Gone

CHAPTER 29

Jacalyn Vasquez, minus three kids and makeup and jewelry, looked even younger than when I’d seen her on Sunday. Streaked hair was tied back in a somber ponytail. She wore a loose white blouse, blue jeans, and sneakers. Florid acne played havoc with her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes had regressed into sooty sockets.

A tall honey-haired woman in her twenties held Vasquez’s arm. The blonde’s locks were long and silky. She wore a tight black suit that showcased a bikini figure. A ruby stud in her left nostril fought the suit’s conservative cut. The pretty hair and tight body sparred with a monkeyish face the camera would savage.

She surveyed the tiny space and frowned. “How’re we all going to fit in here?”

Milo smiled. “And you are?”

“Brittany Chamfer, Public Defender’s Office.”

“I thought Mr. Vasquez’s attorney was Kevin Shuldiner.”

“I’m a third-year law student,” said Brittany Chamfer. “Working with the Exoneration Project.” She amplified her frown. “This is like a closet.”

“Well,” said Milo, “one less body should help. Enjoy the fresh air, Ms. Chamfer. Come on in, Ms. Vasquez.”

“My instruction was to stay with Jackie.”

“My instruction is that you enjoy the fresh air.” He stood and the chair squeaked. Silencing it with one hand, he offered the seat to Jacalyn Vasquez. “Right here, ma’am.”

Brittany Chamfer said, “I’m supposed to stay.”

“You’re not an attorney and Ms. Vasquez hasn’t been charged with anything.”

“Still.”

Milo took one big step that brought him to the doorway. Brittany Chamfer had to step back to avoid collision, and the arm she’d used to support Jacalyn Vasquez pulled free.

Vasquez looked past me. The office could’ve been miles of glacier.

Brittany Chamfer said, “I’ll have to call the office.”

Milo ushered Vasquez in, closed the door.

By the time she sat down, Jacalyn Vasquez was crying.

Milo gave her a tissue. When her eyes dried, he said, “You have something to tell me, Ms. Vasquez?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What is it, ma’am?”

“Armando was protecting us.”

“Protecting the family?”

“Uh-huh.”

“From…”

“Him.”

“Mr. Peaty?”

“The pervert.”

“You knew Mr. Peaty to be a pervert?”

Nod.

“How did you know that?”

“Everyone said.”

“Everyone in the building.”

“Yeah.”

“Like Mrs. Stadlbraun.”

“Yeah.”

“Who else?”

“Everyone.”

“Can you give me some names?”

Eyes down. “Everyone.”

“Did Mr. Peaty ever do anything perverted that you know about personally?”

“He looked.”

“At…”

Jacalyn Vasquez poked her left breast. Milo said, “He looked at you.”

“A lot.”

“He ever touch you?”

Head shake.

“His looks made you feel uncomfortable.”

“Yeah.”

“You tell Armando?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to make him mad.”

“Armando has a temper.”

Silence.

“So Peaty looked at you,” said Milo. “You figure that made it okay for Armando to shoot him?”

“Also the calls. That’s what I’m here to tell you.”

Milo ’s eyes narrowed. “What calls, ma’am?”

“The night. Calling, hanging up, calling, hanging up. I figured it was him.”

“Peaty?”

“Yeah.”

“Because…”

“He was a pervert.” Her eyes dipped again.

“You figured it was Mr. Peaty harassing you,” said Milo.

“Yeah.”

“Had he done that before?”

Hesitation.

“Ms. Vasquez?”

“Uh-uh.”

“He hadn’t done it before but you suspected it was him. Did Mr. Shuldiner come up with that?”

“It coulda been him!”

Milo said, “Any other reason the calls bothered you?”

“They kept hanging up.”

“They,” said Milo. Stretching the word.

Vasquez looked up, confused.

Milo said, “Maybe you were worried about a ‘they,’ Jackie.”

“Huh?”

“Armando’s old homeboys.”

“Armando don’t have no homeboys.”

