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Kill the Mother! Page 10
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Page 10
Says who? Bogart asked, menacingly.
Thanks, Bogie. I can always count on you.
I glanced at my watch and saw I had about an hour-and-a-half in which to get there. I could leave now and speed my way down, showing up pathetically early, or I could use the extra forty-five minutes I had at my disposal to try and turn up Elena Cates myself. I fished out the piece of paper with the imprint of her number and dialed it, getting nothing but a machine. Okay, since Laurel Canyon, which is where she lived, was not that far away, and was between here and San Pedro, maybe I should just swing by on the way to Marcy’s. Locking up, I headed out.
Laurel Canyon was an old community in the hills above the western edge of Hollywood. In the twenties it had been an elite area, with mansions dotting its winding pass boulevard, including those owned by Tom Mix and Harry Houdini. In the 1960s it became rock musician acres, with the old houses and cabins transformed into smoke-filled pads and hangouts. Today it was somewhere in between, but not the likeliest area of the city in which to find a personal assistant living, unless she was independently wealthy. Or, unless her employer overpaid her as much as she had me.
Elena lived on a street called Turcott Way, which was not easy to find, given the area’s net of curvy, spider web streets and lanes. After stopping twice to recheck the Thomas Guide, I finally found the tiny street and wove my way to Elena’s house, which was a small, one-story domicile that looked like the love child of a log cabin and an American Craftsman bungalow. It was dark brown in color, which made it blend in nicely with the woodsy foliage surrounding it. Double checking the address to make certain that I was not about to bother a total stranger, I wedged my car along the curb of the steep street, making sure the emergency brake was on, got out, went up to the small porch, and pushed the doorbell. When after a minute no one came to the door, I bypassed the doorbell altogether and knocked. Then I rattled the knob and discovered the door was unlocked.
That was when I had the most horrible feeling of déjà vu.
“Elena, it’s Dave Beauchamp,” I called, going inside the house. The tiny living room was dark and empty, and I didn’t even have to move into the kitchen to see most of it. I went in anyway, and similarly found it empty. The bathroom was off of a short hallway, its door wide open, revealing it to be unoccupied. At the end of the hall was another room, this one with its door closed. It had to be the bedroom. If Elena was still in bed, she was probably not alone, based on what Taylor Frost had said about her having a boyfriend who thwarted her efforts to keep the boys. I only hoped whoever he was, he had a sense of humor.
Then again, the front door was unlocked, which implied that Elena might be gone, but only for a minute. Had she forgotten about the promise to retrieve the boys? Or was she so forgetful as to not lock the front door behind her? Or had the boyfriend left, forgetting to lock the door, leaving her asleep in bed alone?
I stepped to the closed door and said in a loud voice, “Elena, if you’re in there, don’t be alarmed. It’s Dave Beauchamp, from yesterday. I need to talk to you.” There was no reply, so I tried knocking on the door.
Nothing.
“Well, here goes,” I said, pushing the door open.
Elena Cates was in bed. Alone. But she wasn’t asleep.
“Oh, sheez!” I cried, reaching for my handkerchief to cover my mouth and nose. Like Nora, she had been shot twice in the chest, and the holes were easier to see since, unlike Nora, Elena was naked. The white sheets on which she lay were sodden with her blood.
I already had my cell phone out and had dialed 9 and the first 1 when I stopped to think. Was I really going to call the police and report my second body in as many days? Was I really going to wait for a detective to arrive and tell him how, once again, I had just stumbled into an empty house containing the body of a woman who had been shot? A woman who had worked for the first victim? At that moment it did not seem like a wise thing to do. But if I didn’t report it, that might make things even worse for me, particularly if Colfax or Mendoza came to learn that I was here.
My only chance of not ending up in a holding tank, as near as I could see, was to capitalize on the fact that nobody knew I was here.
Taking my handkerchief, I wiped the doorknob to the bedroom door, pulled it closed, and then crept back through the house. I hadn’t touched anything else inside, I was sure of that. Peeping through the curtains in the window of the front door, I stood and waited, heart racing, until a jogger passed on the street. Once they were gone, I quickly opened the door, wiped the front doorknob for prints, closed it again and then walked as casually as I could, as though nothing was wrong (just in case a neighbor was watching), to my car.
As I was getting in, I heard the siren behind me. “Shit!” I muttered, fumbling the key into the ignition. The siren was coming closer now, but I managed to get the car started and tried to pull away, only to go nowhere! Then I remembered that I had put the emergency brake on. Disengaging it, I lurched noisily away from the curb and headed down the road, vowing to take the first turn in any direction, no matter where it led. I’d find my way out of here eventually; right now I just had to get away from the house.
The siren was coming closer, though by this point I couldn’t tell from which direction. Nor could I be certain that it had anything to do with Elena Cates lying dead in her bed. All I knew is that I felt that overwhelming, smothering sense of guilt, the kind I had only experienced in dreams. Why I have vivid nightmares in which I know that I’ve killed someone and their body is about to be discovered is another lifelong mystery of mine, but I didn’t have time to worry about that right now.
