Self-Defense (41 page)

“I knew there was something about that
man,” he said. “Polite—too polite. I never completely trusted him. How did he
die?”

I told him. “That’s why we have to be
careful, Reverend. If covering up was worth killing for then, it still is.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. But there was no fear
in him, only a cold, quiet acquiescence. I’d asked a lot of him. Thinking of
the picture in his kitchen
—Dinah’s Abduction by Shechem—
I wondered if I
was putting too much faith in him.

“And them?” he said, looking at the Sheas’
house.

“No direct involvement, so far, other than
the fact that they may have hired Karen to work at the party. And we still
haven’t been able to verify that.”

“I can’t believe that. Their evasiveness.
Look what just happened. If she’s innocent, why didn’t she call the police on
me? And their shop’s been closed for two days, no sign of
him.
So maybe
he knows something’s up and has left town. Isn’t flight the first sign of
guilt?”

“How do you know about the shop,
Reverend?”

He didn’t answer.

“More surveillance?”

His smile was grim.

“What made you decide to watch them now?”

“Talking to you on the phone the other
day. I could tell from your voice that you were on to something. Is your
patient ready to meet me yet?”

“My patient’s in mourning. Death in the
family.”

“Oh, no.” He put his hands on the steering
wheel and sank down. “I’m so sorry. Was he—or she—close to the deceased? Can
you at least tell me the sex of the person you’ve been talking to, so I can
pray accordingly?”

“A woman.”

“I thought so,” he said. “A woman’s
compassion... poor thing. Hopefully the time will come when she’ll be able to
step away from her grief.”

“Hopefully.”

“Of course you can’t rush her. Those
things can’t be rushed.”

He turned and gripped my hand. “When she
is
able to—whenever it is—call me. Maybe I can help. Maybe we can help each
other.”

I nodded and got out of the car.

Through the passenger window, he said,
“You’re a good man. Forgive me for not believing your intentions.”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“Are you religious, doctor?”

“In my own way.”

“What way is that?”

“I don’t believe the world’s random.”

“A major leap of faith,” he said. “I try
to renew it in my own mind, every day. Some days are easier than others.”

“Everything’s surreal,” said Lucy.

It was 9A.M. and I’d finally reached her
at the Brentwood house.

“In what way?”

“One moment I’ll be talking to him and it
feels so
real.
Then I’ll wake up and realize I’ve been dreaming and the
truth hits me.... I guess that’s normal.”

“Very much so.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping.
Can’t help it, I feel drugged. Every time I try to get up, I just want to crawl
right back. Should I force myself to stay awake?”

“No, let nature take its course.”

“God, I
miss
him!”

She started to cry.

“I’m not angry at him, he couldn’t help
it. Getting hold of such strong stuff, not knowing.... When he was hungry for
it, he couldn’t think about anything else.”

More tears.

“Such pain... what a waste. My heart feels
as if it’s really breaking—I don’t know if I’ll ever feel totally good again.”

“Everything takes time, Lucy.”

“I can’t do hypnosis, can’t focus on
anything—I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

“Later. We’ll do it later. All I can do
now is cry and sleep—I don’t even want to talk. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Lucy.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mocked
herself. “Sorry for the world. For Carrie Fielding and the others. And Puck.
And Karen. I haven’t forgotten her. I
won’t
forget.”

Three psychopaths in the forest.

Barnard learning something about it. Dead.

The Sheas, living on the sand.

Doris Reingold, alive and poor. Gambling
away her payoff?

Spirited out of town by Tom Shea. Into
hiding, or something more final?

I played with it some more. Barnard kept
popping up in my thoughts, like one side of a loaded die.

If he’d been murdered because he was a
blackmailer, the conspicuous nature of his death made sense: A corpse on a
motel bed had plenty of educational value.

Who’d done the shooting? The murder had
taken place a full year after Karen’s disappearance. By then, Mellors—or whatever
his real name was—was working for App, and Trafficant had vanished.

And M. Bayard Lowell was living in
splendid isolation in Topanga Canyon.

I didn’t see the Great Man risking a
meeting at a sleazy motel.

And why that particular dirty-sheets dive?

Because it catered to hookers? Mo Barnard
had described Felix as a womanizer. Had he been lured there with the promise of
another payoff—the bigger one he’d pressed for? Happy to enjoy a quickie while
he waited?

I pictured him, pants down and happily
expectant, on a narrow gray bed in a darkened room, porno on video, booze on
the nightstand.

A woman in hotpants and spike heels. She
smiles and ducks into the bathroom with a wink and a “One minute, honey.”

The toilet flushes. Water runs. Barnard
concentrates on the movie, oblivious to the door opening.

Someone rushes to the side of the bed and
begins squeezing off rounds.

Someone with a key. The clerk paid off?
The hooker in on it, too?

But, still, why
that
motel? Three
miles east, Hollywood was crammed with mattress palaces.

Maybe because the
killer
knew
that
place well enough to set up an inside job.

The police had never suspected. According
to Milo, the motel was a chronic trouble spot, so one more felony—even a
homicide—would be no great surprise.

Barnard had led a pathetic life, spending
his days prying into other people’s secrets, taking money to look into cold
cases.

Twenty years later, his own file was stone
cold.

An inconsequential man. Had the papers
even bothered to write up his death?

