The Beast (12 page)

“Nah, go ahead. Just let me know if you find anything juicy on it. Maybe I can sell it to the tabloids. In this economy, everyone needs a few extra bucks.”

THE APARTMENTS WERE
actually quite spacious when devoid of wild animals and blood and guts. Masey Roberts’s place had the same open floor plan as Penny’s with one bedroom and one bathroom. Shelving units lined the wall of her living space, which was decorated with fresh and dried flowers, silver framed photographs, and lots of candles: the trifecta of girly stuff. She had a brown leather couch, a couple of comfy chairs, a dinette table for four opposite a flat-screen mounted on the wall.

The young woman was in her mid- to late twenties with curly
shoulder-length hair that framed a long face. Pale complexion, round brown eyes, pixie features. She wore black running pants and a long-sleeved hoodie over a black T-shirt. Fuzzy slippers were on her feet. She was a wisp of a woman, but feisty.

She paced as she spoke. “I
knew
something was going on. I must have called the freakin’ manager six times!”

“What did the manager say to you?” Marge asked.

“That I was imagining things and that he personally checked out the apartment twice. It was all in my head! Paxton is a freakin’ prick! We’re all lucky that the tiger didn’t escape and do real bad stuff.”

“The guy across the street told us you actually visited Penny,” Oliver said.

“Yeah, not that it did any good.” Masey stopped pacing and sat down. “I knew something was going on. So did others, but no one had the balls to face the old man.”

“Why’s that?” Marge asked. “At eighty-nine, he would seem pretty harmless.”

“It wasn’t the old man, it was the strange noises,” Masey said. “We didn’t know what the hell we were dealing with. Only that it was spooky. When I finally summoned up my courage to knock on the door, the old man took forever to open up.”

“Did he invite you in?”

“Yeah, he did.” A pause. “I sat down on his couch. It was awkward. I finally just spit it out. I asked him if he had any exotic pets.”

“And?” Marge asked.

“He said no. Then he asked me why would I think that?”

“And you said?”

“I said that I heard noises coming from his apartment. And I wasn’t the only one. There were at least four or five people who heard stuff.”

“And he said?”

“He said that was strange. Maybe it was the TV. Freakin’ liar.”

“I assume you looked around the place,” Oliver said.

“He didn’t invite me to take a tour, but it’s a small place. Kind of hard to hide a tiger.”

“Did you go inside the bathroom?” Marge asked.

“Yeah, I asked to use the bathroom. No tiger.”

“What about the bedroom?”

“I didn’t go inside, but the door was open,” Masey said. “There was no animal in sight. But the place smelled like a zoo. Maybe the tiger was hidden in a closet or a trapdoor or something.”

Marge nodded as she wrote. “How long did you talk to Mr. Penny?”

“About ten minutes.”

“Ever have any dealing with him again?”

“Nope. I never saw him again. If the guy left the apartment, I never ran into him.”

Marge said, “What about deliveries?”

“Yeah, I saw people come to his door.”

“From where?” Oliver asked.

“Local markets mostly. FedEx came a couple of times. Once he got a delivery from the cleaners.” She shrugged. “It’s not like I was
spying
on him. It’s just that when you hear weird stuff coming out the door, you get curious.”

“Any visitors ever come in?” Marge asked.

“You mean the woman?”

“Yeah,” Oliver said. “Tell me about her.”

“I saw her two or three times. She had blond hair and wore stilettos.” Masey smiled. “She looked like a classy hooker. But then again, Penny was really old. But you never know. I read in the papers that he was a gazillionaire. Wow, that’s a shock. His apartment was like . . . nothing.”

“What was in it?” Oliver asked.

“It was practically bare: an old couch and a chair in the living room. He came to the door with a walker, so maybe he needed floor space so he could get around.”

Marge nodded but was puzzled. Neither one of them had seen a walker when they surveyed the crime scene. It was clear that they had missed some things, including where the old man could hide a tiger. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

Masey said, “When I stood up to leave, I asked him if he needed anything. He said thanks but no thanks. He said he was an old guy and that at this stage, he had everything he needed.” She paused. “It was weird. The way he said it—like he was just waiting to clock out.”

