A Dead Sister (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) (39 page)

Kim had gone into Mr. P’s bedroom and turned on the television, with Jessica on her heels. It was in disarray, most notably, the hotel phone ripped out of the wall. Mr. P was out cold with one bony arm shackled to the bedpost by a pair of golden handcuffs. The fingers on that hand were adorned with bright
red nail polish. His face was made up with, smoky eye shadow, blush and pouty lips. Drool pooled on the pillow near his lips. He was completely naked and exposed. “Meet the Lilliputian Mr. P,” Kim said as she tossed a cover over the man. A large sex toy dropped to the floor with a thud. “Overcompensation,” Kim commented without skipping a beat. She worked quickly to lock the door to Mr. P’s bedroom from the inside, while standing in the outer sitting area. The doc would have to pick the lock or break it down, once he figured out that Mr. P was not still amusing himself with Kim.

Outside, they edged their way along the open corridor on the second floor and around a corner to a set of stairs at the back of the motel. Jessica held onto the stair rail as they made their way to the ground. The h
eat and smoke outdoors undid much of the progress she had made fighting off the drug-induced torpor. She stood at the foot of the stairs, trying to clear her head and figure out where they were.

When she ventured there to interview Bobbie Simmons, Jessica realized how little she knew about Indio. Indio had hosted the Riverside County Fair and the National Date Festival for sixty years. She had gone to the Date Festival numerous times while growing up in the desert, watching with delight as animals paraded across the stage at the finale of the annual Arabian Nights pageant. They had since added the hugely successful Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals to their credits as the “City of Festivals,” but those were held at the Polo Grounds near La Quinta. She struggled to find a recognizable landmark or a street sign that might reveal where they were. From
the second floor, she could see that the roadway in front of the motel ran along train tracks to an overpass some distance away, but there was not much in between. They needed to get to a phone.

“Kim, why don’t we go to the registration desk and ask the clerk on duty to call 911?” Jessica whispered the question to her companion.

“I tried to call the cops from our room, Jessica, but couldn’t get the damn thing to let me call out. Some creep at the front desk finally picked up and asked me what he could do for me. I made up some story about wanting to call out so I could get food delivered. He just laughed and said ‘that big handsome doctor of yours told me
he
was going out to get food. I understand a couple members of your group are under the weather. The doc gave strict orders for you to rest, with no visitors or phone calls. Do I need to call him?’ I told him that wouldn’t be necessary, and yanked the damn phone out of the wall, I was so pissed. That was about twenty minutes ago, right before I woke you. Any idea where we are? We need a gas station or a fast food restaurant, any place like that with a phone.”

“I think the main road out there is Indio Boulevard. There aren’t a lot of shops along the roadway. That overpass west of us is Monroe, and that takes us back toward town. Not close on foot. I couldn’t see what’s to the east. If we get around to the front, we’ll be more exposed, but maybe we can spot somewhere to run. I don’t know what other options we have, Kim.”

“Okay, I don’t see a way out of here from the back or the side. The motel and parking lot are enclosed by the frigging fence. Let’s stay close to the building around the front, in case the doc has someone else babysitting besides the creep at the front desk.” As soon as they came around the corner, they spotted a gas station one street over. Unfortunately, Kim was right. There was only one way around the fence, and that was through a front entrance leading out of the parking lot to the street. The parking lot was nearly empty. A plain, white, unmarked van sat off to one side, and two cars sat opposite the front entrance, but most of the distance they had to traverse was wide open. There was nothing to shield them from view as they ran.

“I think it’s now or never, Jessica. Are you ready to run for it?”

“Ready as I’m going to be.” With that they dashed diagonally across the parking lot from the corner of the building where they were hiding in the shadows. As they neared the opening to the fence at the motel entrance, a car, two cars, actually, approached at high speed. Not too far away, sirens wailed. Jessica spotted the angular face of the doc at the wheel of the first car that turned into the lot. He did not see them right away, because he was peering in his rearview mirror at the car behind him. When he returned his gaze forward, he spotted them. He hit the accelerator and raced right for them.

“Car,” Jessica shouted, yanking Kim toward her as she lunged
for the fence, hoping their forward momentum would get them out of the path of the car and closer to that exit.

