“And them?” he said, looking at the Sheas’ house.
“No direct involvement, so far, other than the fact that they may have hired Karen to work at the party. And we still haven’t been able to verify that.”
“I can’t believe that. Their evasiveness. Look what just happened. If she’s innocent, why didn’t she call the police on me? And their shop’s been closed for two days, no sign of him. So maybe he knows something’s up and has left town. Isn’t flight the first sign of guilt?”
“How do you know about the shop, Reverend?”
He didn’t answer.
“More surveillance?”
His smile was grim.
“What made you decide to watch them now?”
“Talking to you on the phone the other day. I could tell from your voice that you were on to something. Is your patient ready to meet me yet?”
“My patient’s in mourning. Death in the family.”
“Oh, no.” He put his hands on the steering wheel and sank down. “I’m so sorry. Was he—or she—close to the deceased? Can you at least tell me the sex of the person you’ve been talking to, so I can pray accordingly?”
“A woman.”
“I thought so,” he said. “A woman’s compassion … poor thing. Hopefully the time will come when she’ll be able to step away from her grief.”
“Hopefully.”
“Of course you can’t rush her. Those things can’t be rushed.”
He turned and gripped my hand. “When she is able to—whenever it is—call me. Maybe I can help. Maybe we can help each other.”
I nodded and got out of the car.
Through the passenger window, he said, “You’re a good man. Forgive me for not believing your intentions.”
“Nothing to forgive.”
“Are you religious, doctor?”
“In my own way.”
“What way is that?”
“I don’t believe the world’s random.”
“A major leap of faith,” he said. “I try to renew it in my own mind, every day. Some days are easier than others.”
CHAPTER
37
“Everything’s surreal,” said Lucy.
It was 9 A.M. and I’d finally reached her at the Brentwood house.
“In what way?”
“One moment I’ll be talking to him and it feels so real. Then I’ll wake up and realize I’ve been dreaming and the truth hits me.… I guess that’s normal.”
“Very much so.”
“I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping. Can’t help it, I feel drugged. Every time I try to get up, I just want to crawl right back. Should I force myself to stay awake?”
“No, let nature take its course.”
“God, I miss him!”
She started to cry.
“I’m not angry at him, he couldn’t help it. Getting hold of such strong stuff, not knowing.… When he was hungry for it, he couldn’t think about anything else.”
More tears.
“Such pain … what a waste. My heart feels as if it’s really breaking—I don’t know if I’ll ever feel totally good again.”
“Everything takes time, Lucy.”
“I can’t do hypnosis, can’t focus on anything—I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“Later. We’ll do it later. All I can do now is cry and sleep—I don’t even want to talk. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Lucy.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mocked herself. “Sorry for the world. For Carrie Fielding and the others. And Puck. And Karen. I haven’t forgotten her. I won’t forget.”
Three psychopaths in the forest.
Barnard learning something about it. Dead.
The Sheas, living on the sand.
Doris Reingold, alive and poor. Gambling away her payoff?
Spirited out of town by Tom Shea. Into hiding, or something more final?
I played with it some more. Barnard kept popping up in my thoughts, like one side of a loaded die.
If he’d been murdered because he was a blackmailer, the conspicuous nature of his death made sense: A corpse on a motel bed had plenty of educational value.
Who’d done the shooting? The murder had taken place a full year after Karen’s disappearance. By then, Mellors—or whatever his real name was—was working for App, and Trafficant had vanished.
And M. Bayard Lowell was living in splendid isolation in Topanga Canyon.
I didn’t see the Great Man risking a meeting at a sleazy motel.
And why that particular dirty-sheets dive?
Because it catered to hookers? Mo Barnard had described Felix as a womanizer. Had he been lured there with the promise of another payoff—the bigger one he’d pressed for? Happy to enjoy a quickie while he waited?
I pictured him, pants down and happily expectant, on a narrow gray bed in a darkened room, porno on video, booze on the nightstand.
A woman in hotpants and spike heels. She smiles and ducks into the bathroom with a wink and a “One minute, honey.”
The toilet flushes. Water runs. Barnard concentrates on the movie, oblivious to the door opening.
Someone rushes to the side of the bed and begins squeezing off rounds.
Someone with a key. The clerk paid off? The hooker in on it, too?
But, still, why that motel? Three miles east, Hollywood was crammed with mattress palaces.
Maybe because the killer knew that place well enough to set up an inside job.
The police had never suspected. According to Milo, the motel was a chronic trouble spot, so one more felony—even a homicide—would be no great surprise.
Barnard had led a pathetic life, spending his days prying into other people’s secrets, taking money to look into cold cases.
Twenty years later, his own file was stone cold.
An inconsequential man. Had the papers even bothered to write up his death?
This time I stayed closer to home and used the main Santa Monica library on 6th Street. Barnard’s name wasn’t listed in the computers for that year or any other. But a search under homicide struck gold in the newspaper files:
Motel, homicide at. Police say the Adventure Inn on the Westside is site of numerous crimes, the latest the murder of a retired private investigator.
The full article was tucked into a bottom corner of the last page of the Metro section.