This time I stayed closer to home and used
the main Santa Monica library on 6th Street. Barnard’s name wasn’t listed in
the computers for that year or any other. But a search under
homicide
struck gold in the newspaper files:

Motel, homicide at. Police say the
Adventure Inn
on the Westside is site
of numerous crimes, the latest the murder of a retired private investigator.

The full article was tucked into a bottom
corner of the last page of the Metro section.

HOMICIDE PROMPTS IRE ABOUT MOTEL

The early morning shooting death of a
retired private investigator in a Westside motel has prompted increased citizen
concern about the hostelry. Police confirm a history of criminal activity at
the Adventure Inn on 1543 South La Cienega Boulevard, including numerous
arrests for prostitution, narcotics, disorderly conduct, and assault. Despite
complaints by neighbors, police claim they are legally powerless to close the
business down.

The victim, Felix Slayton Barnard, 65, of
Venice, was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in Room 11 by the motel’s
clerk, Edgely Sylvester, during a morning room check. Sylvester reported
hearing and seeing nothing, and by the time police arrived all other residents
had vacated the premises. “No surprise,” said a bystander, refusing to be
named. “They register by the half-hour.”

Sylvester denied any personal knowledge of
prostitution at the motel. When asked how he could have failed to hear three
gunshots, he said, “There’s a lot of traffic.”

Questioned about why steps couldn’t be
taken to close the motel, Captain Robert Bannerstock of the LAPD’s Westside
Division said, “It’s a free country. All we can do is go out and investigate
occurrences. People need to be careful about where they spend the night.”

Ownership of the motel is registered to a
Nevada corporation, The Advent Group, and attempts to reach the manager, Darnel
Mullins, were unsuccessful.

Darnel Mullins.

Denton Mellors.

Inside job.

Meet me at the Adventure Inn, Felix.
There’ll be a room reserved for you—have a whore on the house.

I looked up Darnel Mullins in every
Southern California phone book the library owned. No Darnels; over a dozen D’s
spread around various counties. Thirty-five minutes on the pay phone in the
entrance eliminated most of them. The rest weren’t home.

Roadblocked again.

I sat at a library table, drumming my
fingers until I thought of another route.

The clerk. Edgely Sylvester.

Thank God it was an unusual name—and
listed in the Central L.A. book on the 1800 block of Arlington.

I took Pico east, toward the center of
town. La Cienega was a couple of miles before Arlington, and I veered south and
drove to 1543.

Still a motel, now called the Sunshine
Lodge and painted turquoise blue. Three arms of cinder block around a dipping,
pitted parking lot.

Two pickup trucks in the lot. I pulled in
next to one of them. Room 11 was in the northwest corner, catercorner from the
office. ADO NOT DISTURB sign hung from the doorknob.

I went into the office. A Korean man sat
behind the desk, watching Korean language TV. A wall dispenser sold pocket
combs and condoms, and a wire rack on the desk was stuffed with maps to the
stars’ homes. Robin had shown me one last year, given out by a record company
as a party favor. Marilyn Monroe was still alive and living in Brentwood, and
Lon Chaney was haunting Beverly Hills.

The clerk eyed me and said, “Room?”

Not knowing what to say, I left.

Edgely Sylvester’s neighborhood was just
past the old Sears store near La Brea, not far from the Wilshire Division
police station. The house was a two-story brown craftsman bungalow subdivided
into apartments. The front lawn had been turned into parking spaces. A rusting
Cadillac Fleetwood and a twenty-year-old Buick Riviera shared it.

Two black men in their sixties played
dominoes at a card table on the front porch. Both wore short-sleeved white
shirts and double-knit trousers, and the heavier of the two wore stretch
suspenders. He was bald and had moist mocha skin. A cigar dangled from his
lips.

The skinny man was ebony-toned and his
features were sharp, still handsome. He had all his hair and it had been
pomaded. He could have been Chuck Berry’s less talented brother.

They stopped their play as I came up the
walkway. The dominoes were bright red and translucent, with sharp white dots. I
had no idea who was winning.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “does Edgely
Sylvester live here?”

“Nope,” said the skinny one.

“Know him?”

They shook their heads.

“Okay, thanks.”

As I walked away, the heavy one said, “Why
do you want to know?” The cigar was between his fingers, wet and cold. He was
sweating a lot, but it didn’t look like anxiety.

“Reporter,” I said.
“L.A. Times.
We’re doing a story on old unsolved crimes for the Sunday magazine. Mr.
Sylvester worked at a motel where an unsolved murder occurred twenty years ago.
The victim was a private detective. My editors thought it would make a great
piece.”

“Lots of
new
murders all the time,”
said the skinny one. “City’s falling apart, no need to talk about stupid
old
stuff.”

“The new stuff scares people. The old
stuff’s considered romantic—I know, I think it’s ridiculous, too. But I just
started out, can’t buck the boss. Anyway, thanks.”

“Is there money in it?” said the skinny
one. “For talking to you?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m not supposed to pay
for stories, but if something’s good enough...” I shrugged.

They exchanged glances, and the heavy one
put down a domino.

I said, “Did Mr. Sylvester tell you
something about the unsolved case?”

Another look passed between them.

“How much you paying?” said the heavy one.

How much cash did I have in my wallet?
Probably a little over a hundred.

“I really shouldn’t pay anything. It would
have to be something good.”

The heavy one licked the end of his cigar.
“What if I could find Mr. Edgely Sylvester for you?”