“Gun,” Kim shouted back, as she tackled Jessica and slammed both of them into the ground. Jessica heard the screeching of tires, and a metallic crunch, as the doc’s car must have come to a halt nearby. They also heard quick “pop, pop” sounds. A bullet whizzed past and pinged off the pavement in front of them. She heard Kim utter a cry of surprise. Jessica, the wind knocked out of her and Kim’s dead weight on top of her, froze as someone returned the gunfire. The sirens grew louder. More tires screeched, doors slammed and a gun battle blazed around them.

A trickle of blood poured from Jessica’s nose. A torrent gushed from Kim. Jessica managed to wriggle out from under Kim’s body and found the bullet hole in Kim’s shoulder. Taking off her jacket, Jessica used it staunch the blood flow, applying pressure as best she could, while staying low to the ground. As suddenly as the chaos had begun, it ended.

“Yo, Jessica, you okay?”

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Peter,” she managed to say, smiling wanly, as she did her best to keep pressure on Kim’s wound.

EPILOGUE

“Where have I been all my life, Father Martin? It’s as if I’ve been asleep, unaware of what was going on around me. Now, I’m awake, but I’m living a nightmare. First, I catch my husband in bed with Hollywood Barbie. Then, my best friend’s husband is murdered. Now
, I find out my poor, sick, childhood friend was part of this porn underground that trafficked in drugs and people. Just kids really, most of them young girls. I must have slipped into one of those parallel universes my surfer dude buddy talks about. What’s next, a zombie apocalypse?”

Jessica had sought out the priest
, hoping to make sense of the latest bout of carnage that had left the doc dead, Kim Reed wounded, and Mr. P in police handcuffs. Jessica and Amy Klein had gotten off easier. On Sunday, Peter March had sent the police to Jessica’s law office on El Paseo as soon as he recognized Jessica’s “not okay” code. The police had found Amy alone, out cold, but physically unharmed. When she regained consciousness at the hospital later she recalled little of what had occurred that day. Jessica was hungry, dehydrated, and hung over from the mix of drugs used to keep her under control. She had some scrapes and bruises from evading the speeding car and bullets aimed at her by the doc before police engaged him in a gun battle. The doc lost that battle, cut down by police officers in a matter of minutes.

When he called Jessica on Sunday, Peter had been
in his SUV heading to pick up Kim Reed. He knew, immediately, that Jessica was in trouble. Even before she hung up the phone, Peter took off toward El Paseo. When the signal from Kim’s phone began to move again, he followed. When they headed down Monterey to I-10, Peter was only a few miles behind. By the time they exited the highway at Monroe St., and were driving into Indio, he was closing the distance between them. But then, the signal ceased, and Peter was unable to locate them.

The reason the signal ceased was that
a member of the flight crew at Jackie Cochran airport called the doc and tipped him off that Mr. P’s plane was grounded. Border Patrol was watching for Mr. P’s Mercedes at entry points into Mexico, and he suspected they were also being tracked. That’s when the doc pulled the batteries from their cell phones. Minutes later, they checked in to the closest motel, hoping to get out of sight before they were spotted. Using the phone in the motel room, the doc arranged to meet someone to pick up a burner phone and unload the Mercedes.

Meanwhile, the search was on, in earnest, for Jessica, Kim and the two wanted men. It didn’t take long for police to figure out that their plan to capture the men at the airport had been leaked, and by whom. Given how quickly they fell off the radar, Peter and the police figured they could not have gone far. They stepped up patrols in Indio near Peter’s last point of contact.

On Monday, police had broadcast pictures of the two men, along with a brief news story that they were wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Jessica Huntington and Kim Reed. That should have been enough to get the creepy desk clerk to call the police but the doc had paid the bastard off. He continued keeping an eye on them using motel surveillance cameras, and, of course, monitoring their phone calls. The investigators caught a break on Monday when someone spotted the doc at a drive thru in Indio and called it in. He was gone by the time the police reached the restaurant but they were reassured that he was still in the area. They also had a line on the car he was seen driving: an older model, gray Ford, make unknown.

