Shadows May Fall

by Corcoran, Mell

  “Yeah, Katarina purrs.” Lou stopped what she was doing to see what Dillon had found. “Why?”

  “This whole drawer is related to Spank Me.” Dillon had a hard time saying the name without laughing. “There’s a designated folder of threats from Spank Me.”

  “That’s interesting.” Lou wasn’t sure why. A guy like Griffen probably did business with every porn production company in Southern California. “What kind of threats?”

  “Looks like a whole bunch of emails and letters about someone named Hunny Trainer.” Dillon looked up at Lou with a pained expression. “What the hell? Why would a woman allow themselves to be given a stage name like that?”

  “How do you think she got that name?” Lou replied. “What kind of woman would do that kind of acting?”

  Dillon shuddered. “I just don’t get porn.”

  Bronx walked in just in time to hear Lou laughing at Dillon. “What did I miss?” He asked.

  “Not a whole lot.” Lou was grinning. “We were just having a philosophical discussion about porn names.

  “Oh!” Bronx looked excited. “Were you playing that game?” He asked.

  “What Game?” Dillon and Lou asked in unison.

  “You know!” Bronx explained. “The game where you take the name of the first street you ever lived on and the name of your first pet, it makes your porn name!” You could see Dillon and Lou calculating in their heads. “Mine is Jefferson Butch.”

  Lou laughed. “What’s your actual first name?” She asked the deputy, feeling bad she hadn’t bothered to ask until now.

  “Xander.” The deputy informed her, proudly. “I know, not exactly a traditional Irish name. My mom said it’s Greek and means Defender of the people. So I was born to be a cop!”

  Dillon smiled. “You realize your real name sounds more like a porn name than your fake porn name? Lou started laughing hysterically as Bronx pondered that a moment.

  “Wow, it does!” He had to laugh too.

  “Okay, so what’s yours, Lou?” Dillon was dying to know.

  “It doesn’t work for me.” She answered once she regained her composure.

  “That’s crap!” Bronx called her out. “Just tell us!”

  “Fine but I’m telling you, it doesn’t work for me.” She shook her head. “Kingsbury forty-six.” Dillon and Bronx looked at each other in puzzlement. “The first place I lived was on Kingsbury Avenue and, my first pet was a sea turtle but he was a foster rescue and, he only had a number. They were really strict about us not giving real names so we wouldn’t get too attached.”

  “You gotta be the only person I have ever met that the game never worked on.” Bronx was astounded. “Okay, what about you Dillon?”

  Dillon hesitated. “Liberty Sparks.” Lou and Bronx erupted in laughter. “It’s not that funny.”

  “But it is!” Lou insisted. “That’s it!”

  “What?” Dillon asked.

  “Your nickname. Sparky!” Lou doubled over with laughter and Bronx began to snort.

  “Get over yourselves already and get back to work.” Dillon hid his embarrassment. “I’m hungry. I want to get the hell out of this skeevy place before I catch something.”

  “Oh! That reminds me of why I came up!” Bronx suddenly remembered. “Tech just pulled up. I wanted to check and see if it was alright to send them up or not?”

  “Give us five more minutes.” Lou instructed.

  “You got it.” Bronx started to leave but stopped short. “Oh! Princess Charming’s name is Mia Longo.”

  “Of course it is.” Lou would have smacked her forehead, but she didn’t want any germs she had been touching actually to hit her skin.

  “She’s screaming left and right.” Bronx filled them in. “Yelling that Jerry is gonna sue our asses, make sure I give her my badge number, all kinds of stupid.”

  “So she doesn’t know Griffen is dead?” Dillon wondered if her boss was predisposed to vanishing for days on end without a word.

  “Not a clue, from the way she’s ranting and I sure as hell ain’t gonna tell her.”

  He put his hands up in the air and resumed walking out. “Way above my pay grade.”

