Hangman (17 page)

M
ARGE WAS OLD
enough to remember when a tattoo meant something, that the skin art went hand in hand with felonious behavior and an affiliation with a badass gang. Back then, the only other acceptable tattoos, like
MOM
enclosed in a heart, were associated with men of the U.S. armed services. The rest of the male population went without. Nowadays ink was completely accepted and worn like permanent jewelry. Tattooing had almost become, dare she say it,
conventional
ornamentation. The really
handy
thing that came out of the craft was identification because no two images were exactly alike.

Aaron Otis was festooned with multicolored swirls up and down his left arm, while his right arm had been inked in a series of arm-bands that included—but was not limited to—a circle of razor-tipped barbed wire, a bangle of Japanese writing, a snake bracelet, and an array of bullets in an ammo belt. The only place that showed Aaron au naturel was his gaunt face—tan, craggy, and blond—as if he’d spent his life in the outback. He wore a black T-shirt and beige cargo pants. Loafer Vans encased his sockless feet.

Greg Reyburn was a little more discerning in his choice of body pictorials, but his skin still contained enough ink to pen a novelette. He was average height and build. The young man had a head of black curls, high cheekbones, and a pointy chin. His eyes, like those of his fellow traveler, were saggy and red-rimmed. He had on jeans, a black polo shirt, and sandals.

Marge had put them into two separate interview rooms. While Scott worked his magic on Greg Reyburn, she’d take Aaron Otis. She brought him a soda and sat down next to him, leaning forward, trying to appear maternal. “You look tired.”

“Exhausted.” Otis took the soda and thanked her. “It’s been a hell of a few days.” He drank greedily. “Between the car repairs and the vacation, I’m flat broke.” He made air quotes over the word “vacation.” “The whole thing was a bust. Plus, now you’re looking at me with voodoo eyes!”

Marge took out a notebook. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Adrianna called me and not Garth. If I would’ve known she was going to die, I would’ve…well, I don’t know what I would’ve done. It’s just creepy. Talking to her and then…you know…it’s creepy.”

Marge nodded.

“I mean, like what happened? She was fine when I spoke to her…I mean like she was pissed off royally, but…like it’s so weird.”

“What do you do for a living, Aaron?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. How do you earn money?”

“I’m a GC.”

“General contractor? Like you build houses?”

“Mostly I’m a framing foreman for bigger companies.”

“Okay.” Was it a coincidence that Adrianna was found in a construction sight? Not that Otis could have done it himself if he was miles away. “How’d you meet Garth?”

“We went to school together. I’ve known him since seventh grade.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“He’s a good guy…a little vain, but hey, why not?”

“You two are pretty tight?”

“We’re good friends. Good enough for me to be shocked if—” He stopped himself.

Marge said, “Has he contacted you since he took off?”

“No.” A beat. “I’m nervous about that. Where would he go if he didn’t go home?”

“That’s what we’re wondering. We’ve checked the airline manifests. He deplaned at Burbank airport, but we lost track of him after that. He’s your friend. If he wanted to hide out, where do you think he’d go?”

“I don’t know.” He flexed a bicep. His bracelets expanded then contracted. “His family is here. Have you tried them?”

“First thing. His mom thought he was still with you.”

“It looks bad for him…to suddenly disappear.”

“Or it could be something bad happened to him. I’d like to find him to make sure he’s all right.”

Otis’s eyes widened. “You think he’s…dead?”

“Don’t know, Aaron. We know Adrianna was murdered. It would grieve me to think that Garth met with the same fate.”

“Wow.” He scratched his swirling-colored arm. “That’s really weird. I was thinking like…you know…”

“No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

“That you thought Garth was like a suspect. Although I don’t know how he’d do anything. By the time he left Reno, he wouldn’t have enough time.”

Marge didn’t argue. Garth had enough time, but it would have been tight. She said, “Tell me about Garth’s reaction when you told him about Adrianna’s phone call.”

“He was upset.”

“What did he say?”

“I don’t remember his exact words…something like…he hates when she gets like this. He was going to have to go home to talk to her because a phone call won’t cut it.”

“When she gets like this? She’s broken up with him before?”

“Yeah, they fought all the time.”

“About what?”

“Things. Guy/girl things.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“He complained that Adrianna was overbearing…checking up on him too much. And she had no business doing that ’cause she really wasn’t an angel herself.” Otis looked at his lap. “I really shouldn’t talk for Garth.”

“What about her side?”

“I don’t know about her side. I’m friends with Garth.”

“And yet she called
you
to say that she was leaving him. What does that mean?”

