Crash and Burn (12 page)

Her phone vibrated. She pulled it from her pocket. “It’s Detective Bishop,” she explained to Krista.

“I’m going—call me if you need anything. And I mean
anything.
”

Scarlet gave her the thumbs up as she walked away. “Moreno.”

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Bishop said.

“I tried calling you this morning.”

“Meet me at the bar. Now.”

He hung up before Scarlet could tell him off. She hated being bossed around. She almost didn’t go to the bar.

But curiosity, as always, won.

~ ~ ~

Bishop was drinking a beer and waiting for her when she came into Diego’s early that afternoon. He left it half empty on the bar and walked over to her. “Upstairs,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Please?”

He didn’t respond. She probably shouldn’t push him. The shadows under his eyes told her he’d gotten less sleep than she had.

Scarlet rolled her eyes and led the way to her apartment. As soon as she closed the door, she said, “I called you right after Valerie contacted me. I don’t want to hear you complaining. I used to be a cop. I know how to question a witness.”

“Used to be,” he said. “You’re not a cop. This case is not only delicate, it’s bizarre and you’re in the middle of it.”

“Bizarre how? Rape and murder is pretty standard fare.”

He walked out onto her deck. “You don’t lock your door?”

“Someone would have to scale the wall to get up here.”

“You’re trusting.”

“I have nothing valuable.”

“Your life.”

“I can protect myself.”

She waited until he was ready to spill whatever was bothering him. He sat in one of her chairs. She took the time to set up the sun umbrella because it was getting toasty up here. Then she sat in the other chair and waiting for Bishop to talk. He was either mulling things over, or debating how much to share with her.

It took him several minutes of watching the water before he said, “I spent all morning at the hospital collecting evidence. Tessa is in a coma. An overdose, some designer drug. They’re still testing to see what the chemical components are, but at first glance, it appears to be the same mix that Valerie ingested. Only, Tessa had more in her system. The doctors in Long Beach have seen it before. It’s landed dozens of kids in the hospital in the last month alone.”

“I worked on a narcotics task force. I know how distribution works. Either it’s a bad batch, or the supply is getting stronger, or it’s not what these kids think they’re buying.”

He shrugged in exasperation. “This was the first hospitalization from our jurisdiction—it’s been predominantly an L.A. problem until now. Lieutenant Riley is briefing the joint narcotics task force in L.A. That’s how I found out your brother is Detective John Moreno.”

“So?”

“You could have mentioned it.”

“For what reason? You know how many cops work in LAPD?”

“He’s in charge of this operation.”

“Figures. He’s a good cop.”

“You don’t talk to him?”

“I talk to him all the time, but you’re changing the subject.” She didn’t talk to John all the time. Maybe once a week, and that was being generous. She and John used to be very close, but they had a fundamental disagreement when Scarlet quit the force, and again when she broke up with Matt, who also happened to be John’s closest friend. Sometimes she suspected her brother wanted her to marry Matt more than she did.

“There was blood on Tessa’s clothes. It’s probably not hers—she had some minor cuts, but this was a substantial amount of blood. She was sexually assaulted. There’s some evidence that she was on a beach. Security cameras show that Chase Flores was the one who dropped her at the emergency room early Saturday morning. Why the Long Beach hospital? There were half a dozen between Newport and Long Beach with twenty-four hour emergency service.”

Before Scarlet could comment, Bishop continued.

“There were prints on the knife that killed Cresson. They weren’t in the system, but I sent in both Tessa and Valerie’s prints to Irvine PD this morning. I hope to rule them out. In fact, the only one of the seven students who were at the bar on Friday who had a record was Skip Oliver. He had a drug possession charge three years ago when he was twenty-one. Got a fine and community service, but we have his prints in the system and they don’t match any that we found at the crime scenes.”

“Look at what we know,” Scarlet said. “We know Chase, Parker, Valerie and Tessa left the bar at approximately 8:30 Friday night.”

He stared at her. “How do we know that?”

“Process of elimination. I saw Juan and Skip waiting for Richie while he confronted Isaac. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but deduced it after Valerie gave me the photos.”

