“So you’re thinking maybe they asked him to do something he didn’t want to do? Like blackmail someone?”
“It’s possible,” said Sofia.
“We’ll make an investigator out of you yet,” said Brendan. “You know this is a pretty straight piece of road. You could probably pick up your speed if you like.”
Sofia smiled and put her foot down. The Tesla took off, throwing Brendan back in his seat.
Fifteen minutes later they pulled up outside an apartment block on the southern edge of Santa Monica close to Venice. Sofia and Brendan got out. Sofia started towards the front entrance. Brendan stayed put.
“You’re not coming with me?” said Sofia, stopping.
“You wanted to start handling things on your own. I just wanted an excuse to get out from behind my desk for a little while. If you need me, I’ll be right here.”
“Thanks,” said Sofia.
“Don’t worry, you got this.”
Smiling, Sofia climbed the steps and ran the buzzer for Apartment 3C.
A woman answered. “Yes?”
“Hi, I’m looking for Dwight Danson.”
“Yeah, and who the hell are you?”
“My name is Sofia Salgado. I work for Maloney Investigations. I’d like to ask Mr. Danson a few questions about his time working for Stanley Kervin.”
“That scumbag.”
There was the sound of a man’s voice in the background. Presumably this was Dwight.
“She wants to ask you about that asshole Kervin.”
There was more mumbling, then the woman said, “Dwight’s not here.”
“I just heard him talking. Look, he can either talk to me or the way this is going he can talk to the cops. It’s up to him.”
Sofia looked around to see Brendan standing on the sidewalk. He shot her a thumbs-up.
A buzzer sounded, unlocking the door. Sofia pushed it open. She held it there and turned to wait for Brendan. She wasn’t sure she was ready to go solo just yet. He saw her holding the door open and skipped up the steps.
“Do you mind coming in with me?” she said.
“No problem,” he said. “You did great. That was textbook.”
“Thanks.”
The elevator was out of order so they took the stairs up to Dwight’s apartment. Behind the door they could hear a couple arguing. It was obviously Dwight and his girlfriend. Roommates didn’t argue like that.
“Why’d you let her in?”
“She said she’d call the cops.”
“She was trying to scare us.”
“It worked,” said the woman. “I knew this would happen.”
“Why’d you think I quit?”
Sofia looked at Brendan. “Congratulations,” said Brendan. “You are officially intimidating. How does it feel?”
Sofia beamed. “Kinda awesome.”
Brendan nodded. “It does, doesn’t it?”
The door opened, but only just. Brendan jammed his foot in the gap before Sofia even had a chance to react.
“Hi, I’m Brendan Maloney. I’m an investigator. I think you’re going to want to speak with us.”
A ratty-looking guy with a beard peered at them through the gap. He didn’t say anything. “I’m not interested.”
“It’ll be in your own best interests, Dwight, believe me.”
“Let them in already, will you?” said the woman, who was standing behind Dwight.
“Do you mind?” Dwight said.
Brendan moved his foot. The door closed. There was the sound of the chain dropping and the door opened again.
Dwight stood there, his arms folded. He had that overdone bodybuilder look, like someone had plugged his belly button into an air compressor and left it running. Maybe that also explained why he was called Horse. Although, from what Sofia had heard, bodybuilders weren’t proportionally big down there. Something to do with steroids.
“I want to see some identification before I say anything to you.”
Brendan took out his wallet, opened it and handed it to Horse so he could have a good look.
“Thanks,” said Horse, handing it back, apparently satisfied.
He opened the door, and they walked into a dingy hallway. Sofia almost stumbled over a kid’s bike propped against a wall.
“You have kids?” asked Brendan.
“One. He lives with his mom out in Simi Valley. I get him on weekends,” said Horse.
“That’s tough,” said Brendan. “I brought my boy up on his own after my wife died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Brendan shrugged. “Life happens. What can you do?”
“If you hadn’t joined that dumb show maybe you’d still have him,” said a woman with long blonde dreadlocks wearing a tank top and shorts. She was sitting on the windowsill petting a cat that took off as soon as Brendan and Sofia came into the room with Horse.
“Here, take a seat,” said Horse, clearing a bunch of papers and magazines from the couch.
“So why did you being in the Beef Cake Boyz mess up seeing your son?” asked Sofia. “If you don’t mind telling us.”
The woman produced a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out and lit up. She offered them around. Horse took one. Sofia and Brendan declined. Sofia hated smoking. So did Brendan. But when you were interviewing someone in their apartment and needed them to talk, you couldn’t exactly ask them not to.
“Could you at least open a window, Tina?” said Horse.
Tina reached over and did so. She blew the smoke out through the gap.
“His mom used the fact I was working in the sex industry against me,” said Horse.
“But you weren’t,” said Sofia. “We’ve seen the show. It’s raunchy, but it’s not full nude. Not onstage anyway.”
“Try telling a judge that. All she had to do was show him the poster.”
“So you quit?” said Brendan.
“Not then. What was the point? It wasn’t like they’d give him back to me full time because I quit the job.”
“Is that why you resent Stanley Kervin?” said Brendan.
