“Tyler, I’m scared. I can’t go to jail. I’ve got two kids. My son’s at camp and coming home next week and Cate’s off with her boyfriend who the police think might be the Model Slayer. My plate’s full.”
“You could tell the police what they want to know about Xstacy. How she and her girlfriend killed a man they think was the model slayer. ‘Course if you do, you’d be violating your promise to her, and you wouldn’t be working here anymore. And good luck trying to find another job as a reporter.” Tyler didn’t have to tell me reporters who squealed to the police about their confidential sources and what they told them would be out of luck when it came to finding another job. Sources wouldn’t trust them, and potential employers had a pool of fresh young talent to choose from as opposed to a reporter who had burned her sources.
“I can’t do that, Tyler, and I won’t. Xstacy may be dead, but Sam’s not. If I tell the police and they put out a warrant for her arrest or her name leaks out somehow, whoever killed Xstacy will have Sam’s real name and come after her.”
“I’m sorry, Carol. But if you’re going to work investigations, these things can happen. You had to know that.” Tyler handed the subpoena back to me. “Seems to me you’ve got until Monday morning to do some soul-searching. I’ll call Mr. King. Whatever you decide, you’re going to need the station’s attorney to go with you Monday.”
“Unless I find whoever killed Xstacy first.”
Tyler raised his brow. “Yeah, that would be helpful. Meanwhile, you’ve got a guest waiting in the Green Room for you.”
“Who?” I wasn’t expecting anyone.
“Brian Evans. Name ring a bell?” I shook my head. “Marilynn Brewer’s ex-boyfriend. The man the police suspect may have caused her to disappear.”
“I thought they cleared him of that?”
“That was before the cops found the body in the desert. Now they’re talking to him again, and he wants to talk to you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Don’t know. All he’d say was he wants to talk to you. Said he’d wait all day if that’s what it took. I told him I’d tell you he was here soon as you came in.”
The Green Room is where we usually park VIPs before they go on-air. Not that it’s a great place to hang out. The room is small and stuffy, with no windows and a coffee maker that spits burnt coffee into paper cups. But if some Hollywood bigwig or political heavy didn’t want to be seen waiting in the lobby, what it lacked in creature comforts, it made up for in privacy. The only reason I could imagine why Tyler would want to stuff Brian Evans in the Green Room instead of leaving him in the lobby was that the man didn’t want anyone to know we were talking, and Tyler had agreed.
Brian stood up when I walked in. He looked every inch the bookish accountant earlier news stories surrounding Marilynn Brewer’s disappearance had reported him to be. He was dressed in blue chinos, a white collared shirt with a pocket protector with a half-dozen ballpoint pens, and he was holding a Dodger baseball hat in his hands. He was roughly five foot eight, early thirties, slim with black framed glasses and thinning blond hair and a slight goatee, barely visible against his pale white skin.
“Brian?” I introduced myself. “I’m Carol Childs. Tyler said you wanted to see me.”
“I do.” Evans leaned forward and anxiously offered me his hand, then sat back down on the sofa. A gray mid-century utilitarian affair, about as comfortable as a park bench. “I wanted to talk with you because you were there that day.”
“That day?” I wasn’t sure I understood. The day police had found Marilynn’s car, or the day firefighters had found the body in the desert? I had reported on both. I clutched my notepad to my chest and waited for his response.
“The day the firefighters found that girl’s body in the desert. I assume your boss told you I was Marilynn’s ex.”
“He did. What I don’t understand though is why you’re here?”
“The police are questioning me about Marilynn again. I have to talk to someone. I thought maybe you might know something.” Brian rubbed his hands together and looked around the room. “We alone? I mean, nobody’s able to hear us in here, right? You’re not recording any of this?”
I assured him we were alone and under California law, I couldn’t tape a conversation without his knowledge. “You don’t need to worry,” I said.
