True Detectives Read online

  “We have fresh lamb in a very nice curry.”

  Aaron’s hand slipped down toward his flat abdomen and Moe figured he’d give some excuse and order tea.

  Aaron said, “Sure. And bring healthy vegetables for Detective Reed.”

  While they waited for the food, Aaron checked his BlackBerry.

  Moe said, “People to do, things to see.”

  Aaron clicked off. “The Peninsula’s where Rory Stoltz’s mama works. You changed your mind because you don’t want to make it easy for me.”

  “Whatever you want to do on Caitlin, I can’t stop you unless you cross the line. In terms of what I can give you, like I said there’s nothing. And Martha Stoltz is a waste of time. I spoke to her this morning. She had nothing to say.”

  “So you’re actively working the case.”

  “So they tell me.”

  The food arrived. Heaps of lamb stew for both of them, bowls of every veg the kitchen could offer.

  The bespectacled woman said, “Tell the lieutenant how good everything is.”

  When she left, Aaron looked at the banquet and shook his head.

  “Not up to it?” said Moe.

  “A little early in the day, no?”

  Moe began eating with simulated gusto. Undigested breakfast sat in his gut but damned if he’d wimp out. Maybe lamb was better than beef, cholesterol-wise. Another hour of lifting and a run would keep him virtuous. Tonight, after seeing Liz. If he went home.

  Aaron said, “Tell me about Rory Stoltz.”

  “I interviewed him four times, he’s alibied for at least one hour after Caitlin left the Riptide. Stayed on to clean up. After that, he went home where Mommy claims he stayed.”

  “Claims?”

  “She’s his mother.”

  “You pick something up hinky about her, Moses?”

  “You didn’t hear me the first time? She’s useless.”

  Aaron’s clean jawline rippled. He took a breath. “Mo—”

  “Maybe I fucked up somewhere along the line, but if I did, Sturgis doesn’t think so. I went over the murder book with him and he said nothing was missing. Same for Delaware.”

  “You went to see Delaware because ...”

  “At Sturgis’s suggestion.”

  “Sturgis sees Caitlin as a psycho case?”

  “Sturgis doesn’t know what she is. No one does. Including Delaware. But a girl driving alone, late at night? There are all sorts of possibilities.”

  “Bad guy on the road,” said Aaron. “Except her car hasn’t been found.”

  “So the psycho collects wheels as trophies. Or he dumped it somewhere.”

  “Psycho garage,” said Aaron. “Here’s an image for you: rows of vics’ vehicles, each one with a skeleton propped behind the wheel.”

  “You’ve been Hollywooding too long.”

  “Little brother, you are right about that. But maybe that’ll work to my advantage.”

  “Why?”

  “Maitland Frostig said Riptide gets celebs.”

  “I was there,” said Moe. “All I saw were juiceheads and old surfers.”

  “Maybe you hit an off night. Stoltz still work there?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I’ll find out when I talk to him. Unless that’s a problem.”

  “Talk to him all you want. Kid’s not going to give up anything because if he does have something to hide, he’s had fifteen months to live with it and get his story straight.”

  “Nothing hinky about him,” said Aaron, “but still you wonder.”

  Moe glared at him.

  “What?”

  “You’re sounding like a shrink. Bouncing back what I say.”

  “Bro—”

  “I’ve got nothing on Stoltz except that he was the boyfriend.”

  “Was,” said Aaron. “So you definitely see her as dead.”

  “Hey,” said Moe, “maybe she’s partying in Dubai, or whatever.”

  “White slavery.” Aaron grinned. “Always loved that phrase. As opposed to normal slavery.”

  The racial allusion surprised Moe. He said, “You don’t see her as dead?”

  “Yeah, I probably do. Except for what I said before, she might’ve wanted to get away from Daddy. She didn’t even have her own computer, they shared. What college student doesn’t have a laptop? So Maitland could be one of those controlling types. And girls do wanna have fu-uhn.”

  “She was a virgin,” said Moe. “Supposedly.”

  Aaron’s brows arched. “Daddy told you that?”

  “Martha Stoltz did.”

  “How’d it come up?”

  “She was talking about what a perfect couple Caitlin and Rory were. All-American. Both virgins.”

