by Matt Clemens
Harrow did that, too, Carmen knew from frequent meals with her boss. Pretty soon these excops were going to run out of walls.
She squeezed Vincent’s hand, not just to give him a shot of courage before meeting her friends, but also relishing having somebody in her life who would sit with his back to other diners.
As they approached, Laurene said, “So this is your new catch?” She wasn’t known for subtlety.
Planting herself and her guy before them, Carmen said, “Vince Clay, meet Laurene Chase. Official Crime Seen welcoming committee.”
“Seen you on the tube,” he said, leaning in to shake hands with Laurene, smile very white against his dark tan. “Or anyway, on the plasma screen.”
“You’re almost cute enough,” Laurene said to him, “to make me consider changing teams … almost.”
“Well, I guess that’s a compliment.” To the others, Vince said, “Of course, I also recognize Chris and Jenny from the show. Okay if we go right to first names?”
“You bet,” Chris said, rising to shake Vince’s hand. “You may’ve gathered from Laurene, here, that we don’t exactly stand on ceremony.”
Chris wore a blue button-down shirt, his bright brown eyes and wide white grin making him probably the most telegenic of the team.
Jenny said, “Hi,” and they shook hands, too, though she remained seated. In typical fashion, Jenny was in jeans and a brown T-shirt bearing the logo of the University of Wyoming Cowboys.
Laurene said, “This is Nancy Hughes. She’s a sound designer on the show.”
Nancy, in a Killer TV tee and jeans, said with a smile, “That’s a fancy way to say I’m an audio guy. Mostly I run boom mic.”
“That takes muscle, I understand,” Vince said with a smile that mirrored Nancy’s.
“It’s not for sissies,” she allowed.
Two side-by-side chairs were waiting. Vince held Carmen’s for her; then they both sat. Conversation was interrupted as they considered menus briefly, ordered, then made small talk waiting for their food.
“Let’s get something established right now,” Vince said. “I don’t expect anybody here to pretend the insurance business makes an interesting topic of discussion. And even if it did, I could hardly compete with Crime Seen. So no polite questions are required.”
This put everybody at ease, but Carmen knew she wasn’t home free, not yet. The grilling for this lunch would not be limited to the kitchen, and it started—predictably—with Laurene.
“So, Vince,” Laurene said, bringing a chatty tone to her interrogation. “Lived here all your life?”
Under the table, Carmen squeezed Vince’s hand again. She had warned him that this luncheon might be akin to a job interview.
“Moved out here a few years ago.”
“By yourself?” Laurene asked.
“With my sister. Jana.”
“What does Jana do?”
“Well, she has something in common with you folks. She’s in the entertainment field. Actually, she was on one of your reality shows.”
“You mean on UBC?”
“I’m, uh … embarrassed I don’t know the answer to that. Not sure what network it’s on. She’s a good actress, and I find it vaguely embarrassing she had to stoop to reality TV—uh, no offense meant.”
Laurene shrugged. “None taken. What show?”
“Speed Date? Familiar with that?”
“No,” Laurene said. “I mean, I’ve heard of speed dating, of course. Never subjected myself to it.”
Carmen said, “Everybody knows Speed Date, Laurene, and it’s not on UBC. I’m sure Dennis Byrnes wishes it were.”
Laurene shrugged. “I don’t watch TV.”
Vince seemed intrigued. “Not even your own program?”
“Especially our own program. I don’t even have one of those … what they are called, Nancy?”
“TiVos,” Nancy said. “And her TV is a nineteen-inch tube number. She’s hopeless.”
“Anyway,” Vince said with an embarrassed half smile, “my sister was on this Speed Date thing for … two weeks, I guess.”
“Two weeks doesn’t sound very speedy,” Jenny said.
“Even Jana would be first to tell you it’s a dopey idea. Camera focuses on several couples speed dating, then the audience votes on who should go out together.”
