Night Moves

Chapter 18

At eight forty-nine p.m., Hollywood Division patrol officers finishing their dinner at Tio Taco had responded to an anonymous report of a “415” — unspecified disturbance — and driven to the Sahara Motor Inn on Franklin Avenue just east of Western.

Parking in the mostly empty lot, they knocked on the door of room fourteen. After receiving no reply, Officer Eugene Stargill pretended to peer through a slit in the plastic vertical blinds and see nothing out of order.

“Bogus,” he pronounced. “Let’s book.”

His partner, a gung-ho kid fresh out of the academy named Bradley Buttons, insisted on having the manager check.

As Stargill figured out ways of getting back at the pain-in-the-ass rookie, the manager, Kiran “Keith” Singh, unlocked the door.

At eight fifty-four p.m., Stargill phoned in a dead body, making it sound as if he’d been conscientious.

Hollywood detectives Petra Connor and Raul Biro arrived on the scene at nine eighteen. By nine forty, a coroner’s investigator had gone through the DB’s pockets and produced I.D.

During the brief drive from Wilcox Avenue, the victim’s name had sparked Petra’s memory but she couldn’t get a handle on it. One of those tip-of-the-mind things.

Just as Biro turned off the ignition and she saw the motel, she figured it out. Scanning the homicide list and checking out the details of weird ones was a daily habit for her, though it rarely paid off.

This time it did.

She called Milo. He called me.

I arrived at ten forty-eight, spotted both of them just inside the yellow tape, bootied and gloved. The air smelled of cheap gasoline and fried food. The motel layout was basic: fifteen green doors arrayed to the right, a pitted but generous parking lot. The building was sad gray stucco with a matching warped roof. If the east end of Hollywood ever really got renewed, the value was the lot. The obvious replacement, yet another strip mall.

Milo was facing away and didn’t notice me. His clothes were rumpled, his hair ragged. Petra stood next to him, slim, elegant, black wedge cut swept back from a finely molded ivory face. She looked like a socialite hanging with the uncle who’d blown his inheritance.

She waved. He turned and said, “As promised, insane.”

By ten fifty, I was looking at the prone form of Chet Corvin, facedown on a pink, blood-soaked polyester carpet.

For a hot-sheet Hollywood motel, not a bad room. Management here utilized something minty-fresh to disinfect. The fragrance failed to compete with the copper of fresh blood and the sulfurous emissions from relaxed bowels.

Walls covered in flesh-colored vinyl were freckled with red halfway up and to the right of the corpse. A royal-blue velveteen spread that looked cheap but new lay smoothly, neatly atop the queen-sized bed. A pay-by-the-minute vibrating gizmo, complete with credit card reader, gave off a chromium glare.

The thirty-inch flat-screen facing the bed was tuned to a pay-per-view menu. Adult Entertainment. Men’s clothing was draped over a chair, calfskin loafers lined up neatly, each stuffed with a precisely rolled argyle sock. Chet Corvin wore nothing but boxer shorts, now soiled, as were his thighs. His bare back was broad and hairless, bulky muscles padded with fat. One hand was concealed under his torso. The nails of the other were manicured and glossy.

Two ruby-black holes formed a neat colon on the back of his neck, visible in the thin strands just above the hairline. One wound placed precisely above the other.

I said, “Skillful shooting.”

Milo nodded. “C.I. says the first woulda likely put him right down — straight to the brain stem. After that, the shooter could take time lining up the second.”

“Maybe a statement,” I said.

Petra said, “Such as?”

“I’m proud of my work.”

Both of them frowned.

My gaze shifted to the wood-aping plastic nightstand bolted to the wall left of the bed. A man’s alligator-skin wallet sat next to two water glasses and a bottle of Chardonnay. Sonoma Valley, Russian River, three years old. A label that looked high-end but I’m no expert.

I said, “Date night?”

Milo said, “Heavy smell of perfume in the lav says some kind of party. Petra informs me it’s Armani, probably sprayed — aqua what?”

“Acqua di Gioia,” she said. “I sometimes use it myself.” Smiling. “When I need to wake Eric up.”

I said, “Expensive?”

“I get mine at the outlets but even with that, not cheap.”

Milo said, “Rounding out the picture, we’ve also got some longish brunette hairs that aren’t Chet’s on the bathroom counter. The kid at the front desk claims the room was cleaned a few hours before Corvin checked in at eight eleven, no one else used it in the interim, hopefully he’s being straight and we’re not talking leftover debris.”

