When Last Seen Alive (12 page)

Still, the photographs in question hardly seemed the stuff homicides were made of, providing they had been of the nature Connie Everson had insisted they would be. Councilman Gil Everson and a lady of the night. Was that a tableau Everson would have killed to keep secret? Gunner was certain that it wasn’t—except for one small detail: the councilman’s bodyguard. A giant black hulk Gunner had watched follow Everson around for ten days before handing the councilman’s surveillance over to Sly Cribbs. Sly’s assailant had been a big man in a ski mask, Poole had said. Give Everson’s bodyguard such a mask, and he would have fit that description just fine.

It was a stretch, and a big one at that, but Gunner had no choice but to look into it. He had to find out what happened to Sly, and he had to do it inside of forty-eight hours.

He started by paying Connie Everson a little visit.

Ladera Heights wasn’t Inglewood, but Everson and her councilman husband could see Inglewood just fine from there. Their spacious home at the pinnacle of the Heights had a spectacular southbound view of Inglewood and the communities beyond, and Gunner figured the Eversons probably felt that was as close to actually residing in Inglewood as any fair-minded person could expect them to get.

Ladera Heights was the little Bel Air of Los Angeles’s black upper-middle class, a hillside haven just west of Baldwin Hills and north of Inglewood that was populated by degreed professionals and public servants like Gil Everson who either lacked the wealth to escape the ’hood altogether or were content to exist only on the distant fringes of it. There were Benzes and Lexuses in every other driveway, and no home seemed complete if a pair of stone lions perched upon brick pedestals wasn’t guarding its front entrance.

It wasn’t Beverly Hills, but as wannabes went, it wasn’t bad.

Gunner parked the Cobra in the Eversons’ circular driveway, just behind a pearl white, late-model BMW with personalized license plates that read
CON E E,
and rang the bell at the front door. An Hispanic maid wearing an apron and everyday clothes appeared to greet him, no surprise there whatsoever, and looked him over like someone had sent the pool man to the house wearing the wrong uniform.

“Yes?”

“I’m here to see Mrs. Everson. The name’s Aaron Gunner.”

“Señora Everson es no’ home. You wan’ to leave a message?”

Her face was a mask of fear and guilt, and she couldn’t keep her feet still beneath her. Gunner thought it was nice to see there were still some people in the world who couldn’t tell a bald-faced lie in comfort.

“Sure,” the investigator said. “I would like to leave a message. Tell Señora Everson that if she doesn’t bring her fine ass to this door in five minutes, she’s gonna be the top story in the Metro section of the
Times
tomorrow. You got that? Go give her that message now, por favor.”

Everson’s maid blinked at him, engaged in the exhausting process of assimilating what she’d just been told, then went to go get her employer. The councilman’s wife didn’t take the whole five minutes Gunner had given her to appear, but it was close. And when she reached the door, she looked Gunner over like something she couldn’t trust to be real.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, looking like something less than the cool, unflappable beauty Gunner had come to know and love. Her clothes seemed haphazardly thrown on, and her face was amazingly ordinary, devoid of all the makeup she generally used to such striking effect.

“I would have called, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t have been in,” Gunner said.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gunner, but my decision is final. I’ll pay you for time invested, but that’s all.”

“Excuse me?”

Everson studied him, confused. “You didn’t get my message?”

“No. What message is that?”

“I don’t want my husband followed anymore, Mr. Gunner. I want you to stop the surveillance you’re doing on him immediately.”

“What?”

“I mean it. I don’t want you following Gil around anymore. Just send me a bill for whatever I owe you, and I’ll mail you a check. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

She tried to close the door in his face, but he put a hand out to stop her, said, “Wait a minute. What the hell are you talking about? Twenty-four hours ago, you were riding my ass because I couldn’t follow your husband fast enough. Now you want me to
stop
?”

“Yes. Please.”

“I don’t get it. Did you hire another investigator?”

Everson shook her head emphatically, said, “No! I don’t
need
another investigator. Gil explained everything to me. I should have never hired you in the first place.”

“But the photos you said you wanted. I thought—”

“I don’t care about the photos, Mr. Gunner. You aren’t hearing what I’m saying. This was all a big mistake, there was never anything to take photos
of.”

“That’s bullshit. The photographs have already been taken, they were shot yesterday evening.”

Everson’s surprise was beyond her abilities to disguise. “What?”

“You heard me. The pictures you were so hot to get your hands on were taken yesterday, by a seventeen-year-old kid named Sly Cribbs.
He’s
been working the surveillance on your husband for the last two days, not me.”

Everson started to speak, decided to hold her tongue instead.

“He’s out at Daniel Freeman. Somebody shot him twice and left him in his car to die around eleven o’clock last night, over on Exposition and Vermont. Doctors say his chances of making it aren’t good.”

Finally finding her voice, Everson said, “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. It is. Especially if you and I are responsible.”

“Me?
How could I—”

“We put Sly up to taking those photos of your husband and his girlfriend, Mrs. Everson. You and me. And now he’s close to death, and the photos he took are missing. What the hell do you make of that?”

Everson worked her mouth around nervously for a minute, then said, “I don’t make anything of it. Whatever happened to your friend had nothing to do with me.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m
very
sure. And that’s all I have to say about the matter. I want you to leave, Mr. Gunner. Right now. Before Gil comes home and finds you here.”

“Yeah? I think I’d like that. It’d save me a trip down to City Hall.”

“You stay away from City Hall, you hear me? Leave my husband out of this!”

She was snarling now, finally exhibiting the firebrand spirit she had always shown Gunner in the past.

“My, my,” the investigator said. “Look who’s got her claws back.”

