Pacific Homicide

by Patricia Smiley

“The decal? Anybody could have put that on the car.”

  “Are these the only photos you found?”

  He nodded. “What are you going to do now?”

  Davie checked her watch. Someone else she’d interviewed had mentioned a vintage Olds but she couldn’t be sure of the connection until she made one more stop. “I’m going to the school library to look through a few yearbooks.”

  “If you have a name, why not run it through DMV and see if the guy owns an Olds?”

  “The owner isn’t the person I’m looking for.”

  “How do you know?”

  She paused for a moment to weigh her response. “Minutiae.”

  25

  Fairfax High School was in Hollywood Division at the corner of Fairfax and Melrose in midtown Los Angeles. Davie remembered when the area was considered the heart of the Jewish community, but she doubted that was still true. Most of her Jewish friends lived on the Westside or in the San Fernando Valley. She didn’t know much about the school except that it had a reputation as a petri dish for leaders of the entertainment industry from actors to studio executives.

  The rosy-cheeked librarian introduced herself in a Southern drawl as Leona Blanchard. She had a round face and full lips, the better to shush you with, Davie guessed. Blanchard told her that the Fairfax alumni association had created the decal she saw on the Olds several years ago for the Class of 1983’s thirtieth reunion. A plastic ID that hung around Blanchard’s neck on a lanyard clicked against the buttons of her maroon cardigan sweater as she pulled down the 1981, 1982, and 1983 yearbooks from a shelf in the reference section.

  She motioned Davie to follow her to a wooden table in a quiet corner of the library that featured a half dozen students reading books and tapping on computer keyboards beneath sky-high ceilings. Above the book stacks were a series of wall pictures that included a Centaur, a covered wagon, and a guy wearing a space suit. Davie wondered if they had a unifying theme. If so, it was a mystery to her.

  Ms. Blanchard set the yearbooks on the table. “Which one of our precious little darlings is in trouble now?”

  “None of them at the moment.”

  Blanchard lowered her voice and leaned toward Davie’s ear. “I’ve known a few most-likely-to-end-up-in-jail types, bless their hearts. I could be wrong, though.” The knowing look on her face said But that isn’t likely.

  Blanchard pulled out a wooden chair and motioned for Davie to sit. Across the table, a teenage boy wearing a gray hoodie was slumped over a backpack, sleeping. Blanchard waddled over and nudged him awake. “Rise and shine, Henry.” She winked at Davie. “If he starts snoring, just give me a holler.” She turned and disappeared into the stacks.

  As soon as Blanchard was out of sight, Henry lowered his head and appeared to fall asleep again.

  Under the glow of fluorescent lights and surrounded by book dust and raging hormones, Davie opened the 1983 yearbook first. The pictures reminded her of her own high school annual. She wondered if all yearbooks looked the same: grim-faced kitchen staff, arty photos of campus buildings, and sports teams in crisp uniforms sitting shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped in front of them—different flavored dough formed by the same cookie cutter.

  Davie returned her attention to the 1983 activities pages, scanning the photos and names. She was disappointed but not surprised that she didn’t see one she recognized. She ran her finger down the list of names in the senior class section until she came to one she did know: Jeremy Forrester.

  Anya’s apartment manager, John Bell, had told her he didn’t own a vehicle but that he sometimes borrowed an Olds from a friend named Jerry Forrester. She flipped to the section displaying pictures of the junior class, where she spotted Bell’s photo. He was thinner back then, with thick brown hair. He wore heavy black-framed glasses that made him look nerdy. She remembered seeing snapshots of Bear and his cop friends from the early 1980s. Their glasses were wire-rimmed aviators.

  She thumbed through photos of various extracurricular activities but couldn’t find any shots of Bell. Since he seemed to have a passion for writing, she checked for his picture with members of the drama club or the yearbook staff. He wasn’t there. Maybe his interest in writing was recent.

