Deception: An Alex Delaware Novel Read online

  On the bottom frame panel, cursive in red marker read: Sal strikes it big in Reno! Adorning the boast were hand-drawn pink hearts and green daisies.

  Milo said, "Nice to be lucky once in a while," and continued to have his way with drawers and shelves.

  The final stop was the bathroom. Modular fiberglass prefab unit; another aftermarket.

  The medicine cabinet had been emptied by the crime scene techs. The tub was grubby but unhelpful.

  Milo kept staring at it. If he was feeling vibrations, he wasn't showing it.

  Finally, he turned away. "Boyfriend's a guy not surprisingly named Sal, last name Fidella. He let himself in with his own key. Her car was here, no sign of forced entry or disarray. He found her in the tub immersed in dry ice, naked and blue. Accounting for sublimation, someone bought bags of the stuff, maybe twenty, thirty pounds. Because of no blood, the initial assumption was an O.D. Even though she hadn't vomited and Fidella claims she didn't use drugs and there were no pill bottles nearby. Fidella called 911. The tape's in the file and I've listened to it three times. He sounds totally freaked. But I haven't met him and I know nothing about him except what North Hollywood wrote. Which is no more than his driver's license says, so I'm reserving judgment."

  "Where does he live?"

  "Not far from here, Sherman Oaks."

  "A couple but they live apart."

  "Sometimes that works better."

  "Sometimes it means domestic drama."

  "You'll have a chance to meet the guy. Any other insights?"

  "On the DVD she doesn't come across theatrical. Just the opposite: When she had good reason to dramatize, she played herself down."

  "Depressed. You're thinking suicide?"

  "Was she on top of the ice or submerged?"

  "Partially submerged."

  "That would've meant severe cold-pressor pain within seconds. Skin burns, as well."

  "She was burned, all right."

  "Most suicides avoid pain," I said. "And displaying yourself that way is flamboyant and exhibitionistic, nothing like the woman on that disc."

  "Maybe she was trying to draw attention to those three teachers."

  "In that case, she would've left a note and made sure the DVD was out in the open, not in the middle of a stack. Better yet, she'd have mailed it. There's also the matter of no empty ice bags."

  "Those could be out in the trash, soon as we're out of here, I'll check." He took another look at the bathtub. Sagged. "Yeah, it's murder. You know it, I know it, His Grace knows it."

  "But he'd love it if you could say otherwise."

  "No signature on the note that came with the disc, but I know his handwriting. Even when he prints."

  "Thought he had integrity."

  "Everything's relative."

  I said, "Who sells frozen CO2 around here?"

  "Let's find out."

  CHAPTER

  3

  Two plastic garbage cans at the rear of the house were empty. Milo phoned the sanitation department, found out pickup wasn't for three days. Ten minutes of bureaucratic-maze-running got him talking to a lab supervisor downtown. Yes, all trash and other items from the crime scene had been taken for analysis; not a clue on when that would start, the case had been marked non-emergency.

  When Milo asked if empty dry ice bags and Elise Freeman's computer were part of the haul, he got put on hold. The answer, several minutes later, raised lumps on his jaw.

  He clicked off, strode toward the unmarked. "No access to that information at this time."

  We got in just as Captain Stan Creighton returned, necktie loose, jacket flapping, talking on a cell phone.

  As we drove away, he was still on the phone. Talking faster.

  A trio of ice-rental outfits were situated within five miles of the murder scene. At the closest two, no one had purchased any frozen CO2 for weeks. Both clerks said, "We do that mostly in the summer."

  At Gary's Ice House and Party Rentals on Fulton and Saticoy, in Van Nuys, a muscular, puffy-faced kid with three eyebrow rings and a barbed-wire biceps tattoo studied Milo's card and said, "Yeah, dude bought a whole bunch." Staring closer. "Homicide? He's like a killer?"

  "When did this happen?"

  "I'd have to say Monday."

  "What time of day?"

  "I'd have to say seven."

  "Morning or evening?"

  "Evening, I close at eight."

  "You sell a lot of dry ice?"

