by Dan Ames
“Wow, what a coincidence. I love to have other people cook for me.”
Chris checked his watch. “Speaking of food, I was just going to whip up some pasta. Wanna stay?”
He turned and headed for the kitchen.
Mary checked out his ass again.
“I suppose I could cancel my dinner with the Governor.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mary woke up in her own apartment. But only because she had insisted that she do so. The night had been wonderful. Good food. Great conversation and so much more.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked at the stack of files in front of her. But her mind went back to Chris McAllister. Mary had never slept with anyone that soon – it was only the second time she’d talked with him. A part of her felt guilty and ashamed. A part of her told her she was middle-aged and that those kind of rules no longer applied.
She felt a small shudder when she considered that she could end up like those three nymphomaniacs who had supplied Uncle Brent with his Viagra.
Mary shelved her thoughts of carnal pleasures and called Braggs. She got his voicemail.
“Braggs, it’s Mary Cooper,” she said. “Change your message, you sound like one of those god-awful announcers for the tractor pull.” She growled her voice. “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Get ready for the Monster Truck Rally-”
“Whitney Braggs here,” he said, cutting her off.
“Put down the Brylcreem and meet me at Alice’s. You can finish your French pedicure later.”
“It seems you think I’m a bit of a dandy.”
“Perish the thought, Princess. Just meet me there in ten minutes.”
“Affirmative.”
“Shut up, Braggs.”
Silence.
“Tell your old cronies to dust off the mothballs and meet us there, too.”
“Ah yes,” he said. “The ‘old gang’ as it were. I’ll get them there as absolutely soon as possible.”
“And tell them if they have any old pictures, mementos, letters, to bring them, too. Ixnay on anything pornographic.”
“They’re not those kind of men, Mary.”
“I was talking about you.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They filed in like a parade of Hollywood glamour gone bad. Faces too tan. Or too pale. Bodies too thin. Or too flabby. Teeth too white. Or too yellow. If there were teeth at all.
Braggs introduced each new arrival to Mary, and gave her a brief rundown of their background. Mary recognized most of them from Margaret Stewart’s files. She noted each one as they were introduced, adding their faces to her mental Rolodex.
Jason Prescott. Really tall. 6’6” easy. Former stand-up comic turned MC of old folks comedy shows.
Mark Reihm. Average looking except for the severe acne scarring on his face. A gray buzz cut heightened the disastrous effect.
Franklin Goslyn. A little bowling ball of a man.
Todd Castro. A white-haired, dark-skinned guy light on personality, heavy on horrible cologne. Most likely purchased at Marshalls, TJMaxx, or Ross Superstores.
Eventually, the names, faces and handshakes, and hugs bordering on ass grabs were over and Mary got down to business.
“All right,” she said to the assembled group. “We’ve got work to do, fellas. You guys can jerk each other off later.”
The group slowly quieted down.
“Nice hooters!” a voice shouted out. Chuckles and guffaws filled the air.
“Save it for your Inflate-A-Mate.” Mary said.
More laughter followed Mary’s comment.
“Now that's what I call ‘junk in the trunk’!” one of the old men said.
“Baby got back, front, top, and bottom!” another guy said.
“That’s some quality material guys,” Mary said. “I can’t believe no one else noticed your talents.”
Braggs, sitting in the front, turned back and gave the stinkeye to the rabble rousers. They quieted down and Mary used the opportunity to lay out the files of the five people she had failed to identify.
“Look, she’s spreading herself out,” a voice said.
“Right on the table?”
“Giddyup!” Someone added the sound of horse hooves. Clip clop, clip clop.
Mary picked up the first file, ignoring the barely concealed laughter.
“Martin Gulinski,” she said, and held up the first file.
“Farty Marty!”
“He’s been dead for ten years, and while he was alive, he smelled like he’d died ten years ago!”
Mary took out a pen and sighed.
“As much as I enjoy the colorful commentary,” she said. “Let’s try to stick to dead or alive, current whereabouts, next of kin.”
“He changed his name,” this from a guy sitting in the middle of the group. He sort of looked like Mickey Rooney. “Gulinski was too ethnic. He thought he wasn’t getting work because of it. So he changed it to Gulls and then got cancer and died. Should’ve stuck with Gulinski.”
“He had children,” another man added. “I think in Portland. He could never figure out why they were black kids. Looked just like the UPS man.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “The kids. Boys or girls?”
“Two boys, I think.”
Mary wrote down “Gulinski,” and “Portland.” She’d look the sons up and call them, try to confirm that their father was indeed dead. She’d leave the flatulence part out.
Next file.
“Marie Stevens,” she said.
“Dead!”
“She’s not dead. She just disappeared.”
“OD’d in the seventies.” This was from Braggs.
“She was always a partier,” another guy added. “I think I tapped that.”
“You couldn’t tap a quarter barrel, Roger.”
“Children?” Mary said.
“Thank God no. The Devil’s Spawn. She was crazy.”
