Bones Page 17

  “Been looking for a while?”

  “Too long.” Hernandez sat back and laughed. “My brothers said it would be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Personal questions. ‘Come forward, be a good citizen, Bobby, but you’re gonna be looked at like a suspect because that’s what the job’s like. We don’t trust nobody.’ ”

  “Your brothers are on the job.”

  “Gene’s Covina PD, Craig’s South Pasadena. Dad’s a retired firefighter. Even Mom’s into it, West Covina dispatcher.”

  Milo smiled. “You’re the nonconformist.”

  “No offense, Lieutenant, but you couldn’t pay me enough to be cooped up in a car or an office. Give me a backhoe and five acres and I’m sailing. Speaking of which, I’d better get going. Job interview out in Canoga Park. They’re moving big palms and I know how to do that.”

  Milo took his information, thanked him again, shook his hand.

  At the door, Hernandez said, “One more thing, sir. It’s not the main reason I came in but I’ve got a court date on my warrants, so if you’re of a mind to put in a good word . . .”

  “Your lawyer told you to come forward?”

  “No, it was my idea. But he thought it might help. So did my brothers. You can call either of them, they’ll vouch for me. If I’m outta line, just tell me, and it never came up.”

  “Who’s your lawyer?”

  “Some fresh-out-of-school PD, that’s what bugs me,” said Hernandez. “Mason Soto, he’s more into stopping the war in Eye-Rack.”

  Milo copied down Soto’s name and number. “I’ll tell him you’ve been a big help to LAPD, Bob.”

  Hernandez beamed. “Thank you, sir, appreciate it deeply—those bones, at first I thought they might be from one of those anatomical models. You know, what doctors learn from? But there’s no holes drilled through them, like you would do if you were stringing them together. So they’re just loose bones.”

  Short, hard tug at the Vandyke. “Can’t see any reason for a mentally healthy person to want something like that.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Pacific Public Storage was a city block of beige bunkers hemmed by twenty-foot chain link. Flagrantly orange ten-foot signage promised special deals. The company’s logo was a stack of suitcases.

  We drove past and clocked the drive to the marsh before circling back. Six minutes each way, at moderate speed.

  Perched above the entry to the facility’s parking lot was a security camera. A Quonset hut served as the office. One man worked the desk, young, chubby, bored. His orange polo shirt bore the logo. His I.D. badge said Philip. A biography of Thomas Jefferson was unfolded face-down on the counter. Passionate sports talk blared from a radio.

  Milo eyed the book. “History buff?”

  “School. Can I help you?”

  “Police.”

  The badge made Philip blink.

  Milo said, “Some contraband was found in one of your units. Number fourteen fifty-five.”

  “Contraband? Like dope?”

  “Let’s just say something illegal. What can you tell me about that bin?”

  Philip leafed through a ledger. “One four five five . . . that one’s vacant.”

  “We know that, Mr. . . .”

  “Phil Stillway.”

  “The contraband in question was obtained when the contents were auctioned off two weeks ago, Mr. Stillway.”

  “I’ve only been here a week.”

  Milo tapped the ledger. “Could you please check who rented the unit?”

  “It’s not in here, in here is just the occupied units.”

  “Occupied? You’ve got tenants living here?”

  Philip gaped. “No, sir, I meant material. Belongings. No one lives here, that’s against regulations.”

  Milo winked and grinned.

  “Oh,” said Philip, “you were joking.”

  “Who rented fourteen fifty-five and when?”

  Philip walked two steps to a computer, sat down, tapped keys. “Says here it’s been in arrears for sixty days and that was . . . two weeks ago . . . um, yeah, there was an auction, everything got cleaned out.” Tap, tap. “Says here the rental agreement was . . . fourteen months ago. One year, paid in advance, sixty days in arrears.”

  “Paid, how?”

  Tap tap tap. “Says here cash.”

  “Who’s the renter?”

  “Says here Sawyer comma initial T.”

  “Address?”

  “P.O.B. 3489, Malibu, California, 90156.”

  Malibu’s zip code was 90265. Milo scowled as he copied down the information.

  “What other information did Sawyer, T., give?”

  Philip read off an 818 phone number.

  Malibu’s 310 but with everything cellular, logic no longer pertains.

  Milo said, “Okay, let’s have a look at your security tapes.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The camera out front.”

  “Oh, that,” said Philip. “It’s for when the gates close after eight p.m. and renters want access.”

  “You lock up after eight?”

  “Yeah, but they can give a deposit and apply for a twenty-four-hour card key.”

  “When do the cameras get turned on?”

  “When there’s no one in the office.”

  “Which is?”

  “At night,” said Philip. “After eight.”

  “Did T. Sawyer apply for a card key?”

