“You’re working in television now.” Honnett grinned. “You must be blowing everyone away with your talent and your charm.”
“Oh, yes. Right.”
“Come on. You know how to work your magic. You’ve worked it on me.”
I smiled serenely and let him maintain that illusion.
“You know what I’ve been doing, what about you?” I asked.
“What about me,” he repeated. “It’s mostly been the job.”
“Is everything you work on confidential and top secret or can you tell me about it?”
He smiled at that. “I’ve been on a case, a disturbing case. I’m pretty hung up on it right now. I don’t know how much you want to hear. It’s not romantic, let me put it that way.”
“So, okay.” I looked him over. “What would you like to talk about?”
“See?” he said, shaking his head. “I’m pretty hopeless. When I get working on a big case, I don’t have much else on my mind.”
“Really? And why did you come over here so late?”
“So we could talk.”
“Chuck. Back in Studio City. Were you thinking only about crime?”
“Well,” he said, chuckling like a bad boy who doesn’t mind all that much getting caught. “I’m long past getting involved with some woman just because she’s beautiful. Long past. But I missed you.”
Relationships! I hate talking about them. Not with the guy in question and certainly not with some shrink. I’ve not had the best luck with men, it’s true, but I don’t want to go to some analyst and talk endlessly about my past pain. I know all about my past pain. Men, boys, have slipped away. I came home from fifth grade on the first bus with my little brother, Reggie. Simon was older. He was staying late to work on his sixth-grade art project. When he didn’t come home on the last bus, my parents went out to search. I don’t need to pay a couple hundred bucks an hour to talk about it.
“So you want to hear about this case?” Honnett asked, checking me out.
“Whatever you want,” I said, turning to face him. “Talking’s good.”
He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and said, “Okay, then. Five weeks ago, we had a homicide. It looked like it was a hit on a drug runner. Nothing strange about that.”
“What a world,” I murmured. To Honnett, there was nothing all that strange about men killing each other over drugs and territories. This was the part of himself he didn’t want to show me and maybe, even, I didn’t want to see.
“We had good reason to believe the victim was a coke importer and we figured he’d gotten greedy or whatever they do to piss one another off. Tom Reed and I caught the case, and we were working it. No leads. Looked like a professional hit. Then the next week, I happened to look at the sheet and saw another fellow had been taken out. Different deal. The first guy was shot in the head in his bathtub. The second one was beaten to death in his apartment in South-Central. But there were similarities. Both men had connections to the same gang, a gang that had been getting pushy and moving dope in neighborhoods controlled by other gangs. Both of the victims had been in prison at the same time. And both of their bodies were discovered on Wednesday nights.”
“Is it a gang war?” I asked.
“Not exactly. But to me it seemed like a couple of homicides with too much in common to ignore. I brought it up at a meeting that we should see what happened on the following Wednesday night. That got a laugh.”
“Then what?”
“Wednesday night comes and another Latino guy got wasted. Shot in front of his house. No witnesses. But this guy wasn’t in any gang that we can tell. His wife said he was a peaceful man. He was the manager of a liquor store in Pacoima. She didn’t know what sort of people he was involved with at work. But it seemed like we might make it fit. Kids had been dealing drugs near his corner. Maybe he took them on.”
“So did the department begin to take your theory more seriously?”
“Well, who knows?” Honnett said with a smile that masked his feelings well. “Maybe. But then the following Wednesday night we got nothing. The only murder that came across our desk that night was some older woman.”
“And she didn’t fit the profile.”
“Profile, huh? You’ve been watching too many cop shows.”
“Get off my case, Honnett.” I punched him and he grabbed my fist and pulled me toward him. We got lost for a moment, him pulling me back on the sofa on top of him. When we stopped kissing and touching, I pushed him away and sat up. How were we supposed to have a serious talk if we were just going to give in to lust? “Come back here and tell me about the old woman.”
“You mean,” he teased me, “if she fit the profile?” He stood up then and smiled at me. “She didn’t. She was a white woman in her sixties. A physical therapist.”
“A much-loved physical therapist?”
“Actually, no. She was a retired PT with a history of pissing off every patient she’d ever treated. The kind of physical therapist who was into ‘tough love,’ you know? She gave new meaning to the concept ‘no pain, no gain.’ But her patients seemed to recover in record time and worker’s comp loved her. So no, she didn’t fit our profile.” He reached out and took my hand. As he spoke, he gently pulled me up. “She had no gang connections. She’d never even been in the neighborhoods we’re talking about. Still, her body was found inside her home, which has been part of the pattern. She was found Thursday morning, with the time of death fixed as Wednesday night. There were no witnesses and no suspects, other than those dozens of poor folks she’d exercised to death recovering from busted ankles over the years. But what can we make of the fact that she was shot in the head in bed? No rape. Nothing stolen. More like an execution.”
“There are so many ugly things going on all around us, all the time. In your job, you can’t look away, can you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I get angry when I don’t have a case locked down. I was pretty sure there was a pattern. I felt like we were getting close. But then, the old lady.”
