A Death In Beverly Hills (8 page)

"Write down your cell number. I'm Steve Janson. You make sure you pick up when I call." Maybe it was the speed with which Berdue scribbled his number or the anxious smile he gave Steve when he handed back the card, but someplace in Janson's head an alarm was ringing. "You sure you're not in some deep shit with your buddies?"

"Crap! Who are you, my mother? What's my life to you, anyway?"

Steve leaned over the table until Bobby's face was only six inches away. "I was just thinking, Bobby, that if you maybe got yourself into a really big hole, a fatal kind of hole, that there was only one thing you could sell that might get you out."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Tom Travis is crazy in love with Kaitlen, still, today, even after all the shit she's done to him. If you owed the wrong guys a lot of money they could either kill you, which gets them only a little satisfaction, or they could take the long view -- get Marian Travis out of the way and wait for you and Kaitlen to climb on the gravy train -- all aboard!"

"Great plan, Einstein, except that Travis is goin' to the slammer for the rest of his life and Katey and I got nothin'. If the wife was killed as part of this big plan for us to cash in, how'd we end up here?"

"Once you start with the idea of killing somebody," Steve said, his gaze slipping back into a vacant stare, "things can get fucked up real fast in ways you never, ever imagined." A kaleidoscope of memories raced through Steve's brain, all in smears of black and red. A moment later his eyes snapped back into focus. He glanced briefly at Berdue's confused face, tipped over his empty glass, and headed out into the night.

Chapter Fourteen

It was now full dark and Steve picked his way through the forest of chrome and dented steel clogging the Pilgrim lot. In the shadows of a massive redwood tree he could just make out the dim glimmer of the Merc's door handles. As he ducked through the gap between a Silverado's front bumper and the corner of the building something came at him out of the dark. Steve sensed a flicker of movement and dropped straight down. A baseball bat whooshed through the space previously occupied by his skull. A fraction of a second before his attacker could chop down, Steve rolled into his assailant's legs. For an instant the guy teetered, then fell straight back, the bat extended up above his head. Steve scurried up the man's legs and slammed a short punch into his groin.

He was rewarded with a grunt and the hollow clunk as the bat hit the paving. Steve scrambled to his feet and saw the blur of a pale face rising off the ground. The bat was moving too, still clasped in the attacker's right hand. Steve kicked and caught the guy in the ear. This time the bat clattered free. Steve kicked the man a second time then grabbed the bat.

The thug was groaning now, half for show Steve figured, and rolling to his left, trying to get his arms under him so he could rise to a fighting crouch. Steve whacked him in the head with the bat, more a bloop single swing rather than a home run. This time the cry of pain was real and the guy collapsed. Steve stood a foot behind his shoulders and pressed the top of the bat against the man's forehead, pinning his skull to the ground. The attacker's legs made little twisting motions while his hands cupped his groin. All the while little groans,
Emmmmm, Emmmm, Emmmm
, spilled from his lips.

"You stop moving around or I'm going to turn into Barry Bonds." Steve pressed down hard and after half a second the man held still. "Okay, now we have a basis for discussion. That okay with you? Do you want to talk or do you want me to practice my swing?"

"Talk," the man wheezed.

"Good. What's your name."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck You. Interesting name." Steve leaned on the bat forcing pieces of gravel into the back of the guy's scalp. "How about I just give you a concussion, take your wallet, get your name from your ID, and then grab your keys and take your ride on my way out of town? That sound like a plan, Mr. Fuck You?" Steve leaned forward even harder.

"Son of a bitch! Terry Monroe. Fuck, all right!"

"Ding! Okay Terry, you've now advanced to the next level. What the Hell is this crap all about?"

Terry wheezed and closed his eyes and if too injured to continue. "Shit! Now I'll just have to kill him," Steve muttered, pressing harder.

"You think you can come up here and do business without talking to me?" Terry demanded, his eyes flying open. "I own this town. Nobody moves a flake of product here without it going through me!" Monroe squirmed and tried to roll free. Steve lifted the bat an inch and brought it down on Monroe's nose, then moved it back to center of his forehead.

"Next time I'll break our head like a kid's piggy bank. Listen, asshole, I'm not into crank or any of the other shit you've got going."

"So what are you doin' here?" Monroe growled, spitting blood.

"None of your fucking business. What do you think you're gonna do, whack every guy who buys a beer in this place?"

"If he buys one for Bobby Berdue, yeah."

"That bartender your main squeeze or are you just stringing him along?"

"You're a dead man, you just don't know it yet."

"So, my telling you that I'm not interested in drugs isn't going to do any good?"

"Tell me the one about the three bears."

"Look, Berdue's sister's all over the news, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

Steve sighed at the persistence of stupidity. "So, she's news. Her story's worth money but she won't talk. I tracked down her brother, figured I'd get a story about Tom Travis and his sister out of him. I paid him five hundred bucks for the inside scoop on Travis."

