Fourth Wall (An Anthony Carrick Mystery Book 8)

by Jason Blacker

“At least you’ve got a breathing mask,” I said.

  And with that he donned it and went back about his business. We three left the way we came. Outside I opened a fresh pack of cigarettes and lit one. I half-heartedly offered one to Beeves, not remembering if he smoked or not. He didn’t. The headache was gone and the cigarette took the edge off my nerves.

  “Any news on Rip?” I asked.

  Roberts looked down and shook his head.

  “Unfortunately not yet. I’m sure we’ll get him soon though. But that’s not where we’re headed.”

  “Nope, it isn’t,” I said. “But can’t hurt to talk to him. Maybe we’ve been misinformed.”

  “Do you have anything?” asked Beeves. “You were at Rodeo Drive, weren’t you?”

  I nodded, I sucked on my cigarette and blew smoke out my mouth.

  “Yeah, pretty interesting. But not actually Rodeo Drive. Guess that’s too expensive for them. They’re on Beverly Drive. Styles is the owner of Britain’s Best. That’s where the Pommies were bought,” I said. “She didn’t have any footage, her video is on a seventy-two hour loop. But she remembered the guy who bought six Pommies.”

  “When was that?” asked Roberts.

  “Friday May twenty-seventh,” I said. “Around four twenty.”

  I winked at Roberts. “Four twenty, right, you get that?”

  “Yes, Sid, I get it,” said Roberts, sighing like an old helium balloon losing its fight with the atmosphere.

  “You get out of bed the wrong side this morning, Rotten? Or are you just unhappy to see me?”

  “No, it’s not that. The Mayor’s on Chief Burton and Burton’s on my ass. We’ve had three celebrity murders now. And they’re chewing me out.”

  I nodded. I knew all about that.

  “Don’t sweat it, O Captain, my Captain, our fearful trip is almost done.”

  I was grinning at him like a fat lizard in the desert sun. I was feeling like a million bucks. But I was thirsty as a fire hydrant neglected in the summer heat. At least it got a smile out of Roberts.

  “Carry on,” he said.

  “She remembered the guy because not many people buy that many Pommies. If they’re gonna buy more than one or two or even three, they’ll spring for a case as it’s cheaper. She happens to remember this guy because he wouldn’t go for a case and he wasn’t very personable. He also came in about an hour after one of her regulars bought a case of Pommies.”

  “So you think she’s reliable?” asked Roberts.

  “I do.”

  “Did she say what he looked like?”

  “Didn’t really describe him but she did say that she thought she’d seen him before. I showed her a picture of Emmett and she said it wasn’t him. After further prodding she thought he might be one of the homeless that comes scrounging through the garbage on Beverly Drive every so often. Though she said he was cleaned up.”

  Roberts nodded.

  “That’s not super helpful.”

  “Don’t be such a drowning downer,” I said. “She figures she’d be able to recognize him if he showed up again and she’s gonna call me when he does. He might lead us to who’s behind this.”

  “I don’t think it’d be Penman dealing with a homeless man to buy juice, do you?” asked Beeves, looking at his boss.

  Roberts shrugged. He looked stooped and heavy with the weight of bureaucracy on his shoulders.

  “I’m with ya,” I said to Beeves, “I don’t think she’d be the one to deal with a homeless guy, but wait, there’s more.”

  Roberts looked up at me like a tired old man whose stoop had become normal.

  “So I went to see Balalaika from Brigitte’s Baskets and Gifts after speaking with the troubled twins from yesterday.”

  Roberts nodded.

  “She had some really helpful information. Let me get right down to the nitty gritty.”

  I put my hand into my jacket pocket and pulled out the printed copy of Gudaitis’ image. I unfolded it and handed it to Roberts.

  “Who’s that smiling lad?” I asked him.

  He shrugged and passed it over to Beeves.

  “Dunno,” said Beeves, handing me the image back.

