Heartbreak Hotel

Chapter 36

The guard’s name was Herman Montoya. His Facebook page advertised eighteen pals, all family members. Thirteen of whom were vacationing with him in Sedona, Arizona, in celebration of the eighty-fifth birthday of the matriarch, Montoya’s grandmother, Estrella.

Details of the trip were courteously laid out.

Milo said, “Now everyone on the planet knows their houses are vacant. He works with scumbags all day and gets this careless?”

Everyone also knew the Montoya family’s mode of transportation from Colorado to Arizona: a caravan of rented RVs, scenic stops along the way.

Arrival date, yesterday. One of Montoya’s daughters was kind enough to list the mobile home park hosting the caravan as well as the creature comforts it provided.

Milo said, “If the information age keeps growing, detectives will be redundant.”

“You’ll always be needed,” I said. “Personal charm and all that.”

He grunted and phoned the desk at Red Rock RV Lodge.

The manager was an agreeable woman, had no problem walking over to check Herman Montoya’s patch of asphalt. After being reassured by Milo that none of the clan was suspected of anything.

“Salt of the earth,” he said. “He’s in law enforcement.”

“Awesome,” she said. “We love law enforcement. Okay, shouldn’t take long, I’ll get back to you.”

Five minutes later, Milo’s cell played a Sousa march.

A soft, wary voice said, “Herman Montoya. This really LAPD?”

Milo repeated his name and rank and Montoya said, “Okay, what’s up?”

“Thanks for calling back. Sorry to interrupt your vacation.”

“Vacation,” said Montoya. “How much red rock can I look at? Also, the jewelry’s outrageous but of course they all have to have some. You got me curious. What can I do for LAPD?”

Milo told him.

He said, “Sure I remember her. Name was DeeDee, last year or so she was there every couple months to see Bakstrom.”

“Not Waters.”

“Just Bakstrom.”

“DeeDee what?”

“Hmm... those were her initials, Dee something, Dee something... sorry, that’s what I remember, she called herself by the initials. Hi, I’m DeeDee. Cheerful, like that. She’d get all wiggly, the hips, you know? Had a pair of boobs on her, whoa. But like I care. What I care, honey, is you don’t slip him something that’s going to hurt me.”

“Bakstrom was violent?”

“No,” said Herman Montoya. “Just talking generally, every visitor’s a potential problem. But she was okay, except for too friendly with the staff. I don’t like ’em too friendly, usually means they’re hiding something.”

“Friendly and wiggly.”

“God gave her a bod and she sure used it,” said Montoya. “Premium bod. Face, too. Good-looking chick. Not what we usually get.” He laughed. “By that I mean she had all her teeth. Dee... what the heck was her name...?”

“Something with a ‘D,’ ” said Milo. “How about Drancy?”

“Nope.”

Too-quick answer. Milo sagged. His lips formed a silent obscenity.

Herman Montoya said, “Dee... I’m having a senior moment... maybe Diane, maybe Deena... Debbie. Something with a darn ‘D.’ ”

Milo said, “Duchess?”

“Ha,” said Montoya. “Now you’re kidding me. It was a while back, sorry.”

I said, “Demarest?”

Milo stared at me.

Herman Montoya said, “Who was that?”

Milo said, “My colleague, you’re on speaker.”

“Oh. Didn’t hear what he said.”

“Could the last name be Demarest?”

“There you go! Demarest. Now I remember. Damn I’m losing it. I used to make a joke to myself when she’d flip the hair, wink and wiggle and tell me I didn’t need to bring a female guard to search her. I’d tell myself, ‘Give it a rest, Demarest. I don’t care how cute you are, honey. My deal is getting out by end of shift not on a gurney.”

Noise piled up in the background. Montoya said, “Hold one sec.”

A few seconds of dead air before he returned. “Wife and sister and daughters and granddaughter have jewelry to show me. Anything else I can help you with?”

