Lemons 02 A Touch of Danger

by Grant Fieldgrove

  “What the…”

  “We know about Samantha’s pregnancy so there is no reason to hide from us anymore. Do yourself a favor and bring her home right now. She doesn’t have to run from her mother. So avoid some trouble and have her at her mother’s house within the hour before me and my cop friends come bust down your fucking door. No bullshittin’. Got it?”

  There was a long silence before he finally responded. “We’ll be right there.”

  I ended the call and looked towards Ms. Hiller, still with the same shocked look on your face.

  “Your daughter will be home within an hour. You guys have a lot of stuff to talk about.”

  Ms. Hiller broke out in tears and lunged at me to give me a hug. Nothin” awkward about that. We said it was time for us to go now and she continued thanking us the whole way back to our car.

  My phone started vibrating. It was Enzite.

  “Hey, perfect timing. Got anything for me?”

  “Yeah. Hi. Ran a trace on the plates. It’s registered to a Daniel Mayweather. Some screenwriting hack out near Hollywood. His address is listed at 6739 Sunrise Ave.”

  “A dude?”

  21.

  Finding out the rolling vagina was registered to a man just added more stress to my entire situation. It was not the car belonging to the woman killed on the beach, which dead-ends that lead. Instead, it is registered to some dude out in Hollywood who I have never even heard of. Things were getting more and more complicated as time went by. Shouldn’t shit be getting easier?

  Elise and I drove to a little cafe where we could get a bite to eat and collect our thoughts. Once there, we ordered from the menu then took out the iPad to do a quick Internet Movie Database search on Daniel Mayweather. If he really were a screenwriter, even for the shittiest of films, IMDB would have him listed.

  Sure enough, we got a hit. No picture, though. Turns out, he has written two really shitty movies that I have never heard of. Actually, I’m just assuming they are pieces of shit since I’ve never heard of them. If they were any good, I would have…well you get the idea.

  I did a cast and crew search of both of these movies and was happy to see that one of them featured none other than the former Mrs. Brad Jackson…

  “Well now this is interesting,” I say. “Check out this particular member of the cast.” I flipped the iPad over so it was now facing Elise and pointed to the name Annette Jackson. Elise looked puzzled.

  “What do you think this means?” she asked.

  “Actually…I have no idea.”

  “Okay, so let’s run down the facts here.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “First,” Elise says as she holds up her index finger, counting out our fact list, “Annette Jackson gets murdered and we believe it was pinned on that wrong person, which leads to our main suspect being the husband.”

  “Correct.”

  “Second,” as she adds another finger in the air, “you witness another woman being killed by whom we believe to be the same person that did the previous murder.”

  “Keep going.”

  Third finger in the air, “We find a car, not belonging to Brad Jackson, hidden in his garage. We assume it is the murder victim’s car since it’s the gayest possible thing any man could drive except for maybe Mr. Garrison’s Gyropod.”

  “A South Park reference? Really, Elise?”

  “Hey, I’m trying here.”

  “Fine. Not bad. Keep going.”

  “The car turns out to be registered to a man, from Hollywood, with at least a passing acquaintance to the first murder victim.” She apparently had given up on the whole finger-counting thing as she was now taking a child-like, double-fisted sip of her Pepsi.

  “Yeah, so we’re pretty much back where we started.”

  “Maybe not. Remember that guy that Emma Ricks told us about?”

  “Sure. You think that’s our guy?”

  “I sure hope so. Maybe he and Brad struck up a friendship on the set of Annette’s movie. Or maybe they’ve been friends long before that. Who knows? It’s worth tracking him down though. And if it is the same guy, it’ll be killing two birds with one stone.”

  “I never really understood that saying. Why would anyone want to kill a bird? And why would anyone kill birds with rocks and then be happy about killing two with the same throw?”

  She let out an audible sigh. “I don’t know, man, it’s just a saying.”

  “Well, I think we should do away with that saying and find a new one.”

