Bloodthirsty Read online

  The coffee pot is near my desk, at the far end of the room. I poured myself a cup while they cracked lame jokes about dead celebrities and Chinese firemen. When they ran out of steam, I walked over to talk to Ganek and Kanarick.

  “I need a little help from the Auto table,” I said.

  “Doesn’t your agent handle that for you?” Kanarick said.

  “My vic left the house yesterday morning in a 2005 black Toyota Land Cruiser. His body turned up in the Hills, but we have no whereabouts on the vehicle. I don’t have the plates or the VIN, and I don’t have time to go through the system. Can you locate it for me? Preferably with a clean set of prints from the guy who jacked him.”

  “If we find it, who plays us in the movie?” Ganek said.

  “The Olsen twins.”

  I went back to my desk and called my father.

  “Your name’s in the paper,” he said. “How you doing on this case?”

  “It practically solves itself. What’s Dennis’s cell number?”

  “Dennis? My driver?”

  “Yeah, what’s his number?”

  “What do you need Dennis for?”

  I knew this would happen. But I was ready for him.

  “Dennis is an ex-cop. I may have a freelance security gig for him.”

  “In a pig’s ass,” Jim said. “You know that Dennis is driving Damian Hedge around and you want to question Hedge. Calling me is the easiest way to track him down.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “Forget it. I gotta go.”

  I hung up. Boy, had I handled that badly.

  The phone rang. It was Jim. He gave me Dennis’s cell number and the location they were shooting at today. “And next time you want a favor, ask for it straight-out,” he said. “Freelance gig…you think I’m stupid?”

  “No, I’m stupid to think that I could ask my own father a simple favor and not be grilled with who, what, when, where, why, and how. Whatever happened to no questions asked?”

  “Get me two Mexican hookers, a quart of tequila, and a bathtub full of lime Jell-O—that’s a simple no-questions-asked favor a father could do for his son,” he said. “But if you want me to help you find your homicide suspect, who’s riding around in my car, I think I’m entitled to a couple of straight answers.”

  “Damian Hedge is not a suspect,” I said.

  “Why the hell not? He was schtupping Barry’s old lady.”

  I was floored. “You knew that?” I said.

  “Hello, Detective…I’m a teamster on a movie set. You think I just sit around soaking up the ambience? I’m like Central Intelligence. Did you forget who you came to for help on the Familyland murders?”

  “Oh, right. It completely slipped my mind. You’re the guy who solved that case. And who do you want to play you in the movie?”

  “I’m playing me,” he said. “Nobody plays Big Jim Lomax but Big Jim Lomax. And if you need his insider information on this case, you know his number.”

  “Thanks. If I ever need a 300-pound fly on the wall who talks about himself in the third person, I’ll send for you.”

  “Two eighty-seven,” he said. “And my cholesterol is down to—”

  “Dad, I gotta go. Terry just walked in.”

  I hung up. Terry was not alone.

  “Look who I found,” he said. “She was parked across the street, deciding whether or not to come in and talk to us. I spotted her and helped her make the right decision.”

  The woman with him looked petrified.

  It was Carmen, Barry’s maid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We took Carmen into an interview room. Terry wanted to make her feel comfortable, so naturally he went for a laugh.

  “Miguel,” he said to me, “get Carmen some café, por favor.”

  The joke sailed right over her head. “No, no,” she said, horrified that a cop was being asked to fetch coffee for a maid.

  I stepped in. “Carmen, what can you tell us about Barry Gerber?”

  “I go to confession this morning. Father Bill say go to police.”

  “Father Bill is right,” I said. “What did you say to him?”

  “I say I’m sorry. I need the money. I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “La basura,” she said. And then the dam broke. First a flood of Spanish. Then the universal language all men understand. Tears.

  “A hysterical woman,” Terry said. “I feel right at home.”

  “Un momento,” I said, and headed to the squad room for reinforcements.

  Detective Elizabeth Estupinan was at her desk. She was perfect for the job at hand. Three years in homicide, thirty-four years as a Spanish-speaking woman. It took me five momentos to give her the background on Carmen.