“He used to, Jackie.”

Silence.

“Everyone knows he used to run with the 88s, Jackie.”

Vasquez sniffed.

“Everyone knows,” Milo repeated.

“That was, like, a long time ago,” said Vasquez. “Armando don’t bang no more.”

“Who’s they?”

“The calls. There was a bunch.”

“Any other calls last night?”

“My mother.”

“What time?”

“Like six.” Jacalyn Vasquez sat up straighter. “The other one wasn’t no homeboys.”

“What other one?”

“After the ones that hung up. Someone talked. Like a whisper, you know?”

“A whisper.”

“Yeah.”

“What’d they whisper about.”

“Him. They said he was dangerous, liked to hurt women.”

“Someone whispered that about Peaty?”

“Yeah.”

“You heard this.”

“They talked to Armando.”

“What time did this whispering call come in, Jackie?”

“Like…we were in bed with the TV. Armando answered and he was pissed off ’cause a the other calls hanging up. He’s, like, started yelling into the phone and then he’s, like, stopped, listened. I said what, he waved his hand, like, you know? He listened and his face got all red. That was the last time.”

“Armando got mad.”

“Real mad.”

“ ’Cause of the whispering.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did Armando tell you about the whispering after he hung up?”

Jacalyn Vasquez shook her head. “Later.”

“When, later?”

“Last night.”

“Calling from jail.”

“Yeah.”

“You never heard the whispering and Armando didn’t tell you about it at the time. Then, after Armando shot Peaty, he decided to tell you.”

“I ain’t lyin’.”

“I can understand your wanting to protect your husband- ”

“I ain’t lyin’.”

“Let’s say someone did whisper,” said Milo. “You figure that made it okay to shoot Peaty?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’s that, Jackie?”

“He was dangerous.”

“According to the whisperer.”

“I ain’t lyin’.”

“Maybe Armando is.”

“Armando ain’t lyin’.”

“Did Armando say if this whisperer was a man or a woman?”

“Armando said the whispering made so you couldn’t tell.”

“Pretty good whispering.”

“I ain’t lyin’.” Jacalyn Vasquez folded her arms across her bosom and stared at Milo.

“You know, Jackie, that any calls to your apartment can be verified.”

“Huh?”

“We can check your phone records.”

“Fine,” she said.

“The problem is,” said Milo, “all we can know is that someone called you at a certain time. We can’t verify what was said.”

“It happened.”

“According to Armando.”

“Armando ain’t lyin’.”

“All those hang-ups,” said Milo. “Then all of a sudden, someone’s whispering about Peaty and Armando’s listening.”

Jacalyn Vasquez’s hands, still crossed, climbed to her face and pushed against her cheeks. Her features turned rubbery. When she spoke through compressed lips, the words came out slurred, like a kid goofing.

“It happened. Armando told me. It happened.”

Brittany Chamfer was waiting in the hall, playing with her nose stud. She whipped around, saw Jacalyn Vasquez dabbing her eyes. “You okay, Jackie?”

“He don’ believe me.”

Chamfer said, “What?”

Milo said, “Thanks for coming in.”

Chamfer said, “We’re looking for the truth.”

“Common goal.”

Chamfer considered her response. “What message should I give to Mr. Shuldiner?”

“Thank him for his civic duty.”

“Pardon?”

“Thank him for creativity, too.”

Brittany Chamfer said, “I’m not going to tell him that.”

“Have a nice day.”

“I will.” Chamfer flipped her long hair. “Will you?”

Renewing her grip, she propelled Jacalyn Vasquez up the corridor.

Milo said, “That’s why the D.A.’s office palmed it on me. What a crock.”

“You’re dismissing it out of hand?” I said.

“You’re not?”

“If Vasquez’s lying to exonerate himself, he could’ve picked something stronger. Like Peaty threatening him explicitly.”

“So he’s stupid.”

“Maybe that’s it,” I said.

