“He went home about an hour ago. Said he was feeling queasy.”
“I’ll bet,” Terry said.
“We need his home address,” I said.
She peered at me over a pair of half-glasses. It was one of those don’t-mess-with-the-bureaucracy looks, like I used to get from the local librarian when I was a kid and tried to take out a book without a library card.
“We’re not supposed to give out personal information about the staff,” she said. “I’m guessing you don’t have anything official, like a court order.”
“No, just an order from the Mayor to keep your body count down.”
“Sounds official enough,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Two minutes later Terry and I were heading for the car. “Victor’s in West Covina,” I said, reading the address Anne had written on a Post-it note. “We can make it in twenty minutes.”
“Let me see that,” Terry said as he got behind the wheel. He eyeballed the yellow Post-it, then got out of the car and popped the trunk. He came back with one of the folders we had asked Victor to collect for us earlier.
“Joy Lee’s morgue folder,” he said, tossing it to me. “Check her home address.”
West Covina. Same street, same house number as the one Anne Jordan had just given us for Victor Shea.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Victor lived in a two-story apartment building on East Amar Avenue with faux-Spanish architecture, a smattering of sun-scorched palm trees, and little else to recommend it.
I’d never been there, but I’d seen a thousand like it. It’s the classic starter home for the upwardly mobile underprivileged. For six-fifty a month you can get an efficiency or a junior one-
bedroom, complete with ceiling fan, vertical blinds, and a microwave. The neighborhood is clean, ethnically diverse, and screams No Charm at Affordable Prices.
We drove slowly past his building. A block later we spotted his car, a green Mitsubishi Eclipse with a yellow passenger-side door and an LA County Morgue parking sticker on the windshield.
“Unless there are two pieces of shit that look like that,” Terry said, “I’m going to take a wild guess and say he’s in.”
Security consisted of a locked door in the center of the building and an intercom. Victor lived in apartment 9. Terry rang the bell.
Victor answered. “I’m not home.”
“Police,” Terry said. “Open up.”
“I didn’t do anything, Terry.”
“Then you won’t have any problem buzzing us in, Victor.”
“Second floor, turn right,” he said, hitting the buzzer.
The apartment was everything I had expected and less. To the left as we entered was somebody’s old throwaway sofa, a TV, and a desk that was basically two filing cabinets and a piece of plywood. To the right was an unmade bed. Straight ahead was a kitchenette and a dining area that had two gurneys, which Victor must have liberated from the morgue, then duct-taped together to use as a dining room table. Three mismatched chairs completed the ensemble.
The walls had an illogical mix of unframed posters, some hanging on by just a few strips of tape. Everything reeked of cigarette smoke and cat piss.
“It stinks in here,” Terry said. “How many cats do you have?”
“Three,” Victor said. “Sometimes four.”
“How many of them smoke?”
“I don’t smell anything. Not after eight hours in the morgue.”
“I see you’ve been shopping at their furniture outlet,” Terry said, pointing at the gurney-dining room table hyphenate.
“Craig said I could take them,” he said. “They were on their last legs. Literally. I don’t steal.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re not the gurney police. Let’s talk homicide.”
“I don’t kill either.” There was a two-liter bottle of Wild Cherry Pepsi on the counter. Victor filled a tumbler and took a small sip. Then he took a pack of Kools from his shirt pocket, pulled one out, and lit up.
“I see you’re on a health kick,” Terry said.
Victor laughed. “Caffeine, sugar, nicotine, alcohol, and trans fats. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Tell us about Joy Lee,” Terry said, segueing from Morgue Buddy to Cop on a Mission.
Victor sipped more Pepsi and inhaled more Kool. “Joy lived next door. She wanted to be an actress.”
“Were you two involved?”
“Just friends. I wrote some monologues for her.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes casting directors don’t have anything specific to audition, but they want to meet an actor to see what he can do. So actors will bring their own material. It can be Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, anything. But there aren’t a lot of great monologues for Asian girls, so I wrote stuff for Joy. That’s how we became friends.”
