.

  Biro already had his cellphone out, preset to a map app. He fiddled, showed us the screen. Two red dots, Marquette and Evada Lane. Short drive between the two, ten minutes tops under the cover of night.

  Milo said, “House or apartment?”

  Biro and Grinshteyn answered in unison: “House.” Grinshteyn added: “Dump. Pacific Palisades? I expect nice.” Three derisive snorts.

  I said, “The Palisades isn’t your usual route?”

  “I do Brentwood, sometimes Beverly Hills. There also, you get dumps.” He threw up pudgy hands, the image of world-weary disillusion.

  “That night you were in the Palisades because—”

  “A guy was sick,” said Grinshteyn. “They call me, I say hokay.”

  Milo said, “How did Mr. Corvin pay you?”

  “Cash. Paper and stupid coins.” Another snort.

  I said, “Cheapskate.”

  “Bastard.”

  “What else do you remember about him?”

  “Nothing,” said Grinshteyn.

  “Any conversation between the two of you?”

  “I say good evening, he tell me where to take him. I say hokay, he say nothing. After that, I say nothing.” Three more snorts. “Bastard.”

  * * *

  —

  Raul hurried to the station and returned with an LAPD mug, the blue, gold-trimmed kind given out to citizens who raise money for feel-good police projects.

  Grinshteyn tensed up. “Nyo, I don’t take things.”

  “It’s okay, sir.”

  “It could be okay but not for me,” said the driver. “I want only what is mine. Not more.”

  * * *

  —

  The Hollywood station was a jumpier place than West L.A., the detective room filled with phoning, reading, writing investigators, multiple-line desk phones blinking, human voices vying with electronic noise. A couple of Palo Alto zombie types inspected computers, others seemed lost in thought.

  Milo, Biro, and I convened in an empty interview room, sitting around the kind of table pushed to the corner to prevent suspects from feeling secure.

  Milo said, “Another address answers a helluva lot of questions, Raul. Like a place to stash vehicles.”

  I said, “Or worse.”

  “Or worse. And if Mearsheim’s there, you may have cracked the whole thing wide open. Commissar.”

  “Don’t those guys wear fur hats?” said Biro. “Don’t want hat-head—it’s no big deal, had no idea Grinshteyn could actually make a positive I.D.”

  I said, “How’d you find him?”

  “There was nothing on the cameras so I tried taxi companies and Uber like you said, Milo. I started with taxis because Uber gets all pissy and want tons of paper.”

  “He’d be less likely to use Uber,” I said. “Not wanting to be on record using the app.”

  “That, too,” said Biro. “Anyway, Grinshteyn was the third driver I spoke to, I got lucky.”

  Milo said, “You’re selling yourself short, Czar, but fine, let’s concentrate on business. First obvious step: Check out the address. Even if the bastard’s not there, there could be some serious evidence, so the goal is to actually get inside. I’m gonna bypass John Nguyen and his lawyerly bullshit, someone told me about a new judge, Sonia Martinez. Her brother was a cop in Oakland, got shot.”

  “Heard that,” said Raul, “but haven’t used her yet.”

  Milo said, “If I can pry Sean or Moe away from kiddie stuff like robberies, I’ll get a drive-by done now, just a quickie to get the lay of the land. This is not a stupid criminal so if he is there, we can’t afford to show ourselves and have him rabbit.”

  Binchy was out, Reed just back from “dinner.” He said, “Sure.”

  “Look for the Taurus, the Ford truck, and the Camaro.”

  “No Ferraris or Bentleys? Shucks.”

  Milo said, “Next time we’ll pick a dot-com bad guy.” He hung up.

  Biro said, “The serious drive-by is way after dark.”

  “You bet, Emperor. He makes night moves, so do we.”

  Knock on the door. A Hollywood uniform said, “Detective Biro? You’ve got a call from the lab on a case.”

  Raul said, “Which one?”

  “Benitez.”

  “Thanks.” Biro stood and buttoned his jacket. “Shooting on Argyle we got the day after Corvin. Nothing exotic, prescription drugs, this might even be the shooter wanting to turn himself in.”

  “Love when they see the light,” said Milo. “Thanks again.”

  “What time tonight do you figure?”

  “You’re always an asset, Raul, but don’t want to take you away from the wife and kids.”

  “They’re in Colorado visiting her family for two weeks,” said Biro. “First few days I tried to eat healthy and live right. Now it’s microwave crap and ESPN reruns. Take pity and call me.”

  “Always happy to do a favor.”

  Biro walked to the door. “You’re joking but I’m going out of my mind.”

  Milo drove out of the Hollywood lot. Slowly, no risk-taking. His mind elsewhere.

  I said, “Raul’s wife being away reminded me of something. Mearsheim’s story about Donna visiting her mom. Her family are likely worried by now, would want to help.”

  “When we looked her up, we found nothing on social media.”

  “A controlling husband could explain that. Maybe birth records? Or back to the school district to see if she listed anyone other than Paul as an emergency contact?”

  “Good ideas, both of which will take time,” he said. “I’ll do it if nothing pans out at the house on Marquette.”

