Lost Hills (Eve Ronin Book 1)

by Lee Goldberg

  Duncan took his pad out of his back pocket and clicked his ballpoint pen for action. “When was the last time you saw her and the kids?”

  “Tuesday night, before I went to bed. I left the house at three a.m. I had to get to Lancaster to start rigging the lights on a Kevin Costner western that’s being shot in the desert.”

  “And you’re just getting back now?” Eve said. It was Thursday afternoon.

  “I was bushed after shooting so I spent the night in a motel. To be honest, I was looking forward to a big bed. I’m tired of sleeping on the couch.”

  “It’s your house,” Duncan said. “Why isn’t Tanya on the couch?”

  “Because I’m a fucking gentleman.”

  Eve saw that as an opening and took it. “Then you won’t mind being a gentleman and coming over to the Lost Hills station to answer some more questions for us.”

  “Sure,” Jared said.

  Duncan said, “How about letting us take a look at your truck?”

  Jared dug the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Duncan. “No reason not to.”

  “Thanks, we appreciate it.” Duncan tossed the keys to Deputy Ross, who caught them. “The deputy will give you a consent form to fill out and sign authorizing us to search your vehicle. When you’re done with that, we’ll give you a ride to the station.”

  “Will you throw in a wash?” Jared asked, amused with himself.

  “It’s a search,” Duncan said. “Not a detailing.”

  Jared shrugged and swaggered off with the deputy to a patrol car to fill out the form. Eve and Duncan watched him go.

  “I didn’t spot any suspicious cuts or bruises on his arms or legs that might indicate that he was in a struggle,” Eve said.

  “Yeah, it was real nice of him to wear a tank top and shorts so we could see that.”

  “It’s what grips wear,” she said. “They do a lot of work outdoors.”

  “It was also mighty convenient that he was on an out-of-town shoot while somebody was getting killed in his house.”

  She was going to argue that, technically, they didn’t know that anybody was dead, but then she remembered what Nan said.

  People died here.

  “You think he’s responsible,” Eve said.

  “The fucking gentlemen usually are.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Lost Hills sheriff’s station was on Agoura Road, which ran alongside the southern edge of the 101 freeway and straddled the dividing line between the small cities of Agoura and Calabasas.

  Eve led Jared down the hall to one of the interrogation rooms. “Can I get you a Coke or something, Mr. Rawlins?”

  “Yeah, a Coke would be good, and a Snickers or Milky Way if you’ve got it. I’m starving.”

  “I’ll see what we’ve got.” She pulled out a seat at the table for him. “Make yourself comfortable and we’ll be right back.”

  Eve stepped out of the room, leaving the door open, and joined Duncan in the hallway, out of Jared’s sight and earshot.

  “You interview him,” Duncan said. “I’ll check his alibi.”

  “Sure,” Eve said. The two of them headed for the squad room and they nearly collided with Captain Moffett.

  He was in his forties and wore his uniform with so much starch that Eve imagined it was like wearing cardboard. The rigidity suited his personality. He’d recently replaced a captain who was fired for sexually harassing a female deputy, who’d since quit and filed a $2 million lawsuit against the department.

  “I was just about to call you,” Moffett said to Duncan. “CSU asked for additional resources to process the crime scene you’re working. They’ve never seen so much Goddamn blood.”

  “Neither have I, Captain,” Duncan said.

  It went without saying that Eve hadn’t, either, not that the captain cared. He ignored her, which had been his standard approach to her since the day he’d paired her with Duncan.

  “Is there anything you need?” Moffett asked Duncan.

  “A search party and some dogs to check out the woods around the house for bodies.”

  “Let’s put a hold on search parties for now,” Moffett said. “It will draw too much attention and sends the wrong message.”

  “Which is what, sir?” Eve said.

  Moffett nailed her with a hard stare. “That the family is dead and we don’t know shit.” He shifted his gaze back to Duncan. “Keep me updated.”

  The captain walked away. Duncan shook his head at Eve.

