Angela didn’t invite Tremaine in. She motioned for him to sit on the chair on the little deck outside her front door.
“What, are you investigating Kelly’s murder?” Angela said.
“Yeah, I am. I’m wondering if it’s tied to another thing I’m looking into, the murder of a guy named Roger Gale.”
The expression on Angela’s face couldn’t have been blanker. No way. Tremaine looked at the scratch, followed it from one end to the other.
“I don’t know nothing about Kelly’s death. Alls I know is she thought she was better than everyone, and went out to Hollywood and became a druggie. It runs in our family.”
“What, the drugs?”
“Yeah.”
250
B O D Y C O P Y
This honest admission from Angela endeared her to Tremaine. He felt for her in this moment.
Tremaine said, “Did you know anything about her life around the time of her death? Like, did you know her boyfriend at all, Evan?”
“Nope. She never called me. We really didn’t speak. We weren’t friends.”
Tremaine could see some pain come over her face. Emotional pain, not physical pain like the scratch. He knew that look, said she loved her sister anyway.
“How ’bout a guy named Dean Latham? Did you ever hear that name?”
Something else registered on her face.
“Why do you care, anyway?” Angela said.
“I can’t say I was personally affected by Kelly’s death. I didn’t know her. But what I can tell you is, I care about justice. I care that people like you, and people like the woman who hired me to look into all this stuff in the first place, get to the truth. Because what’s really happening here, what I really do this for, is I don’t like it when people get fucked over. And that’s what happens when someone kills someone else and nobody does anything about it. Somebody is getting fucked. Like it just doesn’t matter somehow that they’re dead. So, that’s why I care.”
Angela said, “Hold on a second.”
She walked inside and shut the front door behind her.
About a minute later she came back out holding a picture, and said, “This was in Kelly’s stuff. Cops looked at it, they didn’t want it.”
Before she showed Tremaine the front of the picture, she showed him the back of the picture. Written on it in 251
Michael Craven
a pink ballpoint pen was
With the one and only Dean
Latham.
“That’s Kelly’s handwriting,” Angela said.
Tremaine turned the picture over and looked at the front. Kelly—beautiful, sexual—on the left, Dean on the right. They were at a black-tie party, and from the looks of the picture, it was a fun one. They were arm in arm, laughing hysterically. Kelly looking right at the camera, almost flirting with it, her big eyes saying
look at me
. Dean had his head tilted back, in the throes of an exaggerated laugh.
Like Burt Reynolds on the
Carson
show, head tilted back, letting out that high-pitched laugh. Tremaine looked at the picture, looked at Kelly on the left, looked at Dean on the right. Dean with shoulder-length black hair and black Elvis Costello–style glasses. It was an odd way to look at Dean’s face, seeing mostly his chin. He had that black hair, though, longer here but still the hip look, and he had the glasses, too, just a different style. It was enough.
“Can I have this picture?” Tremaine said.
“No. It’s all I have. It’s literally the only picture I have of her.”
“I may need it to prove a point to someone. To Dean.”
“No, I don’t know you. What if I never see the picture again? Then I’ll never be able to see Kelly again.”
Tremaine’s cell rang. He recognized the number.
“Tremaine,” he said.
“Hey, it’s Sally.”
“Hey.”
“So, Kelly Burch?”
“Yeah.”
“She was an extra in
Aliens in America
.”
252
B O D Y C O P Y
“You’re the best, Sally. Thank you.”
Tremaine clicked off the phone.
He looked at Angela, at that face with the scratch, and said, “Thank you for seeing me. As it turns out, I don’t need the picture.”
253
C H A P T E R 3 5
Tremaine got back to L.A., tired from driving through the desert heat, thinking, Dean Latham is lying and I need to make him admit it. Not when he’s ready to admit it, no, right now. Tremaine didn’t take the Ten back to Malibu, he took it to La Cienega, wound his way through Hollywood, then up the canyon back to Latham’s.
Sitting outside Latham’s now, man, wrecked from the heat. Beat. Beat from the heat.
Tremaine thinking, the letters, the picture, and the movie
Aliens in America
. The movie was the confusing element. Surely Latham’s smart enough to know I could find out that he had produced a movie that Kelly Burch was in.