“That she had my phone number and didn’t want to talk to Garth.”

Marge leaned in closer. “It’s more than that. I think Adrianna and you were pretty tight yourselves.”

“Not at all.” Eyes averted.

“Maybe you want to think about that statement, Aaron.” Marge pulled back to give him a little breathing room. “Did you know that Adrianna kept a diary?”

A blush ran through the man’s face. Although Adrianna talked about trysts with other men, she didn’t use names. Marge had no idea if one of the assignations had been with Aaron, but if Otis was like most men, he would deem himself important enough to make an entry.

“Aaron?”

“It wasn’t serious.”

“It was more than a one-night stand,” Marge lied.

“It was a one-night stand that happened maybe three or four times. It meant nothing to either one of us. She’d get mad at Garth and fool around because Garth was fooling around on her.”

“So why didn’t they just break up?”

“Obviously she did break up with him. Or at least was
gonna
break up with him.”

“What took her so long?”

“I dunno. They’ve been having problems for a while.”

“Well, why do you think Garth stayed with her?”

“Because she was hot. At least that’s what I think.”

“You know that from firsthand experience?”

“C’mon, cut me some slack.”

“She’s dead, Aaron. I need to know everything. Why do you say she was hot?”

The young man seemed to wilt. “She’d do things that a lot of girls wouldn’t do. Nothing was off-limits. Plus, she gave Garth money.”

“She sounds like the perfect girlfriend. Why would he cheat on her?”

A lopsided grin. “’Cause guys are dogs.”

An adequate if not totally fair summation of the opposite sex. But Adrianna had her lapses as well. “If she was so hot, Aaron, why only three or four times?”

“It was her idea to stop.”

“Were you upset by that?”

“Nah, it was cool.”

“So why was she upset if Garth fooled around when she was fooling around?”

“I dunno. I’m tired, Sergeant, I can’t think too clearly right now.”

“Did she tell you why she broke it off with you?”

“She said she’d gotten it out of her system, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do know. Explain it to me.”

“Look, Sergeant, I wasn’t the first of her revenge fucks and I wasn’t the last.”

“How do you know about her revenge fucks?”

“’Cause she’d tell me whenever she picked up a guy that Garth didn’t know about.”

“Sounds like you two were good friends if she told you about her love life. Why do you think she confided in you?”

“I dunno. Maybe she thought I’d tell Garth and he’d get jealous.”

“Did you?”

“Hell, no. If I started saying things, I’d be on the chopping block.”

“You think Garth would get pissed at you even though he fooled around?”

“I guess on some level he cared about her. Otherwise, why would he cut his vacation short just to calm her down?”

“I don’t know, Aaron. Frankly, I’m wondering what might have happened if he didn’t calm her down.”

“I don’t know. The whole thing is weird.”

“Maybe the relationship had less to do with sex and more to do with Adrianna giving Garth money. How did you know that Adrianna was financing his excursions to Vegas?”

“I asked him about it…that he always had money for Vegas. He said she gave him spending cash.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“Something like sweet deal or some shit like that.”

“She worked as a nurse. Where’d she get money to give him?”

“Probably from her mom. Her parents have money.”

“Did she tell you that she got money from her mom?”

“She might have. The point is both of them always had enough cash to buy some drinks and shit and make a party. She loved to party.” His eyes moistened. “It’s horrible, thinking of her hanged to death. Who would do that?”

Marge sighed inwardly. It was a rhetorical question. Still, she could have given him a half-dozen answers and all of them would have been creepy.

“INTERESTING…OTIS
being a contractor.” Decker thought a moment. “Is it relevant?”

Marge pulled out a chair and sat down, throwing her head back until she was looking at the ceiling. “I’ll check and see if he had anything to do with the Grossman project where Adrianna was found.”

Oliver said, “Contractors are guilty until proven innocent in my opinion.”

Decker said, “Speaking of which, have you gotten hold of Keith Wald and Chuck Tinsley?”

“I got hold of Wald,” Marge said. “We set something up. Tinsley hasn’t returned my call.” She turned to Oliver. “What does Reyburn do?”

“He’s a grip for WB studios in Burbank.”

“How’d he meet Garth?” Decker asked.

“The three of them were friends from seventh grade on.”

Decker said, “Do you think that if one of them were in trouble, the others might help him out?”

“Three Musketeers’ kind of crap?” Oliver said. “Maybe, although you have to wonder about loyalty when your friend is screwing your girlfriend.”

Marge said, “I’m wondering if Greg Reyburn made it onto Adrianna’s fuck list.”

