EQMM, September-October 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  And then, I realized, if the driver's license was real, then the address on that license had to be real, too.

  And that's how I found myself driving to Encino at sunset, when I really should have been driving home.

  * * * *

  Encino, California, where Michael Jackson died. Encino, California, home of some really bad movie jokes (including a movie-long joke called Encino Man). Encino, California, which had waaaaaay too many houses for my taste.

  Encino has these lovely big, expensive houses where the stars and their support systems live (although why they'd live in this part of the Valley, I'll never know). It also has some smaller houses, the kind where real people live—or people as real as people can get living in Los Angeles.

  Zinnemann's house was in one of the real neighborhoods. Each house was maybe 3,000 square feet max, and some were much smaller, maybe 1,500 square feet. Not every house had a second story, but all had lovely landscaping, much of it turning brown.

  This was a neighborhood where the people followed the water-rationing rules, where they did their best, even though it was never enough, to compare to the fancy houses just a few blocks away.

  This house had actual trees in front, although what kind I had no idea. I'm a people detective, not a tree detective. A deliberately crooked brick walk led to a nice front door with its own little roof—a 1920s style that belonged in the Midwest, not in Encino.

  The house was old enough that it might have been considered upscale in its day. Now it was a bit dowdy, in need of paint, a good pressure-washing, and some de-cobwebbing.

  Oh, yeah, and someone needed to remove the police tape from the front door.

  The tape looked relatively new. It was still bright yellow and it didn't have the dirt that coated the rest of the house. The yard bore lots of evidence of a police presence: tire tracks on the brown dirt where flowers had died long ago, crushed brown grass that still showed the marks of footprints, and one plastic folded number, the kind that crime-scene techs use. They must have been irritated that they forgot it—wondering just where they left it.

  The number reassured me. It meant they had already photographed the scene. If I didn't disturb the police tape, then I wasn't truly messing with a crime scene.

  I stepped off the brick walk and stepped over the tire tracks, heading to the picture window on the east side of the front door. I looked behind me to check if anyone could see me from the street. They couldn't; those willowy trees were in the way. I stood on my tiptoes and peered inside the house, cupping my hands around my face.

  The living room was a shambles. The couch had been moved, a coffee table was overturned, and something large and glass had shattered on the floor.

  But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was the floor and the built-in bookshelf. The floor was hardwood. It had once been covered with a rug.

  I knew that because there was a stain around the floor in a rug-shape. In the center of the non-stain area (where the rug had been) was a brown stain, this one thick and oblong. Ish. Oblong-ish. Something had gone through the rug all the way to the floor.

  Judging by the spatter at the edges of the rugless area, that something was blood.

  The crap on the bookshelf wasn't just blood. It was blood and brain matter and bone fragments.

  Someone had been shot and that stuff was blowback.

  I tried to remember if I had heard about a shooting in Encino recently, but nothing came to mind. That didn't mean anything. Millions of people lived in the L.A. Basin, and some of those people belonged to gangs, while others were thieves and murderers—probably at the same proportion that any other community had thieves and murderers.

  What I wanted to know was who this house belonged to, who was investigating the shooting, and who the hell died.

  I figured that information wouldn't be too hard to find, and I was right.

  * * * *

  Once I returned to my car, I pulled out my trusty iPhone with its wonderful Internet connectivity. I used to do my job without an Internet connection at my fingertips, but damn if I remember how I did it.

  I plugged in the street name, the word “murder” (figuring the cops wouldn't do this much work for a simple shooting; not that anyone could have survived that much bone, brain, and blood loss), and came up with some relatively minor news reports.

  Interestingly, most of the reports were on the various evening news shows—the ones that had sent their junior hack reporters to interview me. Those shows loved blood-and-guts news stories, especially those with video footage, just like they loved car chases, because those also had lovely video footage.

  This crime was basic evening-news fodder. A single woman, murdered in her home in a quiet Encino neighborhood. The news ate this thing up, particularly when it had aerial footage of a coroner's van parked outside the house, and the crime techs at work in the yard.