"You ain't no reporter," Monroe said, his tone slipping into uncertainty.

"I used to be a cop. This pays better." For a moment Steve considered asking Monroe if he'd ever sold prescription drugs to Travis, then changed his mind. He couldn't believe a word that came out of Monroe's mouth and just asking the question was likely to get Bobby Berdue killed. Easier to ask Travis himself. "So, how do you want to end this?"

"I see you in this town again, you're a dead man."

"And if you don't?"

"I don't have time to waste on you."

"Sounds like a plan. Roll over."

"What?"

"I'm the shy type. On your stomach."

Reluctantly, Monroe complied. Steve instantly swung a glancing blow off the back of his head. Terry groaned and his hands made little flapping motions. Steve went through his pockets and grabbed Monroe's driver's license and his keys. Thirty seconds later he was on the highway heading back to LA. Ten miles down the road the bat, wiped free of prints, disappeared in the brush along with Monroe's keys. Steve kept the driver's license with Monroe's address on it, just in case.

Chapter Fifteen

Steve started making lists, organizing what he knew and didn't know and what he wanted to find out. He only did that when things were going down the dumper and he couldn't figure out what else to do. Lynn's shrink friend, Irwin Shapiro, had told him once that it was a manifestation of his need to feel as if he were in control of his environment instead of the other way around.
Physician, heal thyself
, Steve thought.

Steve got a fresh sheet of paper and drew an inverted "V" on it. At the bottom of one leg he drew a box and inside printed "Travis Did It" and then a second box with "Travis Innocent" inside. From this second choice he drew four lines, whose ends he labeled "Travis Real Target - Wife Killed By Mistake - Travis Framed"; "Wife Real Target - Travis Framed"; "Wife Killed Specifically To Frame Travis"; and "Random Killing." Steve considered the "Travis Framed" sections then put down the pencil. It was impossible that by pure coincidence the body was found two miles from where Travis had been driving his dune buggy.

Was there anybody other than Tom Travis who might have wanted Marian Travis dead? Steve made a note to review the police interviews with her family and friends to see if any of them had let slip some clue.

Did anyone hate Tom Travis enough to want him dead or framed for murder? The guy was a jerk but this was Hollywood. If having a bloated ego was a sufficient motive for murder the town would have more dead people than 1983 Cambodia. Could Terry Monroe or some other drug dealer have been after him? It didn't feel right. Those guys were about as subtle as a pair of brass knuckles. If they had wanted Travis hurt or dead he'd have been found floating face down in his pool with is balls cut off. Which didn't mean that Travis hadn't pissed off somebody badly enough for them to want to ruin his life.

Steve tapped his pencil on the "Random Killing" box, Tom Travis's favorite explanation next to a kidnap plot gone wrong. The idea of a serial killer happening to pick a movie star's house, getting past the alarm systems, doing the crime and then framing Travis for it was almost laughable. A kidnap plot gone wrong? Please! Where was the ransom note for Sarah? Even if she was dead, the location of her body would still be worth big money to the tabloids.

Assuming Travis was innocent that left only three meaningful possibilities: Someone else wanted Marian dead; Someone wanted Travis dead, was surprised by Marian and settled for killing her and framing Tom, or someone wanted Travis locked up for the rest of his life and decided that murdering a pregnant woman was a good way to get that done. Yeah, that must be it.

Could Marian Travis have been the target all along? What kind of person was she? Steve checked the file index and found an interview the cops' had done with Delfina Angelinez three days after Marian's disappearance. Katz and Furley had concentrated on strangers in the house, hang up phone calls, unknown cars in the neighborhood, and other suspicious behavior. At the end of the interview Delfina had slipped a bit off track and described a shopping trip she, Marian and Sarah had taken a few days before Christmas.

* * *

"I'm getting too fat for this," Marian said, struggling reach the petals with the seat retracted far enough for her stomach to clear the wheel.

"I could drive for you, Missy Marian," Delfina volunteered from the back seat.

"If I let you drive and we had an accident, Tom would have a heart attack."

"I am a good driver."

"I know you are, Delfina, but Mr. Travis doesn't want anyone but me driving the car."

An empty space appeared but at the last instant a Boxster chirped its tires and dove in ahead of them.

"He take your space!" Delfina snapped and lowered her window. A thirtyish man in a black suit, open necked black shirt, gold Rolex knock-off and gold necklace unbent himself from the Boxster's cabin.

"You take our space!" Delfina shouted out the window. The man gave her a quick, bleached smile, hit the remote on his key fob and sauntered away.

"It's all right, Delfina. His karma will catch up with him." Marian pulled the Escalade into a spot three rows farther back.

"It is not right you should have to walk so far," Delfina complained as they headed into The Grove.

