Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set)

by Blake Banner

  I was leaning on the bathroom doorjamb listening to her. “Doesn’t make a lot of sense. We need to know why she went to New York.”

  “Maybe she got a gig there and that’s how she met Stephen…” But even as she said it, she was looking unconvinced. “He doesn’t strike me as the theater-going type. I think they met here.”

  There was something nagging at the back of my mind. “Didn’t the file say Stephen had been living in San Francisco?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, for a couple of years. Then went back east in 2014. They could have met here.”

  “So maybe she went back for some kind of reconciliation.”

  “Why suddenly? What happened to make her suddenly want to go out east and meet up with him?”

  “We need to talk to her agent.”

  Four

  The Philip Shaw Agency was on Pine Street in the Nob Hill district. We found a parking space just outside the Intercontinental Hotel and walked the short distance through the gentle sunshine to the agency. It was on the top floor of an elegant, early–twentieth-century, three-story building. There was no reception area and no elevator. So we climbed the blue-carpeted stairs to the top floor, knocked, and went in without waiting for a reply.

  There was a bright, efficient-looking woman of fifty with permed hair sitting behind a desk. She smiled at us as though she really was pleased to see us. Maybe it was a San Francisco thing.

  “Hello,” she said, without affectation.

  I smiled back and said, “We’d like to see Mr. Shaw. We haven’t got an appointment, but it is urgent.” I showed her my badge. “I am Detective Stone, and this is Detective Dehan.”

  She looked at the badges with interest. “New York…”

  She got up and went through a door into what was obviously Shaw’s office. She came out a moment later and said, “Mr. Shaw will see you now, Detectives.”

  I don’t know what I expected, but he wasn’t it. He was very tall, maybe six three or four, and shaped roughly like an inverted S, with his knees slightly bent and his back slightly hunched, as though his body was too long for his muscles to hold him upright. His feet were huge and so were his hands, one of which he held out now as he strode toward us, while he used the other to sweep a mop of unkempt hair out of his face. Maybe that was a San Francisco thing too.

  “Detectives, I have very little time.” He said it with a big smile, as if he’d meant to say, “What a pleasure to meet you,” but got his lines mixed up. “You’re a long way from home. What can I do for you?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, the local PD know we’re here, and they’re cooperating with us. We are just looking into some background, and we wanted to ask you about a client of yours from about two years back.”

  He gestured me to a chair and pulled up another for Dehan. Then he kind of folded himself up into his own on the other side of the desk, frowning as though he really was interested.

  “Two years back?”

  “Tammy Gunthersen.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Tammy? What has she got herself into? Gorgeous girl! Gorgeous! Adorable personality. Could have been a big star. But a bit too wild in the wrong ways, and too eager for the quick solution. Talented, very talented. Lovely girl. But I haven’t seen her for… well… yes, two years would be about right.”

  Dehan was watching him with a small frown on her face. “Can you think of any reason why she would have gone to New York?”

  He looked blank and shook his head. “None whatsoever. One day she just stopped calling, stopped answering my messages, and I never heard from her again.”

  I scratched my chin. “She doesn’t seem to have been short of money. Did she get plenty of work?”

  Shaw nodded and spread his hands, like he was about to explain a difficult lesson to a class. “In many ways, Tammy was the perfect client. She was always willing to work. She’d take the good jobs with the bad jobs and always put in one hundred percent. Plus, she was gorgeous and had a charming personality, so people always wanted her back. But of course that meant doing all kinds of work, from small ads for local channels, to local theater groups and…” He made a reluctant face. “…‘gigs,’ what we call ‘gigs.’”

  Dehan scowled. “What are gigs?”

  “Gigs come in all shapes and sizes, and believe me, I will not touch the more unsavory ones! But often they can be lifesavers for young actors, the difference between paying the rent and being out on the streets.” He hunched his shoulders and nodded several times. “So, it can be some kind of living theater: a guy is having a big party, and he wants some gangsters to break in with guns and he single-handedly defeats them. Then it is all revealed as a play. Or a fight breaks out between two female guests and they start fighting, but using spectacular, choreographed kung fu. You get the kind of thing. That’s at the high end.”

