Killer Ambition

35

We didn’t talk during the flight. It was packed, so the case was strictly off-limits, and we were too tired for small talk, so the moment we were airborne, we both fell asleep. But in the last hour of the flight a baby-whose Benadryl had probably worn off-woke up and began to cry nonstop. I felt sorry for the little one, but I confess, the noise was getting to me. And from Bailey’s expression, I saw I wasn’t the only one. “Want to send over a shot of Jack Daniel’s?” I asked.

Bailey turned to face the window and closed her eyes.

Now fully, and unhappily, awake, I distracted myself by thinking about what our next moves should be. Apparently, Bailey did the same. The moment we cleared the Jetway, she leaned in and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “We’re getting a telephonic for Averly’s place.”

It was nearly six o’clock, so the only way to get a search warrant right now was telephonically. The only problem with that idea was that it meant we’d have no choice of judge. We’d get whichever one had pulled the after-hours duty. Though I thought we had enough probable cause to hit Averly’s apartment-and his car, for that matter-you just never knew when you’d get stuck with a judge who wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I started framing the pitch in my head as we raced through the terminal and out to the parking lot.

While Bailey drove, I called in and asked for the duty judge. And got Judge Pastor. A lucky break, because he was both smart and quick on the uptake. With the phone on speaker, I gave him the rundown, and when I’d finished, he immediately said, “You’ve got it. Put Detective Keller on.” I held the phone closer to Bailey and the judge swore her in. By the time she drove up the ramp to the freeway, we had our warrant. I called the station and Bailey found Detective Harrellson.

“I need help. We’ve got a warrant for an apartment and a car.”

Harrellson knew better than to ask on a cell phone whose place we were about to hit. “Send me the address. I’ll get a team together.”

I e-mailed him Averly’s address and the license plate of his car. We got lucky and hit a pocket of light traffic, so it didn’t take us long to get there. I noticed that Jack Averly’s apartment wasn’t far from Brian’s place geographically. But otherwise it was a world away. Though Brian’s place had been impersonal, his building was alive with working people still dialed in to the world. Averly’s looked like a broken toy abandoned in a vacant lot. Worn down and used up. The lobby’s glass door was dingy, the paint on the splintered wood frame was peeling and bare in places, and the carpet runner was stained to the point where it was impossible to tell what color it had been originally. Even in shoes, walking on it was gross.

Averly’s apartment was even worse. Nothing more than a Dumpster with running water. A plastic ashtray overflowed onto the cheap particleboard coffee table with smoked-down roaches, and a baggie of weed lay on the floor next to a beanbag chair. Against the opposite wall, on top of an old, dusty television set, was a pizza box. The buzzing sound coming from inside it told me the flies were taking care of Averly’s leftovers. The bedroom was exactly that: a room with a bed-or rather a mattress-on the floor. Not even a dresser. He’d stacked some of his clothes in U.S. Postal Service plastic bins-the kind you see left next to mailboxes on the street-and the rest he’d just thrown around the room. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to it, just a matter of whim that likely depended on his state of sobriety. I left the bathroom and kitchen to the cops and didn’t even look. It was bound to be the stuff nightmares are made of. Not having to search places like that was a perk of being a DDA. I noticed the cops were happier than usual to glove and mask up before tossing this sty. And they only had to do the general combing for the big, obvious things that might link Averly to the kidnap and murders-like Hayley’s or Brian’s property, or the ransom money. I couldn’t even think about what the criminalists would have to endure when they dug for the fine-point search.

I watched them work for a while, but the place smelled so gamy that eventually I had to get outside. Even the smog and monoxide were a vast improvement over the fetid air in that stink pad.

The luckier officers got to stand watch over Averly’s car, which was parked outside in the carport. It was an old blue Mustang and in only slightly better shape than his apartment. Inside, I could see that the backseat was strewn with McDonald’s bags, Taco Bell wrappers, plastic cups, and empty beer bottles. Surprisingly, the front seat was relatively tidy-just a couple of Coke cans on the driver’s seat.

Bailey was standing behind the car, examining the tires. “Hey, Bailey,” I called out. “We can add a charge of open container if we need to hold him longer.” I pointed to the empty beer bottles. She gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up.

Just then, Dorian’s Tacoma came roaring up the street.

Dorian strode up with her box of magic tricks. I’d never seen someone so short have a stride so long. As she opened her box and gloved up, Bailey came over and asked her to check out the tires and undercarriage in particular. She did it respectfully, but of course it didn’t matter.

Dorian stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Wait a minute. You think you need to tell me how to do my job?”

“I just wanted to make sure-”

“Do I remind you to sign your search warrant? Get a witness’s phone number? Run a rap sheet? Or-”

“I apologize.” Bailey held up her hands.

