by Anna Burke
She cried herself to sleep and woke up still in her clothes. Things didn’t look quite so dire this morning, once she cleaned herself up. One of Peter’s guys was already on duty outside. Still, she flinched when her phone rang.
“Well, Ms. Huntington-Harper, I hear you’re at it again.”
“At what again, Detective Hernandez? And, please, it’s Jessica Huntington, no more Harper.” She recognized the crusty detective’s sardonic tone of voice immediately. She knew exactly what he was getting at, but decided to play coy.
“Running law enforcement ragged, that’s what. I heard you were involved in another incident on El Paseo Monday. Apparently that’s becoming a favorite spot for Jessica Huntington-centered calamity; Harper or no Harper! Word is you’re branching out and creating crime scenes elsewhere in our fair county. You and your colleagues made quite a stir with the Riverside County Sherriff’s department, three crime scenes in a twenty-four-hour period. As I recall, Ms. Huntington, that ties your previous record.”
“Yes, someone vandalized my car, Detective, two cars, actually. One on El Paseo and the other in LA that managed to get as far as Riverside before it gave up the ghost. And yes, after a couple of gangsta-wannabes finished terrorizing me, they torched their own car, creating another site for the police to clean up in Riverside. Imagine that, lowlifes acting like lowlifes! It’s not my fault. Besides, I don’t know why it matters to you. None of the so-called Jessica-Huntington-centered calamities were in your jurisdiction.”
“That is true. But imagine my surprise when I get called out to investigate a shooting that is in my jurisdiction, and the dead man has your card in his pocket, Attorney Huntington. When I’m making arrangements with the county coroner to process the body, I do a little research about our dead guy. I come across not one but two reports of incidents involving Jessica Huntington and the Riverside County Sherriff’s department. No wait, there’s more. One of the reports indicates there might be a connection to yet another act of vandalism, involving the fire-bombing of a car. That car was owned by Richard Tatum, who just happens to be a lawyer. A friend of yours, I presume. You want to tell me what’s going on? Or am I just supposed to be grateful we actually had a few weeks there without running into you at a crime scene?”
Jessica sat down on the side of her bed. That “things-seem-less-dire in the morning” feeling fled. “Who’s dead?” She knew before he answered her question. There weren’t many people in the area with one of her brand new business cards in their possession.
“A parolee recently returned to the area Ms. Huntington, Robert Simmons. Does the name ring a bell?”
“Yes, Detective, sadly, it does. He was my best friend’s boyfriend at the time she was killed years ago. I can explain: my place or yours, Detective Hernandez?”
“Have you got coffee?”
“I can make some by the time you get here, no donuts, though.”
“Very funny, that’s stereotyping you know, and not very PC of you.”
“Touché,” she said, as she hung up the phone and hauled her weary carcass to the kitchen to make coffee. Maybe caffeine would help. She already had her usual “dose” with her morning swim. She was ready for more, though, caffeine, that is, not more repartee with churlish detectives.
Frank Fontana’s face floated before her, as he had looked the day before when arriving at that scene in Riverside. Ragged with worry, his countenance was utterly transformed when he caught sight of Jessica. Rushing to embrace her, the relief was palpable.
“I heard the dispatcher mention your name, and something about ‘shots fired.’ Jessica, I know you’re not ready for a relationship. Please, you’ve got to promise me you’ll live long enough to give me a chance when the time comes!”
Not only had he refrained from chastising her after that, but Frank actually apologized for being so pig-headed about the situation they were in. He conceded that what she and the others had done was pretty basic investigative work. In fact, it was at his urging that she was involved in this mess at all. Jessica acknowledged that, while she was already on the psychopath’s radar, she had aggravated the situation by walking into Mr. P’s office. Confronting him point blank about a situation that could put him behind bars was like tugging on Superman’s cape. A deranged, self-designated Superman, with a depraved prescription-wielding hulk at his side.
