Killer in the Hills (2 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Architecturally, the new LAPD HQ is a world away from the old HQ, Parker Center. The new place is an angular glass and steel structure in a park-like setting, with a large lawn and colorful drought-resistant plants arranged artfully around the building. I have spent plenty of time at the old HQ building, both as a writer doing research and as a suspect in a murder case, but this will be my first visit here. I look at the building as we pull up. It looks more like a modern art museum than a high-tech fortress that houses a vast arsenal of weapons and explosives and thousands of men and women working day and night to protect the good people of Los Angeles from the robbers, rapists, murderers, terrorists, gangbangers, perverts, and predators of every conceivable predilection.

True to its sterile, modernist form, the new building is named Police Headquarters Facility—or PHF, as the acronym-loving cops call it. Some call it PAB—Police Administration Building—equally poetic. But some of the old-timers still refer to it as Parker Center, clinging to the name out of reverence for Chief Parker, or simply out of habit; or to illustrate their seniority by being stubborn and cranky—the kind of guys who speak fondly of the good old days when a group of African-American kids in a car were pulled over and advised to turn around and go home if they dared drive north of the Santa Monica Freeway after dark. Time marches on.

Our driver skirts past the Eyewitness News vans and the gaggle of reporters at the entrance to the building. He pulls around the corner and heads down the curving ramp to the gated, enclosed parking underneath.

The driver stops, and Melvin and I get out of the car and go to the heavy bulletproof glass doors that lead inside the building. Melvin pushes a button and a moment later a uniformed officer appears. Melvin flattens his FBI ID against the glass and we are allowed inside.

The officer accompanies us on our walk down a long corridor, which is spotless. The floor and walls are cream-colored concrete, accented by a rich strip of glossy redwood wainscoting.

“Hang a few Warhols in here and you could be at MoMA,” I say.

“De Kooning be better,” Melvin says. “Color wouldn’t overwhelm the space.”

“Awfully cultured for a brute with a cannon in his armpit,” I say.

“One does not preclude the other,” Melvin says.

We reach the end of the hall and Melvin flashes his ID to a second uniformed officer manning the metal detector. Melvin hands the cop his gun and pulls out a pair of handcuffs from nowhere, like Houdini. The cop takes the gun and the cuffs and Melvin passes through the detector. When I follow him, the alarm sounds. I hold up my left wrist, which was rebuilt years ago with chrome and polyurethane parts.

“Metal pins,” I say, and push up my sleeve to show the cop the surgical scars. He wands me anyway, as Melvin watches.

“The six thousand dollar man,” Melvin says.

“Who are you here to see?” the cop asks.

“Detective Marsh,” Melvin says.

The cop looks at my New York state drivers license, writes down the number, then we sign in and he accompanies us on the ten-foot stroll to the elevator. The cop slides a magnetic key card into a slot by the elevator buttons and the doors open and we all get inside. The cop punches a button inside the elevator—a button with no number—and we ride up. There is no counter to show what floors we pass as we rise.

“How come there are no numbers on the buttons?” I ask the cop. He gives a small shrug.

“Security,” he says.

Melvin and I exchange a glance.

“I feel safer already,” I say. No one responds. Somewhere, a lonely cricket chirps.

Eventually, we are deposited on the unknown but secure floor, and the cop holds the door for us as we exit the elevator.

“Down the hall to the right, corner office,” the cop says.

“Corner office,” I say, impressed. The cop looks at me.

“Yeah,” the cop says with a half-smile. “And it’s
Lieutenant
Marsh now.” Then the elevator doors close and Melvin and I are alone, unescorted and unarmed, except for our piercing wit.

“Maybe we should find the men’s room so I can stop and freshen up. Look my best for the Lieutenant,” I say.

Melvin gives me a quick once-over.

“Lipstick on a pig,” he says, and we walk to the corner office and knock on the door.

CHAPTER SIX

“I want you to understand, you are not considered a suspect,” Lieutenant Detective Marsh says to me. He is sitting behind a long, sleek reproduction of a mid-century Stow Davis desk, his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking City Hall.

I haven’t seen Marsh in years, but he looks exactly the same, aging at the glacial pace of a California redwood—forties, fit, prematurely gray hair cut trim; smooth, tanned skin, and dressed as neat as a pin, in a crisp white shirt and navy necktie. When he stood up to greet us I noticed his gray slacks didn’t have a single wrinkle or crease. He tilts his chair back and assesses me with his small gray eyes.

“When we took the missing persons report we discovered you were married to Ms. Fletcher fifteen years ago, so naturally we wanted to talk to you,” he says.

“Fletcher,” I say. “How many last names did she have?”

