The Beast (28 page)

“That’s okay,” Gabe said. “I’m seventeen with the impulse control of a thirty-year-old.” A pause. “Except with Yasmine. I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to her.”

Rina sat down and stroked Decker’s hand. “Eat, my love.” She turned to Gabe. “I’m glad you’re back with your mom. You won’t regret it.”

He shrugged. “Well, I’d like to meet my sister.” A pause. “She’s pregnant again . . . my mother. She’s not even married to the guy. She and Chris aren’t legally divorced.” Gabe threw up his hands. “It’s her life. I’m over it. No sense pretending she doesn’t exist.”

Decker said, “If Jake goes with you to India, do I have to pay for his airfare?”

Rina said, “Stop pleading poverty all the time. The only thing we spend on is food. We haven’t had a vacation in two years.”

“Why not?” Gabe asked.

“Talk to the Loo,” Rina said. “I go by his schedule.”

“Don’t do this to me, son,” Decker said. “After last night, you owe me.”

“I’m sure the lieutenant has his reasons,” Gabe said.

Rina said, “The lieutenant works very hard.” She kissed the top of his head. “But the lieutenant would do well with a couple of constructive weeks in Hawaii.”

“I don’t tan. I just turn red, burn, and peel.”

“How about Yellowstone?” Rina said. “I’ve always wanted to see Old Faithful.”

Decker gave her suggestion some thought. “I’d like that, too. It sounds like a good vacation, even for a stiff like me.”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll make arrangements. But you can’t flake out on me, Peter.” She turned to the teen. “You can come, too, if you’d like, Gabriel.”

“I think the lieutenant has had quite enough of me. But I thank you for the ’vite.”

“The offer’s open. And I’m glad you reconciled with your mother, Gabriel. You only have one mom.”

“Seriously,” he told her. “I only have one mom. But I also have a couple of guardian angels. How lucky can a dude get?”

THE CELL WAS
under his pillow, vibrating at three in the morning. Decker grabbed it and said, “I’m here. Hold on.” He slipped on a robe and went into the living room.

“I’m giving you ten minutes,” Donatti said. “You have nine left.”

“Could you please be civil once in a blue moon?”

“So make a civil call. You only call when you need me or to report bad news.”

The man had a point, but damn if Decker would concede him anything. “You have pencil and a piece of paper?”

“What?”

“Randi Miller. Randi is spelled with an
i
. Also Ginger Buck.” Decker listed all their aliases. “They’re probably in Nevada.”

“Don’t narrow it down too much.”

“Vegas, Reno, or Tahoe.”

“That really helps.”

“Do what you can, Chris.”

“Murder suspects?”

“They are. I may be a lieutenant, but in my heart, I’m still a homicide cop.”

“When did this happen?”

“A week and a half ago. After it happened, the girls moved out. Where can I fax you pictures?”

Donatti gave him a number. “Describe Ginger Buck aka Georgie Harris to me.”

“In her thirties. She used to be a porn actress under her alias Amber Sweet. In her last mug shot, she was five foot seven, around a hundred forty pounds. She had short, shaggy hair, dark eyes, and acne. She could be a tweaker.” A pause. “She sounds familiar to you, Chris?”

“When she worked for me, her name was Gigi Biggers. She had drug problems. They all do, but she couldn’t keep it under control. I had to fire her. She has a Social Security number under that name. Want it?”

“Of course. How long ago did she work for you?”

“Five years maybe. Before I moved here full-time. Anything else?”

“Bruce Havert. He owned a business called Casey’s Massage and
Escort. It was closed and cleaned out after the murder. Havert employed the girls. Before moving to L.A., he worked as a dealer for eleven years at Havana!—the casino not the city.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“I’d like to except that’s all I have. No phone number. No address for him in L.A. so I can’t even get a forwarding address. I do have a picture. I can also e-mail you the link to the article where we found his picture.”

“E-mail it to Talia. I don’t do e-mail. I’m a Luddite. I don’t do virtual life. Too busy doing the real thing. Send me his picture ASAP.”

“Why are you so interested in Bruce Havert?”

“If he’s pimping hookers in Nevada, he’s moving into my territory.”

