Authors: P. A. Brown
Richard Blake rose from behind his melamine-topped
desk. His face paled as though he was expecting David to ask him to look at
something gut-wrenching. David flashed back to Chris and how violently he had
reacted to the stark, brutal images of the killer’s latest victim.
He hadn’t approved of Martinez’s approach, but had
seen it as a way to wring a reaction from the smart-ass younger man. It had
gone far beyond that and David couldn’t help but wonder how much damage they
had done. Chris hadn’t deserved it. Chris—
“Detective?”
“Your brother wore glasses, is that correct?”
Focus on the facts. Bellamere had known the last victim. He had been the last
one to see him alive.
“Yes—”
“And they were never recovered?”
“Yes. What—”
David pulled out the pictures he had secured of
the glasses found in the back of Chris’s SUV. He laid them on the desk in front
of Richard.
“Can you identify these?”
Richard looked down at the images and frowned. He
flipped through the pages, spreading them out to show all five pictures. Occasionally
he would pick one up to study it more closely.
“You found his glasses? Where?”
“That’s not the issue right now, sir. I need to
know if you can identify them. Do they look like the pair Jay wore?”
Richard dropped the last picture back on the desk.
He was still frowning and David felt something in him give way.
“Those look like Jay’s. If you found them, you
must have found my brother’s killer?”
“We’re still investigating.” David retrieved the
pictures and dropped them back in his briefcase. He felt a tightness in his
chest that he refused to define. “What about these?”
The T-shirt bore no logo or brand label. The
stains on it were inconclusive. But the shirt was a distinctive peach color
that might be remembered by someone’s big brother.
This time Richard was shaking his head. “I
couldn’t swear to it,” he said. “But Jay usually wore shirts, that designer
crap.”
David leaned forward. “How did Jay afford designer
clothes?”
“Bought secondhand. Knockoffs.” Richard dropped
heavily into the leather chair and rubbed his neck. “Hell, maybe his lovers
traded him clothes for sex.”
David left, after promising to keep Richard in the
loop. He paused in the outer reception room to put on his own sunglasses
against the glare he could see beyond the tinted windows.
He called Martinez. “Any luck with DataTEK?” David
asked. “Anyone remembering anything?”
“That one guy, Clarke? He sure has a hard-on for
our boy, and I don’t mean that in any way Bellamere would fancy. He keeps
reminding me how Bellamere is in and out all day, how he was late last
Tuesday—something they all agree is really unusual. Guy doesn’t have a clue
what we’re working on, but he’s all set to testify in court that Bellamere’s
guilty.”
“Any chance this Clarke is a closet case? Could
Chris have hit on him? I’d hate for it to come out later he’s got some kind of
vendetta against Chris.”
“Nothing stands out. If it’s jealousy, I’d say
it’s professional.”
That was the impression David had, too. He nodded
as he rolled out of the parking lot.
“What now?” Martinez asked.
“Finally got hold of Daniel Anstrom’s mother,”
David said. “They live in North Hollywood. I’m going to see her now. I’ll be
just down the road from you—we can grab some supper,” he suggested.
The Anstroms’ was a three-story Cape Cod-style
“cottage” nestled among half a dozen large crape myrtles. A circular flowerbed
was planted with a tasteful arrangement of roses, geraniums, snapdragons, and
tall gladiolas, all wilting in the lingering afternoon heat.
Daniel Anstrom’s mother was a tall, slender woman
who might have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty years of age. She had an
elegant, unlined face capped by a carefully coifed bowl of gray hair. Sharp
hazel eyes held his when he introduced himself. After a beat, where David
wondered if she was going to forbid him entry, she stepped away from the door
and signaled him to precede her into her tidy foyer.
It looked as though Mrs. Anstrom was alone in the
house. David recalled that the report had been submitted by both of Daniel’s
parents. He figured the husband must out of the house for the afternoon.
She led him into a tidy yellow and blue kitchen.
“I presume you are here to tell me my son is dead.
That is why you came, isn’t it?”
“Ma’am?” David was taken aback by her bluntness.
