by Larry Darter
Drew studied the woman for a moment. “You think Teddy was involved in the incident we’re investigating?”
“No!” Cooke said angrily. “What kind of animal would have done that? He monopolized my time, but he’s not vicious. He’s not a cold-blooded person.”
“Did Teddy know Ms. Henry?”
“No.”
“He didn’t even know her, like a neighbor who lived here in the apartments?” Drew said.
“Well, maybe. Okay, once we were out in the courtyard when she walked past us. I saw him looking at her. I teased him about it. He said she was a stripper, a whore. He wasn’t interested in her.”
“So, he would never have had any reason to be inside Ms. Henry’s apartment?”
“Of course not.”
“Where does Teddy stay when he is in L.A. when he isn’t staying here?” Drew said.
“In a hotel near downtown in the transient area,” Cooke said.
“Have you talked to him on the phone since he left for New York?” Drew said.
The woman said nothing for several moments. “Yes, this morning,” she said finally. “He said he might return to L.A. next month after he finishes his business in New York.”
“Ms. Cooke, did Teddy ever put his hands on your neck when you were intimate?” Drew said.
“He never choked me if that is what you’re implying,” Cooke said angrily. “I wouldn’t allow that.”
“I’m not asking if he choked you,” Drew said. “Did he ever put his hands on your neck when you were intimate?”
“Sometimes, I guess,” Cooke said. “But he was gentle about it. He never choked me.”
Drew took out a business card and put it on the table in front of Cooke.
“I need you to call us if you hear from Teddy again,” Drew said. “We’re not trying to jam him up or anything. But we’re talking with everyone who was here when someone murdered your neighbor. We need to talk to Teddy if he returns to Los Angeles.”
Cooke nodded. “Okay, I guess,” she said.
The detectives lingered in the courtyard after the interview. Ortega said, “I feel that woman was not telling us the whole truth. I don’t like the way she backed off on the rape. She is scared of him, or she is trying to protect him.”
“Yes, that was my impression, too,” Drew said. “I’m just not sure which one it is.”
“First, we need to make sure Teddy really left on a bus Sunday,” Ortega said. “We’ll call Greyhound and have them check their records.”
“She said he lived in a hotel in Skid Row,” Drew said. “That’s pretty weird right there.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you what, Youngblood,” Ortega said. “I’m not ruling anyone out, but now I think I like Teddy for it more than Hovnanian.”
“Yes, I feel you,” Drew said. “Be interesting to see what kind of record Teddy has and if the arrest back in New York Cooke mentioned was the only one.”
“And I want to know what they arrested him for there,” Ortega added.
“He knew Henry was a stripper,” Drew said. “I wonder if he was ever at the club where she worked. I can’t imagine Henry went around telling her neighbors where she worked. But a lot of people we’ve talked with knew what she did for a living.”
“Be good to know,” Ortega said. “One way to find out. We’ll go by the club before we head to the barn—see if anyone there remembers seeing old Teddy.”
Chapter 21
It was a few minutes past five when Ortega drove up in front of the Deja Vu Showgirls Club on Hollywood Boulevard. He parked in the fire lane outside the front doors. A valet approached, but Ortega flashed his badge and waved him off. “Police business,” he said. “We’ll only be ten minutes.” The valet nodded and walked back to his station.
On the front doors, a sign said the club was open 11 A.M. to 4 A.M., Monday through Saturday, and 12 P.M. to 4 A.M. on Sundays.
“Wonder why they open an hour later on Sunday?” Drew said.
“To give the girls the chance to go to church,” Ortega said with a grin.
“I didn’t know these places were open during the day,” Drew said. “I thought they opened at like 6 P.M. or something.”
“Lasciviousness never sleeps,” Ortega said as they walked in the front doors.
A scantily clad young woman stood behind a counter with two large men in suits nearby who Drew assumed were the bouncers Edie Cummings had mentioned.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the woman said. “Are you interested in a VIP package?”
