the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (11 page)

"So you're still missing nineteen." We nodded. "If this guy, Carl Sladky, is our doer, I want to lock him up fast." She was looking at the monitor while Jeb fiddled with the DVR.

"Karel," I corrected.

"I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

She turned around and fixed coal black eyes on me. She was a real pistol, this one. I looked to Hitch. Since she was African-American, I figured maybe he might have some ethnic traction.

He picked up on my look and turned to her. "Ms. Wilkes, what my partner was saying is the man's name is not Carl, it's Kar-el, with a K and an E. Czechoslovakian."

"Then why didn't you say that?" she demanded.

"We just did," he replied.

"Stop babbling and play back the video. I'm on a short trial recess and my judge is a flaming asshole."

Jeb finally accessed the correct file and brought up the video. The initial image showed the gardeners working around the empty pool area early in the day. There was a time and date code running across the bottom of the screen. We fast-forwarded and then slowed the playback.

Yolanda Dublin and Yeo-Sing were the first to appear at a little past three P
. M
. We watched as they unloaded, put up a few decorations, and left.

Then a caterer arrived at six, set up buffet tables and a bar beside the pool and carried warming trays and food containers into the pool house before driving off.

Around eight P
. M
. Yolanda and Yeo-Sing returned, unpacked the food containers, and set out the hors d'oeuvres.

At nine, the gowned, beautiful girls of the Double Click Club began to arrive with their client dates. There was lots of arms-length air
-
kissing at first, but before long things began heating up.

As the party got going, Scott Berman and Chrissy Sweet reclined on a pool chaise. It wasn't long before he had the top on her dress loosened, and they were nuzzling and drinking champagne.

Occasionally, Scott got up to make them fresh drinks. We watched as couples started dancing. There was a decent amount of crotch friction. I could see why the Prentisses pulled down their blinds to shield their child.

Then the same scruffy blond guy who was on Yolanda Dublin's security video walked casually into the backyard carrying something draped with a towel. He walked to a spot at the end of the pool and dropped the towel. We could clearly see a machine pistol in his right hand. He pointed the gun at Chrissy and shouted something. That was when the guests became aware of his presence.

Scott Berman and Chrissy Sweet scrambled up from the chaise and turned to run as Sladky let loose with a stream of bullets, first hitting his wife in the back.

The force of the bullets lifted her off her feet and she flew face-first into the pool.

Scott scrambled for cover as three rounds ripped open his chest.

He staggered back, spun, and flopped over the back of the pool chaise where we'd found him.

As the rest of the partygoers scattered in every direction imaginable, Karel Sladky started to spray bullets, turning and firing in a wide arc. People were running and screaming in terror, but the shots now weren't directed at anyone. Some crashed into the hillside, some into the stucco walls of the main house, some went into the night sky, where they undoubtedly landed half a mile away.

The last burst of gunfire inadvertently hit Paula Morgan, who had stupidly run out of the pool house, accidentally stumbling into the line of fire as Karel spun wildly around. When the bullets struck her she splashed awkwardly into the pool.

Karel Sladky turned and walked without hurry away from the pool area and was gone. A moment later Yolanda Dublin and Yeo-Sing ran out of the pool house. Yolanda checked the three dead bodies without touching them. She said something to Yeo-Sing, who fished into Scott's pocket and came up with his car keys. While he was doing this Yolanda gathered up the girls' purses and they quickly left. Once they were gone only Scott Berman, Chrissy Sweet, and the hapless Paula Morgan remained in the shot.

Jeb turned off the video.

"Fuck," Dahlia Wilkes said softly. It was the first time I'd ever seen her shaken.

"Think you can win the case with that?" I said.

She ignored me and began issuing instructions. "I want our CSI video guys to try and count the shots. Have them go frame to frame. I want every single slug that you can find, catalogued and cross-matched.

"I need the names of every person on that tape and all those people who were up there that we didn't see. Names, numbers, addresses. This is a good case, but it's a media red ball so it needs to be squeaky clean. No flaws, failures, or fuck-ups.

"You need to crank up the existing BOLO on this Sladky guy and red flag it. Have every squad room pass his picture out at roll call. I want him in custody."

She turned to go.

"Excuse me, Ms. Wilkes," Hitch said.

"What?!"

"Unless we can get an independent verification of who was up there, we may have trouble getting Miss Dublin to cooperate and supply any names."

"It's a triple murder, is she kidding?"

"1 don t think so. She says we need to read the Heidi Fleiss book. I haven t had a chance to buy one yet but when I do, if you want, I'll pick you up a copy."

He was messing with her now and she scowled angrily. Dahlia was beautiful, strong, and smart, but all of those attributes were undermined by her intimidating personal interactions and her total lack of any humor. She drilled us with those deadly black irises. "Let me see what I can do to change that," she said.

"Good luck. Her attorney is Edith Stillwell," Hitch said. "Shit."

She handed Hitch her notepad. "Write Yolanda's contact info there and get back out to Skyline and finish policing the crime scene. I want the rest of those bullets and casings, and I want them now."

"You saw the tape," Hitchens said. "He was shooting a lot of those rounds up in the air. I think its reasonable to assume we won't find them all."

"Then focus on finding the rest of the brass. I need prints to lock this up tight. That stuff is out there somewhere. Go get it, Detective. And I don't want to hear a bunch of bullshit excuses either."

"Oh, lordy, lordy. Dontcha be payin' that no nevermind, missy." Hitch was bobbing his head up and down like Stepin Fetchit. "We field niggas ain't gonna be goin' and givin' no 'scuses, no siree."