“Your son is still listed as a missing person. Do you have some reason to
assume he is dead?”
“Of course.” She abruptly sat down on a
high-backed wooden chair. Her gaze swept the room filled with light and hanging
copper pots without seeing anything, including David. “My son would not remain
a missing person this long unless something terrible had happened to him. My
son is dead. I know this.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “But I don’t know any
such thing. But I do have a possible match. I was hoping you might be able to—”
“Identify? You want me to look at this corpse and
tell you if it’s my son?”
“I’ve brought some photos you might recognize.” He
stopped when she took a deep breath, the skin around her mouth whitening almost
imperceptibly. “Ma’am?”
“Oh please, call me Edith. My husband would tell
you I am abrupt. I prefer to think I have lived too long to dance around silly
conventions. I have known for some weeks now that Daniel is dead. I used to
think knowing how he died was the most important thing, but now I’m no longer
so sure of that.” Her eyes, when they met his, were clear and piercing. “Do I
want to know how my son died, detective?”
“First I have to establish that your son is our
victim.” David didn’t tell her that as the horror show escalated and the media
sank their teeth into the story they might tell her more than she ever wanted
to know. “Is your husband home, ma’am? Edith?”
“Yes, he is. But I’m afraid it would do you no
good to talk to him. He had a stroke a little over three weeks ago and is
confined to bed. His vocal cords are paralyzed.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “May I see these pictures, young man?”
He pulled out the pictures they had ID’d as Daniel
Anstrom from the driver’s license that had been dropped off at the station.
Edith closed her eyes. David felt her shaking,
though their only contact was through the picture. Suddenly she dropped it with
a cry and her hands flew to her face.
David knew they had their sixth victim.
Monday,
5:10 pm, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles
Chris found himself moving
through his house like a victim in some kind of gothic horror film. He tried
flipping on the TV, but the only things he could find were news shows or game
shows. He needed someone to help him forget. Somebody who could take his mind
of this horrible mess. Somebody who could make forgetting fun.
Trevor answered on the third ring.
“Trev, how’s it going?”
“Hey, Chrissy,” Trevor’s voice was liquid heat.
“Sorry I missed you this weekend. Got tied up with work.”
“Know how that goes.” Chris laughed, relaxing for
the first time that day. “What are you up to?”
“Right now?”
“Now. An hour from now. Tonight?” He dropped his
voice. Nothing could get his mind off his problems better than some sexy
company. “Tomorrow morning.”
“I like that. Eagerness. You missed me?”
“Come over and I’ll show you.”
“Supper?”
“I’ll cook.”
“You’re already cooking.”
Monday,
5:50 pm, Glendale Boulevard, Glendale
“Daniel Anstrom,” David said.
“Twenty years old, worked at Safeway as a box boy. If he was gay, his mother
didn’t know.”
David and Martinez sat in the back of the
overbright deli. David’s pastrami and Swiss on rye tasted like cardboard.
“How many of them don’t tell?” Martinez plowed
through his Reuben with gusto. The sharp smell of sauerkraut filled the small
booth. “They stay—where do they call it?—in the closet?”
David changed the subject fast. “Or it could mean
he doesn’t always target gays.”
Some sauerkraut juice dribbled down Martinez’s
chin. He swiped it with a napkin, missed. “Poor guy if he wasn’t gay.”
David felt the skin of his face tighten and grow
hot. “You think it’s easier for the guys who were gay?” He forced his voice
lower when he realized it was rising and heads were turning. “You think getting
a knife shoved up your ass is easy if you’ve had a cock up there?”
“Jesus, man, no.” Martinez scowled. “What’s up
your—” He abruptly fell silent. “Forget it. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
David rubbed one hand over his face, closing his
eyes against the look on his partner’s face. “I know you didn’t. It’s this
case. It’s hard to take, you know?”
“Oh,
hombre
, don’t I though.” They finished
their meal. Small talk dwindled into stilted silence.
“What now?” Martinez asked after they had both
handed tens to the waitress and she had retreated to make change.