  “Congratulations, I think you scored some big points by questioning his orders.”

  “I just want to understand his reasoning.”

  “You don’t need to,” Duncan said. “Your job is to salute and obey.”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “He doesn’t like me because I was forced on him.”

  “You were forced on all of us,” Duncan said. “Not everyone is as cheerful about it as I am.”

  “Only because they aren’t retiring.”

  Duncan went into the squad room, which was crammed full of cubicles and file cabinets. There was a vending machine, a microwave oven, a small refrigerator, and some bulk-size boxes of granola bars, coffee sweetener, and breakfast cereal on a table in a corner. He was headed for his cubicle, and Eve was about to go to the food, when they were met by Detectives Wally Biddle and Stan Garvey, known around the station as Crockett and Tubbs.

  “I heard you caught a bloody one, Donuts,” Biddle said. He colored his hair beach-boy blond and liked to dress in designer clothes that he bought on the cheap at the outlet mall in Camarillo. He was an LA native who’d dreamed of being a competitive surfer and was good at it, just not good enough to go pro.

  Duncan glanced at Eve. “Crockett and Tubbs don’t know how close they came to getting the case. You owe us one, boys.”

  Eve continued on to the vending machine while Biddle and Garvey trailed Duncan to his cubicle.

  “How about we make your day?” Garvey said. He was black and embraced the Tubbs nickname. He often talked about leaving the job to become a producer. A lot of Hollywood elite lived in Malibu, Hidden Hills, and Calabasas and being assigned to Lost Hills put him in their orbit. In his off-duty time, he worked security at celebrity parties and on studio location shoots. Eve was certain that Garvey wouldn’t have arrested Deathfist if he’d been in her place.

  “Tell the captain you want to step aside and we’ll take the case off your hands,” Biddle said.

  Eve was plugging coins into the vending machine and could hear every word they were saying. The squad room wasn’t that big.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Duncan settled into his seat, which squeaked under his weight.

  “Out of respect for you,” Garvey said. “Deathfist can’t hack it and you’ve done your time. You’re almost out the door. You should be taking it easy.”

  “You shouldn’t have to do the work of two detectives,” Biddle added.

  “I won’t be,” Duncan said. “She will.”

  Eve bent down to pull a Coke can out of the vending machine and it aggravated her bruised stomach, the unexpected pain making her wince. She straightened up, took two granola bars from the bulk-size Nature Valley box, and headed back to Duncan’s cubicle as Biddle and Garvey were walking away.

  She waited until they were gone to ask: “Did you say that because you have confidence in my energy and ability or because you don’t give a shit anymore?”

  “Both,” Duncan said.

  Fair enough, she thought. She went to her cubicle, opened her desk drawer, and found her container of Aleve, a twelve-hour pain reliever that she kept for menstrual cramps. She figured it would work just as well on a beating and dry-swallowed a pill.

  She returned to the interrogation room, set the Coke and granola bars on the table in front of Jared, and sat down across from him. “We didn’t have any candy bars. Hope these will do.”

  “Thanks,” Jared said and popped the tab on the Coke.

  Eve took out her note
pad and pen. “How did you and Tanya meet?”

  He took a sip of his drink. “It was a couple of years ago. She’d just come down here from Merced. I was day-playing on CSI and she was a corpse. Best role she’s had so far. No lines but plenty of close-ups.”

  “When did you move in together?”

  “Almost immediately. She was living in a crappy one-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys with the kids and couldn’t afford babysitters.” Jared reached for a granola bar, tore the wrapper open with his teeth, and eased out the bar. “So all of us staying at my place was the only way the two of us could be together, if you know what I mean.” He winked at her. “It worked for a while.”

  “What went wrong?”

  He took a bite of his bar and chewed it while he thought about that.

  “I hardly saw her between my job and her waitressing and scrounging for acting work. I ended up stuck at home all the time babysitting her unruly kids and Jack Shit. Perfect name for the stinking dog. I was also paying most of the bills. I’d become her sugar daddy with none of the benefits and all of the headaches. So I gave her thirty days to leave.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Two months ago.” He washed down his granola bar with some more Coke.

