RK02 - Guilt By Degrees

by Marcia Clark

  We rode in silence until Bailey cleared her throat. “Have you said anything to Toni about…?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Are…ah…are you going to tell Drew?” she asked, uncharacteristically hesitant.

  Because they were going to be alone in a quiet place for a while and she didn’t want to slip and tell him anything I didn’t want him to know. There was so much to appreciate about Bailey.

  “I’ll tell Drew pretty soon.”

  “And don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll never tell.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d never waste my time with Drew talking about you.” She grinned.

  Bailey exited the freeway and headed west on Ventura. Ten minutes later, we turned onto Valley Vista and drove up the winding road, watching the address numbers. Halfway up the incline, I saw it.

  “There.” I pointed, indicating a little brick house with white shutters on the right.

  Small yet meticulously maintained, it was on a fairly secluded plot, set at least fifty feet back from the street and partially blocked from view by mature peppertrees. I could definitely see how this place would be a perfect fit for someone who wanted privacy.

  Bailey parked and we followed a bricked path to the front door. A tasteful, well-polished brass knocker was placed just above a tiny eyehole. Bailey stood within view of the peephole and banged the knocker twice. At first, I heard nothing. But as I concentrated, I thought I detected Beethoven’s Seventh playing somewhere inside the house.

  Bailey looked toward the driveway, and I followed her gaze. A red Prius was parked there. A likely indication that Nina, or hopefully Lilah, was home. Bailey banged the knocker on the brass plate a little harder this time. I leaned in to listen. I thought I heard the low thump of footsteps approaching on a wood floor. Seconds later, the thumping stopped.

  “Who’s there?” said a woman’s voice, muffled by the heavy-looking door between us.

  Bailey pulled out her badge and held it up to the peephole. “Bailey Keller, detective with the LAPD.”

  “You alone?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Bailey said, moving to the side.

  I stepped in front of the peephole. “Deputy District Attorney Rachel Knight. We’re here to talk to you about the burglary,” I said.

  The door swung open.

  “Well, it’s about damn time,” said the woman.

  Nina Klavens, who, it turned out, really was Nina Klavens. And ninety years old if she was a day.

  65

  Thirty minutes later, after getting an earful of the slipshod job the police had done investigating her burglary, we were finally released from Nina Klavens’s clutches.

  “Assuming we did find her Hummel collection in some report, how’d we be able to tell it was hers?” I asked. “Don’t all those little kids holding umbrellas and watering cans look the same?”

  “Ask me, because I’m a collector,” Bailey replied dryly. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who offered to look for it.”

  We got into the car and belted up. “If I hadn’t, we’d still be in there.”

  “So we’re down to the auto theft,” she said. “Give me the info.”

  I pulled out the report. “Victim, Alicia Morris. No description, no DOB. Address in…Hollywood, on Fountain Avenue, east of Fairfax. Apartment J.”

  Bailey turned right and headed toward Mulholland Drive. Eventually we landed on Benedict Canyon, which would take us from the San Fernando Valley to the west side of town. The canyons are older roads where trees and greenery have had plenty of time to mature, creating a canopy that filters what little sunlight penetrates the hills. The homes lining the road range from overbuilt and grandiose to charming and rustic. Though the ride was more picturesque than the freeway, it took just one slow-moving car to back up traffic for miles. Luckily, today we were the ones out in front. We flew all the way down to Sunset, where we headed east, then took La Cienega south and ended up on Fountain Avenue. When we passed Fairfax, Bailey slowed and I watched the numbers, searching for the address, listed as 7300 Fountain Avenue.

  “Wait, slow down,” I said as we neared Fountain and Martel. I read the sign on the building at 7300 Fountain. “Morman Boling Casting?” A casting agency. Not Alicia Morris’s—or anyone else’s—residence.

  Bailey and I exchanged a look. “Maybe the numbers go down and then up again,” she suggested.

