Hangman (26 page)

I
T WAS ONE
in the afternoon, but Yvette Jackson was still in her robe—a dusty rose satin dressing gown. Her apartment was a studio done up in Old Hollywood. Her daybed was dressed in heart pillows and a pink satin comforter. She also had a camel-back white couch with silk pillows, and a glass-and-chrome coffee table adorned with a vase of lilies. Her kitchenette was tiny. A lone coffeemaker sat on the counter. With Yvette’s blue eyes, her buxom build, and her white-blond hair that fell carelessly at her shoulders, she could have been the heroine of a screwball comedy from the forties. Except her eyes were red-rimmed and her expression was somber.

“Thanks for seeing us,” Oliver told her.

“I agreed before I found out.” She flopped on the white couch and drew a blanket over her chest. “I called in sick. I’m not going back to that place until I know what’s going on. I’m scared.”

“Who told you about Crystal’s murder?” Marge took out her notebook.

“One of the bartenders—Joe Melon, who heard it from Jack
Henry—one of the owners of Garage.” She tucked the blanket under her chin. “At this point, I don’t know how smart it would be to get involved.”

Marge said. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If it has something to do with Garage, the sooner we get identification, the better it is for all of us.”

“You really think it’s someone from the bar?”

Marge evaded the question. “Do you know if Crystal was having any trouble with anyone from Garage?”

“A patron or someone who worked there?”

“Either, both,” Oliver said.

“Not that I know of.” Yvette was quiet. “Crystal didn’t have a lot of boundaries. She’d take a liking to a guy and comp him drinks. Maybe somebody took it the wrong way.” A pause. “I don’t know what that would have to do with Adrianna. She didn’t work there. So it could be their murders had nothing to do with Garage.”

“Absolutely,” Oliver said. “Crystal and Adrianna had very active social lives that had nothing to do with Garage.”

“I’m sure they had lots of friends in common,” Yvette said.

“And that’s the main focus of the investigation,” Marge said. “That’s why if we could just take a few minutes of your time, we’d like to show you a photo pack of some men and ask you if any of them look familiar.”

She got up from the couch. “Could I make some coffee first?”

“Of course.”

“Would you like a cup? It’s just as easy to make for one as for three.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Oliver said.

“Good.” She trudged into the kitchen. “It’s the only thing I know how to make.” As if to underscore the point, she opened the refrigerator and all that was inside were different types of coffee and several bottles of sparkling water. “Oh, I also have water. Would you like water?”

She was stalling before she took a look at the photos. Another few minutes weren’t going to matter. Marge said, “Coffee’s fine.”

As Yvette took out the coffee and the filter, Oliver asked, “How well did you know Crystal?”

“We were coworkers, not friends.” She filled the machine with water. “This is going to sound snobbish, but the job to me was just a job, a way to earn money until my singing career takes off. Being a hostess to Crystal…” She took out three mugs and placed them on her empty kitchen counter. “For her, it was a profession. The best she could get.” She turned to the police. “Cream or sugar?”

“I’ll take a little cream and Splenda if you have it,” Marge said. “Did you meet a lot of Crystal’s friends?”

“I met Adrianna. And her lawyer friend. She was a nice woman. I don’t know what she was doing hanging around those clowns.”

“What about their guy friends?”

“Yeah, I met a few…the one I remember is Garth.” Yvette rolled her eyes. “Not bad-looking, but a piece of work.”

“How’s that?”

“He just thinks he’s all that. When it was clear I wasn’t interested in joining his fan club, he got hostile…well, maybe ‘hostile’ is too strong a word. He got peeved. Started being a prick, shouting out orders like…‘Hey, can we get some more nuts around here.’” She shrugged. “But he was a customer and I played along…like I give a damn what he thinks.”

Marge said, “Did you happen to see Garth the night that Adrianna was in the bar?”

“Not that I remember.” She poured the coffee out, handed a mug to each of the detectives, and sat back down on the couch.

Marge took a sip of coffee and looked around for a coaster.

Yvette said, “Just put it on the table. I don’t have coasters because I rarely serve anyone. I don’t cook and there’s a coffee shop around the corner. It’s my home away from home.”

“Sounds convenient,” Oliver told her. “Are you ready to look at the photos?”

“I guess.”