But he’s never heard of her? Is Latham dumb? Could that be it? Does he think I’m dumb?
B O D Y C O P Y
Could it have slipped his mind that Kelly’s credits would be accessible? Could he have been sitting up here with his memories, in his former producer’s throne, four drinks in, thinking that extras don’t get credits?
Still sitting in his car, Tremaine thinking, this case is bizarre, this case is bullshit. Roger Gale had an affair, but he didn’t. He went into the karate place, but he didn’t. Dean Latham produced a movie Kelly was in and wrote her love letters, and took a picture with her, but he doesn’t know her. Bullshit. And he doesn’t even have the sense to at least admit that he knows her, even if he didn’t kill her.
Man, Tremaine was hot. From the desert, from the case.
Tremaine, opening his door, clenching his jaw, saying to himself, let’s see how Latham handles a little pressure.
Tremaine, through the front gate, at Latham’s door, knocking.
Latham opened the door.
“I thought you were going to call me,” Latham said.
“I lied,” Tremaine said. “Just like you.”
Tremaine walked in Latham’s house.
Latham said, “What are you talking about? You want to see the tickets?”
“Shut up, Latham, I know you knew Kelly Burch.”
Tremaine took a tone with Latham, gave him a look.
Telling Latham with his eyes, I’m gonna fuck you up, man.
“I’ve never heard of her,” Latham said. “Not until you said her name.”
“I know you knew her.”
“Tremaine, I’ve never heard of her.”
255
Michael Craven
“She was an extra in
Aliens in America
.”
Dean looked at Tremaine, hung his head, shook it, and said, “So were about a thousand other desperate people in this town.”
“The girl had love letters with your name on them, she was in one of your movies, she was stunning. You knew her. You were in love with her.”
Tremaine was in Latham’s face. Trying to press a confession out of him, making Latham think he was about to blow his top. But he really wasn’t going to blow his top, right? This was a bluff. The frustrations of getting nowhere weren’t affecting him, making him angry.
Right?
“What? I didn’t know her,” Latham said. “And I sure as hell wasn’t in love with her. If she had love letters, they weren’t from me. She
might
have loved me, like from afar or something, but I didn’t even know her. I’ve never heard of her. And when she was killed, I was out of town. I’ll show you the tickets.”
Tremaine didn’t know what he was going to do with Latham’s confession once he got it, but he was going to get it. He ramped up the insanity in his eyes.
“Bullshit,” Tremaine said. “Admit it, admit you knew her.”
Tremaine walked toward Latham, stood right in front of him. “Admit it, Latham. Right now. Or you will wish you had.”
After laying down the threat, Tremaine felt less and less like he was bluffing. His act was colliding with his true feelings. His act was allowing his true frustrations to come out. He was realizing that maybe he didn’t know shit.
256
B O D Y C O P Y
Maybe even if he did pull the truth out of Latham, what was he doing threatening some washed-up producer about a case he wasn’t even on? But Tremaine wasn’t stopping now, nope, too late.
Latham said, “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are or what you think you know. But if you don’t get out of my house, I’m going to call the cops. Then I’m going to call my lawyer.”
“I’m sure they’d all like the information I have,” Tremaine said.
“They can have it,” Latham said.
“Tell me what you know, Latham.”
Tremaine inched closer to Latham.
Latham picked up his cordless, “Tremaine, get the fuck out of my house or I call the cops.”
Tremaine grabbed the phone away from him and said,
“I don’t buy your bluff, Latham.”
And did he buy his own bluff? Or was he about to do something violent with that phone? He sure had the feeling, the adrenaline shot, the one he’d always had sliding down the face of a monster wave.
Tremaine held the phone in his hand. “The fucking girl was in one of your movies, Latham. Any idiot could have found that out.”
Latham said, “I never went on the set of that movie.
I got a producer’s credit and was banned from the set. It happens all the time. I had nothing to do with the movie.
Much less the goddamn extras.”
Tremaine could see himself striking Latham. The bluff was fading, going away—gone?
He was about to do it.
257
Michael Craven
He said, “Tell me you knew her or I’m going to put this phone through your head.”