  “It must be frustrating that she’s still there.” She wasn’t really sympathizing with his problems. Her sympathies were with Caitlin and Troy. The tension in the house must have been hell on the kids, who were stuck with a mom who was hardly there and her boyfriend who resented them. It would have fallen on Caitlin to manage the situation for herself and her brother. Eve knew what that was like, except she had two siblings to watch over. It had often felt to Eve like her mom was just another child under her care, too, only a lot more difficult to control. She wondered if Caitlin felt the same way about Tanya.

  “I’d like my bed back, I’ll tell you that,” Jared said. “The couch is killing me.”

  “Was Tanya making any effort to go?”

  “She told me the other night that she’d found a Realtor to help her out,” Jared said. “They were going to meet yesterday after Tanya’s Pilates class.”

  “When is the class?”

  “It’s at nine, the place by the Topanga post office.”

  Eve nodded, taking notes. She knew the place. “Do you know who the Realtor is?”

  “No, just that it was some lady she met at Pilates.”

  Eve decided to go in a different direction. “What can you tell me about Tanya’s ex-husband?”

  “Cleve? I’ve never met him.” Jared used his teeth to tear open the wrapper on the second granola bar. “He sees the kids on holidays. They do the swap at a McDonald’s off the freeway in Bakersfield, halfway between Merced and LA. Tanya doesn’t bring me along, which is fine by me. I can have a play day.”

  “Do you remember the name of the hotel you were at last night?” It was a sharp change of subject, one intended to throw him a little off balance, but it didn’t work.

  “I can do better than that.” Jared reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and slid it across the table to Eve. “My receipt.”

  She unfolded the paper and looked at the information. It showed him renting a room at a Holiday Inn Express at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday and checking out at 10:00 a.m. the next morning. Lancaster was in the Mojave Desert, seventy miles north of Los Angeles. It was about a ninety-minute drive from Topanga in typical traffic, but the trip could be made in a little over an hour off peak and with a heavy foot on the gas pedal. She knew that because she’d been stationed out there before transferring to Lost Hills after the YouTube video went viral. Law enforcement in Lancaster was handled by the LASD.

  “Can anybody vouch for you being in the room last night?”

  Jared smirked and shook his head. “You think I got a room, drove back here, did something awful to Tanya and the kids, and went back to the hotel in time to check out? What kind of asshole do you think I am?”

  She could make a list, but instead she just shrugged. “It’s my job to think the worst of people. Convince me that you aren’t that kind of asshole.”

  His smirk became a smile. “Ask Jen. She can confirm that we never left the room.”

  Her mother’s name was Jen, short for Jennifer. It was yet another unwelcome personal parallel to the case and it hurt, though Eve didn’t know why and she sure as hell wouldn’t be analyzing herself to figure it out. She’d just push past it, the way she did with any pain, emotional or physical.

  “Does Jen have a last name?”

  “I’m sure she does. I don’t know it, but I can find out for you. She’s a set decorator on the movie,” Jared said. “I wasn’t cheating on Tanya. We split up weeks ago and a man has legitimate needs.”

  Eve tore a piece of paper from her notebook and slid the paper and pen across the table to Jared.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d write down any places that Tanya goes to regularly. Gyms, acting classes, that kind of thing. Also, I’d like the names and addresses of any of her friends or family that you know. While you do that, I’ll see if we’re done with your truck and get you a ride home if we are. Want another Coke or anything?”

  “No thanks,” he said. “I’m good.”

  “Back in a minute. The bathroom is across the hall if you need it.” Eve closed her notebook, picked up the receipt, and left the room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Eve dragged a chair over to Duncan’s cubicle and sat down beside his desk. Duncan was eating a sugar donut and looking at a photograph tacked on his wall of the desert view from the backyard of his Palm Springs condo. He spent weekends and holidays there and was planning to make it his permanent home once he retired. Duncan looked like he longed to be there right now.

