“So any crummy dick with a gun could’ve killed her? Is that what you’ve found out?”
“We’re working on it right now. We’re all working on it. We’re going to find the guy who did this.”
Andy slammed his fist down on my desk. “Guess what? I no longer care who killed her,” he said. “I don’t want to spend another nickel on her. Fuck it, Jack. Fuck it.”
I shook my head. “Please think this through. If we don’t find Shelby ’s killer, the police will continue to focus on you.”
“Let them. They have nothing on me and they’ll get nothing. You just put yourself out of a job, Jack. You’re fired.”
Andy knocked his chair over as he got to his feet, then he steamed out of my office. He almost ran Colleen down as she came through the door.
“Did I hear right?” Colleen asked, putting a hand on her hip. I saw that she was wearing her new watch. “He fired us?”
“No. Well, yeah. He’s upset, but he’s my friend. I’m moving the Cushman case to the pro bono list,” I said. “We’re still working it. Only now we’re doing it for free.”
“I’ll take care of it, Jack,” Colleen said. Then she shut the door to my office. “Am I still your friend, Jack?”
Chapter 54
Cruz parked his car outside the Benedict Spa and watched as an absolutely stunning young blond woman came out the front gates and strolled down the hill toward where he sat watching her promenade.
She was about five-foot-one, small boned, with a short boyish haircut, wearing black bicycle pants, a green spandex top, and flat shoes. She disarmed her Lexus convertible alarm as Cruz approached.
“Hi, could you wait up a second?” he said, walking toward her. She got into her car and locked the door.
Cruz took his badge out of his back pocket. He flashed it and made the universal motion to ask her to roll down her window.
“What are you?” she asked. “FBI?”
“Private investigator,” he said, smiling at her. “I just need a moment. You work at the spa, right? This won’t be hard, I promise.”
“I can’t talk to you. Please step back so I don’t run over your toes.”
“My name is Emilio Cruz. What’s yours?”
“I’m Carla. Make an appointment, okay? I can talk to you at the spa all you want. For hours, if you like.”
“Carla, stay right there in your car. Keep the door locked. I have two or three questions, that’s it.”
Carla, last name unknown, put her key into the ignition and started the car. Cruz crossed in front of the hood around to the passenger side. Carla reached across the seat and pushed the lock button down, but the window was half open.
Cruz reached in, pulled up the door handle, and got into the car.
“Get out or I’ll scream. I’ll call the house and someone will come out here and beat the hell out of you, buddy. They can get real ugly in a hurry.”
“I come in peace. I’m not trying to upset you,” Cruz said. “I just want to ask you about Shelby Cushman.”
“Let me see that badge again.”
Cruz held it up. “I’m licensed,” he said. “But I’m not a cop. I’m here for Shelby.”
Tears suddenly formed in the woman’s eyes. That surprised the hell out of Cruz.
“I loved her,” she said.
“I’ve heard terrific things about her.”
“She would cry for you when you were upset. She’d give you the shirt off her back-even if you didn’t want it. And she was so funny.”
“So what happened to her?”
“What I heard? I don’t know if this is the truth or not. She was in her bedroom, and someone shot her. Shot her twice.”
“How do you know where she was when she was shot, Carla?”
“There was talk around the pool. Wait. I think Glenda said it.”
“Who told Glenda? This is important.”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know anyone who would’ve done anything to Shelby,” Carla said. “But I’m glad you’re trying to find out who killed her.”
Cruz said, “Just between us, you think the Noccias had anything to do with this?”
Carla folded her arms and seemed to shrink into herself. “Is that what you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“ Shelby was a moneymaker and absolutely no trouble. I just don’t see it.”
Carla was clearly getting restless, and nervous. Cruz smiled at her. “I’m almost done. Who were her regulars? Did anyone in particular strike you as volatile? Or possessive? Or vindictive?”
“Not really. But a couple of guys booked her a lot,” Carla said. “Two of them came in a few times a week. Shelby only worked days.”
“Who were they? This could really help. Did Shelby talk about them, her regulars?”
“ Hollywood types. One is a film director. The other is an actor. A bad-boy type. I can’t tell you who they are. But maybe you can figure it out. Do you like movies?”
“Sure, who doesn’t?”
“You ever seen Bat Out of Hell?”
“Thanks, Carla. You’re terrific.”
“Don’t mention it.” She revved the engine. “Really. Don’t tell anyone. And please don’t be paying me any visits, in there or out here. I’m taking one hell of a chance as it is, sweetheart. I don’t want to end up like Shelby.”
Chapter 55
Cruz and Del Rio trooped into my office. Cruz combed his hair back with his fingers, refastened his ponytail. Del Rio righted the chair Andy had knocked over and sat in it.
“Andy fired us? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I had to tell him about Shelby and the spa. He couldn’t believe it.”
“Ooof,” Cruz said. “I feel for the guy.”
“Me too,” I said. “Ever wish you were wrong?”
“He fired us because you told him the truth, huh?” said Del Rio.
“He’ll change his mind in a few days.”
“You think?” Cruz said.
“So, how are you doing?” I asked them. “We’re still working this case, right? We’re going to find out who murdered Shelby.”
