“I’m leaving for two months.”
Nina thought for a second, but no longer than that, and then said, “It’s been a year since my uncle was killed. I suppose I could wait two months, if that’s what it takes to hire you.”
“I know other P.I.s.”
“John Lopez told me not to waste my time with a bad P.I. who isn’t going to get anywhere. This is a case the police couldn’t solve. By the way, John told me to tell you he hadn’t worked on the case.”
Tremaine laughed at that.
Nina continued. “He told me you’d solved cases the 7
Michael Craven
police couldn’t figure out. That you’d done it a couple times. And if I was going to hire someone, I should hire you.”
“Lopez said that to you? He never says nice stuff like that to me.”
Tremaine wanted to ask her what her uncle’s name was, but he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be going to Australia. He knew that if he started getting details on the case, particularly knowing he was going to work on it when he got back, it would ruin his trip. He’d be out in the waves, dropping in on a big one, but instead of enjoying the freedom of being thousands of miles away from home and the rush of gliding down a wave, he’d be thinking about the case he knew he was coming back to. What happened, why it happened, and who did it. He simply couldn’t help it.
He looked at Nina. That smooth, pale skin and that dark, almost black, hair. The way she sat in the chair, comfortable, but with her feet together, and her arms crossed, looking a little reserved. She had the perfectly tailored, expensive clothes, but then a necklace made of little bright blue and yellow glass beads that might have been made by an artist in the East Village of New York City. And just that hint of sadness in her eyes. It was all working for her; she had the mix just right. And, no, not attractive. A knockout.
Yeah, that’s what his investigative skills told him. She had the kind of beauty that hurt you a little. Made you want to drop to the floor, get in the fetal position, and just sob.
Tremaine was considering doing that now. But instead, he asked Nina a question,
the
question. His curiosity had gotten the best of him.
“What was your uncle’s name?” Tremaine said, know-8
B O D Y C O P Y
ing now for sure, now that he could hear the words coming out of his mouth, that his trip to Australia was officially postponed.
“Roger Gale,” she said.
“I remember the case. He was the advertising guy.
Started the big agency over in Playa del Rey.”
“That’s right. I’m surprised you remember. It made the papers, but after like a day it stopped showing up in the press.”
Tremaine grabbed the
New York Times
that he’d brought in from the roof. “These guys did an obit.”
Nina nodded and said, “I still have it.”
Tremaine began to think back about the obit and the couple other articles he’d read about Gale. He said, “He was found in his agency—in his office—right?”
Something—pain, sadness, confusion—showed on Nina’s face, and she took a breath before she said, “Yes. They found him at his desk. Sitting at his desk. Dead. He had a head wound, but they realized later that he had been strangled.”
Tremaine paused for a moment. Then switched gears and said, “Roger Gale. He came up with the famous campaign for Rogaine—
Just admit it. You want your hair
. Right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Nina said, smiling.
“Where everybody in the commercials was admitting stuff that they really thought but were afraid to say.”
“That’s the one.”
“That’s a good campaign,” Tremaine said. “Funny.
Smart.”
“Will you help me when you get back from your vacation?”
“I’ll help you right now.”
9
Michael Craven
“You really don’t have to cancel your trip. I can wait.”
“I’m not canceling it. I’m postponing it.”
She said, “I kinda feel bad. I know that feeling right before a vacation, it’s a good feeling.”
“Don’t feel bad. If I went on the trip knowing I had a case to get back to, I wouldn’t be able to relax. I would be looking at a kangaroo and thinking about Roger Gale.”
“I understand. I’m like that with my work, too.”
“What do you do?”
“I teach Italian and art history at UCLA”
“Do you teach John Lopez’s brother?”
“Yes. He’s the person who put me in touch with John.
You are a good P.I.”
Tremaine now thought, a beautiful woman, a college professor,
and
a sense of humor. I’m glad I took the case.
Even though none of those things caused me to take the case. I’m a professional, for Chrissakes.
“Here’s the way I work. I’ll need a few days to do some research before I talk to you. I want to know more before I start asking you questions.”
Nina nodded and said, “Something I want to ask you . . .