Frank did not back down about the need to stop and let the professionals take over. Dick Tatum had jumped in to back him up. He was at least as horrified as Frank by Jessica’s decision to go into the lion’s den alone. Not only was it risky, but her confrontation had been rather pointless, given how little tangible evidence they had.
Even if they could not hold Mr. P responsible for Kelly’s murder, Frank hoped they might be able to make a connection between him and Chester Davis’ death. It now looked more like homicide than an accident. Someone had been with Chester at the time of his death. That someone was Arnold Dunne, the guy who put up the money to spring Chester Davis from jail. He had left his fingerprints at the scene and on Chester Davis’ body.
They now had the rogue in custody. Using the GPS on his cell phone, they located him at a sleazy motel near the border with Mexico. At Tecate, not Tijuana, a smaller, less-traveled entry port. If he had crossed the border, they might have lost him for good. Instead, he had stopped and holed up for several nights. It wasn’t clear why. Perhaps he was trying to figure out how to get across the border with his stash of drugs. He may have been overcome by the urge to party, since he had been doing plenty of that during his three-day layover at motel hell.
In any case, the local police had nabbed Arnold Dunne. He had nearly fifty thousand dollars in cash and a variety of drugs with him at the time of his arrest. Plus a suitcase full of illegal porn in both print and video formats. Found in a semi-comatose state, Arnold Dunne had been taken to the forensic ward at a hospital in San Diego. He would be transferred to the county jail when he had recovered from his binge. Frank and his partner planned to make the hundred-mile journey to interview Mr. Dunne about his connection to Chester Davis. They were waiting for word that he was alert enough to speak to them.
Mr. Dunne was lucky to be alive. Included in his stash were several syringes loaded with heroin and fentanyl. Some contained large quantities of fentanyl; when he got around to partying with one of them, it would have been his last hurrah.
Dick Tatum was totally blown away by Frank’s news, and by all Jessica and her friends had uncovered in so short a time about Kelly and Mr. P. Especially the similarity between the hypodermic found with Mr. Dunne and the one in Kelly’s possession so long ago. It was another of those maddeningly elusive links that suggested, but did not confirm, that both Chester and Kelly had met with foul play. Nor did it provide any direct evidence about the malefactor responsible for the deeds.
Making headway on unraveling the mystery of Chester Davis’ death made it worth a drive from Riverside to San Diego to interview Arnold Dunne. There was no guarantee, of course, that he wouldn’t clam up or lawyer up, but he was in a world of trouble. Given all the charges piling up, there might be a deal to be made. Especially if they could get him to understand that he was under investigation for the murder of Chester Davis. The flophouse was a forensic investigator’s nightmare. Prints, bodily fluids and trace of all kinds were everywhere in the house. It would take days to sort out and catalogue, much less process, all the evidence recovered at the scene.
Even though Arnold Dunne’s fingerprints weren’t the only ones found at the scene, they were notable because they were found on Chester Davis’ person. Dunne had rolled Chester Davis over. Perhaps checking to see if he was still alive or, more likely, making sure that he was dead. His fingerprints were found in the vomit trailing down Chester Davis’s sleeve.
“I’m counting on getting to the bottom of this whole sorry tale by having that heart-to-heart with Arnold Dunne. Once he’s able to think clearly, Dunne has got to figure his best chance is to cut a deal given all th
e trouble he’s in with the law.”
“Yeah, but does he realize it might also be his best chance to stay alive?” Jessica asked.
CHAPTER 30
Detective Hernandez must have been in his car already when he called. The Cathedral City police department was fifteen minutes away, he was there in ten. Coffee was ready by the time the doorbell rang and Jessica let him in. They sat in the morning room off the kitchen, sipping coffee as Jessica laid it all out on the table for him. The detective was reasonably quiet as she spoke. He gasped when she talked about her chitchat with Mr. P, but merely shook his head and continued to drink his coffee. “I’ll admit it, I’ve been out there stirring the pot, Detective.”