  “Fine, you work on a new saying and I’ll work on this case.”

  “Ouch, it was just an idea. Calm down.”

  “Stay on track, Archie. If this guy’s car is here then it stands to reason that he is here, too. Somewhere.”

  “Well, we were in Brad’s house. He certainly wasn’t there at the same time, and we saw Brad leave alone.”

  “Right,” she said. “Well, let me ask you this. Are you positive it was Brad who murdered the girl on the beach?”

  “Elise, I know what I saw.”

  “I know, I know. And I believe you. I’m just wondering if maybe it could have been someone else.”

  “I’m almost positive it was Brad. And the guy on the beach had dark hair. If the screenwriter and the man from Emma Ricks’ story are one and the same, that guy has blond hair.”

  “Okay. Good point then. So what now?”

  I looked up as our waitress brought us our food. I was starving. “Right now,” I say, “we eat. Then we’ll get back to business.”

  ***

  We finished lunch and made our way to a bench overlooking the ocean.

  “Hey, ya know what I just remembered?” I ask.

  “Nope. What?”

  “I’m pretty sure I had those movers scheduled to come to the office today.”

  Elise snorted then said “Oops.”

  “Yeah, oops. Those guys are going to be pissed.”

  “Well call and cancel.”

  “I don’t even have the number, Snorts. Oh well.”

  “Yeah. Oh well. Now back to the case, please.”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry. Where were we?”

  “I asked you if you were one-hundred-percent positive that it was Brad Jackson down on the beach.”

  “Right. Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was him. Now I’m thinking that he had an accomplice, obviously.”

  “New-Bug?”

  “Yeah. New-Bug. I was really hoping for that goddamn thing to belong to the victim. That would have made this case a whole lot easier to figure out.”

  “I know, but at least we can follow up on this guy.

  “Well, he is a hack screenwriter in Hollywood which means he’s probably waiting tables somewhere at a shitty diner in the city. Are you down for another trip to the City of Angels?”

  “Why would we drive to Hollywood if the guy’s car is here?”

  “Just call it a hunch. I am willing to bet that car is gone now, and even if it isn’t, we still need to find out all we can about this guy. He shouldn’t be hard to track, and besides, Enzite even gave us his address. We need to do some snooping around. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark here.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry. Hey. Ya think they call L.A. the City of Angels because of all the Mexican guys there named Angel?”

  “This is the worst vacation ever.”

  “I agree, Miss Elise. I agree. Let’s go.”

  “I need to stop and get gas…on the expense account!”

  “Fine. I need to get a Rockstar…on the expense account. Let’s go, Babydoll.”

  “Oh-la-la.”

  22.

  On the road back to LA once again. Elise was right; this is the all-time worst vacation ever. I missed my house and I missed my nephews. Elise had called to check in on them right when we hit the road. All was well with the kiddos and Wrecker. We owed Jamie BIG TIME!

  As soon as we hit the freeway, my phone started vibra
ting. I dug it out of my pocket and checked the ID. It was Anderson. I tossed the phone to Elise and told her to answer it.

  “Hi Detective,” she answered.

  “They do?! For what?”

  “Ay yi yi. How did you even find this out?”

  “Oh, you have your ways, huh? Ugh, that is ridiculous. We didn’t do crap.

  I butted in. “What happened?”

  Elise ignored me and continued her conversation with Anderson. Speakerphone would have been a little more polite at this moment, but whatever. There is no winning when a woman is involved. Ha.

  “Alright, Detective. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll tell Archie.”

  “Tell Archie what?!” I interrupted. Again.

  “We’re actually on our way to Hollywood again. We need to have a word with the owner of that car that was parked in Brad Jackson’s garage.”

  Oh my god, if this woman doesn’t quite ignoring me I’m going to go insane!

  “No,” Elise continues, “but Archie has a hunch that it is not there anymore. And even if it is there, he wants to get a background on him. We think he’s involved in all of this and maybe he’ll be the weaker link.”