“All of Nevada is your territory?”

“The entire world is my territory. Nevada is just my home base.”

“Gotcha. You’ll let me know what you find out.”

“I will. If you can nail his ass for murder all the better. One less idiot to contend with. Speaking of idiots, how’d my son do at the trial?”

“Your son is definitely not an idiot, Chris.”

“He’s seventeen, all seventeen-year-olds are idiots, ergo he’s an idiot. How is he?”

“Fine. You do know that the case was pled out, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And you also know that Gabe is still with us in L.A., right?”

A split second pause. “Why?”

“He’s got some upcoming performances. He’s getting help from his former teacher, Nick Mark. Gabe wants to stay with us for six weeks. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not if you don’t.” Another pause. “Is he still seeing that little Persian girl?”

“I think so.”

“Dummy. At his age, he shouldn’t be hooked to a single girl. He should be screwing around.”

“He’s in love with her.”

“He can love her and still fuck other girls. He’s seventeen. What does he know?”

“I guess the kid has a moral compass, Chris.”

“I know.” Donatti sighed. “Where the fuck did I go wrong?”

W
ITH DARIUS PENNY
in the backseat, Marge and Oliver were circumspect. They spoke to each other in low voices even though Penny was occupied with his own business call. Marge said, “I did a little online research this morning. You can buy almost anything by mail order if you claim it’s for conservation. In some states, it’s really easy to get licenses for private zoos. Ohio is notorious for people keeping big animals.”

“What about snakes?”

“Most of the sites I checked out were pet shops, and most of the reptiles weren’t venomous. But you can get venomous snakes if you want them. Exotics like king cobras and Gaboon vipers are ironically easier to find because they are exotic. Most of the people who keep California rattlers are amateur snake hunters who had caught them. But sometimes they’ll swap and sell.”

“But someone would still have to set up the cages. He couldn’t do that by himself.”

“The thing is, Scott, if you take good care of them, snakes can live a long time—fifteen, twenty years—with the larger ones living
even longer. So it is conceivable that the old guy bought them a while back and set up the cages a long time ago.”

“What about insects?”

“Spiders live a lot longer than you’d think. Female tarantulas can live twenty years. Scorpions less so, but some have made it past a decade. Things like hissing cockroaches, shorter: one to five years. So those kinds of insects he probably bought when he was an old man.”

Oliver spoke quietly. “Marge, he had to be paying someone to maintain the cages, especially if he was on a walker.”

“I’m sure he did pay someone. But personally, I have my doubts about the walker thing. I think he carted out the wheelchair when he wanted the pity factor or he used it to distract or stall . . . like with complaining neighbors.”

“Marge, even if he could walk on his own two feet, he was old.”

“So he moved slowly.”

“I could see him feeding the insects and fish,” Oliver said. “I could see him even feeding a tiger. Just set out a bowl of meat—”

“Or fingers,” Marge said in an undertone.

Oliver made a face. “But I can’t see the old guy feeding venomous snakes and cleaning out the cages. Plus, I know from personal experience that fish tanks have to be cleaned as well. Fish excrete. If the tanks get too polluted, the fish die. He had some sort of a service, Marge.”

“Yeah, Decker and I were talking about that yesterday. He agrees with you. We’re all on the same page. He probably used Vignette Garrison. She was in the apartment just a few days before. What else would she be doing there? What I’m wondering about is this. Why didn’t she tell Decker about the snakes and the bugs? She fully admitted she took care of the tiger.”

Oliver said, “Maybe she didn’t want the responsibility if some of the snakes got loose.”

“So she’d admit to us that she knew about the tiger, but she wouldn’t admit to knowing about the reptiles and insects and fish, most of which are legal to keep?”

“Good point,” Oliver admitted.

The two of them were quiet. Darius Penny was shouting into his phone.

Marge said, “This is what we have. We have hookers who packed up and left. And then we have Vignette Garrison.” A pause. “My vote is the hookers. They bolted. Vignette is still around. And if she was helping Hobart with his menagerie, and if Hobart was paying her to help him, why would she kill him?”

“Maybe he got fresh with her,” Oliver said. “The guy was weird.”

