The Wedding Guest

Chapter 2

Sometimes Milo briefs me before a crime scene, sometimes he waits until I get there.

This time he sent me an email attachment along with an address on Corner Avenue in West L.A.

His call had come in at ten oh five p.m. By ten fifteen, I was dressed and ready to go. Robin was reading in bed. I kissed her, didn’t have to explain. Two minutes later, I was cruising south on Beverly Glen.

I turned west on Sunset, found the boulevard free and clear until a red light stopped me at Veteran near the northwestern edge of the U.’s campus. Activating my phone, I checked out the attachment.

E-vite. Gray lettering over a skin-rash-pink background.

I’d thrown on a navy turtleneck, jeans, and rubber-soled shoes that could tolerate bloodstains, wore my LAPD consultant badge on a chain. Dead bodies and the hubbub they attract call for unobtrusive, not hot.

I took Veteran south, drove through Westwood and into West L.A. Corner’s not far from the West L.A. station, a stubby, easily overlooked street that paper-cuts Pico Boulevard as it hugs the 405 overpass. The address put the scene north of Pico, on a freeway-deafened strip of abused asphalt. Street lighting was irregular, creating leopard-spot shadows.

I passed a scrap yard specializing in English cars, a plumbing supply warehouse, a few auto mechanics, and an unmarked warehouse before reaching the final building, just short of a chain-link dead end.

Two-story stucco rectangle painted dark, maybe black, no windows.

A crudely painted sign topped a slab metal door. Thunderbolts above assertive lettering. Marquee bulbs rimmed the sign. Some were still working.

Alley to the left, parking lot to the right, now yellow-taped. Fifty or so vehicles sat behind the tape. Behind them was a generator-fed trailer that chuffed. Open door, a cook in a white tunic: pop-up kitchen.

Outside the tape was a smaller grouping of wheels: Milo’s unmarked bronze Impala, a white Ford LTD that I recognized as Moe Reed’s current ride, another Ford, maroon, that I couldn’t identify, a gray Chevy.

Four detectives for this one. Plus the eight uniforms who’d arrived in a quartet of black-and-whites. Two of the squad cars were topped by clinking cherry bars.

Off to the right, the white vans, crime lab and coroner’s, a pair of ominous twins.

No coroner’s investigator car. Come and gone.

Easy identification or none at all.

Despite all the squad cars, the only uniform in sight rested her hip against the driver’s door of a blinking cruiser. Working her phone, looking serene.

As I walked toward her, she gave me a glance. Usually I get stopped and have to show I.D. She said, “Hey, Dr. Delaware.”

I’d seen her somewhere; the site of someone else’s misfortune.

I said, “Hi, Officer... Stanhope.”

Her phone screen was filled with kittens wearing funny hats. She clicked without self-consciousness. “Cute, huh? Around the back, Doc, it’s pretty crazy.”

Slowly spreading smile. “Guess that’s why you’re here.”

The remaining seven uniforms were walking among the parked cars, copying license plates. Milo watched the process from a rear metal door. His arms were crossed atop the swell of his gut. His height, his bulk, and the scowl on his face fit the image of club bouncer. His droopy brown suit, tragic tie the color of pesto sauce, once-white wash-’n’-wear shirt, and tan desert boots didn’t.

He lowered his arms. “Thanks for coming. Got a hundred people inside, a whole bunch of them boozed up. The plan is to settle them down, then Moe and Sean and Alicia Bogomil will try to get info. You get what I meant about context.”

“A wedding?” I said. “I do.”

He stared at me. Cracked up.

I said, “Interesting venue. Looks like a low-rent strip joint.”

“That’s ’cause it once was. Before that it was some kind of church.”

“Saints and Sinners.”

“Huh?”

“The wedding theme.”

“Doubtful that’s the reason, Alex. I’ve met the lovely couple, don’t see them as that abstract. C’mon, let me show you where the big sin happened.”

A building-wide passageway carpeted in tomato-red low-pile took us past an open space. Parquet dance floor centering round tables for ten. Paper plates and a single scrawny sunflower on each table.

To the left were a long buffet table, three portable bars, a photo booth, and a bank of videogames. Empty red plastic cups dotted the floor along with crumbs and stains. Plastic streamers drooped from the ceiling. Four polyethylene columns attempting to look like plaster segmented the walk space from the party space. The remnants of a strip joint evoking Caligula.

