In Cold Blonde

by James L. Conway

  “All we can tell you is we’re conducting a murder investigation,” Hanrahan said.

  “Edna was walking down the hall with her dog when the Lady in Red came out of the suite,” Ryan said. “Maggie ran into the suite just as the door was closing.”

  “No wonder she wouldn’t open the door for me,” Edna said. “I thought she was a little suspicious, but I never dreamt she was a cold-blooded killer.”

  “Why did you think she was suspicious?” Syd asked.

  “The way she acted when Maggie got locked inside. She got, what’s the word, discombobulated. Very nervous. Oh, and did I mention the gloves?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “She was wearing gloves?”

  Edna nodded. The kind you see on TV all the time, on CSI and such. The kind doctors wear. And some of the police I see here.”

  Syd pulled her pair of surgical gloves out of her pocket. “Like these?”

  “Exactly. Criminals wear them so they won’t leave fingerprints, right?”

  “That’s right, ma’am,” Hanrahan said.

  Edna’s eyes drifted to the body on the floor. “Seeing that poor man must be what made Maggie sick.”

  “What’s that? Sick, how?” Syd asked.

  Edna grimaced at the memory. “She threw up when I got her back into my room. Coughed up some food.”

  Hanrahan, Ryan and Syd exchanged a knowing look. The dog must’ve eaten the missing penis. “Well,” Hanrahan said. “That’s one mystery solved.”

  “What did you do with the… with whatever Maggie threw up?” Ryan asked.

  “Wrapped it in a bunch of toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet.” Edna saw the cops disappointed reaction. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, ma’am,” Syd said.

  Ryan looked at Syd. “This happened last night by the way, about nine-thirty. A room service attendant opened the door to get the dog for Mrs. Kaye, but he never entered the room because there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

  “Damn, that’s fifteen hours ago,” Syd said. “We could have figured out her next victim by now.”

  Hanrahan’s cell phone rang. He answered, listened, said, “Thanks,” and snapped it shut. He looked at Ryan and Syd, “Ready to meet the Lady in Red?”

  They had caught her three times on two cameras. The Lady in Red and Adam Devlin passed through the lobby crossing from the Windows Lounge toward the bank of elevators. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand, two flutes in the other. The Lady in Red had her left arm entwined in his and leaned against him as they walked. But there was no good view of her face from this angle. Adam was taller than the Lady in Red, and since they were walking side-by-side, he blocked her face.

  “You think she did it on purpose?” Hanrahan asked. “Scoped out the cameras ahead of time and tucked behind him to hide her face?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me, Chief,” Syd said. “She’s been one step ahead of us from the beginning.”

  “There is one more shot from this angle,” the head of security said. They were in his office. Hanrahan, Ryan and Syd stood behind him looking at the monitor. The head of security fast-forwarded. “This is three hours and six minutes later.” The Lady in Red entered the left side of frame and walked out the front door. Her back was to camera the entire time.

  “That’s no help,” Hanrahan said.

  “Let’s see the other angle,” Ryan said. The head of security hit a few buttons and the scene shifted to a bank of elevators. Adam Devlin and the Lady in Red turned a corner and walked straight for the camera.

  “Gotcha,” Hanrahan said.

  The video was silent but you could see the Lady in Red’s mouth moving and Adam Devlin smiling. “Okay, freeze it there,” Ryan said.

  The tape froze with a big clear shot of the Lady in Red and Adam Devlin.

  “She’s pretty,” Ryan said.

  “And diabolical,” Syd said. “Imagine, she’s walking arm-in-arm, flirting up a storm with a guy who she knows she’s going to kill and mutilate in just a few minutes.” Syd crossed to the screen, looked closely at Adam. “What did you do to her, you bastard?”

  “You’re calling him a bastard?” Hanrahan asked. “She’s the nutbag rearranging their anatomy.”

  “That’s right. She’s methodically killing certain handpicked men. She has planned this for a long, long time. And when we find the connection between these victims, I guarantee you we’re going find out that she,” Syd pointed at the frozen image of the Lady in Red, “was the first victim.”