One of the reasons I wanted to look into this was because I felt the police just gave up. My uncle was kind of a big deal, you know? A prominent member of society. Not that that should make a difference, but it does. Anyway, the case is still technically open, but nobody’s doing anything about it.”
“Cold.”
“Excuse me?”
“The case is cold. That’s what they call it. What’s your question?”
10
B O D Y C O P Y
“Does that surprise you? That the police aren’t paying any attention to a murder? I mean, a man was killed and the case is just sitting there.”
Tremaine walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself another cup, number three, or was it four? He was beginning to get that shaky feeling—that shaky feeling he kind of enjoyed.
He said, “The LAPD has to deal with an enormous number of cases. And, to your point, the fact that Roger Gale was a well-known person does give his case more attention. But that doesn’t mean it can be solved. Sometimes the police work is bad, sometimes the workload is just too overwhelming, sometimes it’s a combination of both. And sometimes . . . sometimes the case just can’t be solved.”
Nina nodded and said, “Well, I’m glad you’re going to give it a try.”
“There’s almost always something that can lead you somewhere,” Tremaine said. “It might be very hard to pin-point, but it’s almost always there.”
Nina stood up and pulled a card out of her purse. She handed it to Tremaine and he looked at it, focusing on the name. Nina Aldeen. It had a nice sound to it.
“Call me or e-mail me when you want to talk,” she said.
“I really appreciate your taking this, and again, if you want to go on your trip, I can wait.”
“I’ll call you in a couple days.”
Tremaine walked Nina out. They both stood just outside the trailer, right where they had been when they first introduced themselves to each other.
Tremaine said, “So, was there another reason you wanted to look into this?”
11
Michael Craven
Something happened in her eyes, and she waited just a second too long to talk.
“Another reason?”
“Yeah. You said the cops not doing anything about it was one reason. Is there another one?”
“I said that? I guess I meant . . .” She cut herself off and again paused before she spoke. Tremaine looked at her eyes. Something far away was in there, and he almost thought she was going to cry. But then he saw something else, a quick but fierce fight within her that showed she wasn’t going to let that happen.
She said, “I don’t know what I meant by that. I think it was just a figure of speech. But in thinking about it now,”
she took a breath, “I guess there was another reason. I guess I meant that some people in our family wanted to hire someone like you, but just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Roger’s wife—his widow, Evelyn—or my mom—
they were too hurt by it all to open it up again. If that’s even really what they wanted to do. I guess I felt like I could be the one to take some action, you know? Even if it was just hiring someone. As sad, as tragic as it was, the murder I mean, I was less emotional about it than they were—you know?”
“Yeah,” Tremaine said. “I’ll talk to you in a couple days.”
And then he watched Nina turn and walk to her car with her arms crossed and her head pointed just slightly down.
12
C H A P T E R 3
The first person Tremaine needed to call was his old buddy at the LAPD, John Lopez, not just to thank him for the referral but to get some information from him on Roger Gale. But before he did that, he’d have to take care of something else, something fairly important to him: the Daily Jumble. That game in the paper where you unscramble the words, then figure out the clever little riddle at the end.
It’s very popular with the over-eighty crowd—Tremaine knew that. He would often say to himself, Jesus, Tremaine, you’re not even forty and you’re doing the Jumble every day like an old man. Start devouring Jell-O and yelling at the neighbors, and you’ll
be
an old man.
Tremaine liked to pretend the game helped keep his mind sharp, but he knew it was just a dumb puzzle that he was addicted to. Even more compulsive than his doing it Michael Craven
every day was the fact that he timed himself. His best time ever? Thirty-seven seconds, start to finish. It was almost pathetic that he was proud of that. Extremely proud of that.
Tremaine had planned to do the puzzle on the flight to Australia, but since that wasn’t happening, he had to do it right away, before the day got away from him. The Jumble wasn’t in the
New York Times
, so Tremaine produced his copy of the L.A.
Times
. Not a bad paper—a good one—but he only subscribed for the puzzle.
