Hollywood Murder (4 page)

“What makes you say that?” Leo asked.

“While it doesn’t look pretty, a decap is a lot quicker than other forms of execution. The vic bleeds out quickly and loses consciousness. Not a bad way to go.”

The murder obviously didn’t have the same impact on Darby as it had on the rest of us. I walked over to the adjacent dining room where I found a large carving knife on the floor, and called the others over. “It looks like the perp tossed the knife here on the way out.”

There was a smattering of blood where the knife had landed. I could only hope we’d catch a break and find prints on the weapon.

We held the SID staff back for a few minutes until we were satisfied that we had a good overview of the crime scene and the evidence. We limited access to four technicians. Leo and the others went upstairs while I met with the responding deputy coroner who was a friend of mine.

“It’s a pretty bad scene in there,” I said to Brie Henner after meeting her at the front door. My friend was a tall African-American woman who was being treated for breast cancer. The chemo and radiation had left her bald and thin.

Brie followed me inside and set her bag on a coffee table in the living room. “How was your vacation?”

I smiled. “Heavenly.” I was about to go on about what a good time Noah and I had, but was struck by her appearance. She looked weak and fragile. “How are you feeling?”

Her gaze moved off. “Okay.” She glanced down the hallway toward the kitchen, then met my eyes again. “Let me take a look. We can talk afterward.”

I nodded before she walked away, wondering if there was an unspoken message behind her words.

While Brie and the SID staff went over the crime scene, Selfie Rogers, the crime analyst assigned to Section One, showed up and told me what she’d learned about the family. Selfie, whose real name was Sophia, had pink hair tonight and her usual quota of a half-dozen piercings in her brows, nose, and lips.

“The husband is Vincent Marsh, a partner in the law firm of Duffy, Harrington, and Marsh. He’s thirty-three. He and his wife, Allison, have been married for almost seven years. I was able to get ahold of Allison’s sister, Karen. She lives in San Diego and was able to give me a cell number for Vince, as she calls him.” She handed me a slip of paper. “I thought you might want to try his cell phone yourself.”

Since I had seniority in Section One and the others were still upstairs, I made the call. I was surprised when Vince Marsh picked up on the second ring. I briefly explained about the maid, but didn’t go into the details about the homicide. “Are you with your family tonight?”

His voice pitched higher with anxiety. “No, I’m working late at the office. I don’t understand what you mean about…my family. Are they okay?”

“They aren’t here, Mr. Marsh.”

“Wh…where are they?”

“I don’t know. When did you last see them?”

His voice bordered on frantic now. “I came home…I think it was around six and told Allison, my wife, I had to work late. I left after a few minutes.” There was a pause on the line before he said, “Oh, God…I’m coming home now.”

“I’ll meet you in front of the residence.”

Leo came downstairs a few minutes later, telling me that Darby and Mel were still searching, but the rest of the residence looked untouched.

I told him about Marsh’s reaction to my call, adding, “He seemed at a loss to explain where his family is. Do you think this could be a kidnapping?”

Leo shrugged. “It’s probably too early to say. I wonder if there are any relationship problems in the marriage.”

“The husband seemed pretty upset, but we’ll need to follow up on that.”

Fifteen minutes later, I saw a couple of uniforms coming up the street with a man. As they got closer, I knew he was Vincent Marsh because he was moving quickly and was obviously distraught. The officers had to block the entrance to the residence when they got to the front steps.

“You don’t want to go in there, Mr. Marsh,” I said. I took a moment, introducing myself and Leo. Vincent Marsh was handsome, with caramel eyes and a full head of short, dark hair. He was about six feet tall, with a solid build.

“What’s…” Marsh tried to see beyond where the officers were blocking his view. “You said the maid was killed. What exactly happened to her?”

I decided to temper my remarks. “She was killed with a knife. It happened in your kitchen.”

“What?” He broke down, sobbing. After a moment, he said, “My family, do you have any idea where they are?”

“We were hoping you could tell us that,” Leo said. “Your maid’s sister came here to check on her and found the body. The house was empty.”

Marsh brushed his tears on his long-sleeved shirt and looked at me. “I haven’t seen them since I left, around six tonight.”

“Any idea where they might have gone?” I asked.

“No. It’s not like my wife and kids go out much during the week, especially this late. I don’t understand any of this.”

Darby and Mel came outside and joined us. Mel shook her head, telling me they hadn’t turned up anything inside the home.

“Are you and the wife having any kind of problems?” Darby asked Marsh after he and Mel had been introduced to him.

The question came out of the blue. While it was necessary ground to cover, it seemed a little premature.

Marsh’s response was not unexpected. “What are you talking about?”

