Who Killed Rudy Rio?

by Lee Bellamy

  The three brutes started to rip her clothes off. She kept fighting, but lost, naturally. The virgin dress went; next, her bra and panties; then they hoisted her up on the altar and spread her legs apart. Just like Rudy said. That's when my amusement at Crystal's bogus acting began to fade. Real or not, this was turning into an ugly, brutal rape. It wasn't funny anymore.

  Perez sat quietly next to me, intent on the screen. I wasn't embarrassed exactly, but here we were, in the middle of the morning, sitting on his couch watching an explicitly graphic sex scene. I became acutely aware of his maleness, and my breathing. Sitting perfectly still, eyes straight ahead, I tried to breathe normally. The more I tried, though, the more conscious of it I became and the tighter I got, until a steel band tightened around my chest and I could hardly breathe at all.

  He looked my way, grabbed the remote, and stopped the movie. "Are you okay?"

  "Yes. Why do you ask?"

  "Your face is red. You look like a gasping fish."

  "Thanks a lot, Perez." I gulped some air. "Just keep it going."

  The DVD continued. The three men took their turns in an animal frenzy. Crystal's shrill screams were mixed with the rapists' savage grunts and obscenities, seeming even more perverted against the muted strains of the Mozart concerto. Nothing escaped the camera. It dwelt on Crystal's private parts, and close-ups of penises so huge they made The Destroyer at the sex shop look puny. Especially the masked man. No wonder he was the star. I would never have believed the male organ could be that big, but there it was. He couldn't be faking. Then came the phoniest part of all: Crystal stopped begging and started to smile. Oh, sure. So the virgin suddenly decides she likes it?

  One good thing. I got so disgusted, I forgot about my breathing.

  The two bearded ones finished and left, leaving the masked one alone with Crystal, still on top of her, still humping away. He stopped finally, and drew back. And then, as Rudy said, he reached into his boot. With a satanic grimace, he pulled out a long-bladed, gleaming knife.

  By now, Crystal had stopped smiling and looked drained and disheveled. The scene had run straight through, no cuts that I could see, so even pretending, she had to be exhausted. The masked man appeared engrossed in the knife, turning it over and over in his black-gloved hands. She lay there looking up at him, naked and panting, her wreath of pink flowers askew, her dark hair spread in a tangled fan across the altar. "What's that?" she asked, in a tone both tenuous and unbelieving—the first genuine piece of dialogue I'd heard her say.

  "It's a knife, honey," he answered in a deep voice, seeming surprised that she would ask.

  A tentative expression crossed her face. "What are you going to do with it?"

  His black-gloved hand encircled her throat. "Precious girl, I'm going to kill you."

  The last vestige of Crystal's phoniness dropped away. She struggled to sit up, but like a pin through a butterfly, the bare, steel-like arm prevented her from moving. Her expression went stiff with horror. "Randy," she screamed, "what are you doing?"

  "Giving you the ultimate experience, baby." His voice was low and evil. "Want to please your fans?"

  It was clear what was coming next, and my heart went wild. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away.

  "Hey, are you all right?" Perez stopped the DVD again.

  The choice was mine. This girl was about to be murdered. I could refuse to watch, thereby making a wimp of myself in the eyes of Perez; or I could sit there detached and watch it objectively like I was supposed to do, and not bat an eye. I would try. After all, it was only a little box over there, a little box with a little picture that wasn't real. "Why are you stopping, Gil? Are you getting queasy? Do you want to leave the room?"

  He slanted a look of disgust at me. "Besa me cola."

  "Your father said that. What does it mean?

  "Kiss my ass."

  "Start it up."

  "You're sure?"

  "You heard me."

  In the midst of Crystal's last scream, the masked man plunged the knife into her smooth white neck a little below her left ear. In one deft, sure motion he carved it around to right ear. She was still screaming as the blood spurted out, farther than I ever thought blood could go. Not for long, though. The flow of blood quickly turned to a trickle; the scream changed to a gurgle and faded away as her body twitched, and, finally, lay still.