  "Tailgate parties, long trips, not that much. Most places don't sell nuggets, just block. I asked Dude which one he wanted, he's like dry ice, thirty pound, in this Spanish accent. I gave him nuggets because we don't sell so many of those, why not get rid of 'em."

  Out came Milo's pad. "Latino guy."

  "Yeah."

  "How old?"

  "I dunno, thirty, forty? Looked like one of them dudes waits for day jobs outside the paint store over there." Pointing west.

  "How'd he pay?"

  "Three tens."

  "How much dry ice did that buy him?"

  "Thirty pounds of nuggets. They come in special bags, slows down the sublimation a little. That means the stuff turns to gas. Even with bags and an ice chest, you're gonna lose ten percent a day."

  "This guy have an ice chest?"

  "Not that I saw, he just carried the bags away."

  "What was his demeanor?"

  "His what?"

  "His mood. Was he nervous, friendly?"

  "I'd have to say kinda confused. And in a hurry."

  "Confused how?"

  "Didn't know squat about what he was buying," said the kid. "Took nuggets when most people like blocks and we even trim to size."

  "How many bags of nuggets are we talking about?"

  "Three ten-pounders. Dude really killed someone with D.I.? What, like froze someone to death? Or burned 'em? You gotta be careful with it, it touches you, it burns bad."

  "How else could you hurt someone with it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Is there anything besides freezing or burning that makes it dangerous?"

  "Well," said the kid, "I use it to kill ants. You get something in a closed-off space, you put a piece of D.I. in and they get so cold their bodies stop working and also they breathe in the sublimation and die. It's carbon dioxide, that's the global warming gas."

  "Plants breathe carbon dioxide," said Milo.

  "They do? Well, ants ain't plants." Laughter. "My sister had an ant problem in her basement and I stuck in a piece of D.I. block, taped off everywhere, couple days later millions of dead ants all over, she had to vacuum them, it was gross. So what did the dude do?"

  "We're not sure. Do you still have the bills he paid you with?"

  "Nope. Armored car came yesterday, collected everything from the register and the safe."

  "Can you describe this guy a little more?"

  "Mexican, like I said. Like thirty, forty. Little guy."

  "Facial hair?"

  "Like a beard? Nope, clean."

  "What makes you think he was one of the day laborers?"

  "He was wearing those white painter's pants." Nodding in appreciation of his own insight. The eyebrow rings jangled.

  "Remember his shirt?"

  "Um, let's see... T-shirt, like too big for him... um--oh, yeah, white, from a college, UC something... had a weird-looking animal on it, like a big rat with a long tongue."

  "Oversized," said Milo. "Like a gangbanger might wear?"

  "Dude was no gangbanger. No tats, no attitude, just a confused little dude in painter's pants. I figured he wanted the D.I. for a job. Killing ants or something."

  "Wearing a college shirt but not a college guy."

  The kid laughed. "Dude's waiting for day labor he probably didn't even get a GED."

  As we left, I said, "The UC Irvine mascot is an anteater."

  "And here I was thinking skunks were finally getting some respect."

  We walked the two blocks to the paint store. Lots of boarded-up
businesses punctuated the journey, with others on the brink. Five day laborers idled by the curb, looking bored and defeated. When times are bad, the trickle-down switches to misery.

  All five men wore baggy white painter's pants, two had on white tees. One shirt was printed with the Disneyland logo, the other was paint-specked but blank. The first man who spotted us tried to walk away. Milo bellowed: "Stop."

  When that didn't work: "Policia, no La Migra."

  He talked to each worker, using LAPD Spanish and a relatively soft, detached approach. No one admitted to buying dry ice. Most of the men claimed not to know what it was.

  One guy's eyes moved a lot and Milo asked for his I.D. first. Close to fifty, tall, thin, balding, droopy mustache. A California driver's license was handed over with shaking hands. Milo's request for backup paper brought a shrug. Handing the man his business card, he said, "Amigo, you help me, I help you."

  Downcast eyes.

  "Anything you wanna tell me now about a guy wears a UC Irvine shirt?"

  "No, boss."

