Shadows May Fall

by Corcoran, Mell

  “Pablo?” Dillon asked.

  “He cleans the place during the day. I think his wife cleans Josh’s house.” Amanda gulped the last of her instant coffee then proceeded to make herself another batch.

  “What do you mean when you say some of the girls got smacked around? And the junk that was passed around?” Dillon knew Rawlings was into that sort of thing but wondered if he kept that private from his business clientele. “And where were these men from, exactly?”

  “There are always party favors floating around at those things. Mostly ecstasy or coke but that pig dude was giving some of the girls some spiked wine or something. I figured it was LSD, and I don’t like trippin’ like that.” Amanda took one last drag off her cigarette before crushing it out and continuing. “As for the smackin’ around part of things, these guys weren’t into the traditional BDSM thing. There are basic rules everyone follows, we all have safe words. It’s part of the gig.” Amanda retrieved her second mug of sludge from the microwave. “But these guys gave less of a shit about that. If you said stop, they would go harder. I don’t know where they were from! They just talked with funny accents, maybe Australian or something? Jenna would probably know since she sounds kinda like them.”

  “Jenna?” Dillon checked his list. “You mean Jenna Rhodes?”

  “Yeah.” Amanda nodded. “She quit the next day, same as me. After that blond bastard used her as an ashtray.”

  “You happen to know her address?” Lou knew they had her address already but figured it wouldn’t hurt to confirm.

  “Sure, sec to find my phone.” Amanda Franklin proceeded to dump everything off of what appeared to have been a sofa underneath at least a month’s worth of laundry.

  “Can you describe the blond guy for us?” Dillon asked.

  Amanda paused and thought for a moment. “He was a real high maintenance little shit, not that he was small or anything. He was a beast, kinda like you.” She pointed at Dillon. “Your size I mean. Early twenties.” She showed Dillon the contact information on her phone so he could jot it down. “His clothes were pricey too, and he had like three-hundred dollar highlights on a dirty blond chop job. I’ll never forget that guy. Something flat out evil about him.”

  Lou and Dillon both knew at once that she was describing Cameron Timms. A traitorous blood born who slaughtered his family without batting an eyelash. Timms and his hired henchman, Johan Esterhuizen, were running heroin and Black Blood into San Pedro through a coffee importer. Unfortunately for them, Lou and Dillon uncovered the smuggling operation during their investigation into the murder of the CEO of the coffee company. Timms had made the major mistake of trying to use Lou as leverage to get out of Max’s territory with his life. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Instead, Max personally delivered a set of steamer trunks carrying the various body parts to his African counterpart, Timms’ Domi-nor, in Marrakesh. Before his death, Timms let slip that he knew who Lou was by way of Albert von Massenbach. Apparently Timms had facilitated Albert’s narrow escape and had been assisting him in evading the Sanguinostri manhunt. It was a tangled web, to say the least. Lou had been right fitting Timms and Esterhuizen into the seedy underbelly of these murders. Even if they had no real hand in the killings themselves, they just seemed to fit with the Scopolamine and the type of men the victims were. Lou pulled out her phone and clicked away until she pulled up a photo of Cameron Timms.

  “Is this one of the men?” Lou asked.

  “That’s him.” Amanda confirmed. “His hair is shorter there, but that’s him.”

  Lou pulled up a photo of Esterhuizen and showed it to her. “And this guy?”

  “Yeah.” Amanda nodded as she fished out another smokable cigarette butt. “I got the feeling that dude worked for hair-boy.”

  “So both of these men were at Marcus Medina’s sex party?” Dillon asked, hating that Lou was right.

  “That’s the dude’s name!” Amanda snapped her fingers. “I knew it was something greasy. I just couldn’t think of it.” She sucked the last ounce of life out of the pre-smoked cigarette then smashed what remained into the mound of ashes. “Yeah, they both were there.”

  “Can you tell us the names of the other girls that were at the party too?” Dillon hoped it would narrow down their list of interviews.

