Pacific Homicide

by Patricia Smiley

  Davie hadn’t wanted to waste time picking up a car at the station, so she drove her Camaro, parking it curbside in the circular driveway between two patrol cars, so close the bumpers were almost kissing. The potential for scraped chrome might annoy somebody, but there was no street parking on this stretch of Lincoln. It was dark outside and she wasn’t in the mood to hoof it back to the scene from blocks away.

  As she walked toward the building, an onshore breeze rattled the fronds of three palm trees near the entrance. Polynesian torches flanked the door and batik curtains draped across the windows in lazy folds. That South Seas look seemed dated to her, but the sign on the door read Luxury Apartments—No Vacancy, so maybe muumuu retro was making a comeback. For all she knew it had never left.

  Three malnourished young women in various stages of undress stood outside the front door shivering in the night air, their hands cuffed behind their backs. A male whose raid jacket identified him as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agent was standing guard.

  A man well into middle age stood nearby wearing handcuffs, a wedding ring, and a pair of black thong underwear, the latter partially obscured by fifty pounds of paunch. He hung his head, likely assessing that skimpy V and wishing he’d reached for the boxers that morning instead.

  A sheriff’s deputy leaned against his patrol car, arms crossed and looking bored. Also milling around the area were several uniformed LAPD officers, including a female wearing a commander’s star. The presence of top brass plus the unusual nighttime service of the warrant confirmed that this operation was a big deal.

  Davie heard somebody call her name. She pivoted toward the voice and saw Detective Quintero striding toward her sporting an adrenalin-juiced smile. He issued a brief greeting and motioned her toward the building.

  “What’s with ICE?” she asked.

  “Satine smuggled some of the girls into the States through Mexico. If any of them signed up of their own free will, they’ll serve time for prostitution and then get deported. If not, they’ll just get deported. It all works out in the end.”

  “Unless they end up dead.”

  “Occupational hazard. The witness is inside talking to one of my guys. Her name’s Tatiana Bolshov. We had to call in a Russian interpreter. These lamplight loreleis don’t speak much English. In their line of work, I guess the language of love is enough.”

  “I doubt love is the word you’re looking for, Q. Dig deeper. I’m sure you can find something more appropriate.”

  Quintero gave her a sidelong glance, time enough to assess any damage his comment may have caused but not long enough to let her think he cared. “Beef me if I offended your feminist sensibilities. I was only joking.”

  “I would but you’re not worth the paperwork.”

  He grinned. “Did you get coffee like I told you? Because if you did, you left your sense of humor at Starbucks.”

  They made their way through the lobby past a bank of mailboxes with a faux grass overhang and a chandelier made of seashells. Quintero eyed the six-foot wooden tiki guarding the elevator door and mumbled, “Ugly bastard,” as he knuckled the up button.

  “If I get even the faintest whiff of coconut air freshener,” Davie said, “I’m taking the stairs.”

  “I got one of those little evergreen trees from the carwash hanging on my rearview mirror if that makes you happier.”

  “One more reason never to ride shotgun with you.”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside the car. Quintero pressed the button for the fifth floor.

  “What did you learn from the witness?” Davie asked.

  “She claims she answered an ad for a modeling agency in a Kiev newspaper. But instead of making the cover of Vogue, she ended up blowing johns on a waterbed in Marina del Rey.”

  Davie raised an eyebrow to remind him how he had disregarded that information at their previous meeting. “Sounds like my victim’s story.”

  “Look, I got no time for I-told-you-sos, so don’t start with me, okay?”

  “How did Satine keep the girls from walking away?”

  “He took their money, cell phones, and if they had passports he took those too. Then he locked them up and threatened to kill their families back home if they tried to escape.”

  “So much for your theory that the girls were here willingly.”

  At the fifth floor, the doors opened and Davie followed Quintero onto the landing. “Were they ever allowed to leave the apartment?”

