city blues 02 - angel city blues (2 page)

I sighed. “Okay, fine. Just get me copies of the files, and we’ll call it even.”

Bruhn shook his head. “The lieutenant told me to show you the apartment, so I’m showing you the fucking apartment. He didn’t say anything about giving you access to the files.”

“Come on,” I said. “We’re both trying to figure out what happened to Leanda Forsyth. There’s no reason we can’t work together on this.”

“I had the departmental AI run a data pull on you,” Bruhn said. “It summed you up in four words… Drunk. Loser. Has-been.”

“I’m pretty sure that ‘has-been’ is a hyphenated compound word,” I said. “So that’s really only three words.”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s three-
hundred
words. I don’t need you to grade my fucking grammar, and I don’t need your help with this case.”

I rubbed my left eye and thought about the cigarette again. It had been a long day and it was getting longer. “Can we skip the bad cop routine? I’m just trying to do my job.”

“Your
job
is interfering with police business,” Bruhn said. “And if your client wasn’t Ms.-Rich-Bitch-Senator’s-Wife, I’d tell you to take your
job
, and stick it up your ass.”

“Unfortunately for you,” said a voice from the other end of the room, “Mr. Stalin’s client
does
happen to be Ms.-Rich-Bitch-Senator’s-Wife.”

My eyes jumped to the source of the voice. Vivien Forsyth stood in the open front doorway of the apartment. Even from across the room, she was strikingly attractive. Her coal-black hair was short, but stylishly cut. She wore a beautifully-tailored turquoise silk business suit that probably cost more than my car.

She walked through the opening in the perimeter hologram and strolled toward us. The door slid shut behind her.

The fabric of her suit adjusted itself minutely as she moved, tensioning itself in some areas and relaxing in others. Not silk then, some sort of intelligent fabric that reacted to her every movement, keeping its smoothly tailored appearance regardless of her body posture. Was there such a thing as smart silk? I had never heard of it, but then I hardly traveled in the same circles as Vivien Forsyth.

I knew from personal research that Vivien was in her late fifties, but she had the benefit of the finest surgical boutiques and genetic tailoring that money could buy. Between them, the scalpel and the test tube had halted her apparent age at about twenty-nine. Young enough to be beautiful, but old enough to be regal.

Bruhn turned to face her. “Ms. Forsyth, I take it?”

Vivien gave him a patently false smile, flashing a set of even white teeth that undoubtedly cost more than the suit. “An astounding display of logical deduction,” she said. “You must be a detective.”

Bruhn returned her fake smile with a twitch that only included one side of his mouth. “That’s what it says on my badge.”

Vivien stopped about a meter from his position. Her gray eyes had a sparkle to them that might have been amusement, or might just as well have been annoyance. “I see you boys aren’t getting along. Is it something serious? Or are we just comparing Testosterone levels?”

I made eye contact with Bruhn. “Nothing we can’t work out.”

Bruhn opened his mouth, but Vivien interrupted. “Excellent. I was told we’d have full police cooperation, and I expect nothing less.”

Bruhn stiffened. “The department can handle this case, ma’am. Your rent-a-cop here is only going to get in the way.”

Vivien arched an eyebrow. “I compliment you, Detective. You work quickly. You promoted me from
bitch
to
ma’am
in... what? About four seconds? That’s got to be some kind of record.”

Bruhn’s neck turned red.

Vivien smiled. “And it’s hardly fair to call Mr. Stalin a rent-a-cop. He’s a detective, just like you are. He just happens to work in a private capacity.”

Now,
my
ears were burning. This felt altogether too much like having my Kindergarten Teacher defend me from the class bully.

“Don’t try to compare my job to his,” Bruhn snapped. “This guy hasn’t got—”

Vivien cut him off again. “You’re right. It’s not a fair comparison, is it? Mr. Stalin has a reputation for getting results. My daughter has been missing for nearly two months, and your department has produced no results whatsoever.”

Bruhn’s right hand jerked, and for a fraction of a second, I thought he was going to hit her. But some deep-buried survival instinct must have warned him that his career was sliding toward the abyss. He flexed his fingers slowly and then extended his hand to be shaken. “Detective Lawrence Bruhn, Missing Persons, West Hollywood Division.”