Up ahead there was a stop sign, and the chance to turn right onto a driveway-sized street that I hoped would take me someplace. I followed it to another street, turned left, and spent the next five minutes weaving around like an ant in an ant farm until I somehow dumped back out onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Since the boulevard was elevating to the right, I took that direction as North and headed that way. I was all the way to the top of the mountain when I became aware that I was still breathing, which was a good sign. A low-flying helicopter suddenly appeared out of nowhere and zoomed overhead in the direction from which I was coming. Again, I had no idea if that was related to the discovery of Elena’s body, but it did not seem impossible. Though if somebody had been there to her house just before I arrived, left the front door unlocked, and then rushed away to contact the police, though, who was it? Elena’s mysterious "kinda” boyfriend, whoever he was, was a possibility, though an even bigger possibility was that he was the killer. As I fled like a rat, another irrational thought shattered what little sense of security I had at present: what if a voice-activated tape recorder had been place somewhere in the house, its tape now imprinted with variations on Elena, it’s Dave Beauchamp? I decided that was just silly, but even so, a sense of security was not exactly flooding back into my mind.
I needed to warn Marcy, but when I pulled out my cell, I saw that the battery had run down. Sheez! I had no choice but to head back to my office, as quickly as I could. When I got there I parked the car in my usual spot but stayed there for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure if my legs would support my weight enough to climb the stairs in the building. It was a delayed-reaction panic that immediately reminded me of the scene from The Maltese Falcon in which Spade pulls a dangerous bluff on the collected bad guys, and then goes out into the hallway and reveals how badly his hand is shaking. I hoped I was playing the scene as well as Bogie.
Fat chance.
Don’t you ever go on break, Humphrey?
When it felt like I might be able to navigate my way inside without looking like I was having a seizure, I got out of the car and went to my office. Going to my desk, I picked up the phone, but not to call the police. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Instead I jabbed in Marcy’s number.
She answered on the first ring.
“Marcy, it’s Dave,” I said.
“Dave, thank heavens. There’s something I have to tell y
ou!”
“Me first,” I said. “Marcy, I’ve just come back from Elena’s house. I think you’d better cancel your afternoon appointments.”
TEN
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then Marcy’s voice whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Elena’s dead,” I told her.
“God, no,” she moaned.
“I’m afraid so. She’s been shot, just like Nora.”
“Oh my god, Dave, what’s going on?”
“I wish I knew.”
Let’s just hope she doesn’t think you’re the one committing these murders, a soft voice said, pronouncing murders as meaudeaus. Peter Lorre, ladies and gentlemen.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more information, Marcy, but you said you had something to tell me.”
“I saw that man again,” she said.
“The one casing the house?”
“Yes. This morning, when the boys finally got up, I told them to go outside and play their games because I was getting tired of the repetitious noise. I looked out the window and saw a man standing across the street, staring at them.”
“And it was the same man?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him clearly last night. But he definitely gave the impression that he was keeping an eye on Taylor and Burton.”
“Have you called the police?”
“Yes, but they didn’t seem to take it very seriously.”
“And you’ve never seen this guy before?”
“No. Dave, I’m frightened. I don’t know what to do. I think I’m going to have to call social services and ask them to take the boys after all.”
“That may be for the best,” I advised. Truth was, I was pretty much thinking only of her at this moment. The boys were so disconnected from the real world as to be adaptable to just about anything. “I’m going to come down, like I said, but you keep them inside for the rest of the day, and keep the doors locked until I get there, no matter what time it is. You understand, Marcy? Cancel all your appointments if you have to.”
“All right.”
“And if you see that guy again, call 911 again. Force the cops to take you seriously.”
“Dave, whoever it is that’s doing this, whoever it is that killed Nora and Elena, are they going to come after me now?”
"I don’t think you have to worry,” I told her. "I think it’s the boys who are in danger, not you.”
“Why them?”
“I don’t know. Call it a gut feeling. But I think you need to keep them inside and out of sight.”
“As long as they have those digital things of theirs, I don’t think it will be a problem. But hurry, please.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
After hanging up I glanced at the clock; it was 11:29. Time sure flies when you’re tripping over dead bodies. There was no way I could make it to Pedro by noon, but I don’t think that mattered anymore. I could head out now and maybe even have time to drive through a Burger Heaven on the way, since I was getting hungry. Locking up the office, I headed back out to my car, but before I got there, I saw an all-too familiar, all-too uninvited face. “Can I help you, detective,” I called to Dane Colfax, who appeared to be snooping around my building’s parking area.
“Hi, Beauchamp,” he called back, continuing to snoop.
“Did you lose something?”
“I didn’t, no. But someone else did.”
“Okay, fine. I have nineteen questions left,” I said. “This thing that’s lost, is it bigger than a breadbox?”
He stopped what he was doing and looked up at me with that I’m-holding-all-the-cards-shithead expression. “Elena Cates,” he said, and I worked overtime to not let the panic I was suddenly feeling show. “She lost a car.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Thought it might be here.”
Careful! “Why would Elena Cates’ car be here?”
“You tell me.”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“You have seen her car, though.”