  And it was one of those scary-headline crimes—single woman murdered, no apparent motive. She lived alone and had died alone. The only reason anyone even knew she was shot was that a neighbor peeked through the window and saw the body.

  The neighbor was a short-term suspect, particularly when it turned out he had an arrest record a mile long. He was the neighborhood Peeping Tom—with a conscience, apparently. He didn't have to call the police, but he did.

  The woman, Katalin Voight, had moved to Los Angeles two years before. She was forty, not interested in any Hollywood work at all, and self-employed. She was a freelance bookkeeper who found work on Craigslist.

  The Craigslist connection kept LAPD detectives busy for a long time, particularly since the 2009 Craigslist Killer case back East made everyone think of murder in connection to the site. But her records showed no murderous connection to Craigslist, nor did they show any murderous connection to anyone. Her family lived in the Midwest, and all they would say (sadly, of course) was that she'd wanted a new life.

  Her neighbors knew nothing about her, her clients knew very little, and she hadn't made many friends here, although she had a wide and varying social network on the Internet.

  A quiet woman in a quiet house in a quiet neighborhood, loudly shotgunned to death even though no one heard, found by her Peeping Tom neighbor days after the event.

  The news played it up for nearly a week before the coverage faded. That was almost two months ago. The fact that the tire tracks and footprints remained showed just how dry it had been in L.A lately. I hadn't realized how long it had been since we last got rain.

  I set the iPhone down and looked at the house. A woman had died here. She had become more famous in death than she'd been in life—a curiously L.A. phenomenon. And even that fame was fleeting.

  Roxanne Winterbury had become famous for marrying and being widowed by a very wealthy man. Her fame rose a few weeks ago as the court cases involving her inheritance began.

  I'd become famous a few days ago for rescuing a child. My fame would pass within the week, but it did exist.

  And while it was happening, I met a man who claimed to be a director. He almost voluntarily went off to jail, but not before orchestrating his own alibi. Which he tipped off when he was talking to me.

  I frowned. A man who claimed to be three different directors. He didn't orchestrate that alibi. He directed it.

  I needed to get to a computer with a bigger screen and a lot more firepower.

  I headed for my crummy apartment, which had my incredible high-speed Internet access, my up-to-the-minute computer, and my extremely empty refrigerator.

  I stopped for pizza on the way there.

  Amazing how much of the world is at your fingertips nowadays. Amazing how little the police know about taking advantage of that.

  It took me less than an hour to call up Katalin Voight's records from Rapid City, South Dakota. She had been a full-fledged CPA there, with actual big-time clients—or as big-time as clients got in Rapid City.

  She was Katalin Voight to her clients, but in her personal life, she was Katalin Joh
nson, wife of Kenneth Johnson, who owned one of those movie palaces that had once been a vaudeville theater.

  The arrival of multiplexes, easy DVD rentals, and affordable big-screen TVs closed the movie palace. The papers soon carried a divorce notice for Katalin and Kenneth Johnson. Then the papers carried a one-paragraph mention of a restraining order. Then they carried an announcement that Katalin Voight's business was closing its doors after fifteen profitable years while Ms. Voight was going into retirement.

  It didn't say she was retiring in Los Angeles, but she did.

  And Kenneth tracked her there.

  How do I know that?

  Because those same papers ran a photograph of Kenneth when they announced the closing of the movie palace that he had owned and loved. The movie palace that closed despite his best efforts. The movie palace that had lost money for nearly a decade, despite his efforts. The movie palace that may have lost money because—he said—of the mismanagement of his CPA, one Katalin Johnson.

  That photograph looked just like Stanley Donen/Douglas Sirk/Fred Zinnemann. The man who had briefly enjoyed the limelight as a movie-palace owner. Who limelighted again (although somewhat privately) as the L.A. press discussed his wife's mysterious murder. Who sought others in the limelight so that they'd help him regain that limelight.

