Random Revenge

by William Michaels

  “You always leave that downstairs door wedged open?” Winter asked, following her into the apartment. To his left the door to the bathroom was open, the air conditioner on high, but not enough to cool even the small apartment. A sofa in the middle of the room sat facing the front windows, on the side wall a newish big screen television. A large air conditioner box sat on the floor, unopened.

  “Sometimes. The landlord is too cheap to put in a buzzer.” Upton cleared a pile of clothes from the only chair in the room, and said, “Here.” She sat on the sofa, tossing the clothes over the back cushion.

  “Sorry it’s so hot,” she said. “I just bought the AC units. A friend of mine put the one in the bathroom, but this one,” she kicked the boxed unit, “hadn’t arrived yet. I had to order it online, can you believe the stores in town are out of AC units, in the summer? Isn’t that when people need them?”

  Winter nodded. “It’s like trying to buy winter gloves in February, all the spring clothes are out.”

  “Exactly,” said Upton. “Anyway, now I’m having a problem getting someone to install it. The local store says they won’t since I didn’t buy it from them. I would have, if they had any in stock. It’s too heavy for me.”

  Winter grinned, she was turning on the subtle charm for him. If she were a few decades older, she might have batted her eyelashes. The fact that she didn’t told him right away that she was probably a pretty good actress, he didn’t doubt this was a woman who could get a guy to do anything. He played along, and it was hot . . .

  “I can probably give you a hand.”

  He waited to see if she gave him an exaggerated, “Oh, could you?” or some other bullshit, but all she said was, “Thanks, I’ll get a knife to open the box.”

  “I got one,” said Winter. He pulled his lock blade out, opened the box, slid out the air conditioner, and scanned the quick start sheet. He’d done this before, they were all the same. “Can you open the window you want it in?”

  “I may need help, it gets stuck.”

  She crossed by Winter, closer than she needed to, giving him a nice view of her rear, intentionally, he thought, as she opened the window. Winter said, “You’re in luck, you won’t need a bracket.” Upton looked over his shoulder, appearing to be interested, a little in his space. If she was nervous about a cop being in her apartment she didn’t show it.

  Winter manhandled the unit into place. “You might want to shove some foam insulation along the top and sides, but this will work for now. Where’s your circuit breaker box?”

  “In the kitchen alcove.”

  Winter found it, there were just three fifteen amp breakers. “You might not want to plug too much other stuff in when this is running,” he said. He turned the unit on, waited for the compressor to kick in, and when he was satisfied the breaker wasn’t going to blow he sat back down.

  “Thanks,” said Upton.

  “No problem.” Winter had taken a good inventory of the apartment as he had worked, the refrigerator on its last legs, and the small toaster oven had seen better days. If Upton was getting cash from Jason Ayers to keep quiet about the assault, she wasn’t spending it here on anything other than air conditioners and a television. Of course, she could be buying lots of clothes, or have a coke habit . . .

  “What happened to the other detective?” asked Upton. She curled her feet up under her on the sofa.

  “He had to take care of another case. I’m just helping him out.” Winter waited, giving Upton a chance to ask the question every victim always asked, ‘Did you catch him?’ But Upton didn’t say a word. “I saw you on a television show.”

  Upton raised her eyebrow. “You don’t strike me as a man who watches The Other Woman.”

  Winter held up his hands. “Guilty. I saw a video of it, on a phone screen. And not the whole show.”

  “That was my first big break, that show. I’ve been doing grunt work for years.”

  Upton made it sound like a decade, and maybe it was, Winter didn’t know when actresses started out. “How’d it happen?”

  “You know what the show is about, right? They heard about me and Jason, and he’s got that fake publicity thing going with Ashley Hanna—”

  “Wait, Ayers isn’t really seeing Ashley Hanna?”

  Upton tossed her head. “Well, they make sure to be seen together, it’s good marketing. Half the relationships in Hollywood are like that, couples show up together, especially if their publicists can make a good story out of it. But Ashley—she’s not Jason’s type, you know what I mean? She fits the persona they are building for him now, sure, but that’s not who he really is.”