  A bell rang. Davie looked at the clock over the doorway. 3:07 p.m. Soon students would rush out and the library would close.

  Leona Blanchard strolled toward her. “You ’bout done here?”

  “I need copies of a few pages. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Whatever you say, dear. I’m just glad you found what you were looking for … whatever that was.” Blanchard pulled a pad of Post-it notes from her sweater pocket and slapped one on each of the pages Davie wanted copied. Then she headed toward the checkout desk.

  Davie was sure when she ran Jeremy Forrester’s name through the DMV, it would show he was the registered owner of an Oldsmobile. She was also sure that John Bell had borrowed Forrester’s ride last Saturday night and had driven to the Edison in answer to Anya Nosova’s distress call. She needed to find out what had happened next. That meant having another conversation with John Bell.

  This one would not be as cordial as the last one.

  26

  “Malcolm Harrington is a cop-hating asshole.” Detective Giordano’s fists were clenched. A river of red crept up his neck.

  Davie stood with her boss in the only place at the station where you could hold a conversation without being overheard—the parking lot. She had driven to the station after her library research, and had just told him about Bear’s history with Harrington, her OIS case, the panic rumors circulating about her, and her suspicion that somebody from IA was tailing her.

  “You’re one of my peeps,” he said. “Whatever’s going on, I should have been told.”

  “Why would the lieutenant keep you out of the loop?”

  “Because he knows I’d be pissed and he doesn’t want to deal with it. Who could be bad-mouthing you besides Hall?”

  Davie had already thought about the possibilities. A person couldn’t work in law enforcement for as many years as she had and not irritate somebody—jealousy over a promotion, unequal case distribution, or some slight, either real or imagined. She searched her memory again but couldn’t think of any enemies she’d made. There was nobody she knew of, other than Malcolm Harrington, who might harbor a grudge against her because of her father, but it seemed unlikely Harrington had started the rumors. Maybe she needed to think beyond the department. A civilian or somebody in the DA’s office.

  “I can’t think of anybody. What now?”

  “Do your job and don’t let the IA tail know he’s been made. I’m going to make a few phone calls.”

  Giordano walked toward the back door of the station. After a few steps, he stopped and turned toward her. “And if you need a department rep, ask me.”

  Giordano was warning her that the situation could turn ugly. If Harrington made some kind of case against her, she would be hauled before a Board of Rights. If that happened, she’d need an ally to represent her. She couldn’t think of anybody better than Frank Giordano.

  She watched as he put his cell phone to his ear and a short time later, she saw the index finger of his free hand stab the air. Whoever he was talking to, it didn’t look like a happy conversation.

  Giordano had told her to go about her business and she intended to follow his advice. She had to interview John Bell again so she returned to her desk and placed a call. There was a message on his machine that he’d obviously left for tenants. It said he would be gone until five p.m. If they needed help, they should call the owner.

  Davie decided to call on Lana Ivanov, instead. She returned to her desk and grabbed her notebook and the Russian woman’s DMV photo. Then she headed toward the car.

  27

  Davie walked across the station’s parking lot as fallen leaves cartwheeled across the blacktop,
urged on by a chilly breeze. She backed the Jetta out of the space without fastening her seatbelt. She never used a belt unless she was in a high-speed chase, because it restricted her movement. Back in her patrol days, she and her partner had taken fire from Grape Street gangbangers. When she tried to draw her weapon, the butt caught in the seatbelt. She would never make that mistake again.

  Black clouds bruised the sky as she drove out the Centinela gate and turned right onto Culver Boulevard, heading east toward Sepulveda. She glanced in her rearview mirror but couldn’t spot a tail.

  It took only ten minutes to reach A to Z Liquors, nestled between a Chinese restaurant and a dry cleaner. The place was a squat, one-story box with peeling paint and a yellow-and-red sign mounted above the door that read Liquor. Rusty security bars barricaded every opening, giving the place an edgy prison vibe.

