The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset)

by Doug Richardson

  In Lucky’s opinion, Conrad Ellis was an advertisement for remaining childless.

  “You available for a little private detective work?” spoke Conrad over the phone.

  “Available enough,” said Lucky. “But for the part where I don’t have a license to practice the trench coat arts.”

  “Trench coat arts,” laughed Conrad. “I like that.”

  “I’m here all week,” deadpanned Lucky, sounding slightly more awake.

  “The PI license is easy enough to remedy,” said Conrad. “Assuming I can arrange one, I have a business pal who needs someone to show him around the city.”

  “Sounds more like he needs a tour guide than a detective.”

  “I’d prefer he tell you himself what kind of help he needs.”

  “Sure,” said Lucky without much more thought. “I can meet him.”

  Of course, Lucky would meet him. And it wasn’t out of sympathy for Conrad’s loss. Lucky owed him so much more. While Kern County and LA County Sheriffs and the LAPD passed the responsibility buck like it was some kind of nuclear hot potato, Lucky had laid in a hospital bed in rehab limbo, waiting for someone to please pay his nearly half-million dollar tab. Without hesitation, Conrad Ellis had stepped in. He had covered both the medical care and the attorney’s fees without a single, solitary quid pro quo.

  “Send you a text with a place and time,” said Conrad. “Tomorrow okay?”

  “Already is tomorrow,” said Lucky, remembering the time of day. “Unless you’re talking about, you know…tomorrow.”

  “Go back to sleep,” said Conrad.

  “Might need a bottle of scotch,” joked Lucky. Again, the line landed flat.

  “Gimme your address and I’ll have my driver bring you a bottle.”

  “It was a joke, Mr. Ellis.”

  “You should know, detective,” reminded Conrad. “I don’t joke about fine whiskey.”

  “I’m gonna hang up now, sir.”

  “You do that. And stay in touch, okay? I wanna know how this private eye job turns out.”

  “I will. Good night.”

  “Good night, Lucky.”

  Private Dipshit Detective.

  The Deputy-Sheriff-in-limbo had laid awake for another ninety-plus minutes as the insulting handle pinged inside the boundaries of his skull like an old video game. Not that he begrudged any ex-cop who took to private investigating as a line of work. Lucky believed anything for a buck was fair game. It just wasn’t close to the sexy, glam-assed job portrayed in fiction. The PI game was dirty work for fat-assed geeks with an over-affection for computers and writing reports on domestic misery. The job involved little more than divorce cases and, for the occasional kick, workman’s comp claims. Setting himself up on stakeouts to video-capture some José or Yolanda out for some beer and bowling despite a debilitating on-the-job back injury. No thanks. In Lucky’s universe, the job wasn’t worthy of a seasoned sheriff’s detective.

  Let alone a bona fide Lennox Station Reaper.

  But Conrad Ellis wasn’t suggesting a career change for the county cop. And if Lucky was going to be snob-up about what kind of work he would do to pay off a few bills, he sure as hell wouldn’t have been caught dead serving subpoenas on unsuspecting rubes at fifty dollars per.

  When Lucky finally woke from just shy of four hours sleep, the text containing the meeting spot had already showed up on his phone screen. Conrad must have been extra keen on Lucky’s performing the favor because the address was within walking distance of Lucky’s Reseda apartment. He knew it, too. Manja’s Deli and Grocery. If Lucky recalled correctly, it was in a nearby strip mall, sandwiched between Pizza Hut and ACE Cash Express. Outdoor seating. Lucky checked the weather app on his cell phone, then began digging through a pile of unfolded laundry for a turtleneck.

  Part II

  Tuesday

  5

  “Hey. You must be Mr. Dey.”

  The stranger stood from his patio seat at the tiny café table and forced a smile. Despite the forty-eight degree temp, the man appeared comfy enough wearing little more than a simple white dress shirt untucked over designer jeans and a pair of polished black penny-loafers. Lucky clocked him at just over five-foot-six and around fifty-years-old, the once boyish face now turned as weary as a man carrying the weight of the world. He was also manicured down to his fresh shave and a salon cut shock of naturally red hair with the occasional streak of white.