“So you knew she was murdered?”
“Worse than that,” he said. “I was driving the van for the morgue that day. I was the one who picked up the body.”
“Do you know who killed her?”
“Some gangbanger.”
Terry pressed him. “The one I asked you about today? Diego Garza?”
Victor played dumb and took a drag on his cigarette.
While Terry talked, I walked around inspecting the apartment. The bedsheets were covered with cat hair. One of the cats was curled up at the head of the bed, where the pillows would be if Victor actually owned any pillows.
“That’s Sebastian,” Victor said. “He bites.”
“Tell him I have a gun,” I said. “Where are the other two or three?”
“Tony is probably on top of one of the kitchen cabinets, and Mr. G. likes to come and go through the bathroom window. He’s probably out looking for the next Mrs. G. He’s the reason why the cat population fluctuates around here.”
Terry threw the next question at him. “Do you know who killed Barry Gerber and Damian Hedge?”
“How would I know that?”
“Because your agent came to the station and gave us a copy of a script you wrote. The first two murders in your screenplay are exact duplicates of what happened to Gerber and Hedge. Except you wrote it before they were killed.”
“Wow,” Victor said. “My agent came to your house?”
“Any other time and I would laugh,” Terry said. “But how did you come to make up a story about people getting exsanguinated, and then a short while later two Hollywood heavies show up bloodless at your place of business?”
“Am I a suspect?”
“You’re a person of interest,” Terry said. “So why don’t you start making this interesting for us.”
Victor sipped some more Wild Cherry Pepsi. As pudgy as he was, he didn’t gulp. He sipped his drink like Lady Astor at teatime. But his hand was shaking. There was a second soda bottle on the counter with a few inches of brown liquid in it. Apparently it was the ashtray. Victor dropped his cigarette in and held his glass with two hands. “I can’t believe they went through with it. And now, if they get caught, it’s all my fault.”
“Who are they?” Terry said.
“Joy’s parents, Roger and Aggie Dingle,” Victor said. “That used to be her last name, but she changed it.”
“How well do you know Roger and Aggie?”
“I only met them after Joy was killed. I called and offered to fly down to Texas with the body. I wanted to go to the funeral anyway, so it was no big deal, but they appreciated it. I think they were so devastated, they were glad not to have to fly to LA and bring her home.”
“Then what?”
“After the funeral, I stayed with Roger and Aggie for a week. They needed to talk to someone about Joy’s life in LA, and I was the source. I didn’t mind staying down there. It was a good time for me to get away from the morgue. They mainly wanted to know about the drugs. How a nice kid like Joy gets killed on the streets over a drug deal. I told them about the Cokettes. You know what that is?”
“We do,” Ter
ry said. “Did Joy know?”
“C’mon, get real. She wasn’t stupid. But she never opened a single package that she carried. That’s how she rationalized it. The truth is, that maybe ninety-nine times out of a hundred, there really was a script in the envelope she was delivering.”
“But none of them came from a guy named Carjack at McDonald’s.”
“Fuck you, Terry,” Victor said. “You gonna put Joy on trial now? You want to get ahead in Hollywood, you gotta pay your dues. Would you respect her more if she were sucking some slimeball producer’s cock? How about you, Terry? You’re trying to get in business with Halsey Bates now. Has he asked you to bend over and grab your ankles yet?”
Terry lunged at Victor, took hold of his shirt, and yanked him hard. Wild Cherry Pepsi splashed all over both of them.
I jumped in. “Separate corners. Now,” I said, pulling them apart.
Terry didn’t budge. Victor sat down on the sofa and lit another cigarette. “So everything you see in the movies is true,” he said. “You do rough up people to get them to talk.”
“He didn’t rough you up,” I said. “If you want to press charges against him for spilling your soda, I’ll be your witness. I could use a new partner. Next time I’m putting in for a funny one.”
