by P. A. Brown
He started with the phone number and a cover story. A junior receptionist listened to his first attempt.
“Hi, I have to reach Mr. Trevor Watson. It’s important.”
He was put on hold and passed to another junior receptionist. She sounded bored when she took his request.
“What’s this about?”
“Finding Trevor Watson. I know he works there—”
“And why is it important?”
“His mother’s gravely ill.”
He went back on hold. Chris cursed Alexander Graham Bell while Muzak played in the background.
“Strong Arm Playing Company, may I help you?”
“I hope so—”
The Muzak was back before he could finish. He tapped his fingers, belatedly realizing he was listening to an easy-listening rendition of an old Guns ’n’ Roses song. God, what was next? Ice-T rendered into tuneful elevator music?
“Strong Arm Playing Company.”
“I have to locate a Mr. Trevor Watson. His mother is dying.”
“Oh, my, that’s terrible,” the woman sounded genuinely upset. “Who is it you’re looking for?”
“Trevor, Trevor Watson. He works for your company and this was the only contact number he left us...”
“Let me check, sir.”
This time something ancient by the Beatles. Or was it Elton John? The concerned woman returned.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Watson no longer works for this company.”
“Do you have another number where he can be reached?”
“That information is confidential—”
“His mother keeps asking where he is,” Chris murmured. “We tell her, Ma, we’re trying to find him. Just hang on, but she’s so frail...”
“The poor woman...Well, it looks like your brother last worked here August twenty-first. There’s no mention of other employment.”
“What about an address?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“The doctor only gives her a week. Two at the most. We just don’t know what else to do. She hasn’t seen Trev in six years...”
“I can’t give you an address, but I’m sure it’s okay if I give you his phone number.”
And she did, rattling off the same West Hollywood exchange Chris had given David.
He hid his disappointment. “Thank you, ma’am. My mother will be so relieved to know her baby is okay. Your records don’t show why he left, do they? I always thought Trev loved making movies...”
“No, sir. I’m sorry. Just that he was terminated...” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have even told you that.”
“Nobody else will know, ma’am.” Chris hastily hung up.
Trevor hadn’t worked for Strong Arm for nearly two weeks. But he had called last weekend and said he was out of town on a job. Chris knew some people might be embarrassed to admit they’d been canned, but... his mouth went dry.
That was the weekend Bobby had died. Nausea roiled in Chris’s gut. Was that why Trevor had faked working? To give himself time to—Chris abruptly grabbed the phone again and dialed a number. He had to tell David.
“We’re on our way out to his workplace now,” David said when Chris told him what he’d found out. “Maybe we can get an address. But that’s definitely interesting that he lied about being employed over that time frame. Let me get back to you.” His voice dropped. “You’re not going out, are you? I’ll bring something back for supper. I want you to stay put—”
“I’ll stay,” Chris said. “But only if you promise not to be long. Otherwise...”
“I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
Chris decided he would spend the day digging through cyberspace. Maybe somebody else knew something about Trevor, or the Carpet Killer, or even his victims.
It was a long shot, but it beat sitting around waiting for a stubborn cop to show up.
Friday, 3:10 pm, Café 50’s, Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles David shut the cell and stared over the roof of the car and through the café window at Martinez, who was flirting with the waitress bringing their coffee.
The ride so far had been a silent one. David was thankful Martinez wasn’t demanding answers, but he missed their old camaraderie, even with Martinez’s often crude mouth.
Was he supposed to be thankful they were still talking at all?
The passenger door closed with a soft clunk and David leaned down to stare into the open window. Martinez was already chewing noisily on a bear-claw pastry.
“Chris called,” David said. “Seems Watson wasn’t working where he claimed when Dvorak was taken. And Chris said he made a big deal of calling him that weekend, saying he was out of town.”
Martinez chewed and swallowed the last bit of his bear-claw and washed it back with coffee. “Setting up an alibi? He’d have to know it wouldn’t hold up under even the loosest investigation.”
“When do psychopaths think things through? Could be he was figuring to avoid an investigation by taking himself out of suspicion early on.”
“Any idea where he is now?”
“None. We got an address on his last employer.” David glanced at the notes he had taken. “Out in Santa Monica. Feel like a trip to the beach?”
Santa Monica had gone upscale over the last decade. When Spielberg, Geffen, and Katzenberg moved their production offices out to the beach-side city, the money and glitter had followed. Now the small community was a thriving mini-Hollywood.
Strong Arm Playing Company was located in a cul-de-sac off Santa Monica Boulevard, housed in a refurbished stucco Art Deco building with tinted-glass windows.
The lobby was furnished with muted pastel-on-gray love seats and a thick wall-to-wall carpet that ate their footsteps as they strode past a phalanx of lurid posters from the company’s more successful films.
The girl who looked up from her computer couldn’t have been more than eighteen.
She had the uniform tan of the true Californian. She probably spent hours at the beach making sure her body was that perfect golden color all over. By thirty she’d be doing the same in the plastic surgeon’s office trying to reclaim the skin she had ruined in her youth.
