Killer

CHAPTER 27

Black in the car, Milo got a text. He read, scowling.

“Binchy. Ree Sykes’s car just showed up in the lot at Union Station, parking stub puts it there since the night Connie was killed. If she paid cash she’s untraceable. Motive, timing, a definite rabbit, and that blood in her apartment says a lot to me, amigo.”

I didn’t answer.

He started the car. “Just what I need, Mama and baby riding the rails to who-knows-where. Most likely with ol’ Winky, seeing as he cut out right around the same time. Talk about a paternity test.”

Steering with one hand, he phoned Sean Binchy, ordered him to remain at the train station for as long as it took to show DMV photos of Cherie Sykes and William Melandrano to Amtrak clerks, porters, and security guards. “They’ve got cameras but with all the in and out, who knows. Nothing pans out, Sean, have a big steak on Uncle Milo then go back and see if the night shift remembers anything. Really work the place. You need help, get Reed. He’s busy, draft someone else.”

He hung up and drove faster. I said, “Ree kept her secret all these years, finally told Melandrano he was the daddy.”

“Why now?”

“Who knows?”

Thinking to myself: They’re creating a new family.

He said, “She took a chance he’d be pissed, her keeping it from him all this time. Maybe she risked it because she wanted help in her time of homicidal need.”

“The two of them did Connie together?”

“Why not? A tag team fits the crime scene perfectly: Ree knocks on Connie’s door, says she wants to talk things over, work out an amicable arrangement. Connie lets her in, before she knows it, Melandrano’s there, sticking her in the gut. Connie goes down, Melandrano finishes her off with her own belt. No resistance, no mess, nice and organized. Baby was probably in the car the whole time. Now they’re gone, traveling light because they’re serious about disappearing.”

My head was flooding with what-ifs. So many things to be wrong about.

Taking on a case that should never have been allowed in the first place and nearly dying for it.

Milo rubbed his hands together. “Let’s bust up a happy-family road trip.”

Pulling over, he got back on the phone, initiating the APB process on Cherie Sykes and William Melandrano. Then he reached Binchy again and checked the progress of the workup on Ree’s car.

A few fingerprints in the expected places but no obvious signs of anything suspicious. The vehicle would be towed to the auto lab for a closer look. Once the prints were cataloged, an AFIS search would start rolling.

He pocketed his phone. “Her arrests are dinky and they predate AFIS, and Melandrano’s not in the system. Too bad, I’d love to confirm his presence in the car, start laying the grounds for conspiracy.”

I said, “You could send someone to swab his apartment door, see if anything matches.”

He looked at me. “If you weren’t so helpful I’d be irritated.” Brief call to the crime lab before turning back to me. “Someone’ll be at Winky’s place in a couple of hours, thank you, Perfessor. Okay, let’s try to talk to the lucky guy who isn’t the father, see what he has to say.”

Bernard “Boris” Chamberlain’s address was on Franklin just east of the avenue’s terminus at La Brea. This was the heart of residential Hollywood, a mixed bag of run-down short-term rentals and once-lavish structures from the twenties prettied up to varying degrees.

Chamberlain lived in one of the rehabbed buildings, a multi-turreted, five-story, vanilla-colored fantasy tagged Le Richelieu by a calligraphic neon sign dribbling over brass-framed double glass doors.

The lobby evoked the reception hall of an old deco oceanliner with rounded corners and stepped molding tracing the perimeter of a twenty-foot ceiling. The plaster was moisture-spotted. A chrome chandelier was unlit. Puckered brown wallpaper was patterned with calla lilies. The carpet was a patchwork of gray remnants laid down clumsily.

No doorman, no security of any sort. Two brass-cage elevators were each marked Out of Order. The directory between the lifts listed B. Chamberlain in Apt. 405.

We climbed.

Ash-colored floors, walls, and doors made the walk up the fourth-floor hallway an ooze through an oversized lead pipe. Milo’s knock on Chamberlain’s door elicited an immediate, emotionally neutral “Hold on.”