"Life's too short to worry about small things. I refuse to let myself get upset."

Barely a minute after they entered the complex Sarah pulled free from Delfina's hand and raced for a Jack Russell Terrier attired in a green and blue sweater.

"No, Chica," Delfina called, hurrying after her. "Sarah, stop. Don't touch him. He might bite you."

The dog's owner gave Delfina a sour glare.

"Doggie!" Sarah called, running her hand over the terrier's rump. Stoically, the dog allowed himself to be petted until Delfina pulled the child away. "Doggie!"

"Sweetheart, you shouldn't pet someone else's dog without their permission," Marian told Sarah when she caught up. "It's not polite. . . . Hello," Marian said to the owner, a jewelry-encrusted Caucasian woman in her late fifties. "Would it be all right if my daughter pet your dog?"

"He's rather uncomfortable with strange children," the woman answered stiffly.

"I understand. Thank you. . . . Come on, Sweetie, we have to buy Grandpa's present before I get too tired." Marian took Sarah's hand and gently pulled her in the direction of the Sharper Image.

"When are you due?" the lady asked before Marian could turn away.

"A little over three weeks. I can't wait."

"I remember when I was pregnant with my Gerald." A wistful expression briefly clouded the woman's face then fled. She turned to Sarah. "If you are very gentle, you can pet Regis. Will you be gentle?"

Sarah nodded yes.

"All right then, go ahead." Sarah gingerly approached the dog and, with infinite care ran her hand down his back. "Yes, that's very good. You're a smart little girl, aren't you dear? What's your name?"

Sarah looked her mother. "It's all right, Sweetie. . . .We've taught her not to give her name to strangers," Marian explained.

"I'm Sarah," the child announced proudly.

"How old are you, dear?"

"I'm three." Sarah held up three fingers.

"What a darling child," the lady told Marian. "Regis likes you, Sarah. You can pet him any time."

"What do you say to the nice lady, Sarah?"

"Thank you," the little girl squeaked.

"Come on, Sarah, we've got to buy grandpa's present before mommy gets too tired to walk back to the car." The lady gave Sarah a sad little smile and waved goodbye.

How long will it take her?
Marian wondered. For the next thirty feet Sarah looked straight ahead, her jaw set in concentration. None of the store windows attracted her gaze. Oversized trains circling Santa's Village were ignored. Rocking Santas and smiling Snow Men were impotent in the face of Sarah's single-minded contemplation of her dilemma. Marian and Delfina exchanged knowing glance. They made it all the way to the Sharper Image before Sarah could no longer restrain herself.

"Momma," she began, practicing her sweetest smile.

"Yes, Sarah?"

"If I promised to take care of him . . . ." her lower lip held the slightest tremble as she studied her mother's placid face, "could we have a little doggie?" The end of the sentence came out all at once in a prayerful rush.

"Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful?" Marian agreed. "If only we could." She glanced at Delfina, a twinkle in her sea-blue eyes. "Isn't it sad, Delfina, that we can't have a cute little dog all of our very own?"

"Oh, yes, Missy Marian," Delfina agreed. "It would be so much fun. Sarah could feed him and take him for walks and brush his hair and clean up his poops."

"Yes, she could pick them up and put them in a little plastic bag three or four times a day. You would enjoy that wouldn't you, dear?"

Sarah frowned, sensing this was trick question.

"But," Marian sighed deeply, "it's not to be."

Confused, Sarah paused and glanced from her mother to Delfina and back again. "What's 'not to be' mean?" she asked.

"It means, Sweetie, that the fates are against us."

"What are 'fates'?"

"Alas, the stars have failed to align."

Sarah peered at the sky. "I don't see any stars."

"It means, Miss Sarah, that you cannot have a dog," Delfina explained.

"Why?"

"Because it's not meant to be," Marian said, reaching for the door.

"Why?"

Delfina rushed forward and opened the door.

"That's a mystery which you must solve, Sweetheart."

"Why?"

"How else will you learn why we can't have a beautiful little doggie?"

"I don't understand," Sarah said, standing her ground.

"No one does, Sweetheart. Now, come inside so we can buy grandpa his Christmas present." Her face both serious and confused, Sarah allowed herself to be pulled through the doorway.

* * *

"
Mi hija!
My sweet baby!" Defina sobbed. Katz patted his pockets and extended a tissue. "Where is she! What have they done with my baby?" Delfina buried her face in her hands and wept, ignoring the detectives as if they did not exist.

* * *

Steve closed the folder with a noisy slap. If someone wanted Marian Travis dead, he doubted it was because of any personal animosity. If she was really the target and not killed as collateral damage, it was likely because she was standing in someone's way. And right now the only person who fit that description was locked in the depths of the L.A. County jail, and he was still dreaming about Kaitlen Berdue.