“Four and counting,” Marsh says. “Stage name, screen name, aliases…” Marsh lifts his hand in a vague motion. “But Fletcher is the name on her birth records and what little other records we could find on her—other than the marriage certificate, where she had given her name as Rhodes. She had one arrest, for prostitution and possession, a few years ago.” He leans forward and rests his arms on his desk and waits for me to say something.

“I’m sorry, Detective, but I have virtually no memory of her,” I say. “You may recall that I pretty much blacked out for that period of my life.”

Marsh nods. He remembers.

“Nothing at all?” he says, after a moment. “You don’t remember how you met her? Who she hung out with…?”

“Nope,” I say. “It was fifteen years ago and I was dead drunk every day for months.”

“You say you have virtually no memory,” he says. “What, if anything, do you remember?”

“She was a brunette then,” I say. “I remember hanging out in her apartment, drinking. I doubt that I was with her more than a few days—maybe a week or so at the most. I think I’d remember more if I was with her longer than that.”

“Do you remember marrying her?” he says.

“All I remember is the jacket I was wearing at the ceremony was too hot for summer in Las Vegas. It was wool and it was scratchy and it made me sweat. That’s it.”

Marsh lets the silence play out for a while, his eyes not leaving mine. It is in the nature of all policemen to be suspicious, and Marsh is nothing if not a policeman. He probably sleeps in LAPD pajamas. The walls of his office are lined with photographs of him receiving various citations, including the LAPD Medal of Valor, in the center of the wall of pictures, illuminated with a small spotlight in the ceiling.

“Well, anything you can tell us would be helpful,” he says. He glances at Melvin. “I called Agent Beauchamp to give him a heads-up on your, ah, connection with Ms. Fletcher. Aside from your relationship with Mr. Beauchamp there’s really no reason to involve the Feds. This is a local matter,” Marsh says, and looks at Melvin.

In other words, what the hell are you doing in my office, G-man?

I look at Melvin, who sits still, relaxed, his eyes steadily on Marsh.

“I’m here in an
amicus
capacity,” Melvin says. Marsh just looks at him, deadpan.

“That’s Latin,” I say. “It means ‘friend.’”

Marsh turns his flat gaze on me for a few moments. No one says anything.

“How was she killed?” I ask.

“Twenty-five caliber automatic, up close, behind her left ear,” Marsh says.

“There was no blood on the bed,” I say.

“We think she was killed somewhere else, and then moved,” he says.

“Be a little awkward, carrying a dead body in through the lobby of the Chateau Marmont,” I say. “Usually they’re carrying them out.”

Marsh’s face doesn’t move at all. If he has a sense of humor, it is locked away in a safe somewhere. Maybe behind the framed Medal of Valor. Maybe humor isn’t a prerequisite in individuals of true valor.

“Our investigation is widening,” he says. I hear a soft sound from Melvin. He and I both know what Marsh really means: they have no clue where she was murdered.

“Do you have any suspects?” I say. “Persons of interest? Hotel security video?”

“We’re working on several leads,” Marsh says.

“But I’m not one of them.”

“No.”

“Why not?” I say. “I was her husband, apparently. Don’t police always look at the husband when a wife is killed? That’s what they say on TV, anyway.”

“Don’t assume we haven’t,” Marsh says.

“You talked to Nicki,” I say, realizing what he means.

“I spoke with her half an hour ago,” Marsh says. “She vouched for you, said you’ve been with her most every night recently, certainly long before Ms. Fletcher’s disappearance.”

Smart. Marsh had waited to call Nicki until the last minute, so she wouldn’t have time to warn me. I had my cell with me but I had turned it off when I went to the crime scene with Melvin, and forgotten to turn it back on. Not that it mattered. I had assumed I would be a suspect when I got the phone call from Melvin in New York. That’s why I decided to come out to LA on my own—to beat LAPD to the punch, just in case I was a suspect. I could do without the publicity and coming forward right away is not something a guilty man would likely do.

We sit there and let the rain backfill the silence. Then, abruptly, Marsh stands up.

“Well,” he says. “Thanks for coming out.” He takes a card from a neat pile in a small box on his desk and hands it to me. “If you think of anything, or remember anything that could possibly help, call me directly. At the office or my cell, 24/7.”

“Will do,” I say, and pocket the card and Melvin and I get up and turn to leave.

“One other thing,” Marsh says. Melvin and I turn back to him.

“According to hospital records, Ms. Fletcher gave birth to a baby girl eight months after you were married,” Marsh says. “She’d be fifteen now. We haven’t been able to locate her. Your name is recorded as the father on the birth certificate, and the girl’s name is recorded as Karen Penelope Rhodes.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“
Amicus
capacity?” I say to Melvin in the elevator as we ride down from Marsh’s office.