Brian crossed his legs and clenched fists in his lap. His eyes focused downward. “Marilynn didn’t have a family. She grew up in foster care, so I guess I’m the closest thing she had to kin, and now that the cops have a body, they’ve come back with all kinds of questions. They wanted the name of her doctor and her dentist. So they can make a positive ID.”
“That’s all pretty standard stuff, Brian. I’m sure you understand.”
“Maybe, but they’ve also been asking me about those murdered models as well.” Brian looked in my direction then jerked his head away.
I was glad Brian was looking at the wall and didn’t see the surprise on my face. If this is what Chase meant when he told me the cops had expanded their search and the police were now talking to Brian, I wanted to know why.
“I’m sorry. This has got to be a very difficult time for you.”
“I never would have hurt Marilynn. But you were there. You saw the body. I was hoping if I came by and talked to you today, you might be able to help me.”
I stood up and took a paper cup from the water dispenser. “Brian, I didn’t see the body. I talked to the firefighters who found her. But I don’t see how I can help.”
“I heard your report, Carol. I need to know if you saw something. Anything. Something that might make you think it was the Model Slayer that killed her.”
I took a sip of water. If the police thought Brian was a possible suspect, I needed to couch my next words carefully.
“It could be anyone, Brian. One of Marilynn’s clients maybe? I know she was an accountant–”
“Bookkeeper,” Brian said. “The newspaper got it wrong. It’s how we met.”
I scribbled a note to myself. “I had also read Marilynn did stand-up for some of the clubs where she kept the books.”
Brian scoffed. “Yeah, right. Gentlemen’s clubs. Not exactly the type of place a nice girl should be working.”
“I’m not judging.”
“We fought about it all the time. I didn’t like her hanging out at a place like that with all those Jezebels. Teasing men for money. Marilynn wasn’t a stripper. The only reason she worked there was that she wanted to be a comedian. You believe that? She thought working between the acts at the clubs might be a way for her to break in.”
Jezebels? The word reminded me of something Xstacy had said about Ely. That it was his job to take pictures of the models so that other young women wouldn’t follow them into temptation. An odd word and even odder choice of phrasing. It made me wonder if perhaps Brian knew Ely, and the two of them had some crazy pact to rid the world of what they saw as wanton women and evil temptresses.
“Did Marilynn ever work the Sky High Club near the airport?” I asked.
“It was one of her accounts. As for doing stand-up there, I wouldn’t know. She didn’t like to talk to me about it.”
“How about a man named Ely Wade? She ever mention him?” I kept my eyes focused on Brian, looking for some sign–some facial tick–the name meant something to him. I got nothing. No flinch, no masked reaction.
“Name’s not familiar,” he said.
“What about Xstacy?”
“You mean the drug?”
“No. Xstacy was a young woman about Marilynn’s age,” I said.
“She the one the cops found at the beach yesterday?” Brian looked up at the ceiling.
“Could be.”
“Then I supposed you’re going to want to know where I was Monday night?”
“Excuse me?” Brian’s response wasn�
�t what I expected.
“The police didn’t call her Xstacy. They said her name was Stacy Minor. Nobody I knew, but they asked me about her alright. Wanted to know where I was Monday night. Whoever she was, I think the cops think I killed her.” Brian got up off the couch and pulled a paper cup from the water dispenser and took a sip.
“Did you?” I braced myself against the wall.
Brian tossed the cup in the trash and sat back down on the couch. “I’m not a killer, Ms. Childs and I don’t know anything about the people Marilyn worked with. Maybe I should have. Probably would have made me a better boyfriend if I did, right? I’m pretty sure that’s what people think.”
“People think all kinds of things when there’s a murder, Brian. And the police ask questions. Uncomfortable questions. It’s their job.”
“Well, I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Marilynn, and I didn’t kill any of those models or that other girl, Xstacy or Stacy or whatever her name was.” Brian stood up and reached into his pocket and handed me a business card. “Look, I came here looking for help. Hoping maybe you saw something or heard something that made you think Marilynn was one the Model Slayer’s victims and could help get the cops off my back.”