  After turning over every cushion, checking the backs of all the pictures, checking under drawers and even under a loose piece of paneling, they figured they had as much as they could scrape up without getting into the computers and phone records. They filled a couple of empty file boxes with all the material that could even be remotely relevant to their case, then looked around one more time. After agreeing their work there was done, they grabbed the boxes and headed out. Bronx and Johnson were on loan from West Hollywood station, so that was where they were headed to question Miss Longo. It was only a sixteen-minute drive if they took Laurel Canyon, and impossible to miss since it was smacked up against the lauded Red Building of the pacific Design Center. Neither Dillon nor Lou could understand what all the fuss was about with the garish monstrosity of architecture, and they knew that would offend a lot of people if they ever admitted it. It was an extremely trendy part of town with some of the best restaurants within walking distance. Lou was looking forward to introducing Dillon to Millions of Milkshakes, which was just at the end of the block. Lou had a lot of pals at West Hollywood too, some of which had gone through the academy with her. It was always fun to be there and see what whacky stuff the colorful residents were doing. Upon their arrival, they walked into a what Lou referred to as a Tom-Cat fight. Dillon didn’t understand why Lou called it that and not a simple cat fight, but when the one lady ripped off the others wig, which prompted her to yell in her actual voice, Dillon understood that they were not biologically women. For the next ten minutes, he fixated on trying to understand how the men could walk so well in heels while Lou made the rounds saying hello and checking in with the Watch Commander. They were assigned a spot to work where they dropped off their boxes then headed to the interrogation room to deal with their charming pugilist.

  “I ain’t talkin’ to you bitch!” Miss Longo pointed and bobbed her head from side to side for emphasis.

  “Then talk to me.” Dillon instructed. “She’ll just sit and watch.”

  “You like it when they watch, poppi?” Longo slinked back in her chair and attempted to look sexy.

  Dillon resisted the urge to gag. “Let’s talk about your boss for a bit.”

  “You know Jerry is gonna be pissed if he gets back and I ain’t there!” She sat back up, thankfully hiking her top back up as she did. “You can’t just bust in and go all Storm Trooper like that!”

  “What is it you do for Jerry, exactly?” Dillon kept his questions focused.

  “Whatever he wants, you know what I’m sayin’ poppi?” She licked her lips, but it reminded Lou of a bulldog cleaning his mouth after he ate.

  “Do you answer phones? File? Take dictation? What?” Dillon was losing patience already. He wanted a shower in a bad way. “You bet I took his dic...”

  “Okay, that’s enough of the flirty cutie whatever it is you think you’re doing right now.” Dillon slapped her file on the table. “Let’s start all over and let’s start with your real name, Rosita.” He began at the top of her file and started working down. “You’re a long way from Washington Heights, mija. Not enough porn for you back in New York? Or were you looking for a change of scenery from Central Booking?”

  “Screw you!” She spat at him.

  “No thanks. What exactly was your job description, Rosita?”

  “My name is Mia!” She spat at him again.

  “Okay, I’m done.” Dillon looked to Lou and gave her a forced smile. “Have Bronx book her on the assault, add a count for spitting at me and let’s get those milkshakes.” He stood up from the table.

  “So I answered phones!” Ms. Longo answered reluctantly. “I kept track of his calendar, picked up his dry cleaning, brought him lunch, coffee, whatever he wanted.”

&
nbsp; “Then why weren’t you answering the phones today, Mia?” Dillon leaned over the table. “Get a little distracted checking your Facebook or something?”

  “I had a headache!” She huffed.

  “What about yesterday?” Dillon found it hard to believe that she didn’t wonder why her boss hadn’t shown up for two days.

  “I had the day off to do a shoot out in Chatsworth.” She whined. “What is Jerry being a little bitch about me getting a job behind his back? Is that what this is all about? Am I being punked?”

  “Do you make the Terrenea reservations for him?” Dillon ignored her question.

  “What the hell is this all about?” She scowled.

  “He’s dead.” Lou blurted it out. It was harsh, it was cold, but she was sick of this piece of work’s attitude.

  “Nuh uh, you lyin’!” Longo cracked a grin. “Okay who put you guys up to this? ‘Aight, you bitches had your fun now cut the shit. I wanna go home.”