“Why America eats that junk up,” Laurene said, “is a mystery to me.”
“You should call the Crime Seen tip line,” Vince said good-naturedly. “I hear those people solve mysteries.”
Jenny smiled. “Nice one.”
Boy, Carmen thought, she is coming out of her shell. …
When their food arrived, the little group ate in relative silence, occasionally commenting on how tasty the fare was. The Crime Seen coworkers tended to lapse into silence over meals, since the shop talk that might accompany most business lunches was liable to be less than appetizing.
As their plates were cleared, Nancy asked, “How did you two meet?”
Carmen and Vince exchanged a look.
“You’re the communicator,” Vince said to her.
Grinning, Carmen said, “But you’re the salesman….”
Leaning in, Laurene said, “Look, I like ‘meeting cute’ as much as the next guy, but I just ate. Somebody tell the story. I promise to be nice.”
Carmen knew Laurene was just screwing with them. She glanced at Vince.
“It was a couple months ago,” he said.
“Wow,” Laurene said to Carmen. “You’ve really been keeping this one under wraps….”
Carmen said nothing, but her smile turned a little brittle.
Vince was saying, “I was on my way into a restaurant in Burbank—JB’s Brewhouse?—and I noticed Carmen in the parking lot.”
Laurene gave him a look. “This isn’t one of those ‘love at first sight’ stories, is it?”
“Flat-tire-at-first-sight story,” Vince said, drawing a mild laugh from the group. “I heard her say some words that I don’t think you can use on TV.”
“Not on network, anyway,” Carmen admitted.
“So,” Vince said, “I changed her tire. She wanted to know how she could repay me, and we worked something out.”
Nancy said, “This sounds interesting….”
“I said yes to a date,” Carmen said.
“I may be sick at that,” Laurene said.
But Laurene was smiling, and Carmen could tell they all liked Vince. This was almost as good as getting the stamp of approval of her parents.
With everything going so well, naturally her cell phone vibrated in her purse. She got it out and saw HARROW on the caller ID. But she still had enough Midwestern upbringing not to answer the phone at the table.
“Excuse me, everybody. … I’ve got to take this.
J.C.”
“Christ himself?” Vince asked impishly.
“Close. Very close….”
After a brief conversation with her boss, she returned and made her apologies to the group, and told Vince, “Sorry, babe, I’ve gotta go. They’ve moved up some promos I need to shoot.”
“See you tonight?”
She shrugged. “Could be running late. Call you when I can.”
He pecked her cheek. “Do that.”
She would call him even if just to apologize again for bolting from lunch.
“Anyway,” Vince said, walking her out, “I need to get back to the office myself.”
Carmen did not notice Michael Pall, the team’s resident DNA expert and profiler, approaching the restaurant as she got into her Prius. He slipped inside and joined the now-smaller group.
“I saw Carmen heading out,” he said, sitting.
Body-building enthusiast Pall wore wire-frame glasses and a mild manner that belied the Superman he was, physically and mentally. He was in a navy polo with a Crime Seen logo stitched over the breast.
Laurene said, “Maybe for the best.”
“That was her guy, huh?”
�
�Yes,” Laurene said crisply, “but you missed that part. Look, we have to get back ourselves, so let’s get on with it.”
Chris frowned. “We’re doing this without Carmen?”
“She’s management.” Jenny said, “Billy isn’t management.” “No,” Laurene said, “but we know where he stands, don’t we? So … everybody up for this?”
Jenny shivered. “J.C. doesn’t like ultimatums.” “Who does?” Laurene said. “But sometimes that’s what it takes.”
And for half an hour, they intently talked.
Chapter Four
Ten days ago Lt. Anna Amari had stood in a West Hollywood hotel room with a dead body that might or might not belong to one “Jeff Bailey.” And all she had to show for it was a severe tension headache.
Her partner, Detective LeRon Polk, had gone through the security video from the Star Struck Hotel.