HOMICIDE PROMPTS IRE ABOUT MOTEL
The early morning shooting death of a retired private investigator in a Westside motel has prompted increased citizen concern about the hostelry. Police confirm a history of criminal activity at the Adventure Inn on 1543 South La Cienega Boulevard, including numerous arrests for prostitution, narcotics, disorderly conduct, and assault. Despite complaints by neighbors, police claim they are legally powerless to close the business down.
The victim, Felix Slayton Barnard, 65, of Venice, was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in Room 11 by the motel’s clerk, Edgely Sylvester, during a morning room check. Sylvester reported hearing and seeing nothing, and by the time police arrived all other residents had vacated the premises. “No surprise,” said a bystander, refusing to be named. “They register by the half-hour.”
Sylvester denied any personal knowledge of prostitution at the motel. When asked how he could have failed to hear three gunshots, he said, “There’s a lot of traffic.”
Questioned about why steps couldn’t be taken to close the motel, Captain Robert Bannerstock of the LAPD’s Westside Division said, “It’s a free country. All we can do is go out and investigate occurrences. People need to be careful about where they spend the night.”
Ownership of the motel is registered to a Nevada corporation, The Advent Group, and attempts to reach the manager, Darnel Mullins, were unsuccessful.
Darnel Mullins.
Denton Mellors.
Inside job.
Meet me at the Adventure Inn, Felix. There’ll be a room reserved for you—have a w
hore on the house.
I looked up Darnel Mullins in every Southern California phone book the library owned. No Darnels; over a dozen D’s spread around various counties. Thirty-five minutes on the pay phone in the entrance eliminated most of them. The rest weren’t home.
Roadblocked again.
I sat at a library table, drumming my fingers until I thought of another route.
The clerk. Edgely Sylvester.
Thank God it was an unusual name—and listed in the Central L.A. book on the 1800 block of Arlington.
I took Pico east, toward the center of town. La Cienega was a couple of miles before Arlington, and I veered south and drove to 1543.
Still a motel, now called the Sunshine Lodge and painted turquoise blue. Three arms of cinder block around a dipping, pitted parking lot.
Two pickup trucks in the lot. I pulled in next to one of them. Room 11 was in the northwest corner, catercorner from the office. A DO NOT DISTURB sign hung from the doorknob.
I went into the office. A Korean man sat behind the desk, watching Korean language TV. A wall dispenser sold pocket combs and condoms, and a wire rack on the desk was stuffed with maps to the stars’ homes. Robin had shown me one last year, given out by a record company as a party favor. Marilyn Monroe was still alive and living in Brentwood, and Lon Chaney was haunting Beverly Hills.
The clerk eyed me and said, “Room?”
Not knowing what to say, I left.
Edgely Sylvester’s neighborhood was just past the old Sears store near La Brea, not far from the Wilshire Division police station. The house was a two-story brown craftsman bungalow subdivided into apartments. The front lawn had been turned into parking spaces. A rusting Cadillac Fleetwood and a twenty-year-old Buick Riviera shared it.
Two black men in their sixties played dominoes at a card table on the front porch. Both wore short-sleeved white shirts and double-knit trousers, and the heavier of the two wore stretch suspenders. He was bald and had moist mocha skin. A cigar dangled from his lips.
The skinny man was ebony-toned and his features were sharp, still handsome. He had all his hair and it had been pomaded. He could have been Chuck Berry’s less talented brother.
They stopped their play as I came up the walkway. The dominoes were bright red and translucent, with sharp white dots. I had no idea who was winning.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “does Edgely Sylvester live here?”
“Nope,” said the skinny one.
“Know him?”
They shook their heads.
“Okay, thanks.”
As I walked away, the heavy one said, “Why do you want to know?” The cigar was between his fingers, wet and cold. He was sweating a lot, but it didn’t look like anxiety.
“Reporter,” I said. “L.A. Times. We’re doing a story on old unsolved crimes for the Sunday magazine. Mr. Sylvester worked at a motel where an unsolved murder occurred twenty years ago. The victim was a private detective. My editors thought it would make a great piece.”
“Lots of new murders all the time,” said the skinny one. “City’s falling apart, no need to talk about stupid old stuff.”
“The new stuff scares people. The old stuff’s considered romantic—I know, I think it’s ridiculous, too. But I just started out, can’t buck the boss. Anyway, thanks.”
“Is there money in it?” said the skinny one. “For talking to you?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m not supposed to pay for stories, but if something’s good enough …” I shrugged.
They exchanged glances, and the heavy one put down a domino.
I said, “Did Mr. Sylvester tell you something about the unsolved case?”
Another look passed between them.
“How much you paying?” said the heavy one.
How much cash did I have in my wallet? Probably a little over a hundred.
“I really shouldn’t pay anything. It would have to be something good.”
The heavy one licked the end of his cigar. “What if I could find Mr. Edgely Sylvester for you?”
“Twenty bucks.”
He sniffed and chuckled and shook his head.
“Finding him’s no big deal,” I said. “How do I know he’ll talk to me?”
He chuckled some more. “If you pay him, he will, my man. He likes his money.” Eyeing my Seville. “What’s it, a seventy-eight?”