Ortega flashed his badge. “No, we’re cops. I’m LAPD Detective Ortega. This is my partner, Detective Drew. We need to speak to the manager.”
One of the suits stepped forward. “If you will follow me, Detectives,” he said.
The bouncer escorted them through a large, dimly lit room with a stage that had colored spotlights sweeping back and forth across it. Three young, naked women were gyrating around three brass poles that went from stage to ceiling to the sounds of a song Drew recognized. It was the 1980s Pretenders song “Brass in Pocket” blaring over the speakers.
The bouncer led them down a hallway and through a dressing room with a dozen more young women in various stages of undress. Some were changing. Hair and makeup people were working on others. The bouncer stopped at an office door and knocked before opening it and motioning the detectives inside.
“Boss, cops to see you,” the bouncer said, as he closed the door behind them.
A tall, lanky guy who looked late-thirties to early forties stood up from behind the desk. He had a buzz cut and a mustache and goatee. The man was wearing a shiny gray sports coat over a red and black crew-neck shirt with gray slacks. He had a large gold chain around his neck and a large diamond stud earring in each earlobe.
“I’m Richie, the manager,” the man said. “What can I do for you, Detectives? Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” Ortega said. “We’re not with vice. We’re homicide detectives.”
“Ah, okay,” Richie said. “This is about Bailey?”
“Yes,” Ortega said. “We just need to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Take a load off, detectives,” Richie said, waving toward two plastic chairs in front of his desk. He sat back down. The bouncer stood behind the detectives next to the door.
“So, you heard what happened?” Ortega said.
“Yes, her friend, Edie, called me,” Richie said. “Edie was really upset and had to miss her shift Monday night. Too bad about Bailey. She was a cool chick.”
“She work here long?” Ortega said.
“A few months, maybe four,” Richie said. “It’s hard to keep track. The bitches come, the bitches go. What are you gonna do, right? Lucky for us, there are lots of good looking trim in this town. Am I right?”
Drew wondered if this was the manager Edie had told them was so sweet.
“We’re looking at someone,” Ortega said. “A big black guy, six-two, two-thirty, a Jamaican. You recall anyone like that coming in, maybe paying particular attention to Bailey when she was working.”
“I’ve got to tell you, Detective, the guys that come in here, they aren’t very memorable. You know what I’m saying? The only guys I ever remember are the troublemakers. The rest I just don’t pay any attention to. So, in answer to your question, the guy you described doesn’t ring any bells for me. You think he is the one that did it?”
“He’s a person of interest,” Ortega said.
“You think maybe he picked up Bailey here at the club?”
“We think it’s possible,” Ortega said. “Someone told us he was aware of what she did for a living. We thought maybe he’d been in and seen her working here.”
“Huh?” Richie said. “I guess anything is possible, right?”
“You have surveillance cameras here?” Ortega said.
“We do,” Richie said. “But I’ll tell you, detective. Our customers expect a certain degree of privacy when they come in. If it were up to me, I
’d be glad to let you look at all the videotape recordings you wanted. But, my boss, the owner, doesn’t feel that way—privacy concerns. You understand I’m sure. So, if you want to look at our recordings, you’ll need a warrant.”
“Say we decide to come back with a warrant, how far back do the recordings go?” Ortega said.
“Maybe twenty-four hours, thirty-six max,” Richie said. “See, we have an old system here. We still record to DVDs. If we don’t have a reason to save something, we don’t. We reuse the discs, copy over them. The boss, he says, if it works, don’t fix it. He doesn’t want to spend the money to transition to the whole cloud thing. You know?”
“What do your entertainers make working here, on the average?” Drew said.
“Depends, Detective. Some of our best dancers make around five, six hundred bucks for a six-hour shift, maybe a little more.”
“What kind of employee was Bailey Henry?” Drew said.
