“You’re telling me she has on around three thousand dollars’ worth of clothes?” Parks couldn’t believe it, and had the information come from anyone but Tanaka, he wouldn’t have.
“Hey,” Tanaka huffed, “just because I can’t afford it doesn’t mean I can’t look. And try on. And admire. And dream about.” Amy looked up at Jackie and winked. “I believe in following the Boy Scout motto. Maybe one day I’ll find me a man who can afford them. You never know.”
“Uh-huh,” Parks replied. “Been perusing the pages of sugardaddy dot com again, I see.”
“Well, since I didn’t see your face anywhere on there, it must have been. Speaking of older, well-to-do, who’s the twink?”
“The what?” Parks looked around the room wondering what she was talking about, before he saw her looking at Tippin.
“You mean the kid?”
“I said twink, didn’t I?”
“What the hell’s a twink? And you were talking about sugar daddies. I was looking—oh, never mind. That’s Milo. Newest member of the team. Milo Tippin, this is Amy Tanaka, our resident smart-ass and chief medical examiner.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Tanaka smiled up at Tippin.
“Since I don’t see your assistant, if you need any help don’t hesitate to put him to work,” Parks said, looking back at his notebook and the few notes he had taken so far. “We’re still finding him his niche.”
“Oh goodie,” Tanaka said. “Young buck like him should have eyes like a hawk. Why don’t you come over here and give me a hand. Unless you’re still using him, Rachel?”
“Put him to work,” Moore said, waving Tippin on.
Tippin started for Amy’s side when she stopped him. “Grab one of those containers in my kit and get the tweezers. You’re going to help me get samples and collect what’s under the vic’s fingernails. Got it?”
“Got it.” Tippin nodded.
“Oh, lookie at him. He obeys. I like him already.”
“Just like Amy to get into the groove of things by ordering a man around,” Parks mumbled.
“I thought you might have wanted a break,” Tanaka replied as she got back into the dead woman’s face and continued her examination. “But then again, if you’re feeling left out I can always—”
“Hardly. Where is Robert anyways?”
“Sent him back to the lab with samples from this morning’s double shooting in Koreatown. Figured I could handle this one on my own since your team was here.”
“Oh my,” Tippin called out, interrupting Tanaka and startling everyone in the room.
“What is it?” Parks asked.
Tippin stared quizzically at the dead woman. “I know who she is.”
Parks and the rest of the team moved in closer to get a better look at the woman.
“Told you she looked familiar.” Tanaka said with a smile. “Twink’s on my team. Already called him.”
“Who?” Parks asked.
“Him,” Tanaka said, pointing to Tippin.
“No. Not—who is she?”
“Allison Tisdale,” Tippin answered.
“And who’s that? Some movie star?” Parks asked, hoping he was wrong. The last thing they needed on their first day back was to get a celebrity. In this town they were treated like royalty, making investigating a case that much harder to maneuver through.
“Really?” Tippin asked. “None of you?” He turned from one person to the next, all of them shaking their heads.
“Who is she?” Parks asked again.
Tippin motioned for Parks to follow, and he led his boss out of the room and through the hallway to the front door. Along the way Parks noticed that both Moore and Jackie had also followed. Tippin continued out the front door and headed toward the end of the driveway.
“Where are you taking us?” Parks asked as he glanced over toward the news vans that seemed to be multiplying by the minute like vultures surrounding a recently expired piece of carrion. He wondered how they had even gotten in past the security guard and figured the man was most likely making up for his lackluster salary today. That made him wonder who else might have also gotten in past the gate, and he made a mental note to check it out.
Tippin turned toward the lawn and pointed. “See?”
Parks turned and shielded his eyes with his hand as he stared back into the sky-blue eyes of Allison Tisdale, her face plastered across the realtor’s FOR SALE sign planted in the front lawn of the very house her body had been found in.
4
“I want to know everything there is to know about Allison Tisdale by the end of the day,” Parks ordered. “I want her background. Family. Work. We obviously know who her employer was, and judging by the kinds of places she was selling”—he waived his arms at the luxury of the house surrounding them—“she must have done fairly well for herself. But we need info on coworkers, her history with the company, where her office was . . . everything. Fairmont, I want you and Tippin to dig into her life. Find out what you can.”
“Wait, so who was she?” Tanaka asked, examining the body’s scalp.
“She’s the realtor for this residence,” Parks answered, removing his jacket.
“So that’s how the killer got access to the house,” Fairmont surmised.
“I would think so,” Parks agreed as he found a nearby officer standing guard outside the room and tried to hand off his coat to be taken care of. The officer simply stared at Parks and refused to move. Parks stared back when the officer finally took the coat. Parks had a feeling he might never see the article of clothing again. “We find keys or anything on the body?”
“No keys. No wallet. No purse or any other forms of identification,” Moore answered. “She’s wearing the dress, the shoes, and the necklace. That’s it. Nothing else.”
“But I did find these,” Tanaka said, holding up two small, plastic baggies, each one with a different pill in them. “Little yellow one is Percodan, and the white one is codeine.”
“Where were they?”