Vivien brushed his fingertips with a minimalist handshake. “Vivien Forsyth,” she said. “But you can call me Ms. Rich-Bitch.”

She glanced around the apartment. “What happened to Becky Hollis? I thought she was working Leanda’s case.”

Bruhn started to say something, and then he caught himself. A half-second later, he said, “They moved the case to me. I usually get the ones that are at a standstill.”

“I see. Detective Hollis wasn’t up to the job?”

Bruhn shook his head. “I didn’t say that, ma’am. But, as you pointed out, she had the case for two months without making any real headway.”

“So Hollis was the
B-Team
, and you’re the
A-Team
?”

The corner of Bruhn’s mouth crooked. “I didn’t say that either,” he said.

“Then what
are
you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’ve got the case, ma’am. I’ll handle it.”

Vivien nodded. “A nice diplomatic answer. It dodges my question rather neatly. But the real answer is that someone pulled the plug on Detective Hollis. If I’m not mistaken, she’s on indefinite loan to Traffic Division.”

“It’s... ah... not appropriate for me to discuss departmental politics with a civilian,” Bruhn said. “No offense, ma’am.”

“None taken,” Vivien said. “But you don’t have to worry about airing your department’s dirty laundry in front of me. I already know about Detective Hollis. I’m the one who had her taken off the case.”

Bruhn stared at Vivien.

“Detective Hollis was dragging her feet,” Vivien said. “Refusing to share information with me. So I made a couple of calls. It’s amazing what a little pressure can do, if one knows where to apply it.”

Bruhn’s eyes narrowed. “Is that some kind of threat, ma’am?”

“Consider it a prediction,” Vivien said. “I predict that you will give Mr. Stalin full access to my daughter’s case files, and you will answer his questions—and
my
questions—without the need for strong arm tactics and circumlocutions. Otherwise, I predict that you will have a long and illustrious career handing out parking citations.”

Bruhn’s voice hardened. “This is a crime scene,” he said. “As senior officer present, I’m exercising my right to clear it of civilians. I’m going to have to ask you both to leave.” He held out his hand. “Stalin, give me the key.”

Vivien’s eyebrows went up. “Are you trying to show me the size of your testicles, Detective?”

“The key,” he said again.

I dropped the key chip into his palm.

“Don’t test me,” Vivien said.

Bruhn pointed to the door. “I am formally directing you to leave the premises,” he said. “If I have to ask you again, I’m going to consider it obstruction of an on-going police investigation. I’m also formally admonishing you against making threats, however veiled, to an active duty police officer in the performance of his duties.”

He seemed to take particular pleasure in those last words. This was
his
threat, disguised even more thinly than Vivien’s had been.

Vivien stood for a couple of heartbeats, and then smiled. “I understand completely, Detective Bruhn. Of
course
Mr. Stalin and I will vacate your crime scene.” She nodded to me and then headed toward the door.

I followed.

As soon as we were on the other side of the holographic police barrier, she stopped and pulled a slim oblong of blue polymer from her pocket. It was a phone, the exact same shade of turquoise as her silk business suit. “Wait here,” she said. I waited while she walked to the other side of the elevator lobby to make her call.

I leaned against the wall next to the door and watched her out of the corner of my eye. It looked more like three calls, all of them extremely short. I couldn’t hear anything that she said, but it was obvious that she was pleased by the results. I fully expected her to stomp back into her daughter’s apartment and take Bruhn by storm. Instead, she pushed the button for the elevator and beckoned me over.

I was surprised. “We’re leaving?”

She smiled. “No. We’re
almost
leaving.”

“Why are we
almost
leaving?” I asked.

“Because fifty-percent of winning the battle is holding the high ground,” she said. “And in this case, the high ground is downstairs in the parking lot.”

“Right,” I said, without the foggiest idea of what she was talking about. “Let’s almost leave, then.”

A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened. I followed her in. The doors closed smoothly, and the elevator dropped at a speed that ratcheted my adrenaline up a half-notch.

Pale blue holographic digits superimposed themselves on the burled paneling above the door and began counting down rapidly.

Vivien stabbed a button, apparently at random, somewhere in the middle floors. The elevator began to slow.