The real break in the case, though, came from a call made by a member of the
motel housekeeping staff. She caught a glimpse of “el doctor maligno” leaving one of the rooms at the motel, Tuesday morning. Instead of calling the police, she called a friend who had told her about a woman at Agua Caliente who won a big jackpot and was asking about el doctor, “más feo que Picio”—uglier than sin. That friend called another friend, and less than six degrees of separation later, they reached Bernadette. Bernadette called everyone: Peter March, Detective Hernandez, Frank Fontana, the Palm Desert police, and the Indio police. It took a few more minutes for Bernadette to get the original informant on the phone, directly. With Bernadette’s help they were able to confirm the location of the motel and to pinpoint the room the doc had exited. Police converged on the motel.

Peter
, armed with the same information, was already on the move before the police. He spotted the doc first and followed him for a few blocks, keeping his distance. The doc suddenly realized he was being followed and sped up, with Peter picking up the pace to stay with him. When the doc took that turn into the parking lot, Peter was nearly on his bumper. In what must have been a fit of rage, the doc tried to run over Jessica and Kim. Then, abandoning the car, he began shooting at them. One of the bullets hit Kim in the shoulder. Peter returned fire and the doc took cover, as police poured into the parking lot. For the next few minutes a flurry of gunfire was exchanged between the doc and the police. Two bullets felled the man, ending the firefight and his life.

The doped-up
Mr. P slept through the entire confrontation. He was hauled out on a stretcher, still unconscious, and taken to a hospital where he remained until he was well enough for police to place him under arrest. He lawyered up right away. He tried to get out on bond, but no way was the court going to give Mr. P another chance to flee. Word traveled like wildfire about the charges piling up against the infuriated little man. Given that one of his “sidelines” involved abusing children, the police had already put him in protective custody. When he wasn’t ranting he was sobbing, feeling sorry for himself and the way he was being misunderstood and mistreated.

Kim recovered
quickly and had, indeed, turned out to be a credible informant about Mr. P and the doc’s furtive illicit enterprises. She led police to a cache of secret documents and private mementoes kept by Mr. P behind a false wall in the ‘panic room’ of his Hollywood Hills home. That included photos and video, all neatly stored. His office, Hollywood Hills and Malibu beach homes were all wired, filming almost every move he made. He described the film archive to Kim as part of his legacy, a documentary of his singular genius. He sometimes added voice overs later, or spoke to the cameras while alone, so that not even a private thought might be missed. The voyeuristic narcissist enjoyed watching those films for hours, endlessly fascinated by his own life and an insatiable appetite for corruption.

In addition to even the most mundane aspects of the bizarre little man’s life, the video recordings documented hours and hours of interaction with young girls and boys. In some cases he “groomed” them, wooing them into submission with promises and presents. They attended parties at his Hollywood Hills house, sang for him and danced, posed and role-played. He made promises to many of them that they were on the road to stardom. They thanked him profusely for film shoots or studio demos, a signed CD from Mr. P’s latest recording artist, a pair of sneakers or jeans.

In other situations Mr. P had drugged them or had resorted to force to get what he wanted. Mostly what he wanted was to film them, creating the illicit smut sent out along many of the same networks that were used for transporting the legal porn. The voyeur did not participate as an actor. The youths either preyed upon one another or one of Mr. P’s minions, like Bobby Simmons, stepped in. Mr. P acted as the film’s director, scripting the perversion.

At other times
, he could be seen issuing orders to remove or dispose of the youth when he tired of them. The music-industry despot ruled his kingdom without objection or opposition. He was a pint-sized King Henry the 8
th
doling out royal favors and then issuing decrees to dispense with his subjects. Mr. P’s decrees ran the gamut from payoffs and bail outs, to rejection and abandonment. Perhaps returning a street urchin to the streets, or sending them into permanent exile. Exile was the worst fate. His discards, most of them young women, were shipped off. They were smuggled over the border into Mexico, via a perverse take on the “underground railroad”—this one led into slavery, not out of it.

Never directly on camera, but lurking in the shadows, was the doc. Dr. Max Samman was useful to Mr. P in so many ways. More than merely the doctor of record, he ran the porn studio. That included the networks required to distribute the materials they produced, legit or otherwise. Working behind the scenes, he also ran the drug smuggling and human trafficking “sidelines,” as he and Mr. P referred to them.