  Elizabeth went into the interview room, leaving the door open so we could listen. We didn’t understand a word of it, but we could hear Carmen calming down. Finally, we were invited back.

  “She thinks it’s her fault that her boss got killed,” Elizabeth said. “Last week a woman approached her at the farmers’ market, said she was a reporter, and offered to pay Carmen two hundred bucks for the trash from Gerber’s wastebasket. It’s pretty common in Hollywood. Maids can supplement their income by trafficking in celebrity garbage.”

  “And she agreed to do it?”

  “Not at first, but the woman upped the ante to five hundred, and said it’s harmless because it’s just crap he throws away anyway. She said if Carmen didn’t help, she’d just hire some kids to go through the trash cans on garbage day, and Carmen would lose out on the money.”

  “So she did it,” I said.

  “It made sense, and five hundred is a lot of money in her tax bracket.”

  “Did she give you a description of the woman?” Terry asked.

  “White, about five-five, somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, same color hair as Carmen’s.”

  “Mousy gray,” Terry said.

  Elizabeth laughed. “Not gray. She says her hair is plata. Silver.”

  “Fine,” Terry said. “Mousy plata.”

  “How does she get in touch with this woman again?” I said.

  “It was a one-way street,” Elizabeth said. “She never gave Carmen her number. A real reporter would have, because she’d want to keep Carmen on as a source. The woman approached her last Monday at the farmers’ market and picked up the trash on Friday at the same location.”

  “Smart place to do it,” I said. “No surveillance cameras.”

  “Ask her what went on between Royal Summerhaven and Damian Hedge,” Terry said.

  Elizabeth didn’t have to say a word. Carmen caught the important part and shook her head. “No sé nada sobre Damian Hedge,” she said.

  Elizabeth started to translate.

  “I caught the ‘nada’ part,” I said.

  “Tell her we’re calling Father Bill, and if she doesn’t answer the question, her soul will rot in hell for all eternity,” Terry said.

  “Somebody had a traumatic Catholic childhood,” Elizabeth said.

  “I had two aunts who were nuns,” Terry said. “I’m scarred for life.”

  “Let me try something short of eternal damnation,” Elizabeth said, resting her hand on Carmen’s gnarled knuckles. “Señora, por favor. Es importante.”

  ‘Importante’ must have been the magic word. Or maybe it was ‘por favor,’ because Carmen gave it up. Damian and Royal had been sneaking around for months, but even in a house as big as Park Place, you can’t sneak steaming hot sex past the woman who does your laundry. Carmen knew. And she was there the day Gerber found out. Apparently Señor Barry was muy pissed off.

  Terry made a fist with his left hand. “Ask her if Royal and Damian are still…” He took his right forefinger and began sliding it in and out of his fist.

  Carmen shrugged. “Quién sabe?”

  A few questions later, and we decided we’d gotten all we could. We told her she might have to come back for an ID if we ever found the bogu
s reporter.

  “This poor woman feels very guilty about that,” Elizabeth said. “I wish I knew how to help her.”

  “Send her home,” Terry said. “Tell her to say ten Hail Marys, give the five hundred bucks to the church, and all will be forgiven.”

  Elizabeth looked at me. “I guess he wasn’t kidding when he said he was scarred for life.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  We had only been in the interview room for half an hour, but when I got back to my desk there were five messages.

  The first was from Wendy Burns. She’s a Detective III, and she’s the supervisor who assigns cases to the homicide teams and oversees a lot of what we do. Technically she’s our boss, but she doesn’t act bossy, because we all report to an even bigger boss—Lt. Brendan Kilcullen. And as Wendy says, when you have Kilcullen looking over your shoulder, you already have more control freaks than you need.

  Wendy’s desk is catty-corner to mine. She could easily have waited till I got back and told me that the morgue had scheduled Gerber’s autopsy. But like a lot of good cops, she deals with the dark side of the job by making light of it.

  She left a note. Barry Gerber cordially invites you to his Final Opening. Tuesday May 8 at 11 a.m. 1104 North Mission Road, Los Angeles. Black tie optional. Masks and shoe covers mandatory.