  “What was her point in telling you?”

  Moe shrugged. “I’m just quoting.”

  “It wasn’t weird?” said Aaron. “Middle of an interview and she volunteers about their sex life?”

  “Lack of sex life. I figured she wanted me to see Rory as a choirboy.”

  “Because he isn’t?”

  “If he’s got a secret life, it’s stayed secret from me,” said Moe. “What’re you gonna do, high-tech-bug his bedroom?”

  Aaron smoothed his tie, tugged the big knot tighter. “They’re both virgins ... like Mama’s in the backseat with them?”

  “Hey,” said Moe, “I’m open to anything. You find out Rory’s chapter president of the Ted Bundy Fan Club, I’ll get interested. But I talked to him four times and he came across exactly what he claimed to be.”

  “Which is?”

  “Clean-cut Pepperdine student.”

  “That’s a Baptist school. We talking Holy Roller?”

  “Normal, clean-cut kid,” said Moe. “Seemed genuinely torn up about Caitlin. But not over-the-top emotional, like he was trying to prove something.”

  “Virgins,” said Aaron. “Wonder if he’s still that way fifteen months later. You planning a fifth chat?”

  “The case is still open.”

  Aaron drank water.

  Moe said, “I don’t want you stepping on my toes.”

  “Last thing on my mind, bro.”

  “But if I tell you to hold off, you’re not going to listen.” Gas or acid or whatever was rising up his food tube. His belt cut like dental floss. From what, three pieces of lamb and some eggplant? What did they put in this stuff?

  “Moses, can’t we just put it aside?”

  “Put what aside?”

  “SOS. Same old shit.” Aaron laughed. “Remember when I told that idiot counselor he was just digging up SOS and he near about fell off his shrink chair?”

  Moe stayed silent.

  “You don’t remember, bro?”

  “Dr. Gibson,” said Moe. As if called upon to recite.

  “Mr. Gibson,” said Aaron. “Had a master’s.” He shook his head. “Working for the school system filing paper, at night he moonlights, pretends he’s an analyst.”

  “Didn’t stop Mom from liking him.”

  “Mom,” said Aaron. “She also liked that massage therapist with the bad breath and the huge mole on her chin and that Polish N.D. we all thought was an M.D.—Kussorsky, Master Naturopath. Guy’s doling out little vials of water with invisible ingredients and Mom’s telling us we have to take it for our allergies. Meanwhile, she takes in two cats.”

  He laughed again. “SOS.”

  Moe thought about fake-shrink Gibson and couldn’t muster up any glee.

  He’d been fourteen, Aaron eighteen. The two of them going at each other constantly, sometimes it got physical. Mom having no idea.

  My father was a hero.

  So was my father. What? You’re saying he wasn’t? You’re saying that?

  All I’m saying, little bro, is—

  Fuck you.

  Fuck you.

  A whirlwind of scuffle, fists flying, Mom hurrying in, trying to break it up.

  The next day, she announced everyone was going to “family therapy.”

>   She’d met Quentin Gibson, M.A., at yoga class.

  Guy makes house calls, wimpy, skinny, ponytailed, British tool. Let’s-everyone-express-their-feelings. Useful as a tissue-paper condom.

  Moe felt himself smile, put a brake on his lips.

  Aaron leaned in closer. “I promise not to step on your feet.”

  “That assumes we’re dancing.”

  “So nothing I’m going to say is going to work.”

  “Nothing has to work. Do what you want.”

  “Even if that was my style, I wouldn’t handle it that way, bro.”

  “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Bro.”

  Aaron’s caramel eyes widened. “I’ve been doing that your whole life.”

  “Exactly.”

  Aaron ran a long, graceful finger along his hairline. “Ok-ay. Detective Reed.”

  Moe’s colon churned. He fought to conceal another belch.

  Aaron exhaled slowly. “This is what I am going to do.” Lapsing into that schoolteacher tone Moe hated. “I will check with you before I interview Stoltz, his mommy, or anyone else you deem important. If I learn anything relevant, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Moe forked food around his plate.

  “Detective Brother Reed, is there anyone else you deem important?”

  “Just Caitlin,” said Moe. “If you run across her, tell her to give me a ring.”