  “And you know this because you know Jason?”

  Upton smiled. “Sure. We’ve been—close, on and off for years. Not always exclusive, although we did that too. That’s why this thing with Ashley doesn’t bother me, Jason is just doing it for his career. It’s actually good for Ashley too, she’s so storybook, and Jason looks the part.”

  Winter had no idea what Ashley Hanna looked like, he was more interested in Ayers. “When you spoke to Detective Ryder, you said that someone had broken in?”

  Upton shrugged. “I’m not sure, I was a little out of it. He told you about the sleeping pill, right? And I’d had a few drinks—I wasn’t driving or anything. Just some wine. I was really wired, then I crashed. Anyway, I woke up, I felt that someone had been here, but it was all so hazy, and now that it’s been a while, it’s even harder for me to remember. I’d been with someone earlier in the evening, and I might have just—confused the two, you know?”

  “Jason?”

  “Look, I really don’t want to get him in trouble. He’s got a good thing going on the show, I wouldn’t want to ruin it for him.”

  “When you were with Jason earlier, that was here?”

  “No, at his hotel. He doesn’t keep an apartment in Marburg anymore, he moved to LA. He’s just in town for the location shoots.”

  “And you think he may have come here that night?”

  “Anything’s possible. Jason is—we’ve had a hot and heavy thing, I can give him what he’s not getting from Ashley Hanna.”

  Winter was impressed with her ability to not provide details yet make it clear what she was implying. “Does he have a key to your place?”

  “No, but he’s been here plenty of times. And . . . I might have been so out of it I forgot to lock the door.”

  “We spoke to Ayers, he denies all of this.”

  Melanie laughed. “Of course he does. It’s part of the game. What’s he going to do, make it public that he was sleeping with me? But I’ve been with him, a lot.” She nodded toward the bedroom. “You guys can do DNA, right? I’m sure Jason’s DNA is all over the place.”

  Winter prided himself on never trying to assume how an interview would go, but even he was surprised. Upton seemed oddly unconcerned about—everything, the assault, even Ayers lying about it. It was a big game they were all playing. And yet, if Ayers had assaulted her . . .

  “On the show, I saw a clip of you at a party, it looked like Ayers was grabbing you pretty hard.”

  Melanie looked away. “He can be a little rough. Sometimes.” Her eyes came back up, right into Winter’s. “Sometimes I like it.”

  Now it was Winter’s turn to look away, this was too much information, even for a cop. “Why did you call the police?”

  “I don’t know.” Upton absently scraped her fingernail against the sofa cushion. “It felt so real . . . and I’d been broken into before. I mean, if some man was in here, that’s pretty scary.”

  Winter let it sit, but Upton didn’t add anything. “If a man came in without your permission, and touched you in any way . . .”

  “I know, I know. But like I said, I might have imagined it, or it might have just been Jason, and I really don’t want to screw up what he’s got going.”

  Winter thought he was pretty good at reading people, but Upton was giving off confusing signals, a mix of self protectionism but also denial. He�
��d seen the denial before in sexual assault victims, especially if the attack had been committed by a friend. But something else was going on, and Winter didn’t quite know what it was.

  What wasn’t lost on him was her acceptance of Ayers using the Ashley Hanna story for publicity, and her own dropping of Ayers’s name on the show that by her own admission was her big break. Everyone using everyone else . . .

  He wouldn’t have to leave anything out of the interview in order for Ryder to get another shot at Upton, there were so many avenues to pursue, all of them probably dead ends. Unless . . . “Miss Upton, if you tell me right now that Jason Ayers assaulted you, we can proceed on that.”

  Upton twirled her hair, looking in her lap. Finally she said, “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “You can’t, or you don’t want to?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Is anyone stopping you? Are you afraid?”

  Upton shook her head, “No. I don’t think it will happen again.”