  More than ten years younger, with his own head shaved for convenience’s sake, Lucky carried zero hair-envy. It was part of his credo in keeping things simple. And if it was cold, that’s why they invented fleece knit caps.

  “Lucky,” said the cop, introducing himself with a handshake.

  “Andrew Kaarlsen,” said the stranger, his voice pitched to a tinny height. “You mind sitting outside?”

  “Not at all,” Lucky lied, lowering himself and his thick, navy wool jacket into the pre-chilled chair.

  “I’m from Milwaukee. And we just don’t get days like this in the winter.”

  “Neither do we,” joked Lucky. “For us, this is about as cold as we can stand.”

  “Warm, sunny day like today?” wondered Andrew. “This isn’t cold.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of it,” said Lucky.

  “Never been out to the Midwest?”

  “Folks out here call ’em the flyover states,” jibed Lucky. “The ones we fly over on our way to places like New York and Miami.”

  “Now that’s pretty funny,” said Andrew without actually laughing. “So you’re local? From around here?”

  “Born and raised, as they say,” replied Lucky.

  “So you know your way around?”

  “Mr. Ellis called me at two in the morning.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Andrew. He revealed a knowing smirk. “Always the midnight rambler.”

  “That’s what you call him?”

  “Don’t know if I made it up or heard it from somewhere else,” said Andrew. “But the hours Connie keeps are pretty infamous.”

  “And you know him how?”

  “Connie and me?” asked Andrew. “We go pretty far back. I own a software company. Business applications, mostly. When I was just a start-up, Connie was one of my first customers. Introduced me around to a few fellahs. Indebted forever to him.”

  “Know whatcha mean.”

  There followed an uncomfortable few seconds of silence. Andrew appeared to be sizing up Lucky. It was not an unaccustomed feeling for Lucky. Street thugs tried to measure a cop’s resolve the moment the police car’s door swung open. But this once-over from the middle-aged, Midwestern friend of Conrad’s made Lucky feel like a horse scaled out before a race.

  “Anyway,” cued Lucky. “Connie pretty much kept the reason for this meeting to himself. Asked me to do him a favor and meet you. So here I am.”

  “Yes. You’re an ex-cop, right?”

  “Not retired, if that’s what you’re asking,” explained Lucky. “I’m transferring from Kern County back to LA Sheriff’s. But the reinstatement situation is slow as shit.”

  “So you’d be available to do this?”

  “Do what?” asked Lucky, his eyes narrowing to a point.

  “Right,” said Andrew, leaning back as if trying to find comfort in the stackable chair. It appeared to Lucky as if Andrew was trying like hell to keep his composure. “This, right here. Why I’m in LA—is because I believe my daughter is here.”

  “How old?” asked Lucky, his arms crossed. The pain Andrew clearly carried and Lucky’s own instinct had already informed him where this was going.

  “Karrie,” continued Andrew. “That’s my little girl’s name—”

  “How little?” pressed Lucky. If the man’s daughter was missing, age was paramount when it came to the law.

  “She’s fifteen,” said Andrew. “And, technically, a runaway, I guess.”

  “You guess? She either ran away or she didn’t.”

  “Okay,” Andrew shrugged in difficul
t surrender. “She ran away.”

  “From you. In Milwaukee?”

  “Well, from Chenaqua,” corrected Andrew. “It’s a suburb. She spends half her time there with me and the other half in town with her mom.”

  “You’re divorced?”

  “Not yet. It’s an ongoing…Well, it’s a bloody marathon if you ask me.”

  “Acrimonious.”

  “Sadly, yes. Her mom’s just…” Andrew stopped the thought as if being polite was more important than sharing his angry divorce grievances. “Let’s just say it’s been very hard on my Karrie.”

  “Assuming that’s why she ran off?”

  “Partly, I’m sure,” said Andrew. “Along with the fact that she’s just like her.”

  “Her mom?”

  “Yeah. Her mom. She’s pretty high maintenance. Then again, I suppose I take the blame for marrying that kind of woman.”

