The Beast (36 page)

“I need to make a few calls.”

“Of course.” Decker kept the window rolled down and breathed in the clean air. It was saline tinged because the property was close to the ocean. Five minutes later, a golf cart appeared. It led Decker to the entrance of Sabrina’s estate—more like a stone castle—sitting on acres of forested greens and sprawling emerald lawns. Sabrina met him at the door. She wore a blue, sleeveless linen dress. She was tanned, blond, and gorgeous.

And she was tall. In her wedges, they were looking blue eyes to brown eyes. Hers were slightly glassy. She was holding something iced and frothy in her hand.

“Two days in a row,” she said. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Hopefully this will be the last time we’ll interfere in your life.”

“And just when we were getting to know each other.” A wide, white smile. “More like you were getting to know me. I don’t know a thing about you. Are you even married?”

“I am.”

“
Alors.
You can come in anyway. Would you like something to drink? A soft drink perhaps?” She raised her glass. “Or something harder? Hard is always nice.”

Decker said, “I’m fine, Ms. Talbot.”

“So formal.”

“Professional.” Decker held up a briefcase. “I’ve got my SID kits and everything.” A blank stare. “I was hoping that you’d let me run a few tests.” Still a blank expression. “I thought Detective Oliver explained this to you.”

This time, Sabrina’s smile was forced. “Why don’t we go inside?”

Immediately they were met by another large man, but Sabrina dismissed him with a wave. “I’ve got this one, Leo. Thank you very much.”

“Are you sure, Ms. Talbot?”

“Positive.” She glanced at Decker. “He’s just here to run some wicked little tests.”

“Maybe I should come with you,” Leo said.

“Not necessary.” She turned her back, and Decker followed. She didn’t speak and he didn’t ask any questions. She took him down a maze of hallways and foyers, crisscrossing through doorways and utility rooms.

Finally Decker said, “Are we still in the main house?”

“The storage and service wing.”

“How big is the house?”

“Twenty-five thousand square feet.” She wiped moisture off her forehead even though it wasn’t hot. Abruptly she stopped walking and leaned against the wall. Her complexion had turned pasty.

“Are you all right?” Decker asked.

“Fine.” She took a sip of her drink. “I haven’t been in these quarters for years. It’s a flood of bad memories coming back in a rush.” She was still sweating. “It makes me sick.”

“Maybe I should get Leo.” Decker looked around. “If I can find my way back.”

“I’ll be fine. Give me a minute.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Let’s do it.” She made some twists and some turns and a minute later she was standing in front of a closed door. She put her drink down and took out a key. “This is the room where Hobart kept his toys, his cameras, and his games played with human chess pieces. Would you like to see it?”

“You don’t have to torture yourself, Ms. Talbot. I can do this without you.”

“I’d prefer to be there.” She unlocked the door and turned on the light.

The room was about fifteen feet square and windowless. Even after years of disuse, the place stank of stale, biological odors and humiliation. Sabrina looked around. Her face was pained, but there was nobility in her eyes. “I don’t want you to think that this was the complete picture of Hobart. There was more to him than just unusual sexual proclivities.”

“Of course.” Decker put on a pair of gloves. His eyes traveled the empty, echoing space. “You cleaned this up.”

“Of course. I scrubbed it myself with soap and Pine-Sol. It took me several days.” She turned to him. “I was way too embarrassed to have the help do it. Then I had it painted. I locked it up and never went back. I’m seeing it for the first time in twenty-five years. It looks so harmless.”

“It’s only a space.”

“True enough. The brain fills in the rest.” Sabrina walked over to a closet and pulled out a key. She inserted it in the lock, but it didn’t fit. She appeared perplexed. “Odd.”

“How so?”

“This is where he kept all his . . . accessories. But now my key doesn’t work.”

“Maybe the lock rusted out.”

“It’s not budging. Would you care to try?”

Decker attempted to turn the key. No luck. “I can try to pick it. I brought my tools.”

“Why did you bring tools?”

“I come prepared.”

“I see.” She turned to face him. “May I ask what kind of tests are you planning to do?”

Decker’s eyes scanned the walls. “Should I pick the lock or do the tests first?”

“Whatever you want.”