  The masked man looked down at himself, and saw he was covered with blood. "Messy," he hissed with disgust. He reached for the remnants of Crystal's ripped white dress and used it to wipe himself, then the knife. With complete nonchalance—as if he'd finished a tennis game instead of a murder—he tossed the dress to the ground, shoved the knife into his boot, and disappeared.

  With the music still playing, the final shot zeroed in on Crystal's body, lingering, almost lovingly it seemed, on the limp legs dangling from the altar; on her open crotch; on the blood oozing from the slashed throat—merely an occasional bubble now. The wreath still hung askew, only the flowers weren't pink anymore, they were red. Finally the camera found the pitiful dead face, with its lips all blue, with its eyes still wide with horror, gazing upwards, unseeing, at the towering pines.

  I couldn't trust myself to speak. After a long silence that followed the fade-out, Perez pressed the stop button. "Jesus," he said. "What do you think? Do you believe it?"

  "I believe it."

  "So do I. What's next? Do you call Velia? Give her that DVD to prove Crystal's dead?"

  Chalk one up for Perez. He wasn't telling me what to do. This was my case, my decision. But how to make it? "I don't know if I should show it to her. Logic says I should, but how cruel, just to hand it to her and walk away."

  "So?"

  "I'll find out who made the snuff movie. And who was Randy. And after he killed her, what did they do with the body? She's got to be buried somewhere." Time to get in gear. I stood up to go.

  Perez asked, "Where next?"

  "Back to the office. I want to call Sandy Wells in L.A. Maybe she can get a lead on Randy."

  "If that doesn't work..." Perez jotted down a number on the back of his card and handed it to me. "Call Milo Archibald. He'll know."

  I took the card. "And I want to use WorldSearch for a check on Bill Hatcher. He's a piece of sleaze if ever there was one. Also, I have the gut feeling that Jay Champion is involved, I don't care what Barnicut says. Jay and Rudy go way back. Maybe—" Into my head popped Barnicut's words over the phone to Doris, that day I was looking for a job. I’ve done business with Mrs. Champion.

  "I just thought of something. Barnicut said B & P did some work for Velia Champion. Do you remember what it was?"

  "No. It was Reece's case, not mine."

  "I'll find out. Are you coming with me?"

  "Can't, I've got to take a run to San Francisco. Use my office if you want."

  A group of noisy children burst into the living room. I made a hasty exit out the front door.

  ***

  In the rear storage room of B & P, Tish Regillis bent low over a filing cabinet. "Oh, yeah, here it is, Champion, Jay. You might know it would be in the bottom drawer." Tish straightened with a grunt and handed me a thick, legal size manila folder. "Cripe, this case is so old it's not in the computer."

  "Thanks, Tish, you know where I'll be."

  I hurried to Perez's office, spread the contents of the folder on his desk and dug in.

  Barnicut might be a prick, but he was a thorough, neat, competent prick. The file was jammed with notes detailing his investigation of Champion, Jay. Close to the bottom of the stack I came across the three-page stapled document that I hoped to find. Eagerly, I skimmed it through.

  CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

  Date: September 9, 2005

  Objective: Premarital investigation of future spouse

  Client: Velia Hargrove

  Address: 612 West Delno Ave., Fresno Phone: (555) 588-9878

  Subject: Jay Champion

  Address: 4490 N. Elm, Apt. 2
2, Fresno Phone: (555) 529-2499

  Birth date: March 17, 1960, Birthplace: Tonopah, Nevada

  Description: White male, full head of white hair, blue eyes, 6'5", 180 lbs, erect carriage, good physical condition, dresses well.

  The report went on to give the salient details of Jay's life—that he was raised on a ranch in Nevada, that he graduated from high school in 1978 and shortly after moved to California. He married Eloise Kopp in 1984 and divorced her in 1995. He had one child, a son, Tyler, born in 1993, and for several years owned a yogurt shop in Torrance, California. He sold it in 1996.

  But the real meat of the report came at the end:

  Other information: 1995 to around 1997 subject was involved in the adult movie business in Hollywood. 1997-2005 subject was involved in professional gambling. During that time, subject lived in Las Vegas under the alias, Jack Crisp, and engaged in "crossroader" activities (i.e. cheating the gambling casinos.) Subject was blacklisted from major casinos in 2005 (i.e. forbidden to gamble). He moved to Fresno shortly after.

