Hangman

by Faye Kellerman

  Decker managed to pull up several pictures of Rajput. The snapshots showed a well-built man with chocolate skin, a thin nose, full lips, thick eyebrows, black eyes, and a head full of salt-and-pepper hair. He wore beautifully tailored Western suits, as well as traditional Indian garb. In those photographs, his fingers sparkled with stones big enough for Decker to notice. It seemed that a man who dressed that well and devoted that much time to the underprivileged didn’t have to worry about money.

  The information led to some interesting possibilities if Terry was alive. It wasn’t hard to imagine Terry, after being trapped for years in a relationship with a psychopathic and abusive man, finding a savior in a wealthy older widower who routinely used his money, knowledge, and power to help out the downtrodden.

  And it wasn’t hard to picture Dr. Paresh Singh Rajput coming to the rescue: a wealthy older lonely widower liberating a brilliant and gorgeous damsel in distress. Terry was more than just stunning. She had this wounded beauty that melted any male heart on impact, her exquisiteness made all the more intoxicating because she never flaunted her most marketable asset.

  Together they would go back to India and Terry could start a new life.

  If this were the case, it would be the end of the trail for Decker. Maybe Donatti would pursue it, but Decker wasn’t about to tackle a country of a billion people to look for a woman who wanted to get lost.

  In either scenario, with Terry dead or alive, Gabe was still out a mother. Poor kid. Not even fifteen and on his own. His parents gave him the brains, the looks, and the talent, but their own shortcomings failed to deliver to the teen any sense of security. They both had abandoned him into the care of strangers.

  It was enough to make you want to wring someone’s neck.

  “SHE’S NOT ANSWERING her cell and her car’s not here,” Marge told Decker over the phone. “Do we break the lock or not?”

  “And you’re sure she was supposed to show up for work today?” Decker said.

  “According to the head nurse, yes. She’s concerned.”

  “Have you tried calling her parents?”

  “I’ve left a message with her mother. She hasn’t called me back.”

  “When was the last time you called the mother?”

  “Ten minutes ago.”

  “What about a father?”

  “Don’t know if he’s in the picture. I don’t have a number for him.”

  “Friends?”

  “Other than Adrianna, I’m in the dark. Hilly didn’t have any help with that one.”

  Decker thought a moment. “I don’t know what she has to do with Crystal Larabee, but she was one of the last people to see Adrianna alive. Break the lock.”

  “What do you want us to do once inside?”

  “Look around. See if her walls talk.”

  “That’s going to take some time. Aaron Otis is supposed to come into the station in a half hour. Do you want to interview him?”

  “Sure. What happened the last time you talked to him?”

  Marge gave him a recap of the conversation as best she remembered. “We know he had a fling with Adrianna. He knows Crystal, but I don’t know how well. I do know that Greg Reyburn is friends with Crystal. I phoned him and left a message, but he hasn’t returned my call.”

  “If you have his number, I’ll call him again.”

  Marge read out the digits. “Last I heard from Tim Brothers, the officer on watch detail, Reyburn’s car is still in the parking lot of his apartment house. I could tell the officer to go knock on Reyburn’s front door.”

  “That might be a good idea. How you handle it from there is up to you.”

  “Will do.” She paused. “The whole thing is odd, Pete. Adrianna kept loaning Garth money for him to take mini-vacations without her. Then she’d sulk and screw other guys including Aaron Otis. Maybe Greg Reyburn as well.”

  “Did anyone ask Reyburn if he had a relationship with Adrianna?”

  She gave the cell to Oliver. “The Loo wants to know if Greg Reyburn admitted to screwing Adrianna.”

  Scott took the phone. “Reyburn claims he never fucked Adrianna.”

  “What about Crystal Larabee?” Decker asked.

  “There were booty calls. Mostly they were friends.”