Marge whispered, “We have two injuries: BFT and gunshot. You see her doing both of those things?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said. “But how hard would it be to take out an old man, especially if she was comfortable around the tiger?”

Darius Penny was still yelling, “Are you there? Are you there?”

Out loud, Marge said to him, “I should have warned you. Reception is going to be spotty and then it’s going to disappear.”

Penny called back his office. “I know you can barely hear me. I’m going to the mountains . . . I’ll call you later.” He disconnected the line. “Do you know how much longer it’ll take until we get there?”

“About another half hour,” Marge told him.

“Anything I should know about this place?”

“It’s our first time as well.”

“Anything I should know about Vignette Garrison?”

“Never met her,” Marge said. “The excursion will be a learning curve for all of us.”

THE LEPRECHAUN WAS
pacing the living room floor. George Paxton wore tiny jeans, a tiny white shirt, and a tiny corduroy jacket. “Why do you keep bothering me?”

“Mr. Paxton, someone was murdered in one of your buildings. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen again.”

“It’s not going to happen again.”

“So you think Mr. Penny was the specific target?”

“Did I say that?” More trampling the floor and more anger. “I didn’t say that.”

“Well, if he wasn’t the target, you’ve got a random killer that could strike again.”

Paxton stopped moving. “Okay. Maybe he was the target.” He started to tread the carpets again. “All those weird characters going in and out of his place.”

“When we first spoke you said you only saw a few buxom women go into the apartment. Think you could identify them if I showed you pictures?”

“Probably.”

Decker took out two photographic six-packs that he had made up this morning. One had Randi’s picture in the lower middle and the other had Ginger in the upper-right-hand corner. “Do any of these girls look familiar?”

Paxton stopped flattening the carpets long enough to stare at the pictures. He pointed to Randi. “This one. I saw her going in and out a couple of times.”

“Which of Penny’s apartments?”

“The one that’s now vacant. The unit under his current apartment.”

“Okay.” Decker brought out the other photo lineup. “What about these women?”

He pointed to Ginger. “I saw her a few times with the first one. Never by herself.”

“So they came together?”

“The blonde came alone. The two of them came together a couple of times.”

“And you’re being truthful?”

“I resent that.”

“Mr. Paxton, if you have more to tell me, it’s better to get it out now than to have me find out later on.”

“Of course, I’m being
truthful
.” A pause. “What do you expect me to tell you?”

“That you helped Mr. Penny arrange his trysts for money.”

The man blushed deep red. “You’re accusing me of
pimping
?”

“More like procuring, but we don’t have to be technical. Did you help him?”

The man folded his arms across his chest. “I didn’t
pimp
for him!”

“I believe you. See. That was simple enough.”

But Decker knew that wasn’t the end of the story.

“What did you do for him? Besides ignoring his apartments, which contained deadly animals, for money?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“It was like that. What else did he pay you for?”

“I opened the doors a couple of times for the ladies. Wasn’t any big deal. Kinda like picking up a package.” The man was red. “Can you leave me alone now?”

Decker focused on the bald man’s face. “How many times were you actually inside Penny’s apartments?”

Paxton’s eyes darkened. “Why is that important?”

“Because the man was murdered.”

“You can’t think that I had something to do with it.” Silence. “That’s absurd.”

“Tell me why it’s absurd.”

“Because I hadn’t been in his apartment for weeks.”

“Tell me why I should believe you.”

“Because why the hell would I hurt him?” The gnome was pacing again. “He could only give me money if he was alive.”

“So you kept him alive for the money?”

“No, you’re twisting . . .” Paxton got furious. “I think you’d better leave.”

“Okay.” Decker made a point of looking at his watch. “I have a little extra time. Maybe I’ll visit your boss now.”

The man turned a deep shade of crimson. “You’re blackmailing me.”

“God forbid!”

“What do you
want
from me?”

“Just answer my simple questions. How often were you in Penny’s apartments?”

“I told you I let the hookers in once or twice . . . at most a half dozen times.”

“So we’re up to six—”

“All I did is open the door for them at Mr. Penny’s request.”

Decker said, “Did you ever do repairs for Mr. Penny? Fix a clogged sink. Replace a lightbulb?”