The lid of the trash container was open. I wanted to step over and take a look inside.
“Could be he was exhausted after the struggle, strangling, and dragging her this far.”
Nick followed the path of disturbed dirt in the parking lot. I followed.
The perimeter of this motel was flanked by a mini-storage facility, right behind the garbage area, another motel, and on our far right, a towing impound lot. Whoever did this drove here and parked at the back of the parking lot. And there was Lena’s car.
“Motel surveillance cameras?” I asked.
“We’ll have to get a look at those.” Nick was only half listening.
“Nick, that’s Lena’s car.” I nodded toward the dark car about fifty feet away from the trash bins. There was a definite trail in the dirt leading from the car to the bins.
We walked to the parking space only feet from the trash containers. I looked from one to the other again. It wasn’t that far, and Lena wasn’t that big, maybe one-forty, one-fifty. Not skinny by any means, but not remotely fat.
“She was strangled in the car.” Nick sounded certain. “She was in the driver’s seat. Was the killer in the back seat? Or did she get out of the car?”
Nick shined his flashlight on the disturbed dirt pattern in the parking space.
Thinking aloud, I said, “She had to have known and trusted the person who did this. Or why would she get out of the car in a dark parking lot?”
“Or she was drugged.”
“Not plausible.” I just didn’t see it happening in this case.
“You’re right.” Nick looked at the ground. “Maybe more than one person. Someone got her attention, and someone else put the chain around her neck.”
“Sure, but then they’d have gotten her in the trash. Two people would have been able to lift her.” The longer it took to find her, the better their chance of getting away with the murder.
The head of the CSU approached, newest model Panasonic digital camera in hand, ready to catalog the crime scene. “You ain’t messing up my crime scene, are you?”
Pics, I don’t think I know his real name, walked up in booties. He and Nick shook hands.
“New guy?” Pics asked.
The crime scene investigator smiled, like he’d had a pretty good day.
“Oh, hey, Pics, this is Charles Parks. He’s not exactly new. And he’s not exactly a cop.”
Pics had started to shake my hand, but stopped short at the “not exactly a cop” part. “Nick? What the hell’s going on? You can’t bring a civilian into a crime scene.” Pics shook his head. “I knew this day had been too good to be true.”
My phone vibrated again. I didn’t even bother taking it out of my pocket, because I knew who it was.
Nick patted Pics on the back. “He’s cool. Private detective. The victim was an employee of sorts.”
He looked over at the body. “Dead hooker?”
Apparently we had all night, because Nick made me explain the decoy program, and how Lena had left early. I wondered how many more times I’d have to tell the story over the next days, weeks, whatever.
“I heard about that program. So far, it’s been pretty good.” He looked over at the victim. “This should put the kibosh on that.”
Didn’t I know it. I could only hope that this murder had nothing to do with the program, that it was a coincidence. Wishful thinking.
“Why don’t you go be a cop and start talking to witnesses, and I’ll take care of this; take pictures, samples, and such.” Pics pulled on a pair of latex gloves. “Scoot, time’s a wastin’.”
“That’s the vic’s car, so do your thing. And I’m not telling you how to do your job, but I think there may be a possibility of two suspects. Just maybe, so keep that in mind with your investigation. And also, we’re looking for a cell phone, so if you see one on the body, in the car, or around the area, let me know.”
Pics was already squatting down to investigate the scene, Nick no longer even a second thought in his mind, “Sure thing.”
I added, “There’s a yellow boa that may be evidence too, but it’s on a homeless man at the moment. We’re trying to get it back.”
Nick looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
Nick and I walked back to the front office via the same path we walked in. The less we disturbed of the scene, the better.
No way were we expecting what happened when we turned the corner.
93
Mimi
With the night I’d had, I was this close to going to prison. From what little Charles told me on the phone, Lena had been found dead. And I’d rushed over just like Charles said. But when I arrived, the cavalry had beat me there.
Do the cops in this town have nothing better to do? I mean, it’s not like this is small town middle America, and a dead body is an anomaly. This was Salinas, where there had to be at least one or two gang murders a month. Add that to the innocent bystanders getting gunned down, and the domestic violence ending in murder. A dead body in the parking lot should almost be like finding gum on the road.
Fine, I was slightly pissed off that the cops wouldn’t let me past the crime scene tape, like it’s their job or something. I was even madder because Charles wasn’t answering his phone. And then he came into view.
At first sight, I started to scream out Charles’s name like a mad woman, but then pulled my phone out and tried yet again.
As Charles and Nick approached the motel registration office, I saw Charles look up. It coincided with the first ring of his cell phone.
That asshole was going to ignore the call again. I flipped him the bird.
I saw him reach into his pocket. Both he and Nick stopped walking.
“Gotcha Detective Agency, Charles speaking.” So smug.
“Nice. Love the way you’ve been ignoring my calls after you told me to hurry down here,” I snapped.
Nick looked in my direction, then at Charles. I saw his chin nudge in my direction, like he was telling Charles to take care of something. He patted Nick twice on the shoulder and walked toward me as Nick headed toward the woman pacing back and forth in front of the office. The poor woman was smoking her cigarette like it was the end of the world.