  “And at the low end?” I asked.

  “Mainly guys acting out their fantasies. They go to a bar, and a gorgeous girl comes in and picks them up. Where it goes from there is up to the girl. I am not a pimp. A visiting businessman wants a beautiful woman on his arm, but he’d rather a talented actress who can hold a conversation than some bimbo whose whole repertoire is giggle and fuck.”

  Dehan asked, “And Tammy did a lot of gigs?”

  He made a “so-so” face. “She had pretty regular work at the Melpomene Theater on Jones Street. Mainly experimental, high-brow stuff, but she was popular and she was getting lots of work with them. Then she would supplement her income with the occasional gig.”

  I asked the question that was begging to get asked. “I know it’s a long time, Mr. Shaw, but can you remember what the last job you gave her was?”

  He thought for a moment, knitting together his big eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, I can. Partly because I never saw her again, and partly because it was quite some gig.”

  Dehan narrowed her eyes. “Yeah? How so?”

  He glanced at his filing cabinet, bit his lip for a second, and muttered, “Let me see…” Then he rattled at his computer for a moment. He clicked his mouse a few times and then smiled.

  “Mr. G. Sanders. He was interviewing actresses for a very special gig. It was for a party at a millionaire’s house, and he was going to put on an impromptu show in honor of his host. He was paying two hundred bucks a night for ten days, plus expenses. A few girls auditioned, but she got the job. He paid up front, and that was the last I ever heard from her.” He frowned. “So, is she in trouble? Is there anything I can do to help her? Does she need a lawyer?”

  I shook my head. “There is nothing you can do to help her, Mr. Shaw. It seems that shortly after she got that job, she went to New York. We don’t know why. But once there, we have reason to believe she was murdered.”

  All the color drained from his face, and he dropped back in his chair. “Oh, no. No, poor Tammy. Oh, no…”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Shaw.” I watched the tears spring into his eyes. “Were you close?”

  He spread his hands. “Why do these things happen? We were family. We’re all family. The actors, they come and go, they do stupid things, mostly, but we stay in touch. We’re a family. Poor Tammy. She didn’t deserve that.”

  “Do you know of any friends or family she had in the Bronx?”

  “No, she was alone. She had her parents, but they died when she was nineteen, left her the house. Why do these things happen?”

  I sighed. “We won’t keep you much longer, Mr. Shaw. Have you got an address for Mr. Sanders?”

  He seemed to come out of a dream or a reminiscence. “Yeah, sure.” He looked at his computer screen. “He was at a hotel—the Hyatt Regency, on Drumm Street.”

  I made a note and stood. Dehan stood too, but as she did, she asked, “What about at the theater company, the Melpomene—did she have any special friends there?”

  He thought a moment. “Yes, there was a girl she was close to. Gloria. She was friends with Gloria. She might be able to tell you something.”

  We asked him if he had s
ome photographs of her we could use. He gave us a couple. We thanked him and left.

  Back in the street, I stopped and stared around me. My stomach was reminding me I had missed lunch. I turned to Dehan.

  She stared me straight in the eye and said, “You look like you need a sandwich and a beer, Sensei. You haven’t eaten since seven o’clock this morning. You can’t do that to your body. It’s not right. You know what?” She started to cross the road, and I followed her. “Your body is the temple of your spirit. You have to care for it. I read that somewhere.”

  I climbed in the car. “Okay, Carmen, you’re hungry. I drive you too hard. I hear you. Let’s play tourist for an hour or two.”

  We took Bush Street down to the Embarcadero and sat outside at Carmen’s Restaurant on Pier 40. We ordered two beers, crispy calamari, and two burgers. When the waitress went away to get them, I rubbed my face and, for a moment, had a hankering for a Camel cigarette.