“I think he is, nice kid,” said Petra. “Goes to college during the day, just started working here. We’re not talking some street-smart compulsive liar.” To me: “Anything else occur to you?”

I said, “Corvin drove a Range Rover. Didn’t see it out front.”

“Wasn’t here. We’ll check local CCTV, see if we can pick it up.”

Milo said, “No video here except behind the desk, good shot of Corvin checking in. He looks relaxed. Used his real name, paid with a company credit card.”

I said, “Someone else who was proud of himself.”

“Fits with what we’ve seen of ol’ Chet.” To Petra: “Like I told you, guy was a blowhard.”

I said, “Shot dead thirty-eight minutes after he got here. He check in alone?”

“No one else on the video,” said Milo. “Whether his amusement for the evening was waiting in the car or she arrived separately is impossible to know at this point. The setup is everyone pulls up to their own door and for obvious reasons there are no cameras in the lot except for one at the far end with a view of the rear alley.”

Petra said, “Monitoring the dumpsters, God forbid someone should hijack the trash.”

I said, “His clothes are off and most of the wine is gone but the bed doesn’t look as if it’s been used.”

Milo said, “We’re figuring they were warming up and it never got to the next stage.”

“Is that wallet full?”

Petra said, “Three hundred and some change, plus all his credit cards. Pictures of his kids, too. But not his wife.”

“No surprise,” said Milo. “Like I said, disharmony ruled his roost.”

I said, “So not a robbery.”

Petra said, “Unless the Rover was the target.”

“Take the car and leave all this money? Line up those bullet holes and clean up the casings? Looks more like an execution.”

She shrugged. “In view of the body in his den, you could be right. But the car was taken.”

Milo said, “Maybe as a bonus — spot the keys, book.”

“So how did the murderer get here?”

Silence.

I said, “Are you looking at the woman as a suspect?”

Petra said, “Could be. Or she and Corvin got invaded, he got shot, she escaped.” Frowning. “Or she didn’t. If I find out a female called it in, she gets lower priority as a suspect.”

“№ 911 tape?”

“No, it came to us on the non-emergency line as a nonspecified 415. We’ve got civilians working the desk, I’ll talk to whoever took the call. The body was warm when patrol got here so whoever it was called pretty soon after.”

I said, “Not using 911 could’ve theoretically slowed the process and given the caller time to gain some distance from the scene. That could fit with Corvin’s companion escaping but not wanting to get involved.”

Milo said, “That, long hair, perfume, this neighborhood, a lady of the night is a decent bet. Easy to see why she wouldn’t wanna be involved.”

I said, “A Hollywood hooker using Armani?”

Petra said, “You’d be surprised, Alex. I’ve seen girls come into the jail soaked in really good stuff.”

“The wine doesn’t look cheap, either.”

“You know it?”

“Nope, but Russian River’s a prime Chardonnay region.”

Milo said, “See why he’s so useful?” He peered at the label, ran a search on his phone, whistled. “That particular year, seventy-nine bucks a bottle.”

I said, “So maybe it wasn’t a commercial transaction.”

Petra said, “A tryst with a girlfriend? He’s got an expense account and platinum cards and brings her here?”

I pointed to the porn menu. “A little bit of sleaze to spice things up?”

Milo grinned. “There’s a psychological insight... yeah, why not.”

Petra’s slim fingers drummed her forearm. “Slumming for fun? Okay, I can see that.”

She looked at the body. “Talk about a party with an unhappy ending. We’ll do a neighborhood canvass, try to find out if anyone remembers seeing him with a female.”

Milo said, “We’ll also be looking for Mr. Bitt, skulking around.” To me: “I filled her in.”

Petra said, “I’ll also subpoena his credit cards and his phone.”

“I can do that,” said Milo. “If you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind not dealing with the phone company? Be my guest, but how come you want to?”

“This is your turf, kid. I need your brains on the street.”

“Sure,” said Petra. “If we are dealing with the same offender as Braun, he’s super-organized, no? I suppose Bitt could be like that. His art’s extremely meticulous.”

Familiar with the cartoonist? Then I remembered: Before entering the police academy on a lark, she’d worked as a graphic artist. “You know Bitt?”

“I know of him, Alex. One of the guys I went to school with loved his work and used to bring it in for the rest of us to admire. I could see the talent but I thought it was mega-sick.”