He leaned against the wall, scuffed the baseboard. “Even if someone did call Vasquez to prime the pump against Peaty, the right suspect’s in jail. Let’s say Ertha Stadlbraun got things stoked up because Peaty had always creeped her out. My interview tipped her over and she stirred up the tenants. One of them was an incompletely reformed banger with a bad temper and boom boom boom.”

“If you’re comfortable not checking it out, so am I.”

He turned his back on me, imbedded both hands in his hair and turned it into a fright wig. Smoothing it down was a partial success. He stomped back into his office.

When I entered, he had the phone receiver in hand but wasn’t punching numbers. “Know what kept me up last night? Damned snow globe. Brad thought Meserve put it there but the one in the van says Peaty did. Would Peaty taunt Brad?”

“Maybe Peaty didn’t leave it.”

“What?”

“Meserve thinks he’s an actor,” I said. “Actors do voice-overs.”

“The Infernal Whisperer? I can’t get distracted by that kind of crap, Alex. Still have to check out all those buildings Peaty cleaned, stuff could be hidden anywhere. Can’t ignore Billy either, because he hung with Peaty and I was masochistic enough to find out.”

He passed the receiver from hand to hand. “What I’d love to do is get to Billy in his apartment, away from Brad, and gauge his reaction to Peaty’s death.” He huffed. “Let’s take care of this whispering bullshit.”

He called the phone company, talked to someone named Larry. “What I need is for you to tell me it’s crap so I can avoid the whole subpoena thing. Thanks, yeah…you, too. I’ll hold.”

Moments later, his faced flushed and he was scribbling furiously in his pad. “Okay, Lorenzo, thanko mucho…no, I mean it…we’ll forget this conversation took place and I’ll get you the damned paper a-sap.”

The receiver slammed down.

He ripped a page out of the pad and shoved it at me.

The first evening call to the Vasquez apartment had come in at five fifty-two p.m. and lasted thirty-two minutes. The caller’s mid-city number was registered to Guadalupe Maldonado. The call from Jackie Vasquez’s mom at “like six.”

Milo closed his eyes and pretended to doze as I read on.

Five more calls between seven and ten p.m., all from a 310 area code that Milo had notated as “stolen cell.” The first lasted eight seconds, the second, four. Then a trio of two-second entries that had to be hang-ups.

Armando Vasquez losing patience and slamming down the phone.

I said, “Stolen from who?”

“Don’t know yet, but it happened the same day the call came in. Keep going.”

Under the five calls was the doodle of an amoebic blob filled with crosses. Then something Milo had underlined so hard he’d torn paper.

Final call. 10:23 p.m. Forty-two seconds long.

Despite Vasquez’s anger, something had managed to hold his interest.

Different caller, 805 area code.

Milo reached over and took the page, shredded it meticulously, and dropped it in his trash basket. “You have never seen that. You will see it once the goddamn subpoena that is now goddamn necessary produces legit evidence.”

“ Ventura County,” I said. “Maybe Camarillo?”

“Not maybe, for sure. My man Lawrence says a pay phone in Camarillo.”

“Near the outlets?”

“He wasn’t able to be that precise, but we’ll find out. Now I’ve got a possible link to the Gaidelases. Which should make you happy. All along, you never saw Peaty for them. So what’re we talking about, an 805-based killer who prowls the coast and I’ve gotta start from scratch?”

“Only if the Gaidelases are victims,” I said.

“As opposed to?”

“The sheriffs thought the facts pointed to a willful disappearance and maybe they were right. Armando told his wife the whispering made it impossible to identify the sex of the caller. If it’s amateur theater we’re talking about, Cathy Gaidelas could be a candidate.”

His jaws bunched. He scooted forward on his chair, inches from my face. I thanked God we were friends.

“All of a sudden the Gaidelases have gone from victims to psycho murderers?”

“It solves several problems,” I said. “No bodies recovered and the rental car was left in Camarillo because the Gaidelases ditched it, just as the company assumed. Who better to cancel credit cards than the legitimate owners? And to know which utilities to call back in Ohio?”

