the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (8 page)

On the screen we watched while the man took off his helmet. He was a blond, scruffy-looking guy with a low forehead who gave off a bad vibe even on video. He looked angry and slammed his gloves into the helmet as he dismounted the bike.

"That's Carl Sweet," Yolanda said. "He was Chrissy s about-to-be-ex. She had just filed for divorce. He's originally from Czechoslovakia and if you ask me, he's nuts. She moved out on him two weeks ago and into an apartment I helped her find. After Chrissy moved out, he came here looking for her. My security cam got that shot. He was screaming at me over the intercom. He wanted to know where she was. I wouldn't tell him."

"And you think this guy is the shooter."

"Maybe. He's violent enough. He used to beat Chrissy. There were times when she was so messed up I couldn't send her out on modeling assignments or dates."

She shut off the camera, then turned to look at us. "Does that buy me some space with you, Detective?"

"We'll see. I'm going to need that DVD." She nodded and handed it to me. "Do you have the address where they used to live?"

"After Chrissy left, she told me the landlord threw Carl out, so the old apartments been re-rented. Carls always broke. When they were married and living together, Chrissy paid for everything. After she split and filed, he had no steady income. I have no idea where he lives now."

"How about the address of the new place you helped Chrissy find?"

"I'll copy it down for you."

She got it from her address book, wrote it on a slip of paper, and handed it to me. It was an apartment in Glendale, on Brand Boulevard.

Once we were outside and back in the Carerra, Hitch paused before starting the car. "I've heard of that Christmas party," he said. "It's called the Prostitutes' Ball."

"But unfortunately for you, it seems Act One just fizzled big-time," I said. "Carl Sweet kills his wife and Scott Berman, hits poor Paula by mistake. Like you said bing-bang-boom. End of story. No movie."

"Yeah." He grinned. "But what a title, huh? The Prostitutes' Ball. . . Who wouldn't go see that one?"

Chapter
13.

Before we left Yolanda Dublin's driveway I picked up the mic for the police radio in Hitch's glove box and ran Carl Sweet for wants, warrants, and DMV.

The run came back empty. He wasn't in our system, not even at Motor Vehicles. Then I put in a request to run him with the state to see if he had a Russian Bizon machine gun registered to him. We probably wouldn't get that info back until tomorrow.

"If the guy was beating on Chrissy, it's hard to believe he didn't get at least one spousal abuse complaint," Hitch said after I hung up. "He should be in the system."

"Maybe Sweet's not his real name," I said as Hitch put the car in gear and pulled out.

"Hows that possible, Shane? Alexa ran Chrissy. She checked out. It was Chrissy's married name, so it had to be his."

"You're right. Just thinking out loud."

We got on the Coast Highway, heading toward Brand Boulevard in Glendale. I didn't trust Hitch's motives, so it was hard to solicit his opinion. But I've been trained to always check with my partner after an interview to see if he or she picked up on something I'd missed.

"Gimme your take on what just happened back there," I said as Hitch drove.

"Some lies are more believable than truth," he replied.

"Who dropped that pearl of wisdom?"

"I did, just now." The dashing smile was gone, replaced by a seriousness that gave me hope.

"We walk in there and after a few rounds of'No, I won't,' 'Yes, you will,' out comes the little DVD with Carl Sweet," he said. "I know it's almost Christmas, but do we really think there's a Santa Claus?"

"Good point. But sometimes it happens that way."

"That's not a take. That's wishful thinking."

"You're still looking for first-act moves," I told him, my disappointment showing. "If Carl Sweet, a jealous husband, shoots his ex and her boyfriend, you got nothing to give the movie department at UTA."

"I'm just saying, before we ring up SWAT to go out and throw a net on this guy if we can even find him I think we need to check out Scott Berman, work on some victimology. My gut tells me we're going to find some juicy stuff there."

"We'll get to the victimology tomorrow," I snapped. "Tonight we're following leads and this lead points to a dead girl's apartment in Glendale."

It wasn't going well between us. We didn't speak again until we got to the address on Brand Boulevard. It was a small, seventies-style building, boxy but neat. Each unit had its own garage in back. Chrissy Sweet was renting B-6 on the second floor. We found her five-year-old silver BMW still in her parking spot.

"So Scott Berman must ve picked her up here, driven her to the party up on Skyline," Hitch said.

"Which begs the question of who drove Berman s car off Skyline Drive after he was dead and where is it now," I replied.

We woke up the manager. It was three thirty in the morning and he wasn't happy about it.

"Jesus Christ," he griped.

"Nope," Hitch said. "But people tell me there's an amazing resemblance."

The manager didn't find that funny. Neither did I. He was a grumpy bald guy who didn't know anything about Chrissy Sweet. He also didn't seem to be very shocked that she was dead.

"I try not to get involved with my renters. L
. A
. is transient and superficial. People move on, they transfix, they die."

"Gee, good one," Hitch said. "We should get that off to Deepak Chopra immediately."

The manager led us to Chrissy's apartment, opened up, told us to drop the key in the slot when we were done. Then he returned to his apartment and went back to bed.

There wasn't much here. The small one-bedroom had the look of a hideout. Very few clothes, a makeup case that was well stocked. No drugs, no pictures. A few teddy bears, but no real personal effects. We searched it for almost half an hour, came up with nothing.

"The unlucky, lonely life of a tragic beauty," Hitch whispered softly, sounding like that guy in all the movie trailers.

We locked up, dropped the key in the slot, and left.

"I'll have Impound pick up her car and tow it to the forensic garage," I said. "Probably nothing in there, but we gotta look."

"Maybe we'll get a latent print hit for Carl. If we do and Sweet is an alias, maybe it gets us another name," Hitch suggested.