Marge offered her the six-pack that she had made this morning. There were six men with similar facial features—three on top and three on the bottom. Tinsley was on the bottom, right side.

Reluctantly, Yvette took the card, her eyes scanning the images. Then they widened. “Oh my God, it’s this one.” Her finger was on the right bottom. “This is the guy that Adrianna was talking to.”

Marge and Oliver exchanged glances. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. If you knew, why are you asking me?”

“We didn’t know until you told us,” Oliver said.

“But you put him in the picture,” Yvette said. “You had to have known.”

Marge shrugged, but Yvette wasn’t having any of that. Her hands started shaking. “He
saw
me, Sergeant! He saw me and I waited on him. Now I’m identifying him. Do I have to be nervous?”

Feigning a casual air, Oliver shook his head. “Nah, we’ll pick him up and talk to him. We know where to find him.”

“How do you know? Who
is
this guy?”

“That’s what we aim to find out.”

AFTER THE DOCTOR’S
visit, Rina took Gabe shopping. He insisted on paying and she didn’t argue. He was happy about that. Rina had a way of making him feel calm but not smothered. She didn’t try to parent him. She let him make his own choices, but if he had questions, she’d offer advice. She also had a great sense of humor. She was kind of like your favorite teacher. By the time they were finished, Gabe had two bags of clothes and two new sets of sneakers. She told him that she had stuff to do at her school, so she dropped him off at the house, giving him his own keys.

He went into the room and started to straighten out the closet again, emptying a few shelves for his meager things. It wasn’t like he was moving in, but he was trying to make himself a bit more comfortable. Afterward, he read until his eyes felt strained. He tried to sleep but to no avail. Bored and lonely, he picked up the guitar, knowing that he shouldn’t be fingering a fret board with a sore left hand.

WTF…just a few little bits won’t hurt. Just don’t overdo it, he told himself. Restraint…something he never lacked.

If anything, he needed to infuse his music with as much feeling as technical prowess. That’s what Lettech used to tell him.

An ear worm was coursing through his brain, a song they’d heard on the radio. “Crossfire”—a blues song made immortal by Stevie Ray Vaughan. He liked Stevie Ray. Not only was he a great guitarist technically, he was incredibly tasteful and could milk a note like no man. He loved the way Vaughan used his guitar as a response to his singing, as if he were having a conversation with the instrument.

He had jacked up the amp. The instrument was a piece of crap, but the amp was decent quality and somewhat compensated for the tinny electronics of the guitar. As the song repeated in his head, he began to copy Stevie Ray note by note until he had the fills to the vocals down pat. Now it was just a matter of the solo. He was so absorbed in his music that he didn’t hear the door open. When he did look up, two guys in their twenties were staring at him. He didn’t know who the sandy-haired one was, but the dude with the black hair and blue eyes was the image of Rina.

Dude said, “Do I know you?”

Sandy Hair gave Dude a look. “I’m Sam, he’s Jake—”

“Yeah, we live here,” Jake said.

Sam said, “And you are…”

“Gabe Whitman.” He knew he was blushing. He stood up, turned off the amp, and put the instrument on the bed. “Sorry about messing with your stuff.”

Jake said, “Are you kidding? My guitar never sounded so good. Certainly not when I played it. You rock, kid.”

“Especially compared to us,” Sam added. “This family doesn’t have a musical bone in its body.”

Jake threw his duffel on his bed and opened the closet. “Clean and organized.” He looked at Gabe’s clothes and held up a pair of cargo pants. “Definitely not my size.”

The boy was still red. “I’ll move my stuff.”

“Nah, you don’t have to do that,” Jake said. “The question is, what’s your stuff doing here in the first place?”

“It’s a long story. The short version is your parents have been nice enough to let me stay here.”

“How long have you been here?” Jake asked.

“About five days.”

“And how long are you staying?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Sammy said, “We’re just in and out for the weekend. Just keep your stuff where it is and we’ll work around you.”

“Uh, last time I counted, there were only two beds,” Jake said.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Gabe told him.

“Yonkel, you know that there’s a trundle,” Sam said. “We can squeeze in for a couple of days.”

“I’m not sleeping on a trundle,” Jake said.

“I’ll sleep on the trundle,” Gabe offered. “Or I can give you guys some privacy and sleep on the couch. Or I can sleep on the floor.”

“Nonsense,” Sam said. “Jake and I will flip for the trundle.”