Unamused, Everson said, “Get out of here, Mr. Gunner. I don’t ever want to see you again. If you ever come back here, or attempt to talk to my husband,
for any reason whatsoever
, I will sue you for every dime you could ever
hope
to make. Do you understand me?”

For a long time, Gunner didn’t say anything. Then, just before she seemed ready to repeat the threat, he said, “Perfectly.”

And finally, Everson closed the door on him.

eight

“Y
OU GOT A MESSAGE
,” M
ICKEY SAID THE MINUTE
G
UNNER
walked through the barber’s front door. He picked up a notepad nearby, read his own writing aloud. “Yolanda McCreary called. Said she talked to Lydia and Irene, and neither one of ’em knows anything about no ‘DOB.’ What’s a DOB?”

“Never mind that,” Gunner said, eyeing the little brown puppy trotting in circles around Mickey’s feet. “What the hell is
that
?”

“That’s your dog,” Mickey said.

“Shit. I thought I told you guys I didn’t need a dog.”

“I heard you say that, yeah, but I guess you weren’t too convincin’.”

The little male Ridgeback scurried around to Gunner’s end of the floor, started sniffing playfully at the cuffs of his pants. He had paws the size of a grown man’s fists and a long patch of hair along his upper spine that ran counter to the rest of his short coat, creating the “ridge” his breed was known for. “So where’s Winnie? She’s gotta take him back.”

“Winnie’s off for the day. He’s all yours.”

Gunner reached down, picked the animal up with one hand. “Damn, Mickey,” he said.

“I know. You got enough trouble just tryin’ to feed yourself.”

It was Mickey’s late lunch hour, the
closed
sign was facing the window, and the two men were alone in the shop. Gunner lowered himself into a chair and patted the little dog’s head as his landlord cleaned some scissors and clipper blades in a big bowl of alcohol.

“So? What’s a DOB?” Mickey asked again.

It was all the excuse Gunner needed to unload. He told Mickey everything, from his near immolation in Jack Frerotte’s basement to the conversation he’d just had with Connie Everson. He didn’t much give a damn about the ethics of sharing his clients’ business with his landlord; what he needed most now was someone to bounce ideas off, to ask questions he might neglect to ask himself, and Mickey was always happy to fill that role.

“So you think it was this DOB who hit you upside the head and set fire to Jack’s house?”

“For lack of a better suspect, yeah. I do. Still doesn’t ring any bells for you, huh?”

“No. I know a D-A-B—Darren Allen Baker, he’s one of Coretta Baker’s boys—but no D-O-Bs. You sure it was D-O-B?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re sure Selmon’s dead?”

“I’m not sure about anything, really. But the body in the photo looked like Selmon’s, and there’s no other reason for Jack to have a photo like that except to prove that the man in it was dead.”

“You told his sister that yet?”

“More or less.”

“And she’s still payin’ you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other, now.”

Mickey grunted and shook his head, vigorously drying a pair of scissors with a white towel.

“You think I should just drop it, huh? After damn near being flambéed last night?” Gunner asked.

“Let’s just say, if it wasn’t for that, I’d find somethin’ else to do with my time, I was you. I sure as hell wouldn’t bust a gut worryin’ about where Jack buried that asshole’s body, or how many pieces he cut it up in beforehand. That much I know.”

“That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”

“It was meant to be harsh. What that boy Selmon did was dead wrong, Gunner. He hurt a lot of people.”

“So if he was kidnapped and murdered, no one should give a damn.”

“I don’t remember sayin’ that. But I will say
this:
If I had a choice between findin’ that nigger’s body, and findin’ the people responsible for shootin’ that poor boy Cribbs up last night, it wouldn’t be no contest.”

“It’s not. I already told you, Sly’s shooting is all I’m working on right now.”

“Good. You said a prayer for ’im yet?”

“In my way.”

“That means you ain’t. So we gonna say one right now, you and me. Together.”

“Mickey—”

But Mickey had already started praying, and Gunner had no choice but to join in. Because one, he didn’t feel like arguing with the barber, and two, a little prayer was good for him now and then.

“He’s gonna be all right, Gunner,” Mickey said when they were done. “All you gotta do is believe that.”

“Sure,” Gunner said.

“You really think Gil Everson had somethin’ to do with him gettin’ shot?”

“If it weren’t for the councilman’s bodyguard, and the way his wife was acting twenty minutes ago, I’d say no. Not a chance. The photos Sly took of him might have cost him a few dollars in divorce court, maybe, but they would have hardly spelled the end of his career. Assuming there was nothing more to them than what Mrs. Everson had been asking for, anyway.”

“And if he didn’t wanna
give up
those few dollars in divorce court?”

“He has his man Friday pop two forty-five caps into a seventeen-year-old kid’s chest to keep the photos from ever reaching his wife’s hands. That sound logical to you?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t to me, either.”

“So where are the pictures, then? You said they weren’t in the boy’s car, right?”

“Right. They weren’t.”

“Well, why not? If Everson didn’t have the boy shot, the pictures should have been in his car.”

“Unless Sly didn’t have them on him, or the carjacker snatched them along with his camera.”

Mickey nodded, agreeing, then cleaned his scissors and combs in silence for a while. “Are you sure he really took them?” he asked shortly.

“Am I sure he really took them? Who? The carjacker?”

“Not the carjacker. Sly. Are you sure he really took the pictures like he said?”

It was a possibility Gunner had never considered before. “Am I sure? No, I’m not
sure.
I’m not sure about anything, remember? But the kid
said
he took the pictures. His message on my machine said—”

Gunner never completed the thought, frozen by a sudden realization.

“What?” Mickey asked.

“Damn,” Gunner said.

“What
!”

“I just remembered what his message actually said. It said he was having the pictures
developed
somewhere. That he’d bring the prints over here in the morning when they were done.”