Darby didn’t back off. “I’m talking about a woman whose head was cut off in your kitchen tonight and a family that’s gone missing.”

“What?” Marsh looked at me.

I took a breath and confirmed what Darby had blurted out. “It’s a pretty bad scene. Whoever did this meant business.”

“Let’s get back to your relationship with your wife,” Darby said, acting like a bulldog with a bone.

Marsh looked at me. “I don’t understand this line of questioning.” His eyes found Darby again. “No, we aren’t having any problems. Our marriage is good. We have two kids.”

“What about…”

Leo cut Darby off, giving him a hard stare. “Let’s wait on this until we get back to the station.”

“The station?” Marsh’s eyes found me again. “I still don’t understand any of this.”

I studied Vincent Marsh for a moment. I had an instinctive revulsion to attorneys. Most of them sold themselves to the highest bidder. I don’t have to tell you what that makes them in my opinion. While Marsh seemed to be genuinely distraught by the night’s events, we were just a few miles from Hollywood. If all the world’s a stage, the world is full of actors, and I knew more than a few lawyers with Oscar potential. I decided to keep an open mind about Marsh’s acting chops.

“We’re going to need any and all information you have about your family,” Leo told the attorney. “It’s easier to get that at the station, away from the press, and…” He glanced at the residence. “…what’s going on here.” He looked back at Marsh. “Why don’t you ride back to the station with Detectives Hall and Peters? We’ll meet you there for an interview in a few minutes.”

Marsh sighed. “Okay. I guess I understand. In the meantime, can you put a notice out, or whatever you call it, about my wife and kids? I’m afraid…” He broke down and didn’t go on.

After Marsh left with Darby and Mel, Lieutenant Oz arrived. Our boss was in his early sixties, with a shock of snow-white hair. He had more than thirty years on the job, but still had a passion for the work. I considered him one of the good guys in a department that sometimes seemed deficient in that regard.

Leo and I took a few minutes, filling the lieutenant in on what we knew. My partner finished the discussion by saying, “We’re taking Marsh back to the station for an interview. So far, he gives the impression of being shocked by everything, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Oz nodded, his gaze drifting over to the throng of reporters. “This will be lead story stuff in the morning. I’ll call Dembowski and see if MRS can put out a statement.”

MRS was the department’s Media Relations Section that handled most of the sensitive dealings with the press. It was a way for the department to be sure they controlled what was released to the media.

“We ran into Shelia Woods on the way in,” I said. “She wants to meet about the Potter case tomorrow.”

Oz took a breath. He looked tired. I remembered that the murder call had gotten him out of bed. “Let’s see how things go with what’s happened here.” He glanced at the residence. “This is our first priority.”

Before leaving for the station, Leo and I met with Brie Henner for her preliminary findings. My beautiful friend looked exhausted as she summarized what she knew. “It’s pretty much as it appears. She was killed in the kitchen with the butcher knife. The blood spray is diffused throughout the room and there were defensive wounds on her arms, both indications that she fought back. We’ll do nail scrapings and look for any DNA, of course.”

“TOD?” Leo asked.

“Based on the liver temp, I’d estimate sometime between seven and ten tonight. We’ll know more when we get her on the table and look at stomach contents.” Brie continued, giving us more detail about how to determine the time of death based on a victim’s last meal and digestion than I cared to know.

Leo wandered off after Brie finished her summary. I took the opportunity to take a walk with her in the Marsh’s backyard.

“So, how are things really going with you?” I asked.

She met my eyes and smiled. “You oughta be a detective.”

I touched her arm. “I’ll keep that in mind. Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Brie took a breath and shook her head. “I went back in for a check-up a couple of days ago. A strand of cancer was found post-surgery. It means…” Her eyes misted over and she took a moment. “I’m going to have some more tests run. It could mean the cancer has metastasized to my lymph nodes. I’ll know more later this week.”

I squeezed her hand, doing my best to control my own emotions. I finally found the composure to ask, “What can I do to help?”

She brought my hand up to her face, kissing it. “Just be the best friend anyone could ever have, like you’ve always been.”

The floodgates opened. I fell into her arms and barely choked out the words, “You can count on me. Always.”

We spent the rest of the night at Hollywood Station interviewing Vincent Marsh. The attorney alternated between giving us information about his wife, their family and friends, and breaking down into fits of despondency. Darby Hall, who appeared to relish the role of interviewer-interrogator, spent a couple of hours going at him, spinning scenarios about their marriage being in trouble and asking Marsh if he’d been involved with someone else.

Despite all the pressure, Marsh had remained steadfast, telling us he had no idea why Maria Chavez was murdered or where his family had gone. By the end of the session, I decided we needed a lot more facts before making any decisions about Vince Marsh and what happened to his family.

