“Oh, uh, well, I rang the bell, and while I was waiting for him to answer, another man came running out. I realized after the fact that he could be the killer. . . .”
“Or he could be just another tenant. I’ll find out who they are.”
I grabbed his arm and then realized what I was doing and released it like it was hot.
“How was he killed?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been in there yet. Look, stay here and wait for me. I just want to go inside and get the lay of the land.”
I looked down at the street, filled now with vehicles with flashing lights. I could see my car, blocked in by the others.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“Okay, then. I’ll be a few minutes.”
He slid the door open and then stopped and looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You know,” he said, “you find more bodies than any civilian I know.”
“I didn’t find Jackson,” I reminded him. “He fell on me . . . almost.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Okay, I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be right here,” I assured him as he went back inside.
I meant it when I said it, but then I got bored so I walked down to the yard, toward the bushes and pathway the guy who had run by me had used. Who knows? Maybe he had dropped something. I was just trying to make myself useful.
Chapter 12
I didn’t find anything except dog poop and an old piece of chewing gum, so I went back to the balcony and watched the action through the sliding glass door. Men in blue, men in white, men in suits came and went. Every so often Jakes would look over at me and signal with his finger that he’d be done soon or would join me soon, or maybe he was telling me that I was number one.
I finally got tired of watching the comings and goings of the LAPD and turned to study the buildings across the street. People were at their windows, watching the action. They were probably wondering what the hell was going on. Lucky me, I was in the know. I had found the body.
I wasn’t that experienced at finding bodies. Marcy last year, her husband a few days later, and now Henri. Jackson didn’t count. I didn’t find him; he sort of found me.
Suddenly I started to sob, and tears came into my eyes. I felt so overwhelmed. Another murder was bad enough, but I had yet to deal with Randy. I found myself looking over my shoulder for him. Maybe I should tell Jakes. As if on cue two arms enfolded me from behind and turned me around. I cried into Jakes’s chest. I still didn’t understand my feelings for him but it felt pretty good.
I was settling in a little too comfortably so I jerked away. “I’m sorry. How girlie of me.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “You are a girl, aren’t you?” He said this with appreciation. I did feel so female with him and wished he was still holding me. My nose was running. He wiped it with a tissue he’d pulled from his pocket.
“You’re in shock. Let’s go someplace and have a drink.”
“My car,” I said. “It’s blocked in.”
“I’ll drive. By the time we come back, some of those vehicles will be gone.”
“Um, you want to talk to me some more about the . . . the murder?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do, and I don’t wanna do it here.”
We didn’t discuss anything until we were seated in a small café near the beach.
“I haven’t had dinner; have you?” he asked.
“No.”
He smiled. “Then why don’t we have dinner?”
“Will I have to make a statement about today? A written statement?”
“Sure,” he said. “You can do it after dinner or come to Parker in the morning. Your choice.”
I scratched my head. “If I do it tomorrow, it’ll have to be very early. I have to go to work.”
“Early’s no problem,” Jakes said. “But why don’t you tell me what you know now?”
“I’ve already told you everything.”
“Tell me again,” he said. “Start from the beginning, when you first spoke with Henri today. And try to do it word for word.”
Chapter 13
I repeated everything I’d told him already, trying to remember Henri’s exact words.
“And that’s it?”
“That’s all of it,” I said, playing with my shrimp scampi. “We didn’t say much at the studio—we never do. I mean, it’s not like we’re friends.”
“Really? I thought women were always friends with their hairdressers.”
I gave him a withering look. “That’s such a cliché,” I said. “He doesn’t really talk to anyone.”
“But he talked to Jackson Masters,” Jakes said. “That’s what he wanted to tell you.”
“Yes.”
“But he never got the chance.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Okay,” he said, “so you get to his building and . . . what?”
“I rang the bell, there was no answer, but like I told you, the other man came out and I caught the door.”
“Okay, we’ll deal with this other guy later,” Jakes said. “What happened when you got upstairs?”
“The door was ajar. I knocked, called out, but got no answer. That’s when I started to worry.”