“She’s got two pockets on that dress. One on each side below where the purple marks are, almost as if they were leading to them.”
“Rachel,” Parks said. “Let’s find out if she was prescribed those medications. It’s odd that there would be one pill in each pocket.”
“I’ll run a tox on her blood to see if either is in her system,” Tanaka said as she put the pills away and went back to the body.
“I want to know when she was last seen and by whom. I want to know her every move up until she disappeared. And I want to know how long she’s been missing, if she’s been missing, and why no one reported it. Unless someone has.”
“On it,” Fairmont said.
“I want to know where she lived. If she lived with anyone.” Parks knew most of his team was aware of what he wanted, but he wanted Tippin to know what was going on and what was coming next.
“She worked out of an office on Wilshire in Beverly Hills,” Tippin called out.
Parks turned, somewhat surprised, to see his newest team member standing with an iPad that he had been using since he came back into the room.
“You got an address?” Parks asked, rolling back his sleeves.
“Yes,” Tippin answered. “And I pulled her DMV records too. Got her home address. She has a house in Beverly Hills not far from her office. And she’s . . . she’s married.”
Tippin looked up, suddenly concerned. They were going to have to do a next-of-kin notification.
“Go on,” Parks nudged.
He wouldn’t have Tippin anywhere near a NOK notification on his first day. He hated them himself, an unfortunate part of the job, but a requirement none the less. And one that he preferred to take on himself as much as possible, sparing the members of his team the reactions that came with such an announcement. You never knew how someone would take the news concerning the loss of a loved one. Some cried. Some went into hysterics, going public with their turmoil, while others hid it for more private moments. Some masked the
pain. Some tried and failed. Some didn’t know how to behave, as if years of watching scripted reactions on Law & Order had stilted their ability to react appropriately. Some were angry. Others relieved. Some even joyful. But no matter the relationship, everyone felt something.
“Been married for about five years,” Tippin said as he went back to his computer and began punching at the screen. “Husband’s name is Douglas Tisdale. He’s a professor at UCLA. Nothing stands out on his record. Few parking tickets, but that’s all. No complaints or reports filed against him. They make a decent living. Mostly from what she brings in.”
“How much?”
“I’ll have to pull records to know for sure, but based on an agent’s fee . . .” Tippin effortlessly moved his fingers around on his device. “The last three houses she sold were each worth five million. And seven mil. Three point two. Six point five. And so on.”
“Damn.” Fairmont whistled.
“Okay, good,” Parks said. “Rachel? Whadaya got?”
“So far? Nothing,” Moore said. “No trace evidence. No prints. Fibers. Hairs. Nothing.”
An officer stuck his head in the doorway to the room, looking as if he had something important to relay without wanting to become infected by whatever deadly contagion had been unleashed within the space.
“What is it, officer?” Parks asked.
“Did the door-to-door with all the neighbors. So far nobody’s seen anything of worth. Want us to give it a second try?”
“That’s okay. Wrap it up. We’ll come back to them if something comes up. Thanks.” The officer nodded and disappeared quicker than he had shown up. Parks signaled Tanaka and Jackie. “Is it okay if I leave you two ladies to keep at the body?”
“Oh, no. What will we ever do without a big, strong man here to help us? Oh, maybe there’s a jar of pickles in the kitchen you can open for us or a car that needs its oil—We’ll be fine,” Tanaka said without looking up from the corpse in front of her. “We’ll be at least another half hour here. Then I’ll have the body moved. Luckily for you, with a poisonous agent introduced to the body—and therefore possibly to the rest of the city—it gets a high priority. City will push aside all other autopsies for this one. I’ll personally handle it myself. You should have a report on your desk by the end of the day. And that’s rushing it.”
“Pickles? Really? You better not be getting pregnant on me, Tanaka. Fairmont? You and Tippin go and check out Tisdale’s office. See what her co-workers have to say about her.”
“Will do, boss.” Fairmont nodded.
“Rachel, get Allison’s home address from Tippin and we’ll go notify the husband. Tippin? You wouldn’t happen to be able to see if the husband has classes today or if he might be at home?”
Tippin played around on his computer for a few more seconds.
“Fall quarter doesn’t begin until September sixteenth and classes don’t start up until the nineteenth. He might be at the school planning for the fall quarter, but there’s nothing scheduled.”
“Okay. We’ll go check for him at home. If he’s not there . . .” Parks looked to Fairmont and Tippin. “Just keep your phones on. I’ll contact you if I need anything else. You work ten times faster than anything I could get from our own people back at the station.”
Fairmont winked at Tippin, who smiled back, having made a good impression.
“Oh, and speaking of which, pull phone records for them as well. Home. Cells. Everything.”
“Will do.” Tippin nodded.
“Any other questions?” Parks asked to no reply. “All right then, people. Let’s get going.”
5
Parks pulled up in front of the Tisdale’s house on Crescent Drive just below Sunset and put the car in park. He glanced down the street, away from his intended target, willing himself the strength to knock on the front door and change a man’s life forever. He wished he had had his pills that morning. If ever there was a part of the job that he hated, this was it.