The man who opened was middle-aged and bald but for gray side-hairs gathered into a foot of braid that rested atop his left shoulder. His features were meaty and compressed, his skin the color and texture of Muenster cheese. An immense torso balanced precariously on curiously spindly legs. He wore a black sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off to allow tree-trunk arms some room to maneuver, brown velvet pajama pants, Japanese sandals. Behind him was a dim space set up with a barbell on a rack, a pressing bench, a pair of electric basses, and a small, football-colored Pignose practice amp.

Milo said, “Mr. Chamberlain?”

“Yeah?”

“Police—”

“Finally. Those idiots.” Chamberlain crooked a thumb to his right. “Idiots,” said Milo.

“The tweakers? Two doors down in 409? Rich kids slumming and slamming. They wear designer threads, have that rotting skin, look like skeletons.”

Milo said nothing.

Chamberlain said, “All’s I know is Cat and Jeremy, that’s what they call each other. All’s the directory says is Cat.”

Mammoth arms crossed a convex slab of chest.

Milo said, “What have they done to bother you?”

“Done? Same damn thing, over and over,” said Chamberlain. “Since they moved in, it’s been hell. They’re out all day scoring and shooting, come back at three, four, five a.m., mistake my door for theirs, try to open it, wake me up with all the scratching and banging. Company that manages this dive is useless. Then I call you guys, you send officers over, by the time they arrive it’s quiet, they knock on those lowlifes’ doors, no one answers, they say they can’t do anything. One of your guys had a bad attitude, trying to make me feel I was paranoid. Actually said, ‘You live in a place like this, you can expect bad stuff.’ So what now, they finally did something violent?” He sneered. “Cat and Jeremy. Living off the parents, shooting everything right up the arm.”

“We’re not here about that, sir.”

“What? Jesus. Then what?”

“Could we come in, Mr. Chamberlain?”

“For what?”

“A few minutes of your time.”

“About what?”

“Cherie Sykes.”

Chamberlain squinted. “Cherie? She okay?”

“Could we come in?”

Chamberlain’s arms dropped heavily. “She’s not okay? Oh, man, don’t tell me something bad, it’s too early in the day for bad.”

“She’s fine, Mr. Chamberlain. Could we come in? And I will make sure someone with authority knows about those tweakers.”

“Cat and Jeremy,” said Boris Chamberlain. “Lowlifes like that, it’s only a matter of time, right?”

Milo nodded. Took a step forward.

Chamberlain didn’t budge.

Milo pointed past him.

Chamberlain said, “Sure, fine. But there’s nowhere to sit.”

No false advertising; the front room was devoid of furniture and the adjoining kitchen looked unused. Bottles of protein shake and a blender crowded the counter. A single window was blocked by a blackout shade. A low-watt bare bulb in the ceiling allowed in some drear.

The basses were a four-string Fender Precision that looked vintage and a six-string Alembic. Serious gear, same for the Bassman amp in a far corner. The barbell disks added up to three hundred pounds, not counting the bar. The brown vinyl of the bench was ripped and sweat-stained.

The room stank of exertion.

Boris Chamberlain said, “I’m not much for entertaining. So what’s up with Ree — with Cherie?”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“The last time … had to be a couple of weeks ago. Why?”

“What about William Melandrano?”

“Winky? What about him?”

“They both seem to have left town. Possibly together.”

“Left? No way. Why would Winky do that? We’ve got a gig every — we’re in a band together. Left? What for?”

“We were hoping you could tell us.”

“Me? First I’ve heard of it. You’re sure you’ve got your facts straight?”

“What was their relationship?”

“Ree and Winky? Friends. We all are. From junior high, we go way back. Why? What’s this about?”

“Far as you know they weren’t intimate?”

“Intimate?” Back went the arms, closing across thorax. The resulting sound was a side of beef slammed against a meat-locker wall. “I don’t really want to be having this conversation.”

Instead of replying, Milo produced his cell phone. Punching a preset, he said, “Petra? Milo. Listen, I happen to be here on your turf, got a concerned citizen who’s not getting the service he deserves from your blue meanies.”

