Stalker (31 page)

Doing the math, Cindy noted the three-month period where both Bederman and Beaudry were on the day shift together, but riding solo. Which meant that if they had wanted to partner together, they could have.

Obviously, they purposely chose
not
to do it.

Why?

Who didn’t want whom? Or was it mutual?

Or was she just doing mental pyrotechnics to make sense out of her own disorganized life?

And what, if anything, did it have to do with Crayton?

She logged off the computer, took her handwritten material, and stuffed it into her bag. She looked around, then sneaked out of the office, down to her locker to change, then out to the parking lot. As soon as she hit the outside air, she exhaled deeply. She hadn’t noticed how tense she had been. It felt good to get out of there.

Looking around, she opened her car door and slipped behind the wheel, locking her Saturn before she started the motor. Her mind had turned to errant cops, thinking about the most recent scandals that had been plaguing the LAPD. How could she not think about them? It was an old story: cops being corrupted by money. She couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Bederman had been living the fast life for those two years he had worked the night shift during the peak period of Armand’s glory. She tried to recall hers and Armand’s conversations, all his dreams and his schemes. Mostly, she’d listened with half an ear because she’d thought Armand a big scamster. That he was
trying to get money from her…trying to get into her pants.

Since he wasn’t successful at any of those endeavors, Cindy wondered what he got out of their casual relationship. Maybe it was just an ear. Still, he seemed to listen intently when she talked about the academy and her dreams of being a cop.

Could Armand have possibly viewed her as an “in” on the force? Did he think that she was corruptible? Was he throwing out lures to see what would bite? And wasn’t that how it worked for Lark Crayton as well? Throwing out ideas to Stacy Mills to see what would catch?

If Armand were going to catch a big fish, he’d have to use bigger bait than just promises. Cindy thought about how everyone had been concentrating on Crayton’s carjacking. Maybe they should have been concentrating on what led up to the jacking, namely what Armand did for a living.

What did Cindy’s father say Crayton had been involved with? Something about land swapping down near Palm Springs. What town was it? Something with flowers in it…a foreign name that didn’t describe the place at all. Something like Las Flores, only it was in French. Les Fleurs? Belle Fleur?

That was it. Belfleur. One word. They couldn’t even get the French right.

She started the car’s motor, but didn’t head home.

To her shock, she found herself going southeast until she hit Arlington. Then, as if hit by forces beyond her control, she was going east on the 10 freeway.

But the forces weren’t beyond her control. She knew what she was doing. She was taking a ride out to Belfleur in the hopes that maybe some local could give her a hint as to what went wrong with Armand Crayton’s schemes.

It was a long shot, but hell, maybe just this
once
, her bet would pay off.

It was Sunday
, with temperatures hovering in the seventies, so it should have been a beautiful afternoon. But the morning coastal fog had refused to burn off, turning the heavens an insipid milky blue, as if the ether was suffering from anoxia. The travel was ugly as exhaust from the cars, trucks, and buses enveloped the buildings, making everything appear washed out. But traffic was light, and that was a joy. Even Cindy’s worn Saturn seemed to be chugging along at a decent speed, enjoying a rare moment devoid of snarled lanes and sig-alerts.

The drive east took her past downtown L.A., past towering commercial buildings, business hotels, the spanking new sports arena, and convention centers. Beyond them stood the older mercantile buildings of East L.A. and the City of Commerce—miles upon miles of tired structures. A few were being renovated, but too many had been left to rot. As she continued east, she eventually hit the refineries, the factories belching out crud through smokestacks, reminiscent of the old-fashioned locomotives, except that the illusion carried none of the romance. There were also dozens of car dealerships, each announcing a sale of the century, using bloated balloon cartoon figures—obese Tweety birds and Sylvesters wafting in the light breeze, frozen smiles on their faces. This was the SoCal that everyone would just as soon forget.

She cranked up Sheryl Crow on her CD player, the singer’s low-key but bruised voice chanting the vagaries of
life. She advanced the disc to selection number eight, never tiring of the line about being a stranger in one’s own life—the ultimate statement of alienation. Precisely why it was good for her to be
doing
things, be they as mundane as looking up attendance records or driving one hundred miles with no concrete goal in mind. Action was always better than rumination.

As she moved out of the big city and its woes, she drove by dozens of bedroom communities that lined the freeway. The developments looked identical—two-story town houses with peaked, tarpaper roofs and white siding. In an inspirational quirk, a few developments dared to have blue siding. Older cars were parked in driveways, lawns were studded with bikes and balls. An occasional tree swayed in the breeze produced by a steady stream of high-speed cars. One home right after the other. Servicing the local residents were monstrous malls—marooned islands in asphalt seas.

Not the scenic route, but Cindy didn’t mind. It was wonderful to be out of the city, away from the malevolent forces that had been plaguing her. Not that she was carefree. Constant checks in her side and rearview mirrors reminded her that those naïve days were gone. To draw out possible tails, she sped up, she slowed down. She changed lanes frequently. She felt around in her purse for her gun, she made sure her cell phone was on. She switched radio stations constantly to prevent her mind from going into freeway hypnosis. She opened the window, she closed the window. She turned up the volume of her stereo. Anything to keep her active and alert. Still, there was residual fear, that nagging sensation that she was missing something.

