The Sentry (17 page)

Straw paused. Pike knew he was now supposed to ask why Straw no longer had a hard-on, but Pike didn’t ask. He didn’t care. Straw finally nodded toward the homicide crew. The homicide detectives were talking as if they were excited about something, and two were on phones. One trotted to a waiting radio car, and jumped into the back seat as it left.

“Our detective friends are split down the middle whether you or Smith did this. They’re even running a pool.”

“How’d you bet?”

“I don’t think you or Smith had anything to do with this. That mess with the heads in Smith’s shop, I don’t think these bangers had anything to do with it. Something more complicated is in play.”

Pike studied Straw for a moment, and thought he was probably right. Straw’s shakedown operation was finished, so now he was digging for a replacement.

“Like what?”

“No idea.”

“Weren’t you guys watching the shop?”

Straw showed his first sign of irritation.

“We were watching the entire street, Pike. We had the front of his shop. Whoever made that mess broke through the back and got away clean. But you know that. You were there the next morning.”

“Too bad you didn’t see something helpful.”

Straw’s jaw flexed one time, then he studied the ground for several seconds before he looked up.

“You have any idea where these people are?”

Pike nodded toward Mendoza’s body.

“I thought he had them.”

“If he did, someone else has them now.”

“Who?”

“Whoever. I’m seeing Smith and his niece jammed up by something a helluva lot worse than a shakedown.”

Straw handed Pike a card.

“You learn anything or need any help, let me know. I’d like to find these people before whoever did that to Mendoza finds them.”

Button and Futardo returned from their group. Pike thought they were coming to get him for the homicide dicks, but Button had news, and the news made him smile.

“Alberto Gomer is no longer missing in action. Homeless dude found him an hour ago in a parked car up at the north end of the canal. His throat was cut ear to ear. That makes your boy Smith two for two.”

Futardo gestured toward the homicide detectives.

“They’d like to speak with you now. You ready to talk?”

When Pike phoned Cole that morning to tell him about Button’s call, Cole heard the strain in his friend’s voice. Pike was a man who showed nothing, projecting a zen-like detachment that Cole sometimes found amusing, but also admired. Cole often wondered what such calm cost his friend, and whether Pike had no other choice but to pay it.

Cole was off the couch and out of the house sixteen minutes after Pike hung up. Who needs deodorant when you’re the World’s Greatest Detective? Who needs to brush your teeth when you’re fighting to absolve your friend’s guilt?

The morning traffic down from the canyon and westbound through Hollywood sucked. Bumper-to-bumper with garbage trucks, buses, and citizens headed for work, all of them funneled through streets torn up by poorly planned construction and maintenance projects.

Cole was still two miles from the freeway when his phone rang. He thought it would be Pike, but didn’t recognize the number.

“Elvis Cole.”

“This is Steve Brown in London, returning your call.”

Brown spoke firmly, as if he was used to being in meetings and getting things done. Cole did a quick calculation. Eight hours ahead made it five P.M. in London.

“Thanks for getting back, Mr. Brown. I’m trying to locate Wilson Smith and Dru Rayne. I was hoping you might know how to reach them.”

“Why would I know that?”

Cole thought that was an odd response, considering the people were living in the man’s house.

“I understand they’re house-sitting for you.”

“Uh-huh. And you understand this how?”

Now Brown sounded suspicious, which maybe went with getting a cold call from a total stranger six thousand miles away.

“Your neighbor. Lily Palmer. She told me about the house-sitting, and suggested I call.”

“Uh-huh. Okay. What’s this about?”

Cole had expected Brown to have questions, and had decided to limit his answers.

“Wilson’s shop was damaged. I’ve been trying to find him so I can tell him what happened, but it looks like they’ve gone away for a few days. I was hoping you would know how to reach them.”

“Uh-huh.”

Brown fell silent.

“Mr. Brown?”

“Let me ask you a question. These people are living in my house, Dru and this guy?”

Brown sounded angry, and Cole didn’t like where the conversation was going.