Now he was ready. Pencil, stopwatch, puzzle. Tremaine sat at his kitchen table, pressed start on the stopwatch, and got started. The four unscrambled words were myrig, teaga, tolbet, and whallo. The riddle was:
What it
takes to wear the latest designer clothes.
The blank answer looked like this. A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
Tremaine was off to the races. The first one, myrig, was easy: grimy. He wrote it down. Then he knocked out tolbet and whallo: bottle and hallow. teaga? What was that? teaga. Hmm. Got it: agate.
He took the circled letters out of the solved words: The m and the y out of grimy. Both a’s and the e out of agate.
Both t’s and the e out of bottle. And the h, an l, and the w out of hallow.
The new unscrambled word looked like this: myaaette-hlw.
What it takes to wear the latest designer clothes
. . . A what? A . . . A . . . Tremaine looked at the stopwatch, already over a minute. Shit. A . . .
Got it:
A wealthy mate
. Those clever bastards. Tremaine hit the stopwatch. One minute, forty seven. Not a terrible time, but not even in his top fifty.
14
B O D Y C O P Y
All right, Tremaine had had his one minute and forty-seven seconds of fun, now it was time to get to work. To go on the real clock. He picked up his cordless and dialed.
“Lopez. Tremaine,” he said.
“I figured you’d be calling after I sent Nina Aldeen your way.”
“You ruined my vacation.”
“What vacation?“
“I was off to Australia today for two months.”
“You don’t tell your friends when you’re leaving the continent for two months?”
“Oh, I tell my friends.”
Lopez said, “Hey, you better start kissing my ass. I’m assuming you want me to send you the police report on Roger Gale.”
“I’ll buy you a steak.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll buy me a steak and several drinks.”
“Fine.”
“Several
expensive
drinks.”
“Fine.”
“I mean like Belvedere and Maker’s, minimum.”
“Fine.”
Then Lopez said, “Did Nina mention that I didn’t work on that case?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Bullshit.”
Tremaine said, “I appreciate you sending the work my way, John. Really. And not just because Nina’s the kind of girl you’d sell your soul for.”
“My pleasure. We go back a long way.”
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Michael Craven
“Indeed.”
“Remember those days?” Lopez said. “Growing up? We pretty much just surfed, chased girls and got high.”
“We got in a few fights as I recall. Out there in the water defending our turf.”
“Had to, those guys down in Huntington were mean.
That is, till you became the local hero. You had a nickname, what was it? Something about you being a crazy bastard.”
“You’re funny, Lopez. Say, what do you do these days without me to protect you?”
“I thought I protected you. For a P.I., you don’t have a great memory.”
“Selective. But I do remember the good old days. I think about them often,” Tremaine said.
“Your life hasn’t changed much, has it, buddy?”
“Not as many girls.”
“But the grass?”
“You’re a cop. I can’t tell you that. Now you’re the one not remembering anything.”
“I’ll get you some stuff on Roger Gale in a couple days.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh,” Lopez said, “Happy Birthday.”
“Should I be expecting a present?”
“The police report, the investigation files, the autopsy report. Those are your presents.”
“But I’m buying you a steak and drinks for that stuff.”
“Yeah,” Lopez said, “I know.”
16
C H A P T E R 4
Tremaine went for another cup of coffee and thought, no, can’t do it, done for the day. Starting to see spots. Oh, what the hell, it’s my birthday . . .
He got online and started to look around for information on Roger Gale. His life, his career, his history. The first thing he did was find a picture of the man. A picture of the man as he had looked just before he was killed. Tremaine stared at the image on the screen. Short white hair, blue or maybe even gray eyes, and a tan, a California ad man. He looked alive, alert. Younger than his fifty-nine years.
Information on the guy’s career was a snap to find. He was all over the Net, his achievements in the world of advertising being nothing short of huge.
Michael Craven
Roger Gale began as an ad writer, a copywriter, and started a small direct-mail ad agency with an account executive named Ted Parker. Both men had been in the business only a few years, but they hung a shingle anyway in San Clemente, California, and started chasing business. Knowing they wanted a more high-profile agency, they moved the shop north to L.A. With its new home, the agency began to grow and moved around Los Angeles as it expanded.