Our gazes met.
I didn’t give her time to even look surprised. I zapped her with a high-voltage stare, enough to keep her under for a couple of minutes. She stood frozen next to the vacuum cleaner, surrounded by a swirling red aura.
“¿Carmela?” The female voice came from the hall. “¿Acabaste?” Are you finished? She spoke with a pronounced gringa accent. Was this Lara?
I darted around the kitchen counter and paused at the threshold to the hall.
Someone with a brisk and light feminine stride padded on the carpet.
I jumped out, my vampire glare at full power.
My gaze stopped the young woman in her tracks. With short blond hair, a wide Slavic face, and plump hips, she didn’t look anything like Roxy Bronze. Unless Lara liked to wear an EXPERT MAIDS apron for fun, this wasn’t her.
I asked, “Where’s Lara Phillips?”
The woman’s aura bubbled with anxiety. She gurgled open-mouthed, as if the words spun midway between her brain and throat.
I tapped her head like it was a TV with a loose connection.
“Not here,” she said.
“Then where?”
Again with the gurgling. I tapped her head.
“Not here,” she said.
This could take all morning. The first maid might know.
I left the woman there, returned to the dining room, and asked the other maid. “Where is Lara?”
“The-señora-Mrs.-Phillips-is-at-her-lessons-which-she-goes-to—”
Her Spanish came at me like water from a fire hydrant. I pinched her lips shut. “What lessons?”
The maid mumbled.
I let go of her lips.
“…like-I-was-telling-you-three-times-a-week—”
I pinched again. Sometimes vampire hypnosis was a pain in the ass. The blonde couldn’t get one word out without me thonking her head, and the maid jabbered like she was trying for a world speed record.
I started into the maid’s eyes to strengthen my control. “Don’t say a word.” Carefully, I released her lips and she kept quiet.
I didn’t see anything in the dining room that could help me. I went to the kitchen, which was outfitted with every culinary gadget and notion, as if Lara had binged at Williams-Sonoma. I’d never seen designer dish detergent before. A wall calendar had names and telephone numbers scribbled over it, but nothing gave a clue where Lara was today. Colorful magnets held coupons and recipes to the refrigerator door. A wipe board listed grocery items, but nothing said: If you’re looking for me on Monday morning I’m at…
In the living room I sorted through a wire basket on a console table containing unopened mail: bills and junk. So far I hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary, and that was the problem. I sat on the edge of an armchair to decide what to do next.
What kind of lessons would a divorced single mom be taking? Yoga? Gourmet cooking? Or did the maid mean school classes like college? Maybe this was a dead end. Was I wasting my time or should I come back?
Copies of Journey with God magazine sat on the coffee table. The subscription label carried Lara’s name. Lara attended Reverend Dale Journey’s church? The same church I’d seen Dr. Niphe sneak to?
My stink-o-meter activated again but I couldn’t make a connection between Lara, Niphe, and Journey.
I flipped through one issue. The centerfold listed the monthly calendar for the church campus activities. Circled in red ink was a Gospel aerobics class for women only, Jumping for Jesus, offered 9 A.M. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Was she taking these classes? Could she be there now?
I approached the maid and asked, “Is Lara at Journey’s church?”
“Sí-at-la-iglesia-she-teaches-I-should-exercise-too-but-with-work-who-can-find-the-time-I-am-getting-fat-maybe-I-will-start—”
I clamped my fingers on the maid’s lips to contemplate this news in silence. Lara Phillips—formerly Lara Krieger, sister to Freya Krieger, a.k.a. Roxy Bronze—taught exercise classes at Journey’s church?
Niphe and Journey. Add Lara to the equation.
Did Lara have something to do with her sister’s murder? The implication was so crazy that even I, cynical private detective Felix Gomez, had problems wrapping my thoughts around the idea. If she had, why? How?
“Carmela,” the blonde whispered from the hall. Her vampire hypnosis had worn off.
I rolled up the magazine and shoved it into my trouser pocket. I had learned enough here. Time to find Lara Phillips and listen to what she had to say.