“So that’s when you should’ve called 911.”
“And told them what? That a man didn’t answer his door? No, I had to go in. I mean, he could’ve been hurt and needed help.” We both knew I was tap dancing. When I saw the mess the apartment was in, I could have called 911.
“Tell me what you saw.”
“A messy apartment. When I got to the bathroom, I found him there in the bathtub, just . . . lying there.”
“And then you called 911?”
No, I thought.
“Yes,” I said.
I didn’t tell him that my innate curiosity and fascination with all things dead got the better of me. I admit it: it’s a character flaw. But it’s
my
character flaw. And besides . . . I might have found a pulse.
“Alex, did you touch anything?”
“Of course not! What do you take me for? Don’t answer that!”
“Not even a doorknob?”
I just looked at him. “No.”
“Okay.”
“How was he killed?”
“His neck was broken,” Jakes said. “Somebody wrapped something around his neck and snapped it.”
“Ewww. What do you think they used?”
“That we can’t tell,” Jakes said. “Whoever did it took the weapon with them.”
“So he wasn’t stabbed like Jackson.”
“Actually,” Jakes said, “they were killed the same way.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Turns out the stab wounds didn’t kill Jackson Masters.”
“What did?”
“The fall from the catwalk,” he said, “and the chain around his neck.”
“You mean . . .”
“He was hanged,” Jakes said. “That chain snapped his neck at the time of the fall. He might have died from the stab wounds eventually, but he didn’t have the chance.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I feel pretty certain that the same person killed them both,” he said. “Was Jackson gay?”
“Not that I know of, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Maybe that’s what Henri wanted to tell you?”
“Yes.”
“We found Jackson Masters’s number in an address book in Henri’s apartment. That, in itself, doesn’t mean anything.”
“But?”
“I found this also in the address book.”
He took out a strip of photos, the kind you get from one of those machines in arcades and malls. There were four shots of Jackson and Henri together, smiling, laughing, and—in the last one—Henri was kissing Jackson on the cheek.
“Jackson doesn’t look happy in this last photo,” I said, handing it back.
Jakes had been plowing through a bowl of whole-wheat pasta while we talked. He put the photos back in his pocket and continued to eat.
“Well, it could be that Jackson was either gay or he went both ways,” Jakes said. “That would increase our suspect pool.”
“Maybe . . .”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe it was a one-time thing,” I said. “I mean, with Henri.”
“You mean that Henri was just so adorable, Jackson couldn’t resist?”
“Not my words,” I said, “but essentially, yes.”
Jakes sat back and scratched his head, pushing his plate away as if something was ruining his appetite. I’d never seen any evidence of it before, but I suddenly wondered if he was homophobic.
“I don’t buy it.”
“Why not?”
“I think people are straight, gay or bi,” Jakes said. “I don’t hold it against any of them. But I don’t think anybody switches sides just once.”
“What if it was his first time with a man?” I asked. “And he didn’t like it, so he never repeated the experience.”
“That’s possible, but I think Jackson was just too sexually experienced to have tried it with a man only now, at this age. I think it was more likely he tried it in his teens and liked it, but not exclusively. The picture I’ve been getting of Jackson Masters is that he pretty much knew what he liked. He seemed to be some kind of . . . pleasure hound.”
I don’t know why it should have surprised me to realize he’d been talking to others about Jackson, but after only a moment I realized it made perfect sense. After all, he couldn’t depend just on what he’d learned from me.
“So you’ve talked to the women he’s slept with?”
“Some of them,” he said. “One or two are still denying it—due to husbands, boyfriends—but whatever the reasons, I’m sure they’ll come around.”
Our waitress came over and Jakes asked me, “Coffee?”
“Please.”
“Any dessert?” she asked Jakes, pointedly ignoring me.
We ordered our desserts and she went off.
“Are you surprised?” he said.
“About what?”
“Jackson being bi or gay?”
“Believe me,” I said, “those photos in your pocket are a shock to me.”
“Because it was a man, or because it was Henri?”