“Can you stay here tonight?” I asked, disturbed that I wanted him so badly, and relieved when I saw him nod. Perhaps this is the way our bodies compensate, react to primal fears. Talk about death, and we need to hold on to someone, chest to chest feel his heart pounding, be physically reminded that we are still alive. Talk about the bogeyman out there in the dark waiting to get us some random Wednesday, and we need to find some good man to sleep beside until he does. I reached for my near empty glass of wine. “Was that physical therapy woman killed last Wednesday?”
“Two weeks ago.” As we walked out of the living room and down the hall, he reached up to turn out the lights. “Last Wednesday night,” he said, “there was another murder. Another possible drug hit. This guy owed a lot of money to some very bad people. His death was an example.”
“So maybe your theory is right, after all.”
“Is it?” Honnett asked. I turned on the lamp next to my bed as he tugged back my quilt and sheets with one long pull. “Aren’t you tired of all this talk about crime, Maddie?”
“Honnett,” I said, stopping his hand before he could distract me again. “This stuff, this string of killings you’re working on, it’s bad. But we live in a big city where those things happen. This is Los Angeles. If you need to talk—”
“You’re a tough chick, huh?”
I smiled at his fond sarcasm, but I kept on. “Is this what’s really bothering you? Or is there something else?” I sat down on the bed and waited.
“Your friend Stock.” Honnett began pulling off his boots, but he watched my face as he mentioned Tim’s name. “He got himself killed last night.”
“I know.” My voice became very quiet.
“It was a Wednesday night.”
“Wait, now.” Suddenly I wondered if I had drunk too much wine. I put my hand up to my face. “Are you saying Tim Stock’s death is part of your pattern? Was it some kind of contract killing?”
“I don’t
know. The fire could have been a cover-up, Maddie. The coroner will tell us what he can. I wouldn’t bet that we’ll get a whole lot considering…Sorry. I knew I shouldn’t tell you this stuff. You were a friend of his.”
“Well, no. Not really a friend,” I said slowly, watching Honnett’s deep blue eyes as I spoke. I told him, then, what I knew about Tim Stock and what I didn’t know. I admitted that my relationship was with Tim’s office, rather than Tim himself.
“So,” Honnett said, stretching out in his jeans and T-shirt on the bed next to where I was sitting, propping his lean body up on one elbow, “Stock didn’t show up for work all week. He didn’t answer his pager for days. Did anyone report the guy missing?”
“I don’t know. Do you think his going missing makes him fit your series of crimes?”
“Maybe he got himself in trouble and crossed someone dangerous. Maybe he was trying to lay low. It’s hard to say.” Honnett began to tug at my hand and pull me down, fully clothed, beside him, and I let him. “Maybe Stock is part of the pattern,” he continued, “maybe he isn’t. Did this guy have a reputation for being a drug user, did you hear?”
“No. I don’t know. I could ask around at the office, if you think it would help.”
“I’ll be getting to that myself.”
Honnett conducting a homicide investigation around the office at Food Freak, now that could only add to everyone’s stress load. My face must have betrayed my thoughts.
“So, Maddie,” he said, whispering into my hair, holding me close, “that’s what I’ve been doing all month.” It felt good to be in his arms again. I looked up, getting a close view of his profile.
“I think I should tell you some other things.” I told him about what had happened earlier in the evening, when I’d been knocked out and placed on the sofa, and later when Holly and I found the magazine hidden in the secret room. “Do you think the clues left in the magazine could have something to do with Tim’s death?” I asked.
He thought it over and then said, in a kind voice, “Some notes about cookbook pages?”
“Sounds frivolous compared to the high-level serialkiller case you’ve been working on.”
“Well, I think you should have reported that assault. And I don’t want you working in that office building alone at night. Got it?”
I nodded against his chest.
“But I can’t really see any connection to what we’re after. It doesn’t fit the pattern, see?”
“Ah,” I said. “The pattern.”
“I mean to say, whoever killed Stock knew exactly where to find him. They nailed him in his garage. My killer wouldn’t have been messing around at Tim Stock’s office. The killings have always been professional-style hits.”
“So that hidden room? And that magazine? And those highlighted words that Wes found?”
“I think some old, long-ago studio executive used to fool around with his secretary in the hidden bedroom, once upon a time, and those cookbook titles were probably some kind of code Stock used to keep the game-show material secure. That’s not the work of my hit man, Madeline,” Honnett said, smiling.
“And the note on the subscription card? The meeting near De Soto and Victory in a few hours?”
“You think that’s important?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Seriously? But you don’t have a clue as to when that note was written. Honey, it’s all just too flimsy. Besides, it doesn’t figure. Either Stock is part of my pattern, in which case he’s got some connection to the drug gangs and we’ll uncover that, or he was just a poor son of a bitch who got caught in a house fire. Either way, that note doesn’t fit into my case.”
“Uh-huh. But aren’t you worried about Heidi and Monica? They’re in danger.”
Honnett looked at me. His eyes were amused. “Heidi and Monica who? That note isn’t part of my pattern either. And if the department sent a detective out every time a Hollywood writer made a note about murder, we’d be swamped.”
“Even a Hollywood writer who ended up being killed?” I asked.