CHAPTER 27
On the way to Altadena, I wondered about this latest tangle. Roxy Bronze’s sister, Lara Phillips, taught exercise classes at Journey’s church. Was she also a parishioner? Did she have anything to do with Reverend Journey? Or with Dr. Niphe? Their names moved like mathematical variables.
A plus B plus C equals what?
I reached Loma Linda Drive. Journey’s church looked as exaggerated and gaudy in the day as it had at night. The rows of windows, as precisely arranged as facets on a rhinestone, reflected the glare of the California sun against the craggy backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains.
From my angle as I drove onto the lower parking lot, the mountain peaks towered majestically above the pyramid and obelisk of the extravagant church, the grandeur of the Almighty presiding over the bombastic pretensions of man.
Cars and minivans crowded the upper parking lot. School buses marked with JOURNEY FOR JESUS circled up the driveway and stopped alongside a wide concrete path leading to the church complex. Dozens of children filed out. They linked hands and followed women in frumpy dresses up the path.
For a Monday morning, this campus was a busy place, full of cheery Christians coming to celebrate their brand of love for Jesus. And here I was among them, a vampire detective investigating murder.
I panned the grounds and saw no unusual auras. I masked my eyes with contacts and sunglasses and walked across the parking lot for the church complex. I felt the weight of my pistol and holster against the small of my back.
The glass buildings and asphalt reflected the heat. The morning sun was still climbing, so the day would only get hotter. Sunblock kept my skin from bursting into flames, but the bright light and heat burdened me like a potbellied stove strapped to my back.
Unlike the other visit, when security guards chased away Coyote and me, those who noticed me today acknowledged my presence with friendly smiles. I didn’t see any guards, but I did spot black plastic globes tucked among the shrubs. We were all being watched—for our safety, I’m sure.
The concrete path split three ways over a lush grassy incline. The paths left and right led to the wings of the complex. The glass and chrome buildings reflected the blue sky and green lawn in wavy, distorted patterns. The center path curved between tidy flower beds toward the wide steps of the main entrance.
I pushed open a billiard table–size glass door and entered a carpeted vestibule large enough for a game of basketball. An air-conditioned breeze fluttered against me, and I paused for a moment to refresh myself.
On the far wall, announcements in LED lights scrolled across a message board. To my right, a map indicated YOU ARE HERE with an arrow. I knew where I was; I didn’t know where Lara Phillips was.
I opened the magazine I’d brought from Lara’s home and read the calender. “Jumping for Jesus” exercise class was taught in the Samson Room, which the map indicated was in the adjoining north wing to my left.
I followed the hall where it curved around the main chapel. Doors wide as garage bays opened onto the sanctuary, which was the size of a soccer stadium. Maintenance workers vacuuming between the pews were projected to heroic size on the JumboTron behind the altar.
Another hundred feet and two left turns later, I passed through a connecting hall and entered the north wing. This building lacked the regal opulence of the main chapel. Plush maroon carpet gave way to beige linoleum. The ridiculously tall doors and walls shrank to human proportions. Commercial fluoresce
nt tubing replaced the gigantic smoked-glass lighting fixtures.
At the end of the hall I found the Samson Room, deserted and quiet. I peeked through the open door and saw a typical exercise studio—stereo at the front, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, a rack with multicolored hand weights, and stacks of platforms for step aerobics. A poster on the back mirror had the face of a cartoon Jesus with a headband (instead of a crown of thorns). The caption under the smiling Savior was: WWJD? WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? EXERCISE, SWEAT, PUT AWAY HIS STEPS AND WEIGHTS.
I heard the clatter of metal lockers behind me. I turned around. A placard on the wall indicated the entrance to the women’s shower and changing room. Female voices came from around the corner of the entrance.
I could romp inside. I was curious to see what shape these devout Christian women kept themselves in. Wouldn’t want the Lord to get a hernia snatching them heavenward during the Rapture, after all.