He went on to summarize Chamberlain’s woes with Cat and Jeremy. “Yeah, I know Scott, that would be great, kid. And hey, I might be saving you some work, ounce of prevention, you know? These two sound like they’ll cause problems.”

Boris Chamberlain’s mouth had dropped open during the conversation.

Milo said, “That was a Hollywood detective named Connor. She does homicide but she’s passing the information along to a narcotics detective named Scott Perugia. Will contact you personally regarding your neighbors. That doesn’t satisfy you, you call me.” Handing over his card.

“Okay … thanks.” Chamberlain’s eyes dropped to the card. “Homicide. What’s going on?”

“We’ll get to that but first please answer my questions. Were Mr. Melandrano and Ree Sykes intimate?”

“Did they ever do it?” Chamberlain’s cheese-face turned pink. “Yeah, sure, but a long time ago. Fact is … whatever.” He tapped a foot.

“Ree was your band’s groupie?”

“No, no, nothing that tacky. We all knew each other, did some traveling together.” Chamberlain’s eyes rounded. “Oh, that’s what you’re getting at. Them hitting the road because they’ve got a thing? No way, I’d know if that was the plan. What the hell’s going on? These are people I care about, if something happened to them—”

“Are you aware of Ree’s problems with her sister?”

“Connie? Trying to steal the baby? What a bitch, she always was. One of those brainiacs but you don’t have to make other people feel stupid.”

I said, “She lorded her smarts over everyone else.”

“Megatons of attitude. We had nothing to do with her. No one did, she was a loner. And way older than us. Then all of a sudden Ree comes in looking like someone died, we say what, she says Connie’s trying to steal my baby. Ree loves that kid, she’d do anything for it and Connie saying she’s unfit? What bullshit. But Connie’s got money, she can keep torturing Ree, that’s the way the system works.”

“Ree’s still worried about that,” I said.

“Could you blame her? Taking her to court in the first place was evil. Making her go broke so she’ll give up?”

“Nasty.”

“Evil.”

“Winky have feelings about that?”

“We all do, who wouldn’t?” said Chamberlain. “Ree’s good people. Got a heart out to here.” His arms uncrossed and spread.

I said, “Ree’s raising the baby all by herself and now she has to deal with Connie on top of it.”

“Evil,” he repeated.

“What about the father?”

“What about him?”

“If she had a partner it would be easier.”

“Yeah. Well, she doesn’t.”

“You have no idea who the father is?”

“Ree never said.”

“Connie had theories.”

“Did she.”

I said, “Two names came up in her lawsuit.”

“Did they.”

“You have no idea.”

“What’re you saying?”

“In court documents Connie named Winky and you as possible fathers.”

Pink turned to vermillion. “That’s bullshit! No way. That kid was born like … a couple of years ago and we …” He trailed off.

I said, “The baby’s sixteen months old.”

“Even more true. Ree and me haven’t been — we were never really like that, anyway.”

Milo and I said nothing.

“Oh, man,” said Chamberlain. He waved Milo’s card. “You got to tell me: Did someone get killed?”

Milo said, “Connie did.”

“What? Fuck. When?”

“Couple of nights ago.”

“Oh, man — you’re thinking Ree had something to do with that? No fucking way. Ree’s like the most nonviolent person in the world.”

“We keep hearing that.”

“That’s ’cause it’s true.”

“What about Winky?”

“Winky? Let me tell you about Winky,” he said. “Back in the day, Lonesome — the band, we’re Lonesome Moan — back in the day we toured all over the country, did a lot of dives. Sometimes we’d end up in situations, you know? People drinking or smoking too much, assholes get hostile.”

He flexed a monumental biceps. “Sometimes you need to take care of business.” His eyes shifted from me to Milo. “You look like a guy who played some football.”

Milo smiled. “Guard.”

Chamberlain tapped a bulging pectoral. “Center and D-tackle. Till I discovered Leo Fender. Anyway, what I’m getting at is best defense is offense, back in the day there was some tussling. Me and Chuck and Zebe — those are the other guys in the band — we whaled a few butts. But not Winky. When the shit hit the fan you could count on him being out in the van or some other place where his nose wouldn’t get like mine.” Rubbing the battered organ.