Even though the video quality was (as Polk put it) “medium shitty,” Amari could clearly see that the man who’d registered was not their corpse. Their as-yet-unidentified vic had died in that bed, but the room had not been his.
This man was slighter, had dark hair, and was obviously shorter than Bailey.
They had two males tied to this room, one via the front desk, the other by a blood-soaked bed. And either male—or neither—might be named Jeff Bailey.
Also, the hotel thoughtfully honored their guests’ privacy by positioning security cameras only in the lobby.
Consequently, Amari had no footage of the victim anywhere else in the hotel, nor of the man who’d registered as Jeff Bailey. And zero footage of the two together—anywhere.
Even the assumption that only “Bailey” and the victim had been in the room was unsupportable—”Bailey” might be the killer, or an accomplice, or none of the above. A third party might have been there. A fourth. A fifth …
The bull pen of the Sex Crimes Division was set up in an old-fashioned way for such a cutting-edge facility—the Police Administration Building at 100 West First Street across from City Hall was new enough you could almost smell the fresh paint. Sex Crimes needed a constant interchange of ideas, so cubicles or separate offices (except for the captain’s) were out.
Seated at her desk with a morning cup of black coffee, Amari raised a hand to her temple and rubbed, making small concentric circles with three fingers.
Both her desk and Polk’s nearby were relatively free of clutter. Polk’s was particularly spare, because he was compulsively neat; Amari’s side, however, came a close second, because other than evidence, she kept most things in her head.
Beyond her phone and desk lamp, the clutter was pretty much limited to one Dodgers coffee cup and three Dodgers bobble heads: Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and a very dreadlocked Manny Ramirez. No one in the division dared touch them—they were her holy trinity.
The joys of Anna Amari’s life were her work and a passion for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The latter had been passed down to her by her late father.
Polk said, “Rubbin’ your head like Aladdin’s lamp again, huh? Think a genie’ll pop out? You do know it’s only Monday, right?”
“Weekend was too short,” she said.
“That’s ‘cause you had me workin’ both days.”
She shot him a murderous look, but he survived it somehow.
After a frantic weekend in the Southland, the bull pen seemed a haunted house this morning, only a few other detectives scattered here and there. All the sex crimes detectives had heavy caseloads. Hell, all the detectives anywhere in the department had heavy caseloads, from Central Division to Hollenbeck, from Mission Division to Pacific and all points between.
The city was averaging around two homicides a day. Crime was up, good publicity down. That the cops had dubbed the killer “Billy Shears”—essentially giving that gift to the media—had pissed off everybody from the captain on up, until the shit, as was shit’s wont, started rolling back down hill.
Amari was at the bottom of that hill.
Well, actually, Polk was; but she didn’t have the energy or the ill will to do any more than just share the misery with him.
On the other hand, it wasn’t every day she got a call from the chief himself, and on her cell phone on the way to work, at that.
“Would you like to explain, Lieutenant Amari, how it is that Fox News knows that this department has come up with a comical name for a killer but not a name for the victim?”
“I take responsibility for the case, sir, but not for the uniformed officers out of Hollywood Division. As for not identifying the victim, we’ve exhausted every traditional avenue—AFIS and CODIS come up empty. He’s not the room’s registrant. Fingerprints, DNA gave us nothing, so far. We are still waiting on some lab results.”
“What about dental?”
“Sir, we can’t do dental without knowing the dentist.”
This had made the chief look stupid, which was really a smooth move on her part, she at once knew.
“Well, I would like a progress report, Lieutenant, if you ever do make any progress.”
And he hung up on her. Imagine that.
She told Polk about the call from the chief, and for once her partner was speechless. On the other hand, his expression was eloquent; it said, How the hell much trouble are we in?
She ignored the unspoken question, asking him, “Any word from the lab yet?”
“There’s a backlog. You know what it’s been like the last couple weeks.”