  “Only child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it true, then?”

  “Is what true?”

  “Old bit of Irish my granny used to say,” poked Lucky. “One child makes a fool of three people.”

  The line was indeed meant to poke Andrew for his reaction. Lucky still hadn’t said yes. Or even shown interest.

  As for Andrew, he politely considered the Irish adage. And as he thought about it, appeared to nod with approval. As if he wished somebody had informed him before he and his soon-to-be ex-wife decided to stop after one kid.

  “Drugs?” asked Lucky.

  “Me?” asked Andrew? “Or her mom or Karrie?”

  Lucky shrugged his response. Hands remaining stuck in his woolly pockets.

  “Okay. Me? No,” said Andrew. “Absolutely not. Not even a beer. My stomach can’t take it.”

  Andrew brought his hand to his solar plexus as if the thought of liquor would give him an ulcer.

  “As for my wife and Karrie?” dripped Andrew with sarcasm. “Both I should assume. My ex—or soon to be ex—I happen to know she still parties. On my dime of course. And Karrie? For a kid, she’s pretty good at keeping her stuff private. So aside from a couple of marijuana cigarettes I found in her book bag...”

  “Does your ex do drugs around your daughter?”

  “Elise?” asked Andrew. “That’s my wife. And that answer would probably be no. Andrew’s eyes searched for Lucky’s hands… or lack thereof. Both were still firmly placed in his coat pockets. “Sure you don’t need to write any of this down?”

  “What for?” asked Lucky. “I don’t know what the job is yet.”

  “I thought it was pretty obvious,” said Andrew, the friendly Midwest pathology showing an edge. “I need you to help me find my baby girl.”

  “Understood,” said Lucky. “You understand I’m not a private detective.”

  “Connie informed me.”

  “And if your daughter is underage, there’s a lot of other help available to you. There’s the Department of Missing—”

  “Missing Children and Family Services,” finished Andrew, before reeling off the rest of his already traveled dead ends. “The Child Abduction office of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Lemme see. There’s Find the Children, California Missing Teens, Children of the Night. I think there might be one more but…”

  “You’ve done the tour,” nodded Lucky.

  “I believe I’ve reported everywhere a father can report, talked to whomever would see me and followed up and followed up again.” Andrew placed his hands on the tabletop, palms flat, fingers splayed. “I’ve been here for three weeks already. And I’m flat-out tired of the inside of my hotel room, not to mention dialing numbers I already know by heart, only to be told there’s nothing more I can do but check back in another week.”

  “So?” pressed Lucky.

  “I want you to find my daughter for me…or with me,” burst Andrew. “I’m looking for help, okay? Connie told me you tracked down his daughter’s killer. Three days was all it took. You tracked him and you finished him—”

  “Didn’t finish him. Least not officially. Nearly killed myself, though. And I was on the job.”

  “On the job?”

  “Was a working cop,” clarified Lucky. “With access and support.”

  “But you’re here, right? Talking to me? You must be kind of interested in helping.”

  “I’m here because Mr. Ellis has been very kind to me over a pretty rough coupla years. I owe him a lot.”

  “I get that. Really, I do. You don’t owe me a thing. But Connie…or Mr. Ellis as you know him. He lost his own little girl. He put me in contact with you because he knows what it’s like. He knows I will do anything not to lose my little girl.”

  As a veteran cop, Lucky was better than most at reading people and their involuntary tells. When he rode gang duty, he could jam any car full of Crips, line ’em up against any graffiti-painted wall of Compton cinder block and by instinct, pick out the leader.

  The same was true for victims.

  Lucky had gathered that the man from the Midwest was plenty distressed about his circumstances. Maybe somewhat narcissistic in his sincerity. But who the hell had landed his own fortune and not become full of himself?

  “Find her and I’ll pay you fifty grand,” said Andrew.

  “And if you don’t like what you find?” asked Lucky.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Ain’t all palm trees and swimmin’ pools out here. Plenty of ugly in LA. And a lost girl like your daughter doesn’t need to go far before landing smack in the shit.”