I took deep breaths, trying to get my temper under control before Charles reached me. I closed my eyes for just a second and Charles was gone. God damn it!
I looked to my left and saw he’d gone under the crime scene tape and was approaching a police car. I pushed my way through the people behind me and caught up to him.
He was talking to a petite police officer, flirting with her. Oh, god, now he’d have another admirer. And she was definitely admiring. I had to admit, Charles had good taste in women. This cop looked shorter than she probably was, because Charles dwarfed her. A few inches shorter than me, she was scary tiny, but wiry looking.
When she turned around, I noticed her heart shaped face seemed plump for her body. Her creamy complexion, button nose and dazzling smile had me mesmerized. No wonder Charles was flirting with her.
“Officer Jenkins, this is my business partner, Mimi Capurro.” Charles extended his hand toward me.
“Capurro, like the mafia family Capurros?” She looked intrigued.
I looked to Charles for the proper reaction to this question.
“Yep, one and the same. But she’s only married into it. Does she look Italian to you?”
She looked at me with a discerning eye. “Not really.”
“Okay, so if you don’t have other pressing matters. Can I have my boa back, before you take this guy to the police station?” Charles acted as if it was the biggest favor ever.
She giggled. “I should make you ride with me. It’s going to stink in here.” She looked at her squad car.
Charles said, “I’m sure it is. Don’t you carry Febreze? You know, for the drunks who puke all over the back seat?”
Again with the giggle. “Yes, I have some under the front seat. Guess I’ll just have to drive with the wi
ndow down.”
“Good thing it’s not too cold out,” I said to Officer Jenkins. To Charles, I said, “Can we talk, please?”
Jenkins looked at my hands, then at Charles’s hands. “You two married?” She seemed disappointed.
Charles burst out laughing with his mouth wide open.
Calmly, I said, “No, thank God.”
She raised her brows. “Could have fooled me.” Climbing in her car and rolling down the window, she said. “I’m afraid of what is going to be left back there after I get him out of my car. I’ll probably have to fumigate.”
I looked in the back seat for the first time and saw a man of about fifty rocking back and forth, his bearded face was tilted down and it looked like he was mumbling. He looked up at me, making strange faces and rolling his eyes, and then started banging his head against the car window. That’s when I saw the boa.
“Lena’s?” I asked Charles.
He nodded.
I heard the man in the back seat yell, “No, mine!”
Jenkins put the car in gear and backed away.
Charles said, “It’s her. She was strangled and left for garbage.”
I felt sick. “I just told her mom she’d be fine. We thought she was on a date with that married man.”
Charles surveyed the scene. “About that. We need to find out exactly who this married man is. And soon.”
“Wilma was headed home when I left. Maybe I should stop by and have a talk with her.” I headed to my car.
Charles trailed after me. “Hey, what’s this I stuff? It’s we now, remember? Besides, I need a ride back to the station.”
Charles got in the driver’s seat of my Land Rover. I let it go. He could drive if he wanted. I’d had a very long day.
As he drove out of the hotel parking lot, he asked, “So did you have a nice chat with Bruno?”
My skin crawled at the thought of the man I’d had dinner with. I didn’t feel so bad about leaving early and letting him pick up the tab. Only now, with the solicitation arrest, the tab would be much higher.
“I will never talk to that scumbag again.” I shivered.
“Oh, please, he’s just a man. You talked and flirted, got him all hot and horny, and then you left. What did you expect? His balls were probably blue.” Charles slammed his palm on the steering wheel, he thought he was so funny.
“I expected, if it was that bad, he could go home and jerk it, not hire a hooker.” Did Charles really think this was normal behavior for a man? Gross. “Do you know where you’re going?”
This wasn’t the way to Wilma’s house.
“I’m hungry.”
After a quick detour through Taco Bell’s drive thru, I punched Wilma’s address into the GPS and we were on our way to give the terrible news.
About a block from Wilma’s house, I asked, “Isn’t this the cops’ job?”
Charles checked his watch. “They won’t get to it for hours. She was our responsibility, so we should do this.”
I balked. “Our responsibility? I don’t think so. She left early.”
Charles slammed his foot on the brakes, and my head missed the windshield by an inch.
“What the--?” I was pissed.
This time, he slammed his palms on the steering wheel in anger. “No way we wash our hands of this. I don’t care if this murder was related to the decoy program or not. She was our responsibility tonight.”
Taken aback by his anger, I fought back. “No! That’s where you are wrong. She was not our responsibility. If she’d stayed on and done her job, this may not have happened. I’m not shirking our responsibility, because I realize that even though she left tonight, just being in the decoy program may be what got her killed in the first place.”
Calmer, he said, “Exactly.” He gripped the steering wheel hard. “I hope like hell this has something to do with her personal life. Sounds selfish, but it’s true.”