  We continued east, but by the time we’d passed Kat Von D’s High Voltage Tattoo at La Brea, the numbers were still descending.

  “Fountain dead-ends just past Gower and picks up again at Van Ness. If the numbers don’t start going up by then, we’ll call it quits,” she said.

  We hit the dead end, made the jog, and picked up Fountain at Van Ness. The numbers continued to fall. When they kept falling after we’d passed the La Fuente Sober Living facility, I’d seen enough.

  “Give it up, Bailey. It’s a bogus address.”

  “How long ago was the report made?” she asked.

  I looked at the date. “Four and a half years,” I replied, knowing what she was thinking. “We can confirm this with the permit office, but I didn’t see any building that looked like it’d gone up in the last four years or so.”

  “Agreed.” Bailey sighed. “It’s bogus.”

  She pulled over and parked. There was a fire hydrant and a tow zone right ahead of us. But she wasn’t even an inch over the line. She was that distracted.

  I tossed out another possibility.

  “This wouldn’t be the first victim to give a bum address for personal reasons,” I suggested. “Maybe she was growing pot in her closet and didn’t want the cops to show up unannounced.”

  “She’d still have given a phone number,” Bailey said. “There wasn’t one.”

  I checked the report again. She was right.

  “Maybe she wanted the car to stay stolen so she could collect on the insurance,” I offered. I beat Bailey to the punch and looked to see if an insurance company was listed. “No insurance shown here, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  Bailey was silent, her expression intense. “Except it does,” she said. “I checked with the DMV, and there was no insurance on the car. It was kind of a junker. An old Audi.”

  “Probably wasn’t worth insuring,” I remarked.

  The traffic light just ahead of us turned red, and I watched the line of cars come to a stop. The closest was a red Ford Focus with a bumper sticker that said, NAMASTE, BITCHES. A sticker on the rear window added, I DON’T DO NICE. I looked inside the car to see the badass who was advertising. It was a soft, round-looking woman in her fifties.

  “Are there any cars registered under Lilah’s maiden name?” I asked.

  Bailey nodded slowly. “An Audi,” she said, her voice stretched tight. “But the license and registration don’t match.”

  A no-match on the license and registration should’ve ended the matter, but Bailey kept staring out the windshield.

  “Then what’s the big deal?” I asked. “There must be thousands of old Audis out there.”

  “Yeah,” Bailey said. “But I wrote down the license and registration of Lilah’s car.” She pulled her notebook out of her jacket pocket, flipped to the page, and handed it to me. “Check it out.”

  I looked at the numbers written in her notebook, then pulled out the report. Then went back to the notebook again.

  The license and registration for both cars was just one number off. It could’ve been a coincidence. The hairs on the back of my neck told me it wasn’t.

  “What happened to Lilah’s car?” I asked.

  “I just got the report back,” Bailey said. “According to the DMV records, a guy named Conrad Bagram reported it stolen—”

  “Stolen?” I sat up.

  “Yep.”

  “So he bought the car from Lilah, and then it was stolen?” I asked.

  “He had it on consignment,” Bailey replied. “Bagram owns a gas station and body shop on Sunset Boulev
ard near Highland and sells cars on the side. The ‘King of Sunset.’”

  “When’d the King report it stolen?”

  “Two days after Alicia Morris reported her car stolen,” Bailey said.

  “So Alicia Morris doesn’t want the cops to know her address or phone number,” I said.

  “But she does want them to know her car was stolen,” Bailey replied.

  I frowned. “So the car exists, but Alicia Morris doesn’t?” I wondered.

  66

  We let the possibility sink in for several moments.

  “The similarity between Alicia’s car and Lilah’s is beyond chance,” I said. “Let’s work with the hypothesis that Alicia Morris may be Lilah’s alias.” When we’d started the search for Alicia, I’d been feeling tired and flat. But now the possibility that I was about to enter Lilah’s world had energized me.