“Where was she from?”
“Wisconsin.”
“Texas.”
“She wasn’t from anywhere else. She was from here. A native.”
“No way! Marie was crazy! You couldn’t believe a word she said.”
“Family?” Mary asked.
“No way,” a man said. “She was too ‘out there.’ I think she probably didn’t have family – that’s why there’s nothing on her.”
“Pauper’s grave, probably.”
“You know what they call dead bodies in L.A.?” a guy in the back called out.
“What?”
“Studio audiences!”
Mary tried to keep her patience.
“Jesus Christ, you guys don’t know anything,” a guy standing near the doorway to Alice’s kitchen said. “Marie’s buried at Forest Hills, for fuck’s sake. Harvey Mitchell paid for the whole thing. The burial and stuff.”
“Where is that bastard anyway?” someone said. “Is he at the proctologist again or is he just too good for us?”
“The procto’s – he goes every day!”
Mary wrote down ‘Forest Hills’ next to Marie Stevens’ information.
She pulled out the next file.
“Matthew Bolt.”
“Fatty Matty!”
“He’s in the union. An electrician or something.”
“That fuck couldn’t change a light bulb!”
“Hey, how many proctologists does it take to change a light bulb?”
Silence.
“As soon as he takes his finger out of my ass I’ll ask him!”
Again with the proctologist gag, Mary thought. No wonder these guys were bagging groceries at the Albertson’s.
Mary wrote down “Union electrician” next to Matt Bolt’s name.
The next file.
“Betty Miller.”
“Ready Betty!”
Too bad nicknames weren’t a lucrative industry, Mary thought. These guys would have been rich.
“Man she was great,” said the Castro guy. With all the cologne. “You could always count on Bett
y for a good screw. At one party she did like six or seven guys.”
“Yeah, in six or seven minutes.”
“Speak for yourself, Speed Shot,” Castro snapped back.
“She moved back to New York,” someone added. “Got married. Did some plays. Bulked up and died of a heart attack, I think.”
“Anyone know her married name?” Mary said.
“She married a poor Jew. Didn’t know there were any in New York.”
“Guy’s name was Schneider.”
“If you find her,” one old man advised Mary. “Lift her up and check underneath – he might be squished.”
Mary wrote down “New York” and Betty Schneider, left out the squished bit.
“Last one,” Mary said, and picked up the remaining file.
“David Kenum.”
There was silence.
“No cool nicknames?” Mary asked. “Venom Kenum?”
The men stared back at her.
Finally, Braggs spoke for the group.
“That guy’s bad news,” he said. A low whistle followed his comment.
“Don’t follow up on that one, unless you want to go out to Chino.”
“A regular Boy Scout, huh?” Mary said.
“Well, he sure knew how to use a knife,” one of the men said. “He cut up a woman one night. Raped her. Murdered her. Claimed his doctor gave him the wrong medication.”
“Anyone know if he’s still alive?” Mary said.
“Doubt it.”
“That his real name? David Kenum?”
“Far as we know,” one of the men said.
“You know, he didn’t get life,” the tall guy said. Prescott was his name.
“Why not?”
“The whole medication thing.”
“What’d he get?”
“Something like 80 years.”
“I heard he didn’t have to serve it all, though.”
“How would you know?”
Prescott looked around the room.
“I heard he got out last week.”
Chapter Forty
Mary started with David Kenum. The guy who had already killed once. And as much as she believed that some people could change, the coincidence in this case was too great to ignore.
She ran his name through her programs and knew it would take several hours to get back all of the results. Mary desperately wanted to use Jake for research, but she wasn’t yet ready to tip him off.
In the meantime, while she waited for Kenum’s information, Mary turned to the old guys themselves.
One by one, she used her notes to check them off. Prescott. Castro. Reihm. She had no way of determining guilt or innocence, she simply sought confirmation that they were the people they said they were.
Two hours later, she had managed to confirm the basic details of all the men in the room, as well as Harvey Mitchell, who had not been in attendance.
Satisfied that Brent’s gang was at least superficially verified, she then turned to the files.
And started with the least likely first.
It took two phone calls and one visit to a public records website to confirm that Martin Gulinski, a.k.a. Martin Gulls, had in fact died, leaving at least one son in Portland. Mary took the Gulinski folder and filed it with the others that she had eliminated as possibilities.
She did as much as she could with Marie Stevens. The manager of Forest Hills told her that there was a Marie Stevens “resting” there, but inquired as to which one she was interested in. When Mary described what she needed to know, he cut her off and said that kind of information wasn’t allowed over the phone.
Mary accepted the fact that she would have to drive out there and speak to the guy in person. She tried to find out more about Marie Stevens, including records of arrests in California and public information regarding mental institutions, but to no avail. However, she felt reasonably confident that one of the Marie Stevenses at Forest Hills would be the one she was looking for.
So she set that folder aside, instead of filing it.