I nodded, afraid to say what I was really thinking, which was: please, please, please, don’t let this come back on us. I didn’t think I could take much more this year without being institutionalized. It seemed selfish. A woman was dead, and all I could think was that I didn’t want to be responsible. Somewhere deep in my soul, I knew it was linked to the decoy program.
We were parked in front of Wilma’s apartment. I looked up to the second floor. It was possible her lights were still on, if that was in fact her apartment. I sighed.
“Do you want to do the talking?” I asked.
“Hell, no. We didn’t exactly start off on the right foot.” Charles led the way.
He knocked hard, as if Wilma was deaf and wouldn’t hear a normal knock.
I saw movement behind the curtains, and within seconds, Wilma answered the door.
“What?” she growled.
The stench of cigarette smoke and stale tobacco hit me hard. I put my hand up in front of my nose before I breathed in again. I waited for Charles to ask her if we could come inside. Instead, he just blurted it out.
“Ms. Dahl, your daughter, Lena… her body was found tonight.” Charles stopped and just let that hang in the air.
Suddenly the door flew open wide. “God damn, mother fu--!” she screamed. “I told her to stop pressuring him. I knew this was going to happen. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Wilma reached around on the inside of the door, a pack of cigarettes now in her hand. She lit the cigarette and sucked hard. No tears, no crinkled ugly crying face, just anger.
“Pressuring who?” I dared to ask.
“That married asshole. Before you ask, hell if I know who he is. She wouldn’t tell me.” She ran her hand holding the cigarette through her hair.
I waited to see if it would catch her hair on fire.
“This would be a good time to tell us everything you know about your daughter’s boyfriend,” Charles snapped.
He really didn’t care for this woman in any way, shape or form.
She stepped back from the door. “Come in.” This was the most polite she’d been.
Charles and I looked at each other. Neither one of us wanted to go inside. We’d come out smelling like an ashtray, and then the car would smell. No, thank you.
“We have to get to the police station,” I said. “But if you could quickly tell us anything you can remember about the man your daughter was dating. Anything.”
She inhaled deeply and blew out smoke through her mouth and nose. “The only thing she told me about him was that he was older, like in his forties, which isn’t older to me, but it is to her. Hell, I’m seeing a guy in his forties.”
She tapped her fake fingernails together with her cigarette hand. Click. Click. Click. “And one time she let his name slip… damn, I should have been paying closer attention. Ricky? Dicky? Mickey?” She jumped. “That’s it, Mickey, or Mikey. Does that help?”
“It could.” I pulled out my business card. “If you think of anything else, just give me a call.”
She took the card. “Hold on a sec.” She disappeared, and I could hear rumbling in the kitchen, which was just inside the door. I heard what sounded like silverware rattling, then a drawer slammed.
Charles didn’t wait. He was already out by the car when she returned to the door.
Wilma came back and leaned against the door frame. “We moved here shortly after Jane’s murder. And now this.”
Jane’s murder. The words slammed me hard. “I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Dahl. There are no words to express…”
“No, you’re right, there are no words. I’ve been numb since the day my Jane died. If you’d have told me then that I’d be hearing those words again only a few years later, I’d have laughed in your face.” Her smile was sardonic.
I waited for her to continue. She needed to say the words, and it seemed she had no one.
“They were all I had left. My mother’s dead, and all I had was my girls. Lena wanted to move out here to the coast, and she wanted me to come with her. But then we got here and she got weird.”
/> Wilma placed something small in the palm of my hand and closed my fingers around it. “I hope this will help. So you can find out why she was so desperate to move to Salinas, and maybe this will answer some questions. Or it will tell you a bit about the man she was screwing, because I think he killed her. She said he was leaving his wife, but I’m here to tell you, they never leave their wives.”
I didn’t open my hand in front of her, waiting until I had my back turned. I couldn’t imagine it was anything helpful. “Thanks. We’ll keep in touch.” I turned to leave, and then turned back. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Ms. Dahl.”
She stood with her cancer stick poised in her mouth, and I thought I saw a tear roll down her cheek. Then she shut the door.
94
Charles
I sat in the car, waiting for Mimi to finish up with Wilma. I didn’t feel like talking anymore, so I pushed a nice Duke Ellington jazz CD into the player and turned up the volume. Then damn if she didn’t put her hand up and show me something that got me to turn the music down before she even got in the car.
Mimi reached out and opened the passenger side door. “You’re driving, I take it.”
Since I was sitting in the driver’s seat, I didn’t bother answering her rhetorical question. I turned the key and put the car in gear.
She settled into the passenger seat and said, “Hold out your hand.”
I hated these childish games, but did as I was told. The reward: a key. “Wilma gave you this?”
I looked closely. Not that I’d be able to tell for certain, but the key looked similar to the one I’d taken from the planter at Lena’s apartment. “Lena’s apartment?”
Smug, Mimi snatched the key back and said, “Pretty sure.” She tossed it up and caught it. “Now we can get a look at Lena’s apartment.”
I shook my head. “Hon, we didn’t need that. I’ve already been in Lena’s apartment, and I know where the key is.”
Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set Page 69
