by Matt Coyle
He pointed to a wooden stool in front of a granite island and walked over to a coffeemaker on the counter. I took a seat and set the paper bag on the island. A bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon lay opened on its side on top of the granite. There wasn’t enough bourbon left in the bottle to spill out. Remnants from last night.
“It’s so damn early, my coffee machine hasn’t even started yet.” Buckley punched buttons on a drip coffeemaker. He walked over to the Sub-Zero and opened it. “Get you some orange juice? Water?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
He grabbed a bottled water out of the fridge and sat down across from me at the island. He righted the upended Maker’s Mark, glanced at me, then moved it aside. I was pretty sure that if I hadn’t been there, he would have finished it up. Was this how he started every morning?
“Now, what brings you to my house at this god-awful hour?” He took a sip of his water and looked at me through morning bourbon eyes. “Is the bad news in that trash bag?”
“No. That’s the good news. Steven Lunsdorf’s cigarette butt with fingerprints and DNA…and a few others.”
“Good work. What’s the bad news?”
“Before I tell you, I may need to hire you as an attorney.”
“Does this involve something you did, son?” Buckley set the water down on the island.
“Something I found when I entered a hou—”
“Stop right there!”
I stopped talking.
“Be right back.”
Buckley left the room and came back with a document, sat down and slid it across the island to me. He handed me a pen. “Sign it. Says you’re hiring me as your attorney. That way, whatever else you tell me is privileged. Judging by you droppin’ by before the rooster crows and the look on your face, I’m guessing it best be privileged.”
He was wrong about the rooster, but right about the rest. I picked up the pen.
“Wait.” Buckley stopped me. “Slide that back here with the pen for a second.”
I did as told. Buckley crossed something out on the contract, then wrote something down and slid it and the pen back to me. “Changed $400 an hour to a dollar. Could get a little pricey. Plus, gonna have you write it off as an expense anyway, and we don’t want the IRS to think we’re laundering money.”
Buckley gave me back the contract, and I signed and initialed where he directed me. Coffee began to drip from the maker down into the decanter, sizzling on the hot glass.
“All right, now you can tell me your story.” Buckley eyed the splashing coffee, then the Maker’s Mark, and licked his lips.
I told him about Trey fleeing town, Wayne Delk in the parking lot of The Chalked Cue, Sierra Fellows, the Raptor by the pepper tree, Eric Schmidt’s body in Trey Fellows’ hideout on Candlelight Drive, the police coming to the house, and the murder weapon being my stolen gun.
Buckley didn’t interrupt me or say anything when I finished. He got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, tasted it, then sat down and grabbed the Maker’s Mark. He poured the remaining two ounces of booze left in the bottle into his coffee.
I didn’t say anything. Buckley had a routine. I trusted him enough to let him follow it. I just hoped he’d change the routine before it killed him.
Finally, Buckley spoke. “Son, you wade into more horseshit than anyone I’ve ever met. If someone gave you a prize stallion, you’d dig around in the stall picking through its shit.”
I couldn’t argue with him.
“Problem is.” He hit his hard coffee. “You’re pulling this case right in there with you.”
“I saved this case, Buckley. If I hadn’t gone after Wayne Delk, we wouldn’t know about any of this, and Trey and his sister would be dead. Just like the Raptor murdered with my gun in the house on Candlelight.”
“Where is the gun, by the way?”
I told him. “Son, I’m not going to tell you to break any more laws than you already have.” Buckley looked me dead in the eyes like Bob Reitzmeyer used to when he was about to give some fatherly advice. “But for your own good, that gun can never be found.”
“They can’t pin the murder on me.” I tried to convince myself, but my voice caught in the back of my throat and tumbled out dry. “I reported the gun stolen a week ago.”
Buckley grabbed the contract and ripped it up.
“Why the hell’d you do that?”
“I can’t be your lawyer.”
“Why not?” My body flashed hot and clammy at once.
“Because I can’t work at cross purposes. I’ve got too many dogs in one fight. A lawyer who was only concerned with your best interests would advise you to go down to LJPD right now and tell them everything you know about the death of that biker and who stole your gun.”
“First you tell me the gun can never be found, and now you tell me to tell LJPD where it is.” I threw up my hands.
“I’m rethinking the situation.” He took another slug of the coffee. Maybe the booze made him more focused. Or sloppy. “Going to the police and telling the truth might be the only way to keep you out of jail.”
“I should have told the truth when I went in to report the gun stolen. But now it’s too late.”
“Why?”
“Because the Raptors might have a mole at LJPD. Lunsdorf and Delk had to get the Candlelight address from someone and I doubt it was Eric Schmidt or Alan Rankin. That leaves LJPD. But we don’t know who the mole is or how high it goes up the ranks.” Buckley narrowed his eyes, grunted, got up and walked out of the kitchen. He returned a minute later with another contract.
“I guess we’re going to ride this one out.” He made the same changes on the document he’d made earlier and slid it over to me to sign. “We go before a judge in four days. We need to get Mr. Fellows back here and ready to testify.”
“What happens after he testifies before the judge?”
“What’re you getting at?”