I got home just before six in the morning and took a nap. I slept until eleven, when I was awakened by Natalie knocking on my door.

“Me and Mo thought you might be here,” Natalie said as I stood in the doorway. “Whatcha doing, sleeping the day away?”

I yawned, tried to focus, and mumbled. “Long night with a case.” I glanced at the clock on my microwave. It was a little before noon. “I’ve got to head back to the station in a few minutes.”

“Why don’t you drop in for a sec? We got us some info on Kellen Malone.”

Bernie was pushing his head between my leg and the door jamb, wagging his tail. “If you’ll take Bernie for a walk, it’s a deal.”

After Natalie was gone, I took a shower, did what I could with my unruly locks, and dressed in a dark blazer and pants, your basic homicide cop outfit. I went next door, poured myself some coffee, and met up with my friends and Bernie in their living room.

Mo, who was dressed in her standard leather PI gear, consisting of lots of leather and silver chains, asked me about my night. “We heard ’bout that housekeeper who was killed over in Hancock Park. Rumor on the streets is that she was missing something you can’t do without.”

“As in her head,” Natalie said, the pitch in her voice rising. “Was the killer some kind of crazy psycho with an ax?”

Mo always seemed to have the facts of my cases, almost before I did. I drained half my coffee and said, “We don’t have any suspects at this point. It’s still early in the investigation.”

“I heard the husband is one of them big-shot attorneys in La-La Land,” Mo added. “Maybe he chopped up the wife and kids and dumped ’em somewhere, just like what he did to the maid, ’cause he was screwing his secretary.”

I tried to be noncommittal. “Anything’s possible, but we don’t have any indication right now that’s the case.”

Mo regarded me with one eye. She was wearing a curly yellow wig that brought Big Bird to mind. “I got a feeling this one’s gonna get complicated before it’s over.”

“Mo and me are gonna ask Jimmy what he knows ’bout the lawyer,” Natalie said. “He’s had a lot of dealings with Satan’s brothers, so he might know the bloke.”

Natalie knew that I hated lawyers, and, after a messy divorce from her elderly husband, she had little use for them herself. Her reference to Jimmy was their boss in the PI firm where they worked. Jimmy Sweets was lower than Death Valley on the Hollywood low-life sleaze scale.

“I’d prefer that you keep Jimmy out of this,” I said. “He’s not my favorite guy.”

“He might be scum,” Mo agreed, raising her brows. “But he’s got the dirt on a lot of players.”

I sighed, knowing it was useless to argue with them. “Just keep it on the down low.” I changed the subject, looking at Natalie. “What did you find out about Kellen Malone?”

“He’s a dirty lizard with more baggage than the lost and found department at LAX. He’s also a player.”

I looked at Mo, who I could always count on to fill in the details. “Malone’s got a history of being involved with lots of women, going back to Jean Winslow,” she said. “Some of those women go away.”

“Go away? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“They vanish,” Natalie said. “My guess is the dirty lumpfish carves ’em up like that Dexter bloke and dumps their bodies in the bloody ocean.”

My brows came together as I looked at Mo. “Do you have any evidence of that?”

She shook her curly yellow head. “Not yet, but we’re still in the early stages of our investigation.”

I was irritated with both of them and didn’t try to hide it. “This is not an investigation. I told you that you could gather information. The last thing I need is for Malone to think we’re looking into his background.”

Mo leaned forward, the lines on her forehead growing deeper. “Don’t you think we know how to be discreet?” I was about to say they didn’t know the meaning of the term when she went on. “I’m just working a couple of sources that are way below the radar. I know ‘bout the Revelation and the last thing I want is to stir up trouble with that bunch.”

I released a breath and shook my head. “Okay, see that you keep this way off the radar.” I stood up and got Bernie’s leash. “I’ve got to go.”

Natalie followed me to the door. “Try and make it home by seven tonight. Marlon the Magnificent is gonna be here.”

“Who?”

“You got the memory of a gnat,” Mo said, trailing behind Natalie. “Baby sis is talkin’ ’bout that celeb chef we been workin’ with.”

“Marlon’s gonna whip up some nosh that’s fit for the Queen of England tonight, somethin’ that should go just right with me Dirty Harrietts.”

It all came back to me. “I’ll try and make it, but no promises.”

***

Bernie and I arrived back at Hollywood Station just after one that afternoon. As I settled in at my desk across from Leo, I asked, “Anything new?”

My new partner was wearing a neatly pressed white shirt, and it occurred to me that he must have showered and changed before coming back to work. “Just that our case is the lead story on all the local news outlets. Somebody leaked the maid’s cause of death. Oz wants to meet with everybody in the bat cave in half an hour.”