  Milo pointed to the card. "See that? Lieutenant. That means big boss--gran patron. Muy importante."

  "Okay."

  "Okay what?"

  "You gran patron."

  Elise Freeman's DMV picture elicited a blank stare. Same for the other men. Milo handed out five cards, told the men cooperating would bring good luck. Five blank faces stared back.

  Heading back to the car, Milo re-read the jumpy guy's stats. "Hector Ruiz, lives in Beverly Hills north of the boulevard where the estates are. Some forger's got a sense of humor."

  "Maybe he was a live-in employee."

  "Oh, sure, they dress him in livery and call him Jeeves. So... you see any obvious reason for a day laborer to need thirty pounds of ice? And the quantity's damn close to the techies' estimate."

  "Unless Anteater picked his shirt with significance, my bet's on a paid buy to muddy the trail."

  "Or nervous little dude's our killer." Laughing. "Like I believe that."

  His cell played Beethoven's "Fur Elise." Dark joke? No sense asking.

  A twenty-second conversation ensued. Milo's part consisted of several "yessirs." Each one lowered his posture.

  He pocketed the phone. "Summoned to the mount, A-sap."

  "Have fun."

  "We, not me."

  "I'm invited?"

  "You're demanded."

  CHAPTER

  4

  In dream traffic, the police chief's office at Parker Center is a twenty-minute eastbound glide from Van Nuys.

  Change of venue and bad traffic turned the drive into a seventy-minute, westbound stop-and-fume.

  The Stagecoach Bistro abutted the ninth hole of a Calabasas country club built to look exclusive but open to anyone who could come up with the monthly.

  As we drove toward the restaurant's gravel lot, perfect lawns and barbered pepper trees ill suited for the climate gave way to dust and rustic fencing. The sprinkle of cars out front included a navy Lincoln Town Car that Milo identified as the chief's civilian ride. No bodyguard, no auxiliary vehicle in sight.

  The building was logs and shingles. A posted menu listed a French chef and described the fare as "nouveau-Tex-Mex-Thai comfort cuisine."

  A perky ponytailed hostess guided us to a redwood picnic table tucked in a corner of a patio shaded by vegetation that fit: ancient California oaks, twisted by centuries of Santa Ana winds. The chief had concealed himself behind the rhino-thick trunk of the granddaddy tree.

  He continued chopsticking as we sat, pointed to two menus.

  Comfort cuisine translated to heroic portions and headache-inducing prose.

  The chief's rectangular platter was two feet wide.

  "What're you having, sir?"

  "Number Six."

  Thirty-two spicy Mekong shrimp swimming in asparagus coulis and tinctured by a lemongrass-oregano reduction nestled in a terroir of goat-cheese livened by refried black beans and guarded by palace walls of home-cured porkbelly.

  The chief said, "Seeing as you're a gourmet, Sturgis."

  "Appreciate that, sir."

  The chief lowered the brim of a gray suede baseball cap. Instead of the usual black suit and five-hundred-dollar tie, he wore jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket. The hat and mirrored aviator shades obscured a healthy portion of his mercilessly pitted, oddly triangular face. Additional tortured flesh was shielded by a bushy white mustache.

  He's one of the few people who make Milo looked unscathed.

  Another ponytailed girl came over, lofting a handheld computer. "What're you guys having today?"

  Milo said, "Number Six."

  I scanned the menu and ordered an elk burger with bison bacon.

  The chief said, "Watching your cholesterol, Dr. Delaware?"

  "I like bison."

  "You and Buffalo Bill. And the Plains Indians. You have Native American in your background, right?"

  "Along with a lot of other stuff."

  "Mongrel, just like me."

  I'd never heard he was anything but Irish.

  He said, "Got some Seneca in there. Or so my paternal grandmother claimed. Can't be sure of that, though. Woman was a serious drinker." Twirling his chopstick. "Just like your father."

  I didn't respond.

  He removed the sunglasses. Small black eyes scanned my face like a dermatologist probing for lesions. "Clouds the judgment, serious drinking."

  I said, "It's a problem in some families."