“What?”

“You know that Eema won’t let him sleep on the couch. Stop postponing the inevitable. Rock, paper, scissors. If you don’t play, you forfeit and automatically sleep on the trundle.”

“Since when do you make all the rules?”

“Yadda, yadda, yadda. Are you in or out?”

The two guys sat on the bed and did the first RPS. Jake’s paper lost to Sam’s scissors.

“Two out of three,” Jake told him.

“You’re kidding.”

“C’mon.”

The next time Jake’s rock lost to Sam’s paper.

“Shit. Three out of five.”

“I’ll sleep on the trundle,” Gabe insisted. “Actually, you don’t have to bother. I can just stay with my aunt for the weekend. It’s not a problem.”

“Who’s your aunt?”

“Who’s my aunt?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Sammy said to Jake.

“It’s a reasonable question. Maybe she’s a felon and that’s why he’s not staying with her in the first place.”

“Her name is Melissa and she’s not a felon.”

“So why aren’t you staying with her?” Jake asked.

“Yonkel, are you trying to torture the kid or are you just nosy?”

“Both.”

Gabe was still red. “She’s going to Palm Springs for the weekend with a group of her girlfriends. She invited me to come, but I begged off.”

“Why?”

“Why? She and her friends are party girls. I’m fourteen.”

“And the problem is…”

“As tempting as it sounds, it’s not for me.”

“How old is your aunt?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Is she cute?”

“She’s very cute.”

“I’ve got a great idea,” Jake said. “Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go with Melissa.”

Sammy hit him. “Help me move the lamp and the nightstand.”

“I’ll do it.” Gabe unplugged the lamp and lifted the stand with the lamp still on it. “Where should I put it?”

“Put it in the corner,” Sammy said. “Let’s get this sucker out.”

The two brothers bent down and yanked at the trundle that was stowed underneath one of the twins. When they liberated the apparatus, the frame and mattress popped up with a vengeance. Jake swiped at the top. “Relatively clean.”

“Get the linens,” Sammy said.

“You get the linens,” Jake told him.

“I rented the car, you get the linens.”

Gabe couldn’t help himself. He just started laughing—first time in over two months and it felt good. “You know, I do know how to make up a bed. Where are the linens?”

“I’ll get ’em,” Jacob grumped, and stormed off.

“I know,” Sammy said. “We’re ridiculous. I’m getting married and graduating from med school in two months, he’s got a degree in neuroscience. We go home and we’re ten and twelve again. Guess who the oldest is.”

“No question about that,” Gabe said. “Where do you go to med school?”

“Einstein. That’s in New York.”

“I know Einstein. I’m from New York. My mom is a doctor.”

“What’s her specialty?”

“Emergency room medicine. What are you going into?”

“Radiology. Are you interested in medicine?”

“No, thank you. I don’t want anything to do with people.”

Sam laughed. “That eliminates a lot of jobs.”

“Not music.”

“Yeah, Jake wasn’t lying. You sound really pro on that thing.”

“I’m actually a pianist. Uh, that sounds pretentious. Piano is my main instrument.”

“We don’t own a piano.”

“I know. I think your mom might be getting one on loan for me.”

“So you’re here for a while?”

Gabe felt his face go hot. “I really don’t know. Your parents are very nice people.”

“Actually, they’re gems.”

Jake came in and threw the linens at Gabe’s chest. He caught them and started to make up the trundle.

Sammy said, “He’s a pianist.”

“Really?” Jake asked. “Are you any good?”

Gabe shrugged. “Not bad.”

Jake sprawled out on his bed. “Seriously, kid, what are you doing here?”

Gabe stopped. “My mom is missing and your dad is looking into the case.” No one spoke. “Your father thinks that my father might have killed her. I don’t think he did. Your dad wants to talk to my dad and my dad isn’t making himself available.”

“Wow,” Jake said. “Sorry I asked.”

“It’s messed up, but I’m used to that.”

Sammy said, “So how did you get here…with my parents?”

“My mother knew your father from like when she was a teenager. So when the two of us came out to California, she left me his cell phone number in case of an emergency. When my mom didn’t come
home last Sunday, I called him. It was late at night and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so he took me to his house. They’re letting me stay here until one or both of my parents show up. My dad definitely knows I’m here. I suspect my mom’s alive and she knows that I’m here, too.”