the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (7 page)

He shined his Mini Maglite inside the Mercedes. The top was up and both bucket seats as well as the back bench were empty. We proceeded up the walkway to the house and rang the front doorbell. The lights were on inside so apparently we weren't going to be gaining an advantage from the element of surprise.

Yolanda Dublin was a well-known Hollywood fixture who had once been a five-thousand-dollar-a-night girl herself, a centerfold wh
o h
ad gone into high-end hooking and then management. The word was that she was occasionally still available to party with clients, but only if she liked them and that was extremely rare, if it happened at all these days.

The door was opened by a striking six-foot-tall woman in her late thirties who had shiny long blond hair, a very nice shape, and a freckled beach tan. She was barefoot, wearing tight white jeans and a tank top. Her outfit complemented a spectacular body.

"Yes?" she said.

"Yolanda Dublin?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Police."

She looked over her shoulder and called out, "Edith!"

A few seconds later Yolanda s exact physical opposite lumbered up a short flight of stairs from the sunken living room and stood a few
-
feet behind her.

This woman was built like a refrigerator. Big enough to get picked for the NFL draft, she was even taller than Yolanda and weighed well over three hundred pounds.

She had a feathered masculine hairstyle that was carefully trimmed. Her mahogany brown suit jacket and long skirt were tailored to camouflage her boxy shape, but managed only to accentuate it. Piano legs with anvil-sized feet encased in flats held it all upright. Her jaw was set pugnaciously, projecting an overall impression of severe, relentless aggression. She looked vaguely familiar to me.

"This is a police matter," I said, and we showed them our credentials. "I'm Detective Scully from Homicide Special. This is Detective Hitchens."

Yolanda Dublin didn't seem surprised that we'd come calling, so there was little doubt she'd been expecting us.

"This is Edith Stillwell. She's my attorney," Ms. Dublin said, confirming my suspicions. She'd obviously called Stillwell for help and they'd been sitting here well past two A
. M
. waiting.

Now I remembered where I'd seen Edith Stillwell. It was in the hallways at the Criminal Courts building.

"Edith advised me that I don't have to discuss anything with you guys," Yolanda said in a sexy, contralto voice.

"So you know then, that two of your working girls were found dead in a swimming pool up on Skyline Drive along with an unidentified man."

I thought it was best not to throw Scott Berman s name out at first. I wanted to see if she volunteered it. We were still on the front steps. Nobody had asked us inside yet.

Hitch shot Yolanda Dublin a smile that showcased his whole sparkling porcelain tray and said, "I could really use a glass of water."

Yolanda looked over at Edith, who said nothing, but Hitch's request worked, because Yolanda stepped aside to allow us to enter.

There was a Chinese man wearing a white shirt and black pants standing in the kitchen doorway that adjoined the entryway.

"Yeo-Sing, could you bring us a tray of ice water, please?" Yolanda said and he left quickly to get it.

"By working girls, are you implying that they are prostitutes?" Yolanda Dublin said. "Because no matter what you think you've heard about me, I run a legitimate modeling, escort, and physical therapy service. It's not a prostitution ring."

I let that go and replied, "Since you didn't ask us who the dead girls were, I'm going to assume you're pretty caught up on what happened on Skyline tonight."

"I think it would be foolish for you to assume anything, Detective," Edith Stillwell said. She was big in a way that made her appear uncomfortable. However, above the linebacker shoulders her hard, dark, gun
-
fighter eyes left no doubt that she was all business.

"We re investigating a triple homicide," 1 said. "This is not going to go away. Your best bet is to cooperate with us."

"Lets sit in the living room," Yolanda suggested.

She led us over to a grouping of sofas and chairs by a large floor-to
-
ceiling window overlooking the ocean. The outdoor spotlights were on, illuminating a low surf, which was pushing a line of bubbling foam up onto the damp sandy beach.

Yeo-Sing returned with a silver tray and passed out four iced glasses of water, each with a lemon slice perched festively on the rim.

After he left, we settled in and Edith Stillwell immediately took the offensive.

"Yolanda admits to nothing. At this point we re willing to listen
nothing more. She has rights and I'm here to make certain they are scrupulously observed."

"Here's the bad news, Ms. Dublin. I happened to be the one who got the initial shots-fired call. I saw that black Mercedes out front coming down the hill on Skyline Drive. I was in the MDX you almost hit."

"There are lots of black Mercedes 350s in L
. A
.," Yolanda countered.

"Not with a partial plate of 4 L M C. You're busted as a participant at that Christmas party. That makes you anything from a material witness to an accomplice in a triple murder. Don't be lying to us. If we decide to make you an accessory after the fact, you're as good for this as the doer."

"Hardly," Edith said. "But it's good rhetoric."

"Okay, then I'm going to make an arrest."

I stood and reached for my cuffs.

"Wait a minute. Put those away," Edith said. "I guess Yolanda can answer a few nonincriminating questions."

I kept my cuffs out as an unstated threat, but sat back down and said, "Let's start with the dead man. You know who he was?"

"Scott Berman," Yolanda said softly. "I guess you know he's a world
-
famous producer."

I nodded. "Why was he there?"

She glanced at Edith, who dropped her head imperceptibly in a subtle affirmative. "He was a client. He was also an amateur figure photographer who sometimes hired our models for stills. He was nice. He treated the girls well. Since they're both dead, I guess I can tell you Chrissy Sweet was there as Scott's date. What he and Chrissy did on a date was their own business. He was divorced many years ago. That's about all I want to say right now."