Two women came out of the changing room, carrying gym bags and smelling clean as wet soap. They walked side by side and chatted into their cell phones.
Was one of them Lara? I asked if they knew where I could find her.
The brunette pulled the cell phone from her ear. “The instructor?”
“I guess.” How many Lara Phillips were here?
She shrugged. “Dunno.” She elbowed her friend. “Lara. The instructor. Where is she?”
Her blonde companion stopped in midsentence and looked at me. “Try the terrazzo.” She motioned out the door and cocked her thumb to the right. The two of them resumed their cell phone conversations and walked around me.
I went out the door and followed the walkway to the back side of the main chapel building. The heat from the mirrored glass turned the space into a convection oven. The sun’s rays bore upon me from every direction.
Rectangles of roses and boxwood shrubs broke up the monotony of the perfect lawn. Sycamore trees surrounded an oblong shape of terrazzo that spilled from the back entrance of the building like a tongue. Patio chairs and tables were spread about the terrazzo. An older teenage boy in an apron tended a juice cart under a large umbrella.
A petite brunette busied herself at the closest table. She moved within the circular shadow cast by the table’s umbrella. She wore a long, pastel green sundress with spaghetti straps over a yellow T-shirt. Glossy shoulder-length hair spilled from under a ball cap. She peeled clementines and arranged the sections on a plate next to cookies. A metal pitcher on the table sweated droplets. Red punch and ice filled two glass tumblers. A writing pad, spreadsheets, pens, and a Palm Pilot sat beside the tumblers.
I stepped close, the table remaining between us. The brow of her ball cap was embroidered with Eternally Fit for the Lord. Her scent was of moist hair, lilac shampoo, and “Ocean Breeze” sunblock.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The woman looked up, startled. Square mirrored sunglasses reflected the glass and greenery.
She had Roxy’s dimples and chin but her nose was shorter and her lips narrower and more full. Maybe she wasn’t Roxy’s sister.
I said, “I’m looking for Lara Phillips.”
CHAPTER 28
“Yes? May I help you?”
What I knew about Lara was a big question mark. I introduced myself and advanced with a calm face, my hands open and the palms facing her. “If you are Lara Phillips, I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“I’m a private investigator. Katz Meow hired me to find out what happened to your sister.”
Even with her face darkened in shadow, I could see her blanch. She retreated a step and bumped against an adjacent table. The woman’s expression became hard, like clay baking in this heat. “What about my sister?”
Then she was Lara Phillips.
The kid at the juice cart looked at us, averted his eyes, and pretended to act busy.
I said, “I’m looking into the circumstances of her murder and—”
“Why? She’s dead.” A rising anger stiffened Lara’s voice. She whisked the sunglasses from her face. The color rushed back into her complexion. She squared her shoulders, all five feet of her standing ramrod straight. The motion tightened the dress across her small breasts.
Her blue eyes—Roxy’s were brown—stared as if she were about to hypnotize me. “I’m asking again, what about my sister?” Her voice was as toxic as lye.
“Like I said, I want to help.”
“Help? It’s too late for that,” Lara replied. “You should’ve been here while she was still alive.”
“Lara?” a deep masculine voice asked from behind. A tall man walked between the row of chairs and tables and circled around me. Sunglasses rode atop the mass of his well-groomed silver hair. The craggy lines of his ruddy face extended to a prominent jaw and a dimpled chin. He wore a loose short-sleeved shirt in a red tartan pattern and khaki trousers.
The question mark hovering above Lara got even bigger. I recognized this man from photos and his television show. He was Reverend Dale Journey.
The two of them exchanged looks that implied more than a casual working relationship. Her eyes cut back to me while his gaze lingered on her.
Journey stepped beside her and faced me, hands gripping the back of a chair. He wore a wedding ring. During his sermons, Journey often mentioned he was a widower and the gold band reminded him of promises kept to his now departed wife and to God.
“Your name, sir?” he asked in a measured soothing tone.
“Gomez,” I replied, moving around the table and extending my hand. “Felix Gomez.”