“See if we can link Chris to Anstrom. I have the
names of a couple of places his mother said he frequented. An arcade, and a
nearby McDonald’s.”
“An arcade.” Martinez nodded. “Good place to
hustle young boys.”
Monday,
5:15 pm, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles
Chris bounced to his feet after
Trevor rang off. Company meant he had some domestic chores to do. Change the
sheets, get some chicken in a marinade for barbecuing later, make sure he had
wine ready. Distractions he welcomed. He put some coffee on and went to make
his bed.
In the middle of ripping the old sheets off he
flashed on the night he had spent with Bobby at the motel. His hands froze and
his mind spun away into darkness. He sat down hard, still clutching the top
sheet in numb fingers. How could Bobby be dead? Who could have done such a
thing?
He shook his head, trying to clear it of the
images. Bobby brutalized. By whom? Why? Had the killer known Bobby? Had he had
the bad luck to stumble across this Carpet Killer after leaving Chris that
night? The thought made Chris sick. If he had taken the younger man home with
him like Bobby had wanted, would none of this have happened? How the hell could
the cops have taken an innocent encounter as a sign of guilt? It was like they
wanted him to be guilty.
He pounded the wall above the bed. Dammit, he
wasn’t going to let them railroad him. Screw the LAPD, he was through being a
victim.
Downstairs he booted up his computer. By the time
the coffee was ready and he poured himself a mug, he was logged in and online,
ready to launch his queries. First he ran some simple searches on Bobby Starrz
that brought back several links of film credits. Bobby had been a busy boy. The
videos went back over three years, which meant Bobby had started when he was
underage, since Chris doubted he’d been much over twenty-one. He printed off a
couple of pages that listed the production company that had done most of the
videos. StarFlight Productions. A quick Google search returned a hit for an
office on Ventura Boulevard in North Hollywood. Even better, it gave him his
first lead. A website. Bingo.
Opening StarFlight’s website landed him on a
smarmy page featuring suggestive images without substance and a lengthy list of
available titles. They even had a secure site for making online purchases.
MasterCard, Visa, or PayPal. Convenient. The videos could be ordered as VHS or
DVD or downloaded as streaming video. Instant porno without leaving home.
StarFlight even sold a line of sex toys for the
connoisseur. Dildos, specialty condoms, and the really fun stuff like butt
plugs and bondage and S & M gear in every material from silk to leather.
All that merchandise meant a back-end-database to
store customer information and inventory. Was there also an employee database
for the talent? The only way to find out was to gain access to it.
Chris dove into his laptop case and pulled out an
unmarked CD binder. Leafing through it he found one labeled simply TOOLS. He
slipped it into his D-drive, and the CD demanded a password before it opened a
webpage with a list of options.
He knew if StarFlight paid big bucks to the right
people their site would be nearly impregnable. But if, like most businesses,
they were lazy with their IT dollars, this was going to be a snap. It took
Chris all of ten minutes to determine that StarFlight didn’t invest in IT
security. The site was wide open.
He needed only one more thing. He wasn’t about to
launch this attack from his own PC. If anyone at StarFlight realized they were
being hacked he didn’t want them—or the cops—tracing it back to him. He had to
find a vulnerable PC he could hijack.
He launched his port-snooping tools from the same
CD and left to refresh his coffee while his software went out on the Internet
in search of a computer that hadn’t been secured against hackers. He knew it
wouldn’t take long. Home users were notorious for not securing their machines.
No matter how often the media warned them, their blissful ignorance making them
ideal targets for what he needed.
Back with his second coffee he found his sniffers
had discovered opened ports on several vulnerable machines and launched tiny,
malformed packets that caused a buffer overflow. The vulnerable machines had no
way to handle the overflow, so they allowed the packet in and allowed Chris in.
He looked around his hijacked PC. All it had on it were a few cheesy games,
chat software, and several dozen spyware gadgets installed by other
unscrupulous netizens. The owner of this machine was a perfect dupe.
Chris launched his second set of tools. These
would set up the hijacked machine to run the processes he needed in the
background, so that even if the owner was working on his computer he’d never
know what was happening.