“I’m sorry. The body was badly decomposed. The coroner said it had been there for a while. For all we know the body the firefighters found might not even be Marilynn. We don’t have a positive ID yet. There’s still a chance it’s not your girlfriend.”
“Yeah, but judging from the way the cops have been talking, they don’t think so.”
“Like I said, Brian, cops ask a lot of questions. They have a job to do.”
“Well, if you think of anything, you have my card.”
Brian was halfway out the door when he realized he had left his hat with car keys on the side table. When he picked his hat up, the car keys tumbled out onto the floor.
I leaned down to get them up and noticed the keychain, a rabbit’s foot similar to the one Misty had insisted I keep with me. “This yours?”
“Yeah, Marilynn gave it to me. She had one too. Exactly the opposite, with two ruby red stones with a blue sapphire in the middle.”
I palmed the rabbit’s foot, convinced I had its match inside my reporter’s bag back in my office. “Did Marilynn have hers with her the day she disappeared?”
“It wasn’t with her things when the cops found her car. I went with them to identify it. Her keys were still in the ignition, but the rabbit’s foot was missing.”
“You don’t suppose she gave it to someone else?”
“Maybe. She was pretty upset after the breakup. Why, you think it’s important?”
“I don’t know.” I handed the keys back to Brian. “But if you think of anything else, call me.”
I showed Brian out and hurried back to my office anxious to sort through what he had just told me. If Brian had killed his girlfriend, the manner of death was too similar to the models’ deaths not to cause suspicion. If Brian wanted to know what the cops knew and was trying to stay a step ahead of the investigation, talking to a reporter who had covered the murder scene might be a pretty good start. And then, there was the rabbit’s foot. Clearly, it was a match for the one Xstacy had left for me. Misty was right. As to what it meant, I didn’t know. But clearly it was a clue, and proof Marilynn and Xstacy knew each other.
CHAPTER 21
For dinner Wednesday night, I made myself a bowl of microwave popcorn and grabbed a diet soda from the vending machine in the employees’ kitchen. The idea that in five days I would be facing a judge who would likely sentence me to jail for refusing to answer questions concerning my relationship with Xstacy weighed heavily on my mind. I wanted the time alone to do a little research and squared myself away in my office in front of my computer.
Unlike some gossip magazines or tabloid news shows like TMZ, most news stations don’t have budgets for private online investigative sources. It’s up to the reporter to get creative, and I planned to dig up as much information as I could from free social media sites available to me. It’s amazing what people will post about themselves. Given a little time and effort, it’s not too difficult to compile enough information about someone to get a pretty good idea of who they are.
I started with a list of names: Brian Evans, Ely Wade, and Samantha Miller. If I had a name for the scar-faced man at the bar, I would have included him too. But with no name and nothing to go on, I stuck with the names I could research and added Pete Pompidou, aka Peter Phillips, to my list. If Pete really was some freelance photographer from Canada who had stolen my daughter’s heart, I wanted to know as much about him as possible.
What I learned about Brian Evans blew me away. Evans maintained a professional LinkedIn profile along with a list of his clients, and a Facebook page with a cache of posts and photos going back five years. Most recent were pictures of Marilynn. The two of them together. Smiling. Dancing. Typical couple shots. Going back further Brian had posted pictures of his dog, his car, then several of what appeared to be a previous girlfriend, Melissa Morgan. I scrolled over the photo of the girlfriend, highlighted her name, then clicked over to her Facebook page.
Melissa Morgan was active on Facebook, and from the looks of the photos on the page, she had moved on from Brian. She was single, pregnant and happy to display photos of her bulging belly. I dug deeper into the photos and found an old picture of Melissa with Brian. Including a rather unflattering one of Brian along with a long passage about their break up and news that she’d taken out a restraining order against him. She had even posted a copy of it. I zoomed in on the paperwork. The order was dated November 13, 2016. No wonder the police had continued to question Evans. If they knew about the restraining order, they certainly had reason to think Brian might be a person of interest when it came to Marilynn’s disappearance. I clicked on Melissa’s contact information and bingo. She’d listed her phone number. I jotted it down and moved on to Ely Wade.