She tapped her foot, took a step closer to the body, retreated. “Even so, that’s not what I find interesting, art and personality aren’t an obvious link. It’s his stonewalling and the gun story. On the other hand, if Chet Corvin was targeted first by dumping Braun in his house, why would Bitt call attention to himself? And why would he go after Corvin, here? This scene and what Milo tells me about Corvin’s life on the road, there could be a long list of angry husbands and boyfriends.”

Milo said, “All true but I’m not ready to put Bitt aside. We surveilled him four nights and it came to zilch but Sean took it on himself to do a drive-by tonight at eight thirty, God bless the lad, and Bitt’s truck was gone. So maybe he was stalking Corvin. We need to check every camera we can find, see if the truck shows up. That’s what I mean about keeping it local.”

Petra said, “Raul will love that. You know how he is, makes compulsive look sloppy. If there’s something there, he’ll find it. If we do get Bitt in proximity to the scene, I can’t see you not getting your warrant.”

“Fingers crossed.”

Knock on the open door. A pair of crypt deliverymen with a collapsible gurney and a body bag stood outside.

One of them said, “We ready?”

We left as the clacking and sacking commenced. Cool night, thin traffic on Franklin. Some of the surrounding buildings were prewar and pretty, conceived when Hollywood was Hollywood. The Sahara motel and others looked like scars on an actress.

A dark-haired man in a cream-colored suit approached. Detective Raul Biro, compact, prone to striding confidently, had one of those faces that didn’t age in real time. His hair was black with blue overtones, thick and glossed with something that subdued every loose strand, his skin as smooth as that of a toddler.

I’d seen him at the most brutal of murder scenes. He never looked anything but put-together and tonight was no exception: in addition to the impeccably tailored suit, a baby-blue shirt woven by agreeable silkworms and navy-blue suede loafers with gold buckles.

Something new, tonight: instead of the usual silk cravat, a braided leather string tie fastened by a polished oval of black onyx.

He saw me looking at it. “From Sedona, I think it’s over the top but the wife’s one-twelfth Navajo and she likes it. Usually, I take it off when I get to the office and put on a normal one. Tonight I forgot.”

I said, “It’s a good look, Raul.”

“You think?”

“You bet. Texas Ranger comes to L.A.”

He laughed. “There’s a TV show for you. How’s it going, Doc?”

“Great. You?”

“Better than great, new baby,” he said. “Gregory Edwin. Blond, like the wife, can you imagine?”

“Congrats.”

His smile was wide and bright. “First-class baby, meaning he sleeps, we finally got it right.” He looked at unit fourteen. “This is a bizarre one, no?” To Petra: “I got us six uniforms for the canvass. What parameters do you think?”

She said, “Let’s start with Franklin, go a mile east and west. Nothing shows up there, we can either expand it north — south, or just south and concentrate on the boulevard.”

“Boulevard’s going to have tons of cameras,” said Biro. “We could be going through it until who knows when. And unlikely Corvin’s going to be walking, at best we’ll see his car passing, at super-best, leaving here.”

“There’s another target vehicle, Raul.”

She told him about Trevor Bitt’s black Ram pickup. Described Bitt and the fact that he’d stonewalled for over two weeks.

He said, “Guy sounds nuts.” To me: “You’ve probably got a better word for it.”

I said, “Not tonight.”

He laughed again.

Petra said, “You want this to be our case, Milo? Or are we assisting on yours? I want to know in terms of organizing my own mind. As in who notifies the wife and kids.”

Milo said, “I’ll do it. Tomorrow morning, family’s been through enough, no sense waking them up in the middle of the night.”

Biro said, “You viewing the wife as a potential suspect? Seeing as he was messing with another woman?”

“Nothing points to that, Raul, but nothing says no.”

“We get lucky, another domestic murder for hire. Not that it would account for your body in the den.”

Milo said, “Alex has always said that pointed to Chet as the likely target.”

Petra said, “Obviously, Alex was right. And if Braun was connected to Chet in some way that made her beaucoup mad, she could’ve hired a professional to do both of them.”

Biro said, “Dump a corpse in hub’s private space, there’s a big middle finger for you.”

Milo said, “You see that, Alex?”

I said, “I can’t see Felice traumatizing the kids.”

“Fair enough,” said Petra. “But if she’s got money separate from his, let’s try to find out if she’s spending it unusually, as in unspecified cash payments going out.”

Milo said, “There is a decent chance of separate accounts. These people have been separate for a long time.”