“If the judge throws out the first conviction and we get a second trial, how do we protect Trey from now until the trial?”
“I’m working on that.” He took a sip of his morning-after coffee and looked down at the granite island.
“You mean you haven’t figured it out?”
“Not yet.” He looked up at me. “I’m also figuring out how to keep you out of jail. When that body on Candlelight Drive starts to reek enough for the mailman to smell on his daily rounds, the police are gonna come a-calling on you.”
I was worried about the police showing up at my house. But I was more worried about the Raptors getting there first.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I needed a gun if the Raptors came calling. If I went to a gun store and bought one, I’d still have to wait California’s ten days before I could take it home. That might be nine days too late. I’d been in a similar situation two years ago. The gun had arrived too late then. But I’d gotten lucky. Considering the turns my life had taken recently, counting on luck didn’t constitute a plan.
I knew where to find a gun. Two, actually, but the one I’d bought two years ago would have to remain hidden. The Ruger .357 that I’d never fired but someone else had. Once. To put a bullet behind Eric Schmidt’s ear. That gun was too hot to carry, and I’d have to climb on a roof to retrieve it anyway. But there was a second option in Ocean Beach. The gun I’d taken off Wayne Delk that Sierra had left behind her apartment building last night. I needed to get down there before some kid found the gun and thought it was a toy, or some homeless dude did who was looking to get even.
I drove down Ingraham Street out of Pacific Beach. The white noise of the police scanner, background music to the images of last night playing roulette in my mind. I crossed over the Ingraham Street Bridge that bisected Mission Bay and watched a lone kayaker smoothly stroke through the water. Then I heard the police dispatcher’s call on the scanner, but it didn’t register at first. Possible DB at 5564 Candlelight Drive. Then it slapped me in the face.
DB, dead body.
; 5564 Candlelight Drive.
Trey’s hideout.
The house where the body of Eric Schmidt lay inside decomposing.
Shit.
Whoever called the police last night hadn’t given up. Either that, or Dianne Wilkens had come home from Hawaii and found a horrible surprise.
The morning closed in on me. The fog hung low and pressed down on the RAV4’s windshield. I pulled off the road into the Hospitality Point parking lot and turned up the volume on the scanner. A two-man squad car took the call. I listened and waited. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I let go a long exhale. Minutes passed like hours as I listened to the background chatter of cops answering calls, but nothing on 5564 Candlelight Drive.
Finally, the squad checking the call on Candlelight Drive radioed dispatch. Nothing suspicious to report. No sign of possible DB.
What? They must not have gone inside.
The dispatcher asked if anyone had been home. The patrolman responded “no,” but that the front door had been ajar, and he and his partner entered and checked the house for fear that someone might be injured inside. An old trick for an eager patrolman. If the door is unlocked, the cop goes inside and writes up in his report that the door was open. I’d done it myself back in Santa Barbara. The patrolman reported a slight odor of decomposition and said it may be due to a dead mouse or rat in the walls.
Either someone had moved the body of Eric Schmidt or the cops were lying. Both options were hard to believe, but one of them had to be true. I ruled out lying cops. It didn’t make any sense. Sooner or later, the body would be discovered and then the cops would have some explaining to do.
That left the first option, which was almost as ridiculous but had to be true. Someone had taken the body from the house and the only thing remaining was the decomp odor. Whoever had moved the body must have mopped up the blood or the cops would have seen it. But the smell of death lingers, grasping onto carpet fibers and furniture fabric. A persistent reminder that a life had ended. This one, violently.
Who could have moved the body? Who even knew about it? Trey Fellows, the Raptors who killed Eric Schmidt, their captain, and me. Now Buckley too, but way after the fact. Trey and I were the only ones with a motive to move the body. Trey had claimed to be on his way to Los Angeles last night. He could have been lying, but he couldn’t have moved the body by himself. Schmidt had to have weighed at least 230 pounds. Minus a quart of blood.
Lifting a dead man was different from lifting a barbell. Too many loose parts that give into gravity. Even if Trey could have somehow hoisted the body up into a car, where would he put it in Sierra’s Volkswagen Beetle? The trunk? You can’t even fit a golf bag back there. Strap the body into the front seat? No. Someone else had moved the body. The Raptors? Why? They had to have been the ones who murdered Schmidt at the Candlelight address, specifically to frame Trey. And if they had moved the body, who called in the tip to the police?
Someone else had to have known about the body and moved it. But who?
I called Buckley, and told him about the radio dispatch call and the missing body.
“Sure you heard correctly?”
“Come on, Buckley.”
“Sorry, son. It’s so dang strange.”
“You think the attorney, Alan Rankin, could have had anything to do with this?”
“Hell, no. Why?”
“Because other than Trey moving the body, and I don’t think he did, I’m all out of guesses. And Rankin and Schmidt met with Trey at the Candlelight house. Call it guilt by association.”
“Alan Rankin has more bends than a coiled rattlesnake but I don’t think he’d cross this line.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know, son. That can’t be our concern right now. You need to find Trey so we can go forward with Randall Eddington’s case, and for Trey’s own safety.”