“Did DeeDee visit anyone else but Bakstrom?”

“Just him. His cellie, Waters, no one came to see him. The two of them were always discussing something. Bakstrom and Waters.”

“Any idea about what they talked about?”

“You know cons,” said Montoya, “too much spare time. For all I know they were setting up a political party and planning to run for office.”

“Any discipline issues for either of them?”

“Nope,” said Montoya. “They did their time and piled up the behavior points and now you guys have to deal with them — Deandra! That’s her first name, it just hit me.”

“Deandra Demarest.”

“Yup, D and D.”

“Terrific, Officer Montoya. Thanks a ton.”

Montoya said, “So what’d these jokers do in L.A.?”

“Killed a bunch of people.”

“Killed? A bunch? Geez,” said Montoya. “Killed...” Soft whistle. “Nothing like that with us, like I said, no problems with either of them. But we’re like a separate society, the smart ones figure out the rules and adapt. Then they get out and break your rules.”

Deandra Katrine Demarest, thirty-nine, had two arrests that showed up in NCIC.

Age nineteen, armed robbery, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Age twenty-nine, writing bad checks in Ossining, New York.

I said, “Every ten years. She was due.”

“Those are the two she got caught for,” said Milo. He looked up the details, read, printed, passed over the info.

The robbery, of a jewelry store, had been committed by two ex-cons. One, Demarest’s boyfriend, had done the gun-waving and the looting, the other drove the getaway car. Deandra, sitting in the backseat, claimed she’d known nothing about the vehicle being stolen or plans to rob. She’d pled down to accessory before the fact, got a year in prison, most of which was consumed by time served.

The bad check earned her probation and community service at a local preschool, due to “the absence of prior arrests and exigent circumstances.”

Milo said, “Her and toddlers, there’s a smart move.”

I said, “Isn’t Ossining where Sing Sing is?”

“Sure is. Another con-romance, huh?”

“Good bet,” I said. “With Louisville on her record, why no priors, there?”

He said, “Shitty record keeping, no one talks to each other. Also ‘exigent circumstances’ is D.A.-speak for ‘I’m letting you off, honey.’ Maybe she got wiggly and impressed some prosecutor. Preschool. Brilliant.”

He pointed to the pair of mugshots. “She does have the equipment to impress.”

Mugs bring out the worst in their subjects; even movie stars come across desperate and eroded. Deandra Demarest’s smile said the booking process was just another modeling session.

Both times she’d held her head up high, rotated her face to create a flattering contour, squared her shoulders, flashed perfect teeth. Her smile was a strange mix of wholesome and sinful.

The kind of blitheness that comes with getting away with too much for too long. In her case, biology helped: perfect oval face, cute cleft in her chin, widely spaced blue eyes with enormous irises that would make her appear appealingly confused when she was anything but. All of that crowned by a creamy sweep of wavy hair — brunette at nineteen, blond at twenty-nine.

They say eyes are the true mirrors to the soul but Deandra Demarest’s eyes projected a softness that did nothing but lie. The kind of earnestness and implied vulnerability that could sell anything.

The photos offered no view of the body she’d worked to impress Montoya but the stats said plenty: no change in over a decade: five-five, one hundred nineteen, “slender build.”

A lithe structure free of scars, tattoos, or distinguishing marks. Eschewing ink because she knew what she had, wanted to keep it pristine.

Milo said, “In both shots she looks younger than her age.”

I said, “Easy to preserve yourself when others are doing the dirty work.”

“No aliases or nicknames, she must’ve added the Duchess bit later.”

He ran a DMV search; no license or registered vehicles. No employment history, per Social Security. “Guess preschools don’t report.”

I said, “For all we know she’s doing the same thing here under an assumed name.”

He shook his head. “DeeDee Demarest. So much for the Drancy hypothesis.”

I said, “Wrong family but the correct theory. I wonder how she sprouted on a cop’s family tree.”