  The hinges of the wooden screen door groaned as Davie stepped inside the store. To her right was a display of packaged chips and nuts and a cold case filled with plastic tubs of what she assumed was food. Floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves held reclining liquor bottles. Some were coated with dust as thick as the fur on a caterpillar. Others looked like they had just rolled off a conveyer belt. She wondered if the booze Satine had hijacked was already rubbing shoulders with the grimy bottles she saw on A to Z’s shelves.

  On the left, a man dressed in black sat hunched on a stool behind a Plexiglas divider, guarding cases of cigarettes, high-end liquors, and a prehistoric cash register. Davie studied the contours of his face: hooded eyes, bushy eyebrows, coarse features, and scar across his cheek. He looked like the stunt double for Frankenstein’s assistant from an old movie she’d recently seen on TV.

  Not even the creaking of her weight on the wooden floor distracted the man from the video game he was playing. She pushed aside a round plastic jar of beef jerky and flashed her department ID through the opening in the Plexiglas. “I’m here to see Lana Ivanov.”

  The man stared at her with a dull expression.

  “Lana Ivanov?” she repeated. “Is she working today?”

  A moment later, Davie heard a woman’s voice coming from the back room. The tone was raspy and low, as if she had smoked too many cigarettes. “Borya, yést’ li gdyé-nibút’ ristarán nidalikó atsyúda? Ya óchin’ khachú yest’.”

  The Russian glanced toward the voice. “Nylandt,” he said and then took what looked like a slice of raw potato from a bowl on the counter and stuffed it in his mouth.

  The door to the back room swung open and a plump woman sauntered into the store, filing the room with fumes from her flowery perfume. Her ample breasts and paunchy gut challenged the seams of a low-cut purple dress. Bleached hair rose from her scalp in short spikes that reminded Davie of wheat stubble after a harvest. Her complexion was florid despite heavy makeup. Davie recognized the woman from her DMV photo as Lana Ivanov.

  Lana glanced at the man crunching potatoes and wrinkled her nose in distaste. When she noticed Davie, she seemed surprised to see a customer in the store. “Zdrástvuytye. Hello,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  Davie held out her ID. “Detective Richards, LAPD. Can we talk privately? In your office?”

  Lana’s eyes darted from her assistant to the back room. “No office. Is only storage. What do you want?”

  “Information about Anya Nosova.”

  She shook her head. “I do not know this person.”

  “I have some photos that might jog your memory. They’re at the station. I could drive you there. It won’t take long.”

  “Bayús’ shto nyet. I am working.”

  “What about your buddy over there? Can’t he look after things while you’re gone?”

  “Boris speaks no English. Isn’t that right, Borya?”

  Davie remembered reading War and Peace in college with all those Russians and their multiple nicknames. She figured Borya and Boris were two variations of the same.

  “Business looks a little slow. Maybe you could lock up for a while. You can ride with me. I’ll bring you right back, I promise.”

  Lana raised her chin in defiance. “You arrest me?”

  Davie gave her what she hoped was a look of incredulity. “Have you done something wrong?”

  “In my country, police cannot be trusted.”

  “You’re not in Russia anymore, Ms. Ivanov.”

  “Some things are same everywhere.”

  “Let me tell you how it works here. People with nothing to hide cooperate with the police.”

  In the silence that followed, all Davie heard was Borya/Boris crunching on potato rounds and the pings and whooshes from his video game. Occasionally he glanced at Davie but didn’t appear concerned. She was glad he didn’t speak English or he might have become a problem.

  Lana turned toward the back room. “I make call first.”

  Davie wasn’t about to let her go in that room alone. Lana might have a weapon hidden somewhere or she could simply cruise out the back door and disappear.

  She stepped toward Lana. “I’ll go with you.”

  Lana gave her a shrug. The presence of an LAPD detective didn’t seem to intimidate her in the least. Davie wondered why she was so nonchalant.