As she approached hour number two on the road, she once again looked into her rearview mirror. Out of all the cars she had started with, there remained a blue Lexus driven by a lone white male, a white Ford Explorer occupied by two twenty-something women, an army green Range Rover occupied by two forty-something women, and a silver Volvo that housed a family. The vehicles were traveling at a steady rate, but they had kept at a sizable dis
tance behind her. Plus, they didn’t switch lanes when the Saturn did. Cindy figured she was safe for the moment.

Her stomach rumbling, she reached into her purse and brought out an apple. Thirty minutes later, she ate some grapes.

The terrain had turned from cityscape to landscape. A panorama of virginal scrubland as she headed east into the inland valley, into the edges of the Mojave Desert. Plains of sand-washed acreage pushed against granite, snow-tipped mountains. There was no lead-up to this change in geography; the ground was flat and arid until it abruptly hit the foothills of piled rock. But the air had turned crystalline. No industry around to pollute it, no shoreline fog to obscure it.

Cindy was surprised to see actual exit signs for such a small community like Belfleur, one of them boasting the town to be the antiques capital of the Inland Empire. From the edge of the freeway, Cindy actually spotted several antiques stores. As soon as she could get over to the right-hand lane and exit, she did. She was relieved that none of the four cars behind her had followed her lead. A moment later, she was riding down Main Street—a four-lane band of dust-coated asphalt that paralleled the freeway. Since there didn’t seem to be any centralization of business, she parked when the mood hit. She pulled up curbside, got out, and peered over the monotonous topography—level and tan.

The area was a pinch shy of ghost-town status. There were no other pedestrians, and few signs of life. Belfleur was small, and while it made a pretense at being quaint, it couldn’t pull it off. The compact stores were erected slapdash from grainy stucco, streaked gray from either rain or plumbing problems. On one side of the street, Cindy passed a deli, a coffee shop, and a market—all closed. The other side held a secondhand-clothing store—which was also closed—but lining the sidewalk were a hardware store and a liquor store, both of them open. A hundred feet later, there was only open space with a clear view of the moun
tains. Five more minutes of walking led her to another coffee shop, also open and with people inside. Cindy had a talk with her stomach, and decided that at the moment, she was more curious than hungry. She’d grab some grub on the way back.

About a quarter-mile down the main drag, she came upon a mall of antiques shops. Entering one of them, she found herself looking at items better suited to a thrift shop. Lots of old books and clothing…odd lots of dishes that could have been pieces from great-grandma’s cheap china set. There was a shelf filled with rusted tins that were once used to hold dry goods. Another shelf was stocked with chipped porcelain figurines stamped
MADE IN JAPAN
. Cindy did notice a few pieces of good-quality iridescent carnival glass, but the prices weren’t any bargain. Still, since Mom collected it and she didn’t want to leave empty-handed, she picked up a cup-and-saucer set and examined it for flaws. Finding the pieces to be in pristine condition, she brought them over to the counter.

A forty-plus woman was behind the register. A very short haircut emphasized a very long jawline. Blue eyes sat in nests of tiny crinkles, wrinkles, and crow’s feet. Her face was without adornment—no makeup or jewelry. Her clothing was simple—a short-sleeved blue surfer Hawaiian shirt and a pair of baggy jeans. Cindy handed her the cup and saucer.

“This is nice,” the woman said. She studied the price. “I should have asked more for it. Too bad. My loss, your gain.”

Cindy nodded and smiled. “Nice shirt.”

“Thanks,” the woman answered. “We’ve got a stack of them over on the left. Did you see them?”

“Uh, no.”

“Want me to show you them?”

“Sure.”

The woman came out from behind the counter and began leading Cindy through the maze of crowded aisles. “They’re the real thing from the fifties and sixties. One
hundred percent rayon. Not cotton. The cotton ones don’t drape well. We also have some bowling shirts if you’re interested.”

“I don’t bowl.”

“That’s okay. Most of our customers don’t bowl either. It’s just the latest thing in Gen-Y dress. You know, too hip, gotta go. What do you do?”

Cindy was momentarily floored by the question. She gave her stock answer. “Student.”

“U of Redlands?”

“Uh, no. UCSD.”

“Nice place to go to school.” The woman quickly rooted through the piles of cloth, then pulled out a pink shirt decorated with Hawaiian hula dancers. “This should be your size.”

“It’s nice.” She actually thought that it was kind of neat. “How much?”

“Forty.”

“Wow! That much?”

“Like I said, it’s the real thing.”

“What do you think it cost new?”

“Five, six bucks. I’ll give it to you for thirty. That’s what I charge Ron Harrison in West Hollywood. He marks them up a hundred percent.” She smiled. “Just slip it on over your blouse. See what you think.”

Cindy slipped on the shirt. “It’s a little big.”