  Ryan looked at his partner. “She’s a murderer, Syd. No matter what they did to her, you can’t take the law into your own hands.”

  “Of course not,” Syd said. “I’m just saying as bad as I want to catch her, I’m dying to find out why.”

  “Well let’s start with catching her,” Hanrahan said. He turned to the head of security. “I’ll need a copy of that tape. Media Relations will make copies for all the news outlets. We should have her face on every TV in Southern California by dinner.”

  “And we’ll talk to the widow,” Ryan said. “Maybe she’ll know what Zachary Stone, Colin Wood and Adam Devlin have in common.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Anne sat across from Travis Taylor. The private detective was a good looking man, reminding Anne of a young Clint Eastwood. He had steel-gray hair and a trace of Texas in his gravelly speech. He dressed in a dark blue suit, probably a throwback to his FBI days, and smelled of Old Spice.

  They sat in a quiet corner of the Beverly Hilton lobby bar. Anne had checked into the hotel, treating herself to a suite, but the room wasn’t ready yet. She still had to move out of the Santa Monica apartment and her office at Rogers, Middleton and Roberts, but two things took priority; getting ready for the California Lottery in the morning, and finding out about Syd Curtis.

  “She’s a good cop,” Travis said. “She was only on the street for five years before getting bumped to detective. She had a solid rep as a uniform. She earned three commendations before actually winning a Medal of Valor last year.”

  The Medal of Valor was the highest honor an LAPD officer could earn, not given out lightly and always involving bravery and heroism above and beyond the call of duty. “What did she do?” Anne asked.

  Travis read from his notes, paraphrasing the police report. “A man started beating his pregnant wife in a grocery store in Sherman Oaks. One of the customers tried to stop him; the husband pulled a gun and shot the customer, killing him. Chaos erupted inside the store, panicked people running out the doors, employees fleeing out the back and one of them called 911.

  “Officer Syd Curtis and her partner, Bruce Carroll, were the first to arrive at the scene. Witnesses told them that the man with the gun and his pregnant wife were still inside the store and he’d also taken a teenage girl hostage. The hysterical mother begged the officers to save her daughter.

  “Officers Curtis and Carroll entered the store with weapons drawn and spread out trying to find the suspect. As Officer Curtis turned down an aisle, she found the husband holding his wife and the teenage girl at gunpoint. He immediately put the gun to the back of the teenage girl’s head and said if the police didn’t leave immediately, he was going to shoot the girl. The man was clearly unstable and Officer Curtis feared for the lives of the hostages.

  “Then she spotted her partner moving up behind the suspect. But her partner was unable to risk apprehending the suspect because of the imminent threat of the suspect’s gun to the teenager’s head.

  “So Officer Curtis lowered her gun to the floor and placed her hands above her head. Then she began to slowly approach the suspect. The official language reads, ‘With disregard for her own safety and a high degree of courage and bravery,’ she asked the suspect to please release the hostages and take her instead. Closer and closer she stepped, gently urging him to let the hostages go.

  “Finally the suspect took the gun away from the teenage girl’s head and pointed it at Officer Curtis. That gave her partner t
he opening he’d been waiting for. He fired, killing the suspect.”

  “Wow,” Anne said, impressed. The diminutive, freckled-faced little red head was full of surprises.

  “She got her detective shield and was transferred to Vice. She distinguished herself both as an undercover officer soliciting johns on the street and in a deep cover operation to break up a Russian white slavery ring. The brass was impressed and she got her pick of assignments. She chose Homicide.”

  What Travis didn’t tell Anne was that he also checked on Syd Curtis’s new partner in Homicide, Ryan Magee, and discovered that Ryan and Anne used to be married. And Travis heard that Magee had just hit the Lotto. Judging by her LAPD photo, Syd Curtis was a looker; so, like any trained detective, Travis put two and two together and figured Magee was fucking his partner and now that he was rich, Anne wanted Magee back. And since Anne was paying Travis six hundred dollars a day, he was perfectly willing to help her for as long as possible.