“So the chief is calling personally to say hustle it up, and the lab crew are sunning themselves. Well, at least local news ran the drawing.”
“Yeah,” Polk sighed, “pretty much every broadcast since Saturday night. And the newspapers ran it yesterday. So that’s good.”
“It is if we got some hits out of it.”
“We did get hits.”
“Could you be more specific, LeRon?”
“You talking legit leads, or total calls?”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Legit leads, LeRon.”
“Uh … that’d be zero.”
“Not a one?”
“Not a one, Lieutenant.”
“Out of how many calls?”
“Four.”
“Four? A city this size, and we’re on every newscast, and every paper, and we get four freaking calls?”
Polk nodded. “There were half a dozen obvious cranks. Four were what you might call … sincere. But none amounted to anything. I even checked the FBI Kidnapping and Missing Persons web page. If you were wondering how desperate I got.”
Without realizing it, she began rubbing her right temple again. “Who the hell is this guy, anyway? If he wants his murder solved, why can’t he cooperate, goddamn it?”
“Thoughtless prick.”
“He’s from out of town,” she said grimly. “Gotta be. Let’s e-mail a link of the drawing that’s up on our website to the Doe Network, and the Forgotten Network, too.”
These were websites dedicated to finding the identifies of missing people.
“Somebody somewhere has to know this guy,” Polk said.
They had gone back to the hotel repeatedly to interview staff and guests—nothing. Various routes had been used to try to identify the victim—nothing. With the crime lab in slow motion, this case was already starting to feel like an unsolved murder.
“Okay,” Amari said, realizing she was rubbing her temple, and stopped. “We’re not having any luck with IDing the vic—what about the killer?”
Polk gave her a look that said, What about him?
She answered the unasked question sternly: “This guy’s definitely going to kill again.”
“With us gettin’ no help from the crime lab, he will,” Polk said, shaking his head. “We haven’t got jack. Maybe I should check that FBI Missing Persons web page again and see if our lab rats turn up there.”
“What about video from other buildings, LeRon? Traffic lights?”
“I’ve been taking DVDs home at night like a coach st
udying game films. There’s nothing there, Lieutenant. The only shot where I saw the guy who rented the room comes from a traffic cam, and he ducks his damn head. Like he knew it was there, and avoided the sucker.”
“He was in his car?”
“Yeah.”
“So this is where you turn the whole case around, right, LeRon? And surprise me with his license number?”
”Wrong. Mud smeared on the plate. Kinda artfully smeared, but smeared.”
“And the car?”
“Silver Honda Accord.”
Amari snorted derisively. “And how many of those in California?”
“Lieutenant … there’s no chance of tracking that car, with no more than we have.”
She rubbed concentric circles on her clean desktop with the same three fingers that had massaged her temple. Maybe the desk had a headache, too. “What have we missed?”
Polk considered that briefly. “Something, probably. This was a brutal, bloody kill. There should be plenty of forensic shit to help us along.”
The lab again.
Amari’s mouth tightened to a slash. “Then … god-damn-it … there’s probably only one way we’re going to catch this son of a bitch….”
Polk’s face was solemn as he nodded. “Catch him when he screws up on the next one.”
Her sigh started at her toes and seemed to make its way through her psyche before emerging from her mouth.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s back up a step. Our victim was not the guy who registered at the front desk.”
“Check.”
“So … if we assume for the sake of argument that ‘Bailey’ is the killer, we have him registering on the day of the murder, well before the murder. Plenty of time for him to take his weapon up to that room and stow it somewhere … somewhere convenient for his purpose … ready and waiting for when the vic showed up.”
“Yeah,” Polk said. “Maybe what we have is a homophobic killer—he picks up a gay guy, lures him to a hotel room, and then butchers the poor bastard. Because he sees gays as evil or something, and oughta be killed.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, LeRon. Same scenario works for a closeted gay man who lures a pickup to that room to have sex with him, and then murders his sex partner out of shame and guilt.”