The tables in the main room were occupied by sober-faced people dressed for celebration. Most were in their thirties, a few were old enough to be the parents of thirty-year-olds. A rear stage held a deejay setup. Obstructing a clear view of the stage were three chrome stripper poles, one bedecked with plastic sunflowers on unlikely vines. Lacking music and dim lighting, the room had the sad, rancid feel of every after-hours club. A bit of conversational hum drifted toward us, unable to compete with a heavy, gray silence.

Detective Moe Reed, with the powerlifter’s build and youth of an actual bouncer, stood watch on a third of the tables. Detective Sean Binchy, tall, lanky, and baby-faced under ginger spiked hair, was in charge of the next group. Last was Alicia Bogomil, just turned forty, with gimlet eyes and knife-edged features. The ponytailed long hair I’d seen when I met her was replaced by a no-nonsense bun.

Milo and I had encountered Alicia when she worked private security at a hotel where a patient of mine had been murdered. She’d been a real cop in Albuquerque for seven years, moved to California for a romance that didn’t work out, was languishing when she helped us with info.

She’d mentioned joining LAPD to Milo. I had no idea there’d been follow-through. No reason for me to know; for nearly three months, there hadn’t been a murder where Milo felt I’d be useful.

As we passed the partygoers, a few looked up. The slumping posture and resigned eyes of passengers stranded in an airport.

I said, “How long ago did it happen?”

Milo said, “Victim was found at nine fifty, probably an hour before, give or take.” He glanced at the crowd. A couple of people looked over hopefully. As Milo continued to walk, their heads drooped.

“Meet my new alter ego: Officer Buzzkill.”

We continued to the end of the walkway, hooked left as if we were exiting through the front door, then he made another left and began trudging up a flight of grimy stairs.

I said, “Up to the VIP area?”

“Doesn’t look like it ever was one, nothing pimped-up about the second floor.”

“Maybe back in the day this place was a pioneer of income equality.”

He huffed and began climbing the stairs. At the top, a third left took us down a narrow, low-ceilinged hallway. Four doors, three of them closed.

A suited, gloved, and masked crime scene tech squatted near the open door. Beyond her was a small bathroom. Urinal and sink to the left, wooden stall straight ahead. The floor and walls were inlaid with yellowish tiles that had once been white.

Cramped, windowless space. A mélange of foul odors.

The stall door was propped open. A dark-haired young woman lay facing us on the floor. Late twenties to early thirties, wearing a blood-red, one-shoulder dress that had ridden up to mid-thigh. Pantyhose trailed up to what looked like red bicycle shorts.

She was diminished by death but still beautiful, with smooth skin and delicate features. Hints of cream in her skin where the terminal pallor hadn’t set in.

Luxuriant wavy black hair fanned the dirty floor as if arranged that way.

I asked if it had been.

Milo said, “Nope, the girl who found her thought she was sleeping, poked her, and she slid and ended up like this.”

The tech lowered her mask. “Hair falls that nicely, you’ve got a good cut.” Young, Asian, serious. “I’m not being mean, she hasn’t skimped. The dress is Fendi, the shoes are Manolo, and the hair is awesome.”

Milo said, “Thanks for the tip.”

I said, “The girl who found her, what was she doing up here?”

Milo said, “Trying to find a place to pee. She knew about this john because she’d been up here before the wedding. One of the bridesmaids. Those other rooms are where the wedding party got dressed and prepped.”

The tech pointed to a yellow pool to the left of the body. “That’s from the girl who found her, not the victim. Her bladder didn’t hold out.”

I said, “Where is she?”

“In Moe’s group.”

I studied the body. Didn’t need to get close to see the ligature band on the dead girl’s neck. Deep enough to cut into flesh and create a blood-flecked necklace.

“Garrote?”

The tech said, “Looks like something thin and strong, like a wire.”

“Or a guitar string. Any musicians at the wedding?”

Milo said, “A maniac into real death metal, downstairs? I should be so lucky. Nah, just a deejay.”

I said, “A bit more pressure and we’d have a near decapitation.”

Both of them looked at me. “No insight, just an observation.” But I wondered about the precise exertion of force.

