In Cold Blonde

by James L. Conway

  “Feel better?”

  He could clearly make out the half-hearted, but still muffled, “Fuck you.”

  Then Alice took in her surroundings. She was on the floor of an office placed in front of a big screen TV. There was also a video camera pointed at her. What the hell?

  “You’re wondering what I’ve got up my sleeve, aren’t you? Well, promise not to scream, I’ll take your gag off and we can talk about it.”

  Alice realized yelling wasn’t going to get her anywhere so she nodded. Blake untied the bandana and removed the washcloth. “My head hurts,” she said.

  “I’m not surprised, you’ve got a lump the size of a softball on your scalp.”

  “Asshole.” She didn’t yell, just a quiet statement of fact. Then she asked, “What’d you hit me with?”

  “The bottle of wine.”

  “Prick.”

  “Wait a minute, you came here to kill me, right? A man’s got a right to self-defense.”

  “Cocksucker.”

  “Funny you should say that,” Blake said. “Because I’ve got a tape here of someone sucking cock, but it’s not me, Alice, it’s you.” Blake hit a remote control and the video began to play.

  A hand held camera sweeps across Colin Wood’s game room and comes to rest on an unconscious Alice Waterman. Adam and Colin kneel next to her. “Fuck, that shit works fast,” Colin says. “Help me get her on the pool table, Adam.”

  They pick her off the floor and lay her on the pool table. Colin holds her neck but he lets go too soon and her head thuds on the table.

  “Careful,” Adam says, looking very uncomfortable. He looks directly into the lens. “You sure taping this is a good idea, Blake?”

  “It’s a brilliant idea, bro. When we’re old and gray and snorting Viagra, we’re going to cherish the chance to relive our glory days.”

  Blake froze the image and looked at Alice. “How much of that night do you remember?”

  Alice stared at the screen. At last. The tape. Answers.

  “How much?” Blake repeated.

  Alice knew she’d have to pretend to cooperate to see the tape, so she said, “After I passed out, nothing. Did you record everything that happened to me that night?”

  “Yes.”

  The Lady in Red turned back to the frozen image. “Let me see it. I want to know.”

  Blake went over to the video camera aimed at Alice and turned it on.

  Alice eyed the camera suspiciously. “What’re you doing?”

  “How would you like a chance to tell the whole world why you murdered Colin Wood, Adam Devlin and Zachary Stone? How would you like the whole world to watch your reaction as you watch your own rape?”

  “But you’re on that tape. You’d be implicating yourself.”

  “Actually, there is a ten year statute of limitations on rape in California. Our… party was shot eleven years ago. So while this tape confirms I was a sleazebag in high school, I won’t be putting myself into any legal jeopardy.”

  “You want to tape me watching myself get raped? You are one sick fuck.”

  “No argument there, Alice. But I’m also a filmmaker, and we’ve got a chance here for a mind-blowing documentary. Wouldn’t you like a chance to set the record straight, tell the world in your own words why you decided to kill those men. Show the world what happened to you eleven years ago.”

  Yes, she thought. “What happens after I watch the tape?”

  “I interview you. You walk us through each murder, the more detail the better.”

  “And then?”

  Blake shrugged. “I call the cops.”

  “Kind of sucks for me.”

  “I can’t let you go, Alice. You’re a murderer. Hell, you came here to kill me, right?”

  She nodded.

  “And if I let you go, you’ll try again.”

  “I see your point,” she said.

  “So, do we have a deal?”

  Alice pretended to think about it. She didn’t mind him turning her over to the police. Getting arrested had always been her plan, but only after killing all four of the bastards. So she needed time to figure a way out of the handcuffs. And, more than anything, she wanted to see that video.

  She looked at Blake watching her expectantly. God he looked desperate. She milked the suspense for a few more seconds and then said, “Okay, you scumbag. Deal.”

  What a fucking coup! This film was going to resurrect his movie career. Blake could hardly contain his glee. He hit Play on the remote.