  Some hero! I slammed the folder shut, scooped it up and marched into Barnicut's office. He was hunched over his desk, writing a report. "Take a look," I announced, dropping the folder on his desk. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Barnicut heaved a long-suffering sigh and with maddening slowness raised his eyes. He tilted back in his chair, and slid his hands behind his head. "You found out all by yourself, didn't you? So why are you pissed?"

  "Because...because..." I realized I was sputtering. "You've been telling me what a great guy Jay is. Well, he isn't. He made porn movies. He's a gambler. A crook! The casinos had him blacklisted."

  "Oh, come now. That doesn't make him all bad."

  "It does to me." I dropped into a chair. "Did you give this report to Velia?"

  "What do you think? She paid for it."

  "If she knew what kind of man he was, why did she marry him?"

  "Maybe she loved the guy. Maybe she decided his past didn't matter." Barnicut scratched his neck with insolent slowness. "Women do that sort of thing. You tell me."

  "Well I'm a woman, and I don't understand at all."

  "You wouldn't. It's water under the bridge anyway. He's a hero now."

  "It's not under my bridge. That report shows he's a crook. And if he's a crook, he could very well be responsible for Rudy's murder."

  "How do you figure?" Barnicut asked, that mocking little gleam in his eye.

  "Well..." I paused and got my thoughts together. "He could have a couple of motives. First, Rudy could have been blackmailing him. He knew Jay for years. What's in the report is bad enough. Maybe there's more bad stuff, and Rudy knew. If Jay wanted to keep his reputation as a solid citizen in this town, he sure didn't want his past leaking out."

  "Maybe. And what else?"

  "Isn't that enough?

  "Oh, do continue on, Holly. You're doing so very well."

  Sarcastic bastard. "There's the matter of the trailer robbery. We've got all kinds of possibilities there."

  "For instance?"

  "Maybe Jay was hurting for money. He arranged for the theft of the trailers so he could collect on the insurance."

  "From Afghanistan?" Barnicut snorted. "What did he do? Arrange the heist through his Facebook account?"

  "It's possible. Obviously Rudy was in on it and threatened to tell." Barnicut was making me mad. I'd better get out of there. I checked my watch. "We'll talk later. I'm going to run a WorldSearch on Bill Hatcher. Then I'm going to visit Joy Daniel. Then I'm going to the cemetery."

  "Have fun."

  Who but Barnicut would tell you to have fun at a funeral? I got out of there fast, before I told him what I thought.

  Back in Perez's office again, I turned on his computer and clicked my way into WorldSearch, that huge data base system that's such a boon. Private investigators don't have to gumshoe any more. They can sit in their nice warm office and skip trace with it—or check public record filings—or get a pre-employment background, not only for California but all the U.S. Looking for someone? Enter their name and last known address, you not only get their new address, you get back the names of ten neighbors, their addresses, telephone numbers, and length of residence.

  I entered Bill's name and got a whole screenful of Bill Hatchers who lived in California. The name wasn't enough. I would need his social security number, too. I called Champion's Commercial Trailer Sales and asked Doris for the SS numbers of all the employees. She balked at first—not to my surprise. I reminded her I was working for the Champions, so she finally caved.

  I typed in Bill Hatcher's name and SS number, moved the cursor to "Municipal Court, Criminal" and punched the enter button. Oh, yes. Champion's star salesman had a record three screens long. I moved the cursor to "Superior Court, Criminal" and got two screens more. Burglary—auto theft—conspiracy—extortion—mail fraud—he'd done them all. Bilking the life savings from little old ladies appeared to be his specialty.

  Bill Hatcher—what a sweetheart! When I printed out the report, it was six pages long.

  Chapter 11

  I love the name "Joy." Anyone named Joy should be merry and bright, although the woman I'd talked to on the phone yesterday sounded anything but. I wanted to see her for a couple of reasons. She was Crystal's oldest friend. She'd "had a relationship," as Velia delicately phrased it, with Rudy. Oh, definitely, I needed to talk to her.