Cruz put a hand in his inside pocket. He withdrew a narrow notebook and started to report. He said that he’d interviewed a woman who worked at Glenda Treat’s spa and that she’d given him the names of two clients who saw a lot of Shelby Cushman.
“They’re both in the entertainment business,” Cruz said. “I did some research. Also, I checked with the New York office. One of the guys, Bob Santangelo, came from Brooklyn. You know him?”
“I know his name. I think I’ve seen him in a couple of movies.”
“Pugnacious type from back east. One of those actors who don’t give TV interviews. Likes to throw his weight around.”
“He saw Shelby a lot?”
“A few times a week, apparently. The other guy is Zev Martin, an A-list director, works for Warner Brothers a lot. People say the A stands for asshole in his case. Apparently, he’s quite in love with himself.”
“Bat Out of Hell,” Del Rio said. “Horror classic, freakin’ masterpiece. I saw it about six times. Martin directed it. Santangelo played the bad guy.”
“Both of them are married,” Cruz continued. “Neither has a record.”
“License to carry?” I asked.
“Negative,” said Cruz.
“You have a preference?”
“Nope.”
“You take Santangelo,” I said to Cruz. “Keep in touch.”
Chapter 56
Del Rio and I drove to Warner Brothers studios out in Burbank. I showed my badge at security, then told them to check with the studio head, who was a client. A couple of minutes later, I drove down the wide, bright roadway through the lot, past the commissary and the soundstages, out to the bungalows that were laid out in a campus-like setting.
We found Zev Martin working on his motorcycle to the side of a white house with his name stenciled over the door. He was a small guy in his thirties with t
ightly clipped facial hair and a barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps.
I introduced Del Rio and myself while Martin squinted up at us suspiciously. “What?” he asked.
“We’re investigating the death of Shelby Cushman,” I said. So far, this line had proven to be a conversation stopper. This time was no different.
“You saw her several times a week,” Del Rio said. “At the Benedict Spa. Did she ever say anything to you about anyone giving her trouble there?”
Martin stood up, wiped his hands on a dirty rag, and said, “You don’t go to see girls like that so you can listen to their problems. Pretty funny idea, actually. Is that what you do?” Martin said to Del Rio. “You pay women to talk about themselves? Why don’t you just get married?”
Del Rio ’s bruises were still dark and plentiful. He looked like a pit bull who’d been matched with an equal-and won.
“I don’t pay women,” Del Rio said. “What kind of guy does that, I wonder.”
“Rick,” I said, “wait for me in the car, please.”
But he didn’t listen to me. He grabbed Martin by the shirt and pulled the collar tight at his throat. The bike went over, folded in on itself.
“We don’t want any of your bullshit,” Del Rio said into Martin’s face. “Tell us about Shelby or after I beat your brains in, I’ll personally tell your unfortunate wife about your unfortunate visits to the spa.”
“Hey! What’s with you?” Martin squealed.
I heard the bleeping of a security cart coming up the roadway in our direction.
Martin was going red in the face as Del Rio wrung the next few words out of him. “ Shelby was in love with some guy. Not her husband, okay?”
“Rick,” I said, grabbing him from behind, “let him go.”
“Who was this guy she loved?” Del Rio said, shaking the director.
“I don’t know. It was a rumor with a few of the other girls. Shelby never mentioned it herself.”
I wrenched Rick off Zev Martin and apologized as Rick stalked off toward the car.
“Are you okay?” I asked Martin.
“Fuck no,” he said, running his hand around his throat.
“ Del Rio is a vet,” I said, leaving out that he was also an ex-con. “He’s suffering from PTSD. I’m very sorry.”
“I should have him charged with assault,” Martin said, as the studio cop cart parked at the curb.
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think you want any more attention drawn to this situation,” I said.
I avoided looking at the security cop and walked back to my car. I got in and slammed the door.
“It better not be that Shelby was in love with you, Jack,” Del Rio muttered. “ ‘Close friends,’ I think you called it.”
I started up the car and said to Rick, “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you take yourself off your meds?”
He was curled up against the passenger door. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Have you ever sleepwalked?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I wake up, I’m behind the couch, or in the closet, or outside on the lawn. I have no idea how it happened. I have nightmares, bad ones.”
“Take the rest of the day off, Rick. Go home and get some sleep before you get us killed.”
Chapter 57
Justine sipped room-temperature coffee from a cardboard cup.
The cop she’d tracked down, Lieutenant Mark Bruno, was sitting behind his desk in an office overlooking the homicide division bullpen. Bruno was somewhere around forty years old, stocky, thoughtful. Five years ago, he’d been one of the detectives working the Wendy Borman murder case in East LA.
“Wendy had been dead a day when she was found in that alley,” Bruno was saying. “It had rained. That just added to the tragedy. Whatever trace might have been left on her body was washed right down the tubes.”
“What’s your theory of the case?” Justine asked.
“More than a theory. There was a witness,” he said. “Somebody saw the abduction.”
Justine started and sat up straight in her chair. “Wait. There were no witnesses.”