Victor smiled. “Sorry for that crack about Halsey,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Terry said. “Sorry if I got Pepsi all over your good Metallica T-shirt.”
“Look, Victor. We got murders to solve and maybe more to prevent,” I said. “It’s showtime. Tell us how you came to write that screenplay.”
Victor’s lungs exhaled a cloud of smoke. “It was the night after Joy’s funeral,” he said. “We didn’t drink a lot during the wake, but the funeral ripped your heart out. A lot of her friends spoke. It was a real tribute. Anyway, Roger and Aggie and I sat in their kitchen and got totally shit-faced. Roger said he wanted to kill the people who were responsible for Joy’s death.”
“Did he know who they were?”
Victor nodded. “Roger and Aggie knew exactly who they were. Barry Gerber, Damian Hedge, and Tyler Baker-Broome. It was all on tape on his answering machine.”
“Who left them the message?” I said.
Tears were streaming down Victor’s face. “Joy.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
We gave Victor a few minutes to pour himself a fresh glass of Pepsi and finish his cigarette. One of the cats hopped up on the sofa, walked across his lap, then curled up in a corner, ignoring him. Terry and I pulled up two chairs.
“I don’t know why Garza killed her,” Victor said. “I’m sure she didn’t put up a fight. I think it was one of those macho gang things. Kill someone and make your bones. He just slit her throat and left her to bleed to death. She was able to call 911, and they said they’re on the way, but I think she knew she wasn’t gonna make it. So she made one last call.”
“To her parents,” I said.
“Yeah, but nobody was home. She got their machine. Roger plays the tape for hours on end. I must have heard it a hundred times. She was crying, and you could hear how scared she was. She told them she got mixed up with the wrong people. She said she knew she was doing the wrong thing, but that’s what you have to do to get ahead. She said, ‘Barry and Damian and Tyler all promised I was going to be a movie star, but they lied. My friend Victor told me they were just using me, but I didn’t want to believe him. I trusted them.’ By now the words are coming out in a wet gurgle. She says, ‘Mommy, Daddy, I love you so much. I’m sorry I let you down.’ Then you hear these God-awful bubbling sounds. And that was it.”
“I’m sorry,” Terry said. “I’m really sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“Thanks.” Victor exhaled and let his shoulders relax.
“Is that why you killed Barry Gerber and Damian Hedge?”
“You know I didn’t kill them.”
“Then answer the question you blew off before. How did you write a movie about the murders before they even happened?”
“The three of us were drunk. Roger was ranting about the system. What’s the law gonna do to these guys? A fine? Suspended sentences and community service? No…Roger wanted Texas Justice. He said he’s going to put a bullet in each of their brains. And that’s when Aggie said, ‘A bullet is too good for them. We’re gonna bleed them to death. Real slow. Exsanguination.’”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “It was her idea? I thought you wrote the script and they acted it out.”
“No. I was already working on a screenplay about this guy Aaron who gets out of jail, and then his enemies start getting killed.”
“That’s the one your agent gave us,” I said.
“Yeah, but in my first draft the murder weapon was a gun. I was so focused on the revenge part of the plot, I didn’t care how the victims got killed. But when Aggie came up with the exsanguination idea, I knew it was perfect. So I used it.”
“You mean you stole it,” Terry said.
“It’s not like she was gonna pitch it to a studio,” Victor said. “I thought it was just crazy drunk talk. So I borrowed it.”
“Some people will do anything to get ahead in Hollywood,” Terry said.
“I guess I had that coming,” Victor said.
My cell rang. It was Wendy.
“Tyler Baker-Broome was shot.”
“Shit,” I said. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know. I’ll give you what I got so far.”
“Hold on.” I repeated what she said for Terry, then put her on speaker.
“It happened about an hour ago in Koreatown. Someone tried to nab him in a parking lot. He tried to run and got shot in the process, but he managed to dial 911. He asked for Detectives Lomax and Biggs, then the 911 operator heard a gunshot and the phone went dead. I have Detective Susan Mercier from Central Division on the other line. She’s at the scene.”