  “Now that’s all official file stuff,” Travis said, sipping his club soda. “But I did find out some intriguing inconsistencies. On her police application she lists her name as Syd Curtis from Riverside, California. She claims to have attended Arlington High School before getting an AA at Santa Monica College. Santa Monica College does list her as a graduate but there is no record of her ever attending Arlington High School. In fact, there is no record for her in the State of California before she got a driver’s license ten years ago when she was eighteen.”

  “Kind of old to get your first driver’s license,” Anne said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Travis said. “And there’s more. A friend of mine works at the Police Academy and I had him pull her application. A letter of recommendation accompanied the application, written by an LAPD officer, Andrea Templeton. Syd Curtis’s address while she attended the Police Academy was the same as Andrea Templeton’s.”

  “They were living together?”

  “Apparently. Officer Templeton was killed in the line of duty a few days before Syd Curtis graduated from the Academy. I checked her obituary; one line stuck out to me.” He referred to his notes again. “In lieu of flowers please send a donation to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation.”

  Anne tried to make sense of this. “GLAAD? What’re you saying, Andrea Templeton was gay?”

  “I don’t know. But that kind of obit is generally a pretty good indicator.”

  “Do you think she and Syd Curtis were lovers?”

  Travis shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve only been on the case for a few hours. But I could try and find out. I’m also curious about Syd Curtis’s life before she suddenly appeared at Santa Monica College. We know she lied about going to Arlington High School, I’d like to know what else she’s lied about.”

  “Me, too,” Anne said. “How much time do you need?”

  “One day, maybe two.”

  “Excellent. And, Travis, don’t bill Rogers, Middleton and Roberts for this; I’ll be taking care of it personally.”

  “Of course,” he said, her request confirming his suspicions. “I’ll call you when I’ve got something.” Travis collected his files and left.

  Secrets and lies. Everybody’s got them, thought Anne. It was one of her favorite things about being a lawyer, finding those lies, exposing the secrets, exploiting a weakness. And sometimes what you found even surprised someone as cynical as Anne.

  Surprise me Syd, thought Anne.

  Surprise the hell out of me.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Alice was staring at herself on television. Surveillance footage taken at the Bel Air Regent Hotel showed her walking to the elevator with Adam.

  Adam looked so, what was the word, expectant, yes, expectant. Look at that smile on his face, she thought. Joyful but still a little bit naughty. You could almost feel his enthusiasm as they walked. Here was a man who ruled his world. Here was a man about to get laid.

  The blonde didn’t look so bad either, if she did say so herself. The short skirt showed off her long legs, the low cut blouse showcased her tits, and the sexy way she walked promised carnal delights.

  She owed it all to Charlotte, her look, that is. Charlotte came to the Institute three years ago; she was bi-polar and a sex addict. They had all sorts of fancy theories for sexual addiction these days — compulsion, disease, impulse control disorder, sexual desire disorder — but Charlotte happily called herself a nymphomaniac. In fact, during her three-month stay, Charlotte seduced three of the doctors (two men and a woman), four nurses (all women), three orderlies (men), six patients (four women and two men) and a husband she found in the atrium who was waiting to visit his wife.

  And here was the thing; Charlotte wasn’t that pretty. Average at best. And for a long time she had trouble seducing the people she wanted to have sex with. So she taught herself how to use clothes, make-up and attitude to become irresistible.

  “But it takes discipline,” she told Alice as they lay naked together. Alice had watched Charlotte sleep her way through the Institute, and though not gay, Alice was so fascinated by Charlotte and her spellbinding sexuality that Alice slept with her just to experience it. And the pillow talk afterward changed Alice’s life.

  “You have tons of potential, Alice. But right now you’re dumpy, frumpy and grumpy. You need to lose weight, look and dress better and learn to exude. Exude fun. Exude mystery. Exude sex.”