  “So, let’s revisit your analysis back in the house. An actress, living in a nice house in the Bay Area, she has an agent, she is working because she has money in the bank and is running the house on her own. One day she ups and goes to New York, specifically the Bronx. She’s not planning on staying there, she’s planning to come back soon. It’s just a visit. While she’s there, she visits loser Stephen Springfellow. The Sureños show up, beat seven bales of shit out of him, and then shoot them both. They leave him dead where he is on the chair and take her body away with them. But now let’s add to that. Just before she goes to New York, she is given an exceptionally well-paid job by G. Sanders, whose address is a five-star hotel. The job lasts a week and involves putting on a show at a millionaire’s party. Questions: What was she doing for the nine days that were not party days? What was so special about this gig that he was prepared to pay her that well?”

  The waitress brought our beers, and Dehan pulled off half of hers and wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist.

  “We need to find G. Sanders. But my bet is he won’t be very communicative, even if we find him. The person who is going to give us—me—the lowdown is Gloria, at the Melpomene Theater.”

  I nodded. “Reckon you’re right at that, Carmensita.”

  Five

  We ate our late luncheon, and as the sun slipped toward what should have been a lazy late afternoon, we slipped back into the Mustang and made our way up through the color and bustle of Market Street to Jones Street, by way of Leavenworth.

  The Melpomene was a club with a theater in it, rather than an actual theater. It was open, but there was nobody there save the barman, who was polishing glasses behind the bar. The place was dimly lit and smelled vaguely of stale beer and furniture polish. There were forty or fifty tables, each with a small red lantern, ranged around a stage that was painted black and had black curtains drawn across it. Every now and then the curtain moved, and there was a sound of feet on floorboards and furniture being dragged around.

  Dehan leaned on the bar, and the barman, who sounded South African or Australian, said, “Whadlit be?”

  “I need to talk to Gloria. She in?”

  “They’re setting up for the show. Through that door. Don’t know how popular you’ll be if you go back there right now though.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve never been popular. It unsettles my stomach.”

  I followed her through the door into a maze of narrow, ill-lit passages carpeted in what used to be gray but was now just dirty. We heard voices, climbed a couple of steps, and found ourselves looking out onto the stage. Two young men who looked as though they needed to eat were arguing in hushed hisses with a girl who looked as though she could take them both with one hand tied behind her back.

  Dehan sighed and said, “Is one of you Gloria?”

  They all turned to look but said nothing for a moment. Dehan was about to repeat the question when the girl pointed and said, “In her dressing room.”

  “Where?”

  “Right at the intersection. Second door on your right.” As we turned to go, she called, “Say.” Dehan turned back. The girl was smiling. “You free later?”

  Dehan nodded. “Yeah. And I plan to stay that way.”

  I followed her to the intersection and then down to the right.

  “You really need to do something about your attitude. The girl was just being nice.”

  We came to the door, and she knocked.

  “Come!”

  When we opened the door, Gloria was naked. She had her back to us because she was sitting at her dressing table putting on makeup. But her reflection was just as naked as she was, and that was facing us. Her reflection smiled brightly.

  “Hello!”

  Dehan blinked and smiled back. “Are you Gloria?”

  “Sure!” She made it sound like, “Why not? We can be anything we want to be!” We stepped in and I closed the door. She was still smiling and looking expectantly at our reflections. I left Dehan to it and watched Gloria’s face in the mirror. She was pretty. She had a nice face.

  “Were you friends with Tammy Gunthersen?”

  She turned on her stool and stared at Dehan, then at me. “Why yes, and I still am. Are you friends of hers? I haven’t seen her for ages.”

  Dehan did a funny little sideways twitch of the head and said, “You haven’t seen her for two years. May we sit down, Gloria?”

  Now Gloria looked worried. “Well, sure, but who are you?”