  There was plenty of time before the funeral. At the office I changed into the grubbies I'd tossed into the car—jeans, red sweater, and well-worn Nikis. I hopped on Kings Canyon Boulevard east and drove twenty miles to the little farming town of Sanger. I continued south another three miles or so, past plowed, empty fields that would soon be full of cotton, alfalfa, grapes, tomatoes, what-have-you, in the spring.

  A lonely stretch of country road led to Joy's property. A bumpy dirt driveway took me to her small, tumble-down house. No resemblance to House & Garden here. The bare dirt yard harbored trash, weeds, a broken-down chicken coop, and the rusting hulk of a tractor lying on its side. Rows of brown, leafless, January-dead grapevines stretched beyond the house as far as I could see.

  Two terrorized chickens flew up squawking as I rolled to a stop in front of the house. I got out of the car and was about to climb the sagging wooden porch steps when I heard the noise of a tractor out back. I circled around to the back yard. Just as I got there, a big orange tractor came barreling toward me, down a dirt aisle between two rows of vines. A big woman sat at the wheel, her carrot red hair flying wildly in the wind, her expression grimmer than Ben Hur's in the big chariot race. At the end of the row, she started to turn, then spied me. She reversed the wheel and shot out of the vineyard, swerving around in a four-wheel slide. Shutting off the motor she glared down at me over the top of the huge tire. "Who the hell are you?"

  So much for merry and bright. "I'm Holly Keene." Choke! The tractor and the disks it pulled had kicked up a big billow of dust. I got a face-full. Good thing I wasn't wearing my Rodeo Drive suit. I bent down and slapped at my jeans. "Neat tractor. I've always wanted to drive one of those. I talked to you yesterday on the telephone."

  "You drove out to the boonies for nothing. I told you all I know."

  I got the dust off, straightened, and took a good long look at Joy Daniel. Now I knew what Doris meant when she implied Rudy couldn't possibly be after her. Joy had a big broad nose and thin colorless lips that formed a happy face turned upside-down. Her eyes were a pretty velvet brown, but they were set too close together, almost buried in puffy fat. Her body was shaped like a pear—small at the top, with ski slope shoulders and a nearly flat chest; big at the bottom, with hips that hung over the edge of the tractor seat like two sacks of grain. She wore a pilled pink sweater and faded old denims straining at the seams.

  An open box of Zingers sat on the floor of the tractor, next to a Little Penguin cooler.

  I tilted my head back and breathed deeply. "Hmmm, it's great to be out in the country. I love smelling that a
ir. It's so invigorating."

  Joy lifted a nostril to take an evaluating sniff. "Alfalfa and cow manure. Nothing great about that."

  "Well it smells good to me. Say, I just realized—" I shaded my eyes from the weak winter sun and looked around, studying intently those long brown rows of vines "—I was born and raised in the valley, but I've never been in a vineyard before. Bet it's a lot of work."

  "You've got that right." Joy heaved herself down off the tractor with hippopotamus grace. "You've got to keep after them all the time. People don't know that. They think the machines do all the work. They think, oh those god damn farmers, they're getting rich sitting around waiting for their crops to grow. Well, that's a bunch of crap. If I'm not irrigating, I'm pruning, or making furrows, or disking, or spraying herbicides, or twisting vines. I work my butt off three-sixty-five days a year, eight, ten hours a day."

  "Is that right? How many acres do you have?"

  "Twenty. All Thompson seedless."

  "Table grapes?"

  "Raisins." Her lip curled with disgust. "That means more work. First, you've got to grow the suckers. Then you've got to hire a contractor to bring the pickers in, 'cause you can't do twenty acres by yourself. Then you've got to get another contractor to come and lay special paper down, and spread those little hummers out in the sunshine to dry." She thrust out her chin at me. "And then you know what you've got to do?"

  "Not actually, no."

  "You've got to pray the shit it doesn't rain for the next fourteen days. Because if it does, you're done." She flung a palm in the air. "Kaput. Kerflooey. It's all down the tube, baby, if your raisins get wet."

  "Well, I sure hope it won't rain. Did you ever think of getting into something else?"

  "Something else? You've got to be kidding." She gestured grandly over her twenty acres, striking a noble-pioneer-woman-of-the-golden-west pose. "This is my land. I'm the boss here. I'll stay here until I die so I don't have to take crap off of anybody."