Journey and Lara stared at my fingers as if the digits were soiled from wiping my ass. Neither moved other than to raise their faces toward mine.
I could zap them both right now. I reached to remove my sunglasses. Then what? Juice boy watched us. Things could get complicated. I lowered my hand.
Lara whispered, “He asked about Freya.”
Journey frowned. “What is your business here?”
“He’s a private detective,” Lara said. “A friend of Freya’s—Roxy Bronze—hired him.”
I hadn’t said that Katz Meow was a friend of Roxy’s.
“Roxy,” Journey muttered. He motioned toward Lara. “Mrs. Phillips—Lara—is a friend. If you’re asking about her sister, then you are aware of the trauma Lara has gone through. She’s had to overcome an ordeal of shame that only compounded the immense tragedy of losing a sibling.”
Journey waved his hand, and juice boy turned as if dismissed, hustling toward the chapel.
Lara’s eyes misted. One side of her face twitched. She wiped an eye and put her sunglasses back on. “Mr. Gomez, you came here looking for the truth? I’ll give it to you. What do you know about my sister? Can you comprehend the disgrace she brought to my family? To me? She had everything. She could do anything. I was the family goat compared to big sister.”
Lara’s face twitched again. Her voice cracked. “She had straight As; I was the C student. She had Olympic scouts sending her flowers; I got ribbons for good attendance in gym class. They handed my sister scholarships to medical school. And still she acted as if the rest of us owed her. She had the keys to the universe. What did she do with them?”
Lara clenched her fists. “My sister gave everything up for pornography and died a whore.”
“Her death left behind a lot of questions,” I said.
“I’ve had it with people picking at Freya’s bones.” Lara took a half step forward.
Journey pulled her back and gave her shoulder a light squeeze, as if to say: Let it out; you’ll be okay.
Lara picked up a napkin and dabbed her eyes. “She’s gone. That part is finished. Let my sister rot in peace as Roxy Bronze.”
Definitely the most spiteful bon voyage I’d ever heard.
“Roxy, I mean Freya, led a complicated, tragic life,” I said.
Journey raised his hand to interrupt. “Complicated. Tragic. And we’d be remiss not to add disreputable. It’d be easy to bury all t
he bad with Freya, but we can’t. We can only ask Him”—Journey pointed to the sky—“for forgiveness and continue with our lives in His grace.”
I expected Journey to end that with an amen.
An LAPD police officer and a security guard in a green uniform with gray pocket flaps marched toward us across the terrazzo. Juice boy followed so close he almost tripped over their heels. The cop went straight to Journey and Lara, and the guard came around my side. The kid stood against his juice cart.
I was outflanked. Both the cop and the guard carried pistols and wore sunglasses.
The cop halted beside Journey. He looked at me even though he spoke to the reverend. “Pastor Dale, there a problem?”
Pastor Dale? How familiar. That meant he attended Journey’s church.
The guard took a ready stance, left foot forward, and hooked thumb into a strap close to a can of pepper spray. I’d been doused with that before, and it was as painful to a vampire as it was to a human.
With this heat, in my black clothes I felt like a stick of melting licorice. If it could, my kundalini noir would pant like a dog to keep cool. This wasn’t the time for a fight. I needed answers, not trouble.
I raised my hands like a meek little citizen. “No problem, officer. I was only here to ask questions.”
Juice boy gave a smart-ass grin.
Her voice ice cold, Lara said, “Mr. Gomez was leaving.”
His arms crossed he-man style, the cop gave me that pissedoff, big-city lawman glare.
I backed away. “Some other time.”
“Worship service is Sundays at nine and eleven A.M.,” Journey replied, more of a taunt than an invitation. “Wednesdays at seven in the evening. You’re welcome anytime then, Mr. Gomez.”
The guard pointed to the back entrance of the chapel. I started that way, the guard and the cop stepping close enough to grab me if they wanted to. They stayed with me until I reached the parking lot. I got into my car, not so much humiliated as suspicious.
X-Rated Bloodsuckers Page 16