  Dehan pulled out her badge. “We are police officers. My name is Carmen Dehan, and this is my partner, John Stone. Tammy has gone missing, Gloria. We don’t know for sure, but there is reason to believe that she might have been hurt… or worse. We really need your help.”

  Gloria had put both her hands to her mouth and was staring at Dehan without saying a word. She looked genuinely distressed. Dehan waited a moment, then, with a small, coaxing nod, asked, “Will you help us, Gloria?”

  “Well, of course! Poor Tammy! What happened? How can I help? Just tell me how.”

  Dehan pulled up a chair and sat right in front of her, mere inches away. I removed a bundle of clothes and sat in a chair in the corner, crossed my legs, and watched Dehan with interest. This was the girl nobody could stand at the precinct because she had such a bad attitude. Now she was leaning forward, looking earnestly into Gloria’s eyes.

  “Do you remember the last time you saw Tammy?”

  Gloria’s eyes became abstracted. “Let me see… two years ago, we were doing A Woman for All Seasons…” Her face lit up. “Well, sure! She was real excited. She told me she’d been offered a part that was going to change her life. I asked her what it was, but she said she couldn’t tell me just then, because it was a secret.” She grew confidential, as though she were sharing a secret with Dehan. “She said she had met a wonderful man—he was a millionaire, or a multimillionaire, and he was going to change her life forever.”

  “Did she mention his name?”

  “Well, I asked, as you can imagine. I was dying with curiosity! She said all of that would have to remain a secret, but when I next saw her she would be driving a Rolls Royce!”

  “Was she working here at the time?”

  She shook her head. “No, we went out for drinks. A girls’ night out.”

  “Where was she working? Did she mention that?”

  She thought for a moment and sighed. “No. She said she had a great gig. She was being paid big bucks to put on some kind of show for a multimillionaire. I asked her if it was the same guy, and she said no, but I kind of figured it was. It was too much of a coincidence, know what I mean?”

  Dehan made a conspiratorial face, narrowed her eyes, and smiled. “Sure! She’s met a multimillionaire, and she’s doing a gig for a multimillionaire. No-brainer, right?”

  Gloria laughed and laid her hand on Dehan’s arm. “Right! That’s what I thought!”

  “So you think she was having an affair with this guy, the millionaire?”

  “Well, at first I did, but then she tells me she’s going back
to see her ex!”

  “Her ex?”

  “Some loser she was with for a couple of years. He was an asshole, always sleeping around and treating her bad. So she sent him packing back to New York. But you know how it is—she always missed him. Why do we always fall in love with bad guys?” She turned to me. “No offense.” She turned back to Dehan. “Anyways, she says she’s called him and she’s going to go and see him. He says he misses her and he wants her back. Says he’s changed, there’s no more sleeping around and now he’s going to treat her right—yuh, right! Like we would believe that! Whatever! She said she was going to go see him.”

  “In New York?”

  “Yeah. That’s where he lived.”

  “This guy have a name?”

  She puffed out her cheeks and blew. “Pffff… One of those boring names.”

  Dehan smiled. “A boring name?”

  “You know, normal, like John.” Again she looked at me. “No offense.” I winked at her, and she turned back to Dehan. “Bob, Steve… It might have been Steve.”

  “Did she ever mention the name Sanders to you, Gloria? G. Sanders?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think so, but it was two years ago. All I know is that she was really excited because she’d got this part to play, and it was going to make her really successful and rich. And her ex had asked her to get back with him. We met for a girls’ night out, and I never seen her again. I figured she’d got rich and forgotten all about me. You sure that’s not what happened?”

  Dehan smiled at her. It was a sad smile. “Pretty sure, Gloria.”

  We left her looking sad and naked on her stool, with all her makeup and her reflection behind her.

  We stepped out into the street. Evening was tingeing the air. Headlamps and streetlamps were coming on. I rested my ass against the trunk of the Mustang and looked down the hill. Dehan stood in front of me and leaned against the lamppost.