  Bailey looked at her watch. “Six thirty,” she said. “Probably too late to pay Bagram a visit.”

  We were on a roll and I didn’t want to call it a day, so I considered what else we could do tonight. I checked the report—and smiled. “Seems the car was stolen near La Poubelle. Alicia said it’d been parked on the block behind the restaurant.”

  Bailey read my mind. “Gee, what a bummer. We’re going to have to check out La Poubelle.” She pulled away from the curb and headed for Sunset Boulevard.

  “You cops are always leading us hardworking deputies astray,” I said.

  “You can watch me while I eat,” Bailey suggested. “Save your sterling reputation. But you better give your security detail a call, so they can watch you watching me eat.”

  I pulled out my cell and arranged for them to meet us at the restaurant.

  Traffic was heavy, and even though we were just a few miles away, it was seven o’clock by the time we got there.

  La Poubelle was in the middle of a block of very hip, funky stores and restaurants that were big on character—and characters—and low on fancy. A few doors down from La Poubelle was a place called Birds that served up barbecue and had a human-size birdcage where people who got drunk enough to make it seem like a good idea could dance.

  The bar at La Poubelle was already doing a brisk business, and customers stood three deep as the bartenders rushed to fill orders. I took a few moments to let my eyes adjust to the dim light so I could get to a table without doing the lambada with strangers. We slowly inched our way into the dining area in the back. The restaurant catered to a late-night crowd, so there were still a few empty tables to be found.

  Our waiter sauntered over with a desultory air that told me our service tonight was not a given. His hair, dyed completely white, sloped straight up on one side and dipped precariously over the other to cover his left eye, which was adorned with the longest fake lashes I’d ever seen. His spandex capris were bright pink, which went brilliantly with his silver-sequined V-necked shirt.

  “What are we in the mood for ce soir?” he asked in a bored voice.

  He looked around the room, and I knew we’d lose him midsentence if we didn’t make it snappy. I gave my drink order so fast it came out as one word.

  “A Ketel One martini, straight up, very dry, very cold, olives on the side.”

  He inhaled, looked down his nose at me, and turned to Bailey. “And you?”

  “The same.”

  Our waiter wandered off. I had no faith that he was going to place our orders, so I watched to see where whim would take him. He glided slowly through the tables, but eventually I could see he was headed for the bar. Victory was mine. Sort of: there was no guaranteeing he’d take as direct a route back to our table.

  “You got the photographs?” Bailey asked.

  I patted my oversize purse. “Want to start with the manager?”

  “Probably should,” Bailey replied. She stood up. “I’ll go find him.”

  Five minutes later, she returned to the table with a handsome man in his forties, wearing jeans, expensive leather loafers, and a shirt opened down to his sternum, very European-looking. Bailey made the introductions, and then I started to pull out Lilah’s photograph.

  He put his hand on my arm. “I have to tell you that I’m not the best person to ask. When I’m here, I’m usually in my office or in the kitchen, so…”

  He had a French accent, but it wasn’t overpowering. Just sexy as hell.

  “Got it,” I said, then showed him the photograph.

  His eyes got 50 percent wider, and he whistled softly. “I’d surely remember a woman like that,” he said. “But”—he shrugged—“I’m sorry, I do not recall ever seeing her here.” He took another long look at the photograph. “I must say, I wish I had.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Can you tell me who was working here about four years ago?”

  The manager frowned and stared at the table, then looked toward the bar. “The bartenders, I don’t think so. But you can certainly ask. And maybe Jessie.” He gestured to a slender waitress in black tights and a long, clingy sweater. “I think Chris, for sure—”

  “Chris?” I asked.

  At just that moment, our waiter appeared with our drinks. I suspected the speed of service had something to do with the fact that we were sitting with the manager. But that’s just me, ever the cynic.

  The manager stood and gestured to our waiter. Voilà. “Chris,” he said, “these ladies have some questions for you.”

  The manager bowed gracefully. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you,” he said.