  “So let me get this straight. Garth and Aaron screwed Adrianna, Greg screwed Crystal, but not Adrianna. Did Garth ever screw Crystal?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Did Aaron ever screw Crystal?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “And how does Mandy Kowalski fit into all of this?”

  “Mandy worked with Garth,” Oliver said. “She complained he came on to her.”

  Decker said, “I’m writing all of this down. Trying to get some kind of flowchart.” He waited a beat. “Also, Kathy Blanc told me that she thought that Mandy was the one who set Adrianna up with Garth. So there’s another connection. We’ve got more arrows than I thought. Okay. I’ll take Aaron, see what he has to say.”

  “It would be very convenient for him to admit that he screwed Crystal.”

  “Yes, indeed. Not that it’s against the law to have had sex with two girls who wind up dead, but after looking over this flowchart, I can tell you that it doesn’t look too good on paper.”

  THE WORLD MIGHT be an artist’s canvas, but Aaron Otis used his own body as one. The guy was inked from the neck down, leaving his face a monotone mask. Tan skin, tan hair, light brown eyes, and lots of wrinkles indicating a life outdoors. His hair was wild and curly. He looked like a multicolored lion.

  “This is totally freaky.” He was gripping a coffee cup with trembling hands. “Like a crazy coincidence.”

  “A coincidence?” Decker repeated.

  “Or like maybe not.”

  “Both of the girls were friends of yours?”

  “Acquaintances, sure.”

  Decker had many acquaintances. He only had sex with his wife. “I’m trying to find Greg Reyburn. He isn’t answering his door and his cell goes straight to voice mail. Would you know where he is?”

  Aaron rubbed his face. “We were partying last night. I left the bar at one.”

  “Where?” Decker took out his notebook.

  “Wild Card…it’s on Cahuenga just past Ventura.”

  “Okay. You left the place at one. What about Greg?”

  “I don’t know. He was talking up a girl. Maybe he hooked up with her.”

  “But his car is in his apartment parking-lot space.”

  “I drove last night. When I left, I asked Greg about a ride home; he told me he was cool. So he could be at someone else’s house sleeping it off. It isn’t that late.”

  It was ten after ten. Decker had been up for four hours. “Let’s go back a little bit. Why don’t you start at the beginning of your trip.”

  “You mean my trip with Greg and Garth?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “That’s way back.”

  “It’s less than a week ago.”

  Aaron was hesitant but eventually got out his story, basically a recap of what he told Marge. As they were preparing for their camping trip, Adrianna called him. Aaron delivered the message to Garth—that she was breaking up with him. Garth panicked, and went back to L.A. to talk to her. Garth left for the Reno airport in a taxi while Aaron and Greg went on their trip. But it was too cold in the mountains for them to stay.

  “There was snow on the ground. We brought fleece and stuff, but it was way colder than we were prepared for. So we turned around the next day and came back.”

  “How far did you travel by car?”

  “Musta been like, I don’t know…two hundred miles. It took all day to get there. The roads are really windy.”

  “They have gas stations along the way?”

  “Yeah, but not a lot. You gotta be careful of your gas tank.”

  “Did you stop for gas?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where?”

  “Several places. I to
ld the lady detective that I put all my purchases on my credit card.” Aaron paused. “I was far away when Adrianna died. My credit cards prove it.”

  “It certainly does prove that your credit cards were far away. Anyone see you at your pit stops?”

  “Yeah, sure. We went into a convenience store. We got some snacks. I remember the store clerk. She had blond hair and brown eyes and had a nose pierce. She was cute. I think her name was Ellie or something like that.”

  Decker knew that most convenience stores had video monitoring. If he could pull Otis’s credit card records, he could contact the store and probably get the video verification if the clerk hadn’t erased the tape.

  Aaron said, “We also stopped there on the way back. Same clerk, by the way.”

  “Can I pull your credit card receipts to get the name of the convenience store?”

  “Sure. Whatever you need to prove that I wasn’t anywhere near L.A.”