  “She’s not lying, Mia. Jerry’s dead. Now, what can you tell us about it?” Dillon measured her reaction carefully. She sat there for a long time as if re-running his words in her head, translating them to Spanish, then back again until they finally hit home. She began to sob.

  What they could glean from Miss Longo, in between the sobbing hysteria, was that there were a lot of people that called and screamed at Gerald Griffen every day. He had about a dozen adult film actors under his management and any one of them, or one of the producers that were sick of dealing with them, was calling every day with some problem or another. He was also the cheapest man she had ever met, refusing to pay one second more that her nine to five salary and a ten dollar a week gas allowance for her running his errands. He didn’t even trust her with a business credit card and instead would reimburse her for any expenses after she produced the receipts. As far as Mrs. Griffen went, Dillon was happy that he hadn’t taken Lou’s bet. Belinda Griffen, formerly known as Belinda Wilde, had once been the darling of Spank Me productions. Poor old Jerry had fallen hard for Belinda, and she was the only person in the world that could pry Jerry’s wallet open. Once she did, Miss Longo said that she would strip it bare. Belinda was a gold digger and the second Jerry put the brakes on her spending habits was the minute she threw him out of her bed. Their prenup had Jerry in a tighter spot because if he divorced her for reasons other than an extra-marital affair before their tenth anniversary, she got eighty percent of everything. Miss Longo said that Belinda insisted on the clause so that Jerry wouldn’t just toss her aside for a younger version after a few years. It was a smart move on her part and explained the Terrenea arrangement. It also explained Mrs. Griffen’s bizarre refusal to cut her vacation short.

  Mia Longo had little else of value to tell them between her sobbing hysteria, belligerent rants and compulsive flirting with Dillon. Once Lou got past her revulsion of the girl, she was a little fascinated at her complete and utter lack of any manners. The girl was the definition of a skank.

  They finished up with Longo by lunch time. Lou was in a particularly good mood when the Deputies hauled her off to be booked for assaulting a peace officer and resisting arrest. She was in such a good mood she offered to buy Dillon, Bronx, and Johnson all burgers and milkshakes. They grabbed food and sat in West Hollywood park, across from the station and recounted the morning with great detail and colorful embellishment. Aside from the one name offered up by Longo, Hunny Trainer, they were no closer to a clue on who bashed in Gerald Griffen’s brains, but they were having a good day none the less.

  After lunch, they hit things hard, going through every scrap of paper, phone records, personal and business financials. A search through court records showed more than a dozen lawsuits had been filed over the past several years against LMT Talent Management, wholly owned by Gerald Griffen. The various causes of action were breach of contract, misrepresentation, misappropriation of funds and fraud. What was remarkable is how the guy had ever got these people to sign his contract. Basically how it worked was whatever contract his actors entered into with whatever studio, a clause required that all payment be made to LMT. He had full rights to deposit their checks into LMT accounts and would turn around and issue his client a check as a sub-contractor. Griffen’s client got whatever he decided after he took his cut off the top and after expenses, administrative fees, anything he could cook up to make his portion the lion’s share. End of the year he shipped them a ten-ninety-nine, but so would the production company. That was the kicker. The Internal Revenue Service was going after the clients for the whole nut twice. A pretty nice racket if you could get a client base that was stupid enough to go for it. Gerald Griffen had apparently hit the mother load.

  While their suspect pool had gotten even larger during their paper dig, they at least had a list of names to start working from, Hunny Trainer being at the top. With the help of a couple of deputies, they had done checks on a good chunk of them to weed out any who had been incarcerated, deceased, or otherwise excludable at the time of Griffen’s murder. They still had dozens of names to work on, and it looked like a lot of them were affiliated with Spank Me productions. Lou and Dillon decided that they would do as much desk jockeying as they could before they hit the pavement. They were also waiting for a call from Caroline to find out when she would be getting to Griffen’s autopsy. No sense in showing up there before she got to him.