  I took a moment to enjoy the view as he left the table, then got back down to business.

  “Chris, I want to—,” I began.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” he said, holding up a hand. “I didn’t see a thing.”

  “You don’t know what we’re going to ask.”

  “Exactly,” he said, staring at me to make his point.

  “I just want to know whether you recognize the person in this photograph,” I said, pulling out the picture of Lilah.

  Chris gave an exaggerated sigh and dipped his neck, swanlike, to look. After a few moments, a little smile spread across his face.

  “Why yes, I believe I do,” he said, his voice mildly surprised. “I think she was here a few times.”

  “Recently?” I asked.

  “Mmm, no,” he said. “A while ago.”

  “Could it have been around four years ago?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “Four years ago?” Chris put a finger to his cheek and tilted his head. “That would’ve been my first year here.” He held his tray against one hip and thought a moment more. “Yes, I believe that is when I saw her.”

  I couldn’t take the chance that he might waver after calmer reflection. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh my, but yes.” He tapped the photograph. “Not a face you see every day. Or forget once you do.”

  67

  “Thank you so much, Chris,” I said.

  “Just so you know, I’m willing to do my civic duty…to a point,” he said. “But don’t put me on the witness stand, Ms. Prosecutor.” He gave me a stern look. “It’s not my thing.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, smiling. But I wouldn’t promise anything. A character like Chris would have the jury eating out of his hand.

  “Try hard,” Chris replied, giving me a mock glare. “Now drink up. There’s nothing more disgusting than a warm martini.”

  He sashayed off to the next table.

  “Nothing?” Bailey asked.

  “No,” I replied. “Nothing.” I held up my glass for a toast. “To one ginormous break in this damn case.”

  “And may they keep on coming,” Bailey said.

  We clinked glasses and took a long sip.

  “You have an address for Conrad Bagram’s place?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Want to drive by?”

  “Just to get a look,” I said.

  Not wanting to blow our security’s cover, I texted them the address of our next destination.

  Din
ner was tasty. I had the penne alla vodka, and Bailey had the croque-monsieur. Pleasantly full, warm, and probably more stoked by Chris’s identification of Lilah than we should’ve been, we paid our bill, left Chris a big tip—those eyelashes weren’t cheap—and headed out to Conrad’s Auto Body and Repair. We made it there by eight thirty. It was a fairly large operation, with three repair bays and a big fenced-in area that held several cars with FOR SALE signs. Surprisingly the lights in the office next to the service bays were on. We pulled in and parked in one of the spaces at the side of the station. When we got out and approached the office, a man I assumed was Conrad Bagram came out to meet us.

  Five feet one on his tallest day, thin, and hyper, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “What can I do for you ladies?” he said with a toothy crocodile grin.

  I could tell by his expression that he was hoping we either were in the market to buy a car or needed ours repaired—preferably in a big hurry that would put us at his mercy. But when he peered over our shoulders and saw Bailey’s car, his smile dimmed.

  “Police?” he asked with little enthusiasm. He forced a smile back onto his face and nervously extended his hand. “Conrad Bagram. What can I do for you?”

  Bailey shook his hand perfunctorily. “You had a car stolen off your lot about four years ago,” she said. “A red Audi.”

  “No disrespect, Officer,” he replied. “But it’s hard for me to remember that long ago. I’ve had more than one car stolen from here. Especially back then.”

  I looked at the fence that surrounded the cars and the cameras that were mounted around the perimeter. Three red LED lights glowed in the dark. Conrad Bagram caught my glance.

  “Back then, I didn’t have as good security,” he said. Then he lowered his voice. “And those cameras are just for show.”

  Bailey pulled out a printout and presented it to him. “What can you tell us about this car?”

  He took the paper and scanned it. After a moment, he said, “What is there to tell? It was there, then it was gone. I called the police.”

  “Did you know how long it’d been gone when you reported it?” I asked.