  The next message was from the guys in Autos. Found your vehicle. It’s at the impound lot on Mansfield. You owe us. Love, Mary Kate and Ashley.

  The last three were from Kilcullen. The first said, My office. Now. The second said, Bring your wiseass partner. And finally, Stop reading your fucking messages and haul ass. If Terry or Wendy had left a note like that, I’d smile. With Kilcullen, you know he’s not kidding around.

  I stopped reading my fucking messages, got my wiseass partner, and hauled ass to Kilcullen’s office.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, smiling broadly.

  Terry tossed me a look. We know how to deal with the angry Kilcullen, but the chipper version can be lethal. We said good morning.

  “Look what I’m reading,” he said, holding up a paperback book. “It’s called Secrets of Successful Speakers: How You Can Motivate, Captivate, and Persuade by Lilly Waters. Did you know that psychological studies show that the average person is more afraid of public speaking than of dying?”

  “Actually, I knew that, sir,” Terry said. “Seinfeld used that as a setup for a bit once. Then he says, ‘So when you go to a funeral, most of the people there would rather be lying in the box than standing at the podium giving the eulogy.’”

  “Shut up, Biggs. I’m in the middle of a motivational speech.”

  “Yes, sir,” Terry said. “And God knows you’re good at it.”

  “I’m not like the average person,” Kilcullen said. “I’m not afraid to open my mouth. My fear is that I won’t be heard. Or I’ll be heard and my message won’t be processed. So let me elaborate on what I said yesterday. You don’t have a life. You have a homicide. I understand that Mr. Gerber was a coke-snorting, pussy-chasing, big time Hollywood producer. But the key words here are ‘big time,’ ‘Hollywood,’ and ‘producer.’ LA is an industry town, and lest you forget, this is the Hollywood station. We have relationships with all the studios in our area. We get more media coverage than the other divisions, because we live right here in 90028. And as we all know, there are two kinds of media coverage. The first is called good. And what’s the second one called, Biggs?”

  “I don’t know the technical term, sir, but I think it may have the words ‘Lomax,’ ‘Biggs,’ and ‘traffic detail’ in it.”

  “You’re a smart man, Detective Biggs. Are you smart enough to solve the heinous murder of one of this town’s most valued citizens?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “So then, the two of you are motivated.”

  “I speak for my partner, sir,” Terry said, “when I say that we are motivated within an inch of our jobs.”

  “Good. I’ll have to write to Miss Lilly Waters and let her know that her book is extremely effective. Now fill me in.”

  We did.

  “What about this Damian Hedge? Have you interviewed him yet?”

  “First we have an autopsy,” Terry said, “then we meet with crime lab and go over the victim’s car, then Hedge.”

  “So you won’t have time to do lunch with your Hollywood asshole friends?” Kilcullen said.

  “Only the ones who are suspects, sir,” Terry said.

  “Lomax, get your wiseass partner out of here and get back to work.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said and headed toward the door.

  I’m not one of those dogs who has to be motivated by fear, but every time we catch a big case, Kilcullen loves to remind us that police work and politics go hand in hand, and that some victims are more important than others. I hate being browbeaten, but I don’t say much. I internalize.

  Terry, on the other hand, sees it as part of the game. Tag, you get your balls busted. Tag, you bust back. Sometimes I love it when he busts back. This time, I was counting on it. We were almost out the door when he came through.

  “Hey, Loo,” he said.

  Kilcullen looked up. “What?”

  Terry blew him a kiss. “Ciao.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Los Angeles has the busiest morgue in the country. New York City gets more dead bodies but they spread the wealth across four different facilities. LA puts all its dead in one basket.

  According to the coroner’s daily inventory sheet, Barry Gerber was 1 of 129 bodies waiting to be processed. Just another average day at the morgue. As Craig Harvey, Chief of Operations, likes to say, “That’s how we keep our prices so low. Volume.”

  Not all of the dearly departed are crime victims. They die in car wrecks, kitchen fires, or alone in motel rooms with an empty pill bottle on the night table. But unless they die under the watchful eye of a doctor, the cause and manner of death must be determined by a forensic specialist. And when the death is a homicide, the cops investigating the murder have to be there too.