“Yesterday, yeah.” Had it been at her house earlier today? I now realized that I had not even noticed if her rust-colored Taurus was anywhere in sight when I was there. “Has she reported it missing?” I asked, cautiously.
He examined me as thoroughly as an airport screener. “No, because she can’t, because she’s dead.”
“Elena? Oh, god.” I don’t pretend to be an actor, but I’ve watched enough good performances to be able to affect surprise. The key is to not overdo it. “What happened to her?”
“She was shot, just like the Frost woman.”
“You’re joking.”
“Do I look like Jay Leno?”
“But I just saw her yesterday.”
“I know. Do you have a gun, Beauchamp?”
“Yeah, though I’ve never used it.”
“Where is it?”
“My office.”
“What caliber is it?”
“Thirty eight.”
“Nora Frost was shot with a .32. Ballistics report on the Cates woman is still pending.”
“Like I said, mine’s a .38.”
“You could have two of them, one a .32 and the other a .38.”
“I could be George Clooney, too. But I’m not. Come on, detective, why would I kill Elena? Or Nora, for that matter?”
“David, I don’t know,” he said, and there was a ring of honesty to his voice. “I just don’t know. This is a weird one.”
“What’s the deal with her car, then?”
“It was missing from its usual spot in front of her house.”
Probably the spot where I parked.
“So you think somebody killed her and then took her car?” I asked.
“Possibly.” He looked around the parking area. “That’s your car, right?”
“Yes, just like it was yesterday when you saw it.”
“Has it been here all morning?”
Don’t choke on this one, pal, Jackie Gleason said in my head. Jackie Gleason?
“Since I got in, yes,” I said, not specifying as to which time I got in, before or after I visited Elena’s house. “Why?”
“Neighbor said he thought he saw someone go into Cates’ house, but he couldn’t be sure. Thought he saw a car, too.”
“Could be your murderer.”
“Yeah, but nobody reported gunshots.”
“Can’t help you there.”
“When was the last time you saw the Cates woman?”
“Yesterday, like I said. Last night, actually. She dropped the Alpha Twins off at their aunt’s house.”
“The one in San Pedro?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“About 7:30, I think.”
“And you know this because.…”
“Because I was there.”
“At the aunt’s house?”
“Yes.”
There was another long, stare-filled pause, and then Detective Colfax said: “Okay, Beauchamp, I think you’re too dumb to lie to me. That’s the difference between me and Hector regarding you.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but why isn’t the charming Detective Mendoza with you?”
“He’s got paperwork to fill out back at the station, something you should probably be thankful for.”
“What did I do to him that makes him hate me so much?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know that he hates you for yourself, really,” Colfax said. "He hates the profession you’re in.”
Okay, I get it; yet another LAPD officer with P.I. baggage. I suppose that made the fact that he hated me easier to take, since it wasn’t me, per se, that he wished would fall down a well. “What about you, Colfax?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“Do you hate PIs too?”
“Beauchamp, I try not to hate anybody. Doesn’t always work, but I try. I do tend to dislike guilty people, though. You’re not a guilty person, are you?�
��
“I’m not guilty for any of this death, if that’s what you mean.”
“Stay out of trouble, and we’ll get along fine. See you.” Colfax walked over to his unmarked car, got in, and drove away. I guessed that he was likely on his way down to see Marcy. I ran to my car and tore out of the parking spot, then zoomed onto Ventura Boulevard, where I sat in traffic and waited for a long succession of lights to all agree with each other. Since I didn’t know any secret shortcuts down to San Pedro, Colfax was likely to get there first. Maybe I should bypass Marcy’s place and head for the port, and then charter a boat to Mexico. Then again, a friend in the D.A.’s office once told me that they had evidence that was where O.J. was heading while on the infamous White Bronco freeway chase, and that did not exactly pan out for him.
The drive down to San Pedro was the longest fifty minutes of my life, made longer by the fact that I was not able to call Marcy, my phone being dead. How did we survive before cell phones? I confess that I sped through the residential area in which Marcy lived, and when her house came into view, I was gratified to see that it was not surrounded by police cars. I slowed down and parked on the street, and then trotted to her porch and jabbed the doorbell.
There was no answer.
“Oh, no, please!” This was the third time in two days that I was standing outside a woman’s house, ringing the bell to no avail. Please don’t let me find her dead! I tried the door and found it unlocked. Bursting in, I called Marcy’s name and heard a moan coming from the kitchen! There I found Marcy DeBanzi lying on the floor, her hair disheveled, her face streaked with tears, seemingly too weak to stand! “Marcy!” I cried, rushing to her.
“Dave…issat you?” she drawled.
“What happened?”
“Someone hit me…back of head…I passed out.”
I gently brought her to an upright seated position, leaning her against the refrigerator. “Did you see who did it?”
“No…came up from behind…are the boys all right?”
“I don’t know, I just got here.”
She tried to get up, but could not. Falling back down to the floor, she started to cry. I tried to pick her up, which looks a lot easier in the movies than it is in real life, but somehow I managed to get her up and onto a chair without doing too much damage. “I’ll look for them,” I said, leaving her leaning over the kitchen table with her head in her arms.