A
HALF MILE AWAY
from Penny’s apartment, Marge found a local coffee shop, one of the valiant few left standing, where she and Oliver ordered burgers and coffee. Not much chitchat before the food arrived. Afterward, refreshed with protein and grease, Marge felt her brain cells bloom. She glanced at the wall clock. It was already past eight. “Long day.”

“Yeah, I’m ready to pack it in, but I’m betting that you want to go over the tapes at the station house.”

“I was thinking that we’ll view the tapes after we go over the crime scene.” Marge leaned forward. “Masey Roberts was in Penny’s apartment and didn’t see the tiger. You just can’t stow away a big cat like that. Plus, we didn’t find a cage or a walker. There has to be a hidden closet or a trapdoor—”

“He was on the third floor, Marge.”

“There must be a secret compartment somewhere.”

“Probably.”

“And this doesn’t intrigue you?”

“Not after working for ten hours straight.” But Oliver’s mind
was still reeling. “Even if there was a trapdoor or closet in the apartment, how do you get a tiger to refrain from roaring? Masey talked to Penny for a least a couple of minutes.”

“Maybe the tiger was drugged. Didn’t Masey say that it took a while for him to answer the door?”

“It takes more than a minute for a tranquilizer to kick in.”

“That’s what I’m saying, Scott. There’s a hidden compartment and it’s probably soundproof.” Marge fiddled with a sugar package. “If I were him and wanted to hide a tiger, I’d rent one of the adjacent apartments and put a secret door between the two living spaces.”

Oliver said, “Paxton never said anything about him renting two apartments.”

“Maybe Paxton knew about the tiger and the second apartment, and Hobart was paying him off to keep his mouth shut. A second apartment would help explain a lot of things. And we were going to take a second look at the crime scene anyway.”

“But I also remember saying that I’m not crossing the threshold unless the place has been cleaned up.”

“If SID was there, I’m sure it’s not as bad as when we first saw it.” Marge finished her coffee and wiped her mouth on a napkin. “You don’t have to go but—”

“I
hate
when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say I don’t
have
to go. If you’re going, I
have
to go. Because if you find something important and I wasn’t there, I’ll look like a doofus.”

“You know I always share the credit with you.”

“I don’t care about the credit,” Oliver sulked.

“Then why mention it?”

“The truth is we still have a murderer on the loose. I wouldn’t want to be alone in that apartment in this situation. I don’t want you alone.”

“And that’s precisely why I always say you don’t have to go with me to the crime scene, Oliver. It makes me feel self-righteous, but I know the truth. You’re too good a cop to ever take me up on it.”

GEORGE PAXTON, THE
apartment manager, had gone AWOL. He was not answering his phone, so Oliver left names and numbers on the voice mail. Since they had legal access only to Penny’s apartment, the two detectives had no choice but to revisit the grisly scenario. Yellow tape was still in place across the door. Marge peeled off the tape at one end, opened the door, and then replaced it back across the doorframe.

The fecal matter had been removed, but the stench lingered on. The furniture and appliances had been rerighted, and someone had cleaned up the decaying meat and food. There was more room to walk, but garbage still littered the floor. Fingerprint dust had darkened the walls slate gray. Neat little squares of bloodstained material had been taken from the couch and the chair. There was also fabric excised from the blood-soaked mattress in the bedroom. The electricity was still on, but who knew how long that would last?

Marge fished out her tablet from her oversize bag and pulled up a grid of ghastly pictures from the original crime scene. “Okay, the fridge was here when we came in . . .” She pointed to a spot. “And the table was here . . . the chairs were there.”

Oliver looked over her shoulder. “Wow, what a mess! You know it still stinks in here. Like they forgot a pile somewhere.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty rank.” She turned to him. “I’ll take the living room, you can take the bedroom.”

“Thanks. Maybe the bedroom will smell better.” Oliver looked around. “Can I see the pictures from the original scene?”

“Yeah, sure.” She showed them to him. “You can see here that Penny’s head was on the pillow, canted to the left side.”

“But he had a bullet wound in the back.”