  Anybody who’s ever seen a TV cop show thinks they know what a morgue looks like. A stark, sterile room. A wall of stainless steel drawers. A somber attendant slides one drawer open and unzips a black body bag.

  “Yes,” the next of kin says, “that’s Grandma. I knew I should never have let her go to that monster truck rally after she drank all that eggnog.”

  The body bag is zipped up, and the drawer closes with a metallic thunk.

  That’s a movie morgue.

  In real life, the morgue looks more like something out of Edgar Allen Poe. No steel drawers, just gurneys. And no body bags. They cost too much. The cadavers are wrapped in sheets, heads and feet sticking out at either end.

  The air is ripe with the smell of disinfectant, formaldehyde, and decomposing humanity. The recently deceased don’t smell so bad. But if Granny died in bed July Fourth and nobody found her till Labor Day, she’s gonna stink to high heaven.

  Gurneys are parked everywhere. On the loading dock, at the admissions desk, in the hallways, waiting to be weighed, fingerprinted, sliced, diced, and gutted. At times you can’t walk ten feet without seeing a toe tag. It’s one big, crowded, waiting room. Everyone’s waiting for the doctor.

  It’s not a pretty place. Which is why next of kin are not invited—not even to identify a body. Instead they get to look at Polaroids.

  There is one place the public can visit. On the second floor, there’s a gift shop. Really. They sell T-shirts, windbreakers, coffee mugs, and all kinds of fun stuff with the coroner’s logo on it. And if you’re a little creeped out about driving to the morgue to do your holiday shopping, they have a website. The profits help fund their Youthful Drunk Driver Visitation Program. When a young kid gets arrested for driving drunk, the court can sentence him to spend three hours in the morgue, where he’ll get an education he’ll never forget.

  Terry and I got there at 10:45 and pulled the car around to the loading dock. A tra
nsport van was backed in, with its rear doors wide open. The driver stepped out of the back. He had a mop in one hand. He waved with the other.

  “Yo, Mike, Terry. How’s it going?”

  It was Victor Shea, our favorite hyphenate.

  LA is full of hyphenates. A rarified few are writer-hyphen-directors or actor-hyphen-producers. The rest are actress-hyphen-Gap salesgirls, cinematographer-hyphen-pizza delivery guys, or some other career combo with a dream on one end of the hyphen and a dead-end job on the other.

  Victor is different. After four years of waiting on tables, driving a cab, and pushing a mail cart up and down the halls of a law firm, he realized that working his ass off for the Man ten hours a day was never going to advance his screenwriting career. So he quit his day job and found something that would.

  The money is piss poor, but the job is just what he needed to get his creative juices flowing. Even better, it gives him plenty of time to write. Victor Shea is a writer-hyphen-LA County morgue attendant.

  He’s five-foot-six, chubby by at least forty pounds, with curly brown hair that’s crying out for Rogaine. He’s the kind of kid who probably got a lot of wedgies in grade school, but at twenty-seven he’s just a likable loser from Allentown, Pennsylvania who’s braving the smog, the earthquakes, and the drive-by shootings for a shot at fame and fortune as a Hollywood screenwriter.

  “Vic,” Terry said. “You sell anything to Quentin Tarantino yet?”

  “No, but I gave a copy of my latest script to Barry Gerber this morning, and he must love it, because I can’t pry it loose from his cold, dead hand.”

  “Small world,” Terry said. “We have a meeting with Mr. Gerber ourselves. Last time we met we couldn’t coax him out of his shell.”

  “We cut the garbage can,” Victor said, “but he was in full-blown rigor, so he was about only three feet high when we pried him loose. It took hours to get him to lie flat. Why don’t you suit up. Dr. Hand is doing the postmortem.”

  Talk about hyphenates. Eli Hand is a brilliant pathologist-hyphen-lapsed rabbi. He went to rabbinical school, was ordained, then realized he had one major shortcoming that got in the way of doing his job. He doesn’t like people.