  He directed Roxanne Winterbury to give him a bad alibi that any cop should have been able to see through, and he directed me to look into the same bad alibi.

  Which I did.

  And that led me to his ex-wife's house, and the detective on his ex-wife's murder, who was somewhat annoyed at me for finding the ex-husband, whom he had no idea existed.

  Kenneth Johnson was staying at one of those anonymous by-the-month business hotels that dotted all of L.A. County. He'd been there for a month before his ex-wife's murder, and he stayed there throughout the publicity.

  It wasn't hard to find him, if you only knew where to look.

  * * * *

  Kenneth Johnson got his fifteen minutes of fame. In tried-and-true L.A. tradition, he gave interviews to the press against his attorney's advice, appeared on all the talk shows, and proclaimed his innocence. That went on too long for my taste, but how long I have no idea, since I stopped watching after the first two days.

  The problem was, he extended my fifteen minutes of fame to nearly six months. I became the most famous detective in Los Angeles. Someone even ran a special about me on Court TV, although they didn't interview me or my friends or most of my clients, and used only stock footage.

  I tried to see this as a good thing. New clients, a better office, and enough money to afford a really good secretary who could screen my calls, turn away unwanted visitors, and tell the press to go to hell.

  But I gotta say, I resented Kenneth Johnson. I felt like some flat-faced extra who had somehow become an unlikely star of a blockbuster film. I didn't want the fame he'd directed me into, and I couldn't seem to get out of it.

  But it's my new reality. Well-known detective Belinda Sweet, the go-to girl for the biggest of the big cases. Those cases do pay well, and I'm smart enough to solve them.

  But getting used to this new persona is a bit rough.

  I keep reminding myself: New personas and new realities are an L.A. thing. They're exactly what Katalin Voight wanted when she moved to the city. A chance to start over. A chance to remake herself.

  A chance to be someone else.

  I am someone else, and I'd rather be me.

  But that's the L.A. curse and the L.A. blessing. At least no one will ask me to alibi them anymore—at least, not after the fact.

  Although some director's been chasing me for weeks now, wanting me to host a cable show on alibis.

  Which, of course, I will never ever do.

  Copyright © 2010 kristine Kathryn Rusch

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department of First Stories: ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE by Audrey Webb

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Born in Canada, Audrey Webb has been living in the U.S. since 2001. She began writing “Adminstrative Leave” while attending the 2009 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and is currently at work on her first mystery novel. When she isn't writing fiction, Ms. Webb produces nonfiction articles for magazines and does film and book reviews. She has also written several screenplays, including one that took third place in the NYC Midnight Screenwriting Championships.

  Like most cops, I keep my life as routine as possible. During the first ten minutes of every shift, I head to the same apartment complex, one of the city's trouble spots, a place where crime practically oozes from the cracks in the walls. If there are going to be any surprises, I leave it to the criminals to think them up.

  Today, a few blocks before I reach my destination, there's a kid, probably about twelve years old, on the sidewalk. Beside him, leaning against a massive snow bank, there's a BMX racer with a retro banana seat, definitely on the frosty side of cool, and a nasty way to be getting around at this time of year. I give the kid major props for having the balls to do it.

  On the wall behind him, in Krylon orange, there's a half-finished obscenity. Well, either it's an obscenity or he was just about to liven up the hood with the word “F-U-N.” It's ten below, just cold enough that the spray paint freezes instantly, keeping his work free of dribble marks. He's trying to act nonchalant, but he's guilty of being the artist. I can read it on his face. I've been a cop only three years, hardly a veteran, but already I've seen that look far too often, a mixture of fear, defiance, and testosterone. Our eyes connect as I slow my cruiser to a crawl. He doesn't know what to make of me looking right at him. If he had some buddies with him, there'd be a display of bravado, perhaps a few taunts, but he's alone and doesn't know how he should behave.