“See, the bitches aren’t employees. They’re independent contractors. We provide the facilities in return for a cut of the take. We set the rates. They pay rent to dance in the club, use the private rooms, and tip the DJs, the dressing room manager, the hair and makeup pros, and the bouncers. While we prefer the girls to work at least four six-hour shifts a week, they can work as little or as much as they want as long as they’re making the club money.”
Richie held up both hands and rubbed his thumbs and index fingers together, imitating the classic Johnny Manziel “show me the money” gesture for emphasis.
“Anyway, back to your question, Bailey was okay,” he said. “She wasn’t the best dancer. Bailey wasn’t the worst dancer. She showed up for her shifts and made the club money, which is all that matters here. Just guessing, I’d say Bailey probably took home three-fifty, maybe four hundred per shift.”
“Think you could ask around, see if any of the girls remember seeing the Jamaican?” Ortega said.
“Certainly, Detective. Of course, of course. I’m always happy to help the LAPD.”
Ortega and Drew stood up. “Thanks for your time,” Ortega said.
“Hey, no problem,” Richie said. “Like I said, happy to help.”
The bouncer escorted them back through the dressing room and across the floor of the club to the exit. Business had picked up since they had arrived. More of the tables were full. Drew looked for Edie but didn’t see her. He wondered if she was still not working because of her friend Bailey’s death or if it was just her night off.
Back in the car, Ortega looked over at Drew. “Guess that was a big waste of time,” he said.
“Yes, I doubt Richie is going to ask around to see if anyone saw our guy in the club,” Drew said.
“No, he won’t, because it wouldn’t make any money for the club,” Ortega said with disgust.
The detectives drove back to West Bureau to check out after another long day, both believing they had made some progress on the case.
Chapter 22
Ortega and Drew spent the next morning in the squad room. Ortega called Greyhound to verify that Teddy Hamilton had left on a bus for New York the Sunday before Bailey Henry’s body was discovered. The representative told him she would check their records and call him back. Ortega then got busy running both the Jamaican and Narek Hovnanian through the box to get their criminal history. Meanwhile, Drew studied reports where male suspects had killed women during sexually motivated homicides. He looked for cases where the modus operandi was like that of the Henry murder.
“Check this out,” Ortega said excitedly. “Narek Hovnanian is a registered sex offender. Six years ago, Anaheim arrested him for sexual assault.”
“Was he convicted?” Drew said.
“There’s no disposition,” Ortega said, reaching for his phone. “Only the arrest is on his record. I’ll call Anaheim and see if I can get the story.”
While Ortega was on the phone, Drew went back to the reports. While he found no cases that paralleled the Henry murder, he learned that in about half of sexually motivated homicides, the killers strangled their victims.
After a ten-minute telephone conversation, Ortega hung up. “I talked to the Anaheim detective who handled the case,” he said. “He said the sex crime they arrested Hovnanian for was a kidnap-rape, but they never filed charges. The reliability of the sixteen-year-old victim was in question. The worst of it is Anaheim doesn’t have the knucklehead’s DNA sample.”
“At least now we know he is a sex offender,” Drew said. “Even if they didn’t prosecute him, they had probable cause to arrest him for it.”
“Yes, we need to find him and get him in for an interview,” Ortega said. “This is how I see it could have gone down. Maybe Hovnanian didn’t know his mother had moved out. He goes to her apartment and finds it open and empty. The manager left it unlocked for the maintenance guy to get it ready to rent. So, he hangs around for a while until he sees Henry coming back from the laundry room. He sees his opportunity and nails her.”
“Yes, I could see that happening,” Drew said. “Only one thing bothers me.”
“What’s that, Youngblood?”
“When we searched Henry’s apartment, there was no money,” Drew said. “No money in her purse or wallet. No money anywhere in the apartment. The club manager said she probably took home close to four-hundred per shift. We know from her friend Edie Cummings that Henry worked a shift Thursday. And, she was making about sixteen-hundred bucks a week. Even if she had spent money to pay bills, eat, or whatever, it seems there should have been some money in her apartment.”