  “There were five of us from the club, I think. Gimme your pen and I’ll write down the names and numbers for you.” Dillon handed her his notepad and pen. “Maybe eight other girls I didn’t know. Oh, wait...” Amanda paused her writing to squint, as if that would help her remember. “Some porn bitch that Josh was drooling over. I have no clue what her name was, but she thought she was the shit.” Dillon pulled up Hunny Trainer’s picture on his phone this time and showed it to her. “Is this the girl?” He asked.

  “That’s her.” Amanda nodded. “She was a rude little slut. Looked down her nose at the rest of us girls. Josh even warned us that we had better play nice with her if we knew what was good for us. Whatever.” Amanda finished writing down the last name and number.

  “Hey, are you guys done with me because I’d like to get a little more sleep before I gotta head to work.”

  “Can you write down your numbers for us in case we need to ask any follow-up questions?” Dillon requested.

  Amanda wrote down her info on the pad then handed it to Dillon. “I’m at the Body Shop in West Hollywood now.”

  Lou cringed at the name. It was a strip club where one of Albert von Massenbach’s victims had worked before she was slaughtered. “We know the place.” She sighed. “Thanks for all your help.”

  “Yes, thank you, Miss Franklin.” Dillon smiled down at the haggard young woman. Her matted, over-dyed black hair made him think of one of those troll dolls. Or perhaps it was that she was at least a foot shorter than he was. Maybe it was the smeared glitter and mascara undoubtedly from the previous night’s performance. Whatever it was, it was hard for him to believe the woman slouched in front of him was only twenty-five. He would have guessed an easy forty, maybe forty-five. She no doubt had lived a hard life thus far.

  “Come by and I’ll give you a free lap-dance, cutie.” Amanda winked at him before he and Lou turned for the door.

  Back at the car, Dillon compared Amanda Franklin’s list to their employee list for the Gentlemen’s Club. Not one of the five names were there. After a quick check and a couple phone calls, none of the girls were listed as currently employed by the club. Every one of them had either quit or failed to show up to work after the party. Two of the five had missing persons reports filed, so those two names went straight to the top of their list. Lou pulled up copies of the reports while Dillon drove to the first girl’s last known address.

  When they arrived, they found Lana Brown’s apartment was occupied by a new tenant and the manager gave them an almost identical story as Hunny Trainer’s. Brown had emailed the manager that she was moving out of the country for a new job and that she wouldn’t be returning. The fact that the woman had left everything behind meant nothing to him, and he hadn’t even waited one full day before he cleared the place out. He sold anything he could and donated the rest to the local shelter. The address the email came from was a fake free-mail account that had been opened and closed the same day as it’s one and only email to the manager was sent. Lana Brow had been in the foster system since she was seven years old and had been bounced from foster family to group home until she finally aged out. It was the exact same story for Ginger Fields and Cheryl Duncan, the two other girls that had been at Medina’s party. It was time to focus on the two girls that someone noticed were missing, Mary Sheehan and Eve Bloom.

  John Sheehan had reported his daughter missing when she failed to show up for her day job at his auto repair shop on Monday morning, the Monday after Medina’s party. The shop was a hole in the wall garage downtown with a staff that consisted of John Sheehan and one other mechanic. John was a wiry, worn man with shaggy gunmetal gray hair a
nd a matching full beard. His grease stained hands shook as he dragged his fingers through his hair and took a seat on an oil drum to talk with Lou and Dillon.

  “Mary did my books for me, kept me organized. I couldn’t afford to pay her shit, but she did it for me. That’s why she danced at night, so she could make ends meet and help me out when she could.” John sighed. “Without her this place is going to hell. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep things afloat without her.”

  “Mr. Sheehan, did Mary tell you anything about the club she worked at?” Lou asked the distraught father. “Was she having any problems with her boss or any of the customers?”