“It’s too little to go on, Maddie. You don’t even know the date.”
“Okay. Okay.”
“You going out there anyway?”
“I might.”
“You are so stubborn.”
I bit his shoulder until he yelled “Ouch!”
“I know,” I said. “So where is De Soto and Victory, anyway?”
He chuckled. “The deep Valley, darling. A ways out there.” He was trying to dissuade me.
“So I’ll take my cell phone,” I said, “and if there’s anything there to report, I can call you.”
It was nearly three A.M. and the world outside the windows was quiet. We lay in the lamp-lit bedroom, silently thinking our thoughts. Honnett’s case didn’t seem to connect to what I’d known about Tim.
“What are you thinking about?” Honnett asked.
“Tim Stock. He was a guy who drove a fancy car and dated pretty women. He read Shakespeare. He wrote game shows. I don’t think he’d be involved with serious criminals like the ones you are tracking.”
“You may be right. Stock could just be another poor sucker who happened to die on a Wednesday night.”
“And that’s bad enough,” I said.
Honnett got up and turned out the light. I heard him pulling off his jeans in the dark and then he climbed back into my bed. He pulled me closer to his body and I responded to the warmth of his breath against my neck. I felt uneasy, in bed with him like that, thinking about love and death. But it’s an odd thing, hormones.
“Honnett?” I reached out my hand and felt for him.
“You want me to help you out of your clothes?”
“Thanks.”
Chapter 15
On only one hour of sleep, nobody looks too good. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I moved Holly’s VW and pulled the Jeep out into traffic, awake only but for the curative powers of a hot shower, eyedrops, and a can of Diet Coke. Unfortunately, my old Grand Wagoneer is from the days before cup holders were a standard feature. I propped the soda can between the gearshift and my purse and tried to keep the car steady so the can wouldn’t tip.
If I had been fully awake, I might have marveled at the almost complete lack of traffic on the Hollywood Freeway where it transitioned to the 101 North. Five A.M. was one hell of a good time to drive. I’d have to remember that.
Mile after mile I zoomed into the western reaches of the San Fernando Valley, as the sun rose from behind my car, turning the chilly, misty, overcast morning a brighter shade of gray by the minute. It’s what native Angelenos call “the marine layer,” the condition that requires us all to leave the house in sweaters on days that will end up in the eighties. I pulled my pink sweater a little tighter and checked the sky. The thick, low-level clouds seemed to go on forever, forming a lumpy ceiling over the Valley. I knew they’d burn off around noon.
Having checked the map book, I had learned that De Soto Avenue intersected Victory Boulevard out in Woodland Hills. It was approximately 16.4 miles from my house and, at the speed I was able to drive at this hour, I would be there in less than fifteen minutes.
I pulled off the freeway and turned north onto De Soto, cruising through the intersection at Oxnard, a Zippy-Lube next to a taco stand on the left. With only a diet soda for breakfast, I confess I eyed the taco stand, but then remembered my errand. On the right, I saw the campus of Los Angeles Pierce College, a two-year school whose bucolic acreage harkened back to the time in the twenties when this part of the Valley had all been ranch land and orange groves. Now, those former fields surrounding the school were filled with so-called ranch-style homes, built mostly in the fifties and sixties, each on its own small grassy lot. The college, however, was over two hundred acres and much of it was still open fields. I slowed down and reread my directions. Up on the right, I saw the entrance I was looking for, the turnoff onto El Rancho Drive. I was now on the Pierce campus, driving slowly, looking at pasturelan
d.
On the left was an equestrian arena, with a barn farther off next to a park. Driving less than fifteen miles an hour, I passed the agriculture science building, but classes wouldn’t start for another few hours at least and there were no students to be seen anywhere. The poultry unit next door was equally devoid of human activity. If Tim Stock or any of his associates were looking for a remote location within twenty minutes of the KTLA studio, they had found it. I scanned the hay-colored fields in the misty morning, making sure I didn’t miss the first right turn. In my map book, this tiny path was called Pepper Tree Lane, but there was no street sign to be found that marked it as such. I made the right turn, hoping I wasn’t lost already.
To my right was a complex of feed barns. This was not simple. The note instructed the second building on the right. Did they mean to include these separate barns as one building? I decided to keep going and check things out farther down the lane. When I came to the next structure on the right, I was glad my truck had four-wheel drive. I pulled in over the dried, rutted mud and looked for someplace to hide the Jeep.
As it turned out, this place was clean out of hiding spots. The parking area was there along the road. The fields all around the barn were pastureland. Not only was this site remote, but it also provided a great defensive position. No one could easily wait in ambush. I slid out of my truck and walked over to the nearest building, a rustic-looking wooden enclosure. My wristwatch said 5:30. If today was the day for some important meeting, and if I hadn’t managed to get the directions completely fouled up, I had about thirty minutes to look around.
It was a wonderfully quiet morning, with only the music of a dozen birds noisily waking up and discussing this odd stranger walking around the mud in that crazy little skirt and those insane little tan suede boots. This, they were clearly tweeting, was no kind of a student they’d ever seen.
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