  FORTY

  Detective Syd Curtis was one interesting woman, Travis Taylor decided. The private detective sat in his Century City office surrounded by an array of computers screens linking him to mainframes and databases across the planet. But even in the wired age, good old fashion police work and instincts were needed to crack a case. And that meant personal relationships with people who had personal relationships with people who had personal relationships with people. And it was that network, the human network that had helped Travis crack open Syd Curtis.

  And his investigation only confirmed an old axiom he believed in, you never know what you’re going to find.

  He’d started with the Department of Motor Vehicles. The only real paper trail he had. When you apply for a driver’s license you are required to provide proof of a birth date and social security number and, if you have a valid driver’s license from another state, the driving portion of the test can be waived.

  Travis spent the last two years of his FBI career on loan to Homeland Security and he spent a lot of time interfacing with DMVs all across the country. Valid driver’s licenses were prized possessions for illegal aliens and potential terrorists so tough new measures were instituted to make the licenses themselves much harder to forge.

  And he became quite friendly with Deputy Director Warren Welch of the California Department of Transportation. He called Warren who called his friend, Joyce, who called her sister-in-law, Bella, and got Syd’s application file pulled. Elapsed time from Travis’s first call to Warren’s call back with the goods, eighteen minutes.

  Syd Curtis’s Social Security Number was 492-43-7490. The number alone told Travis something. The first three numbers of a Social Security Number are determined by the ZIP code of the mailing address of the application. And these three numbers, 492, indicated a Missouri address. That was confirmed by the birth certificate, issued by Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The birth certificate listed the birth mother as Amanda Curtis and the father as Todd Curtis.

  The date of birth matched her LAPD application. But on the application she’s claimed to be from Riverside, California. Now it was certainly possible that she was born in Kansas City and her parents moved to Riverside, but since she lied about attending Arlington High School, there was a good chance she’d never moved at all.

  Judging by her age, Travis figured Syd had to be in high school ten to fifteen years ago. Syd was a very uncommon name so he was hoping to get lucky. He accessed the Kansas City School District database and searched for Syd Curtis. There were three students named Syd Curtis in the district but two were male. The only female, Syd Curtis, attended Lincoln High School but dropped out her junior year.

  Her home address was 1876 Tracy Avenue. He checked the tax records. The property was owned in joint tenancy by Amanda and Jay Stevens, M.D.

  A wrinkle. The last name was Stevens, not Curtis. If the mother divorced and remarried, that would explain the different last name, or there was a chance the Curtis family moved. Maybe they moved Syd’s junior year, which would mean she actually transferred, not dropped out.

  Travis logged into the Missouri Vital Records marriage certificate database for the name Jay Stevens in Kansas City. Travis had to set broad parameters; Syd’s mother could have remarried as early as the year Syd was born until last year. That’s twenty-seven years and he was afraid he’d get too many hits. But only thirty matches came up and it took Travis less than a minute to find the only Jay Stevens that
married an Amanda Curtis. They were married on June 3, 1986.

  So the Stevens still lived in the same house. Good.

  Next Travis Googled Jay Stevens + Kansas City, Missouri. There were a few hits about a boy named Jay Stevens who was the star of his little league team, but then a slew of hits from the Kansas City Star about Dr. Jay Stevens. More specifically about his tragic death when he fell asleep in his car after closing the garage door, but left the engine running.

  The police ruled the death an accident. Dr. Stevens was an emergency room physician and kept very long hours. His tearful wife told officers it wasn’t the first time he’d fallen asleep in the garage, but it was the first time he’d forgotten to turn off the car.

  Travis found the date of the accident,

  The same year Syd dropped out of school.

  Interesting.

  On a hunch Travis ran Syd Curtis’s name through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website and got a hit. Syd Curtis was reported missing by her mother, Amanda, on February 18, 2001. There was also a picture of a cute sixteen-year-old red head, undoubtedly Syd Curtis.

  So Travis had a few questions. Syd left home just one week after her stepfather died. Why?