“Stirring the pot, huh? I take it that means you’ve added a new tactic to complement your reliance on kismet as the key to sleuthing. That’s what you called it, right? Wasn’t it kismet that drove you into the clutches of Roger Stone’s murderer? Walking into Mr. P’s office and informing the man that you have an eyewitness who saw him murder your friend qualifies as stirring the pot, alright!” He set his mug down loudly. Jessica envisioned steam pouring from his ears, like a character in an old Saturday morning cartoon show.
“I’ve already had this conversation with another detective friend of mine. I was on the man’s radar before that confrontation in his office. My car was trashed earlier in the day, and I presume the ‘back off bitch’ message was from Mr. P. He was already tracking me, and that poor bastard Chet Davis, too, apparently.”
“Add Bobby Simmons to the list of guys on Mr. P’s radar. He also turned up dead within a few days of you stirring the pot. I’ll tell you what we know so far about the end to Bobby Simmons’ so-called life. Maybe you can help me make the connection between his murder and the newest psychopath in your life.”
The “ne’er-do-well,” as Detective Hernandez referred to him, was out on parole after serving two years in state prison for felony drug possession with intent to sell. That was a second drug-related offense for the “loser” who had lost his job with the casino several years before after that earlier drug bust. He had done a stint in drug treatment, like Chester Davis, but for heroin, not methamphetamine addiction.
Bobby Simmons didn’t die of a drug overdose, though. He was found dead with a bullet hole in his head, sitting in a used car he had recently purchased with cash. There was no sign he struggled with his assailant, who shot him at close range. His lap was full of drugs, including an array of pills, a balloon containing maybe a gram of black tar heroin, and a baggy full of marijuana. With the car parked in a secluded spot near an abandoned house high up in Cathedral Cove, the scene had all the markings of a drug deal gone wrong, but who knew for sure?
Bobby’s wallet was missing and he had no money on him, even though he had just cashed a meager paycheck from the Super Cuts where he worked. Of course, a big chunk of his cash would have gone to pay for the drugs found in his possession.
“His boss at Super Cuts thought Bobby had one of those pay-as-you-go cell phones, but if he did, that was missing too. So maybe it was a drug deal that turned into a robbery, but I don’t think so. The back seat of his car was loaded with bags and boxes, a pricey pair of sneakers sitting right there in plain view, alongside an Xbox or some such thing and a stack of CDs. Why not take that, too, and maybe clean out the car. You know, why not take the rest of the bags and boxes in the car, if robbery was the motive? Why leave the drugs with a dead guy? The whole thing could have been staged. A clean, execution-style hit with a little bit of drugs and a little bit of robbery thrown in to confuse things.” Hernandez pushed his empty cup toward Jessica distractedly without actually asking for more coffee. She refilled the mug as he continued to speak.
“Mr. Simmons may have been planning to hit the road, despite the repercussions for his status as a parolee. The car he bought last week was loaded with what must have been all his worldly possessions. That included fairly new household goods I figure he bought to set himself up after his release from prison. You know, pots and pans, dishes, sheets and towels, ordinary stuff, but kind of new?” The detective paused, seeming reluctant to continue.
“There were personal papers too, and what could only be described, Jessica, as the crud’s putrid scrapbook. Lewd pictures of a number of young-looking females. Some of those photos featured the man himself. I’m not talking about do-it-yourself Polaroids. These were professional. If you can call trash like that professional. There was also an old VHS tape starring a youthful Bobby Simmons letting it all hang out, so to speak. Apparently Mr. Simmons aspired to a career in the theater and had at least one gig of the X-rated variety. Now that I’ve seen your photo of Kelly, I’m pretty sure she was in some of the still shots. She looked younger than 19. It could have been the hair and clothes: pig tails and those little shorty pajamas. I’d guess more like 14 or 15 than 19, Jessica.”
Jessica felt like she might heave: too much coffee on an empty stomach, but also too much filth in too short a time. She placed her elbows on the table in front of her and rested her head in her hands.
“Can I get you something to eat, Detective? I need some crackers or chips, something.”
“If you’ve got them handy I could eat.”