  “If you change your mind,” said Winter, “or feel clearer about that night, you should call us.” He got up to leave. “And don’t prop that door open downstairs. You might want to get a deadbolt up here, too.” Both were obvious, steps assault victims would have already taken, more mixed signals for Winter.

  “Okay, I’ll do that.” Upton uncurled herself from the sofa. “I’m not sure I’m going to be around here much longer. I’ve been getting a lot of offers, hopefully I’ll be heading west soon.”

  Winter didn’t think he was going to get much more out of her. He’d seen women afraid of the men who had assaulted them—Tully’s girlfriend, for instance—but Upton didn’t appear afraid of Ayers. He tried one more approach. “If Ayers did something to you, we need to know. But if he didn’t—you shouldn’t go telling people that he did. Especially on television. Understand?”

  “I never said he did, not really.”

  Winter decided to let it go. If Upton kept pushing Ayers as the man who assaulted her she’d have more to worry about than his warnings; no doubt Ayers would get a lawyer and sue her for defamation. And if he didn’t sue her, that might mean he was guilty . . .

  There was still the issue of the deposit in Upton’s account, but Winter had no good way of asking her about that. She certainly didn’t look like she was rolling in money, the air conditioners couldn’t have cost that much. “We might want to talk to you again,” he said.

  “I don’t know how much more I can tell you. And I may be out of town a lot, casting calls, New York, LA.”

  Winter was thinking about that as he reached the door, casting calls, actresses. He turned and said, “Can I ask you something? I’m working on another case, there’s this guy, a photographer, he was taking lots of pictures of actresses.” Winter had left the tablet in the car, so he couldn’t show her the good photo, so he had to use the one on his phone. “Lenny Gruse, he’s a photographer. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

  Upton pursed her lips. “I don’t know, it’s hard to tell from that. There are a lot of photographers, and even more guys pretending to be photographers.”

  “They hit on you?” asked Winter.

  “You would not believe,” said Upton. “I’ve learned to ignore them, it’s all background noise.” She wrinkled her lip, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug. “Guys like that, they don’t even register. I don’t remember them.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Winter spent another hour showing Gruse’s photo around, with no luck. He headed back to the station to force himself to write up some notes, which he hated doing. He wanted to go home and take a nap because he was going to be out late that night, hitting the clubs. Logan never gave him a hard time about keeping a strict schedule when he was on a case; Cindy had to remind Winter to put in for his overtime.

  Winter found Ryder in his cubicle, probably not only writing his notes, but preparing a presentation for Logan. Maybe he could think of a way to get Ryder to do his notes for him . . .

  Winter leaned his forearms on the short cubical wall. “Well, you should be happy. I left you plenty of reasons to go back and interview Melanie Upton.”

  Ryder looked up. “You left something out?”

  “I didn’t have to, she did. She says he did it, she says he didn’t do it. That something happened. Or didn’t.”

  “Something happened. The SAFE kit . . .”

  “That just means she had recent sex—it could have been before the assault. And now we know she was with Ayers earlier that evening.”

  “She told you that?”

  “That was one of the few things she was clear about.” Winter filled Ryder in on the interview.

  “I interviewed Gigi Doyle today, the sister. You know what she said? She said that Upton and Ayers had a thing going from way back. Or had an on and off again thing, starting way back. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, although I can’t figure out why Doyle would lie about it.” Ryder drummed his keys, not typing, just clicking out a cadence. “Ayers was pretty adamant about not—wait.” He moved the mouse, reading off the screen. “Son of a bitch. Ayers denied paying Upton, and he denied he attacked her. He said, ‘She crashed the party to get me to give her a part on the show.’ But he never said how well he knew her before that.”

  “So what do we have here? A real assault? Or a lover’s quarrel?”

  “Or both.”

  They both thought about that for a while, then Winter said, “Upton could be sleeping with Ayers in hopes of getting a part on the show.”

  “Or Ayers is making Upton have sex with him and promising her if she does she’ll get a part.”