  “She never talked about her work with me.” The man picked at his fingernails, an apparent nervous habit. “She knew I hated that she worked there, so she avoided telling me anything. Except...” He paused to think a moment. “... the week before she went missing she was real happy. Said she was going to be getting a big break like her boss was going to introduce her to some movie people or something. Mary wanted to be an actress, like every other wide-eyed girl who’s ever turned on a TV. I did my best to keep her feet on the ground, but she had big dreams. She was pretty enough, but this city is full of pretty girls without brains. Mary had brains. I wanted her to do better for herself.”

  “So it’s been just you and Mary?” Dillon posed the question since they were unable to pull much up on the girl’s past. “Can I ask what happened to her mother?”

  “Sally died giving birth to Mary.” John Sheehan’s eyes misted thinking about his wife. “Docs said she had an aneurysm in her brain that just blew when Mary was coming. They said she probably had it all her life, and it could have ruptured at any time. Sally and me came to Los Angeles after we got married. We were high school sweethearts back in Tulsa, and we had big dreams too. I was going to be a rock star, and she was going to be an actress. Sally got pregnant before I ever played my first gig. Funny how a baby changes things. It was all about making a home for Sally and the baby after that. The guy who owned this place before me gave me my first job, and I’ve been here ever since. He handed the place over to me when he retired to Mexico about ten years ago. I’m still livin’ in the same two bedroom apartment Sally and I moved into when we found out she was pregnant. Mary got campus housing when she got into Cal State Los Angeles but moved off campus after her first year. Moved in with some other girl, that’s how she got the job at the club. She was a good girl. Worked here three days a week, danced at the club and carried a full load of classes. She was doing the Theatre Arts and Dance program and was on track to graduate next June. I was so proud of her.”

  “You speak in the past tense, Mr. Sheehan.” Lou pointed out. “You think Mary is dead?”

  “Mary never went a day without checking in.” John’s voice grew cold and stern. “When she didn’t call all weekend, I knew something bad had happened but the cops said they couldn’t take a report until forty-eight hours passed. When she didn’t show up here Monday morning, I knew she was never coming back. I just want to know what happened to her. I want to bury my baby next to her momma. Can you help me do that, detectives?”

  Lou and Dillon promised John Sheehan they would do everything they could to bring his daughter home, one way or the other. After he had made a list of the only three people he knew of in Mary’s life, Dillon checked it against the names they had yet to question. All three women were there, one of which was Mary’s roommate, Connie Harper, but by their notes, Connie was living with her ex-con boyfriend in Van Nuys and had been for the past year. Mary’s father had been out of the loop for a while.

  Unlike Hunny and Lana, Mary’s apartment hadn’t been touched. The owner and manager of the small complex was a feisty eighty year old who was going on thirty. Dillon and Lou almost literally ran into the woman as she was returning from her late morning speed-walk and she was all too happy to assist in any way she could to help track down Mary.

  Leona Porter was a lifelong resident of the Del Sol Apartments and had taken over ownership when her aunt left her the place after she died. Leona prided herself on running a clean, riff-raff free place and had been thrilled when Connie Harper had moved out, leaving Mary Sheehan alone in the one bedroom, corner unit. Connie had taken over the lease from her mother after she moved to Florida with some retired low-budget studio executive. Connie had been nothing like her mother but Leona had liked Mary the minute she met the girl. Leona also noted that when Mary moved in with Connie, it was the first time since Connie’s mother left that the rent got paid on time. The landlady told Lou and Dillon that she often helped Mary rehearse for her school projects and that Mary reminded her of the young corn-fed girls that would fall off the bus in the forties, looking to make a name for themselves on the silver screen. As Leona escorted them to Mary’s apartment, she explained that a wise investment back in December 1980 in a company named Apple had her in a financial position to not have to rent Mary’s apartment anytime soon. She held out hope that Mary would come back with wild tales of some exotic location she had been filming in for all these weeks. Despite numerous calls to Mary’s father, who was listed as her emergency contact, John Sheehan never gave Leona any information about Mary’s case and the Detectives that came by only a few times never gave her any details either. After giving Lou and Dillon a stern warning about not taking anything that didn’t belong to them, Leona opened the apartment up and left them to search for clues.