  “Okay. If everything checks out, you probably weren’t involved directly in Adrianna’s murder. So let’s move on to Crystal.”

  “I’m not friendly with Crystal…I mean I’m not unfriendly with her, but she’s much better friends with Greg than me.”

  Decker looked up from his notebook and made eye contact with the lad. “I’m going to ask you this and I want an honest answer. If I find out you were lying to me, I’ll be much less forgiving of your statements. Do you understand?”

  Aaron put down the coffee cup. “I’m not lying to you.”

  “I haven’t asked you the question yet.” Decker’s eyes bored into his. “Have you ever had sex with Crystal Larabee?”

  Aaron’s eyes shifted focus. “Yeah, like a long time ago…like two months.”

  Decker had to stifle a smile. “Not so long ago to me. How long did the affair last?”

  “It wasn’t an affair. She came over to Greg’s house and I was there. Greg had to go to work and…one thing led to another.”

  “How long did your affair last?” Decker repeated.

  “We did it like maybe six times. It was real casual. Crystal got around.”

  “And the last time you were intimate with her was about two months ago?”

  “Maybe even three.”

  “Why’d you stop having sex with her?”

  “We didn’t stop officially…the opportunity just didn’t come up. It’s not like I made booty calls to her. Once in a while, we’d find ourselves together and it would happen.” He rubbed his face. “Honestly, I haven’t seen Crystal in at least a couple of weeks.”

  “Okay,” Decker said. “Tell me what you did yesterday. Recount your day.”

  “I got up around seven…went to work.” A shrug.

  “When do you go to work?”

  “Around eight.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was at work all day. I came home around five. I ordered in a vegetable pizza from Muncher’s. I left to go to Wild Card around eight-thirty.” A pause. “That’s it.”

  “Did you call anyone while you were home?”

  “I called Greg. I called Garth again, but got no answer. My mother called. Like the usual stuff.”

  “On your cell phone or on your landline?”

  “I only have a cell.”

  “Can I look at those records?”

  “Sure. Absolutely.”

  Decker said, “How do I say this? It seems to me that you have a lot of casual sex—with Adrianna and now with Crystal Larabee.”

  “Why not?” The boy’s face was absolutely guileless.

  “You weren’t bothered by screwing Garth’s girlfriend?”

  “It was a casual thing…like when Garth wasn’t around…which was a lot. He spent a lot of time in Vegas.”

  “Without Adrianna.”

  “Yeah, without her, yeah. It was weird.”

  “In what way?”

  “That she financed his Vegas trips without her. I mean it’s not like she liked it. She complained about it. I asked her why she kept doing it.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said you can’t keep guys pinned down. They get resentful, which is true…So she did it and then she’d get resentful. When we’d have sex, she’d say things like, ‘I wouldn’t do it except that Garth’s away so much.’ She messed around a lot. I know I wasn’t the only one.”

  “Who else did she mess around with?”

  Aaron realized that he had just put his foot deep down his throat. “I mean she told me she messed around a lot.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Who else did she mess around with? And please don’t bullshit me.”

  Aaron threw up his hands. “Yes, she screwed Greg. She loved screwing Garth’s friends. I guess she thought it gave her some kind of revenge.”

  “Did Garth know about it?”

  “He knew something. He didn’t seem to care.”

  “But according to you, he cared enough to cancel his trip and fly out to see her.”

  “True that. He freaked when she said she was dumping him. It surprised me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he didn’t seem to care that much about her.”

  “Maybe he cared because he’d stood to lose his interest-free bank.”

  Aaron didn’t talk for a moment. “That might be. He did go to Vegas a lot.”

  “Garth goes to Vegas, Garth goes to Reno. Does Garth have a gambling problem?”

  “Garth?” Aaron laughed. “He plays two-dollar tables and quarter slots. Sometimes he plays the poker machines. I rib him about it all the time. I once told him that he was the only guy I knew who could make fifty bucks last a weekend.”