“Go help them”-Dorian gestured to a couple of young officers guarding the crime scene tape around the carport- “and let me do my job.”

As Bailey backed away, Dorian shined her flashlight into the front seat of the car. She’d brought a crime scene photographer with her, and he moved around the car, taking pictures at her direction. When he’d finished, she dusted the driver’s and passenger’s doors for prints, then pulled out a slim jim and popped the driver’s door open. After photographs of the interior were taken, Dorian began to work over the seats with some kind of tape. I left her to it and walked up the street to get a sense of the neighborhood. None of the other buildings looked as bad as Averly’s, though one or two came close. But overall, it was a typical lower-middle-class hood on the east side of Hollywood: struggling actors, office workers, mechanics, a smattering of families, and sketchily employed twenty-somethings splitting the rent on a studio.

When I got back to the carport, Dorian was opening the glove box, and I saw her remove a small notepad. After she’d put it into a plastic bag, I asked to see it. “Don’t open the bag,” she ordered.

“I wasn’t going to.” I looked at the writing on the top page. It was a phone number.

Bailey peered over my shoulder and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call it in,” she said, and moved away.

I went back to watch Dorian, being careful to stand out of her line of sight and, therefore, fire. Seconds later, Graden pulled up. Damn. I suddenly remembered that he’d asked me to text him when I landed.

“I was just about to text you,” I said when he walked over to me.

“No you weren’t.”

“I know. Sorry.”

Graden waved off the apology. “You’ll remember next time.”

“And you know this because?”

“I will shamelessly bribe you.”

“That could work,” I said. “With?”

“Admission to the Police Academy shooting range.”

I love the outdoor shooting range at the Police Academy in Elysian Park. The entire facility was originally built for the 1930 Olympics and the buildings have old-style charm, plus the setting is lush and arboreal. In short, it was a great bribe. Damn: Graden was good.

“I’ll think about it,” I lied-I was already on board. “What brings you out here?”

“I wanted to see what you got.”

“And?” I looked at him expectantly.

“And I have news for you guys.”

“And?” I was losing patience.

“And, of course, it was a transparent excuse to see you.”

“Finally, the truth.”

“I’m a little rusty. I’ll get better.” He signaled to Bailey and she walked over to us. “I got the report back on those texts we pulled off Hayley’s phone-the ones between her and Brian. They were all sent on Boney Mountain.”

Bailey and I exchanged a look. We’d thought so. It was the most logical explanation for all the evidence we’d seen so far.

“Good to have that confirmed,” Bailey said. “Now I’ve got news.” She told Graden about the numerous calls we’d found to and from an unknown caller on Averly’s cell phone. “I just found out whose phone they came from.” Bailey paused, her expression unreadable.

“Who?” I asked impatiently.

“Ian Powers.”

“Russell’s manager? No way.”

What on earth would a high-powered manager and co-owner of one of the most successful production companies in town be doing with a little pissant like Averly?

“Yep-way. And the number on that pad in Averly’s glove box?”

“Ian’s?”

Bailey nodded.

“What the hell…?” I gave voice to the only explanation that came to mind. “So he’s Ian’s dealer?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Averly have a rap sheet for drugs?” Graden asked.

“Minor league, but yeah,” Bailey said.

“Did ‘unknown caller’ show up at other times on Averly’s phone?” I asked. If so, it would mean they had an ongoing connection-the kind you’d expect to find between a dealer and a regular customer.

“We’re still working on it.”

Graden shook his head, his expression troubled. “Did you know that Powers set up a charity that sends underprivileged kids to summer camps?”

“No. How come you do?” I asked.

“The group coordinates with LAPD to target the toughest neighborhoods. The idea being to get the kids out of harm’s way while school’s out and they have too much time to get in trouble.”

“Good idea,” I said. When I’d first met Ian Powers at Russell’s house, I’d had a vague memory of his name being connected to something in a legal context but couldn’t remember what it was. Now it came to me. “Didn’t he sponsor some legislation to protect child actors? Something about putting counselors on sets where there were child actors so they could act as monitors and prevent abuse…”

Graden squinted for a second before answering. “Sounds familiar.”

I looked at Averly’s car, pictured the dump of an apartment just beyond. “So what the hell is he doing hanging around a guy like Averly?” I asked.

We all stood in silence as the question hovered in the air.

Bailey’s phone rang and she stepped away to take the call, leaving me alone with Graden. I had to admit I enjoyed having him involved in the case. I wondered if I’d be pushing it to ask him out for a bite tonight. Until Dorian processed her evidence, there wasn’t much else we could do. “Graden, do you have any plans for dinner tonight?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “I’m taking out a smokin’ hot prosecutor.”

Silver-tongued devil. He wasn’t that rusty.