  Syd Curtis is alive and well in Los Angeles but is still listed as missing on the database. Why?

  Does Syd’s mother even know she’s alive? And if not, why?

  One way to find out, Travis thought. He used the FBI’s Reverse Directory to input 1876 Tracy Avenue and get the home’s phone number. He dialed, heard the ring, then a tentative, “Hello?”

  “Yes, hello, my name is Don Wofford, I’m a writer for the Kansas City Star and I’m doing a Sunday feature on runaway kids.” Travis decided it wasn’t his place to tell Amanda Stevens that her daughter was alive. At least, not yet. And he replaced his natural Texas twang with a flat Midwestern accent.

  There was a long pause, then, “And why, exactly, would you be calling me?” She pronounced her words very carefully but Travis could tell she’d been drinking.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Mrs. Stevens. I was in school with Syd, and we were friends. I remember that terrible accident, when Dr. Stevens was killed, and I remember how upset Syd was. A bunch of us tried to be there for her, but I guess we let her down, because just a few days later…” He trailed off, letting her fill in the obvious blanks. “Did you ever hear from her, Mrs. Stevens? Do you know where she is now?”

  A long pause, Travis was afraid she’d hang up, but then, finally he heard, “No.” Amanda Stevens’ voice was brittle, she was fighting back tears. “I never heard from Syd. To be honest, I wasn’t that worried at first; I was sure she’d get scared or run out of money and come running home. Every time the phone rang, I was sure it would be Syd. But the days stretched to weeks, then months, then… Did anyone at school ever hear from her? A phone call, an email?”

  “No ma’am. It was like she dropped off the face of the earth.”

  “I think about her all the time, you know. Wondering how she is. What she looks like. Praying that she’s even alive.” The tears were flowing now. “If God would just give me a second chance with Syd, I would do things so differently.”

  She blames herself, Travis thought. Interesting. “That’s actually the point of my piece,” Travis said. “How parents handle the child’s disappearance. How much blame the parents place on themselves; what, if anything, they think they could have done to keep their child home.”

  “I could have listened more,” Amanda Stevens said. “I could have chosen better.”

  “Chosen better, I don’t understand.”

  “My husband was a… demanding man. He was an emergency room doctor, under enormous stress, kept terrible hours. Syd’s real father deserted us and it was real hard on Syd and me until Dr. Jay came along. Real hard.” Travis could hear ice rattle as she took a drink of something. “I couldn’t risk losing Jay. No matter what…” she trailed off, leaving the phrase unfinished. Then she hurriedly added, “It was best for both of us.”

  But the unfinished phrase stuck with Travis. No matter what…

  No matter what he did to her, Travis wondered. Travis knew better than to come right out and ask, so he tread carefully. “So you chose Jay over Syd?”

  A long silent pause then, “Yes.” And then the dam broke. Amanda Stevens was sobbing now, years of guilt and shame pouring out of her. “She tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t afford to listen. You understand that, don’t you? If Jay had gone to jail, what would we have done?”

  And then Travis knew. The stepfather was abusing Syd. He’d heard different versions of the same story so many heartbreaking times before. Abused by one parent, betrayed by the other, the only choice the child sees is escape. Some place different, any place different, no matter what the risk.

  There was nothing more Travis needed from Amanda Stevens at the moment so he thanked her for her time and promised to let her know when the article would run.

  Part one of the Syd Curtis mystery was solved. Syd ran away from home when she was seventeen years old and ended up in Los Angeles. Now most kids with the same resume end up on the streets or doing porn, drug addicted and all too often, dead.

  But Syd Curtis ended up a cop. How did that happen?

  The only lead Travis had was the woman Syd was living with when she applied to the Police Academy, Andrea Templeton. How did Syd and Andrea meet?

  Travis went online and Googled Andrea Templeton. He wanted to review the articles written about Andrea after her death. And he found a clue in a Daily News piece about Iraq war vets killed on the streets of Los Angeles after surviving war in the Middle East. It mentioned that a brother and sister, both Iraq vets, were killed three years apart. Amanda Templeton, a cop, shot in the line of duty. And her brother, Eric, a paramedic, killed in a drug deal gone bad.