  Quintero turned right down a long hallway. “Some trolled for clients at Satine’s nightclub. Sometimes they got to leave with a john but only with an escort waiting nearby.”

  Midway down the hall, they entered an apartment with windows that overlooked traffic on Lincoln Boulevard. Three detectives wearing blue raid jackets with police in white letters on the back and an LAPD badge stamped on the left front panel searched the living room. Davie saw nothing you might find in a home where real people lived, such as photographs or mail. Even the furniture looked rental.

  “This one is two bedrooms,” Quintero said, “but he had several other locations across the city. The setup was the same. The girls did their business in the master suite. When they weren’t working, they were locked up in the spare bedroom.”

  At the end of the hall, Davie saw a door fortified with a dead bolt lock accessible only from the outside. As soon as Quintero turned the knob, the tangy stench of cigarettes, onions, and dirty bodies pushed against her as if it had been waiting for a chance to escape.

  “I forgot to warn you,” Quintero said. “Smells sort of ripe in here. That’s why we closed the door. The windows are nailed shut and the girls didn’t exactly have maid service.”

  Despite the hype on the sign outside the building, there was nothing luxurious about the bedroom where the girls spent most of their downtime. There was no furniture, only mattresses strewn across a stained beige carpet. Boxes of condoms and pizza boxes littered the floor. Davie noticed a cockroach suspended between death and deliverance in the jelly part of a half-eaten donut.

  Quintero pointed to two black garbage bags in the closet. “Those belonged to your victim. Bolshov kept the stuff because she thought your girl was coming back. She was pretty broken up when she found out she was dead.”

  “What’s inside the bags?”

  “Mothballs and broken promises.”

  “Very poetic.”

  “I have my moments. All I found was a bunch of dirty clothes and a few knickknacks, but you’re welcome to see for yourself.”

  33

  In contrast to the squalor of the spare bedroom, the master suite was beautifully appointed. In addition to a king-sized waterbed, there was a matching dresser and end tables that held tastefully arranged items that made the place look like an upscale hotel room. The cloying aroma of vanilla-scented candles masked any stench that might escape the other bedroom.

  Tatiana Bolshov had lied. She did speak English. Shortly after the translator told her Davie was investigating Anya Nosova’s murder, Bolshov told the guy in passable English to leave the room. As soon as the door closed, she demanded a cigarette.

  Davie stepped over a used condom and leaned against the wall. “They’re bad for your health.”

  Contrary to what Quintero had told her, Davie saw no puffy eyes or tear-stained cheeks to indicate the girl was grieving over Anya’s death. Bolshov sat on the king-sized waterbed with a black satin sheet swathing her body. The sheet added bulk and possibly warmth to her wraithlike figure, but it didn’t thaw her expression, which was as cold and calculating as a feral cat scrutinizing lunch.

  “You think I am afraid of cancer?” Her arms swept a wide arc to indicate the bedroom and presumably all that had gone on inside it. “After this?”

  “Not to downplay what happened to you in this apartment, Ms. Bolshov, but you can’t fix dead.”
>
  Bolshov stood, causing the waterbed to roll and pitch. She walked to the nightstand, dragging the sheet behind her. She searched inside a drawer until she found a stray cigarette.

  “You have match?”

  Davie shook her head. “Tell me about Anya Nosova.”

  She put the cigarette in her mouth unlit and eyed Davie with a cagy stare. “What will you give me if I tell you who killed her?”

  “I can’t give you anything but information. You’ll probably not be charged with prostitution if you’re here against your will.”

  She threw the cigarette on the carpet. “You think I am stupid? Even in Kiev we have lawyers.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “I work for Grigory for six months. He owes me money. I want you to make him pay. Then I hire good lawyer to get me green card.”

  A large gilded mirror hung on the crimson wall behind Bolshov, reflecting her unruly thatch of toffee hair and the determined set of her bony shoulders. On the nightstand were tools of her trade: a jar of lubricating gel and an odd-shaped plastic object that reminded Davie of a corkscrew. Bolshov probably deserved compensation for that tool alone, but that wasn’t her call to make.