  The bespectacled woman came over, looked at Aaron’s untouched plate.

  Not a trace of irritation as she said, “May I wrap that for you to go, sir?”

  CHAPTER

  8

  Aaron watched the little pink house.

  It was just after ten p.m. For three hours, he’d done nothing but watch.

  Nice night in the Valley, more than a few stars peeking through a charcoal felt sky, the street lined with neat domiciles, quiet and peaceful.

  He sat low in the seat of the Opel, drank green tea, ate the second half of a pastrami sandwich, listened to Anita Baker on his iPod.

  Moe had walked out of the restaurant committing to nothing. Aaron tipped the Indian woman generously, then drove to Heinz the Mechanic’s place on Pico, where he garaged the C4S and picked up the Opel.

  Deceptive little thing, with its dinged-up body and flat brown paint. The engine was a rebuilt BMW 325i enhanced by Heinz’s magical hands. The best of several loaners the German kept around while he worked on Carreras and Ferraris and such. Fifty bucks bought Aaron twenty-four hours. Smoked windows were perfect for the job at hand.

  He logged the expenditure into his BlackBerry.

  Driving home, he cell-phoned a source at the county assessor’s office, learned that Rory Stoltz owned no real estate but Martha Greta Stoltz paid property taxes on a single-family residence on Emelita Street in North Hollywood.

  “Thanks, Henry. I owe you.”

  Laughter. “You sure do.”

  “Check’s in the mail.”

  “It sure is.”

  The call was a luxury. Property rolls were public records but saving time was a bargain, in the long run, for Mr. Dmitri.

  Henry’s fifty got logged.

  Aaron could’ve stretched that but, deep pockets like Mr. Dmitri’s, you had to be careful not to get piggy.

  Address in hand, he GPS’d the precise location as he drove home to his place on San Vicente off Wilshire. Speed-dialing continuously, using red lights to work the BlackBerry.

  His building was a deco-flavored duplex built in the twenties, one of the final reminders that the area had once been residential. Aaron’s neighbors were low-rise office structures. Skyscrapers on Wilshire cast long shadows across his roof.

  He’d picked up the property at a foreclosure auction for a ridiculous price, spent the next five years remodeling, doing a lot of the work himself. Last year, he’d billed two hundred ninety-six thousand dollars in fees, collected nearly all of that, and this year was looking at least as good. But without the bargain purchase, he’d still be living in a condo.

  He unlocked the gate around the small front yard, disabled the security lock, released both bolts in the door, removed his snail mail from the internal slot. The first floor was Work Land, all-black wood floor where it wasn’t Berber carpeting, gray suede walls, chrome and leather and glass furniture. Sheets of Lexan were bolted to the inner surfaces of conspicuous windows. Invisible, unless you knew to look.

  The décor expressed all the high-tech efficiency clients craved.

  This afternoon, Work Land was silent, every message and e-mail cleared during the drive. He loved operating as a solo act.

  Checking one of three fax machines, he was pleased to find a fresh clear copy of Rory Stoltz’s driver’s license, courtesy an illegal search by a source at DMV.

  Hundred bucks. Ka-ching.

  Folding the page neatly, to keep from creasing the subject’s face, he headed upstairs to Play Land, worked out in his gym, showered, whirlpool-bathed, shaved.

  Feeling loose and confident, he sauntered, stark-naked and swinging a key ring, down a subtly lit, plum-carpeted hallway toward what had once been a rear bedroom.

  The space was guarded by a security-hinged door of fiery teak. An ebony silhouette of a top-hatted boulevardier graced the center of the wood. Aaron unlocked and stepped in.

  The same teak covered the walls and the coffered ceilings. Recessed lighting set off billiard-table-green carpeting. The twenty-by-eighteen room was sectioned by double-height, industrial-quality, stainless-steel racks he’d snagged at a bargain price from Carlyle and Tout when the Brentwood haberdasher went under.

  The left side was devoted to suits, sport coats paired with harmonizing slacks, and topcoats he rarely used. Though his favorite, a charcoal-brown, cashmere/mink-blend Arnold Brant by Columbo, sometimes got put to work when he lowered the Porsche’s top on windy winter nights.