  Interesting. So Travis Googled Eric Templeton, and found three pages of articles on Eric’s murder. Templeton was stationed at Fire Station 82 in Hollywood, and lived in an apartment nearby. He was found stabbed to death in that apartment along with another man, Ernesto Sian, who had been shot once through the head. No weapons were found in the apartment. The articles described Sian as a known pimp who had two prior arrests but no convictions. Eric Templeton had no police record. And as far as Travis could tell from the articles, no one was ever arrested for the crime.

  Something didn’t sound right. What was Eric Templeton doing in the same room with a scumbag like Ernesto Sian?

  So Travis called a friend of his, LAPD Deputy Chief Randy Tuttle. Tuttle worked Vice for a decade before moving up to head Robbery Homicide. Travis asked him if he remembered a pimp named Ernesto Sian.

  “Sure, he ran a string of young girls out of Hollywood about ten years ago. Used to pick them up at the bus station, get them hooked and put them on the street.”

  “You remember anything about his murder?”

  “He was murdered?”

  Travis laughed. “Guess that’s a no.”

  “I could pull the file, take a look if you like.”

  Travis told him he wasn’t sure it was necessary at this point, but would get back to Randy if he needed more help.

  Travis didn’t believe in coincidences. And Andrea Templeton’s brother being found dead in the same room with a pimp who preyed on runaways seemed like a big coincidence. Travis went back to the Internet and checked the date of the murders; November 16, 2003. Just over eighteen months after Syd ran away from Kansas City.

  Was Ernesto Sian waiting at the bus station the night Syd Curtis arrived? Could this decorated cop have actually been a hooker?

  Had Eric Templeton somehow come between Ernesto Sian and Syd? Was he a client? Had he met her professionally?

  If Ernesto Sian kept his girls drugged up, Syd could have overdosed. If an ambulance was called, Eric Templeton could have responded.

  Travis looked up the number for Fire Station 82, called them and asked where they take drug overdose victims. The
y told him St. John’s Hospital.

  All Travis had to do now was find someone who knew someone at St. John’s who would be willing to check the admittance files for the last quarter of 2003. If Syd Curtis had been brought in by Eric Templeton, he’d found his connection.

  Travis glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty. Probably too late to follow up tonight; it would have to wait until morning. In the mean time, he owed his client an update. He picked up his phone and dialed; he was sure Anne would be fascinated by the new revelations about the increasingly mysterious Syd Curtis. Travis already had discovered enough to get Syd kicked off the police department — lying on your Academy application was cause for immediate dismissal.

  But there seemed to be much more; Syd was a runaway, possibly a hooker and corpses littered her past.

  Just the kind of dirt Anne was hoping for.

  FORTY-ONE

  Anne heard her phone vibrating in her purse but decided to ignore it. Ryan had just walked in and she didn’t want to give him the impression that anyone or anything was more important than he was.

  “Hey, Handsome,” she said getting up and hugging him. She kept it businesslike, no genital grind, hopefully that would come later.

  “Trader Vic’s,” Ryan said, sitting down. “I can’t believe you picked Trader Vic’s. I think I’m still hung over from that crazy night.”

  Trader Vic’s was a Polynesian-themed waterhole and restaurant famous for lethal drinks and pupu platters. It was attached to the Beverly Hilton until a few years ago when the hotel relocated and downsized Trader Vic’s to a poolside lounge. But the garish decoration remained, as did the delicious but deadly Tiki Bowl, Singapore Symphony and Rum Giggle.

  Ten years ago Ryan and Anne came to Trader Vic’s to celebrate their engagement. They ordered a Scorpion Bowl, a vicious concoction of rum, fruit juice and brandy, served in a bowl with a flower floating in the middle. The drink is so big it’s served with four straws, so a party of four can share it. Ryan and Anne liked it so much they ordered another, and then a third.