by David Stever
The crowded streets also made it easy for me and Katie to be inconspicuous as we sat in my car and watched the entrance to the Harbor Lofts building—and Stan’s love nest.
Hiding in plain sight. My BMW Z4 blended perfectly with the other luxury cars lining the street, and we even dressed for the part in case we needed to follow our target on foot. I wore a blazer with jeans and Katie had a skirt, heels, and full makeup. The modern day couple out for a night on the town.
“Do we know what she looks like?” She had a camera and a GPS tracking device on her lap.
“Stan will text me when she’s close. Curly brown hair.”
“That narrows it. What kind of car?”
“Not sure. Keep your eye on the door.”
A little pre-case prep told me the Harbor Lofts building was all glass and steel with offices on the first four floors and condo apartments on floors six through ten. The rooftop had a gym and spa, a pool, cabanas, and a party area with gas grills for residents. Stan’s apartment was a one-bedroom on the sixth.
Katie smoothed her skirt then checked her makeup in the visor mirror. “I love being dressed up for a job. Usually we’re in jeans. This is much more exotic, like we are spies on an international mission.”
“Tonight you’re a Bond girl.”
“Yes! I could be a double agent or something. I wish we could waltz into one of the restaurants, everyone’s head turns, and they stare at us as we saunter up to the bar and order martinis. All the people would wonder about the sophisticated couple.”
“Saunter?”
“Yeah, saunter in. Nothing but class, grace, and intrigue.”
“Intrigue? Well, I say we do that, right after we conclude our business tonight.”
“Serious?”
“Yep. Be a shame to waste how amazing you look.”
“Aw, thank you, boss.” She pointed to a building diagonal from the Harbor Lofts. “I heard that place is good. Mare e Monti.”
“Yes, but we can do better. A new jazz club opened two blocks from here. The Blue Coral Lounge. More your Bond-girl style.”
“My friend Mandy told me about it.” She held up her hand for a high five. “I’m so excited. C’mon girl, whoever you are, we need to stick a tracker on your car and get on with our night.”
The plan was to place a GPS device on Dee Dee’s car so we could track her and see where she led us. Not ethical, but neither was working as a prostitute. The blackmailer had to be someone with inside knowledge of the business, which meant Dee Dee tipped off somebody about Stan and how loaded he was, or someone inside the business spotted him as a client.
She was to arrive at ten thirty p.m. Stan said she drove herself but sometimes used a car service. In that case, all we could do would be to try to snap a few photos.
At eleven, I traded text messages with Stan. He said she was never late and asked us to wait.
“Crazy how some of these guys get themselves in trouble. They have money, fame, and yet still manage to do dumb things to ruin it,” Katie said.
“Ego takes over and they think they’re immune to laws and normal human behavior. I have seen this a thousand times. If not for sex, greed, and inflated egos, we would be out of work.”
“Disappointing, though. My dad put his autograph in a frame already. He worships the guy.”
“Want to hear a dirty little secret?”
She twisted toward me in her seat. “You need to ask?”
“Do not tell your father. He would be devastated.”
“Never. Ever. Tell me.”
“Stan’s career ended when he got injured. Huge deal, major headlines. At the top of his game, and all of a sudden, finished. The story was he broke his ankle during a private workout session before the season began. Keep your eye on the building.”
“I am. Keep going.”
“The secret? He never got hurt. They caught him gambling on his own games and the league did not want the embarrassment. So they created a cover-up to avoid all the negative press and to save Stan. He wore a fake cast for six weeks, went on TV crying about the end of his career, and drew sympathy from everyone.”
“Wow. Nobody found out?”
“Officially, no. But it is the worst-kept secret. Stan would never admit it, or the league. They discovered many other players were gambling on games and did not want to face the pressure.”
“Everything is a cover-up these days.”
At eleven thirty, the traffic, both cars and pedestrians, began to thin. “Yep. Nothing is sacred anymore. I’m calling Stan.” He answered on the first ring. “Is she coming? She call you?”
“No. I called her. No answer.”
“We’ll wait another—”
A black Chevrolet Suburban skidded to a halt in front of the building. A back door opened and a woman’s body was tossed out to the road like a rag doll. The door slammed shut and the SUV peeled away.
Katie hit me on the arm. “Johnny, you see that? They just pushed her out.”
The woman laid, motionless, on the pavement.
“Go, go. Take pictures.” She jumped out with the camera as I put the phone to my ear. “Stan, I think your date is here.”
5
Awoman screamed and a mass of people circled the blonde girl lying on the pavement.
“Call 911!”
“They threw her out of the car.”
“Damn, she’s dead.”
I kept Stan on the line as I opened my car door and stepped out. “Do you have a view of the street? Look out.”
A moment passed. “What happened? Holy—”
“Not your girl, is it?”
“What? No—does that girl have blonde hair?”
“Yep.”
“Johnny—?”
“I want you out of there. Where’s your car?”
“The parking garage. What about Dee Dee?”
A man in the crowd shouted. “Hey, quit with the pictures you sick pervert!”