  I said, “Be good to know who owns it. Same for the house on Evada, which, as Chet pointed out, is a rental.”

  “Dick-waving with Mearsheim. Did you happen to notice how Mearsheim reacted?”

  “Don’t recall that he did.”

  “Guy came across so mild. Sitting there and playing everyone.”

  “Part of the thrill,” I said.

  “Well, let’s de-thrill him. Yeah, I’ll look for the deeds on both houses before tonight.”

  His phone played four notes of Ravel’s “Bolero.” The caller I.D. made him sit up straighter. “Hey, Al, what’s up?”

  Ahearn said, “Giving you a progress report. We sure can’t see any signs of excavation in the backyard. Between us and these walls, I did a little trespass over to the neighbor’s trees and nothing there, either. My cadaver dog lady is away for a couple of days, I tried someone else but no dice. So she’ll be doing the sniff when she gets back. I’ve asked for an infrared thing, should probably have that in the morning. In terms of the interior, we’re waiting for darkness to do the luminol. So far, no obvious crime scene.”

  Each bit of bad news lowered Milo’s bulk, like a dirigible steadily drained. “Thanks for calling—”

  “Hold on, saving the best for last,” said Ahearn. “We pulled up a usable print in the master bath. Corner of a shelf in the medicine cabinet, nice clear thumb and forefinger and Lordy-be, AFIS knows who put
it there.”

  “Please tell me it’s someone with a record,” said Milo.

  “Nothing violent and let’s face it, we have no idea how long the print’s been there, for all we know she was a housecleaner. But so far, we can’t locate her, which makes my nose itch. In a perfect world, she’s what your doctor guessed—the new girlfriend. You want the basics on her?”

  “I want everything on her. I’m driving, how about texting or emailing?”

  “High-tech transfer of data,” said Ahearn. “My college kid thinks I’m a dinosaur. The other five do, also. Sure, coming your way.”

  Milo handed me his cellphone. The info arrived just as we reached La Brea and headed south.

  Trisha Stacy Bowker, forty-three, had a record beginning at age nineteen and stretching sixteen years. Convictions in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Missouri for petty theft, grand theft, larceny, embezzlement, illegal appropriation of property, and fraud. She’d gone years at a time without being arrested, pled out most of the time in return for probation or minimal jail time.

  Bowker’s last bust—identity theft in St. Louis—had earned her a year of probation. No violations for eight months had terminated her supervision after six months.

  I re-read the record. “She’s been free and off the radar since a year before Jackie Mearsheim disappeared. Maybe she’s kept her nose clean because she hooked up with a smarter criminal.”

  “Jackie’s dead, Donna’s dead, Bowker seduces Corvin but has been playing house with Mearsheim for years?”

  I said, “Why not? Couple of cons working lonely hearts. They hit on a winning plan and milk it.”

  “Fall for Paul, lose your money and your life. What does this princess look like?”

  The mugshot photo Ahearn had sent was tiny and indistinct even under enlargement. Caucasian face topped by a thick dark mop of hair. Twenty-seven at the time.

  A red light at La Brea and Beverly gave Milo a chance to examine the image.

  “Damn this is small.” He put on reading glasses, squinted. “Looks like…five-five, hundred and twenty-eight. Brunette with a normal build. Could be.”

  “If Bowker is Mearsheim’s girl, there was no abduction at the Sahara. All we really have on that is Sarabeth Sarser’s description. But she was scared and meth-addled, so maybe what she really saw was two people hurrying off together.”

  “Or,” he said, “she saw things clearly and Mearsheim decided to upgrade his hardware.”

  “Bowker’s gone, too?” I said.

  “Guy like that, women are expendable, why not?”

  He drummed the steering wheel with both thumbs. Sitting tall, now, green eyes ignited. “Got a lot to do. Starting with checking out ol’ Trisha on a normal-sized screen. Then I start playing keyboard Sherlock.”

  A larger image of Trisha Bowker brought no new wisdom.

  Her face fluctuated between barely pretty and plain, depending on her mood at arrest. Some shots showed her as various versions of blond. Flat, dark eyes. No identifying scars or tattoos.

  Jane Average. That could be an advantage.

  * * *

  —

  Al Ahearn’s failure to find any recent data on Bowker didn’t stop Milo from trying. No success.

  He printed what Ahearn had sent him, included it in the murder book, went to get septic coffee from the big detective room. He returned, cell in one hand, coffee in the other, squeezed back into his chair, drinking and saying, “Why do I subject myself to swill? Reed’s not answering. I hope he kept it simple on the drive-by.”

  Four sips later, Reed was knocking on the doorway jamb, shirt seams strained by musculature, ruddy and towheaded, your basic Viking raider.

  “Phone ran out of juice, L.T., sorry. The house is small, oldish, in an area that’s mostly apartment buildings. For the Palisades, I’d have to say a dump. None of the vehicles we’re looking for were visible but there is an attached double garage. You wanted it simple so I only went back and forth twice, can’t tell you if anyone’s inside but there was no mail pile. So what’s the plan?”

  “Don’t have one yet,” said Milo. “Other than I’m aiming for tonight.”

  “I’ll stick around.”