He retrieved his picks. It took him some time to align the tumblers, but eventually he heard them click into place. The closet was empty.

Sabrina shook her head. “I suppose he took his toys with him when he left.” She turned and faced Decker. “The room hasn’t been used in over twenty-five years. What do you hope to find?”

“I’m empirical, Ms. Talbot. One thing at a time. Right now I’d like to spray the room with luminol. It’s nothing permanent and won’t ruin anything. The spray binds to the iron in the hemoglobin. If there was blood that hadn’t been scrubbed away, it’ll show up as a blue glow, even after all these years. I’ll have to turn off the lights. Luminol only shows up in the dark.”

She turned off the light. With no windows, they were standing in pitch-black. Decker said, “I need to spray first.”

“Sorry.” She turned the light back on. Decker took out the chemical, added the catalyst, waited a few moments for the reaction to begin. He sprayed one wall with steady, even strokes. “Okay. Turn off the lights.”

Small dots here and there, nothing to convince him that anything nefarious happened. But he circled the areas with a pencil before the glow disappeared. It took about a half hour of going back and forth between dark and light. Finally, he was done with the one wall.

Sabrina said, “This is going to take time.”

“To do it right, yes. If you trust me, I can do it on my own. Or send Leo over here. No need for you to bother yourself.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Her eyes focused on his. “Whatever you find out, I want to be here when you do.”

“As long as you’re not in a hurry.” Decker went through the same
procedure with the remaining walls and the floors. It took almost two hours. At the conclusion, he said, “I don’t see anything here that gives me a bad feeling.”

“That’s because you weren’t here and I was.”

Decker looked at her. “I apologize if I seem all-business. I can appreciate the horror that this represents to you.”

She stared at him. “You really have been at this for a long time. You say all the right things. I bet that handsome detective of yours wouldn’t be nearly as sensitive.”

“Detective Oliver has been at this about as long as me.”

“Yet they call you, and not him, Lieutenant.”

Decker smiled impassively. “I’d like to move on to the second room now: the space where you weren’t invited to join Hobart and his girls.”

Sabrina shrugged. “I suppose that’s the next logical step.”

They moved down the hallway. Sabrina stopped in front of another locked door, opened it, and turned on the light. The environment was also hermetic: white walls and white carpeting that were spotless. Decker squatted down and smelled the fibers. Nylon sprayed with something. He walked over to the corner of the room and picked at the carpet with a gloved hand. It wasn’t coming up easily. “Can I pull this up?”

“Sure.”

“Actually, Ms. Talbot. I’d like to pull up a sizable chunk of carpeting to expose the floor.”

“Do whatever you want.”

With gloved hands, he yanked at the carpet, heard the backing rip away from the nails. He dragged the carpet up and away. Then he repeated the procedure with another corner and flipped the carpet back on itself until he pulled up roughly half of the covering. Underneath was a pad. He lifted that up. On the subflooring was a big, black blob of damp moldy wood. Immediately, Decker sneezed several times. He wasn’t generally allergic, but being this close to mold would drive anyone’s nasal passages awry. “The wood’s rotted.”

“Yuck!” Sabrina said. “How’d that happen? The room hasn’t been used in a quarter decade!”

“Fungus grows where it’s damp. You might have a leak from a busted pipe.”

“I should call a plumber. It’s disgusting.”

“You might need a professional mold remover. This could be toxic.”

“Oh my God!” She recoiled in repulsion.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t get too close. I’m going to spray this . . . just to make sure that the dampness is from water.”

“What color will it glow if it’s water?”

“It won’t. You might not want to stick around.”

“I’ve gone this far . . . I’m not leaving.”

“Okay. It’s your decision.” Carefully, Decker sprayed luminol across the spot in a smooth line. “Can you shut the lights?”

“Yes, sir.”

The room went dark.

But not completely.

The damp spot glowed an eerie, unnatural electric blue: a solid concentrated area in the rotted spot that feathered out into spatter and spray.

“Turn the lights on.” When he got no response, he turned on a flashlight and flipped the lights back on. She was gray and limp. He took her hand and walked her out of the room. “Let’s go back to the main house, okay?”

She nodded but didn’t move.