“They’re supposed to be big.”

“I look like a Mafia moll trying to hide a gun.”

“We get them, too.” The woman smiled. “Okay, I’ll go to twenty-five. I paid twenty for it. Surely you wouldn’t begrudge me five bucks.”

“You’re talking me into it,” Cindy stated. “I don’t need it.”

“Need is completely different from want. Do you want it?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Buy it. You won’t be sorry.”

Cindy threw up her hands, then handed her back the shirt. “Just call me sucker. I’ll take it.”

“It looks good on you. And if you do change your mind, just bring it in to Ron Harrison. Tell him Elaine sent you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You want some cappuccino or an espresso? I’ve got a machine in the back.”

“I’m fine—”

“I’m fixing one for myself.”

“Okay, I’ll take a cappuccino.”

“Come in the back then.”

Cindy followed Elaine into the back of the store. The machine was squeezed between old appliances, specifically iceboxes. “People still use these things?”

“Nah, strictly for decoration—even though most of them do work. We get a lot of L.A. designers in here looking for odds and ends.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. You sound surprised. Why would they pay fifty percent more to shop in a fancified store when they can get the same thing here if they sniff around a bit? We really have some treasures in here.”

“Who’s we?”

“Pardon?”

“You said we,” Cindy replied. “Do you own the place?”

“Me and my friend.”

“Oh.”

“What’s with the ‘oh’?” Elaine challenged. “You have something against lesbians?”

“Not at all.” Cindy groped for the right words. “It’s just that I didn’t expect to see any gays in a town this small.”

“We’ve got a lot of gays here in Belfleur.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Mostly lesbians. We’ve also got a few older queers. You have antiques, you have gays. Stereotypes aren’t based on fiction, you know.” She took a carton of milk out of one of the old iceboxes and began to steam it. “What’s your name?”

“Cindy.”

“So, Cindy. What brings you specifically to Belfleur?”

“Actually, I’m sort of hunting around for information.”

Elaine stopped steaming and faced her. “You’re no student.”

“I’m a student of life.”

“That’s as corny as Fritos. What kind of information are you seeking?”

“That’s the big question.”

“It’s the big one for me,” Elaine said. “It shouldn’t be for you. You should know what you want.”

Cindy decided on honesty. “About a year ago, there was a big carjacking murder in Los Angeles—”

“Armand Crayton.”

“You knew him?”

“Of course. Everyone knew Armand. Now, he must have bought a dozen Hawaiian shirts from me.” Elaine paused. “I wonder if the widow still has them?”

“What did you think of him?”

Elaine handed her the cappuccino. “What are you? Like a private eye or something?”

“A cop,” Cindy said. “But I’ll still take the shirt and the cup and saucer. Tell me about Armand Crayton.”

“A real operator in every sense of the word. First, he tried the sexual allure. When I didn’t bite for obvious reasons, he tried the business angle, but that didn’t work either. But he must have charmed his way into the hearts of more than a few suckers. I know for a fact that dozens of people had bought into his schemes. Most of them were not from around here, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Bought into what? A land development of some sort?”

“It was supposed to be a resort with private condos as well as rentals. Desert Bloom Estates. They had a whole mock-up of the place sitting in Armand’s office—”

“Armand had an office here?”

“For a while, yeah, he had an office. Just for the locals, to show us that he had
plans
so we wouldn’t think he was a total con man. Of course it was horse manure, but the model was nice. It was complete with buildings and little pieces of blue cellophane for the pools. And there were these tiny little trees and cacti landscaping. Some of the units even showed furniture. You know, the dated pink and
green Southwest stuff. But I guess the investors weren’t exactly the sophisticated type. They marketed Belfleur as an upscale Palm Springs with the desert warmth but without the extreme heat. We have the change of seasons as you go deeper into San Berdoo, near where all the orchards are. It’s real woody up there. Course it gets cold up there, too. That’s why we can grow cherries and apples. We get a real chill during the winter. You pass any of the cherry trees?”

“No.”

“Keep going northeast into the mountains. It’s going to be a good fruit crop. Come back in June. We’ve got U-pick, U-haul farms. Cherries for a fraction of what you pay in the market.”

“You own a cherry orchard, too?”

Elaine smiled. “Now that would be very enterprising of me. But no, I don’t have any cherry trees.”

“How about Armand? Was he interested in cherries?”

“Only the human, virgin kind.” Elaine laughed at her own joke.

“That sounds like Armand.”

“You knew him?”

“Not well. But you didn’t have to know Armand well to realize what he was after.”

“True, true, and too true.”

“So Armand wanted to turn the area into a desert resort.”

“See,
that’s
what the problem was,” Elaine explained. “Belfleur isn’t hot enough year round to be a desert spa. And it isn’t cold enough to be a ski resort. Plus, I’m betting when word got around and people realized they hadn’t invested in any Garden of Eden, they backpedaled. Most of his investors were out-of-towners looking to make a fast buck. It never works that way.”

“You’re right about that,” Cindy agreed. “Do you know how much the plots originally cost?”