“Forget about her. Meet me at McNally’s. In the alley.” A siren flared in the distance. “Now, Stan.”
I spotted Katie’s blonde hair as she ran back to the car. We both hopped in and I started the engine.
“Holy shit. The girl’s neck is broken, all twisted at this weird angle. Got to be dead,” Katie said. “Could she be the escort?”
I eased my car from the parking spot and crept my way through the maze of onlookers gawking at the scene. “Get pictures?”
“Didn’t you hear them yelling at me? I’m shaking.” She held out a trembling hand. “Oh my God, some guy was screaming and a woman pushed me. First dead body I have ever seen, except for my grandmother, but she died when I was ten and I don’t remember much—”
“The pictures?”
She scrolled through the photos. “Yes, good ones. I mean terrible, but the shots…she was pretty, too.”
“Does she look like the girl Stan described?” I said, as we pulled to the side of the road to allow an ambulance and a police car to pass.
“No, not at all. Long blonde hair. He said brown and curly.”
She handed me the camera and I went through the pictures. “This is no coincidence.”
###
The blue Corvette was in the alley when we arrived. Stan got out of his car as I pulled mine into my garage. I had Katie usher him around the building and up to my condo while I went in McNally’s through the kitchen door. Always one to make sure I had the right tools for the job, I grabbed a bottle of Scotch.
Mike was behind the bar, drying glasses and loading them on the rack. “Hey.”
I pointed to the TV set on the wall. “Any chance you had on the local news?”
“No. Ball game. Why?”
“Shelton case just flipped upside down.”
“Yeah? Fill me in.”
“I will, as soon as I figure it out myself.”
###
Stan paced nonstop from the front door to the balcony and back. He had his phone in his hand and had dialed Dee Dee for
the eighth time. Katie had a laptop open on the kitchen table and was typing notes from the evening.
I poured drinks. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“She’s not answering.” He slipped the phone into his pocket. “She always answers.” He pulled out a chair and sat, and I set a Scotch in front of him. “So you think the girl on the street has something to do with me? This can’t be happening.”
“No idea at this point. Did you hire Dee Dee through the website for tonight?”
“Yes. Told me she would be fired if she were to agree to a date outside the site. We talked about her quitting. I wanted her to be exclusive to me.”
“We need to talk about the woman—the blackmailer—who came to your office.” I showed him the pictures on the camera.
“Yeah, I think that’s her,” he said. “Oh my God.” He threw back the whiskey and I poured more.
“Can you remember anything else about her? Did you see what she drove? Anyone with her?”
“No. Nothing. Remember, I thought some guy was coming to talk to me about being a spokesman for their company.” His knee pumped up and down like a jackhammer going through concrete. I worried he would fall apart if I didn’t give him some reassurance. “I’m an idiot. I knew my behavior would eventually destroy me.”
“No time for self-pity. I need you to think.” I put a hand on his arm. “Let’s work through this, talk through the angles. From my experience, the more we explore who knew what, the easier it is to figure out what happened.”
He turned the glass around in his hands. His eyes went from me to Katie, and back. “You’re the boss.”
Katie cleared her throat, sat up in her chair. Time to be an investigator. “Did Dee Dee ever talk about anybody else involved with the site? Any other escorts, any friends? Do you know if she had to meet anyone in person to work for Fantasy? An interview?”
He shook his head. “No, we never talked about it. Once I asked how long she did this…kind of work. She said less than a year. I did wonder about how she got paid because I wanted to pay her cash, which she refused. Said she didn’t want to break the rules.”
“Her pay was sent to her bank account?”
“Yes, I guess. Wait—she did mention one time she was scared of the woman who hired her. Said she was afraid to get on her bad side.”
“She say anything else about her? Who she was or how she got the job?”
“No. Again, I never asked.”
“Go back to the day when the woman came to your work,” Katie asked.
“I said all I know.”
“A man called you first, right?”
Stan nodded.
“Did his voice sound familiar?”
“No,” he said.
“Did he call your cell phone or an office line?”
“Cell.”
“So someone gave him your cell number.”
“I can’t believe this.” He finished off his second drink, slumped back in the chair, and closed his eyes. The booze and the emotions of the night were an anchor pulling him under. Katie asked the right questions, but he was of no help.
I cleared the bottle and glasses. “C’mon, Stan. Time to head home.” I grabbed his arm and helped him up. “I’ll drive you. Katie will follow us.”
“Horseshit. I can drive.” He yanked his arm from me, turned, and stumbled over his chair and fell to the floor. We managed to stand him upright again. “Damn, I really screwed up this time, didn’t I?”
“Stan, don’t worry. We’ll sort this out.” I was behind him with both hands on his shoulders steering him toward the door. “Plus, it gives me a chance to drive the Corvette.”
6
Paul Ellison was the detective who caught the case of the murdered girl thrown from the SUV, and it only took Mike two phone calls and a promise of free drinks for life to extract information on the murder. They were rookie cops together over twenty-five years ago on the PCPD, and although Paul was reluctant to divulge any details, as he should be, Mike gently reminded him of the times he covered for him when he got juiced up while on duty. He agreed to stop by McNally’s and was on time at ten.