  “How’s it going with the fucking gentleman?” Duncan asked.

  “Jared doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about Tanya or the kids, which is weird. He may just be glad to have them out of the house.”

  “What was his problem with them?”

  “He was tired of paying her bills and taking care of the kids. It was all work and no sex.”

  “That’s life.”

  “Tanya was supposed to spend yesterday afternoon with a Realtor she met at a Pilates class to look for a new place to live.”

  “I talked to the movie’s unit production manager,” Duncan said. “Jared worked on the set in Lancaster until Wednesday evening. The whole crew can vouch for him. They even took a group selfie with Kevin Costner when the day wrapped. That doesn’t mean Jared didn’t come back home last night.”

  “He’s got that covered, too. He says there’s a woman who can vouch that he was with her in a hotel room all night . . . and he has this.” Eve handed Duncan the receipt.

  Duncan looked at it and handed it back to Eve. “I’m surprised he didn’t have a signed deposition from the woman to go along with the Costner selfie and the hotel receipt.”

  “What about his truck?”

  “CSU says the truck appears clean. By that I mean, they didn’t find blood or anything unusual in their cursory check. They took some dirt and fiber samples for analysis just to be safe. But the fucking gentleman is still at the top of my suspect list.”

  “Because he’s the only name on it so far.”

  “He’s got a strong motive,” Duncan said.

  “But no opportunity,” Eve said.

  “He wanted them out of his life. He could have hired somebody to do the job.”

  That was true, but she didn’t buy it. “Did you reach Tanya’s ex-husband?”

  “Merced PD went by his place. He was distraught to hear that his kids were missing. He hasn’t left Merced in weeks and his employer can vouch for him being at work the last two days,” he said. “There’s even video from security cameras at his office and at his home to prove it. They gave me links to see the footage online.”

  “Has there been any activity on Tanya’s cell phone or credit cards?”

  “Nope,” Duncan sa
id.

  “So we’re back where we started,” Eve said, “with a missing family and a house covered with blood.”

  “If I were you, I’d write up your notes for the case file, then go back to the house for another walk-through of the crime scene. Maybe CSU will have a clearer picture of what happened.”

  “What will you be doing?”

  “Practicing for my retirement by eating dinner with the wife and binge-watching Downton Abbey.”

  Eve returned to the interrogation room, and Jared gave her the slip of paper. There was very little written on it. He listed only two female friends, one of them Alexis, and the names of the hairdresser, nail salon, Pilates studio, and acting class that she frequented. Either Tanya didn’t have much of a social life or, if she did, Jared didn’t care about it.

  “Thanks for this,” she said. “We’ll have a deputy take you back to your truck, but you’ll have to find another place to stay.”

  “For how long?”

  “A few days,” she said.

  He thought about that for a moment. “Will you be reimbursing me if I can’t find a friend to crash with and have to go to a hotel?”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Because you’re the ones not allowing me to go home.”

  “There’s blood everywhere and it’s a possible crime scene,” she said. “We’re processing the evidence. Would you really want to spend the night there even if we’d let you?”

  “What about my clothes? Can I go in and get some stuff?”

  “I’m sorry, we can’t allow you to remove anything from the house right now,” she said.

  “So I’m going to be out of pocket on clothes, too.”

  “I guess so,” she said.

  He shook his head and stood up. “This is fucked.”

  She asked for his cell phone number, gave him her card, and told him to let her know where he could be reached when he decided where he’d be staying.

  Once he was gone, she went to her cubicle and sat down to write up everything that had happened that day and fill out the necessary reports. The Aleve had kicked in by then and so did her hunger. She’d skipped lunch and hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. Eve ordered a small pizza and a Coke from Domino’s, had it delivered to the front desk, and worked through dinner at her cubicle, managing to get grease on her blouse to go with the dirt. It was after 9:00 p.m. when she finished her paperwork and headed back out to Topanga in a plain-wrap Explorer.