“So, the killer pocketed her money after he killed her,” Ortega said.
“Yes, and that might explain where Teddy Hamilton got the money for his bus fare,” Drew said. “Cooke told us he didn’t have steady work, but he used his own money to pay two-hundred for the bus ticket.”
“Damn it, Youngblood,” Ortega said. “Just when the Armenian asshole starts looking good for it, you make this thing a lot more complicated.”
“They are both viable suspects,” Drew said. “We just have to figure out which one of them did Henry.”
“Well, the Jamaican is supposed to be in New York for at least a month,” Ortega said. “We need to focus on Hovnanian for now. Once we find and interview him, it should clear some things up.”
Ortega’s phone rang. He picked up and talked to the caller for a while. Then he hung up.
“Analysis of the swabbing they did at the scene came back negative for semen,” Ortega said. “The SID technician with the ultraviolet light when we were at the apartment told me she found no semen stains on the bed or in the apartment before we left.”
“The prick used a condom,” Drew said.
“If he even raped her,” Ortega said. “Some of these offenders can’t get an erection or ejaculate.”
“We’ll find out more about that when the ME does the cut later this week,” Drew said.
Ortega nodded. “The other thing is, SID didn’t lift any identifiable prints when they processed the apartment,” he said. “That really pisses me off because I thought at the time those fingerprint technicians who dusted the apartment were a little too cavalier about it. One guy told me he couldn’t get prints off the bed frame because it was too dusty. The other one said she couldn’t lift prints off the door frame because it wasn’t a printable surface.”
“What?” Drew said in disgust. “How could a door frame not be a printable surface?”
“I’m going to call SID and tell them we want the apartment dusted again by a different team of print technicians,” Ortega said.
He picked up the phone and made the call.
“They said they would have a team out there in a couple of hours,” Ortega said after hanging up the phone. “Let’s go get lunch and then head over to the apartment to make sure this team dusts the apartment more diligently. Fingerprints could be the key in this case.”
The detectives grabbed their jackets and left the bureau.
Chapter 23
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The detectives ate lunch at a Chinese place near West Bureau. Then Ortega took the I-10 to the I-5, and then they cruised north past the graffiti-covered cement banks of the Los Angeles River, swirling with water after the wet winter and flanked with cattails. They exited the freeway and drove west on Los Feliz Boulevard, past Griffith Park. At Henry’s apartment, Ortega instructed the SID team where he wanted them to dust for prints. He also asked them to use ninhydrin to try to lift prints from the bedroom and living room walls.
While the fingerprint team worked, Ortega and Drew went downstairs past the laundry room to the back parking lot. Ortega wanted to take a look at the back fence that a tenant had told them they thought someone might have climbed after the woman heard the two men talking loudly around the time of the murder. Ortega stood on the bottom rail and peered over the top of the wooden privacy fence in the area the tenant had described to them.
“There’s some kind of business on the other side of this fence with a parking lot across the alley,” Ortega said. “There’s a parking attendant there. Let’s go over and see if he was on duty last weekend.”
The detectives walked back to the front of the complex. They then cut through the driveway of a gas station next door to the apartments to get to the parking lot Ortega had spotted. The attendant was an older man with a wiry build. Ortega asked him if he had seen anyone acting suspiciously in the parking lot recently.
“I saw one thing that was strange,” the man said. “This big guy who looks like he just got of prison. He is four times my size. I’ve talked to him a few times. He’s Armenian. I know his mother lives in those apartments.”
The attendant pointed at the fence that bordered the apartment complex. “One night, I saw him climb over that fence and run across this lot. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was taking a shortcut.”
“When was that?” Ortega said.
The attendant ran his fingers through his thin, gray hair. “Let me see, must have been last weekend—late Friday night or early Saturday morning. This club closes at 3 A.M., and it was still open at the time. So, it had to have been before 3 A.M. Saturday.”