  Philip swung back to his keyboard. “The box is checked. Yes . . . looks like we never got the card back, so the deposit was forfeited. Two hundred dollars.”

  “Okay,” said Milo. “Let’s see those tapes. Anything before two weeks ago would be best.”

  “It might be best,” said Philip, “but it’s also impossible. Everything’s recorded over after forty-eight hours.”

  “Two days and gone? Tight security system you’ve got here.”

  “This contraband, was it dangerous? Like toxic waste, something hazardous? My parents aren’t too cool with me working here, worried about the stuff people store.”

  “Nothing toxic or radioactive,” said Milo. “Is there anyone in the company who can tell us something about Mr. Sawyer?”

  “I can ask but I don’t think so. Everything we need to know is here.” Tapping the computer.

  “Let’s look at the last forty-eight hours of tape.”

  “Sure.” Philip reached to his left and switched on a VCR. The feed went straight to the computer and the screen turned gray. Stayed that way. “Hmm,” he said, tickling the keyboard and changing nothing.

  “It’s not showing much, I don’t know . . .”

  “Stay with it, Phil.”

  A perusal of the Help menu and several false starts later, we were staring at a grainy black-and-white close-up of the storage facility gate. Static shot, but for a time register playing bingo. The camera angle was tilted to give a truncated view of the lot, maybe fifteen feet of asphalt, well short of the parking slots.

  I said, “All You Wanted to Know About the Driveway But Were Afraid to Ask.”

  Phil started to smile, saw the look on Milo’s face and changed his mind.

  The screen reverted to gray.

  Error message.

  Philip said, “Looks like it’s broken. I’d better report it.”

  Milo said, “Fast-forward to make sure it’s blank.”

  Philip complied. Nothing on the rest of the tape.

  “Give us a key to fourteen fifty-five.”

  “I guess it’s okay.”

  “Think of it this way,” said Milo. “If there is something dangerous in there, we’ll be the ones who get zapped, not you.”

  “I need to stay up here, anyway,” said Philip, scrounging in a drawer. “This one should work. If it doesn’t, I don’t know.”

  On the way to the bin, I said, “T. Sawyer.”

  “Huck’s buddy. Har dee har har.”

  The facility was laid out in a series of dim, nar
row hallways that right-angled and continued, a broken snake of cement block tunnel. Door after plywood door, a variety of padlocks, some of them serious.

  Company key-bolt on the hasp of 1455. Milo gloved up, unlocked, pulled the door open on fifty square feet of unlit vacancy.

  Floors swept clean, not a speck of dust. The smell of bleach floated to the hallway.

  He rubbed his eyes, ran his penlight over every surface. “Do I bother wasting the techie’s time?”

  “Depends on how much butt-covering you need to do.”

  “I’ll tell ’em to luminol, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  We returned to the front office. Philip was playing a game on the company computer, some floridly colored thing featuring ninjas and space aliens and sloe-eyed women whose chests defied gravity.

  “Hi,” he said, continuing to work the mouse.

  Milo said, “Are vacant units generally cleaned by the company?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “With bleach?”

  “It’s a special solution we get from the home office,” said Philip. “Kills anything. So the next person doesn’t have to worry.”

  “How considerate,” said Milo.

  “Yup.” Philip, encountering a lance-wielding demon materializing out of a massive, mauve cloudburst, squinted, hunched forward, and braced himself for battle.

  Milo gunned the unmarked and played NASCAR on side streets all the way to the station. Itching to get back to see if a warrant on Travis Huck’s quarters at the Vander house was feasible.

  The assistant D.A.’s he’d talked to so far weren’t encouraging, but he had a couple more to go. “John Nguyen’s sometimes helpful.”

  “Lawyer-surfing,” I said.

  “Talk about toxic waste.”

  I left him to the legal system and drove home thinking about molars and incisors.

  DeMaura Montouthe, the leading candidate for Jane Doe Three, was fifty-one, a fossil by street standards. The ten-year mug shot Moe Reed had unearthed showed a droopy-eyed, wrinkled, lantern-jawed visage crowned by a platinum bird’s nest. The life she’d led was a road map to mental and physical breakdown and she looked well into her sixties.

  Yet she’d held on to her teeth.

  Lucky genetics? Or was full dentition her last shred of vanity, the result of special care?

  I looked up free facilities offering dental services in L.A. County, found eight, began calling, using my title.

  Success at number four, a neighborhood walk-in clinic run by the dental school at the U.

  Rose Avenue, south of Lincoln. Walking distance to Selena Bass’s garage digs.

  Another brief car ride to the Bird Marsh.

  I asked the receptionist when Ms. Montouthe had last visited. “Doctor” only went so far.

  “She’s on our files, that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Who’s her dentist?”

  “Dr. Martin. She’s with a patient.”

