Murder With Sarcastic Intent (9 page)

But it wasn’t just the murder.

Heck, Mary had seen all kinds of dead bodies. Including the ones that had been alive until she’d made them dead.

No, this time it was the woman’s face. She had been such a beautiful woman. That beautiful skin, fine features. Mary raised her beer toward the ceiling.

“Here’s to you, Elyse,” she said. “Or whatever your name was.”

That face. What was it about that face?

Mary drummed her fingernails along the side of the beer bottle.

She thought of Nina’s face. Granted, it was only a photograph, and the images were from her Facebook page.

But still …

It occurred to Mary that Nina didn’t look all that much like Elyse.

And then it her. What was bothering her.

Elyse Ramirez might not be Nina’s mother
.

Which raised two entirely new questions in Mary’s mind.

Who in the good goddamn was Elyse Ramirez?

And if Elyse wasn’t really Nina’s mother, then who
was
?

Twenty-three

Mary locked up her office and drove through the small downtown area of Venice. She noticed a black Chevy Tahoe behind her and something about it bothered her. Had she seen it before? Whoever was driving wasn’t tailgating her, but for some reason, she felt like the bastard was too close.

When she was within two blocks of Alice’s house, the Tahoe turned off, and Mary figured she was imagining things. Paranoia.

Add it to her list of mental issues.

Mary got to Alice’s house, parked, and rang the bell, but there was no answer. Mary had already seen Alice’s car in the driveway. She took out her key, unlocked the door, and went inside.

The smell of body sweat and curry hit her nostrils, while the sound of rock music assailed her ears.

A man walked out of the kitchen wearing a pink bathrobe. Sanji the yoga instructor appeared to have no other clothing on beneath the robe.

A martini glass was in his hand.

“Hello,” he said, a thick Indian accent giving his words a soft lilt.

Mary tried to avert her eyes.

“What kind of yoga involves martinis and nudity?” Mary said. “Doesn’t sound like Bikram.”

Alice emerged from the kitchen. She had on a bathrobe and black stockings, with six-inch stiletto heels. She wobbled a bit coming from the kitchen.

“How’s the escort service?” Mary said.

“Business is booming! Or should I say ‘banging?’” Alice said with a big grin on her face. She reached out, lifted up the back of Sanji’s bathrobe, and slapped his bare ass. Mary could tell Alice had enjoyed more than one drink. And her face was flushed. Either from the curry or something else. Mary didn’t want to think about it.

“We had a very good session today,” Sanji said. He giggled a little after he said it.

“I definitely feel a lot more loose,” Alice said. She winked at Mary and slipped an arm around Sanji’s waist. “A lot more.”

Mary closed her eyes and winced.

“Please stop,” she said. “And where did you get those shoes? Your old KISS costume? Does Gene Simmons know you’re impersonating him?”

Sanji walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. His robe popped open, and Mary tried to quickly look away.

Too late.

“Put your King Cobra away, Sanji,” Alice said. “You’re making Mary jealous.”

Sanji pulled his robe closed. “I am sorry,” he said, taking a pull from his martini. He turned on the television. Mary saw that a pay-per-view porn movie was still playing.

What was going on? Porn was everywhere.

“Tell you what,” Mary said. “I’ll come back after you’re done with your session.”

“Yes, we only got through a couple of
poses
in this session,” Alice said, giggling. She used the air quotes gesture when she said poses and let out a high-pitched laugh. “Round Two will be a bit more creative, I suspect.” She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled again.

Mary looked at her. “You know what, I just stopped by to make sure everything was okay,” she said. “Didn’t know I was going to interrupt some kind of yoga sex party.”

“Oh, Mary, you’re always welcome,” Alice said. “Except now.”

Mary got to the door, but before she opened it, she saw through the living room window a black Chevy Tahoe go around the corner.

“Fuck me,” Mary said. Someone
was
following her.

“She’s not talking to you, Sanji,” Alice said behind her. “But she took the words right out of my mouth.”

Mary slammed the door shut behind her.

Twenty-four

Mary hoped she would catch a break. And she did.

“Yes, I’m in the office,” Oscar Freedham said to her over the phone. “No, I don’t feel like doing you a favor.”

Mary sighed. Why was it always so difficult to get men to do what she wanted? Didn’t they understand she always got what she wanted anyway? Such a time-waster!

“It’s a matter of life and death,” Mary said. “Give me the name and address of the owner of a red Hyundai found yesterday crashed and abandoned at the corner of LaBrea and San Vicente, or a puppy dies.”

“I hate dogs,” Freedham said. “The fewer the better.”

“It’s not a dog puppy, it’s a wolf pup. You like wolves?” Mary said.

“The original ancestor of the dog? If I hate dogs, why would I like wolves?”

Mary sighed again.

“What do you want, Oscar? Another half-dozen drinks? Lunch? Moonlight stroll through the garden?”

“I want you to understand that I work in Vice, not Traffic,” he said. “Don’t you have someone else you can bum a favor from?”

“Let me be blunt, Oscar. My police department bitch, your pal Jake Cornell, isn’t returning my calls. So until he comes to his senses, I’m asking you.”