  Charlotte made Alice her personal project. She worked out with her at the gym and taught her what to eat; Alice lost twenty pounds in a month. Alice’s brown hair was blah, so Charlotte convinced Alice to dye it blonde. Her brown eyes were dull so Charlotte got her green contact lenses. Losing the weight brought out Alice’s cheekbones; Charlotte taught her how to use make-up to accent them. And, of course, clothes make the woman. So Charlotte worked with Alice using pictures from magazines to design an ideal wardrobe. But color was the key. With Alice’s blonde hair and green eyes, her new dominant color had to be red.

  Last but most important was attitude. It’s tough to get depressed, suicidal people to simply change their personality, so Charlotte made it a game. Alice needed to pretend she was someone else. A movie star blend, if you will. Charlotte taught Alice to walk like Charlize Theron, flirt like Angela Jolie, listen like Anne Hathaway and laugh like Scarlett Johanssen.

  As Alice perfected her skills, she didn’t realize that one day she would be using them for revenge. But she could have never ensnared the fearsome foursome without Charlotte’s life lessons.

  The image on the television switched to a blow up of the surveillance photo, now just a close up of Alice, with a phone number beneath it. The announcer said, “These images were just released by the Los Angeles Police Department and this woman is being sought for questioning in a number of homicides. The Police request that if you’ve seen this Lady in Red or know her identity, please contact the LAPD at the number on the bottom of your screen.”

  The picture switched back to the two shot of Alice and Adam. Then the camera zoomed in on Adam. “Once again, sports agent Adam Devlin has been found dead at the Bel Air Regent Hotel.”

  Alice muted the TV as the announcer handed off to the weatherman. Okay, she thought, my picture is finally out there. But the shot isn’t great and I had my hair down when I was with Adam. Anticipating this, Alice wore her hair tied back for this morning’s encounter with Blake, and would keep it back for tonight’s rendezvous.

  But since the police had found Adam’s body it was just a matter of time until they tumble to her. And if they were smart enough to put two and two together, they could soon predict Blake would be her next victim. It might take them some time, a day or so at least she hoped, but just in case they were waiting for her when she went back to Blake’s beach house, it was time to leave the message.

  Her manifesto.

  Alice took out the cell phone she bought last week at Best Buy, switched on the video recorder, turned it toward herself and said, “Test, test, test, this is a test.” She
shut it off, spun the phone around and hit play. Her face filled the screen and was slightly distorted because she held the phone so close. “Test, test, test, this is a test.” Her recorded image said.

  Alice was satisfied. She erased the test, turned on the video recorder, held the phone a little further away, a final surrender to vanity, and started talking.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “Who is she?”

  “We don’t know, yet,” Ryan said to Emily Devlin. “But, with your help, we’re hoping to find out.”

  Emily Devlin, Adam’s widow, sat in the living room of their Brentwood home in her tennis outfit, a tight, pink Adidas Response Court tank and white Response Court skirt. Her Adidas Barricade V tennis shoes completed the ensemble given to the Devlin’s by a grateful Adidas Corporation after Adam signed his superstar client, Olga, to an exclusive contract.

  Though she’d been worried enough about Adam to report him missing early that morning, Emily wasn’t so worried she’d miss her Wednesday tennis league. She was just returning home, having kicked Alisha’s butt 6-3, 6-1, when Ryan and Syd drove up.

  Emily correctly assumed they were cops as they climbed out of the Crown Vic, and the grim expressions on their faces told her Adam must be dead. Tears were already flowing as the cops introduced themselves and the pretty female officer told her that they were sorry but her husband was dead, murdered.

  They followed her inside, allowing her silent time to digest the news. She led them into the living room, dropped onto her white Thomasville Affinity sofa and stopped crying long enough to ask, “How did it… what happened?”

  Ryan and Syd exchanged a glance. This is where is got delicate. Hearing your husband was dead was one thing, finding out he was killed by a woman, in a hotel room, after they had sex, and then had his penis cut off was something completely different.

  “Mrs. Devlin,” Syd said. “Your husband was at the Bel Air Regent Hotel with another woman.”