  On the right hung sport shirts and casual jackets arranged by hue, forty-two pairs of neatly pressed jeans with an emphasis on Zegna, a dozen Fila velour workout suits—no, thirteen.

  The rear wall was mostly dress shirts. Lots of Borelli, but some Brioni, Ricci, Charvet, Turnbull, Armani Black Label. Flanking hooks held belts and ties, each cravat paired with a harmonious pocket silk. Ringing the entire room above the racks was teak shelving bearing clear plastic boxes containing sweaters and shoes, the latter identified precisely.

  Magli Olive Suede Wingtips. Paciotti Black Buckle Loafers. Edmonds Cordovans.

  About half of the clothing still bore tags.

  Aaron walked among his treasures, fingertips grazing silk, Sea Island cotton, merino, cashmere, alpaca.

  He stopped at the Columbo. Cashmere and mink, nothing like it. He loved that coat.

  Ten minutes later, he’d made his pick for tonight.

  What the well-dressed man dons when sitting on his ass for protracted periods of tedium came down to a loose brown linen shirt-jacket with four flap pockets, tailored to conceal his 9mm, beige cargo pants of the same carefully rumpled fabric that provided another quartet of compartments, cream silk socks, butter-soft pigskin Santoni driving shoes.

  By four p.m., he was back in West L.A., sitting in the girlie-cute front room of Liana Parlat’s girlie-cute condo off Overland. Liana, always friendly, seemed especially happy to see him, and he wondered if some of her gigs had dried up due to the writers’ strike.

  She served him coffee and home-baked white-chocolate chip cookies and offered him a share of the Lean Cuisine lasagna she was just about to nuke. Aaron declined the food but finished three cups of Liana’s always excellent Kenyan. She put dinner on hold and sat opposite him, perched like the lingerie model she’d once been, on the edge of a Louis XIV repro chair done up in puce brocade.

  Still gorgeous at forty-one, the mop of black hair glossy and carefully layered, the flawless ivory skin allowing her to pass for late twenties, Liana had the charisma and talent to be a movie star. After fifteen years of failure, she’d settled for the
anonymity and respectable income of commercial voice-overs.

  Freelancing for Aaron supplemented her retirement fund.

  They’d begun as lovers, continued as friends and occasional business associates. Once-in-a-while booty-bumps did no damage; Aaron was proud of his ability to maintain complex relationships.

  The exception being Moe ...

  Liana said, “For this one, I was thinking perky, slightly nasal, wholesome.”

  “Go for it.”

  He gave her the unlisted number he’d obtained from a source at the phone company, sat by as she punched numbers. Ever the Method actress, she cocked her head, altered her posture, squinted somewhat stupidly.

  Transforming into a Valley Girl.

  “Hi, is Rory there?” Putting a little more headcold into it. “Oh ... oh, okay, I’m in one of his classes and was wondering ... no, it’s not that important, I’ll try later. Thank you so much.”

  Click. “Mommy expects him home by six thirty.”

  “Thank you, baby. Now for the fun part.”

  He gave her Riptide’s address on Ocean Avenue, two blocks south of Colorado. Partially gentrified stretch, with that giant Loews Hotel pulling in respectable folks. But dingy motels and cheap apartments persisted, as did low-rent bars, and last year there’d been a hostage situation, a captain from West Valley named Decker whom Aaron knew casually ending up a big-time hero.

  Aaron said, “Caitlin’s father said she considered the location convenient since she went to Pepperdine.”

  “That’s twenty miles from Pepperdine,” said Liana.

  “But on the way home to Venice.”

  “Ah ... drive most of the way home so you don’t have much to go when you’re really tired. I guess it makes sense.”

  “I drove by the place at one thirty a.m. last night—around the time Caitlin was last seen. It’s pretty spooky, Lee. Park as close as you can— use the hotel, go valet if you want.”

  Liana smiled. “And be sure to bring back the receipt.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Mr. All Business.”

  “Aw, you know that’s not true, sweetheart. You’re hearing the message, right? Personal safety is all.”

  “We’re not exactly talking mean streets, darling. Ivy at the Shore is what, three blocks up?”

  “A block can make a difference, Lee. Last night there were bums pushing shopping carts and lowlifes hanging near a couple of motels. If something feels even a little off, don’t get brave.”