Purview of Flashbulbs (Alexis Parker Book 15)

by G. K. Parks

  “But no photos?”

  “Just one. Someone removed the internal memory card. The only image we were able to pull was the last thing the drone captured before it seized.” He tapped the spacebar on the closest computer and a fuzzy image popped up. “That blur is the bullet that killed it,” Amir said gravely.

  “Let me know when you finish the autopsy,” I said, finding his sentiment comical.

  He snickered. “Will do.”

  After updating Cross on the situation, I returned to my office and went back to the stalker’s profile. I read through my possible suspects, but since everything was speculation, it was hard to make much progress. The actual facts I possessed were few and far between. Maybe Dinah Allen was being stalked by an apparition. At this point, that made just as much sense as anything else.

  Reaching for the phone, I dialed Pat the paparazzo. He remembered Reaper leaving the club early that night. Reaper had been there when the celebrities arrived and took several shots as they entered, but he didn’t hang around to wait for them to leave.

  “I thought he had a hot tip on something else,” Pat said.

  “Have you seen him since?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember an accident that night?”

  “Can’t say that I do.” He waited a beat. “Was one of the actors involved in something?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He didn’t believe me. “You said if I cooperated, you’d make it up to me. Why do you care so much what’s going on with Reaper? Is he getting sued again?”

  Without answering his question, I said, “Do you think the drone that crashed outside the hotel was his?”

  “I didn’t see him that day, and I don’t think he’d just leave a piece of hardware like that on the street. He’d go back and get it.”

  After thanking him for his time, I hung up and paced my office. When brilliance failed to strike, I grabbed my things and drove back to the club. Reaper had been here. It was the last place anyone remembered seeing him. Maybe I’d find some hint as to where he’d gone.

  On the way, I wondered if flying the drone into that woman’s windshield had been a test run to see if the safety hammer attachment would break the glass. Perhaps Reaper planned on breaching the club and getting some shots of the party inside. None of his competition would have gotten those snapshots, and based on the items I found in the bathroom, it might have been worth the risk.

  He flew the drone away from the scene of the accident, so he must have been close, just not close enough for the freaked out woman or the other driver to have noticed him. I parked in the alley beside the club and looked around. The place was closed. From the outside, it didn’t look like much, but I did see a few small windows rather high up. They weren’t broken, but if they weren’t made of tempered glass, the drone wouldn’t have been powerful enough to break the window.

  I checked the rest of the alleyway where Scar had waited for Dinah, but I didn’t find anything of interest. The front of the club was more exotic than the side of the building with blacked out doors covered in bars. The sign was flashy, and at night, it lit up in bright blues and neon purples. During the day, the nearby shops and buildings did a decent business, so if something obvious was out in the open, it would have been noticed and picked up.

  I moved outward from the club, circling and expanding a block at a time. This would have been easier if Officer Mitchell had given me a location for the accident, but he didn’t. Based on his age and demeanor, I’d guess he’d already put in his twenty. He was seasoned and not about to share intel with some woman he didn’t know, so I was lucky to have gotten as much out of him as I did.

  When I failed to determine the location of the accident, I headed back to the club. Since I knew the distance for the remote-controlled drone, I could estimate how far away Reaper must have been. Even though Pat and the others saw him leave, they weren’t paying enough attention to their surroundings to be considered reliable. Reaper could have been sitting inside his car, flying his drone, and they wouldn’t have noticed. At night, it’d be almost impossible to see the contraption flying through the sky.

  I checked the nearby streets for his car. That was another dead end. I checked down a few of the nearby alleyways, but since garbage pick-up hadn’t happened in a few days, no one was illegally parked near the overflowing dumpsters. I needed a better strategy.

  What if this was just a wild goose chase? We weren’t even certain if the drone Scar shot down outside Dinah’s window belonged to Chaz Relper. And since Reaper was MIA, we couldn’t exactly ask him about it. The fact that he vanished didn’t sit well with me. His place didn’t appear tossed, but there wasn’t anything to toss. Everything of value was out in the open, but the memory cards were missing from his equipment.

  Unsure what to do and tired of running in circles, I returned to the office. From what I recalled, Reaper didn’t have much in the way of family or friends. Would anyone notice if he disappeared? Was this behavior common for him? I phoned the local hospitals to see if he’d been admitted. The hospitals didn’t have any record of him, and I was running out of ideas. Perhaps I should see if anyone filed a missing persons, but I nixed that idea. If Reaper caused the accident, it might explain why he went into hiding, but something told me he wasn’t hiding.

  My desk phone buzzed, and I picked it up. “Mr. Cross would like to see you,” the assistant said.

  A feeling of dread took hold. “What happened?” I asked.

  “He’s waiting for you upstairs.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  His assistant was on the phone but held up a finger, indicating I should wait. I crossed my arms over my chest and resisted the urge to tap my foot impatiently.

  “I’ll let him know.” The assistant hung up the phone and pressed the intercom button. “Lucien, the details on the phone call will be forwarded to your e-mail momentarily, and Miss Parker is here.”

  “Send her in,” came Cross’s disembodied voice.

  The assistant looked up. “You heard the man.”

