A Death In Beverly Hills (7 page)

"It was just coincidence they buried her within two miles of where you were driving your dune buggy?"

"Okay, maybe they kept her body someplace and when everything hit the fan and Katey turned against me, they figured the marriage was never gonna happen and they put Marian there to implicate me and take the heat off themselves."

Steve and Greg exchanged a brief look of disbelief.

"Is there anybody else who might have wanted to hurt Marian or get her out of the way?"

Travis shook his head and sighed. "Like I said, we weren't getting along so good but there's nobody who'd be angry enough with her to want her dead."

Except you
, Steve said to himself. "How about someone who might want to hurt you?"

"You think somebody murdered Marian to make me look bad? Why not just kill me in the first place?"

"Tom," Greg said very quietly, "if we can't convince the jury either that someone had a motive to kill Marian or that they killed her to get even with you, then they're going to go with Plan A and figure you did it. So, who might have wanted to cause you trouble?"

Travis stared at the wall for a long three seconds, then, reluctantly, gave his head a little shake. "I've got nothing. What about all those leads that came into the Tip Line? Are you sure there's nothing there? What about those other pregnant women who went missing? Why are you so sure this wasn't a serial killer or a cult murder or something?"

"We'll check them again," Steve said wearily.

"And the brother. . . ."

"He's my next stop. I'll have a long talk with him, check out his known associates, get his credit card receipts and phone calls for the day of the disappearance. Greg, you'll handle the subpoenas?"

"I've already done it. I'm just waiting for the docs to come in from AT&T and VISA. It should only be a couple of more days."

"Okay, then." Steve stood and offered Travis his hand. The gleam of perspiration under the cell's harsh lights made the star's face seem sunken, his hair sparse, his pallid skin clear beneath the fine hairs.

"I really am sorry, about Lynn," Tom said as he grasped Steve's hand. "I mean, she was so . . . special. All the phonies I've known in this town, and I meet two real women, Lynn and Katey, and lose them both. Shit, what a jerk. If I only . . . but Hell, we don't get do-overs in life, do we, Steve?"

No, we don't
, Janson mumbled to himself as the jailer led Tom Travis back to his cell.

Chapter Thirteen

It was late afternoon when Steve reached Bobby Berdue's cottage. The old Airstream, sagging and weathered, still crouched behind the structure, but Bobby's F150 was nowhere to be seen. Steve parked at the end of the gravel drive and, cupping his hands, peered through the window. The front door soaked up his knocks without response. Stepping off the porch, tufts of ankle high grass tugged at his feet. Around him the air was full of sounds. A raven the size of a small hawk cawed from the top of an oak tree. The breeze, funneling in through the far end of the canyon, carried scents of spring grass, eucalyptus, manzanita, camphor and dust as it rustled the oak's fleshy leaves. At the edge of the valley the highway was as deserted as if man had disappeared from the world leaving all his works behind. Steve turned at a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.

Across the meadow a red tailed hawk skimmed low, his claws darting into a clump of fennel stalks and emerging with a flailing black squirrel. Involuntarily, Steve glanced over his shoulder as if fearing that some predator was swooping in behind him, but there was only the sky tinted in the palest of fading blues and smeared at the edges with streaks of white and gray. A brief gust ruffled Steve's hair, then died leaving behind the scent of mold and dead leaves. Steve took one more look at the forlorn landscape then paced back to Lynn's Mercedes which, together with an oil painting she had bought on their honeymoon in the south of France, were the last tangible pieces of their life together he still possessed.

The nearest town was Coulton, barely more than a clump of buildings housing a general store, a church, a bar, and a gas station. The church was closed but the other three establishments announced their availability with smears of neon tubing in red, blue and green. A scatter of haphazardly parked pickup trucks and motorcycles filled the asphalt lot in front of Pilgrim's Bar & Grill. A blue neon blunderbuss spitting red neon sparks flickered on the roof. The license number on one of the trucks was a match to Bobby Berdue's.

Inside, the air glowed Marlboro blue in the shafts of late afternoon light. The two guys playing pool, the bartender, and a pony-tailed thug in the back booth all gave Steve a suspicious once-over then turned away. Dressed in worn jeans, black t-shirt and a denim jacket he seemed to have passed muster. Steve wondered how long Greg Markham wearing his usual button-down collar shirt, $100 slacks and black wing-tips would have lasted before someone would have accidently spilled a pitcher of beer over his head. Ninety seconds, Steve decided, barely long enough to use the pay phone to call the Auto Club.