“Now, what are you doing?” I asked.

“We left quickly,” Vivien said. “Detective Bruhn needs a chance to catch up.”

The elevator coasted to a stop and the doors opened. Vivien waited patiently for them to close. The elevator dropped again, still moving too fast for my stomach.

When we got to the lobby, Vivien pulled out her phone again, thumbed an icon, and then put the phone back into her pocket.

We didn’t speak again until we were past the doorman, and standing under the parking shelter.

“What was the deal just now with your phone?” I asked.

“I was summoning my chauffeur,” Vivien said. “Ordinarily, I do it as soon as I know that I’m leaving. But, in this instance...”

I nodded. “You’re not in any hurry, because you’re waiting for Bruhn to catch up.”

“Precisely.”

I reached into the pocket of my gray windbreaker and pulled out a pack of Brazilian Marlboros. “Mind if I smoke?”

Vivien looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Suppose I say ‘yes?’”

I pointed across the parking lot. “Then I go stand way over there, and smoke by myself. And you can wait here for Bruhn by yourself.”

“Go ahead. Light up,” Vivien said. She shook her head. “Why does every man I meet today want to show me how large his testicles are?”

I touched the tip of the cigarette against the circular ignition patch on the bottom of the pack. It took a second or so for the catalytic reaction to light the tobacco. I inhaled a lungful of smoke and exhaled. “This is not about the size of my testicles. I just want a cigarette. Are your cancer immunizations up to date?”

She nodded.

“Then it can’t hurt you.”

“I
know
that it can’t hurt me,” she said. “I just don’t like the smell.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll go stink up the other side of the parking lot.”

Vivien grabbed my sleeve. “You’re staying right here.” She wrinkled her nose. “Why do you do that, anyway? Get your genes tweaked. You can walk away from those nasty things with no cravings at all.”

“I’m a dinosaur,” I said. “I resist change. My nasty little habits are damned near all that’s left of the old me.”

Vivien rolled her eyes. “What in the hell does that mean?”

I shrugged. “Makes as much sense as calling this parking lot the high ground.”

“Touché,” Vivien said.

I took another drag off my cigarette. “Tell me what you know about your daughter’s disappearance.”

“Not very much,” Vivien said. “No one does. What little I do know, you’ll be able to read when you get the police files.

“Indulge me,” I said.

Vivien took a deep breath, and then paused for a few seconds. “She... Leanda... came home on the evening of September seventeenth. The lobby security cameras caught a clear shot of her entering the building at six fourteen p.m. The camera recorded her walking into the elevator—then the door closed, and she was gone. No one has seen a trace of her since.”

Vivien looked at her watch. “Fifty-four days. She’s been gone for fifty-four days already.”

“I take it the security camera never caught a shot of her leaving.”

“No,” Vivien said quietly. “The police have been over every microsecond of video since Leanda’s disappearance at least twenty times. They even ran it through an AI designed to identify people by posture and body language, just in case she had decided to sneak out of the building in disguise.”

“Would Leanda do something like that?”

Vivien shrugged. “She might, if she thought she had reason.”

“Your daughter is an investigative reporter, right? Have you considered the possibility that she’s gone under cover to investigate a story? Maybe she’s working on something big, something with enough explosive potential to make it necessary for her to drop off the radar.”

Vivien’s lips turned up in a weak smile, a fraction of the confident grin she’d unleashed on Detective Bruhn. “You certainly know how to say what a worried mother wants to hear, Mr. Stalin. That’s precisely the scenario that my feverish little mind concocted when I learned that my daughter had taken an express elevator to Never-Never Land.”

Vivien brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead. “It may be foolish. It might even be delusional, but it helps me get to sleep at night.”

The look in her eyes told me that it was time to redirect my line of questioning. “Let’s get back to the night of September seventeenth,” I said. “Did Leanda make it up to her apartment?”

“Probably. It’s impossible to be absolutely certain, because nobody actually saw her up there, but the data files in her apartment’s AI were tampered with on the night she disappeared. Twelve hours’ worth of recordings have been erased—starting about six hours before she walked through the lobby, and ending about six hours later. The police think something happened in her apartment that night, and someone erased the AI’s files so we couldn’t find out what it was.”