  “Jesus, you guys are worse than the cat ladies at my Aunt Sally’s Murder Mystery Club for Amateurs.”

  “Anthony, I’m not really in the mood,” said Roberts. “The Chief’s on my ass and I’m trying to keep my breakfast down from the scene inside this place. Speak frankly, if you don’t mind.”

  I looked at Beeves, he gave me a knowing smile. I figured playing it straight was probably the way to go now.

  “We haven’t seen that guy in the image,” offered Beeves.

  “I know,” I said, “and neither have I. But I figured some sleuthing and deductive reasoning, my dear Watsons, would have got you some place. Let me spell it out to you two Keystone Cops.”

  I folded out the image again and showed it to them.

  “The guy’s wearing a baseball cap, right?”

  I got nods.

  “And what’s on his baseball cap?”

  “Role of Jimmy Mime, it says,” said Beeves.

  I nodded like an encouraging school teacher.

  “And the bag?”

  “It says Midnight Walks with Madness,” said Beeves again. Roberts was looking off towards the gate. I didn’t see what had caught his attention.

  “Right, and what do those two names have in common?”

  “They’re both Orpen movies,” said Roberts. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Well,” I said. “They’re both Orpen movies, but this is not Orpen in the image, is it?”

  “No, it’s not. I thought you were gonna tell us who it is,” said Roberts.

  “Well, if it’s not Orpen, I thought to myself it’s gotta be someone related to the movie somehow. I doubt it’s any of the other actors, you never see them wearing things like this. So it’s either, a, gotta be movie staff or b…”

  I looked at them like an eager beaver.

  “Someone Orpen knew, like a friend,” said Beeves. “You think this might be that Clifton somebody or other.”

  “Bingo,” I said, “I’m gonna call you Captain Beeves from now on. Yeah, I think this is Clifton Gudaitis. At least it’s enough to pick him up for a chat. Let’s do that.”

  Roberts took the image from me and had another look at it.

  “I suppose he’s about the right age,” he said, “to be a friend of the deceased. We can ask him to come in but I don’t see that we’ve got anything on him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You’ve gotta look at the rest of the tape. Get a copy from Brigitte before it gets taped over.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “Jesus, am I to spell everything out for you? What do you think’s on it? Gudaitis is bringing in the Pommies and paying for the gift basket to be sent to Mary. Did you get forensics back on what was in the juice?”

  “Yeah, just heard this morning before we came over,” said Roberts. “The Pommies were laced with arsenic and ethylene glycol. According to our people there was probably enough arsenic in each bottle to do the job and she drank almost three.”

  “Anti-freeze,” I said, “and arsenic.”

  Roberts nodded.

  “There you go, he’s paying for a gift basket to poison the actress. That’s at least conspiracy to commit murder,” I said.

  Roberts didn’t say anything. So I tried a different tack.

  “How would a person get arsenic?” I asked.

  “Or pure ethylene glycol for that matter,” said Roberts. “It wasn’t windshield deicer that was being used, it was pure ethylene glycol so we’re told.”

  “Shit,” I said, “she didn’t have a chance then, did she?”

  Roberts shook his head somberly.

  “No, either would’ve been enough to kill her.”

  “And it wouldn’t have been a good way to go,” I added.

  “We’re trying to figure out where these p
oisons could’ve been bought. We believe they were bought from the dark web on a site called JollyRogerLocker dot com. NSA has seen sales on there in the past three months for arsenic and ethylene glycol from a user with the name millstonesrevenge.”

  Beeves was looking over his notes.

  “But we don’t know who that is or where the poison was mailed to.”

  “Yeah, but Millstone’s Revenge sounds a lot like Penman to me. A young woman raped when at Millstone Academy and those responsible now dead.”

  Roberts nodded.

  “We’re building a case, but we don’t have her on any video feed. She accepted the gift basket and gave it to Mary, that’s something, but we don’t have her buying the Pommie or the gift basket. And of course the NSA’s trying to hack into JollyRogerLocker dot com but that could take some time, if ever.”