“Right.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“And we know that Valerie and Tessa were at the beach at some point because of the evidence found on their persons. Valerie was at the house after two in the morning and called 911 to report the shooting. I heard one gunshot at 2:10 a.m. and it had to be the Richie Sanders shooting because Juan Robertson was killed earlier.”

“That’s inconclusive. The preliminary coroner’s report puts time of death for Robertson at one-thirty in the morning.”

“And we only have Valerie’s word that she was upstairs passed out or sleeping during Richie’s shooting,” Scarlet mused. “Was a gun found?”

Bishop shook his head. “Ballistics confirmed that the gun used was a nine millimeter.”

Scarlet tried not to show her relief. Isaac had a .357. He wasn’t completely in the clear, but one more piece of the puzzle confirmed he hadn’t been involved.

Bishop added, “We have one more timeline fact. Parker Cresson has an alarm system at his house. He disarmed it just after ten on Friday night. He never re-engaged it, but according to his neighbors, he never set it when he was home.”

He reached into his pocket and handed her a one-page print out of text messages from Friday night. “That’s from Cresson’s phone, a text exchange between him and Chase Flores from early Saturday morning.”

FLORES: Is Val with u?

CRESSON: I left her & Tessa at their apartment at 10.

FLORES: They’re not here.

Ten minutes later, the conversation resumed.

CRESSON: Did u find them?

FLORES: Not yet. I’m going to kill Richie for feeding them those fucking drugs.

CRESSON: I can look.

FLORES: Maybe. Hold on.

It was nearly thirty minutes later, after Cresson sent a series of unanswered messages, when Flores finally responded.

FLORES: It’s fucked. I got Tessa. She’s a mess. I’m bringing her over. I’ll be there in 10 min.

CRESSON: Where’s Val?

FLORES: I gotta get Tessa someplace safe and go back for her.

Scarlet read the exchange twice before handing the sheet back to Bishop. “That last message was at two-fifteen. Right after I heard the gunshot.”

“I’ve put an APB on Flores. He’s our best suspect right now.”

“Why don’t you sound good about this?”

“What’s good about this situation?” He was angry—not at her, but at the mess before him.

“There are extenuating circumstances.”

“His life is over,” Bishop said. “You know it. He’ll do time, maybe a reduced sentence because of the situation, but he’s twenty-two and he killed his best friend.” Bishop frowned.

“What?”

“If Flores killed Richie Sanders at two-ten Saturday morning, why did he take Tessa to Cresson’s townhouse instead of the hospital?”

“And why would he kill Cresson? He wasn’t part of the plan to rape Valerie and Tessa, at least from what we can figure out.”

It was clear when they both reached the same conclusion several seconds later.

Scarlet said, “Say he went back to his house to search for Valerie, maybe not knowing she was inside when he shot Sanders, and saw the police. He would have seen her outside if he got close enough.”

“Definitely possible.”

“He waits, then at some point goes back to Cresson’s place. Finds his friend dead. Either Tessa is there or she’s left and he finds her again, takes her to the hospital. It would explain the delay.”

“It’s a good theory. It would work.”

“But?”

“I don’t know. There’s something missing. I need to find this kid.” He paused, then added, “Your brother said this behavior may be caused by a designer, ketamine-based drug which can have a psychedelic effect. He’s seen it on the streets lately and it’s extremely dangerous. I suppose it could make an average-sized female able to take down a larger man, but repeatedly stabbing him?”

It was a rhetorical question, and none of the answers satisfied either of them. Scarlet said, “Like you said, the drug is dangerous. She might not have known what she was doing. You’ve faced perps on PCP—I know I have. It’s not pretty, and they don’t stop even when injured. And,” she added, “he was stabbed in the back. Maybe taken by surprise.”

“Hmm,” he said without elaborating. He stretched and stood, towering over her again. She didn’t like it, and rose from her seat. He was still taller, but at least they were more on an even playing field. “Now that I’ve filled you in, and Valerie is going home with her mother, there’s nothing more you need to do, right? I can go and know that you’re not going to interfere with my case?”