If I had met him on the street, I might not have recognized him. What remained of his hair was white-gray and he carried at least an extra thirty pounds, most of it packed around the middle, and now wore wire-framed glasses that rested halfway down his nose. He and Mike crowded beside each other in the booth like two white sardines crammed in a can. I worried the bench would collapse.
“Something wrong with a table?” Ellison smirked.
“And miss this lovely moment with you two? I should take a picture.”
“Go to hell.”
Katie came over and poured coffees while Ellison’s eyes traveled the length of her body. His eyes popped when she came back with a notepad and sat beside me.
“Who’s this?”
“My investigator. Katie.”
“You’re a PI?”
She shook his hand. “Working on it. My pleasure, Detective.”
He looked at Mike with arched eyebrows and an old-school “why is a woman invading our sacred club” attitude.
“All good,” Mike said.
“Man, the next thing you know, they’ll allow women to vote.”
Mike asked Katie, “Would you mind getting a bottle of Jack Daniels?”
“Now?”
“Please.”
She got up from the booth, went to the bar, and came back with a bottle.
I poured a shot’s worth into Ellison’s coffee, but he slid his cup back to me as if I offended him. I added another dose of truth serum.
“Much better.” Ellison aimed at my blonde assistant. “The woman’s name was Kendra Fitzgerald. Went by Kenzie. Thirty-three. Worked as a high-class escort. One of the expensive hookers Mike could never afford.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Policeman’s salary. Hell, he couldn’t afford the twenty-dollar hooker on the corner.”
“Funny, Paul. Real funny.” Mike handed the whiskey to Katie. “Put it back.”
“C’mon, haven’t seen you guys in forever. I need to take a few jabs. Lose your sense of humor?”
“All right, keep talking.” Mike grabbed the bottle from Katie and poured another slug in Paul’s coffee.
“Bank records. She received weekly deposits from a company, Entertainment Ventures, LLC, doing business as Fantasy Escorts.”
“The same site. Wow.” Katie jotted notes. I nudged her knee with mine and hoped she understood the universal “shut up” signal.
“You know it?” Ellison asked. “Remember, the information flows both ways here.”
“In due time,” I said.
He sipped his coffee with a stink eye pointed at me. “Anyhow, the ME confirmed the broken neck, probably killed somewhere else.”
“Any priors?”
“Two minors, both for solicitation.”
“When did she start with Entertainment Ventures?”
“Eighteen months ago.”
“When are you releasing her name to the press?” I asked.
“So far we can’t find any family. Once we do, and they are notified, we’ll release. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow at the latest.”
“What about the SUV?”
“First shows up on street cameras three blocks away from the dump spot. Plates reported stolen last month. My turn to ask the questions.”
“Goes no further than this cozy little booth. Can’t afford you getting tanked and yapping about our case.” Paul was a functioning drunk for the past twenty years but always managed his case load and closed as many cases as the young, eager detectives. His financial support of the whiskey distilleries never diminished his ability to work the street, nor cost him any respect of colleagues. And, he could be trusted.
“I’m insulted you would think that of me.” He waved a hand. “Nobody listens to me anymore, anyhow. They all consider me past my time. A washed-up old detective waiting t
o retire or die. There is an office pool on which one happens first.”
“Enough of the boo-hoo,” Mike said. Katie giggled.
Ellison pushed his glasses up on his nose and focused on me. “So, why the interest?”
“Let’s say we have a high-profile client who partakes of Fantasy’s website.”
“Gee, I’m shocked. A rich guy hiring high-class hookers. What’s the world coming to?” He started to raise his cup to his mouth but stopped. “So, the dead girl was your client’s date?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Either she was or she wasn’t.”
“She was not his date.”
“You sure? Because I’m confused. You ask me here for information on the girl, most of which you could get from the evening news tonight, and—” He let go of his coffee cup and sat back in the booth. “If she was not his date, what led you to believe the victim would connect to your client?” He studied me for a second and then shifted his gaze to Katie, then back to me. His detective brain fired on all cylinders; his head bobbed up and down. “Either your client was there, or he knew the girl, or you were there with your client for some reason and you saw this go down. How am I doing? C’mon, Johnny, why am I here?”
Did I take this too far? I figured he would probe, ask why we wanted information. I did not want to give up the real blackmail angle just yet, but I needed to feed him something. He would know instantly if I held back. Plus, any detective would kill for a juicy extortion case involving a celebrity. Even a minor celeb.
“My client hired girls from the site. He got attached to one in particular and hired her multiple times. She told him she fell in love with him, wanted him to divorce his wife, said she wanted to quit the business so they could move in together. Naturally, he gets nervous, fears she is going to do something crazy and screw up his life.”
“She’s setting him up for a payday.”
“My first thought, too. He wanted us to investigate, find out who she really was, then slip between her and the scheme she was cooking. He was to meet her at the new Italian place…” I turned to Katie for help.
“Mare e Monti. Received excellent reviews,” she said.