Martinez stepped forward to eyeball her. She looked from one man to the other, and sure of her power over both, smiled.
“Help you, gentlemen?”
“You got an HR department here, darling?” Martinez said.
“HR? What branch of film do they handle?”
“Human resources. Staffing.” Martinez flipped his gold shield under her nose. “Who takes care of the employees?”
“Oh, that’s all handled by an agency.” She brightened. “That’s how I got this gig.”
“Maybe you can help us. We’re looking for a guy used to work here. We need to talk to him, so we’re looking for an address.”
“What guy?”
“Trevor Watson.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Know anyone who might?”
She cocked her head. Teeth nibbled on her lower lip. “You want to talk to Kemp.”
“Who?”
“Billy Kemp. He’s the guy who deals with this agency. Tells them who we need, so they can send over the right people.”
“Can we talk to this Billy Kemp?”
“Oh he’s not in today. No one is but me and some of the editors.”
She giggled as though this should have been common knowledge. “He’ll be back on Monday.”
“We need to talk to him now.”
David walked around the desk and crowded closer to her. Martinez leaned toward her.
The combined effect worked.
“But he’s at home.”
David handed her the phone. “Call him. Tell him what we want. Better yet, let one of us talk to him.”
Twenty minutes later they left with Trevor’s last known address.
“She was hot for me, I could tell,” Martinez said as he waited for David to dig out the keys and unlock the car. “Y
ou really telling me that little Chiquita didn’t do anything for you?”
“Sorry, not a thing.”
Martinez shook his head. “Un-fucking-believable.”
David didn’t bother contradicting him.
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CHAPTER 22
Friday 4:15 pm, Monterey Street, North Hollywood, Los Angeles TREVOR WATSON’S APARTMENT was in a pale pink stucco walk-up containing a dozen apartments. Tired palms lined the center-court pool, where a stoop-shouldered Latina woman watched three kids splash in the shallow end.
David eyed the cracked parking lot, noting a half dozen cars lining the grassy verge.
“Our doer have a car?”
“He did.” Martinez snatched up the car radio. “Let’s get some details.”
From where they sat, they had a front-on view of apartment 3A, where Trevor Watson had been in residence up to two weeks ago. At least Billy Kemp claimed that Watson’s final check had been cut and sent to that address. The check had been cashed, too.
“Think our guy’s home?”
“Be nice if it happened.”
“See an eighty-nine Honda Civic?” Martinez rattled off a plate number. David spotted the car, a gray two-door hatchback rusted out along the underside.
They approached the vehicle. The backseat held a box full of paperbacks, a roll of duct tape, and a blanket. There was also a plastic bag from a local video store.
“We should check out that video place,” Martinez muttered. “See if they ever stocked any of Bobby’s porno.”
“Let’s get working on a warrant for this thing.” David pulled his cell out. He’d get one of the D’s back at the station to start drafting the paperwork. “I especially want that duct tape examined. Maybe we can match it to the victims.”
“Good,” Martinez said. “Now let’s go see if our guy’s at home.”
Almost simultaneously they checked their Berettas as they strode up the flagstone walkway.
The fat black man who answered their knock was not Trevor. Nor was he amused to have his afternoon disrupted by two cops.
“We’re looking for Trevor Watson.”
“Don’t know him.”
He stepped back and tried to shut the door. Martinez blocked it.
“Answer a couple of questions?”
“What kind of questions?”
Martinez showed him the sketch of Trevor. “Ever seen this guy before?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. He might be whitebread but I’d still know if I’d seen him. What’s this about, anyway?”
“Can I get your name, sir?” David asked.
“Clarence,” the fat man said. “Clarence Dupont.”
“How long you lived here?”
“Moved in Monday.” Light dawned on Clarence’s sweat-dappled face. “You looking for the guy lived here before me?”
“Maybe. Know when he moved out?”
“I see the ‘for rent’ sign go up Sunday. You wanna know more, talk to the landlord.”
They banged on his door. “Call me Jackie,” he told the two cops when he opened up.
Behind him the TV blared with Pat Sajak cajoling the wheel to be good to someone.
Jackson Stepanowski was the antithesis of Clarence: skinny, angular, and white.
David and Martinez introduced themselves. Martinez showed Jackie the police artist’s sketch of Trevor.
Jackie studied it closely, as though he was looking over each pencil stroke. Finally he handed it back to Martinez.
“Yeah, sure. Looks like one of our tenants. Guy’s gone now, though. Split last weekend.”
“He say where he was going?”
“Didn’t even say he was going. Left me a note.” Jackie frowned. “He was due to pay his rent, next thing I know I’m on his front door and there’s no answer. Nothing but a goddamned note saying he’s leaving, sorry about the rent. Yeah, sure. Ain’t seen him since. At least I got first and last off him when he moved in. He do something?”
“How long ago precisely was that?”