  “Yeah, but she was at the Ancher party and at the play,” I offered.

  “Right, but she wasn’t here early this morning from what we can tell, and if she poisoned Ancher and Beale, why did she then choose to shoot Orpen? It’s off script.”

  “What about the coffee mug or mug of hot chocolate from the Ancher home?”

  “Nothing in the coffee mug, just like Kordel said. The mug of chocolate and the bottle of almost finished champagne were loaded with Percocet and Lunesta. Definitely more than enough to put her to sleep so she’d drown in the pool.”

  “There you go, we know Penman wasn’t outside during the fight between Orpen and Peso. That gave her plenty of opportunity, plus she gave Ancher that hot chocolate which she didn’t tell us about, and we know she has loads of motive.”

  Roberts nodded.

  “Yeah, but a lot of that is circumstantial, I want more.”

  “Put her in a room and we’ll get it out of her,” I said.

  Roberts smiled at me.

  “You want to beat up on a female perp, Sid, that’s unlike you.”

  I laughed sarcastically at him.

  “That’s funny. You know I’m not like that. No, but I’m thinking maybe this Gudaitis has something. I mean, why’s he involved? He was one of the Y2K gang right? Kordel and Smelter didn’t tell us if he was there at the time she was raped, but maybe he’s started to feel guilty about it?”

  “Right, and so he’s helping the woman that nobody friended at school get vengeance for her rape. And we’re not just talking about burning dog shit by the front door but actually help kill people? Anthony, you’re reaching for straws and not just real ones, but ghostly ones,” said Roberts.

  My phone rang. It was nine thirty. It was Britain’s Best.

  “It’s Britain’s Best,” I said, “maybe Styles has seen the homeless guy.”

  I answered the phone. I spoke to Styles for a few minutes and then I hung up. I nodded at them.

  “She’s pretty sure she saw the homeless guy this morning going through the trash when she was opening up. I’m gonna head up to see if we can’t talk to him.”

  Roberts nodded. He looked at Beeves.

  “Go with him and make sure he doesn’t do anything he shouldn’t.”

  I smiled at Beeves, and walked out the gates and towards my car. Beeves followed. Rodeo Drive was less than ten minutes from where we were. I wasn’t gonna lose my chance to talk to this guy.

  “Roberts really likes you,” said Beeves.

  “Yeah, we go back a long ways,” I said.

  “I think he wishes you two were still back on the job together.”

  I nodded at the dash.

  “What happened?” asked Beeves.

  I looked over at him for a moment. He seemed like an honest guy. But I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anyone except for Roberts that I knew of.

  “You ever taken graft?” I asked.

  I looked at him as he answered.

  “No fucking way. I’m a cop,” he said, genuinely pissed I’d even asked that question.

  “So you think all cops are untainted? Living alongside the law, doing good and never breaking it. Never taking a little cash here and there?”

  “Yeah, the ones I know.”

  “Well, then I’ll tell you this. I drink too much and sometimes I’m heavy handed with perps. Burton doesn’t like me and I resigned.”

  Beeves looked at me for a long time.

  “Bullshit,” he said after some time. “Then why you on about graft?”

  I didn’t say anything. I just shrugged and frowned at the windshield. I’d get that sonofabitch one day. When I had some real evidence to go to the DA.

  EIGHTEEN

  Britain's Second Best

  I parked in practically the same spot I’d had yesterday. We walked into the store and were greeted by Beverly.

  “Does anyone think you’re named after the Drive your store is on?” I asked, grinning at her.

  “No,” she said, “but I sometimes tell them it was named after me. Are you here to see my mum?”

  I nodded. She didn’t sound British but she still called her mother mum. I found it curious. But it probably helped the business if they carried an air of authenticity. Her mother sure sounded like a Brit. Beeves and I waited for a while.

  “You ever been to England?” Beeves asked me.

  I shook my head.

  “You?”

  He shook his head too.