The bartender had a gut that sagged four inches over his belt buckle and a frizzy beard that almost covered the swastikas tattooed beneath each ear, prison tats done with a pin and ball point pen ink, as permanent as death itself.

"Beer," Steve ordered, slapping two singles on the bar. It arrived sloshing over the lip of the glass. Steve downed it in four long gulps. Wordlessly he put down another two dollars and pushed back the empty glass. The barman refilled it and wandered away. Steve took a long swallow, then looked around. Berdue's DMV picture depicted a hollow-cheeked young man with pale skin, black hair and blue-green eyes. At five feet eleven and a hundred forty pounds Berdue was either anorexic or a chronic consumer of crystal meth.

At the back of the bar a shadowed booth crouched between a vandalized jukebox and the hallway leading to the bathrooms. The booth held two men were engaged in a whispered conversation. By his profile one of them was Bobby Berdue. The other was the pony-tailed tough who had glared at Steve when he first entered. Janson turned away from the booth, his eyes vacant. Propping his feet up on the edge of a rickety chair, his shoulders angled just enough to see anyone entering or leaving, Steve let himself drift into a state as close to suspended animation as he could manage. He spoke to no one, looked at nothing, just gazed vaguely at the hazy mirror behind the bar.

Half an hour later Berdue's companion scuttled through Steve's field of vision and out into the gathering night. Steve tossed the bartender two more singles and carried the fresh beer into the booth. Berdue gave Steve a cross-eyed glare.

"You look like you could use a beer," Steve said, pushing the glass over the scarred table.

"Who're you?"

"I'm the guy buying you a beer."

Bobby squinted in the dim light and gauged Steve's two hundred pounds and six foot three inch frame, his meaty fingers and big hands and decided that a shove and a punch were not a wise response.

"What do you want?" Bobby asked suspiciously, but he still took the beer.

"Just a few minutes of your valuable time. Is that a problem?"

"Maybe I don't like guys butting into my life."

"You got something better to do? What's the matter, you don't like beer?"

Bobby sneered and chugged the glass without taking a breath. Steve smiled and gestured to the barman to bring a pitcher. Nothing further was said until both had refilled their glasses.

"Okay," Bobby said, two swallows later, "you bought us a pitcher. What do you want?"

"I was talking to Tom Travis and your name came up. I thought I'd stop by and say hello."

"You're not a cop and you don't look like a lawyer."

"I'm not, any more. Got disbarred."

"They catch you with your fingers in the cookie jar?"

"No, they thought I had stuck a .45 in a guy's mouth and he didn't pay attention when I told him to say 'Ahhh'."

"Yeah, I heard they disbar lawyers for that all the time." Berdue laughed at his own joke.

"The LA D.A. doesn't like me very much but when he couldn't lock me up he did the only thing he could and had them pull my ticket."

"You're breaking my heart."

"I'll get by. It all worked out though. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because the guy they think I killed is still dead." Berdue gave Steve an uneasy glance. "So, let's talk about Tom Travis."

"World class jerk," Berdue said, sticking out his chin as if inviting an argument.

"Yeah, that's the general opinion. He ever hit your sister?"

"He's still got all his parts, don't he?"

"Is that a no?"

"Yeah, it's a 'no'. Anybody hurts Katey has to answer to me."

Steve let the boast pass. "Know anybody who disliked Travis enough to kill his wife and pin the job on him?"

"Nope," Berdue said instantly and refilled his glass.

"You didn't think about that answer very long. How about we increase the incentive? Five hundred bucks for the name of anybody who might want to hurt Travis or his wife."

"And if I don't know anybody?"

"Then you don't get the money. Come on, its easy work. Nobody's got to know. Like you said, I'm not a cop."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Trust? Who said anything about trust? You're selling me your opinion for cash. Where's the trust in that?"

"Why should I help Tom Travis?"

"Hey, am I speaking Martian here? For-the-money." Steve gave him an 'Am I talking to an idiot?' stare.

Berdue fiddled with his glass as if five hundred dollars for some hot air was a hard decision for a guy who risked five years in prison for every packet of Meth he sold out of the back of his truck.

"I've heard some rumors," Berdue said finally.

"Rumors are good. I like rumors."

Bobby scratched his lip. "Well, did Travis tell you he was into prescription drugs?"

"That sort of slipped his mind. Tell me more."