  “With lunch at four, take along snacks, Moses. We don’t want you fading.”

  Reed smiled and flexed thigh-sized biceps. “No prob with nutrition, L.T. Been altering my workout, heavier weights, fewer reps, a little creatine. Also, I watch everything that goes into my mouth.”

  “What was lunch?”

  “Four cans of Muscle Milk.”

  “I don’t even want to know what that is.”

  “It actually tastes pretty good. Chocolate.”

  “Would it matter if it didn’t?”

  “Nope. I’ll be at my desk, let me know.”

  * * *

  —

  Too late to call the school board for info on Donna Weyland. Milo tapped into county property tax records, found nothing, which fit her being a renter.

  With no info on her origins, impossible to look for family.

  He said, “All else fails, dig up what you have. Seven years ago, Jackie gets disappeared by Mearsheim in Santa Barbara, maybe he was already with Trisha Bowker, maybe not. Either way, with Jackie taken care of, Mearsheim looks for another victim, possibly finds one or more before he latches onto Donna. So what’s Bowker’s role in all this?”

  I said, “Could be anything from confidante to full partner. If they’re working as a team, she could’ve been used as a lure. Two women just happen to meet, become friendly, one lets on she’s single and lonely, the other says, ‘I know a good guy.’ ”

  “With a nice job in the school district, like Jackie. Two districts hired him, can you believe that?”

  “Maybe he did his job acceptably. Some sort of technical work with minimal supervision. It does show he’s bright. Anyway, whether or not there were male victims prior to Chet, Bowker was used to seduce him. He would’ve seemed the perfect target: Mearsheim had come to despise him for the way Chet treated him and he understood Chet’s overconfidence the way we did: vulnerability.”

  He shook his head. “Idiot’s unable to imagine any woman who says she loves him doesn’t mean it. Bowker’s on him like a tracking device.”

  “Passion, dinner, and jewelry. Maybe they had bigger plans but Chet balked. So they killed him.”

  He let out a sour laugh. “Wages of sin 101. Okay, on to real estate.”

  * * *

  —

  The rented house on Evada Lane was deeded to a limited liability corporation registered as Scribble Properties. A bit of digging revealed that to be three people, two living in Seattle, one in Austin, Texas.

  Bernard Leviton, Gray Winograd, Susan Minelli. Three separate social network pages but one story: a trio of TV writers, alumni of a long-running late-night show, had pooled resources by renting out their L.A. homes to leverage several Section Eight apartment buildings downtown. That in place, they moved to states with no local income tax.

  Evada Lane had been Susan Minelli’s residence so Milo began with her.

  Voicemail; same for Bernard Leviton in Seattle. The converted Texan, Gray Winograd, wasn’t home but his wife was.

  “This is Meryl. The po-lice?” Bored voice, syllables elongated as if to prolong conversation.

  Milo said, “This is about the property on Evada Lane.”

  Meryl Winograd said, “That place? Something happened? What?”

  “We’re doing a routine investigation.”

  “That sounds like movie dialogue. What did you say your name was?”

  Milo repeated his credentials.

  “Hold on…I just looked you up and you seem to be the real deal. What’s your actual police phone number so I can make sure?”

  Milo told her.

  She said, “You sound mellow, guess I’ll believe you. So what do you want to know about that place?”

  “The tenants—”

  “No idea about any o
f Gray and his pals’ little endeavors. It all goes through the managers they hired.”

  “Who are the managers?”

  “Some company named Aswan, Aslan, something like that,” said Meryl Winograd. “They’re no great shakes.”

  “You’ve had problems—”

  “Apparently they’re a humongous outfit and Gray and his pals are teensy french fries. I keep telling Gray being a landlord is a job not a hobby.”

  “You said, ‘That place,’ as if there’d been specific problems at Evada.”

  “You’re reading too much into that, I don’t know details and I don’t care,” said Meryl Winograd. “The whole real estate thing isn’t my thing, they thought they’d be tycoons, meanwhile I’m in Texas. It’s kind of cute, here, good food and music, but my allergies and oh God the humidity.”

  “So you’re not aware of any—”

  “If there was a serious problem, Gray would be bitching about it and he’s not. So how’s the weather in L.A.?”

  “Nice.”

  “Figures.”

  * * *

  —

  A call to Aslan Property Management brought up layers of manically paced, mostly incomprehensible button-push instructions. Multi-city company specializing in shopping centers and huge residential complexes.

  Milo held the phone at arm’s length as the robotic voice on the other end continued to natter. The 0 for Operator option brought up another automaton.

  He clicked off. I said, “The castle moat for when tenants complain.”

  “Gimme some hot oil and a catapult.”

  * * *

  —

  The rented house on Marquette Place belonged officially to no one.

  Once the home of Herbert McClain, deceased at age ninety-one, it had entered into probate six months ago because McClain had died intestate.

  The court-appointed trustee was an attorney named Mitchell Light with an office near the downtown court building. Maybe one of those Hill Street hangers-on who dole out holiday gift baskets to judges and wait for assignments.

  That guess was kicked up to probable when Milo found Light’s garish website featuring an improbably black-haired man in a bad suit whose cap-filled smile screamed trying too hard.