  “It’s never really interested me,” he said.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  He studied me for a moment.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Why not,” I said.

  “Because to be honest, Anthony, I’d rather find out more about my own history than the people who enslaved my people. At least in a nutshell that’s it.”

  I nodded.

  “I can get behind that,” I said. “You know, it’s funny. My people, and by my people I mean the Irish, weren’t so welcome here at one point either.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Nothing like slavery of course, and I’m not comparing it. But back in the mid eighteen fifties there was some discrimination against the Irish and the stereotypes that the Irish have become known for.”

  “And you’re not breaking them,” said Beeves, grinning at me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you just said on the way here that you drink too much.”

  “Right, yeah, I suppose.”

  “But you’ve probably never experienced racism?” said Beeves.

  I looked over at him and shook my head.

  “I’m sorry it’s like that,” I said. It was the best I could do.

  Styles and Styles walked back out together.

  “This is Detective Gregory Beeves,” I said, introducing him to Styles and Styles. “We’re working on the case together.”

  He shook Kathleen’s hand and they greeted each other.

  “You said you thought you saw the guy who bought those Pommies off you?” I asked.

  Styles nodded.

  “Could you show us where he is?”

  “Certainly,” she said. “It’s easier if we go through the back into the alley.”

  We followed her through the store into the backroom I knew from yesterday and then out into the back alley where the big dumpsters are.

  “He went this way,” she said, pointing north.

  We followed her as she walked in the direction she’d pointed. Two businesses away from Britain’s Best a tramp was digging around in a dumpster. He pulled out some bottles and put them in a bag he was carrying near a trolley he had with him.

  “That’s him,” she whispered to me, “can I go now?”

  I nodded at her and smiled.

  “You might need to identify him in a line up depending on how we get on.”

  “Okay,” she said, and then she quickly walked back towards her store.

  The homeless guy watched us as we walked towards him. He was nervous.

  “Remember what Roberts said,” Beeves said, reminding me. I grinned at him and nodded.

  “
Good morning sir,” said Beeves, pulling out his badge and showing it to the man. “I’m Detective Beeves with the LAPD.”

  The tramp backed up against the dumpster and fiddled with his black garbage bag. He was a slim man around my height in dirty clothes which consisted of gray slacks and what might have been a white shirt. He had no belt and his shoes were leather loafers that had walked many miles in many feet before he got them. His stubble was about a week old and salt and pepper colored. His hair was dirty gray with white streaks in it, greasy and dirty. Wrinkles and creases cut up his face and made him look older than he was. He was missing a couple of front teeth and the ones that were there weren’t in good shape.

  “I ain’t done nothing wrong,” he said, his eyes flickering around in his sockets like moths at a light bulb.

  “No sir, we don’t believe you have,” said Beeves. “But we believe you can help us with a question. Your help could be real valuable.”

  His eyes still darted in all directions like loose marbles in a fishbowl. I figured he was gonna try and run. I’d seen it before. If that was the case he was making a big mistake. The last thing I wanted to do was run down a stinking homeless guy and wrestle him in the back alleys of Beverly Drive. Not after I’d just got a handle on my headache.

  But he decided to go for it. He made a valiant effort to run past me. But it was an easy reach for me to stick my foot out and trip him up. He went flying like an ungraceful footballer going for a touchdown. His black bag of bottles helped cushion his fall as cans and plastic bottles went scuttling out of it like fumbled footballs.

  I leaned down to grab him and helped him back to his feet. I wasn’t in a good mood.

  “You do something like that again,” I said, “and we’re gonna take you downtown and keep you there for a real long time.”

  I had my fist bunched up around his stained white shirt that was more cream and gray. He reeked of the sweet aroma of alcohol and the stench of aged sweat. I stared at him hard. He nodded his head.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, “I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “We didn’t say you’ve done anything wrong,” I said, releasing my grip on him. He leaned back against a green metal dumpster. He looked at his bottles and cans all strewn about.

  “You can pick them up,” I said.