“Don’t know because I didn’t ask him.”

“Is he still here?” Decker asked.

“No, he left an hour ago. I can ask him, but we know that Adrianna slept around and that Garth sleeps around. One more isn’t going to change the balance sheet.”

Marge said. “I was thinking that if his friends felt guilty about sleeping with Adrianna, they may have been willing to help him out with the body.”

“How would they help him out if they were miles away?” Oliver said.

“Maybe Aaron told Garth to dump the body at the Grossman house.”

“If Aaron was associated with the project, he’d have to know that it would come back to bite him in the butt.”

Marge said, “I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Mr. Otis, but he’s not exactly Harvard material. Maybe Garth called him up in a panic and Aaron gave him the first dump spot he could think of.”

Decker said, “Check out with Wald if Otis is associated with the
job. When are you two going to St. Tim’s? You need to retrace Adrianna’s movements.”

“Next on the list,” Oliver said. “Right after a coffee break.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Marge said. “Help yourself to the machine, Scott.”

Oliver said, “Last time I tried, I burned my hand.”

“Practice makes perfect.” Marge stood up. “But I’ll show you one more time. Who woulda thunk a little machine could be so addictive?”

“It’s not an addiction, it’s a preference.”

“And so goes the denial until it’s a habit,” Marge said. “Maybe we should set up coffee rehab centers, guys. Who among us hasn’t had a caffeine headache? If people are willing to plunk down five bucks for something that cost about forty cents, we can sell them on the idea that they have an addiction that needs breaking. It’s all part of the modern philosophy of passing the buck. Take all of the credit but none of the personal responsibility.”

D
ECKER HAD HIS
feet up on his desk. His door was closed and it was one of the few times he had allowed himself a breather. He needed to regroup after hanging up from an emotional call to Kathy Blanc. The desire to get a solve in a murder case was like a persistent itch he couldn’t scratch. Now he was on the phone with Eliza Slaughter and could barely make out her words.

“Where are you? I’m getting static on the line.”

“I’m…the field. Hold on. I’ll walk…my car. I’ll…you back.”

She disconnected the line. While waiting for the call, Decker sorted through his phone messages. He had spent most of the morning talking to what was left of the hotel employees. It was hard doing interviews over the phone and a few of them might have to be visited in person. He had also had a brief conversation with the pathologist. Adrianna Blanc’s autopsy report showed her death to have been caused by asphyxiation from the hanging. There were also bruises and marks on her skin consistent with dragging the body.

The phone rang and Decker picked it up.

Eliza said, “Is this better?”

“Much. What’s up?”

“Show-and-tell time. I’ve spent most of today checking local garages, chop shops, and junkyards. Since garages and storage bins need keys and owners’ permissions to open them up, I started with what was accessible—the junkyards. No one seems to mind if you sift through the piles of junked cars. I’m on number three. They’re all in the Valley.”

“East and north Valley. I used to work in Foothill.”

“The one I’m at is in your district. Are you familiar with Tully’s Scrap Metal?”

“It’s off Rinaldi.”

“You should come down. Something caught my eye.”

“Something like a 2009 Mercedes E550.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, although it’s hard to tell the make and model when the vehicle’s stripped and gutted. It is silver.”

“When did it come in?”

“The kid who’s here now isn’t sure. He thinks a couple of days ago. Right now, we’re trying to locate the owner of the lot. He has the records.”

“I’m about a half hour away.”

“See you then.” Eliza waited a beat. “Terry went to school in the west Valley, right?”

“Correct.”

“So it’s possible that she might be familiar with the place.”

“Anything’s possible.”

“You have your doubts.”

“I don’t know, Eliza. I think the bigger issue is that Chris Donatti—Chris Whitman back then—went to school in the Valley. And he drove a cool muscle car when he was a teen. Terry, on the other hand, walked or took the bus.”

CAPPUCCINOS HAD A
soothing effect on Oliver. Maybe it was something in the milk, because Scott was sipping it with almost orgasmic delight. He had not only learned how to use the coffee machine but
had finally mastered the art of foaming. The two of them were on their way to St. Tim’s: Marge was driving and Scott sat shotgun.

Oliver said, “I’m turning into a girly man.”

“Drinking lattes doesn’t make you a girly man. Italian men drink cappuccinos and lattes all the time.” Marge smiled. “Of course, they don’t drink them in the afternoon. They drink espresso because milk coffees are breakfast drinks.”

“Are we in Italy, Marge?”

“I’m just saying—”

“Last I checked, the official language wasn’t Italian—”

“Just giving you a little culinary history.”