Sometimes the doc could also be heard in the background strategizing with Mr. P about the best way to solve a problem with an unruly subject, like Kelly Fontana. The cold case team was going through hours of film from around the time Kelly was killed. She could be seen at parties, initially in the company of Bobby Simmons, when she wasn’t more than 15 years old. Mr. P picked her out right away. The “you ought to be in pictures” proposition Kelly told Tommy about must have been made years before she worked as an attendant at the Agua Caliente spa at age 19. There were more photos and film snippets featuring Kelly Fontana, much like those found among Bobby Simmons’ possessions. In other films. Kelly sat near Mr. P, where he caressed her luxurious mane of auburn hair like she was a beloved pet of some kind.

“What to do about Kelly”
had become an issue, in the fall of ’98 when Kelly Fontana had a tantrum. On film, Mr. P was hurt and angry that she had threatened him, and wondered if the doc could give her something to calm her down. The doc agreed to give her something, but argued that she had to go. He proposed exile. She was still young enough to fetch a decent price in the marketplace; her red hair making her “an exotic,” as he referred to her.

Initially, Mr. P balked, apparently having something akin to affection for Kelly.
But then he must have yielded to pressure from the doc, or to fear, since Kelly disappeared shortly after. Some plan was afoot that night when fear suddenly morphed into savagery and, despite whatever misgivings he had, Mr. P killed Kelly. He could be seen, on film, sniffling about it years later as he spoke to Kim Reed.

“What could I do? I had to stop Kelly, my lovely, my betrayer who turned on me like a rabid dog. I could not let her bring my work to an end when I have so much more to offer.” It was all melodramatic—King Richard the 3
rd
, a role better suited to the twisted little man even than King Henry the 8
th
. By the time Jessica visited Mr. P at his office, he was alarmed, trying to keep out ahead of events.

Kim said
that, when Arnold Dunne informed them about Chester Davis, Mr. P had a good laugh about it. That is, until Dunne mentioned that Chet had put together his very own dream team, with a lawyer from a big-time law firm to represent him alongside Dick Tatum. Mr. P might have let that slide, too, but a day or so later, Bobby Simmons, tracked him down with a similar story about a nosy lawyer asking a lot of questions about Kelly. Bobby demanded help to get out of town, in exchange for his continued silence about what happened to Kelly Fontana and sundry other misdeeds to which he was privy.

Still in his possession were items taken from Kelly the night she was killed. Bobby had cleaned out her apartment, taking gifts from Mr. P, some of them autographed, and Bobby had Kelly’s cell phone. The cell phone had been taken from the doc on the way to the hospital the night Kelly stabbed him. Once they made her disappear, permanently, the doc had intended to send it cross country, making it look as though the young woman had run off. In all the confusion that night, Bobby Simmons ended up with it. When Jessica asked specifically about that phone, Bobby Simmons must have figured the jig was up, and decided to
“get out of Dodge.”

Once Mr. P decided to act, he put Arnold Dunne and Justin Baker to work. Justin Baker had been picked up
by the police, too. He wasn’t talking, but the young man was another of Mr. P’s “prodigies.” When they searched the hovel where the young man lived in LA they found a copy of a demo made by the aspiring rapper. Lurid “publicity shots” and an X-rated music video were also recovered at the scene. They figured he’d eventually spill his guts when he realized Mr. P was no longer in a position to bail him out—or seek retribution.

Arnold Dunne confessed his part in t
he murder and mayhem. His price had been money and drugs, and a get-out-of-the-country-for-life gift package of smut that he could sell to finance his retirement in Mexico. He got Chester Davis released by putting up the bail money. After picking him up, it was easy to coax him into partying. He didn’t have to kill him, exactly. He just kept feeding the addict drugs: heroin laced with fentanyl, in addition to pills and meth. When Chet Davis aspirated on his own vomit, Arnold Dunne rolled him over, making sure he was gone for good. That’s how he left his fingerprints on the dead man’s body. Had he called 911 instead, Chester Davis might have lived to see another day.

Bobby Simmons was another matter. Arnold Dunne set up a meeting where the not-too-bright Simmons showed up to make a trade—the items he held linking Mr. P to Kelly in exchange for $50,000. Bobby Simmons demanded to see the cash before he forked over the small box of items that had belonged to Kelly. A more public meeting place might have made it difficult for Arnold Dunne to complete the transaction in the way Mr. P ordered it. He handed the money to Bobby, took the box from him
and, then, put a bullet into Bobby’s brain.