  I opened the door and stepped inside, pulling it closed behind me. “You summoned.”

  “Have a seat.”

  That was never good, but I did as I was told. Lucien clicked his mouse a few times and glared at the computer screen. “Last night’s call came from a courtesy phone in the hotel gym. It’s a twenty-four hour gym. The keycard used to gain access was Dinah Allen’s room key.”

  “That’s not possible. Dinah was with me.”

  Cross gave me an incredulous look. “Obviously, her stalker gained access to her belongings. I’ve contacted Mr. Scaratilli. We need to determine how this happened.”

  “What about security footage?”

  Cross hit a button, projecting his screen onto the large monitor against the wall. A slight figure dressed in baggy sweats and a hoodie entered the gym. The hood remained up, concealing his face. He never looked at the cameras. He went to the phone, attached something to the handset, and dialed a lengthy number. “We’re assuming that’s a voice modulator.”

  “Good guess,” I replied giving him the same look he gave me.

  “Still, it’s a start.”

  After the call concluded, the unsub went into the attached locker room. No cameras were inside for obvious reasons. However, he never came out. Based on what I knew of the hotel, the locker room also led to the showers which had another exit to the outdoor pool.

  “We need to know who went out through the pool,” I said.

  “Cameras were misaligned. Whoever did this planned it out carefully.”

  “Dammit,” I hissed, staring at the frozen image on Cross’s screen. “Who the hell is this guy?”

  Twenty-six

  My phone rang, and I blindly hit answer while my eyes remained glued to the camera footage from the hotel. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who was beneath the hoodie. The person wasn’t built like a refrigerator, so that definitely ruled out Scar and the rest of D
inah’s security team, who all resembled football players. The baggy sweats concealed everything about his build. The guy could have lean, sinewy muscles like Lance and Clay, or he could be soft with a tiny potbelly, like the director. Cross had the techs working on precise details, but we put the person in the hoodie in the ballpark of 5’9”. Lance was roughly three inches taller, but I didn’t think it was enough to completely rule him out.

  “Hello?” I asked while I pulled up the profile on Reaper. According to his license, he was 5’9” and weighed 155 pounds, which fit perfectly with the image but not my theory. Most of the men in Dinah’s life had the wrong physique, except for Bernardo Nykle, the designer. He was a slight man, but he didn’t have access to the set, and according to Cross, Nykle was in Europe when the prop dummy had been left. Something was wrong, either with the footage or the profile. Whoever this guy was, he had used Dinah’s room key to access the gym. Scar had sent over a list of people who had come and gone, but no one stuck out.

  “I’d like an order of General Tso’s chicken, fried rice, not steamed, beef and broccoli with a side order of spring rolls, extra duck sauce, and an order of moo goo gai pan and won ton soup, extra dumplings.”

  Confused, I wondered why Det. O’Connell was calling me with his takeout order. “Did you dial the wrong number, Nick?”

  “No, but since you’re on your way to the precinct, I thought you wouldn’t mind picking up dinner.” Someone said something in the background. “Oh, and a platter of spare ribs. They’re supposed to be an appetizer, but if you ask for a platter, not the pu pu platter, but just a platter, they make it into a meal. You are going to Dynasty House on Seventh, right?”

  I blinked a few times. “Don’t they deliver?”

  “Yes, but it’s always cold by the time it gets here.”

  “I’ll fetch your dinner on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” Nick asked.

  “Tell me why I should schlep all the way back to the precinct.”

  “We found Chaz Relper.”

  “Good answer.”

  O’Connell was waiting on the stairs when I arrived. He took the bags and poked his head into one of them. “You didn’t get anything for yourself?” he asked as he led the way upstairs. I shook my head, and he eyed me with that all-knowing detective look of his. “Martin’s ruined you.” At his desk, he divvied up the orders and rummaged through his drawer for some plastic silverware.

  “Not to be a pain, but can’t that wait?” I asked.

  “Relper’s not going anywhere, and I don’t want this to get cold. That’s why I asked you to deliver it, remember?” He went into the breakroom to get a paper plate, and I trailed behind him.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s really going on?” I asked.

  He glanced out the door into the bullpen. “After your luncheon with Officer Mitchell, he decided to do a bit more investigating. He got the watch commander to sign off, and he took a squad of newbies to the scene of the accident to perform a canvass. They found Reaper behind a dumpster.”

  “Hiding?” I asked, even though I knew it was a stupid thing to say.

  “Homicide took over. Mitchell’s pissed. He wasted days trying to find this guy, and as soon as he did, someone else swoops in to work the case. He isn’t too happy about it, so he blabbed about you to the detective who caught the case. Apparently, you would have been Mitchell’s prime suspect.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Mitchell? He’s out on patrol, looking for Relper’s vehicle.” O’Connell looked guilty. “Homicide wants to talk to you. They were prepared to barge into your office and ask questions, but I volunteered to save them a trip and the wrath of Lucien Cross.”

  I glared daggers. “Wasn’t that nice of you?”

  “Look, Parker, it’s nothing personal. You and I are good. We always will be. But you work for Cross, and that causes the department problems. Cross doesn’t share intel. He doesn’t play ball. He sends us the clowns in Tom Ford who tell us to back off or risk seven figure lawsuits. A man is dead, and we don’t have time for this shit.”