The bat cave reference was to the lieutenant’s large office that had been outfitted with TV monitors and computers. The department had spent a small fortune making Section One a modern crime fighting high-tech showcase. It was all nonsense as far as I was concerned. The real work in homicide was done on the streets, putting leads together, and tirelessly working cases.

Leo told me that because of the sensational nature of Maria Chavez’s murder, the story was already being picked up by the national morning TV shows.

“Damn it,” I said, thinking about the leak. “Why don’t we just invite the press…” I thought about the Potter case. “Never mind.”

“Speaking of that, Oz said something about setting up that meeting with Shelia Woods tomorrow.”

“I feel a major migraine coming on.”

We went on, chatting about the murder and the disappearance of the Marsh family for a minute before I said, “Any thoughts on the husband after our interview?”

“Marsh is either a very good liar or he’s innocent.”

“You ever met a lawyer who wasn’t a good liar?”

Leo’s eternal smile widened. “No one comes to mind.”

After pushing some paperwork around for twenty minutes, we walked to Oz’s office where we found Darby Hall and Mel Peters already seated. After settling Bernie down, we were joined by Selfie and Molly Wingate, our secretary. Molly was a single mom, doing her best to raise two small children. She was hard-working and dedicated to her job, something that helped make Section One feel like home to me.

After Oz joined us, he gave Bernie some attention before getting down to business. “Let’s summarize where we stand and map out a strategy. I guess you all know the victim’s cause of death is making headline news.” He nodded at Selfie and Molly to begin.

Selfie used the overhead monitors to show video of the crime scene as she spoke. “Our homicide victim is Maria Chavez, age twenty-seven. She was found by her sister just after midnight last night in the kitchen of the Hancock Park residence owned by Vincent and Allison Marsh.” Several images of the horrific crime scene flickered on the overhead monitors. “We all know the COD. The victim’s head hasn’t been recovered. The coroner tentatively puts the TOD between seven and ten last night. The murder weapon was a large knife, taken from the kitchen during the assault. SID has already determined it was negative for prints. They’re waiting on DNA analysis.”

“What do we know about the victim?” Leo asked.

“She lived with her sister, Paula Ramirez. They rented a small apartment in Studio City. She was single and, according to the sister, hadn’t been in a relationship in recent months. When she wasn’t working for the Marsh family, she was attending school part-time to become a medical assistant.”

Molly took over, filling us in on the missing family. Our secretary was wearing a green blouse that complemented her shoulder-length red hair. “Allison Marsh and her two children were last seen by her husband, Vincent, when he came home around six last night. The attorney had to work late. One of the partners in his law firm confirmed that he saw him arrive back at the building just before seven.” Molly picked up some paperwork. “One noteworthy fact we’ve uncovered is that Allison is the daughter of Henry Montreal. He’s an extremely wealthy investment broker who lives in Beverly Hills. According to some estimates, he’s a one percenter—as in a billionaire.”

“Has anybody talked to him?” Oz asked, looking at his four detectives.

I shook my head and started to answer when Mel said, “Just the press. I saw on the news, one of the reporters went by his house for a statement about his daughter. Montreal was heading to his car and said he had no comment.”

“Let’s make it a priority to get with him today,” Oz said. “While it’s too early to say anything definitive, if this was a murder-kidnap, we need to get to him before there’s a ransom demand.”

“I’ll call and set something up,” I said.

“I also want a knock-and-talk on the Marshes’ neighborhood. Maybe someone saw somebody at the house.” Oz turned back to Molly. “Anything else?”

Selfie answered. “We ran record checks on everyone. Vincent had a DUI about ten years ago. Nothing on Allison, the maid, or her sister.”

“We’ve also compiled a list of the family and friends of both Chavez and the Marshes,” Molly said. “Nothing looks remarkable.”

“There is one other thing,” Selfie said. “As SID was wrapping up at the house, a woman came by, saying she was a friend of Allison’s.” She checked her notes. “Deidre Cole. I have her contact information if you want to call her.” She handed me a slip of paper.

Oz looked around the room. “So, where does this leave us?”

“With a missing head,” Darby deadpanned.

Leo ignored him, asking Molly and Selfie, “What do we know about the Marshes’ finances?”

“There’s a lot of debt,” Molly confirmed, showing us a credit report. “The house is heavily mortgaged, and it looks like they’re balancing a lot of credit.”

“Maybe the kidnappers don’t know that,” Mel suggested. “On the surface, the Marshes looked affluent. Vincent worked for a high profile law firm and his wife is the daughter of a wealthy investment broker. It could be that the maid’s murder was a message. Maybe the family is being held for ransom under the threat that the same thing will happen to them if either Vincent or his father-in-law doesn’t pay up.”