I turned to the tech. “Strangulation but she didn’t evacuate?”

The tech said, “She actually did a bit — there’s a little mess under the dress but she’s wearing a body shaper and it held stuff in.”

She lifted the dress, pointed to the girl’s inner thigh. The suggestions of a stain where the pantyhose met the shaper. “Not much from what I can see but we’ll know more when she gets to the crypt.”

She shrugged. “She doesn’t look like she needs a shaper. Maybe she’s a body perfectionist, didn’t eat much beforehand ’cause she wanted to rock the dress and that’s why there’s not a whole lot of feces. Or she’s just not a big evacuator, some people aren’t.”

Hearing the woman discussed that way, seeing her exposed, made my throat ache. I turned away and waited until the red dress was dropped back into place. “What makes you figure an hour ago?”

Milo said, “Leanza Cardell — girl who found her — said she was cold, so at least an hour.”

The tech said, “Liver temp fits one to three hours, but you know how that is, this ain’t TV.”

I said, “When did the celebration start?”

Milo said, “Ceremony was at a Unitarian church in the Valley at five. Reception was called for seven but you know traffic, my guess would be seven thirty, eightish but I’ll confirm.”

“It couldn’t have happened too early, with the rooms being used for the wedding party. So maybe closer to nine.”

He thought about that. “Good point.”

The tech nodded.

I said, “C.I.’s are gone already. Easy I.D. or none?”

Milo shook his head. “Zip. She’s dressed for the wedding but Leanza doesn’t know her and she claims to know everyone from the bride’s side. Which is most of the crowd. I took a screen shot of her face, sent it to the Three Musketeers. Once you agree, they’ll start showing it to the guests and the staff.”

“Why wouldn’t I agree?”

“I dunno, maybe you had some psychological thing in mind.” He looked at the dead woman. “Poor thing — this is different, no? Talk about crowd control issues.”

I said, “At least there are no kids. Not that I noticed downstairs.”

“You know,” he said, “that’s true.”

“Time to go for it.”

“Hundred suspects,” he muttered as he sent a text to Reed, Binchy, and Bogomil.

I said, “How many people on the staff?”

He checked his notepad. “Three bartenders, three cooks doubling as servers — which was just bringing chow from the trailer to the table. Three cocktail waitresses, two cleanup guys, the deejay, the photographer. Except for the cooks and the janitors, none of them are in uniform so they can’t be distinguished from guests.”

I said, “Per the invitation: Everyone has to look hot.”

The tech said, “She certainly followed instructions.” Smoothing the hem of the red dress, she stood. Five feet tall, maybe ninety pounds. Perfect for working in a cramped space.

I said, “I don’t see a purse.”

Milo said, “Nada.”

The tech said, “The shoes probably won’t help I.D. her, they look like a new model, you can get them anywhere. But the dress, maybe. If it’s vintage, you could be dealing with upscale resale boutiques. On the other hand, there’s online, so maybe not.”

“You know your fashion, huh?”

“Sister wants to be a designer. She’s obsessed.”

“Maybe she can help with the age of the dress.”

“She’s sixteen, Lieutenant. My parents already hate that I do this, I was supposed to be a dentist. If I get Linda involved, they’ll accuse me of being a bad influence.”

Milo said, “Hey, that can be fun.”

She grinned.

He edged closer to the corpse. “Dress doesn’t look like it’s been worn much.”

The tech smiled. “Something nice and expensive, people tend to take care of it, Lieutenant. Could even be one of those runway things, worn once, then resold. The discount is huge.”

“Killer couture,” he said, shaking his head. “Thanks for all the input. Very helpful, CSI... Cho.”

“Peggy,” said the tech. She sighed. “For some reason this one seems especially sad to me. She took so much care to look her best.”

I said, “Trying to impress someone.”

Milo said, “Also easier to crash the party. If that’s how it shakes out.”

I said, “If she was a crasher, how would she know to come up here? Unless she’s been here before. At another function. Or back when it was a club.”

He eyed the body. “A dancer? Why not, nothing about her says she wouldn’ta been qualified. It’s worth checking out if nothing downstairs pans out. God forbid.”

Peggy Cho remasked. “If you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’m going to start printing the room. Place is gross. If my parents really understood what I do, they wouldn’t let me in the house.”