"Well, okay," Bobby leaned across the table, "when the three of us had dinner and Katey went to the ladies room, Travis leans over to me and says, 'Bobby, I need your help with something,' real secret like. So, I ask him what, and he says he needs a source for some special drugs. I ask him what, crank, X, smack, what's he talkin' about? And he says, 'Prescription drugs, the real thing, not the junk you get on the Internet.' So I'm thinking, 'What the hell's goin' on here? The guy's loaded. There must be twenty Beverly Hills doctors he can get to write him a scrip for whatever he wants. Hell, Elvis didn't have any problems in that department, why should Tom Travis?"

"Did you ask him what he wanted, specifically."

"Sure, but he wouldn't tell me. 'It's confidential,' is all he'd say, that and that he needed to keep it off his medical records. He said that in Hollywood the reporters paid nurses and janitors to steal the medical records on guys like him, that they even hacked into the drug stores' computers. He said that he couldn't take the chance of getting a prescription from his doctor, that somebody might find out and put it in the papers."

"Why not just get the stuff in Mexico?"

"I asked him. 'Who's not going to recognize me?' he says. 'Besides, what if its counterfeit?' So, he gets in may face: Do I know a guy who can hook him up with honest to God real prescription drugs with no bullshit Chinese copies or don't I?"

"And?"

Berdue shrugged. "And I gave him a name."

"You ever find out if he called the guy?'

"Yeah, right!" Bobby laughed.

"I say something funny?"

"Who do you think these guys are? You ask them any questions about their business, they'll gut you like a pig. It's like that Army thing, 'Don't ask, don't tell.'" Bobby laughed and poured another beer.

"Did he ever mention it again, ever give you any clue what it was he wanted?"

"Not a word. Me, I figured it was Hillbilly Heroin. Fancy guys like him are scared of needles. They want something they can chop up in their hundred dollar electric coffee grinders and then put up their nose."

"So, what's this got to do with somebody killing his wife?"

"Like I said, these are dangerous people. What if he disrespected the guy? What if he opened his mouth and it got back to the guy? What if he shorted him on a payment? You think the dealer's gonna hire a lawyer and sue Travis for the money? These are two strike people. One more conviction and they're gone for life. They don't fuck around with anybody. Movie star? They don't give a crap. If Travis even looks like he's gonna cause them any trouble at all, it's TCB baby."

TCB was a patch sometimes embroidered on a gang member's jacket -- Took Care of Business. For an instant Steve imagined those letters burned into his own chest.

"So?"

"So, you asked if I could think of anybody who Travis might know who could have knocked off a pregnant woman. That's all I've got."

"And if I offered you a thousand for another name?"

"Hey, I'll give you all the names you want, John Smith, Bill Jones, but they'd all be bullshit. I gave you what I had, there ain't no more."

"You didn't give me the guy's name."

"Hah!" Berdue barked. "You keep your money and I'll keep my life."

"Where were you the day Marian Travis disappeared?"

"You think I'd off a pregnant woman just to get even with Travis for screwing over my sister?"

"No, but maybe you'd kill a pregnant woman so your sister would have a clear shot at marrying Travis and movin' on up to the big time, like the song says."

Berdue just snorted and drained his glass. "That's not my act, man. I've done some stuff, no good lying about it, but murder a pregnant woman? I don't have no TCB on my arm." Steve just stared at him. "Okay," Berdue continued ten seconds later, "I was in jail, the main jail in San Diego. The Sheriff grabbed me on a bogus beef the day after Christmas. Some cowboy deputy said I'd sold him half an o-z of speed. Give me a fucking break. You think I'd sell half an o-z to somebody I didn't know? Please! Anyway, I didn't get out until January fifth."

"You made bail?"

"Katey got me out."

"She get the money from Travis?"

Berdue gave him an embarrassed smile. "Yeah, I guess she wheedled it out of him. She was always a good sister." Berdue looked down at his empty glass. Steve stared at him for a long moment, then started counting out his payment.

"Shit!" Bobby hissed and put his hand over the bills. "Don't show that kind of money in here unless you want to end up dead by the side of the road." Berdue crushed the pile in his fist and pulled it out of sight.

"You owe anybody any money, Bobby?"

"What's that to you?"

"I'm just wondering if you might be motivated to help me out some more, earn some more cash, easy money too."

"I guess I have a few bills."

"Anything big and pressing? Is there anybody about ten minutes away from putting you in the hospital, or worse? Do you need to disappear for a while in order to stay healthy?"

"I don't give people any shit and they leave me alone."

"What about that Prince Charming you were talking to a little while ago?"

"Business, just business," Bobby muttered, his voice tight and low.

"So, nobody's got you on the short list for a tune-up?"

"Man, you watch too much television." Bobby turned his back to the bar and quickly counted the money, then shoved the bills down into his shorts. "What else you need me to do?"