  Lucky understood he was still understating the realities. Runaway teens in sunny Los Angeles often wound up drug addicted, working as prostitutes, and/or as targets for predators. The morgue saw plenty of young girls every year, each finding her final rest in what was essentially a meat locker for dead humans.

  “I’m aware of the realities of this place—”

  “But one more thing,” interrupted Lucky. “How do you even know she’s here?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right here.” Andrew fumbled with his phone. He was quick, though, to pull up a recent digital posting from Karrie. “Her last Facebook page.”

  The digital picture uploaded onto Andrew’s smartphone was low resolution and appeared to have been snapped just after sunset. It was a candid self-portrait, revealing roughly half of Karrie’s freckled face exploding in an unmistakable smile. Some unseen wind appeared to be swirling a strawberry blonde mane of a far more appealing color than her father’s shock-top red. Pictured next to Karrie was another unknown beauty, equally young, with blue eyes and a rhinestone nose stud. Just behind the duo, anchored in the upper right-hand corner was the partial neon script of a sign. Somewhat blurry. But the letters could still be made out.

  Lucy’s El Ado

  “Googled what you can see in the neon,” pointed Andrew. “It’s a place called Lucy’s El Adobe. It’s in Hollywood across the street from some kind of movie studio.”

  “I know it,” said Lucky. “Mexican food.”

  “I stopped in there. Showed everybody who worked in the restaurant this picture. Nobody but nobody remembered my girl or the other one.”

  “Got a date when the photo was posted?”

  “Exactly twenty-five days ago, fourteen hours and…” Andrew Kaarlsen pulled up the cuff on his shirt, revealing an antique Gruen timepiece, gold trim with a pearled face. Sleek but not the least bit ostentatious, and oddly strapped to the inside of his wrist. “…and sixteen minutes.”

  Lucky looked past Andrew, squinting through his Ray-Bans in the direction of the morning sun, wishing to hell God would make the day ten degrees warmer.

  “I know this is really urgent for you,” said Lucky. “But I’d like to think on it. Get in a workout. Shower. Call you after?”

  “You’re my guy,” pressed Andrew, forcing the kind of salesman’s smile that opened doors in the world. Only this particular show of teeth was marked with a trace of panic and fear. He was, after all, the parent of a missin
g child. The man’s thin voice cracked. “I need you to say yes.”

  “Couple of hours.” Lucky eased to his feet. “I’ll get you my answer.”

  6

  To look at the building from its exterior, the Mayfair Hotel with its old European-styled awning and red brick façade hadn’t aged much at all in its ninety-plus years of service to travelers visiting Los Angeles. Though not exactly located in downtown proper, its old-school charm at a bargain price consistently lured guests seeking extended stays and a few extra ounces of discretion. It was just far enough off the beaten track that the odds of a business traveler bumping into someone he or she knew dipped from damned remote down to slim and none. Which was just the way Mr. Londale Newton of Atlanta liked it.

  “Hello?” answered the voice at the other end of the cell phone connection.

  “Hi, said Lon. “I, uh, read your ad on JumpFinder.”

  “Oh…Well, hi. I’m Jodi.”

  Oh my, how the travel insurance exec cherished his quarterly road trips. Boston and Hartford in the spring. Summer usually brought him to Seattle. Fall was Nashville or Dallas and sometimes Houston. But winter was reserved for Southern California. San Diego and Los Angeles respectively where the mean temperature hovered in the mid-seventies and the quality of working girls was undisputed. For the months prior to his getaways, he would squirrel away small chunks of dough, one twenty-dollar bill at a time. The cash stash was hidden in a pocket in the bottom compartment of his shave kit. By the time he eventually hit the road, there would be nearly a grand in unaccounted household cash that his wife hadn’t a clue had gone unspent on household necessities like fashion magazines and another decorative display recommended by Martha Stewart.

  “Is Jodi your real name?” asked Lon.

  “Real enough,” flirted the voice. “Did you like my page?”

  “Very much,” said Lon. “Your pictures sorta spoke to me.”