  The techs had finished going through the computers by mid afternoon. They found some emails that threatened Griffen with various forms of bodily harm, but only a few they flagged as suspicious. After deeper analysis, the techs found that the emails in question had been sent anonymously. It was going to take a little more tech power to trace it down, and Lou knew just where to get some. She thought about going over Vinny’s head and going straight to her Captain since he was in the loop with her special resources. Instead, she dialed Vinny knowing she needed to figure out how to work with him as her immediate superior rather than avoid him. She just hated fibbing to him, even if it was for his own good.

  “What’s up kiddo?” Vinny’s chipper voice answered the phone.

  “Hey, boss!” She grinned, getting a kick out of calling him that.

  “Running into a little hiccup on tracing the source of an email.”

  “And you think I can help, how?” He asked.

  “I’m thinking we could use our friends at Aegis International’s help on this.” Lou was really grateful that Vinny had used Niko’s help on their last case together. It wouldn’t necessarily be suspicious for her to suggest it again. “They have far superior tools than our guy has, and this might be a way to our only solid lead.”

  Vinny was quiet for a moment, which made Lou nervous. “Our guys hitting a dead end?”

  “Brick wall.” She told him. “There are a few emails that read as far different from the other threatening trash talk, but our techs say someone used some pretty sophisticated tools to keep their identity blank.”

  “Right.” He paused another moment before continuing. “Give me a few minutes to check on something. I’ll call you back.”

  Vinny hung up before Lou could ask what he was up to and it made her a little uneasy. Before she could read too far into it, her phone beeped. It was a text message from Caroline letting her know that she had just finished Gerald Griffen’s autopsy and that they could come by anytime. With that, she and Dillon packed up and headed out. They were just crossing Highland Avenue when Dillon’s car began to bark.

  “That’s you.” He informed her.

  “What’s me?” Lou asked.

  “Your phone!” Dillon laughed as the barking continued. “That’s your ringer in my car, answer it!” Lou scrambled to look for her phone, but Dillon just laughed and answered via his steering wheel. “Lou’s phone, you’re on speaker.”

  “Cole?” Vinny’s voice echoed through the SUV.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, it’s me.” Dillon couldn’t stop laughing at Lou still looking for
her phone. “I paired Lou’s phone with my car since I drive all the time. She’s here.”

  “Smart idea! Wish I would have had that option in my car. Lou?” Vinny yelled.

  “I’m right here! I can hear you! Don’t yell at me!” Lou swatted Dillon on the shoulder. “And you stop laughing at me!”

  “I’m not laughing at you.” Vinny quieted his voice.

  “Not you, Dillon keeps laughing at me.” She secured her phone in her jacket pocket. “What’s up?”

  “I got approval to list Aegis as a consulting agency. They have all of the proper credentials and, I get the feeling we may be using them again in the future.” Vinny paused and thanked someone for something. “Sorry, just got copies of the tech’s report. Anyway, give your contact a call and see if they are willing and we can make it official.”

  “You are a genius, Vinny!” Lou couldn’t believe her luck. “I’ll call right away and let you know what they say.”

  “Do that and if they are on board, get their fax number. I’ll have the paperwork sent over so we can get all the formalities out of the way.” Vinny instructed. “I just got all of the forms right this second. I’ll fill in what I can from your pal’s business card he gave me.”

  “I’ll call as soon as we hang up.” Lou waited for Vinny to respond, but it appeared he already hung up. “Vinny?”

  “He is a character.” Dillon chuckled.

  “That’s a fact.” Lou grinned. “Man, what luck is that?”

  “What?” Dillon wasn’t sure what she was referring to.

  “I was trying to figure out how I’m going to justify bringing Aegis back into things all the time.” Lou explained. “Low and behold, Vinny brings them in the loop for me!”

  “Why would you have to bring them in all the time?” Dillon asked.

  “What am I going to do?” Lou gave him an annoyed look. “Say, Oh hey Vinny, I’ll just use my super secret Principate powers to trace an email better than the NSA or the CIA.”

  “Yeah, okay I see your dilemma now.” Dillon conceded. “That does solve that problem. Provided our Dom is alright with it.”