  He turned to Milo. "What the hell were you thinking taking him along to the Freeman scene without authorization, then bullshitting Creighton about it? Didn't you figure he'd check with me?"

  "I assumed he would, sir."

  Down went the chopstick. "It was a Fuck you?"

  "No, sir. It was a Doing my job as best I can given the constraints."

  "You can't do your job without him? We're talking some kind of psychological dependency here?"

  "We're talking preference based on past experience, sir."

  "You need a shrink on board to function?"

  "When cases are unusual and Dr. Delaware has time, I find his input helpful. I thought you agreed, so I didn't foresee any objection."

  "And Creighton?"

  "Creighton's a bureaucrat."

  The chief retrieved the stick, rolled it impressively from finger to finger. The black eyes divided their time between Milo and me. "You didn't foresee any objection."

  "Based on--"

  "I get it. But it's still bullshit. Amazing the doctor still puts up with you."

  Twice, the chief had offered me important-sounding jobs with the department that I'd turned down.

  "I can see the value of shrinkery for weird cases, Sturgis, but I'm not sensing any psychosexual horror on this one."

  Milo said, "A body packed in dry ice, no obvious cause of death, and a total disregard for proper procedure made it unusual to me."

  "You think it's unusual, Doctor?"

  "It's different."

  "Sturgis explain to you why discretion is paramount?"

  "He did."

  "What exactly did he tell you?"

  "That your son attends Windsor Tech and has applied to Yale."

  "What do you think about Yale?"

  "Top school."

  "Great reputation," he said. "Just like the hedge-fund wizards and the cretins at Fannie Mae had until they got their britches yanked and guess what was underneath? Empty space."

  "You don't like Yale?"

  "I don't care enough about the place to like or dislike, Doctor. They're all the same, holding pens for spoiled rich brats and kids who aspire to be spoiled richer brats. A few years ago, the geniuses on Yale's admissions committee rejected thousands of smart, qualified American kids but accepted some Afghan who'd served as the Taliban's spokesman. Want to take odds the guy ever took AP calculus and served as captain of his Model U.N. debate team? Then those same geniuses let in an alleged art student, her idea of creativity is getting knocked
up, aborting the fetus, and videotaping the mess. After which she repeated the freak show over and over or maybe she was faking. We're living in Bizarro World, Rembrandt's writhing in his grave."

  "No doubt," I said.

  "I have nothing against Yale more than any other Ivy League resort. What I can't figure out is why Charlie wants to go there when my wife went to Columbia and Penn law school and I got that ridiculous master's degree at Harvard--two years commuting to Boston every week, my reward was listening to puffed-up fools yakking about nothing. I made the mistake of attending graduation, brought my wife and my mother, Charlie wasn't born yet. They do the ceremony in Harvard Yard, which was fine back in the seventeen hundreds when it was a little divinity school for rich twits. Now there's space for maybe a quarter of the people who show up, they give you a predetermined seat number with preferences for rich assholes who endow buildings. My wife and my eighty-seven-year-old mother stood for two hours in ninety-degree weather, finally they get to their seats and end up not seeing a damn thing because inconsiderate twits stood in front of them the whole time. A bunch of nice black ladies from the Bronx were in the row behind, their niece was the first person in the family to attend college, they had no clue what the hell was going on. My wife turned around and said, 'These are the geniuses who ran the Vietnam War.' They're all the same, Doctor. Arrogant, thoughtless, impractical."

  "Ivy League schools."

  "Any elite institution. It's like junior high: Insecure assholes can't feel popular unless everyone else is an outcast." Head shake. "My kid's got legacy status at Columbia, Penn, and Harvard, he obsesses on Yale."

  "Kids will do that," I said.

  "Be stupid and obnoxious?"

  "Try to differentiate themselves."

  "Psych-talk," he said. "Yeah, yeah, that's what my wife says. Supposedly Charlie's got a tough row to hoe being under the alleged shadow of his father so he needs to find himself as an individual. Which is ridiculous, you see me as intimidating? Not to him, trust me. He's twice as smart as me and plays the fucking cello."