  “If you need financial help, there’s something called the Crime Victim’s Fund. You can apply. No guarantee you’ll get anything, though.”

  “Anya has fur coat. I want that too.”

  So much for the hooker with a heart of gold, Davie thought. Claiming a dead girl’s coat seemed like a petty prize. She wondered if Bolshov had squirreled away whatever was in those plastic bags expecting Anya to return, or if she had always meant to keep the items for herself. If there was a coat, Davie decided to search it thoroughly in case somebody had hidden the Czar’s crown jewels in the lining—or maybe something more valuable, like a thumb drive that stored details about Satine’s crime syndicate.

  “The coat is evidence. When the investigation is over, it belongs to Anya’s parents.”

  Bolshov plopped onto the bed, creating a tsunami of gurgling water. “Coat is old. Why would they want it?”

  “If they don’t, I’ll add your name to the waitlist.”

  “I want to be on top.”

  Davie resisted the obvious comeback. “That depends on what you know about Anya’s death.”

  Bolshov’s expression hardened as she prepared to haggle for a better deal. “You will tell them I need victim money?”

  “You have trust issues, Ms. Bolshov.”

  “In Kiev, the police cannot be trusted.”

  “This isn’t Kiev.”

  She hesitated but apparently realized haggling over promises made and kept was the least of her worries. “Before Anya leaves us, she goes to a see a man at a motel in Hollywood. He beats her because she will not do what he wants. Somebody hear her scream and call police, but this man run away. Lana is waiting in car but she can do nothing. Police take Anya away. We never see her again.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  She counted silently on her fingers. “Maybe five months.”

  Davie had checked law enforcement databases. Anya Nosova’s name did not appear anywhere in those records. “Did she use another name when she went to see men?”

  “Ask Lana. She give us all fake IDs and tell us to lie if police stop us.”

  “Did a detective ever contact her to follow up?”

  “How? We have no phones. Anya would never give police this address. She would not tell them anything.”

  Out in the hallway, Davie heard the sound of heavy footsteps and low conversation, indicating the search was still underway.

  “Why was Anya allowed to leave this apartment and you weren’t?”

  Bolshov’s toe herded the fallen cigarette toward her. “Some men would not come here.”

  “What men?”

  “Men who did not want to be seen. Men with wives. Men with money. Who knows?”

  “There has to be more to it than that. Why was Anya so special?”

  “She was smart girl. Men like her the best. She tell Grigory she can make more money if he let her come and go.”

  “So he said yes? Just like that?”

  Bolshov closed her eyes and sniffed the tobacco. “What you think? He is stupid? She was never alone. Lana was always there.”

  “What do you think happened to Anya?”

  “Maybe police kill her.”

  “Try again, Ms. Bolshov. What about Satine? Wasn’t he upset when he lost one of his best girls?”

  “I know what you think, but Grigory did not kill her. He did not know where she was.”

  “What if he found out?”

  She shrugged. “You are detective. Is your job to know that.” Bolshov punctuated her sentence with a grand gesture, whipping up another waterbed swell. The sloshing sound was starting to make Davie seasick.

  “Did Lana keep a record of her customers? On a laptop or in a little black book?”

  “For tax man, right?” Bolshov flashed a sly smile. “I have seen her with a book but it is not black.”

  Davie remembered the notebook Lana carried when she interviewed her at the liquor store. “Is it purple?”

  Bolshov nodded. “The ink too. I think it is full of names and telephone numbers worth a lot of money.”

  Davie did the math. According to Anya’s dad, she left for the US approximately nine months ago. Bolshov claimed that after living in the Marina del Rey apartment and servicing Satine’s clients for four months, Anya was assaulted at a motel in Hollywood. She never returned to the apartment, but she did resume contact with her father.