“Nice couple hiding out in Ventura County and venturing into L.A. to commit nasty? For starts, why would they home-base out there?”

“Proximity to the ocean and you don’t have to be a millionaire. There are still places in Oxnard with low-rent housing.”

He yanked his forelock up and stretched his brow tight. “Where the hell did all this come from, Alex?”

“My twisted mind,” I said. “But think about it: The only reason we’ve considered the Gaidelases a nice couple is because Cathy’s sister described them that way. But Susan Palmer also talked about an antisocial side- drug use, years of mooching off the family. Cathy married a man people suspect is gay. There’s some complexity there.”

“What I’m hearing is minor league complexity. What’s their motive for turning homicidal?”

“How about extreme frustration coming to a head? We’re talking two middle-aged people who’ve never achieved much on their own. They make the big move to L.A., delusional like thousands of other wannabes. Their age and looks make it even chancier but they take a methodical approach: acting lessons. Maybe they were rejected by other coaches and Nora was their last chance. What if she turned them away in less-than-diplomatic terms? Charlie Manson didn’t take well to hearing he wasn’t going to be a rock star.”

“This is about revenge on Nora?” he said.

“Revenge on her and the symbols of youth and beauty she surrounded herself with.”

“Tori Giacomo got killed before the Gaidelases disappeared.”

“That wouldn’t have stopped the Gaidelases from having contact with her. If not at the PlayHouse, at work. Maybe she served them a lobster dinner and that’s how they learned about the PlayHouse.”

“They do Tori, then wait nearly two years to do Michaela? That’s a dish gone way cold, Alex.”

“That’s assuming no other students at the PlayHouse have gone missing.”

He sighed.

I said, “The hoax could’ve served as some kind of catalyst. Nora’s name in the paper. Michaela’s and Dylan’s, too. Not to mention Latigo Canyon. I could be totally off base, but I don’t think the 805 link can be overlooked. And neither can Armando Vasquez’s story.”

He stood, stretched, sat back down, buried his face in his hands for a while and looked up, bleary-eyed. “Creative, Alex. Fanciful, inventive, impressively outside the goddamn box. The problem it doesn’t solve is Peaty. A definite bad guy with access to all of the victims and a rape kit in his van. If the Gaidelases were chasing stardom, why would they have anything to do with a loser like him, let alone set him up to be shot? And how the hell would they know to prime the pump by phoning Vasquez?”

I thought about that. “It’s possible the Gaidelases met Peaty at the PlayHouse and some bonding took place- outsiders commiserating.”

“That’s a helluva lot going on during a failed audition. Assuming the Gaidelases were ever at the PlayHouse.”

“Maybe Nora kept them waiting for a long time then dismissed them unceremoniously. If they did bond with Peaty, they could’ve had opportunity to visit his apartment and pick up on tension in the building. Or Peaty talked about his dislike for Vasquez.”

“Ertha Stadlbraun said Peaty never had visitors.”

“Ertha Stadlbraun goes to sleep by eleven,” I said. “Be interesting to know if anyone at the apartment recognizes the Gaidelases’ photos.”

He stared at me.

“Peaty, Andy, and Cathy. And let’s toss in Billy Dowd, because we’re feeling generous. What, some kind of misfit club?”

“Look at all those schoolyard shootings committed by outsiders.”

“Oh, Lord,” he said. “Before I get sucked into this vortex of fantasy, I need to do some boring old police work. As in pinpointing the phone booth and trying to pull some prints. As in keep searching for any troves Peaty might’ve stashed God knows where. As in…let’s not shmooze any more, okay? My head’s splitting like a luau coconut.”

Yanking his tie loose, he hauled himself up, crossed the tiny office, and threw back the door. It hit the wall, chunked out a disk of plaster, bounced a couple of times.

My ears were still ringing when he stuck his head in, seconds later. “Where can I find one of those amino-acid concoctions that makes you smarter?”

“They don’t work,” I said.

“Thanks for your input.”