"Maybe."

When we got back to the Porsche, we took five minutes just sitting at the curb in front of Chrissy's apartment, thinking out loud. It was almost four thirty A
. M
. The sun would be coming up soon.

"Where do you want to go from here?" Hitch asked. "It's too late to go to bed. Or make that too early."

"I got that little puffball, Brooks Dunbar, coming in at nine A
. M
.," I said. "Yolanda Dublin says he rented her the house for the party and that she met him up on Skyline two days ago and put the cash in his hand. He says he never goes up there. I'm gonna bust his grapes with that. There's opportunity in deception."

"We also need to go to Paramount and check on what was going on with Scott Berman before he died."

"Right," I said. "Paramount would be a good place for you to pass out some Hole in One business cards."

"Knock it off, Scully. You know we should cover that. We gotta see if Berman was on anybody's shit list, if his life was being threatened. There might be another suspect other than Carl Sweet."

"You mean one that doesn't wrap the movie up too quickly."

"You're reading my mail, homes," he said irritably.

He put the Carrera in gear and chirped rubber pulling away from the curb. We stopped for some coffee and rolls on the way to the office, said very little in the next hour, and then hit the PAB parking garage at a little before six.

Hitch and I looked at the phone sheets and checked my computer. CSI had e-mailed over the initial case notes.

They had collected twenty brass cartridges and fourteen bullets, photographed and plastered eight male shoe prints and six female, all of different sizes. They were now starting the slow process of trying to identify the shoe manufacturers by the sole shapes and tread patterns.

The blood spatter was high-energy droplets, which was consistent with the machine gun fire description that the Prentisses and Yolanda had mentioned.

CSI's notes also indicated they were beginning the painstaking step of dusting every brass casing they'd found, looking for fingerprints the doer might have left when he was loading the clip. From what Hitch and I read, it looked like the forensics part of the case was moving along.

Stender Sheedy showed up at our office at nine o'clock sharp carrying a very expensive wafer briefcase, which looked like it was real alligator. His suit was Savile Row, his watch a Rolex. One of his cufflinks could have paid my monthly mortgage. He was only in his thirties, but already owned an extensive collection of fancy accessories.

"Glad you could make it," I said.

By ten thirty, it was pretty obvious that Brooks had missed his bus. Stender was on the phone making calls. His client either wouldn't answer his home or his cell phone, or he was vibrating under a table somewhere with his nipples stinging, checking out some celebutante's undies.

"I'm filing the warrant," I told Stender.

"Detective Scully, I know how this looks," he pleaded. "I know I promised I'd have him here and I'm sure you don't care about mitigating circumstances, but Brooks has had very little love or parental supervision in his life. As a result he doesn't react well to overt instructions. But I promise on my life, I will have him here by noon. I throw myself at the mercy of the Los Angeles Police Department."

He rendered this argument with such passion and remorse that
I took pity on him. Despite his prominent father, at least Stender Sheedy Jr. had managed to make it through Harvard Law or wherever it is these kinds of guys matriculate.

"Okay," I told him. "But that's your last chance. After that, I'm going to jail your client."

"He'll be here," Stender promised.

When he left, I watched Hitch put some fresh business cards in his wallet and we headed out to Paramount Studios on Melrose.

I thought we were probably still somewhere in Act One, but I didn't want to ask. Frankly, operating with no sleep, I was getting a little confused.

Chapter
14.

We didn't have studio passes to get onto the Paramount lot, but we had badges, which worked just as well. We were allowed to park in the big lot just beyond the main gate. Hitch and I got out of the Carrera and followed the map the guard gave us to A-Building, where Scott Berman's offices were located on the second floor.

Hitch pointed out the Groucho Building to me on the way. As we passed the commissary, Hitch said the food in the executive dining room was interesting fare and the chef made a great lamb osso bucco, which was simmered in red wine until it fell off the bone, but he only served it on Fridays.

The other side of the restaurant Hitch called the "little people" side. The food there was standard cholesterol-clogging cafeteria chow. Hot dogs and lasagna. Better to stay away, he warned.

"That's Lucy Park," he said as we passed an open patch of grass, pointing out landmarks like a driver on the Hollywood tour. "I understand that Lucy and Desi used to eat their lunches out on that lawn, sitting on those very metal benches."

A-Building was a two-story stucco structure that Hitch said was the first building on the lot.

"Howard Hughes had his office here when this was still RKO."

We took the carpeted stairway up to the second floor and turned left into a hallway whose walls were covered in rich brown fabric and decorated with movie posters in simple brass frames.

"Berman's undoubtedly got Howard Hughes's old office. It's a celebrity suite. Has a big Hollywood history. After Hughes, Lucy had it for years. Stephen J. Cannell was there for a while in the eighties, Sherry Lansing after him, then Tom Cruise before he got the boot by Sumner Redstone for jumping on Oprah's couch and tanking the opening of Mission Impossible III. That office has seen a lot of shit go down."

"Hitch," I said, and he turned to look at me. "Stop it."

"I just thought."

"Just stop it, okay?"

"Jesus Christ," he muttered.

"No, but people tell me there's an amazing resemblance." Now he was sulking, but I'd had it.

"And while we're on it, why do you say shit like that?" I asked. "It makes you come off like a total dipshit. We're supposed to be cops. Three people died last night. It's up to you and me to speak for them, to get them some justice. I don't care right now who had that office after Howard Hughes or where Lucy and Desi ate their lunch."

"Fine, then I'm not talking to you anymore," he replied petulantly.

We entered the outer office that serviced Berman's production company and found a pretty assistant. Her mascara had run. She'd been crying.