  I was paying more attention to the one-sided conversation than I was to driving. I drifted over the line and quickly swerved back into my lane. Elise shot me a dirty look then began talking again. They concluded their conversation and Elise handed me my phone back.

  “Well,” she said. “You, my good man, have an official complaint of stalking filed against you with the Pismo Beach Police Department by one Mister Brad Jackson.”

  “What the grizzlebees?!” I was shocked. How the hell…?

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said.”

  “How could he even know who I am, let alone file a complaint on me? And how does he know I even did shit? This is frakin’ fishy as hell and I know that he knows we’re on to him. He needs to get me away from him so he can clean up his mess. Right now, I am probably his only loose thread.”

  “You know what this mean, right?” Elise asks.

  “Ya goddamn right I do. We work harder and bust this prettyboy doucheface.”

  “You got the right, partner.”

  ***

  Earlier that morning, Brad Jackson placed a call to the Pismo Beach Police Department; a department that treated him very, very well, and filed an official complaint of stalking on his new arch-nemesis Archie Lemons. (He giggled at the thought…ARCH-nemesis.) He spoke with the officer in charge of such things, a Mr. Steve Edwards, and informed him that he had been the subject of a crazed fan who had broken in to his house. When asked how Brad knew the house was broken in to, he simply replied that he had had a feeling and set a small trap, and if they would like further proof they would be more than welcome to come out to his house and dust for prints. Prints that Brad was nearly one-hundred-percent sure they would find.

  Being a major Hollywood player definitely has its upside, especially when the major Hollywood player’s wife was murdered by a stalker. Supposedly. The police asked no further questions of the famous actor and immediately filed the complaint and started the paper work on a restraining order against the man with the stupid name.

  Brad’s new plan was coming along swimmingly. Who the hell needed those ridiculous, ugly screenwriters anyway? Brad Jackson is the real deal, he thought. The whole package! If ideas could win an Oscar, Brad thought, he would certainly have a mantle filled with them! With the complaint filed and the restraining order in the works, all he had to do was get Archie in his house. Then he would finally tie up that loose end. First, his wife, then that little bitch on the beach, and finally Archie Lemons. Murder seemed to be getting easy for him. He felt no regret, no remorse, only excitement.

  He stood up from his office desk and went to the fridge to grab a cold beer, then headed for the sofa. He plopped down, kicked his feet up and reached for the remote. While he scrolled through the seemingly endless channels of crappy daytime programming, he tried to think of ways to lure Archie Lemons into his house. It would have to be perfect.

  His mind trailed off to the car in the garage. Him or his partner would need to drive it back to Hollywood, or at least hide it. He could have no connection with it.

  He landed on some white-trash talk show, downed the rest of his beer then fell asleep. His plan could wait until later.

  ***

  We arrived in Los Angeles in less than three hours, but the commute and this whole vacation actually, was really starting to wear on us. We were both exhausted. We had gotten absolutely zero rest or relaxation and we had spent excessively on gas, food, lodging, and you name it.

  I was getting really frustrated about everything. My meds make it easier for me to cope with shit like this, but I was near my breaking point. The more I started thinking about it, the more I just wanted to walk away from everything. There was no case here. I was not being paid. In fact, I was losing money on this. If the Pismo police don’t even want to bother with it, then why should I?

  Every time I wanted to just say forget it, head back to the beach, get our shit and head home, my brain would flash an image of Marianne and I would remember the promise I made her while standing over her coffin, snow falling down on me. The promise to not let people get away with the horrible shit that they do. To always make things right, no matter what. And with that memory, I would decide to push on.

  The more I thought about it, though, the more disheartened I got. We had no leads in Shell Beach as to who the woman was that was murdered. And without a missing person there, it means the woman wasn’t a local. Which means, probably, she was one of any number of Hollywood whores or bimbos that came down to the beach with Brad Jackson for a weekend of God-knows-what. And if some wanna-be actress, model, dancer, whatever, goes missing in the big city, honestly, who is going to notice? And even if someone does notice, how hard will it be to track down the one I’m looking for? The answer, in case you were wondering, is Damn Near Impossible.