  “So why does he go to Vegas so much if he really doesn’t gamble?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Decker didn’t answer.

  “You know the saying,” Aaron replied. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

  “What happens in Vegas?”

  “Nothing too spectacular.” But Aaron looked very uncomfortable. “I mean, it’s just that Garth likes women. They’re notches on his belt, you know what I’m saying.”

  “What kinds of women?”

  “See, that’s the thing. He doesn’t have a certain kind. He likes them all: young, old, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, fat, skinny, blond, brunette, redhead, bald, you name it. He told me it’s his goal in life to screw every kind of female in the world. I told him that was impossible because everyone was different. Then he said that that’s the point; he’d never get it all, so he’d have to keep going.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I dunno. We just laughed or something. C’mon, Lieutenant. We’re guys. That’s what you do when you’re young and single and that’s certainly what you do in Vegas.”

  “Do you know if Garth was into kinky?”

  “According to Garth, he was always up for anything new.” Aaron pressed his lips together. “Call me old-fashioned, but it turns me on when I get a girl off. Garth didn’t care about that. He told me several times he likes it back door. He told me that with back door, the guy has a grip and doesn’t have to look the girl in the eye. He made a point of saying that with back door, the guy’s always in control.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  MANDY KOWALSKI DIDN’T decorate with heart.

  The place appeared staged for max sale, done up in good taste, but very generic. The color scheme was muted. The furniture included a taupe Ultrasuede sofa, a teakwood coffee table, and an armchair and ottoman. Off to the side was a dining table with four upholstered chairs. A freestanding bookcase held paperbacks, DVDs, and professional nursing books. Scattered among the shelves were candles and a half-dozen very well-focused nature photos. A distinct lack of any personality, with nothing to suggest that Mandy had a mother, father, sibs, or friends.

  The kitchen was small and spotless—clean sink, clean counters. Oliver opened the fridge. “There’s a salad bag in the crisper.” He took it out and regarded the greens. “Still good.” H
e took down a carton of milk. “This still has a week to go.”

  “Anything else in there?” Marge asked while checking cupboards.

  “Coffee, condiments, a package of baloney.” He closed the door. “Not a whole lot to make a meal. Maybe she ate at the hospital.”

  “From what we’ve been told, she spent a lot of time there. Did you call the hospital again to make sure she hasn’t shown up?”

  “Yes, I called, and no, she hasn’t clocked in for work.” Oliver leaned against the fridge. “She’s only been gone for a little over a day. Can’t really call it a missing person case. No one called it in.”

  Marge thought a moment. “Mandy was way down on our suspect list until she lied to us. And there’s the video. What was she doing on the emergency vehicle dock?”

  “Is it her?”

  “I think so, but I’m not proof-positive.” Marge shrugged. “We have a few good reasons for wanting to talk to her. So even if no one’s reporting her missing, we still need to find her.”

  “Well, wherever she is, we’re not getting any answers in the apartment.”

  “We’ve still got the bathroom and bedroom.” Marge stepped into the only lavatory in the condo. It, like the rest of the living quarters, was tidy and clean. No unusual drugs in the medicine cabinet—Advil, Tylenol, bandages, Neosporin, one percent corticosteroid cream, toothpaste, dental floss, and a nail file. The one thing that Marge did notice was that almost everything in the cabinet was sample-size packets instead of retail bottles. One of the perks of working in a hospital: free drugs. The towels were hung neatly, the bathtub and toilet were clean.

  Mandy’s bedroom was large, with a big picture window and a door leading to a small balcony that overlooked some rooftops. Her bed was made and her nightstand tops were clear except for a phone charger and a clock. Her closets were organized by color. Marge searched through her hanging clothes, then went on to the dresser drawers, which were as orderly as the closet. “If she took off, it doesn’t look like she packed a lot of clothes. There’s lots of stuff left behind.”