  “When will she be free?”

  “She’s busy all afternoon—can I put you on hold?”

  “No need.”

  Western District Community Adjunct Dental Health Center was a converted storefront wedged between a designer ice cream parlor and a vintage-clothing shop. Pretty people flocked to both of the neighbors. A couple of homeless men hung out near the clinic’s wide-open door, smoking and laughing. One guy’s worldly belongings were piled on the sidewalk. The other held up a set of dentures and guffawed through a black maw. “They did me good, Mr. Lemon!”

  Shopping Bag said, “Lemme try ’em!”

  “Gimme a can of soup!”

  “Yeah!”

  The exchange was aborted when they saw me coming. Two cracked palms blocked my way as they panhandled me simultaneously.

  “Breakfast money, Perfesser?”

  “It’s afternoon, Mr. Lemon. Pancakes for the people!”

  “Powder to the people!”

  High-fives and raucous, phlegmy laughter.

  I gave them each a five and they whooped, stepped aside. When they tried the same routine with a woman in dance tights leaving the ice cream joint clutching a double cone studded with candy bits, she said, “Fuck off.”

  Inside the clinic’s aqua-blue waiting room a heavy woman with fearful eyes clutched a squalling baby and snuck glances at a sunken-faced codger slumped, half asleep. His clothes were filthy. He could’ve turned the scene outside into The Three Amigos. Sitting upright in a corner was a skinny-flabby Mohawked kid around twenty, with branded arms, a missing frontal incisor, and vengeful eyes.

  The receptionist was cute and buxom and blond. Whatever her black tank top revealed was smooth and tan. She remembered my name and that killed her smile.

  “Dr. Martin’s still busy, sir.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “It could take a while.”

  “When she takes a break, please let her know DeMaura Montouthe may be dead.”

  “Dea—” Her hand jetted to her mouth. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  I showed her my LAPD consultant badge.

  Her lips worked. She looked ill. “Oh, my God. Hold on.” She hurried through a back door.

  The kid with the Mohawk drawled, “Everyone gets dead.”

  Faye M. Martin, D.D.S., was thirty or so and gorgeous, with ivory skin, a heart-shaped face framed by gleaming red-brown hair, liquid dark eyes, and a figure a white coat couldn’t camouflage.

  Stunning resemblance to Robin—she could’ve been Robin’s younger sister—and, God help me, I felt a tug below my waist.

  I worked at staying business-like as we shook hands. Her businesslike manner and my thinking about DeMaura Montouthe helped.

  As she led me to an unused treatment room, she asked what a psychologist was doing working with the police. I gave her the short version and it seemed to satisfy her.

  The room smelled of raw steak and mint. Gum care posters, and ominous photos of what happened when gum care was abandoned, papered the walls. Canisters of free toothbrushes and paste shared space with chrome-plated picks and curettes and bottles of cotton balls. Off to one side was a bright red patient chart.

  Faye Martin perched on a rolling stool and placed her hand on the chart. Crossing her legs, she unbuttoned her coat, revealed a black blouse, black slacks, a gold chain bearing chunky, free-form amethysts. Her figure was fuller than first impression. She seemed unaware of her looks.

  The only other seating was the dental chair, still in full recline. She said, “Oh, sorry,” got up and adjusted the tilt. I climbed on.

  “As long as you’re here, open wide and let’s have a look at your bite—sorry, it’s terrible about DeMaura, I shouldn’t joke.”

  I said, “There’s no better reason to joke.”

  Faye Martin said, “Guess so . . . I’m assuming it was a violent death?”

  “If the body we have is her, it was.”

  “The body.” She sat back down. “Poor DeMaura. Do you have any idea who did it?”

  “Not yet. Confirming identity would be a big help.” I described the dental irregularities Dr. Hargrove had listed.

  “It’s her,” said Faye Martin. “Darn.”

  “You don’t need to look at X-rays?”

  “Before I swear to anything I’ll need to, but it’s her. That combination of anomalies is rare. DeMaura and I used to joke about it. Baby teeth. ‘Guess I never grew up, Doc.’ ”

  She picked up the chart, read for a few seconds, put it down. “She had a nice laugh. The rest of her was so . . . what you’d expect from her lifestyle. But her teeth could’ve belonged to a healthy woman.”

  An unpolished fingernail plinked a button of her white coat. “She was a nice person, Dr. Delaware. Almost always cheerful. Considering her situation, I found that pretty remarkable.”

  “Sounds like you knew her pretty well.”

  “As well as you can know anyone in this setting,” she said. “Except for kids, we mostly treat a transient population. But DeMaura was pretty regular
about her appointments.”

  She checked the chart again. “She’s been coming in for three years. For the first six months she saw Dr. Chan. He retired and I picked her up.”