  The woman pulled a cell phone from inside her purple notebook and tapped a single digit on the keypad. Either the number belonged to someone she speed dialed often or someone she called in an emergency. Maybe both. She mumbled into the phone in English, not Russian.

  “Policewoman is here. She take me to station.” Without waiting for a response, she ended the call.

  Davie motioned Lana into the front seat of the Jetta so she could watch her on the way to the station. When they arrived, Davie led her into the detective squad room and gestured for her to sit in one of the interview rooms, a small cubbyhole with a scarred wooden table pushed against the wall. Some detectives preferred the table in the middle of the room as a barrier between them and the suspect, but Davie believed the stress caused by invading a person’s comfort zone produced better results.

  The room also held two chairs. Davie gestured for Lana to sit in the plastic armless chair. The one closest to the door had a padded seat and armrests and wheels for mobility. Davie always sat in that one, both to establish dominance and to remain visible to other detectives in the squad room in case the interview went sideways.

  “Those pictures I mentioned are on my desk,” Davie said. “I’ll get them.”

  As she left the room, she flipped a switch outside the door. If Lana tried to leave, she’d trigger an alarm that could wake the dead. Davie planned to let the Russian stew for a while, hoping she’d feel more talkative.

  By the time Davie returned to the interview room thirty minutes later, the air smelled of sweat and rancid flowers. Lana sat perched on the edge of her chair, spring-loaded and ready to fire. Davie loomed over her, cradling the Anya Nosova Murder Book in her arm. She slowly leafed through the pages, pausing to study one entry or another. Most of the forms were still blank, but Lana didn’t know that. She wanted to see how the woman reacted if she believed the evidence was piling up against her.

  Davie lowered herself into the padded chair. “Do you know why I want to talk to you?”

  Lana stared at the notebook. “About woman I don’t know.”

  Davie leaned back in the chair. “How long have you managed Moscow Models for Grigory Satine?” Davie had no evidence there was a connection between Moscow Models and Lana Ivanov. She was bluffing, but Lana didn’t need to know that, either.

  The woman stared into midspace, her expression wooden. “I work in liquor store.”

  “Anya Nosova came to L.A. to be a model. Instead, I believe she became a prostitute.” Davie pulled out John Bell’s photo of Anya and held it up for Lana to see. “Do you remember her now?”

  Lana looked at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact. “She is like many Russian girl
s.”

  Davie considered other possible victims of Lana’s modeling scam and wondered if any of them had met the same fate as Anya had.

  “What were you and Anya arguing about at the Edison hotel last Saturday night?”

  “Edison? This hotel I do not know.”

  Davie rolled her chair closer to Lana but kept her tone soft and sympathetic. “I have a witness who saw you there with her. Saw your car. Remembered your license plate number.”

  Lana wrapped her arms around her chest and glance toward the door. None of this seemed to concern her. “This witness is mistaken.”

  Davie ignored the lie. “Look, if you hurt Anya, you should tell me now. Maybe it was an accident. You argued. Things got out of hand. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Lana stared at Davie. “I know nothing about this Anya person. She is hurt?”

  Davie rolled the chair within a hairsbreadth of Lana’s knees and pulled out another photo. “Not hurt, dead. Somebody killed her and dumped her body in the sewer. She floated in shit for three days. This is what she looked like when they found her.” Davie thrust a photo toward Lana that showed Anya’s mangled body in the grinder at Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant.

  Lana recoiled. Davie wasn’t surprised. The picture was gruesome.

  “Murder is never a pretty picture,” she said.

  Lana covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes were moist. “Who give you permission to treat me like this?”

  “I don’t need permission. I’m investigating a homicide.”

  “I know your laws. You must get me a lawyer if I ask.”

  It irritated Davie that the first thing an immigrant learned when she came to this country was how to lawyer up.

  “You’re not under arrest, so I’m not required to get you a lawyer.”

  “But you keep me here.” Her voice had become brittle and strained.

  “I’m not forcing you to stay. I’ll take you back to the store anytime you want.”