“Either way.”
“Well,” he said, “I’ll have someone go through Jackson’s address book with a new eye.”
“How’s your partner, by the way?” I asked. “Still . . . mad at me?”
“I think he’s more hurt than mad,” he said. “He thinks you’ve . . . Tiffany’s abandoned him.”
Len Davis had been a big soap fan when I met him—and an even bigger Tiffany fan, the character I had played on
The Yearning Tide
.
“You know, I was never sure if that was an act or not with him.”
“Oh, it’s no act. He’s a real soap junkie—particularly
The Yearning Tide
—and especially when it comes to you—or Tiffany.”
My coffee arrived, and the rest of the meal went by too quickly. “I have a question,” I said, when we were in the car, driving back to Henri’s place.
“What is it?”
“If Jackson’s been sleeping with men as well as women, he’s been keeping it quiet,” I said. “Why would he allow those pictures to be taken?”
“You know,” he said, “that’s a very good question—and with both of them dead, we’ll probably never get an answer.”
He pulled up in front of the building. All but one of the official cars were gone. The one left might have been the original car that responded to my call.
Before I got out and switched to my car, I asked, “What about the man I saw running out of the building? Was he a tenant?”
“Could be,” Jakes said. “We got a description of tenants from the building manager, and the guy could be a match. I’ll have to check it out.” He put his hand on my arm as I reached for the door. “Before you get out of the car, Alex, I have a question for you.”
“Okay.”
“Why the hell did you go into that apartment?” he asked. “Didn’t you think about the danger?”
“Only at the very end,” I said, “when I found the door open. But when I was ringing the bell and getting no answer, it never occurred to me that anything was wrong. I just thought he wasn’t hearing me.”
“Even when that other man came running out of the building?”
“Like I said,” I answered, “I thought he was a tenant.”
“And like I said, he might be,” Jakes said. “I’ll find out, but I still wish you hadn’t gone into the apartment when you did. You could have gotten hurt. Where’s your damn boyfriend, anyway? Isn’t he supposed to be watching out for you?”
“First of all, he’s out of town,” I said, bristling, “and second, no, he’s not supposed to be looking out for me. I generally look out for myself.”
“Okay,” he said, backing off. “I didn’t mean—Hell, after what happened last year—and the other night—I just wish you’d be a little more cautious.”
I stared at him for a moment and then relented and said, “I guess that’s good advice.” I felt my eyes welling up again. Oh, shit! I didn’t want to go all girlie on him again. So I looked down at my hands and played with my ring finger. I looked up and Jakes was staring at me.
“What?” I said defensively.
“Isn’t there something else you want to tell me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just . . . tired. And I miss Sarah. That’s all.” I tried to look blasé.
“Really?” he asked, looking surprised. “That’s it? I kinda thought you’d fight me a bit more.”
“I don’t want to fight anybody, Jakes,” I said. I was so close to telling him about my ex. I just couldn’t. Sighing, I added, “I do want to help, though.”
“Okay, then the next time you find somebody you think has some info, call me, will you?”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
I meant it at the time. . . . I really did.
Chapter 14
I went into my house, poured myself a merlot (Oprah’s Dr. Oz says it’s good for me and I love him for that) and then carried it out back to the yard. I stood there sipping and staring out at the canal.
After the police pulled a murderer’s body out of the water last year, I thought about moving. The main reason I didn’t was Sarah. This was her home, she was comfortable here, she had her room and I didn’t want to take any of that away from her. She had gone through so much in her short life. Basically losing her dad and a life as she knew it. So we stayed. And after a while it had gotten so I hardly ever thought about almost being killed behind my own house. I thought I had put those incidents completely behind me, but now they were back. Thanks to Jackson Masters being murdered; thanks to Detective Frank Jakes thinking I could be helpful. I was so close to telling him about Randy. What was stopping me? I could be so stubborn. Always thinking I had to handle all of life’s shit on my own. I had to be the strong one. Like Paul always said. Well, so far in my life, I
did
have to be the strong one.