“Guy left in a flippin’ hurry is all I can say. Maybe a week ago Thursday, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I didn’t know he was gone right away. Left food everywhere. I try to tell the damned tenants we all gotta fight to keep the roaches out, it ain’t enough for me to come by every other month and spray. They gotta keep up their end, too. This guy, he was usually so tidy, you know. Any other time I went to his place it was spotless.”
“Any sign this guy didn’t just walk away? Anyone complain before you noticed him gone?”
“Nah, he was always quiet. Hardly knew he was there. If he ever had visitors I never saw ’em.”
“How long he live there?”
“Three years. Hard to believe, huh? That long and he just vanishes.”
“You aware Mr. Watson’s car is still in the parking lot? Know why he wouldn’t take his car with him?”
Jackie frowned. Behind him the studio audience was going crazy. Somebody had obviously just scored big.
“What’s going on here, officer?” Jackie asked.
“What did you do with his property?” By law the landlord wouldn’t be able to dispose of Trevor’s things for at least six months. David wasn’t surprised when Jackie grimaced.
“Put it in storage, what else? Means I gotta foot the bill unless he comes back and actually wants his stuff. Know what chance there is of that?”
“What storage company do you use?” David asked. He wrote down the name Jackie gave him. “We’ll be getting a warrant for that soon. His vehicle, too. Do me a favor, don’t touch it until we tell you it’s okay.”
“What do you want me to do if he comes back?”
“Call us immediately.”
*****
“He had another vehicle,” Martinez said. They were sitting in the front seat of their car with both windows down trying to catch a cross breeze. The sun was setting behind the pool, now empty. “Remember our homeless wit who said the doer was driving a ‘golden chariot.’ I’m thinking truck or van. Yellow. Better for transporting his victims—dead or alive.”
“Anything show up in DMV under Watson?”
“Nada, nothing but the Honda. Doesn’t mean he didn’t have an unregistered vehicle.
Hell, how many cars get jacked every day?”
“Let’s check with Jackie, see if he remembers our guy driving anything else.”
A laugh track and canned laughter coming from Jackie’s apartment let them know he had moved on to sitcoms. The humor hadn’t improved his temper.
“What now?”
“You remember Mr. Watson driving any vehicle other than the Honda Civic?”
“Never saw him drive anything else.”
They thanked him again and retreated to their own car.
“What now?”
“I want to talk to Anstrom’s parents again. See if they ever saw Watson. If we’re right and he stalked his victims before making his move, someone besides those kids in the arcade might have seen something.”
“Sure.” Martinez glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight-thirty. “Let’s call a code seven and grab supper, then we’ll swing by their place. This time of night, surely they’ll be in.”
But they weren’t, and none of their neighbors knew when they might return. At ten-thirty David called it a night. He already knew he’d pissed Chris off royally by not making it back earlier. Now he was too tired to think about anything but his pillow.
He caught Martinez in the middle of a massive yawn that made a lie of his partner’s attempt to say he was all ready to keep going. They agreed to meet back at the station first thing in the morning, even though it was Saturday. There were still threads to be pursued. Someone had to know where Trevor Watson was.
*****
David let himself into his house; a light burned in the kitchen, no doubt left on by Chris. The rest of the house was dark and silent. The
door to the spare bedroom was closed. David slid his shoes off in the front hall and tip-toed in stocking feet to his own room.
He turned on the overhead light and gave a startled “oof ”when Chris sat up in his bed.
Sweeney opened one blue eye from where he had taken up residence on David’s pillow.
“David?”
“Chris, what are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you. You’re late.”
“Yeah, well, sorry. Things came up. That’s what happens in my work.”
“Find him?”
“No, not yet. Found where he lived, though. Turns out he left last weekend.”
“But I saw him Monday,” Chris said. “He left before I went looking for Kyle...”
They traded glances. Had Trevor beaten Chris out to Santa Monica? Had he found Kyle first?
Chris didn’t ask. David figured he didn’t want to think about Bobby or Kyle and how they had died. Fair enough. David didn’t want to think about Chris knowing this guy Trevor.
“I missed you at supper,” Chris finally said.
David saw he had donned pajama bottoms, red silk that slipped and danced around his taut legs, hiding and revealing his hard-on. David could smell his achingly familiar scent. His own cock swelled and pressed hungrily against his suddenly too tight work pants. Chris hadn’t bothered to put on the pajama top and his well-defined chest looked like sculptured marble in the overhead light.
David swallowed against the sudden obstruction in his throat. “Er, why aren’t you sleeping down the hall?”
“Didn’t you miss me?” Chris looped his arms around his knees, rested his cheek in the crook of his arm and smiled. “Did you think about me at all?”
It occurred to David that Chris was flirting with him. That was an entirely new experience.
“I don’t like sleeping alone. Do you?” Chris asked.
David wouldn’t have thought a desire for anything but sleep was possible, but now a different kind of desire pooled in his gut. He fought it. He scooped the cat up and cradled it in his arms. When he spoke his voice was hoarse.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Chris.”