“I’ve helped,” she said. “You can’t tell me that talking this out hasn’t helped you as well. I haven’t interfered.”

He didn’t say anything.

She added, “Besides, I have my own case. Nothing to do with any of this.”

“Good. It’ll keep you busy. But if you see Chase Flores or Skip Oliver, call me. Got it?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I already put you on speed dial.”

Chapter Twelve

Scarlet was determined to help Bishop, whether he wanted her help or not, and tried to put herself in Chase Flores’s shoes. So angry about what his roommate had done to his on-again, off-again girlfriend—maybe because he knew Valerie and Tessa, or maybe because he was basically a decent guy who couldn’t fathom drugging girls and taking advantage of them. Too often the crowd mentality surfaced where if a couple people condoned illicit behavior, the others went along even though they’d never do anything like it on their own.

Chase seemed to be one of the good guys willing to protect his female friends—but would he then turn on the others and shoot them in cold blood? It’s possible. People snapped. Isaac had seen his daughter’s molester and snapped. He’d paid his debt to society, but he was still paying it every day. Scarlet didn’t want to feel compassion toward Chase. If he was a killer, he deserved just punishment. But she could understand how he might have been driven to such a desperate act.

Where would he go? If he had killed his friend Juan and shot Richie, why didn’t he turn himself in and claim self-defense? The running, the sneaking, not walking Tessa into the hospital…

Psychology wasn’t her bailiwick, but it seemed that Chase and Parker were close. If Tessa had been the one to stab Parker in the back, why hadn’t he turned Tessa into the police? Had he found her at Parker’s place or somewhere else?

Too many questions, and she felt she was circling around the answers.

Her cell phone rang. It was Mac.

“Hey, Mac. What’s up?”

“What do you mean what’s up? You’ve sent me enough work for days.”

She winced. “Sorry. I was distracted.”

“I have a couple of things. First, you were right about Richard Sanders. It’s really Richard Sanders Junior, and his father is a major developer in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. From a cursory glance, they’re loaded. I can’t get anything on the rental or finances until tomorrow, but I did a financial news search and there are no flags that the family is in trouble. They had a dip during the mortgage fraud crisis a few years back, but seem to have recovered.”

“Good work.”

“The others seem to be from similar backgrounds. You should probably know that Sanders and Chase Flores graduated from high school together and are in the same fraternity. Parker Cresson was also in the frat and he and Flores were roommates for two years.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“And one more—on that other situation, with the stalker chick?”

“Wendy Anderson.”

“You asked me if she had any problems with past boyfriends. I couldn’t find anything at first, but then I looked at where she went to college in Boston. I called the Boston PD and they actually talked to me.” He sounded surprised.

“You used my advice, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, you said it was all in the attitude.”

“And?”

“They had a file on her. Wouldn’t send it to me without going through proper channels, but told me enough. The teaching assistant for one of her classes filed several police reports against her for harassment and vandalism. She allegedly keyed his car, followed him on dates, harassed his girlfriends, joined his gym and showed up every time he did. There was a restraining order against her, but then she graduated and left town.”

“Thanks, Mac. I appreciate it.”

Jim Douglas had left a message for her earlier that he was on his way to stay with friends in San Diego, and she tried calling him. His phone went to voice mail. The whole thing with Wendy made her squeamish—so she hopped in her Jeep and drove over to Jim Douglas’s apartment. She checked it out; his car was gone and he wasn’t answering his door. She drove slowly through the complex looking for a sign of Wendy; she wasn’t there, either.

Jim’s apartment was only a few minutes from Valerie’s, so she drove over there without a clear plan. She knew the police had talked to her neighbors and Tessa’s roommate, but in light of the new information, maybe Scarlet should broaden the questions.

Jim returned her call while she was walking up the stairs to Tessa’s apartment.

“I just got to San Diego,” he said.

“Did you know that another guy in Boston, her teaching assistant, filed a restraining order against her during her last year in college?”

He didn’t say anything at first. “She told me that he was obsessed with her.”

“Not according to Boston P.D.”