Hoarded to Death (A Jamie Brodie Mystery) (19 page)

“Holy
shit
. So Paulo is your primary suspect?”

“Well, let’s just say that we want to talk to him very badly.”

“So much for Brashier being the mastermind behind all this, huh?”

“Maybe. We’re still not sure how involved he was, but now we know there’s someone else out there.”

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Sure. I figured the kid might have that card with your fake phone number on it. If you get a call from him, you know what to do.”

“Right. Get him to come in.”

“You got it. See ya.” He hung up.

When I got home that evening, I filled Pete in on my conversation with Kevin. He was as stunned as I had been. “If the kid had been there, looks like he would have been killed too.”

“Maybe he wasn’t there.”

“Do you think he’ll call you?”

“Nah. I doubt he’s still got that card.”

Pete hadn’t been home long, so he hadn’t started dinner yet. “You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

He stuck his head in the refrigerator and frowned. “How about going out?”

“Sounds good.” We decided to go around the corner for Indian food. When we got settled, I decided the time was right. “Hey, I have something to tell you.”

Pete raised his eyebrows at me. “That sounds potentially ominous.”

Oh, great
. “I hope not. I – um – I had a first appointment today with a counselor through our EAP.”

Pete was quiet for a moment. “Okay…why?”

“Because I needed to talk to someone else about…about us, and what happened to you, and how it’s affecting our relationship, and how I feel about it. I can’t talk to anyone I know, obviously, and I had to talk to someone. And I want to make sure that I can manage my feelings about it, so that I don’t get frustrated and take it out on you. I told you at Christmas that I want to make this work. So this is part of that for me.”

“Okay.” Pete took a piece of naan and started tearing it into smaller bits, but didn’t eat any. “How did it go?”

“It went well, I thought. I really like the therapist.”

“Who is it?”
“Her name’s Tania Bibbins. She’s in the office building at the med school.”

“I’ve heard of her. Word is she’s very good.”

“I was impressed.” A thought occurred to me. “Pete – Kevin doesn’t know, does he?”

“
No
. You can’t tell him.”

“I won’t. I wouldn’t. I was just making sure…you said you’d talked about everything while you were sitting in the patrol car.”

“Yeah, well…everything but that.”

“Okay.” Our food came and Pete changed the topic.

We went to bed early. At some point during the night, I woke up to ringing. That wasn’t my cell phone; what was that? It seemed to be coming from the laundry basket. Pete muttered something and buried his head under his pillow. I rolled to my feet and staggered across the room. The digital numbers on the alarm clock informed me that it was 2:43 am. The ringing continued. I arrived at the laundry basket, and muttered, “Fuck,” when I realized that my pants were ringing.
It was the cell phone that Eckhoff had given me.

I carried my pants into the bathroom, closed the door, turned on the light, blinded myself, and wrestled the phone out of my pants pocket. “Yeah, hello.”

“Dr. Brodie?” The voice was whispering.

“Yeah?”

“This is Paulo. We met at Brashier Books last month?”

I snapped awake. “Paulo. Where are you? The cops are looking for you.”

“I
know!
They think I killed Quentin, but I
didn’t!
”

I closed the toilet lid and sat down on it. “You haven’t helped your case by hiding like this. You need to come in and give them your alibi, or whatever proof you’ve got that it wasn’t you.”

“It
wasn’t
me! I don’t even know how to shoot a gun!”

Aha
. “How do you know it was a gun, if you weren’t there?”

“I didn’t
say
I wasn’t
there
. I
was
there. I heard the
whole thing
. I’m hiding so the same thing doesn’t happen to
me!
”

“Where were you?”

“In the back room.”

“Did you see anything?”

“
No!
I was about to step back into the shop, when I heard Quentin arguing with someone, so I stopped to listen.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“No. I’d never heard the guy before.”

“It was a guy.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t recognize the voice.”

“Yes!”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because the guy had an Australian accent! I don’t
know
anyone from Australia!”

I was struck speechless for a second. Oh,
shit
. A cold finger of dread worked its way down my spine. “How do you know it was an Australian accent?”

“Because he sounded just like the Crocodile Hunter. I used to love that show.”

Shit, shit, shit
. “Listen, Paulo. You have got to tell the police about this.”