“Maybe it was a two-person attack—one basher, one shooter.” Marge thought a moment. “Definitely a lot of force to take an old man out.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t overkill,” Oliver said. “Just one shot and a bash to the head.”

“I agree. It wasn’t a rage killing.”

“The bash came first. The guy was still moving, so someone shot him in the back.”

“If you bash the front of the head first, the guy falls backward, which was how we found him. But then how do you pull off the shot in the back?” Marge shrugged. “I’d say it’s two people going at it at the same time. Sounds like the motive was a robbery rather than someone wanting the old man out of the way.” Marge looked around. “And for the umpteenth time, where was the tiger?”

Oliver said, “This isn’t a corner unit. Our secret door could be in the bedroom or the living room connecting to a unit on either side. And it’s possible that he rented the apartment under or over him. We could be looking for a trapdoor or something in the ceiling, although it would be hard for an old man to lead an animal up and down a ladder.”

“Not hard for a tiger to climb, Oliver. They’re cats. How many times as a patrol officer were you called down to get kitty out of a tree?”

“Those are house cats. Tigers are big guys.”

“That’s how big cats kill, Scotty. They sit in a tree and jump on your back and bite your neck until you bleed out.”

“Lovely. Thanks for sharing.”

“That’s why I don’t go biking in the Santa Monica Hills anymore. I once had a personal encounter with a mountain lion. He looked at me and I looked at him and we both decided to leave it for another day.”

“You never told me that.”

“It was traumatic. I put it in the back of my mind and forgot about it. Except obviously I didn’t.”

Oliver took out a face mask. “That must have been scary . . . meeting a mountain lion like that.”

“That it was. Mountain lions love to chase bicycles, so as soon as I saw him, I stopped dead in my tracks and pulled out my gun. Then I quietly backed away, and as soon as he was out of sight, I took off as fast as I could. I’ve gone dead heat with many a bad guy, Oliver, but Mr. Puma by far had the biggest teeth . . . that is, until I met
Tiki. I have nothing against wild cats. It’s just that I like to have a considerable distance between us.” She slipped on her face mask. “Ready to do this?”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Let’s.”

AT TEN IN
the evening, Marge was surprised to see that Decker’s office door was still open. She knocked on the frame. Decker looked up and motioned them in.

“Got a moment?” Oliver asked.

“Just finishing up my calls,” Decker said. “What do you have?”

Marge said, “Some security camera tapes from businesses across the street from Penny’s apartment. I doubt if they’ll show something, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek.”

Decker checked his watch. “It’s a little late to start watching hours of video.”

“Yeah, it’ll hold until morning.”

Oliver whipped his head around. “Did I hear right?” He stuck his index finger in his ear and moved it around, as if something were blocked. “Did you actually say it’ll hold until morning?”

Marge smiled. “I’ll lock up the tapes and we’ll view them tomorrow morning with fresh eyes.”

“Sounds good,” Decker said. “Anything else?”

“Yes, there is,” Marge said. “Scott and I had a chance to interview a few people from the area.” She sat down and gave him a brief recap. “It got us both to thinking. How do you hide a tiger in plain sight? The answer is you don’t. So we started looking for hidden doors and compartments. We found a ceiling panel that leads to the apartment directly above Penny’s place.”

Oliver said, “We didn’t go inside the space without authorization because we didn’t know if all the apartments in the building were interconnected. There could have been someone living above Penny who might not take kindly to cops popping out their floorboards.”

Marge said, “We tried calling the manager again to see if he’d let
us inside or at least tell us that Penny didn’t rent the apartment. Paxton is not answering his phone these days.”

“Refresh my memory. Does Paxton live in the apartment complex?”

“No he does not. I’ll find out where he lives tomorrow. What do you want us to do with that ceiling panel? We could knock it in and gain entry to the apartment above.”

“Not without permission or a warrant,” Decker said. “Did you find anything that would connect the two apartments—like a drop-down ladder or a rope ladder?”

“Nope,” Oliver said.

“Could you see inside the above apartment once you took off the ceiling panel?”

“No,” Marge said. “If Penny had a ladder to lead the tiger up and down, it might have come from above. I did push on the panel, and it definitely wasn’t nailed down. Still, I didn’t want to displace it without an official okay.”