Now it was Oscar’s turn to let out a frustrated sigh.

“You owe me, Cooper. I’ll text you what I find out.”

“Thanks—” but she heard the click of the phone.

“People just don’t take the time to say goodbye anymore,” she said.

Mary took Oscar at his word and assumed he would come back with some sort of information on the car. A name and an address, hopefully. Which meant she might have another face-to-face meeting with Mr. Fleeing Weedwhacker.

This time, she intended to be a bit more prepared.

Mary drove back to her apartment, changed into jeans, black running shoes, and a black T-shirt.

She went to the gun safe in her bedroom closet, opened it, and took out her prized possession. The Para-Ordnance high-capacity .45 held fourteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. She slid on her nylon shoulder holster, holstered the gun, and put two extra magazines in a pouch on the strap of the holster.

To her ankle, she strapped a smaller holster, and from the gun safe, she brought out a Ruger LCR, loaded with five rounds of .357 Magnum hollow-points. She left the speedloaders in the gun safe. If she burned through fifteen rounds of .45 ammo and five rounds of .357 hollow-points, more bullets would probably be the least of her problems.

She closed and locked the gun safe, went into the kitchen, grabbed a bottled water, then checked her phone.

There was a text from Oscar Freedham with an address, followed by a name.

Lonzo Vega.

And one additional message.

He’s bad news.

Twenty-five

The address was in Ladera Heights, a less-than-spectacular area east of the 405.

Mary’s GPS led her to a single-story brick house built by someone without any concerns other than shelter. And even then, their idea of basic shelter was very, very basic.

The front of the house included a dented front door, two small, filthy windows, and a crumbling cement step that had enough holes to guarantee a rat’s nest.

The roof was falling apart, a gutter hung all the way down to the ground on one side, and one-car garage, also falling apart, stood off to the side of the house.

There was no sign of anyone. In fact, Mary thought, there wasn’t sign that anyone had been there in, what, maybe years?

No sign of a Beautification Award in the front yard—how had the committee missed this place?

Mary already had her doubts that this was the supposed home of Lonzo Vega, proud owner of a red Hyundai and possible owner/employee of Sol Landscaping. Most small business owners she knew avoided living in homes that should be condemned. Didn’t reflect well on their brand identity.

Well, let’s just see if this is indeed the Vega residence, she thought.

Mary got out of the car and locked it. She walked up the cracked front sidewalk to the crumbling front step. Looked for a doorbell or a knocker.

Nothing.

She noted the dead shrubs next to the house. If there had ever been actual landscaping here, it hadn’t been much. This was terrible. Terrible as in the
never-been-good
category. Was it the plumber with leaky pipes story? Or was Lonzo Vega’s address really the home of rodents the size of piglets?

She rapped her knuckles on the cracked, wooden front door. A sliver of half-painted plywood fluttered to the ground.

Somewhere, a dog barked.

And then a sound came from the other side of the door. It was the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being racked into the chamber.

Mary dove from the crumbling step that fell apart beneath her feet as the wooden door exploded with the sound of a gun booming.

She hit the ground and felt something brush over her, probably shrapnel from the shotgun.

Mary realized that the loose concrete, which gave out underfoot and actually caused her to fall quickly, may have saved her life.

“Fuck,” Mary said. She rolled away from the door, ripped the .45 from her shoulder holster, heard the sound of the shotgun’s slide working again. She glanced back at her car. No way she could get there in time. Her cell phone was in her pocket. Nine-one-one? Not an option.

The shotgun roared again, and Mary felt bits of debris landing on her back and the top of her head. Someone tried to kick the door open from the inside.

Mary considered firing back through the door, but instead she crouched and ran. She nearly stumbled over the uneven ground but made it to the back of the house. There had been movement in the window as she ran by.

She rounded the back corner of the house where another concrete slab lay five feet from the back door.

Before she could decide on her next move, a man crashed through the back door, a short-barreled pump shotgun in his hands.

“Freeze!” Mary yelled.

The man didn’t hesitate. He brought the shotgun to his shoulder and took aim at Mary.

So she shot him.

Three times.

Center mass.

The shotgun exploded as a round went off, but by then the man had fallen backward, and the muzzle was pointed skyward.

Mary circled a small patio with weeds growing through the cracked pavers.

She approached the man. His eyes were wide open. The shotgun was still in his right hand.

If this was Lonzo Vega, she doubted he was the owner of Sol Landscaping. This guy couldn’t be more than eighteen years old, covered with the kind of tattoos that made Mary think of gangbangers.

Mary stepped over the dead man, opened the back door, and stepped inside the house.

It was vacant.

No furniture.

Holes in the walls.

Loose wires hanging from former locations of light fixtures.

Mary instantly knew two things.

One, this was certainly not the home of a landscaper.

And two.

She’d been set up.

Twenty-six

She made the call to 911 herself, figuring in this neighborhood a few gunshots probably didn’t merit notifying the police. Her hands shook a little as she dialed, and she tried to force her heartbeat to slow.

Mary finished the call, disconnected her cell, and paced in the backyard, occasionally going to the front to check on her car.

While she waited, Mary made sure there was no trace that she had actually entered the house.