“Sabrina, I need to make some phone calls and you need to sit down.”

Finally she managed to find her feet, then move her feet, one in front of the other and very slow at that. It seemed like a long time, but eventually they were back in sun-lit hallways. They were met by Leo. His face reddened when his saw Sabrina’s wan complexion.

“What the hell happened?” He was looking accusingly at Decker.

“She’s not feeling well. Take her to a room and get her some water. I need to call Santa Barbara police.”

“What happened!” The man grabbed Decker’s arm. “Tell me what happened
right now
.”

Decker extricated Leo’s hand from his arm. “Leo, I appreciate your loyalty. But the rule is you help her out
first,
and then you can come back and ask all your questions.”

I
T HAD BEEN
over two years since Marge and Oliver had visited Las Vegas, a city of big resorts and last resorts, hunting for a serial killer named Garth Hammerling, who was still at large. Not that much changed in Sin City. It was early afternoon when they arrived, and since it was a hot day in the desert, the Strip was swarming with people in T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops, hopping from one hotel to the next, all in the guise of having fun. The thoroughfare wasn’t bad at night when darkness muted the monoliths and neon reigned supreme. But in the sunlight, the gargantuan buildings dwarfed anything life-size, completely incongruent with the flat terrain beyond the glitter. There was beauty in the desert, but Vegas wasn’t part of it.

The rental car had come equipped with GPS, and the address given to Marge by Detective Lonnie Silver of North Las Vegas PD put them in a strip mall away from the action. A wind had picked up grit and tossed it into the air. Marge felt a layer of grime on her face and a few pebbles in her shoes. The Italian restaurant was a storefront, and lunch seemed to be top priority, since Bruce Havert/Byron
Hayes wasn’t suspected of anything. The tables were covered with checkered plastic and the seating was generic wooden chairs. No Chianti bottles, but there were posters of the hills of Tuscany hanging on beige walls.

Detective Lonnie Silver hadn’t changed much: early fifties and eggshell bald with a round face, brown eyes, thick shoulders on a solid trunk. His companion was young with a full head of hair, short and on the slight side, with blue eyes behind a pair of black framed glasses. The two men stood as she and Oliver approached the table. Introductions were made; the little guy was named Jack Crone. Good handshake. His nails were clean and clipped. His demeanor spoke of someone who was fussy, which was a good thing for a detective.

Silver said, “You hungry?”

“I could eat,” Oliver said.

“You should take the buffet. Five ninety-nine. The lasagna’s good.” Oliver said, “
Five ninety-nine
for a buffet?”

“This is Vegas, baby.”

“I can’t even buy a box of noodles for five ninety-nine.”

Crone signaled for two more plates. “Living expenses are cheap. Good place to live if you don’t gamble. Unfortunately almost everyone who works in the gaming business does. So there’s always desperation here.”

The waitress was young, tattooed, and tired. She plunked the plates on the table. “Soft drinks are included but not wine. You want wine?”

“Not today,” Marge said.

She left wordlessly. Lonnie doled out the plates. “Get yourself some lunch and then bring us up to speed.”

The two of them took their plates to the buffet. While Oliver was done in just a few minutes, Marge took her time, perusing each item in the metal serving dish. When both were finished, they brought their food over to the table. Oliver had wolfed down the food in the time it took Marge to put a napkin on her lap, so he recapped the case while she nibbled.

Afterward Oliver said, “Has anyone contacted Havert?”

Crone said, “We waited until we heard the details. How do you want to handle this?”

Marge wiped her mouth. “It would be great if we could bring him in on some smaller charge. I’m sure Havert is pimping. Could we bring him in on that?”

“Just about every dealer, waiter, and bellman have side jobs as pimps. If we nailed him, we’d nail half the working force.” Silver mopped up spaghetti sauce with garlic bread. “You want this guy for murder or what?”

Marge said, “He left L.A. right after Penny was murdered, but we don’t know who pulled the trigger. If you bring him in, it won’t stick.”

Crone said, “How about if we ask him to come down for information on something irrelevant. If I don’t mention L.A., maybe his mind won’t go there.”

“We do need information,” Oliver said. “The guy who got plugged was no angel. It might have been self-defense.”