“Yeah, there was. The papers didn’t carry the story because, for one thing, the witness was eleven years old. A girl, Christine Castiglia. Her mother wouldn’t let her talk to us for long, and what she saw didn’t actually amount to much.”
“I’m desperately seeking a lead,” Justine said. “I need whatever you’ve got, however insignificant it may seem.”
Bruno said, “Nobody ever put Wendy Borman together with the schoolgirls. You’d make a good cop-if you could afford the precipitous drop in pay.”
“Thanks,” Justine said. “But I could be wrong about this angle.”
“Well, you just keep sticking your neck out,” said Bruno. “I’m not one of the cops with a hate-on for you, Dr. Smith.”
“Justine.”
“Justine. I don’t care who catches the son of a bitch. In fact, now I’m rooting for you. Obviously, we need all the help we can get.”
Justine smiled. “Tell me about Christine Castiglia.”
Bruno swiveled his chair a hundred eighty degrees, opened a file drawer behind him, and took out a spiral notebook with “Borman” written on the cover in thick caps. He swiveled back around and rubbed his forehead as he flipped through his notes, saying, “Uh-huh,” from time to time before he looked up again.
“Okay, I remember most of this pretty well. Bottom line, Christine and her mother, Peggy Castiglia, were in a coffee shop on the corner of Rowena and Hyperion. The girl is facing Hyperion and she sees two guys throw a girl into a van-”
“Two guys?”
“That’s what she said. She couldn’t be sure that the abducted girl was Wendy Borman. And we couldn’t establish Wendy’s time of death close enough to say if she was killed within the time the Castiglias were eating.”
Bruno sighed. “But she saw two guys. In effect, that was pretty much the beginning and end of our investigation. Nothing else was turned up.”
“Was Christine able to give a description of the men? Of either of them?”
Bruno shuffled through the pages and came up with an Identi-Kit approximation of a young man with curly hair and glasses. His features were regular, almost bland. Not much help there.
He turned the book so Justine could see it.
“This drawing tells me Christine didn’t get a good look at his face,” Bruno said. “The perp had dark hair and glasses, and that’s all she saw.”
“Too damn bad, huh?”
“Yeah, but I’m remembering now. Christine also saw the back of the second guy. He was shorter and had longer, straighter hair than the first guy. Great news, huh? That eliminates all but a couple of million white males in LA.”
“Did she look at mug shots?”
“No, we couldn’t get her to. The mother rushed her daughter out of here like her hair was on fire. Nothing we could do to change her mind.”
“She was eleven,” Justine said. “So she’d be sixteen now, high school sophomore.”
“I never really stop thinking about Wendy Borman,” said Bruno. “Here’s the Castiglias’ last known address.”
Justine said, “Thanks, Mark. One more thing that might help me. I could use an introduction to the best cop you know in cold cases.”
He nodded his head slowly. “Consider it done.”
Chapter 58
It took Cruz the rest of the day and into the night to get anywhere near the film star Bob Santangelo-and he only managed it by hanging outside Teddy’s Lounge like some goofy groupie waiting for the actor to head out to the street with his entourage.
Cruz drifted a ways behind a bodyguard through the mob scene. He got to the pearly gray Mercedes at the curb as it started to roll. He pressed his badge up to the tinted glass of the windshield, and the car jerked to a stop.
The back door opened, and a bodyguard climbed out. Asian or Samoan. Big. “What do you want, sir?”
“I just have a co
uple of questions, then Mr. Santangelo can be on his way.”
A voice came from inside. “It’s all right.”
Santangelo was in the backseat. He was tanned, with short brown hair and ten o’clock shadow. He sported a brown leather bomber jacket like the one he’d worn in The Great Squall. The actor slid over, and Cruz got in beside him.
Once again, the gray sedan moved off from the curb.
Cruz said, “My name is Emilio Cruz. I’m a private investigator.”
“What the hell?” Santangelo said. “I thought you were a cop.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Cruz said.
“So what is this? Is Ellen having me followed?”
“I don’t know your wife.”
“But you know her name is Ellen. Tell me what this is about and do it fast. When we get to Gower, that’s the end of the ride.”
“I’m investigating the death of Shelby Cushman.”
“Jeez. Poor Shelby. I’m serious. I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”
“You knew her for a while? How long, Bob?”
“Just a couple of months. You ever meet Shelby? Well, she was one sweet lady. Plus she was hilarious. Here I am, married, have everything, and all I really wanted was to be with Shelby. I fell in love with her. I think I actually did.”
“Where were you when she was killed? Sorry to have to ask.”
“I was flying to New York with Xo,” he said, indicating the muscle in the front seat. “I had dinner with Julia Roberts at Mercury that night. Check it out if you need to.”
“I will. If you had to name someone who might have wanted to hurt Shelby, who would it be?”
“I don’t know, man. Her dealer? Orlando something. She borrowed some money from me to pay him once. I never actually met the dirtbag. He set up a lot of girls at the spa.”
The actor leaned toward the driver, told him to pull over. He said, “This is your stop, Mr., ah, Cruz.”
Cruz smiled and shook his head. “Drive me back to Teddy’s. That’s where my car’s parked. Now that we’re such good friends.”
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