A tub of Bernadette’s homemade salsa sat on a shelf in the fridge. She had made enough of the scrumptious spicy dip for an imminent meeting of the cat pack. Jessica had summoned the group to her house to debrief one last time. After that, she planned to call them off the trail of Mr. P and the doc. Bobby Simmons’ death had tipped the scales. It was time to abandon their efforts to solve the mystery of what had happened to Tommy’s poor dead sister. She did not want one of them to be added to the mounting body count.
What they had learned so far was hard to bear. Whether she was a drug addict or not, Kelly clearly had ties to loathsome characters like Bobby Simmons and Mr.P. Jessica felt sucker punched. Like she was fifteen again, caught following blithely along behind the wild and out of control girl, right into the hands of Mr. P.
Jessica set a tray with a bowl of salsa and a bag of chips on the table in front of them. She had also brought them water to drink. With Bernadette’s salsa, they’d need it. She picked up the conversation where they left off.
“Did I mention the fact that among the possessions found with Arnold Dunne at the border was a substantial quantity of illicit pornographic material? Apparently, underage women figured prominently in the triple XXX flicks and rags. That might mean there’s a connection.”
“It might, Jessica. Guys like Bobby Simmons dabble in a lot of raunchy activities. It could be a general fascination with corruption or maybe it’s hard to satisfy one vice without picking up another one.” He dug into the bowl of salsa with a chip, his eyes brightening as he took a bite of the fresh, savory concoction.
“Your friend, Kelly, and her boyfriend were both mixed up in the kind of modeling that’s tied to the porn business. Unless Bobby Simmons and Arnold Dunne knew each other, there’s no reason to believe they were dealing with the same producers of that smut. More than a decade has elapsed since those photos were taken of Bobby Simmons and those girls. So the fact both sleaze balls have porn in their possession doesn’t necessarily connect back to your Mr. P and his sidekick, Doctor Death”
“He’s not my...” Jessica began wearily.
“I know, I know. He’s not your Mr. P. My point is, you’ve got nothing, and he seems pretty intent on keeping it that way. Even if this does lead back to him, you do get that the p in Mr. P stands for psychopath, right?” Watching her intently, the detective scarfed down another chip loaded with salsa, then took a gulp of cool water as a chaser.
Jessica nodded in agreement, as she forced herself to chew and swallow the chip she had put into her mouth. Her throat was bone dry. Her stomach was in knots. Here she was again, toe-to-toe with a mad man. Terrified, she also raged at the idea of backing down. The bastard had gotten away with murdering her friend, and was at it again.
“This is primo s
alsa, by the way. Will you give up the recipe if I offer to go through everything that degenerate Bobby Simmons left behind and identify anything that has to do with your friend?”
“No.” That sounded rather abrupt. “Actually, Detective, I’d welcome any information you can come up with by going through that deadbeat’s belongings. As much as I dread seeing them, I should get copies of those pictures of Kelly. You can skip the ones of her dead boy toy. As for the salsa, I honestly don’t know the exact recipe. It’s one of St. Bernadette’s many secrets. Yet another mystery I’m not likely to solve in my lifetime.” Just then, they heard the door from the garage into the house open, and the lady herself bustled into the room.
“Speak of the devil,” Jessica said loudly enough for Bernadette to hear.
“Jessica, that’s not nice to call Detective Hernandez the devil. He’s not that bad.” Bernadette set bags of groceries on a counter, then walked through the kitchen to the morning room where they sat. “Nice to see you again, Detective,” she said, looking from him to Jessica and back again. “Isn’t it?”
“Bobby Simmons is dead, Bernadette. He was killed just a few days after Tommy, Jerry, and I spoke to him at the soup kitchen. We must have spooked him, because Detective Hernandez tells me he was packed and ready to hit the road when someone put him out of his misery.”
“Not another murder, ay que Dios mìo! On top of all the trouble you’ve been having, Jessica. Thank God Peter has his guerrero, that warrior man, sitting in the front yard again.” She crossed herself as she spoke. “Did she tell you about her trouble, Detective? Those gangsters with the pistol she had to take away from them.”