  “We really don’t.” My thoughts went to the phone call last night. “Do we know the cause or TOD?” A part of me almost hoped Reaper had been the stalker and Scar eliminated him. At least that would mean Dinah was safe, even if she was employing a killer.

  “ME has him on the table now. We’ll know more once they finish processing the evidence and get him opened up. Preliminary reports suggest blunt force trauma.” O’Connell brushed past me and back to his desk. “Jacobs,” he called to the detective who just came up the steps, “take Parker to see our friends in homicide.”

  Jacobs offered a tight smile. We’d worked together a couple of times. The last time was during my final case at the OIO. We were comfortable enough with one another that he didn’t feel the need to chitchat. He led me through the doors to homicide and straight to an office in the far corner of the bullpen. After a quick introduction, he excused himself and went back to work.

  It took less than two minutes to reach an impasse. I wasn’t willing or able to divulge the precise reason why I wanted to find Relper, and unlike my friends in major crimes, the homicide detective wasn’t nearly as lenient. His opinion of me was already jaded by whatever unkind remarks Mitchell had made, and to think, I bought that prick lunch and watched him gobble it down.

  “Let’s try this another way. What do you know about Chaz Relper?” the homicide detective asked.

  “His friends call him Reaper. Now that just seems like it’s in poor taste.” I tapped my fingers impatiently on my thighs. “He’s a paparazzo. He owns a drone. Did you happen to find it?”

  The detective’s stare grew even harder. “No.”

  “What about his camera equipment? It’s my understanding he wouldn’t go anywhere without it.”

  “How well did you know Mr. Relper?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you expect me to believe it’s just a coincidence you asked about him the same day we found him dead?”

  “No. My asking is what caused Officer Mitchell to double-down on his search. You probably wouldn’t have found Reaper if it wasn’t for me.” I narrowed my eyes. “Where exactly did you find him?”

  He leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers while he scrutinized me. “Why are you sniffing around?”

  “I might have heard rumors he was wanted for questioning.”

  The homicide detective didn’t say anything, but his attention went to the screen in front of him. For a moment, he did nothing but watch. Then he hit pause. “You went to a club in the middle of the afternoon. Any particular reason why? Did someone tell you to go there?”

  I blew out a breath. “This conversation isn’t helping either of us. By now, you’ve had time to run my background. You know who I am and what I do. If I had anything solid on who killed Reaper, I’d tell you. Until ten minutes ago, I didn’t know he was dead. We both know he had enemies. Powerful people don’t like their dirty laundry sold to trashy websites, and in his line of work, competition is cutthroat. Unless you tell me more, all I can do is speculate at this point. Maybe it was a mugging gone wrong. I don’t know,” I assessed him carefully, “and I don’t think you do either.”

  “What kind of powerful people?”

  “Take your pick. It could be the royal family for all I know.”

  “Are you hoping to spend a night in a cell?”

  “You can’t charge me with anything because I haven’t done anything.”

  “I could probably book you for obstruction.”

  “And I could call Mr. Almeada and have him assist me in answering your questions, but neither of us wants that.” Name dropping was normally Martin’s schtick, but Cross slipped an ace up my sleeve, so I might as well use it. “This doesn’t need to be unpleasant. What I can tell you is I’m consulting on a stalking case. I don’t know who the stalker is. For all I know, it might be our buddy Chaz, or Chaz might have taken a few snapshots th
e stalker didn’t appreciate. It’s hard to say for certain.”

  “Who’s being stalked?”

  “That’s privileged.”

  “Has your client filed a report?”

  “Not locally.”

  “Nothing indicates Relper’s left the city in the last year and a half, so if I’m reading this situation correctly, the stalker you’re chasing might have just crossed the line to murder. You need to give me everything you have.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” I stood. “Listen, I understand you have rules and regs to follow. And I can’t offer much in terms of sharing or a quid pro quo, but once we ID the stalker, I will turn that information over to you.”

  “Even if the stalker isn’t the killer?”

  “It’s not my job to find a killer, Detective. My job is to identify a stalker. If that person is one and the same, then so be it. It’s your job to figure it out and prove it. Not mine.”

  He climbed to his feet and stuck his hand out. “Thanks for coming down, Miss Parker. You can see yourself out.”

  I shook his hand and placed a copy of my business card on his desk. I wasn’t sure what to make of this.

  Twenty-seven

  Several hours later, I received an e-mail from an address I didn’t recognize. It contained copies of the police and coroner’s reports. Reaper’s cause of death was widespread blunt force trauma. Based on the contusions and bruise patterns, he’d been hit by an SUV. The ME estimated it happened roughly thirty-six hours ago. A broken camera was found underneath the dumpster, but according to the evidence report, it didn’t contain a memory card.

  The paparazzo must have caught the stalker on film and died because of it. For a moment, I tried to imagine what Reaper could have seen that would have provoked someone to kill him. Reaper must have been out flying his drone the night Clay hosted the party at the club. The stalker must have been there. He probably stole the memory card and drone.