“One reason among many.”
“Kervin’s an asshole,” Tina added. “Always skimming the dancers’ money.”
“What about blackmailing female audience members? You ever see anything like that going on?” asked Sofia.
It was clear that there was no love lost so they might as well cut to the chase. She looked over to Brendan as she asked it and he gave her a nod.
Horse shifted in his seat, like he wasn’t sure what to say. It was clear he knew something.
“You’re not in any trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Brendan said. “Even if you got dragged into it, we’re only interested in Stanley and his female associate.”
Horse looked at Tina, like he needed permission.
“Anything you can tell us would really help our client,” said Sofia. “She’s desperate.”
“Go ahead,” said Tina. “Tell ’em what you told me.”
Sofia and Brendan walked back to the Tesla. They were both silent, both chewing over what they’d just been told. It was big. Really bigger. Bigger than Python, Anaconda, and the rest of them out together. Stanley and Cherry weren’t just involved in making members of the Beefcake Boyz blackmail suburban housewives, they also had the wife of a US Senator on the hook, as well as the wives of one or two other public figures.
“Curveball, right?” said Sofia as she hit the button to switch on the Tesla.
Brendan made a face. “Yes, and no. I wasn’t expecting that, but it all makes sense.”
“You think he was telling the truth?” Sofia asked, pulling the Tesla out into Santa Monica traffic, and narrowly dodging a guy on roller skates holding a Chihuahua.
“He’s got no reason to lie,” Brendan replied.
“We going to go to the cops?’ asked Sofia.
“Not right now. Let’s pull Marcie clear of this flaming wreck first.”
50
Sofia was
in the office by nine the next morning. They had a lot left to do if they wanted to wrap up the blackmail case. But first she had some housekeeping tasks. Brendan made sure that no matter how involved they became with a single case, they still had to manage the rest of the business. And they hardly ever had a single investigation running at one time. Usually there were at least three or four ongoing cases at various stages.
Once she had gone through her emails, deleting, replying and forwarding as needed, she wrote a full update on what had happened the day before. Then she moved on to review yesterday’s recordings.
Aidan had already logged the footage from the camera they had mounted in the rehearsal space where he’d auditioned. But it had been too late for him to look at the material from the pouch-cam. The prospect of looking at the world from the point of view of Aidan’s crotch wasn’t exactly appealing. Maybe she’d leave it to him. Then she remembered he had final rehearsals that afternoon and might not have time.
She’d just have to suck it up, so to speak.
Clicking on her computer’s desktop, Sofia opened the Dropbox folder where they stored surveillance material and pulled up the video file sent from the camera. She clicked to open it, and pulled up a spreadsheet to log anything of interest, along with the time stamp.
She had to admit even she’d been kind of skeptical about the pouch-cam, but the footage was crystal clear. She scooted her chair closer, and settled in to watch.
One hour and forty-seven minutes later
Sofia sat in Brendan’s office and stared into space. She was desperately trying not to make eye contact with Aidan, who was sitting only a few feet away from her.
Her whole body felt like it was in shock. Her heart was still racing. She was sweating. Her stomach was churning.
How?
Why?
She knew her mom had been acting funny around Aidan lately. Even more so since she’d found out he’d joined the Beef Cake Boyz. And Sofia had seen a different side to her at the show they’d attended with Emily. But after what her mom had seen Marcie go through? And for it to be Aidan?
Then there was Aidan himself. What was he thinking about? Had he always harbored some secret crush on her mom? Had he gotten so into his undercover work that he’d experienced a moment of madness?
Brendan cleared his throat. “Sofia, you’re saying that you just watched your mother and Aidan on the pouch-cam having sexual relations?”
“You’re completely insane,” said Aidan.
“I saw my mom, yes.”
“And she was . . .”
Brendan was having trouble finding the words. Sofia didn’t blame him.
“She was about to, yes,” said Sofia.
“You two,” said Brendan, getting up from his chair, “you stay here.”
“Fine by me,” said Sofia.
“Have you been taking drugs?” Aidan asked her.
“Is the footage cued up on your computer?” Brendan asked her.
“Yeah. Right at the crucial moment.”
“Okay, fine,” said Brendan. He wagged a finger at Aidan. “Not another word.”
He walked out. Sofia stared straight ahead. So did Aidan. Neither said anything.
Seconds passed. Then a minute. Brendan reappeared.
“I think you’d both better come and watch this,” said Brendan.
“I can’t,” Sofia protested.
“Nothing happens,” said Brendan. “You don’t really think I’d make you watch a video of your mother and Aidan?”
“Nothing happens?”
They followed Brendan out into the main office and over to Sofia’s computer. Brendan pulled the footage back to where Sofia had stopped watching it and hit play.
Sofia’s mom was eye level with the camera and then she stood. The pouch-cam whirled up into the air, and the next thing Janet’s face was eye level with it again, but they could tell from the position of the lockers that she was standing up.
“I knew it,” said Sofia’s mom. “Amateurs. How can you get evidence if you won’t even wear the camera?”
Her face moved even closer to the lens. “Eww, and he hasn’t washed these. They reek.”