  Winter was glad Ryder was stuck with this one. “Upton seems more interested in the publicity she’s getting from the assault than about catching who did it, which would only make sense if it was Ayers.”

  “Even if he knew her, he’s still guilty if he forced his way in, did something to her when she was under the influence.”

  “I know. You can sort it all out.” Winter thumped on the top of the wall. “I’m going to go home and sack out for an hour or two, I want to show Gruse’s photo at the clubs tonight, and go back to the Hilton bar. And since I just told you the details of my interview with Upton, can you write it up in your notes?”

  Winter had napped, changed, eaten, and had two cups of coffee. Feeling refreshed, he left his house just after eight. Not quite dark yet, but the days were getting shorter, which meant people would be hitting the clubs earlier in the evening. On his way to the Hilton he stopped at a dance spot called Kahoots, a 70’s throwback, or maybe they just hadn’t updated it since then. No one knew Gruse. Three other clubs went the same way; Winter wasn’t expecting much, just trying on the off chance he’d get lucky, killing time until the Hilton got busy.

  The Hilton was packed, the news about Jason Ayers must have brought out the celebrity seekers. Winter pushed his way through the crowd to the bar. Between martini shaking and draft pulls, he found out that the two bartenders were part timers brought in to handle the crowd, they didn’t know anything. Winter wished he could jump up on the bar and shoot into the ceiling to get everyone’s attention, like in the old westerns, that would save time.

  Instead, he made a circuit, trying to put himself in Gruse’s frame of mind. Where would he stand to be on the lookout for women to photograph and also approach? Winter found the spot, at a table just off to the side of the entrance, behind a row of the ubiquitous hotel fake greenery. Through the palm fronds anyone coming in could be checked out, but they’d likely be looking ahead at the bar. Once inside, the location provided a perfect view of the bar area and most of the tables.

  Across the room, Winter spotted four younger women at a booth, early twenties maybe, the type Gruse might be interested in. A good place to start.

  Up close, they were younger than they had appeared, but who could tell these days. All four were dressed to the hilt, bare shoulders, plunging necklines, lots of makeup, short outfits. Two were texting, the other two peop
le watching. On the table was a shared tapas platter and four colorful drinks.

  Winter had barely identified himself when one of the women, a doe eyed brunette with hair to her waist, said, “We’re not drinking alcohol, officer.” Which only served to confirm to Winter that they were even younger than his revised estimate.

  “Relax, that’s not why I’m here. Just don’t go sit at the bar, okay? Do you all come here a lot?”

  The long haired girl said, “Mostly since they started shooting Shock and Awe.”

  That led to some laughter, and Winter held up Gruse’s photo on the tablet. “Ever see this man here?”

  The four huddled around the tablet. “He’s not with the show, is he?”

  “No. He might have had a camera, offering to take your picture?”

  Four shrugs. “Not a guy we’d remember. Now if you happened to have a picture of Jason Ayers . . . Hey, you wouldn’t know if he’s here tonight, would you?”

  Winter fought the urge to tell them he’d seen Ayers at Chucky Cheese, which is where he’d want these girls to be if they were his daughters. Instead he left them to their celebrity vigil and tried a few more tables, with the same result.

  He leaned against one of the few open spots at the bar, alone in the sea of partiers. He found it slightly surprising that he hadn’t yet found anyone who recognized Gruse. The four girls at the booth were watching everyone who came in. Surely they’d have noticed a guy with a big camera. Not a guy we’d remember . . . that reminded Winter of Melanie Upton’s response to his question about Gruse. She said she wouldn’t have remembered a guy like Gruse either. Maybe a common female defensive mechanism against the desperate male.

  Upton—men would certainly remember her. She’d said she had met up with Jason Ayers at this hotel. Winter wasn’t getting anywhere with Gruse, so he pulled out the tablet again—he was getting addicted to the gadget—and clumsily found the video of The Other Woman show. He looked around, decided the bar was as a good a place as any, and nudged the man next to him. He was talking to another guy, but spun his stool to face Winter.