  From inside my cruiser, I can't prove he did anything. I didn't see him doing it, but I'd bet a month's pay there's a can of spray paint in his baggy pants. He's black, and I don't want to have to test my suspicion. White cops get a bad rap in the community for arresting black kids. I choose not to be a social statistic. Personally, I think we'd arrest fewer juveniles period if their pants fit better. Running with his pants around his knees really slows a young thug down. I'm just saying....

  * * * *

  I let this one go. I give the kid a chance to vent whatever is bottling up inside him. For all I know, his father is dispensing something other than Christmas cheer, or his mother is working two jobs to keep the family afloat. In either case, an arrest isn't going to make anyone's season jollier.

  As I pull away, I check the rearview mirror. He's giving me the finger. Tomorrow, he'll have a story to share with his pals. He'll revise the ending, no doubt, and neglect the minor detail that he'd flipped me off only after I'd already driven away.

  The gates to the apartment complex where I'm headed are open when I arrive. I've never seen them closed. Perhaps the gates were originally intended to protect residents from the outside world, but anyone intent on doing harm would find his way onto the grounds whether the gates were open or closed. Most of the problems come from inside the complex anyhow. Keeping the gates closed might actually prevent someone from getting out of harm's way.

  Most nights, I flash my high beams as I pull up the driveway, for the little old lady on the second floor who always opens her curtains a crack just to take a peek at me. My signal is like a wink to her, just to let her know I'm here. I like to think it makes her feel a bit safer. She always acknowledges my signal with a thumbs-up. But tonight, I forget to give her my sign. I'm distracted by a grey Mercedes in the parking lot to the right, and my skin begins to tingle. A car that draws so much attention, especially in this neighborhood, is usually driven by someone who's trouble.

  The Mercedes is parked against a frost fence, where a few weeds still poke out from beneath the snow. From behind the car, I can't see anyone in it, but as I step closer, I know that someone has been in there recently. The smell of dope hangs thick in the air.

  I take o
ut my flashlight and approach the driver's side of the vehicle. When I'm about four feet away, I see someone lying down, his head toward the passenger door. I shine the flashlight in his face. He twitches, rubs his eyes, sits up. I don't move any closer. He sees me, and instantly puts his hands in the air. Either he's been through this routine before or he's seen enough movies to know what happens next.

  I reach forward to open the car door for him. “Keep your hands where I can see them, and step out of the vehicle for me, sir.” He cooperates fully, and I'm thankful that he's playing his role without any embellishments.

  "What's your name?” I ask.

  "Mario,” he replies. He walks toward the rear of the vehicle, spreads his legs, and puts his hands on the trunk, just an absolute pro.

  I remove the handcuffs from my belt. I don't know why. I haven't found any reason to arrest him yet. But he puts both hands behind his back, which is enough of a confession for me, and I snap the cuffs into place. We move together like it's a ballet.

  I press the button on my radio and speak into my shoulder. “Ten ninety-five.” I had one man in custody, fifteen minutes into my shift.

  "Is it okay with you if I check the vehicle, Mario?"

  He shrugs. For him, the dance is over.

  "Anything in the car I should know about?” I ask.

  "Just my friend in the backseat,” he says.

  I kick myself for not having noticed, for still making rookie mistakes after three years on the force. I put Mario in the back of my cruiser and return to the Mercedes. Lying down on the backseat, the kid looks like a pile of dark laundry. A long jacket, those baggy pants, a Chicago Bulls hat pulled down over his face. Must be some powerful weed to make them both conk out like that. It never had that effect on me back in the day.

  I tap on the window and shine the flashlight on the kid's hands, thinking I'd make it a gentle wake-up call. Maybe I rapped harder than I thought. The kid in the backseat sits up like he's just been poked with a sharp stick. In one move, he swings his legs off the seat, turns to the left, sees me through the tinted glass, and reaches for the gun that had been underneath him. I drop my flashlight, draw my weapon, and fire one blast through the rolled-up window, aiming from memory. The window opens in a hundred dark pieces, and he falls against the far side of the vehicle, his hand still resting on his weapon, mine still warm in my hand.