“Are they there without your knowledge?”

“I told Dru she could use the place. That’s it. I don’t know any Wilson Smith. I never heard of him, and I’m fucking pissed off if she’s shacking with some guy in my house.”

“He’s her uncle.”

“I don’t give a shit if he’s her twin brother, though I have my doubts. This wasn’t the deal. I didn’t want anyone else in the house, and she was cool with it. That’s why I let her use the place.”

Cole felt a soft chill, and liked the conversation even less. Cole had believed Smith arranged for the house, and invited Dru to stay with him when she came to L.A. to help with his business. Now that was upended.

“Dru works for him. Mr. Smith has a restaurant up by the boardwalk.”

“Maybe so, but she wasn’t working for anybody when I gave her the keys. She was living off alimony. She never said anything about an uncle, and she sure as hell didn’t tell me he was going to move in.”

Cole wet his lips, and hated the question he had to ask.

“Why did you let her move in?”

“I was fucking her, why do you think? She wanted out of the dump she was living in, and I was coming back here, so it was a good deal for both of us. Saved me the hassle of vetting a house sitter.”

Cole felt hollow.

“All right. Listen, thanks for getting back to me.”

“Hold on. How long is she going to be away?”

“I don’t know.”

“I called her when I got your message, but she hasn’t called back.”

“We haven’t been able to reach either one of them.”

“What are we talking about? A few days? A couple of weeks? Has she abandoned the place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Goddamnit, as of right now, you are telling me my house is empty? Is that correct? She’s gone, and no one is taking care of my house?”

“No, sir. Not now.”

“Son of a BITCH. That fucking whore.”

Brown hung up cursing, and the line went dead.

Cole drove on with a confusion that left him feeling blindsided, and realized he had missed an obvious question. He opened the incoming call list and called Brown back.

“Me again. Sorry. Have you spoken with Dru since you’ve been away?”

“Hell, yes. I call her every couple of weeks, make sure everything’s okay, check on the house.”

“She never mentioned Mr. Smith?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of him, and I don’t like it. If this guy’s been living there all this time and she hasn’t told me, she’s been lying to me, and I don’t like liars. If you find her, you tell her she better call me, and I mean yesterday. I want that sonofabitch out of my house.”

Cole finished the call feeling even worse than before. The picture he now had of Dru Rayne was very different from the woman Joe described. This left him with even more questions, but Cole forced himself to focus on the fact she was missing. He had to mine Wilson Smith’s neighbors before the police sealed the mine.

Cole reached the canals a few minutes later and once more walked in. Mendoza and his partner had passed these same houses going to and coming from the Smith house, which was when Jared saw them, and now Cole wanted to see if anyone else had seen them, but he targeted the houses with security cameras first.

Almost out of habit, he checked Jared’s window as he moved down the alley, but Jared was missing. Amazing.

The day before, Cole noted three homes with cameras. No one answered at the first house, so he slipped a business card under the door with a note asking them to call. A middle-aged woman answered at the second home, and asked if he was with the police she spoke to the day before. This told Cole that Button and his partner had made the rounds after speaking with Jared. Cole told her he was, and dropped Button’s name to fortify the lie. Cole asked if Button checked her surveillance recordings, but Button had not asked, and it would not have mattered if he had—her cameras displayed real-time images but were not hooked to a recorder. The first house had potential, but the second house was a bust.

Cole had better luck at the third house. A housekeeper told him she didn’t know much about the security system, but believed the cameras made a recording. She explained her employer was at work, but thought he would be happy to speak with Cole as he was very interested when she told him the police questioned her yesterday. Cole left another card, then reconsidered his plan.

Knowing that Button made the rounds after speaking with Jared, Cole decided there was no point in covering the same ground again. The available witness list was currently limited to Jared.

Cole returned to Smith’s house, and found Jared back in his window, straggly black hair, shirtless, wires dripping from his ears. Jared was watching him.