“Thought he could handle a little Latin,” Melvin says. “’Specially since he’s surrounded by such tasteful opulence.”

“He’s not a bad guy,” I say. “Just born without a personality.”

The elevator stops and we get out and head back down the long corridor toward the parking garage. We leave the building and get in the Town Car and ride in silence in the backseat for a few minutes, until the car merges with the never-ending flow of traffic on the Hollywood freeway. When the tires on the wet freeway make enough noise to cover our conversation, Melvin speaks in a low tone, without looking at me.

“The business about the daughter,” he says.

“No memory of it,” I say. I look at Melvin. “I think I would remember something like that.”

“Mm-hm,” Melvin says.

Melvin’s tone tells me he’s not convinced that the girl isn’t my daughter, and as we drive though the rain I wonder how convinced I am. I spend the rest of the ride trying to remember anything about her, but memories don’t always obey, and there are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“What are you wearing?” I say into my cell phone.

I am dried out from the rain and stretched out on my bed in my lavish 9 x 12-foot room at the Best Western Hollywood, looking out my window at the view, which consists of an unlighted parking lot, where a skinny young man is attempting to hold a jacket over his head to shield him from the downpour as he urinates behind a dumpster.
The city where dreams are made.

“It’s 12 degrees here,” Nicki says in my ear, from her cozy three-bedroom apartment far above Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

“That wasn’t the question, counselor,” I say.

“Flannel pajama bottoms…” she begins, then pauses. I detect a slight tease in the way she pauses, although it could be my overactive imagination.

“The green flannel bottoms with the fluffy sheep print?” I say.

“Yes,” she says, warming to the subject. “And a long-sleeved thermal top and thick wool socks, and I’m under three blankets, including the electric one, and I’m still freezing.”

“Wish I were there,” I say. “I could help you stay warm.”

“I wish you were, too,” she says. “But you’re out in sunny L.A.”

“Right,” I say, and watch the young man in the parking lot zip up his pants and rejoin his girlfriend, who is standing under an awning, holding his cigarette.
Love beareth all things.

I had called Nicki as soon as I took off my wet coat, shoes and socks, and dried my hair with a towel that had BEST WESTERN HOLLYWOOD embroidered in shimmering gold thread along the edges. I told Nicki about the crime scene, and about the interview with Marsh. I left out the part about Penelope’s daughter, for now. I would be back in New York tomorrow, and it seemed like a subject best raised after she’d had a glass of pinot and a good dinner and a warm homecoming. I have decided that the girl isn’t my daughter—purely as an act of will, not because I really believe it—so there was no reason to mention it over the phone just as Nicki was about to go to sleep. What would be the point?

“You said it was a missing persons case when you left,” she says. “When did they find the body?”

“Early this morning,” I say. “About the time Melvin and I were over the Rockies, I’d guess.”

“Been a long day for you,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “How was your day?”

“One long deposition,” she says, through a yawn. “Securities fraud. I would have fallen asleep if it weren’t so damned cold in that conference room.”

“I’ll tell Joel to turn up the thermostat when I get back tomorrow,” I say.

The phone on the nightstand rings. I lean over and see the ID: BEST WESTERN 1002. Melvin’s room.

“Hang on a second,” I say to Nicki, then put the cell on my pillow beside me and pick up the phone on the nightstand.

“What’s up,” I say

“Your TV on?” Melvin says.

“No.”

“Turn it on.”

“Which channel?” I say, reaching for the remote on the nightstand.

“All of ‘em,” he says.

I switch the TV to a local channel and see video of Melvin and me running the press gauntlet from the Chateau Marmont to the Town Car.

“I’ve already seen this show,” I say to Melvin. “I’m talking to Nicki, I’ll call you later.” I start to turn the TV off.

“Keep watching,” Melvin says.

I watch for a moment, the sound muted. The screen switches to my picture—the mug shot from my murder arrest years ago. I look worse than I did in the Lucky ‘N Love wedding photo.

“I’m gonna have to get myself arrested again,” I say to Melvin. “That picture sucks.”

Then my picture slides to the side, and the screen is split between my mug shot and a webcam video of a girl, around fifteen years old. I turn up the sound, but the girl’s voice is drowned out by the voiceover of the TV news anchorman.

“…internet video of Karen Penelope Rhodes, who is the daughter of murder victim Penelope Rhodes and bestselling author Jack Rhodes,” the anchorman says. “Police consider the girl as a person of interest in the murder of Penelope Rhodes, and ask anyone who may have information regarding the whereabouts of Karen Rhodes to call them at the number at the bottom of your screen…”

“Shit,” I say.

“What’s wrong?” I hear Nicki say from the cell phone, on the pillow by my head. I pick it up.

“Guess I won’t be coming back to New York tomorrow,” I say.