  The apartment was sparse and uncluttered but warm, cozy and spotless. Leona must have been taking care of Mary’s plants in her absence and bringing in her mail that was piled in a basket on the coffee table. Opposite the slipcovered sofa was a thrift store steamer trunk where a small television sat with numerous framed pictures of Mary standing in front of different Hollywood landmarks. Looking at the photos, Lou could see what Leona had meant about Mary reminding her of those corn-fed country girls, all bright and shiny and full of hope. It made Lou feel sad knowing that Mary had gotten caught up in such a seedy side of the entertainment industry and ended up God knows where. In the bedroom Lou found no indication that Mary was into any sort of bondage or kink and her closet was sparse. There was an odd contrast of All-American jeans and t-shirts that any college student would wear, along with sparkle and shine hooker attire. It made Lou sad when she thought this might be the rule, not the exception, for the majority of girls that came to L.A. seeking fame and fortune.

  After an hour of digging, Lou and Dillon had come to terms with the fact that Mary had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time by being at Marcus Medina’s sex party. She was just naive enough to have taken a sip of that Kool-aid Amanda Franklin had told them about. As a desperate prayer, Lou took a picture of one of the photos on Mary’s entertainment trunk and sent it off to Niko to cross reference with the girls they liberated from Cuba. The odds were more likely that Lou would win the lottery, get struck by lightning and win the publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes all in one day, but she had to try. Pursuant to Leona’s wishes, they made sure they put everything back in it’s proper place then locked the door after themselves. They found Leona sitting in the courtyard under a giant magnolia tree, thanked her and gave her their cards, in case she had any questions or thought of anything else that might be helpful. Leona Porter thanked them for trying to find out what happened to Mary and told them she would pray for them in their quest for answers. As they walked out of the time warp of Leona Porter’s oasis, Lou and Dillon agreed they would take all the help they could get.

  After a quick stop for a shower and change of clothes at the house where he and the other Aegis were staying, Niko arrived at the McAllister compound just before noon. He was none too pleased that Ana and Connor had spilled the beans to Max about Albert von Massenbach’s involvement in his ambush. There wasn’t anything he could do about it now, other than sit there and take the tongue lashing Max was about to serve up. Oddly, it never came. Max only asked Niko to convey the Russian’s exact words in Rotte
rdam. From there they dove headlong into sifting through every agent in the region’s dossier and obtaining every bit of surveillance they could get their hands on through back channels. They were scheduled to leave for Las Vegas the following afternoon, and both Max and Niko wanted a fix on whether or not there was another pipeline coming into the U.S. Other than San Pedro. Yuri and Finn had flown to the East Coast a few hours earlier under the guise of checking on the newly ascended agents that were appointed to handle things in their absence. After selling the ploy, Finn’s real objective was to head up north to New Brunswick to tap his resources and find out if that was a hole that they needed to plug. If Black Blood was coming in from there he would find the answers in the port of St. John.

  When Lou’s email came in with the picture of Mary Sheehan, Niko forwarded it immediately to Lena in Rio. She was in charge of the survivor’s rehabilitation so she would recognize the girl right away if she were among them. When Connor, Abby, and Frank cleared out, Max took the opportunity to fill Niko in on where Lou was in her cases and her suspicions of Timms and Esterhuizen’s involvement. It was just enough to set Niko’s blood boiling all over again, but it was what Max said next that made Niko take pause.

  “I want to apologize for my behavior the other day.” Max said as he closed the laptop and focused on his words to Niko. “You were right to call me out on the situation, and I am sorry for my reaction.”

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Niko had a long time to think about it on the flight to and from Rotterdam. “Sometimes I need reminding we are not actually brothers. I forget my place. I was out of line, completely.”