Cole made a little wave. Jared waved back. Cole motioned for Jared to come down, and Jared turned from the window.

Cole was waiting outside his house when the door opened and Jared came out.

“Hey, dude, whassup? You with the police or the big dude?”

“The big dude.”

“Dude’s all right. I like that cat. I already told him about those banger dudes I saw. Him, and the police. They were here yesterday.”

Jared had seen a lot of action in the past two days. He was comfortable with it.

“I’m not here about the banger dudes. I was hoping you could tell me how long Dru’s been living next door.”

“Dude. I’m so bad with time.”

Cole waited, letting the silence press Jared for an answer.

Jared finally shrugged.

“Gotta be three months. Steve hooked it back to London three months ago. That dude has cash. He’s always in Europe.”

“She moved in the day he left?”

“That’s the way it works. Steve brought her over, introduced her to my mom, this is my house-sitter, all of that stuff.”

“When did her uncle move in?”

Jared glanced across the street and made a sly smile. Cole wondered at both the hesitation and the smile.

Jared said, “The next day.”

Jared glanced across the street again, and Cole sensed Jared wanted to say something so badly he could not maintain eye contact.

Cole said, “What?”

“I see things, dude. Dru has a hot body. She lays out a lot. I’m up in that window for a reason.”

“Tell me, Jared.”

“I don’t think Uncle Wilson is Uncle Wilson. They don’t always act like relatives, if you’re catching my subtext here.”

Cole stared at Jared for a long time. He felt cold inside, but his mouth was dry and the morning sun was hot on his skin. A knot of anger blossomed in his chest like cherry-red fire.

“Do not say this if it’s bullshit.”

“Dude. I have a dead-on view of their yard. I can see in their windows, and she doesn’t pull the shades. I’ve seen them fucking. I think she digs it that I watch.”

The cold grew until Cole felt numb. He stared at Steve Brown’s house, and wondered who these people were and if everything the woman told Pike was lies.

Cole looked back at Jared, but didn’t know what to say. The best he managed was a nod.

Cole did not try to hide what he did next. Jared might have gone back into his house, but Cole didn’t notice because Cole didn’t care.

Cole found the key in its place by the gatepost, opened the gate, and let himself into the house. He knew what he wanted and what he would do with it.

He pulled on the vinyl gloves as he went to the kitchen. During his earlier search, he had seen folded paper grocery bags wedged into the gap between the refrigerator and the counter. He pulled out several bags, shook one open, then placed it on the counter. He selected three glass tumblers from the dishes left on the counter, put each in a separate bag, and placed the three bags carefully into the open bag. He collected two empty Diet Coke cans and a water bottle from the family room, bagged them the same way, then went up to the master for the metal box with Wilson’s papers. He brought it down to the kitchen.

Cole stopped in the downstairs guest bedroom on his way out. A few of her things were there, but now he wondered if she really used the room or if it was just for show. An empty stick of Dry Idea antiperspirant deodorant was on the dresser. He added it to the bag, then locked the house and gate as he left.

Cole returned to his car, but did not start the engine. He called a friend named John Chen, who was a criminalist with the LAPD’s Scientific Investigations Division.

“John? I need you to check some prints. I need it done fast.”

“Dude. I’m at a drive-by in Hawaiian Gardens. I’ve been here all frakkin’ night.”

“I need this, John. It’s for Joe.”

Chen hesitated, which told Cole he would agree.

“Okay. Okay, for sure.”

“I can bring the samples to you. Where in Hawaiian Gardens?”

“Uh-uh, bro, way too many witnesses here. Meet me downtown in an hour. Make it an hour ten. Outside CCB.”

Cole closed his phone and headed for downtown Los Angeles.

As an employee of the Los Angeles Police Department, John Chen, like the department’s sworn officers, was forbidden to perform unauthorized case work, use city resources for personal gain, or help civilian private investigators off the books. These were good and valid rules to preserve the integrity of case evidence, enforce a professional code of conduct, and discourage employee corruption.