Matt Bolt. One unofficial visit to a Union website confirmed that a Matt Bolt was employed in the Los Angeles area. The site listed an address and a phone number for Mr. Bolt.
She called the number.
“Hello?” a woman said.
“Hi, I’m looking for a Matt Bolt.”
“Oh, yes. Who is calling?”
“I’m a secretary with the union,” Mary said. “I just need to confirm his withholding allowances.”
“Okay, hold on.”
Mary heard the phone being put down, the sound of a television’s volume being lowered, and then a gruff voice came on the phone.
“’lo?”
“Mr. Bolt?”
“Yeah?”
“Fatty Matty?”
A sigh. “Who is this?”
“My name is Mary Cooper. I’m a relative of Brent Cooper.”
“Ah. I heard he’s dead.”
“Last time I checked, yes, he was.”
Bolt gave a little grunt, not of apology, just recognition.
“Had you kept in touch with him at all, Mr. Bolt?” Mary asked.
“Why? What is this?” he asked.
“In addition to being Brent’s niece, I’m a private investigator and have been asked by some of his associates to aid the police investigation. Now, tell me…”
“What am I, a suspect?”
Mary didn’t even bother answering that one.
“You watch too many movies, lady.” Bolt laughed.
“Thanks for your input,” she said. “Now, do you know anything at all about my uncle? Anything that could help me in the course of the investigation?”
“Look, honey, I’ve been in New Zealand for the past two months shooting a film called TO THE LAST BONE. I just got back yesterday. You can check with my boss, or my union or whatever. I wasn’t even in town when he was killed.”
“So you do porno?”
“What?”
“TO THE LAST BONE. It’s a porno flick?” Mary said.
“No! It’s not porno. It’s an action film. Knife-fighting and crap like that.”
“So tell me how you made the change from comedy to being an electrician,” she said.
“Guess I wasn’t funny enough. Look, what do you want from me?”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Brent?”
“Lots of people.”
“Do any of these people have names?”
“Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but he could be an ass.”
“What about that group you used to run around with? Whitney Braggs, Noah Baxter, Harvey Mitchell.”
“Ah, those guys. Why don’t you ask them?”
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
He didn’t answer and Mary heard the sound of a television being turned on in the background.
“What do you know about David Kenum?” Mary said.
“What?”
“David Kenum.”
“Have you talked to him?” he said.
“Just through the mail, I wrote him and asked him to marry me,” she said. “I’m one of those prison groupies.”
“Yeah, right. You’re a Cooper. I can tell.”
“Stop with the compliments. So? Kenum?”
“No, I don’t know anything about the sicko,” Bolt said. “The guy’s bad news. Killed a girl. That’s all I know.”
“Did you hear he was out of prison?”
A sharp intake of breath and then, “He is?”
“Yep. Paid his dues. Thoroughly reformed. Ready to be an upstanding citizen.”
“Look,” Bolt said. “I gotta go. You need anything else from me?”
“Nope, got everything I need.”
“Good. Bye.”
“Oh, wait!” Mary said. “Is the red positive or the black? I always get those mixed up.”
All she heard was a dial tone.
Chapter Forty-One
Next up: Ready Betty
. Does six or seven guys at a party. Moves to New York. Does a few plays. Marries and dies of a heart attack.
Mary wondered if that was how her obituary had read. She idly wondered about her own obit. Would it be boiled down to a few pathetic facts like that? Worked as a private investigator. Never married. Owned lots of shoes. Killed a couple people. Died of an embolism while trying to sweat a confession out of a teenager.
Nice, Mary. Keep up that positive thinking.
She forced her negativity aside and focused on the task at hand.
Mary used her paid subscription websites that helped her find a couple dozen Betty Schneiders. She eliminated all of the ones that didn’t fit the age range. Then she eliminated the ones that had never lived in southern California.
By the time she was done she had a half dozen Betty Schneiders.
Using the last known addresses and phone numbers, she eliminated another four.
Two left.
Within five minutes, she learned they were both dead.
Mary considered stopping. Why not? They both couldn’t have done it. But then she chided herself and it took another half hour to figure out which dead Betty Schneider was the infamous Ready Betty.
She spoke with a daughter who told Mary that her mother had in fact died of a heart attack, and that she had lived in L.A., trying to make it as an actress. The daughter had started to go into Betty’s life story but Mary begged off. The daughter did mention that Betty had weighed over three hundred pounds when she died. Heavy Betty.
So Mary crossed her off the list.
She pushed back from her desk and looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath.
It was time to go all out on finding David Kenum.
Chapter Forty-Two
Years ago, Mary had been given the opportunity to obtain a username and password for non-classified state of California government websites.
The opportunity had been presented to her by a happy client who also had these same privileges. Although her possession of access to the network was most likely prohibited, there had never been any questions or issues directed to Mary.
Therefore, it was relatively easy to access David Kenum’s prison information, at least everything that was deemed non-classified. It appeared to her that everything about David Kenum was non-classified.