  So yeah, needless to say, when we excited the freeway into the heart of Hollywood, right next to the Chinese Theater and various other tourist attractions, I was pretty down on myself and not very enthusiastic about the case. It felt like we were chasing ghosts. Elise could tell how I was feeling just by the look on my face. It’s a look she had only seen a few times before. I felt defeated.

  I pulled into the parking garage of Hollywood and Highland and went down to the third level to park. I figured we could stop here and stretch our legs and figure out a plan.

  Hollywood and Highland was a large, outdoor mall type area, named after the two streets it occupied, obviously. It was a tourist attraction next to the Chinese Theater, but it was actually a pretty classy little place. It had some nice shops and some good places to eat. I had actually been here numerous times with Marianne, too. It was a nice, quick little getaway and I absolutely adored catching a flick at Grauman’s next door.

  Anyway, we each grabbed an ice cream at Coldstone and took a seat at one of the tables to discuss where we go from here. Honestly, I was so tired and over this case, that I really didn’t give a shit what we did. Elise had an idea.

  “Why don’t we go check into one of those hotels around the corner?”

  “You want to stay the night here?”

  “Be realistic. Look at the time. Even if we finish everything we need to do today, there is no way we can drive back to Shell tonight. We’ll be exhausted. Hell, we already are exhausted. Let’s just get us a room for the night and take it easy. We can start again in the morning. We need to rest. Besides, we still have our bags from the Gap in the car, so we won’t even need to buy clothes again. Whatta ya say?”

  “Yeah, actually that’s not a bad idea. I keep thinking about all the money we are pissing away on this, though. Christ, we already have one room rented in a city where we aren’t even are; now we are getting another room? I don’t even want to add all this up.”

  “We can worry about the finances when we get back home
, McDuck. How about for now, we go get a room, order a pizza and watch movies in bed?”

  “Actually, Elise, that sounds amazing. I promise though, we’ll get right back to work in the morning and won’t stop until we solve this stupid thing. Deal?”

  “Sounds like a good deal to me.”

  We picked up our ice creams and headed back towards the parking garage. Once we paid our dollar fee, we drove less than half a mile to the first nice looking hotel we saw. We reserved a room with two queen beds.

  Once checked in, we both collapsed onto the closest bed. I told Elise if she ordered the pizzas I would pay. She agreed and called down to room service. She ordered the largest extra-cheese pizza they had, four Coronas and two Pepsis.

  “I don’t recall saying I’d pay for beer,” I said.

  “Relax, Jack Benny. This one’s on me.” She reached for her purse and pulled out some cash.

  “Thanks Elise.”

  “Of course.”

  I flipped through the channels until the pizza arrived. There was absolute dick on TV so I just stopped on HBO so we could watch whatever movie they were playing. We laid together on the bed, ate our pizza and drank our drinks until there wasn’t a single morsel of food left. Eventually our eyes closed and we fell asleep next to each other.

  23.

  We woke up some twelve hours later with the television still on. We had somehow worked our bodies into the normal sleeping position and the room service tray was now upside down on the floor at the foot of the bed. Oh well, not my room, not my problem.

  Actually, yeah, damn it, it was my problem. Shit on the floor drives me crazy. Ugh, I guess I’ll bend over and pick it up. Ughhhh! Oh well.

  The half-day of sleep was much needed, though, and it felt quite nice to not be in a rush. We were able to have a nice, semi-relaxing morning.

  Elise decided she would order us breakfast from room service, and after she placed our order, she went into the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day. I imagined this was the latest she had slept in in years. I reached for the remote and began swimming the channels again, searching desperately for Full House or my precious RTV. No luck. Not even Urkel or a Saved by the Bell. LA has not been impressing me, lately. I continued searching, quite apathetically.