I hung up, got back on the road, and called Sierra on my cell phone. No answer. I called again. “Rick, I’m buried. I can’t talk now.”
Buried. Restaurant lingo for hopelessly behind. I could sympathize but needed answers now.
“It won’t take long. Go into the bathroom so we can talk.”
“Dammit.” A rustling noise, like she’d put the phone in her apron pocket. Ten seconds later, “Okay. Hurry.”
“Has Trey called?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where you left the gun last night? Under one of the dumpsters? In one?”
“No. I just got up and went to your car. It must be on the ground between the dumpsters.” Her voice quivered high. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Actually, a big problem. “You told me that Trey threw away his cell phone. Do you know where?”
“I’m not sure. But…”
“But what?”
“It was weird. He didn’t pick up your call last night, but listened to the message right after you hung up.”
“How do you know the call was from me?”
“He looked at the name of the caller and said, ‘I don’t want to talk to that asshole private dick.’”
That would be me. “What’s the weird part?”
“After he listened to your message, he called somebody and went into the bathroom.”
“Could you hear any of the conversation?”
“No. He had the fan on.” She spoke quickly, still riding the anxiety of last night. “But when he came out he was panicked. He told me to leave the apartment right away, and he said he had to get rid of his phone and would call me from another one later. Then he said he had to take my car, and he grabbed his duffel bags and left.”
“Who do you think he called on that last call?”
“I don’t know. Lately, he’s been making calls in private and answering some in private too.”
“Just in the last two days, since he’s been staying with you?”
“No.” Anxious. “Ever since this whole Eddington murder thing happened.”
“One more thing. Does Trey have a girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Kelsey something, ah…” I gave her time to search her brain. “Santos. Yeah, Santos. She lives somewhere in Mission Beach.”
“Do you have a phone number?”
“No. Sorry. Gotta go.”
Nine o’clock. Still early for Ocean Beach. Especially on a Sunday. The morning fog wouldn’t burn off for another couple hours and everything was draped in a bleached-out gray. The Dawn Patrol surfers had taken up most of the parking spaces in the lot at Dog Beach, but there were still a few available spots waiting for winter tourists. I left them one less and walked the two blocks to Sierra’s apartment building on Long Branch.
No cop cars, Raptor Trans Ams, or Choppers. I went around the back of the building where Sierra and I had hidden last night. I searched between the two dumpsters. Nothing. Got down into a push-up position and looked underneath them. More nothing. I doubted Sierra had tossed the gun into the dumpster, or that anyone who found it would have. Trey wouldn’t have thrown in his phone either. He would have bolted straight for Sierra’s car, and not gone all the way around the building to ditch the phone. I called his number on my phone anyway. Straight to voicemail, and no ring coming out of a dumpster.
Maybe he left the phone in the apartment. If I could find Trey’s phone, I’d have all his recent calls, contacts, and texts. I’d have at least the phone number of the call he made after mine last night. At best, a name to go with that call.
I went back to Kim’s RAV4 and dug out my lock-pick set from the duffel bag I’d transferred over from the Mustang last night. Right before Kim asked me to do the right thing and walk away. The adrenaline of the case had pushed the end with Kim to the background for now. I’d find out how to live without her when the case was over.
Nobody came out of their apartments during the sixty seconds or so it took me to pick the lock on Sierra’s door. I slipped inside and everything l
ooked the same from last night. I called Trey’s phone again. No rings on the phone or in the apartment. I checked all the trash cans in the apartment. No phone. I looked under the bed, the sofa, in cabinets, even in the refrigerator. No phone. Trey must have thrown the phone away somewhere else.
I scanned the apartment one more time to see if there was something else that could give a clue to where Trey was. Nothing. I grabbed the doorknob, then something clicked in my mind. Something was missing. I looked back at the coffee table. No bong. I remembered seeing it last night. Now gone. Sierra had locked the door when we left last night. Unless some stoner in the complex as skillful with a pick set as me had broken in and stolen the bong, Trey had come back for it.
When? Between the time Sierra and I left the apartment and he called Sierra to tell her he was on his way to Los Angeles? That would have been a period of twenty to twenty-five minutes, tops. No way would he have gone back there then when the heat was still on broil. He wouldn’t have come back for hours. Maybe even this morning.
Trey had lied to Sierra about going to Los Angeles. He was still somewhere in San Diego. Could he have been stupid enough to stay with his girlfriend? If I could find out about her, so could the Raptors.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I got lucky with the online white pages on my cell phone and found a Kelsey Santos, single, age thirty to thirty-four, living on Mission Beach Boulevard. There was a phone number to go with the address. Most people don’t know that their address, and sometimes their phone number, are waiting to be found on the Internet for free. Just like the old days with phone books. Couple that with social media, and you can learn all you want and more about almost anyone. Great time to be alive if you’re a stalker. Maybe that’s why there are so many.
Ten a.m. on a weekend in the winter, Kelsey Santos might still be home. Most days in Mission Beach got off to late starts. But I didn’t want to drive over there and spend a half hour looking for parking, only to discover she wasn’t home. I called her phone number from my car.