She turned side on. Marcie was standing behind her.
“We should get out of here, before they come back.”
Brendan clicked pause.
“Looks like your mom was checking up on us,” said Brendan.
A wave of relief swept over Sofia. “Oh, thank God,” she said. Then something occurred to her. “You took off the pouch?”
“To rehearse, yes,” said Aidan. “I hung it on my locker handle. Which you would have known if you’d let me explain.”
“Why’d you take it off?”
“Two reasons,” said Aidan. “First, I was hoping to catch someone off guard in the locker room. They won’t say too much around the new guy. And, second, do you know how sweaty that thing gets?”
“We need to speak with your mom and Marcie,” said Brendan. “They could have ruined the whole operation sneaking in like that. How did they even know where Aidan was rehearsing anyway?”
“I might have mentioned it,” said Sofia, suddenly sheepish.
“Well done. What other operational details have you spilled?” said Aidan, glad to have Sofia on the back foot instead of him.
“Operational details? Please.”
The phone rang in Brendan’s office. It was rare for him to get a call on his landline. They had an answering service for when they were busy like this, and most people called him on his cell phone.
He speed-walked back to his office. “No more bickering!”
“How could you think I’d make a move on your mom?” said Aidan. “That takes a special kind of sick mind.”
“Because it looked like . . .” Maybe Aidan was right. Perhaps all this sex and debauchery had messed with Sofia’s mind. When this case was finished, she probably needed to go to church. Maybe she could talk to one of Brendan’s priest buddies up at Pepperdine. At the very least hang out with some regular people. But that might be tricky. Regular people were pretty thin on the ground in California.
Brendan came back. The color had drained from his face.
“That was a buddy of mine down at Robbery Homicide. They just found Dwight Danson dead. Someone shot him while he was sitting in his car.”
51
“So much for the guy who could have blown this whole case open,” said Aidan, leaning back in his chair.
“Hey,” Sofia protested. “He had a kid. A kid who’s going to grow up without his father.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” said Aidan. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say.”
“What about Tina, his girlfriend?” asked Sofia. “Is she okay?”
“Cops are looking for her, but she’s split,” said Brendan. “The cat’s gone too. I don’t blame either of them for getting out of Dodge.”
“You don’t think she could have . . .?” said Sofia.
“Possible. She had a temper. But highly unlikely. No, this was either Stanley, Cherry, or someone they hired especially. I’m guessing someone they paid, seeing as how professional it was. Three bullets. Two to the head, one to the chest. No decent witnesses, apart from a couple of people who looked out of their window when they heard the shots. By which time, the killer was out of sight.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Sofia. “Dwight could have told the cops what was going on. All we can do is tell them what he told us and that won’t be enough to make a conviction stick.”
“And we still have a client sitting smack-dab in the middle of this mess,” added Aidan.
“Did you tell them about Marcie?” Sofia asked Brendan.
“Not by name, no. Now that this is a homicide investigation instead of an alleged blackmailing ring, the murder is all they’ll be interested in getting Stanley for.”
“But that’s good, right?” said Sofia, hoping to find some kind of a silver lining.
“Not really. It’s bad for S
tanley and Margo, but that doesn’t make it good for Marcie. If anything, this makes it more likely Wade’s going to find out. Or at least start asking her some awkward questions,” said Brendan.
“Like, ‘Hey, honey, didn’t you go to one of those shows a few weeks back?’ That kind of question,” said Aidan.
Sofia saw what they meant. Major law-enforcement attention, which came with a homicide in genteel Santa Monica, meant people would start asking questions. Right now Marcie needed the Beef Cake Boyz out of the spotlight.
“Okay, so what do we do?” said Sofia.
Brendan let out a long sigh. “I need time to think. But you can start by speaking with your mom. It’s one thing her and Marcie playing amateur detective with a blackmailer, but not with a killer.”
“I’m on it,” said Sofia.
“But, hey,” Brendan added, “let’s try to keep the murder from Marcie if we can. Unless the media mention this guy’s former employer, she may not make the connection. She needs to be careful, but we don’t want her flipping out completely.”
Brendan was right, as always. Marcie was already on the edge. This might just push her over.
With everything that was going on, Sofia didn’t have the time to drive out to Glendale. She’d make do with a phone call and hope that her mom could get the message to Marcie. After she’d chewed Janet out for doing something as stupid as sneaking into rehearsals.
Unfortunately it seemed Janet was not in the mood for being told what to do by Sofia.
“I was trying to help,” she protested, after Sofia had told her they knew about her and Marcie.
“I know that. But you really have to stay out of this.”
“But Marcie’s my friend,” her mom expostulated.
“I realize that. But these are dangerous people.”
“Oh, come on, they’re cowards. You’d have to be to do something like this.”
Sofia didn’t want to tell her about Dwight unless she absolutely had to.
“They’ve done other things. Violent things.”
“Like what?”
“That’s all you need to know. You and Marcie have to let us handle the investigation, and if either of you see anyone in the neighborhood who looks out of place then call the cops, and don’t go outside until they arrive.”
E is for Exposed (Malibu Mystery Book 5) Page 17