“Can’t you just tell them for me?”

“No. That’s called hearsay and it’s not admissible in court.” At least, that’s what they always said on Law and Order. “They have to hear it from you.”

“I’m not going to the police station.”

“Okay, will you meet a detective somewhere else?”

“Will you be there too?”

I sighed. “Yeah, I can be. But Paulo, that means you
have
to show up. If we arrange a meeting and you blow it off, they’ll track you down like a dog and toss your ass in jail. No questions asked.” I wanted to scare him.

It sounded like I’d succeeded. “Okay,
okay!
I’ll be there! But it has to be in a public place!”

“Okay, that’s fine. Are you familiar with UCLA’s campus?”

“A little.”

“You know where the student union is?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Okay, there’s a big plaza right by the student union called Wilson Plaza. Meet me there at 8:00 in the morning.”

“You mean, like five hours from now?”

Oh, God
. “Yeah, five hours from now. The detective on the case will be with me.”

He groaned. “Okay, I’ll be there.” He hung up.

Holy hell
.
Kendall
was our killer?? I put my hand on the handle of the bathroom door and turned off the light, plunging me into total darkness. I waited a minute for my eyes to adjust, then went back out into the bedroom. It seemed well-lit by comparison. I went to my bedside table and found my own phone.

Pete pulled his head out from under the pillow and mumbled, “What?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep.” I left the bedroom, closing the door behind me softly, and went into the guest room. I hated to wake Kevin, but I figured he wouldn’t want me to wait.

Kevin’s phone rang three times, then a gravelly voice said, “What?”

“Wake up. I just got a call on the phone Eckhoff gave me. From Paulo. Brashier’s assistant.”

“No
shit
.” He was wide awake now, and I heard his feet thump onto the floor. “What did he say?”

“He said he was in the back room and heard the whole thing, and the killer had an Australian accent.”

“
No
. Your buddy? What was his name?”

“Kendall McEwen. Who else could it be?”

“He was sure it was Australian?”

“Yep. Said he sounded just like the Crocodile Hunter.”

“Is he coming in?”

“He refused to come to the police station, and refused to meet you without me. So I told him to meet us at 8:00 in the morning at Wilson Plaza on campus.”

“Eight o’clock this morning? As in five hours from now?”

Jeez
. “Yeah, five hours from now. Can you be there?”

“I’ll be there at 7:45.”

“Okay, me too. See you then.”

He hung up. I clicked the phone off and sat there for a minute.

Kendall.

Holy
shit
.

When the alarm went off at 5:30, I groaned. It was my turn to stuff my head under a pillow. Pete got up and went into the bathroom, then came back out and swatted me on the ass with his pillow. "C'mon. We're going for a run this morning."

I groaned again and pushed the pillow off my face. "Okay, okay." I struggled into the bathroom, but by the time I was downstairs lacing up my running shoes, I was coming to life a little more.

It was low tide, so we ran down to the beach and then south, well past the pier and back. Enough exercise to shake out the cobwebs, and enough time to tell Pete about my late night phone conversations. I got showered, ate a quick breakfast of cereal and banana, and headed out. I decided to drive to campus, since it was early and I was in kind of a hurry. I got parked without too much hassle and walked over to Wilson Plaza to meet Kevin.

We got there about the same time. He looked the way I felt – tired. He was wearing jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt under his sportcoat. He had his badge attached to his waistband, and wasn't making any particular effort to hide his holster. He waved at me and we both went to a concrete bench and sat.

I said, "You look tired."

Kevin rolled his eyes at me. "Yeah, well, that's because somebody woke me up at 3:00 in the morning."

"But you wouldn't have been happy if I'd waited."

"No, I wouldn't." He scanned the plaza, which was filling up with students. "There’s Eckhoff. I figured he’d want to be here too."

Jon spotted us and headed in our direction. I saw Paulo approaching from the other direction, and waved to him.

Paulo scurried over. He wasn't quite as well put together as he had been the day we'd visited the shop. He was wearing tight jeans, but they were old, and a less form-fitting blue t-shirt. He'd done without the mascara and hair gel, and he looked about fifteen. He started to sit on the opposite side of me from Kevin, but I slid over so he had to sit between us. He looked panicky, and scooted as far away from Kevin as possible. He looked up at Jon, then to me. “What’s he doing here?”