“Terry and I know Susan.”
“That’s what she said. When she found out the victim was connected to you guys, she called here. I’m going to patch her through.”
Five seconds later, Detective Mercier was on the line. “Hey, guys,” she said. “I’ve been reading about this vampire you’re chasing. Is this connected?”
“Unfortunately,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“My partner and I just caught this and it’s a little chaotic, but from what I can gather, the victim, Tyler Baker-Broome, had lunch here in a Korean restaurant, then walked to the parking lot to get his car. Somebody was laying for him, pulled a gun; the vic ran, and got shot in the process.”
“Well, is he okay or not?”
“Don’t know. The shooter carted him off in a pickup. The vic tried calling you guys on his cell. I thought you’d want to know.”
“We appreciate it,” Terry said. “Was anyone else involved?”
“Yeah, two crazy civilians,” Mercier said. “Ralph and Cheryl Blanchette, tourists from Staatsburg, New York. They ate at the same restaurant and were in the parking lot getting in their car when it all went down. They decided to play superheroes, tried to follow the pickup, and got the windshield of their rent-a-car shot out. They gave up the chase in a big hurry after that.”
“Did they get the plates on the pickup?” I asked.
“Yeah, and Wendy just told me it’s a match for your suspect.”
“Mike, I’m still on,” Wendy said. “The truck belongs to Roger Dingle.”
“Susan, was he with his wife?” I said.
“His wife? Now I’m confused,” Susan said. “Mrs. Blanchette said there was another man in the back of the pickup. Of course she’s in total shock. It could have been a woman.”
“Damn! It’s not a woman.” Terry started yelling into the phone. “Susan, this is Terry. How noisy is it where you are?”
“It’s a crime scene, Terry. There’s a bit of a buzz.”
“Tell everyone to shut up for thirty seconds,” he said.
He took out his cell and started dialing. In th
e background I could hear Susan Mercier yelling at everyone to keep quiet. Then she came back on. “It’s as quiet as it’s gonna get,” she said. “Oh, shit, now someone’s cell phone is ringing.”
“Answer it,” Terry said.
“Whosever cell is ringing, answer it,” she yelled.
“The phone doesn’t belong to anybody at the scene,” Terry yelled back. “Find it and answer it.”
I could hear a commotion in the background, and then someone called out, “Under the car.” And then the phone stopped ringing, and I heard Susan yell, “Hello!”
Terry was standing right next to me, talking into his cell phone. “Hey, Susan,” he said. “It’s Terry.”
“Son of a bitch,” she said. “There was a second cell phone that wound up under a car. You just called, so you must know who it belongs to.”
“A friend of mine,” Terry said. “The other guy in the back of Dingle’s pickup truck. His name is Halsey Bates.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“This is your case,” Susan Mercier said. “Do you want to come down here and take over?”
Terry and I said no in unison.
“We’re in West Covina,” I said. “We don’t have time to drive to Koreatown and walk a crime scene. We have to find Halsey and Tyler fast.”
Wendy Burns was still conferenced into the call. “And how do we do that?” she said.
“We’re with Victor Shea, the guy who wrote the script,” Terry said. “He’s been semi-cooperative, and if anyone can help us figure out what Roger and Aggie Dingle are going to do next, Victor can. We’ll see what we can get out of him. Wendy, the best you can do is help us find that camper.”
“I have an APB out,” Wendy said. “The problem is, the camper isn’t rolling. It’s hidden. In a garage, in a warehouse, in an airplane hangar. Even if it’s out in the open, do you know how many RVs, campers, and trailers there are in this town?”
“She’s right,” I said. “Big Jim has a dozen of them parked in his truck barn. If they’re hunkered down, they’ll be harder to find than weapons of mass destruction.”
“Do what you can,” Terry said. “Susan, thanks. We owe you.”
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