  If a man assaulted Anya in Hollywood Division, detectives from Major Assault Crimes would have investigated. Spencer Hall transferred to Hollywood MAC about that time, shortly after their officer-involved shooting. Even if Anya had given a phony name on the report, he might remember the case. As much as Davie dreaded the idea, she had to talk to him again.

  Bolshov had never seen the john and could offer no further information. With luck, Quintero had found Lana’s purple client book at one of the search locations. If so, Davie hoped to find the man’s name and contact information inscribed inside in purple ink.

  That is, if anything Tatiana Bolshov had just told her was true.

  34

  A few minutes after Davie had concluded her interview with Bolshov, two patrol officers led the woman out of the apartment in handcuffs. Davie slipped on a pair of latex gloves from her jacket pocket and dragged the bags of Anya’s clothes from the bedroom into the living room, where the air was less toxic. The sound of drawers opening and closing filtered in from the adjacent kitchen as detectives continued their search.

  A killer had robbed Anya’s parents of their child’s future—a college graduation they would never attend and grandchildren they would never spoil. Now their hopes and dreams had been reduced to the contents of two plastic garbage sacks.

  Inside the first bag, she found a photograph of a young couple on their wedding day. Anya’s parents, no doubt. Davie saw the resemblance to the girl in the man’s almond-shaped eyes and in the woman’s long slim fingers, clutching her husband’s arm. Another photo was an eight by ten glossy of Anya. To say the pose was provocative didn’t do it justice. Her negligee was black and transparent. She was bending over at the waist with her thong-covered ass aimed toward the camera and her head canted to reveal a naughty expression on her face. The picture left no doubt as to why Anya was popular with her customers. Davie wondered if the photo had been used on a website that had since been taken down or was hidden somewhere on a darknet site that was available only with special software and authorization.

  The bag also contained two ruffled dresses that looked like costumes for a revival of Meet Me in St. Louis. There were no labels inside the clothes, and the finish of the seams looked homemade. Davie imagined Anya�
��s mother stitching the garments in a naïve misunderstanding of what life in L.A. was all about. In the bag were other outfits as well—sexy and revealing—for another life her parents didn’t know about. Davie thought about the denim and black polyester in her own closet and wondered what value judgments someone might make about her under similar circumstances.

  She tried to imagine her own mother hunched over a Singer, sewing clothes for her, but the idea was so farfetched it wouldn’t come into focus even as a fantasy. Homespun couture wasn’t part of Evelyn Cross’s skill set. Her Neiman Marcus tastes on a cop’s salary was the match that ignited the dry tinder of her marriage to Bear, eventually reducing the family to smoldering ashes.

  Davie continued searching through Anya’s clothing, hoping to find a mysterious key or a pawn ticket—anything that might lead to her killer. She found two crumpled cigarettes but nothing else. The second bag held a set of wooden nesting dolls similar to the one Davie’s mother had brought back from St. Petersburg on her honeymoon cruise with husband number two. Davie disassembled the five dolls but found nothing hidden inside. She also found the fur coat with a label lettered in Cyrillic, probably brought to L.A. from Anya’s home in Ukraine.

  Davie slipped her hand inside a pocket and touched something square and rough. Pulling it out, she saw a small wooden box painted with the words My heart belongs to you. A flimsy metal hinge opened to reveal a red wooden heart nestled inside.

  Hearts everywhere—the bedroom wall of Anya’s apartment, the silver necklace she never took off, and that red beaded purse that Davie had recovered from Viktor Marchenko. Now this. Anya had told both Gallway and Lucien that she had argued with her roommate, who later disappeared with all of Anya’s personal property. That was a lie. Anya had left this apartment with only the clothes on her back. So except for the heart box in the pocket of her coat, she had collected the other heart items later. Davie wondered if Anya’s mysterious boyfriend had given her all the heart-themed gifts. If so, he had likely known her when she lived in this apartment, working as a prostitute, and had continued to see her after she escaped.