“You know, Dunn, I see a cable TV show in your future. You, in full uniform, steaming soy milk while telling your viewers how to prevent an ADW. We’ll call it
Cop Does Coffee
.”

“Sounds like a porn movie.”

Oliver smiled. “That would work as well.” He finished his latte. “So what’s the plan?”

Marge signaled for a right turn. “First we return the tapes to Ivan Povich.”

“Talk to him yet?”

“I left a message, asking him for the tapes from the cameras in the emergency vehicle areas.”

“Why didn’t Povich give them to us in the first place?”

“Don’t know. Betcha when we asked him the first time, he assumed we had wanted only the pedestrian entrances and exits.”

Oliver said, “So you like the theory of Adrianna being carried out in a body bag?”

“Maybe.” Marge paused. “If the murder did occur inside St. Tim’s, I’m thinking about what could have gone wrong? Who, besides Garth, was close enough to Adrianna so that an argument would end in murder?”

“Why do you think the murder was done by someone she was close to?” Oliver told her. “From what Aaron and Greg told us about Adrianna, she could have been having a fling that went bad. Maybe she was fooling around with a married doctor or administrator. Maybe she threatened to expose him.”

“But then why would she suddenly decide to start exposing her hookups?”

Oliver said, “’Cause she was pissed off at Garth but taking it out on other men. That’s what women do.”

“As opposed to men?” Marge laughed. “Think serial killers who hated their mothers?”

“I’m just trying to get your goat.” He waited a moment. “Although if someone tried to kill her, you’d think she would fight back.”

Marge turned left. “Unless the two of them were stoned. What if she was blitzed?”

“No cocaine, no booze, no pot in her system. We know that much.”

“It could have been something more exotic. Who would have better access to drugs than someone in a hospital with free rein over all the locked medicine cabinets?”

“They don’t have free rein,” Oliver said. “I think they have to sign in for them. We should check the drug logs. It would buttress our case if some weird drug was checked out and she had it in her system.”

Marge said. “Problem is that sometimes you have to know what you’re looking for to find it in the tox screen.”

Oliver opened the thermos and licked the foam with his finger. “You’re looking skeptical. What’s bothering you?”

“That Adrianna’s hookup would suddenly turn deadly. What could have been said or done that made it go so terribly wrong?”

“You know how these things work, Margie. It starts off as something stupid and ends up as something tragic.”

ONCE AGAIN, MARGE
and Oliver sat in space control central at St. Tim’s. What was even more amazing was that Peter was still on duty. “Does he ever go home?” Oliver asked Ivan Povich.

“He goes home, he comes back.” Povich pulled the cassette tape. “I got your message, Sergeant. This is from the emergency vehicle area. We have cameras everywhere. You ask for entrances and exits,
I don’t think about emergency areas. My mistake. I would have given this to you.”

“No problem,” Marge said.

“We are lucky. It was just about to be taped over. But I have what you need.”

“Small favors are good,” Marge said.

Povich popped the cassette into the machine and fast-forwarded it until the tape displayed last Monday’s date. The three of them watched the monitor. Ambulances coming in with hapless patients hooked up to IVs, strapped onto gurneys. In the time frame they watched, it was mostly the same people in the same vans, even though different emergency vehicles came from lots of different places.

No body bags but Marge did see something interesting. At 11:13, a civilian car was backing up toward the docks and then it disappeared from the camera’s eye. She kept watching for another minute or two, then her eyes widened.

“Stop the machine!”

“What is it?” Oliver asked.

Marge didn’t answer. “Go back a few frames.”

“What do you see, Marge?” Oliver asked.

“I’m not sure. That’s why I want to look again.”

The tape was rewound, the black-and-white figures jerking and jumping as they moved from frame to frame.

“Stop!” Marge pointed to a small, lone figure standing at the docks. “Can you enlarge this image?”

Povich said, “Peter, come here. Can you enlarge this over here?”

Wordlessly, Peter got up and took control of the monitor, and the small figure grew. With each enlargement, the image lost clarity.

Marge told him. “Look familiar, Scott?”

“No. All I see is a blur.”

“Make it smaller, Peter.” The mute security operator took it down a few notches. “How about now?”

Oliver stared at the figure. “Nothing.”

“Don’t look at the face. Look at the scrubs, then look at the size and build of the person.”

“Mandy Kowalski.”

“Could be right.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s she doing out there? Watching gurneys being loaded in and out of ambulances?”

“Only one way to know,” Oliver got up. “Let’s find her and ask her about it.”