“He’s a detective too, Paulo.”

Paulo looked accusingly at Jon. “You were in the shop that day, too. You
lied
.”

Jon shrugged. “I was undercover.”

I had to know. "Paulo, how old are you?"

He looked at me and bit his lip. "I turned eighteen in October."

So he'd been barely legal when he went to work for Brashier. I just shook my head.

Kevin said gently, "Paulo, I'm a homicide detective with LAPD. My name's Kevin Brodie. I’m Dr. Brodie’s brother. Tell me what you heard last night."

Paulo sniffed. "Like I told Dr. Brodie, I was in the back. Quentin asked me to find his spare glasses. The ones he had on were bothering him. His desk is a mess, so it took me a while to find them. I heard the bell ring on the door, so I knew someone had come in, but I didn't hear anything until they raised their voices and started arguing. I found the glasses, but I didn't want to walk out into the shop in the middle of an argument. So I stayed behind the door and listened."

Kevin was taking notes. "What time was this?"

"It was right before closing, so around 7:00."

"Okay. Could you hear what the argument was about?"

"I think it was about that paper you guys were looking for."

"What makes you think that?"

"They were arguing about a price. The Australian guy was saying, "This is a priceless artifact, I'm not letting it go for less than three hundred," and Quentin was saying, "It's damaged, I can't get that much for it, I can't give you more than one fifty."

"So the argument got more heated."

"Yeah. The Australian guy said, 'We had an agreement,' and Quentin said, 'I didn't sign a contract,' and the Australian guy said, 'I can take this somewhere else,' and then Quentin said he'd send out an email to the other dealers telling them not to buy the piece of paper, or whatever it was. That pissed the Australian guy off, and he said, 'No, you won't,' then Quentin said, 'What are you doing, you're crazy,' and then I heard the gunshots." Paulo trembled and wiped his eyes.

"How many shots?"

"Three. It wasn't loud, it was more like, pop, pop, pop. Then I heard the door open and the bell ring again."

Kevin nodded. "The gun had a silencer. Then what did you do?"

"I sneaked out into the shop to see if Quentin was alive. There was blood everywhere, his chest was all bloody, and his eyes were open looking at the ceiling, and he wasn't breathing. It was horrible. I had to go throw up, then I ran out the back door and kept running."

"You didn't touch anything in the shop, or touch Quentin."

"No! I know not to do that, I watch CSI."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Jon rolled his eyes. Kevin said, "Okay, that's good. And you're sure the voice you heard was Australian."

"Yeah. Like I told Dr. Brodie, he sounded just like Steve Irwin."

"Okay. Was the voice deep, or high pitched?"

"Pretty deep."

"So definitely a man."

"Oh, yeah, for sure a man."

"Okay." Kevin turned so he was looking directly at Paulo. "Paulo, I'm going to need you to come in to make an official statement."

"
What?
Why? I just
told
you what happened!"

"Yeah, but we have to make it official, typed up and with your signature. Otherwise it doesn't count."

Paulo was practically squeaking. "Now?"

"Have you got someplace else to be? I'll buy you breakfast."

Paulo's face relaxed a little. "Can we go to McDonald's?"

Kevin laughed. "Sure." He stood up, and Paulo and I followed suit. Jon said to Kevin, “I’m coming with you,” then turned to me. "Are you gonna be in your office today? I need to get some details about your friend."

"Yeah. I don't have any meetings, just my reference shift with Liz."

He nodded. "Okay. I'll come by after three."

Kevin put his hand on Paulo's shoulder. He was really being gentle with the kid. "C'mon. I'll show you how the police really operate."

Kevin, Paulo, and Jon headed in one direction and I went in the other. I went back to my office and got online. There wasn't as much information about Australian Rhodes scholars as there was about American ones, but I found some pages with information about Kendall to print out for Jon. I emailed the links to Kevin as well. There was an association for Australian Rhodes scholars, but I couldn't find a website for them. I did find contact information for their officers on Oxford's site, so I printed that out too, and the contact information for OUSLA, the Oxford University Society in Los Angeles. That was the local Oxford alumni group where I'd met Kendall in the first place.