"Who else was up there? What other clients?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

"That's sorta not your choice," Hitch said.

"Sure it is," Edith shot back. "She has confidentiality agreements."

"You gotta be joking. A modeling or escort service doesn't get a psychiatric or marriage privilege," I said, jiggling the cuffs in my hand softly. "You have some jeopardy here, Ms. Dublin. You tell us what we need to know and maybe we can work something out. You get balky, I'm gonna roll you up."

"Yolanda is in a personal service industry," Edith said. "She has some nondisclosure issues. You can threaten all you want, but she's not an accessory after the fact and you know it. The best you could possibly manage here is an arrest and a seventy-two-hour hold as a material witness. If she has to do a few days in jail, we won't be happy, but she can deal with it."

I knew she was probably right.

Edith continued. "Yolanda is not going to give up the names of clients or the professionals who work for her. If she does that, she'll crash her entire, totally legitimate business."

"Read the Heidi Fleiss book if you don't believe us," Yolanda said softly, then added quickly, "Not that my business is anything like hers."

"Okay, but you need to give us something that moves this case forward so we wont get stuck on you. If you don't, I'm willing to take this to the district attorney. I'm betting he'll see things my way and will charge you with a felony."

I was trying to bump her slightly to get her talking.

It worked.

Chapter
12.

"Instead of threatening let s try and work this out," Edith suggested.

"Tell me a little more about Chrissy Sweet and Paula Morgan," I said to Yolanda. She looked over at her attorney, who again moved a muscle or two, but remained almost still.

Yolanda leaned forward. "Paula Morgan was the dark-haired girl. She was an ex-actress who did some modeling for us, some massage therapy, full body rubs and the like. She was from Texas Dallas. Wonderful girl. Nice family. She came here to get into films. It didn't work. She was a dear friend. I'm going to miss her terribly. End of story." "And the other girl?" Hitch asked. "Ms. Sweet?" "Chrissy was born in Long Beach. She was fun and sort of goofy. One of those surfer girl, pixie personalities. But despite being sort of uncomplicated, she made a lot of bad choices in her personal life.

When she wasn't working, she hung with some extremely trashy people but, for some reason, didn't seem to know it. She was strikingly beautiful, but I think it's safe to say not too smart."

Yolanda glanced over at Edith, who gave her a tiny little head shake, so she stopped abruptly.

"You two are going to have to stop with this semaphore system of yours," I said. "I need answers to these questions. I know you were having a Christmas party of some kind tonight, so lets talk about that."

Yolanda lit a cigarette. So few people smoke these days that when it happens it often feels staged, like she was buying time to think.

"The party was my annual Christmas ball," she began. "We have it every year. The models, escorts, and massage therapists on our Web site get to pick their best client and invite him. It's all free to the client. They have a few drinks, they dance, they do what they want to do.

"The clients are very grateful and will often give the girl an expensive Christmas gift, a diamond ring or necklace. The client pays for nothing except any present he might choose to give. I've been doing it for three years now. It's been very successful and makes satisfied customers. As I said, Scott was one of Chrissy's regular accounts. I think he liked it that she was fun, but not too deep."

"Who did you rent the house up on Skyline from?" I asked.

"Brooks Dunbar."

"From his foundation," I clarified.

"No, from Brooks himself. Seven thousand dollars in cash. That was for the backyard only. We had use of the pool house but there were strict provisions that we couldn't use the main house. It was padlocked."

"Brooks says he doesn't know anything about it. That he never goes up there."

"He's lying. I met him up on Skyline two days ago and put the cash right in his pudgy little hand."

Hitch and I exchanged a look before I went on.

"Besides Scott Berman, how many clients were there?" I asked.

"About twenty."

"Did you see the shooter?" "No."

"Did anybody?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. It was over in seconds. For reasons of client confidentiality, we didn't use a caterer to serve hors d'oeuvres or drinks. After they set up, they left. Yeo-Sing and I did the serving. I was in the pool house with him pouring champagne. We heard the shots. It sounded like a machine gun. A lot of bullets, people screaming. We both dove under the serving table so we didn't see anything."

"You have no idea who the gunman was?"

She hesitated for just a second before she said, "No."

Her pause was the tip-off. She was holding something back. I set the cuffs on the table in front of her.

"I thought you were going to cooperate," I challenged.

She again glanced at Edith, who I don't think moved a muscle this time, but she was coaching her client to be quiet, nonetheless.

"I can go on the Internet and start downloading pages," I said. "We'll run every one of your models through Vice. We'll get old arrest records, start pulling people in. We'll sweat names and build this party list. It's a lot of work but we can do it, and then once we're through, I'll come back here and bust you for obstructing justice and failing to cooperate with a homicide investigation."

I looked her right in the eye. "I'm not Vice, Ms. Dublin. I may have opinions about what you do, but I'm not the morality police. I've got three dead bodies. One of them is an international celebrity.

"This is going to be big news tomorrow. It's gonna mushroom out until the politicians in this town get itchy and decide to make an example of someone. You look like a good candidate. Its as much in your interest to put this down fast as it is ours."

"I can't give you the names of my guests. Some are married. I'll go to jail first."

"Then you better find something to give me that goes someplace," I said.

She sat silently for a minute, considering it. Then she stubbed out her cigarette, got to her feet, and said, "Come with me."

She led us into her media room, where she sorted through a stack of DVDs until she found the one she wanted. Then she put it in the player and fast-forwarded until she came to a picture of a man pulling up on a motorcycle in front of her house. Obviously this was a security video.