“Hold on a second,” Latham said.
Latham reached in his pocket and pulled out some plane tickets.
Tremaine grabbed them, looked at them. They were old. They looked real. They indicated that Latham was in Seattle at the time of the killings. Tremaine was confused now—still mad, but about what? The case, the fact that Latham had some proof? Doesn’t mean Latham didn’t know Kelly, but it was evidence. It was something real to support what he was saying. Tremaine knew he could find out if Latham knew Kelly, one way or another, on his own.
But he’d never have
this
chance again. To make him say something he didn’t want to. But Tremaine now had lost a bit of his bluff. The tickets had taken some wind out of his sails. And his chance of pulling something out of Latham was almost over. Was almost dead. Like Kelly Burch and Roger Gale.
“Plane tickets are easy to fake,” Tremaine said.
“Those aren’t fake. You could call my mom and ask her, if she weren’t dead. Call the airline, whatever.”
Tremaine stepped closer to Latham.
Latham backed up, backed up more, until he was against the wall, next to the door in the front room. Tremaine was in his face, his eyes inches from Latham’s eyes. Tremaine held the phone up to strike Latham, but his rage was dying, as was his bluff. Maybe Latham knew it.
Tremaine said, “I don’t care if you were out of town when she was killed. Admit that you knew her, Latham.
Tell me about your relationship to Kelly Burch.”
258
B O D Y C O P Y
Latham looked at Tremaine and said, “You’re in my house and you’re threatening me. Get the fuck out.”
Tremaine grabbed Latham by the throat. One last try.
Tremaine wanting to follow through on the bluff—and it was a bluff now. The real rage that had crept in was damn near gone. But the bluff? Tremaine knew this shit wasn’t working. He squeezed, hard, simultaneously pushing Latham against the wall, pinning him against the wall.
Tremaine stared at Latham. He couldn’t read his expression, he couldn’t. Tremaine let go and backed up. Latham stood against the wall. Tremaine looked at him, tried to pull something out of Latham’s face. Nothing.
He took his eyes away from Latham and looked at the plane tickets he’d thrown on the floor. He leaned down, grabbed them. Then, he looked over toward the kitchen and saw the cradle for the cordless phone. Tremaine walked over to it, placed the phone in its cradle and placed the tickets on the kitchen table.
Tremaine walked back, looked down at the floor again, where the tickets had been before he’d picked them up.
Then, he looked at Latham, standing against the wall, but no longer pinned against it. Latham tilted his head, furrowed his brow a bit, a mixture of confusion and defiance in his face.
Tremaine walked out the door.
259
C H A P T E R 3 6
Tremaine got home. Exhausted. Confused. Angry. Now was the time, Tremaine knew, that he was going to have to let go and think. Think, Tremaine, think. What are you missing? Of all the pieces of the puzzle, which two or three or four fit together?
Tremaine had to close his eyes and look at the clues, examine the people, the circumstances, the subtle nuances of everything he’d learned this far, and do everything in his power to take the separate little strings of this case and tie them together. What was he missing? What the fuck was he missing? On the ground, in the trailer doing pushups, mulling it over in his head. Who, of all the people he’d met, had a good reason to kill Roger Gale? This wasn’t a random crime. It wasn’t. Thirty pushups, forty pushups, B O D Y C O P Y
fifty pushups, sixty pushups, they didn’t hurt, he couldn’t even feel them. This wasn’t a goddamn random crime. He looked at Lyle as he went up and down, up and down.
Thinking: Is there anything here? Is there any goddamn connection between any of the things I’ve found out?
He paced around the trailer, popping beers, listening to some old Bob Dylan,
Blonde on Blonde
—
I want you, I
want you, I want you soooo bad.
He considered everything.
Everything. Everything he knew, everyone he’d talked to.
He thought about all the people who knew Roger Gale and then he thought about the crazy tangent he’d just been on.
Kelly Burch, Vicky Fong, Dean Latham. Dean Latham?
Was he kidding himself to even consider chasing down another, possibly unrelated—probably unrelated—cold case in the first place?
He went up on the roof of his trailer. A beautiful Southern California night. The stars out, the ocean a black, nearly invisible force in the distance.