Wade didn’t maintain a Facebook page, but, like Brian, he did have a listing on LinkedIn which read like an online resume. Along with his picture, Wade had listed his residence as Pasadena and his occupation as gaffer, an electrician hired to oversee the lighting of a TV show or Hollywood set. Included for references were a dozen or more small production companies and photo studios where Wade had worked. Most of them I hadn’t heard of, but one stuck out and stopped me cold. Lenny Marx Photography. The name of the photographer Chase said had hired Pete when he first came to California. Feeling like I’d just stuck my finger in a light socket, I skipped over to the online white pages, typed in Lenny Marx Photography, and called the number. Voicemail came back with a British accent.
“You’ve reached Lenny Marx Photography. Unfortunately, Darling, I can’t take your call right now. I’m away on assignment. Leave your name and number. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up the phone. If Pete and Ely knew one another there wasn’t much I could do at this hour. I clicked back to LinkedIn and continued scouring the listings of Wade’s former employers and stopped at another name. Evelyn Wade Photography. I skipped back to the white pages and could find nothing for Evelyn Wade Photography. Hoping Evelyn might have a Facebook account, I typed in her name.
Several listings for the name Evelyn Wade came up, but the Evelyn Wade I was looking for was easy to identify. She looked exactly like the photo I’d seen of her younger brother on his LinkedIn page. Her profile picture showed a shy looking woman with a low brow, short dark hair, square jaw, and small eyes. And like most people, naive to the problems of posting personal information on the web, she had completed her online profile. Evelyn was single, forty-nine-years-old, listed her occupation as seamstress and her interests as photography and gardening. Better yet, she had included a large number of pictures on her page, several of herself with Ely, along with lots of nature shots, photos of flowers and trees. Her latest post caught my eye. Headlined, Pasadena Property for Ren
t, showed a photo of herself standing in front a small cottage-like duplex. Two bedroom, single bath. Shown by appointment only.
I punched the number listed beneath the photo into my cell and hoped I wasn’t calling too late.
A woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, I’m calling about the Pasadena rental? Is it still available?” I crossed my fingers. If this was Ely Wade’s last residence and I could get inside, I might find a photo or some souvenir he had taken from one of the models. And if I were lucky, maybe even something leading me to Scarface’s identity.
“It is if you’ve got references. Ain’t letting no riff-raff in. Place belonged to my brother, and I need to rent it. I’m not used to strangers livin’ next door.”
Bingo! I gripped the phone tighter and leaned into the desk. “I can’t blame you. In fact, I’ve been looking for a small place close to the college. I’m a student, or was...” Suddenly I remembered Sam’s comment about my looking like somebody’s mom. I guess I couldn’t pass as a student anymore. “Actually, I’m a returning student. I’ve been trying to finish up my theology degree at Fuller Seminary, and I need a quiet place where I can study.” I thought throwing in the seminary angle was a good approach. Everybody in Pasadena knew the Fuller students weren’t big partiers. “Any chance I could come see the place, and we could meet?”
“Not ’til next week. I’m still moving some of my brother’s things, and–”
“If it’s all the same. I don’t need to see it all cleaned up. And the sooner I can find a place the better. I promise it’s not a problem.”
“Saturday morning then. But don’t expect the place to be all spic and span. My brother wasn’t much of a housekeeper.” Evelyn gave me directions to the house and made me promise not to be late. “One o’clock, I’ve things to do in the morning, and I don’t plan to wait around all afternoon.”
I assured her I would be on time, hung up, and dialed Melissa Morgan. With a little bit of luck, I might be able to meet with two sources before the weekend was out.
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