“You’re grinding your teeth,” Moore said from the passenger seat.
“Sorry,” Parks said, stopping the tic.
“Sooner we do this the sooner it’s over.”
Moore had spent the drive in silence, re-reading her notes, so as to let Parks mentally prepare for the task at hand.
“I know,” Parks replied. He sounded calm but could feel his heart beating. This was the part the movies and TV shows rarely got right. The suffering that was about to be inflicted on the living. Death always left an echoing mark throughout the lives of those who remained.
“Just ignore all the bullshit and focus on the job you know how to do.”
“Huh?” Parks turned to Moore.
“I see the way they’ve been looking at you. The other officers. And I see you noticing them. Letting it get to you. Don’t. They don’t hate you. They don’t know what to feel. Half of them think Levinson did the right thing. It led to you being able to stop Kozlov. They know it was wrong, but Kozlov was the greater of two evils. They want to congratulate you and pat you on the back. But they know it was wrong. So they’re conflicted. Plus you’re one of the most moral people on the force. How much did you know? Did you let it happen? If so, was that your call to make? Are you so moral you can stand in judgment over others about things like that? And if so what’s to stop you from doing it to anyone else you deem fit to judge?”
“You know we never talked about what all really happened.”
“And we don’t need to,” Moore said. “We’ve worked together for almost ten years. In one way or another. I know you Dave Parks. I know what you go through. How you think. Why do you think I’m still standing here beside you? Despite all the whispers and gossip, which will die out, I’m still here and I’ll continue to be so. Overall, you’re a good man. A good detective. People know it. Your pros will outweigh this one con. Besides, I don’t care what others think. We don’t need to have a talk because I know what I need to know. The rest doesn’t matter. So how about we go in and notify Mr. Tisdale about his wife.”
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
Both detectives got out of the car and made their way up the walkway through the neatly manicured front lawn, matching perfectly with the neighbors’ on both sides. The lawn was cut short and evenly green with flowers lining the walkway. It was a double-story house, with a box-like shape to it that gave it a picturesque look and homey feel. The fresh paint job had to have been applied within the last year, with a matching trim that helped keep the house in symmetry with the rest of the street, which had a fake, movie-set feel to it.
Parks knocked twice and rang the doorbell. The door opened to a man in his mid-forties who would have blended in with the usual Hollywood crowd, no one giving him a second glance as his good looks were a dime a dozen in this town. He wore a faded-blue, button-up shirt that had the top two buttons undone to reveal a recently acquired pinkish tan. His face was reddened, showing signs of being in the sun, and highlighting the few crow’s feet around his eyes.
“Are you Douglas Tisdale?”
“I . . . who are you?” the man asked in reply.
“I’m sorry,” Parks apologized, retrieving his identification from his jacket pocket. “I’m Detective Dave Parks and this is Detective Rachel Moore. Are you Douglas Tisdale?”
“Yes, I am,” Mr. Tisdale answered, turning pale. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is Allison okay?”
“Is Allison Tisdale your wife?”
“She is. What’s wrong? Oh my God. What happened? What—”
“May we come in?” Parks asked as he glanced around behind him. “It might be better if we take this inside.”
“What’s happened to my wife?”
“Her body was found up at a house up on Mulholland Drive. Please, Mr. Tisdale. May we take this inside?”
Mr. Tisdale began to shake and stepped aside to allow the detectives entrance into his house. He closed the door behind them and made his way into the neighboring living room where he pointed to a couch
and collapsed in a nearby sofa-chair. He tried to catch his breath in between the tears and dry heaving that seemed to control his body.
Parks glanced around and took in the surroundings of the room. It was quaint, with nothing too expensive, while giving an air of sophistication. Pictures of the couple were spread throughout the room and hallways. Pictures of vacations to beaches and other tropical places showed the couple had a happy relationship. At least on the surface. There was a beauty to the Allison Tisdale in the pictures that hadn’t been evident from the pasty corpse that had been poked and prodded by his team that morning. But there were no children. No pets. No family members, at least in any of the pictures. Just the couple.
“We’re sorry to have to do this right now, Mr. Tisdale, but we need to ask you a few questions,” Parks said as he waited for the man to compose himself. The husband glanced around the room, avoiding eye contact with the detectives as if this made the news they had delivered not true somehow, as if he could outrun it in some way and thereby make it not so.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Tisdale finally said. There was a somewhat gravely, calming sound to the man’s voice, which probably helped keep the attention of his students when he was lecturing. “Yes. Of course. How . . . how can I help?”
“As you know—”
“Did she suffer?”
Parks stared at the grieving man. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have all the details just yet.”
Mr. Tisdale nodded to show he understood.
“We found your wife’s body up in a house on Mulholland.” Dave paused, hoping the man would pick up and add whatever knowledge he had. Most people did that, anything to avoid the silence. Especially in a time like this when all that was probably going through his head was his wife’s death. It was manipulative but effective for rooting out the hidden truths.
“How did she die?” Mr. Tisdale asked as if he hadn’t heard what Parks had said.
The Poisonous Ten Page 4