"Go fuck yourself, Hitchens," she said.

Chapter
18.

The gun registration check on Karel Sladky came back empty. According to the State of California, he was not the registered owner of a Bizon machine pistol, so it was probably a street weapon. But that actually didn't matter anymore because we had surveillance video showing him shooting up the murder scene and killing three people with a Bizon.

If it had been Sally who was working this with me, we would have been high-fiving each other right about now and talking about which bar we were going to hit for our celebration. The red-ball case was buttoned and we were down to mop up. Even better, we'd have done it in less than seventy-two hours. The tape left little doubt as to what happened and who the killer was. All that remained was to find Karel Sladky and get patrol or SWAT to hook him up for three murders.

But since it wasn't Sally, but Hitch, there was no high-fiving o
r c
elebrating. Instead we went back out to the crime scene with the evidence team to look for more bullets, per the Black Dahlias instructions. We traveled in separate cars, a subtle but not unnoticed indicator of how badly we were getting along.

At the crime scene the press swarmed Hitch.

"I wouldn't let them take your picture," I told him. "You've been in that suit for two days. It's not good for your media profile to look like you sleep in your car."

"Go fuck yourself, Scully."

We pushed past the press to join a ten-person tech team waiting for us in the backyard in their blue jumpsuits. We put a DVD copy of the surveillance video into my new Apple MacBook, then ran the video for the CSIs, as on the screen, Karel Sladky began to fire.

"Some slugs could still be in that hillside," I said to the ten techies, pointing in one direction. "We got everything out of the pool house walls and off the house, but we need to check over by the pool heater. Looks like he squeezed off a burst in that direction. As far as the brass, since you did an outside spiral search last night, let's try a grid
-
and-graph search now."

Using the surveillance video, we went back at it.

While the CSIs and metal detector team organized their search, I wandered over and looked through the solarium window again. I really wanted to get into this house.

A lot of things had started to bother me. For instance, who buys and holds a multimillion-dollar mansion they're not going to live in for over twenty-five years? That story about holding it in Brooks's estate until he was thirty-five seemed like complete BS. And despite Sheedy's stated fear of starting a haunted house rumor and killing the market price, why was Thayer Dunbar so determined that nobody go inside?

I began calculating the potential hazard to my career that breaking into this house without a warrant might produce.

As I pondered this my pager went off. Across the pool, Hitch's went off at exactly the same time. I'd been a cop long enough to know that when this happens, something big is going clown. Both of us clawed at our cell phones and hit programmed numbers. I connected with Jeb just a little ahead of him.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"The BOLO yielded results. They found Sladky. One of the Hollywood Division cops knew Chrissy. She used to strip at a club on Sunset called The Manhole. That's where she met Karel. We called over there and the bartender says Sladky's at the bar right now. He's kind of a fixture at that place. He does some bouncing for them from time to time even sleeps in the manager's office. Because of that Bizon I've got SWAT rolling."

He gave me the address. I hung up and headed toward Hitch, who was yapping on his cell phone getting the same information. "2556 Sunset," I told him.

"Just got it."

We sprinted down the long drive, but slowed to a walk as we passed the reporters so we wouldn't alert them to the fact that something was happening. We didn't want to show up at that strip club pulling a train of TV news vans and network anchors.

Hitch led the way because the Porsche was faster. He got permission to go Code Three and put on his custom window flashers. I tucked in behind him and drafted.

Twenty minutes later we were in a parking lot across the street from the club. SWAT was already there and was waiting for a lieutenant watch commander from the Hollywood station before going inside.

"One of us should case it," I told the SWAT commander.

"I should do that," Hitch volunteered.

"Except I'm senior man," I told him. Til keep my phone on and call you with any intel."

He nodded and I relocated my recently purchased Springfield XD(M) automatic pistol from its hip holster to the small of my back where it was easy to grab. The gun fired 9 mm parabellums with nineteen in the magazine, one in the chamber. I was glad I'd changed weapons.

I dialed Hitchs cell, left the line open so he could hear, then ambled across the street and walked lazily into The Manhole strip club to see if I could get a visual on our triple murder suspect.

Chapter
19.

The early evening set at a strip club was usually a case of the new, the old, and the ugly. It tended to be a tryout session for dancers on the way up and sympathy work for those on the way out. Even so, it s hard to put 011 an enthusiastic show when nobody is paying attention.

Two semi-bored strippers were working poles, hanging like meat in an outdoor market. They spun around lazily, occasionally arching their backs to the four-four beat of the country western music playing through the bad sound system.

The clientele was a bunch of white guys in John Deere hats. Most had sun-reddened complexions, tattoo-laden loading-dock arms, and padded waistlines. Two waitresses wearing black vests, bikini bottoms, and heels wandered around the almost empty club carrying trays.

All ten or twelve people in here would have to be removed before
SWAT did the takedown. I'd have to find a way to get the half-drunk guys out without starting a head-butt festival. I didn't see Karel Sladky anywhere and hoped he hadn't been tipped by the bartender and skipped.

The guy behind the stick was an angry-looking asshole with a shaved head and water buffalo shoulders. He was watching a football game on a small TV with the sound muted under the bar top. I was sure he had some sawed-off crowd-control equipment hidden down there a bat or a 12-gauge.

I snagged a menu off one of the tables, removed my police ID from its case, and slipped it inside. Then I took a position on the far end of the bar away from the other customers. When the bartender came over to take my order I handed him the menu.

"Surprise inside," I told him.

He opened it, looked at my creds, then closed the menu and handed it back.