“Conflict-averse,” said Milo.

“Um … yeah, sure. What I’m trying to get across is Wink would do anything to avoid bloodshed.”

“Even when threatened.”

“Especially when threatened,” said Chamberlain. “Back in the day it pissed us off, we thought it should be all for one, you know?”

“Like the musketeers.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I said, “Winky couldn’t be counted on.”

“We’re getting our clocks cleaned, doing some cleaning of our own, he’s out in the van. Okay, he’s a small guy, but still.”

I said, “How did Ree react to tussles?”

Chamberlain stared. “She’s a girl, what could she do? And don’t get the idea she was always with us. Sometimes she was on the bus but just sometimes.”

“Was she ever around when clocks got cleaned?”

“How would I know?” he snapped. “It’s been a long time, who remembers shit like that?”

I said, “What we’re getting at is was there a special relationship between Wink and Ree?”

“They’re friends, we’re all friends.”

“Close enough friends for her to call him when she needed help?”

“What’re you getting at?”

Milo said, “Okay, here’s some facts: Ree and Winky got the hell out of Dodge the same night Connie got killed and Ree’s car just showed up at Union Station.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wish I was, Boris.”

Chamberlain rubbed his bald head. “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

We waited.

He said, “I dunno, maybe they just felt like splitting. It can get that way, right?”

“What can?”

“Life. It closes in.”

“Connie gets murdered, Ree and Winky decide to take a random train trip,” said Milo.

Chamberlain threw up his hands. “I got nothing else to tell you.”

“Else? You really haven’t told us much, period.”

“That’s ’cause all I know is nothing. I mean, you knock on my door, I’m supposed to make shit up?”

Milo said, “Good title for a song.”

“Huh?”

“ ‘All I know is nothing.’ ”

“Oh … yeah, maybe.” He walked over to the Fender bass, removed it from the stand, thumbed a rapid run down the neck.

“Nice technique,” I said.

“I practice.”

Milo said, “Detective Perugia will be calling you today. You come up with any original ideas about Ree and Winky, you call me, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Chamberlain began to rotate away from us.

I said, “One more thing: Why do you think Connie suspected you or Winky of being Rambla’s dad?”

Chamberlain’s body remained in place but his head swung back. “Probably because we used to party together.”

I said, “Any other reason?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did anything happen more recently that would—”

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah, fine, what’s the big deal?”

His mouth clamped shut. We waited.

“Okay, yeah, a few months ago we’re gigging and Connie shows up out of the blue. Sits at the back drinking water, pretending to be there for the show but she doesn’t give a shit about music, is checking us out, we have no idea why. Obviously it was about Ree. ’Cause Ree was there, too. Behind the bar. Helping Chuck. He owns the place and he also drums so when he’s drumming he could use help and that night his regular bartender was out. So Ree’s filling drinks and she doesn’t see Connie at first. Then the song ends and I look where Connie was sitting and she’s gone, I’m thinking good riddance. Then we take our break and are hanging and Ree and Winky are like … okay, nothing serious, just a little making out, okay? Ree’s affectionate … you know. With me and Ree, it’s not even that, just a kiss, friendly, okay?”

Vermillion had turned to ruby. “Then she appears again and she’s watching.”

“Connie.”

“Guess she never left, maybe she was in the john, I don’t know. Whatever, she’s there, giving us the stink eye. Like we’re maggots. Then she walks out with this creepy-crawly smile on her ugly puss. Soon after, Ree gets served with legal papers.”

I said, “You never got served.”

“No way.”

“Sounds like Connie was the paranoid one.”

“Oh, man,” he said. “To put Ree through something like that.”

“But now Ree’s gone, along with Winky.”

“Well I don’t know about that but no way did either of them have anything to do with Connie. And let me tell you, a lot of people could’ve hated Connie.”

“Not Miss Charming?” I asked.

“Bitch was a total waste of space.”