“Seventy-nine,” I said.
“Paper don’t pay you enough to get some new wheels?”
“Like I said, I just started.” I turned to leave.
He said, “Forty bucks to find the man.”
“Thirty.”
“Thirty-five.” He stretched out a palm. With a pained expression, I took out the money and gave it to him.
Curling his fingers over it, he smiled.
“Okay,” I said, “where’s Sylvester?”
He gave a deep laugh and pointed across the table. “Say hello, Mr. Sylvester.”
The skinny man closed his eyes and laughed, rocking in his chair.
“Hello, hello, hello.” He held out his hand. “Hello from the star of the show.”
“Prove you’re Sylvester,” I said.
“A hundred bucks’ll prove it.”
“Fifty.”
“Ninety.”
“Sixty.”
“Eighty-eight.”
“Sixty-five, tops.”
He stopped smiling. His skin was as dry as his partner’s was moist. His eyes were two bits of charcoal. “Thirty-five for him just for fingering me, and I only get thirty more? That’s stupid, man.”
I said, “Seventy, if you’re really Sylvester. And that’s it, because it cleans me out.”
I took all the bills out of my wallet and fanned them.
Frowning, he reached behind and pulled out a mock-alligator billfold. Flipping it open, he showed me a soiled Social Security card made out to Edgely Nat Sylvester.
“Anything with a picture?”
“No need,” he said, but he flipped again to a driver’s license. It had expired three years ago, but the picture was of him and the name and address were right.
“Okay,” I said, giving him a twenty and putting the rest of the money back.
“Hey,” he said, rising out of his chair.
“When we’re finished.”
The heavy man said, “We got ourselves a dude here, Eddy. Street dude, knows what it is.”
Sylvester looked at the twenty as if it were tainted. “How do I know you’re righteous, man?”
“Because if you complain to the Times and my boss finds out I paid you, my ass is grass. I don’t want any hassles, okay? Just a story.”
“Fair is fair, Eddy,” said the heavy man, with glee. “He gotcha.”
“Fuck your mama,” said Sylvester.
The heavy man laughed and wheezed. “Why should I do that, Eddy, when I already fucked your mama and she squeezed all the juice outa me?”
Sylvester gave him a long dark stare, and for a second I thought there’d be violence. Then the heavy man flinched and winked and Sylvester laughed, too. Picking up a domino, he slapped it on the table.
“To be continued, Fatboy,” he said, standing.
“Where you goin, Eddy?”
“To talk to the man, stupid.”
“Talk here. I wanna hear what kind of seventy-dollar story you got.”
“Ha,” said Sylvester. “Ask my mama about it.” To me: “Let’s go someplace where the atmosphere ain’t stupid.”
We walked down the block, past other big subdivided houses. An occasional palm tree skyscraped from the breezeway. Most of the street was open and hot, even as evening approached. The air smelled like exhaust fumes.
When we got near the corner, Sylvester stopped and leaned against a lamppost. A brown-skinned woman in a brown-flowered dress walked past. Several small children trailed her, like goslings, laughing and speaking Spanish.
“They come here,” said Sylvester, “taking jobs for crap pay, don’t even wann
a learn English. Whynchu write about that?”
He patted his empty shirt pocket and studied me. “Smoke?”
I shook my head.
“Figures. Now, what murder is it you wanna hear about?”
“Was there more than one at the Adventure Inn?”
“Could be.”
“Could be?”
“That place was no good—you know what it really was, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Whorehouse. Nasty one—tough girls. I only worked there ’cause I had to. My day job was cleaning gutters on houses and that’s irregular—know what I mean? When it rains, you get your clogged gutters and your leaks coming right through the window seams into the house, people start screaming, Help me, help me! No rain, people forget their gutters; real stupid.”
“The motel was your night job.”
“Yeah.”
“Tough place.”
“Real bad place. The people who owned it ran it stupid—didn’t give a damn.”
“The Advent Group.”
He gave me a blank look.
“Guys from Nevada,” I said. “That’s what it said in the original article.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Reno, Nevada; my check used to come from there. Pain in the took-ass because it didn’t clear for five days. Stupid.”
“The murder I’m talking about is a guy named Felix Barnard. Ex–private eye. The article said you found him.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Old guy, bare-assed, his pecker in his hand.” Shaking his head. “Yeah, that was bad, finding that. He got shot up in the face.”
He stuck out his tongue.
“What else do you remember about it?” I said.
“That’s about it. Finding him was disgusting, I wanted to quit the stupid job after that. I was working too hard anyway. Used to get off at five in the morning, get home, try to sleep for a couple of hours before going off to clean gutters. I had four kids, I was a good daddy to all of them. Bought ’em stuff. The best shoes. My sons wore Florsheim in high school, none of that sneaker stupidity.”
“You inspected the rooms at 5 A.M.?”
“I finished by then. Started at a quarter to, so I could finish and get the hell out of there by five. If a room was empty, I’d tell the Mexican girl to clean it. If someone was still in it, I’d put a mark in the ledger for the day clerk. Day clerk’s job was easy, no one used the damn place during the day.”
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