The Wedding Guest

Chapter 20

At the door to building A, he phoned Pena and got voicemail. Muttering, “Not a promising start to our relationship, Bob,” he tried again with the same result. Glaring, he said, “One more time... there you are, Bob. We’re ready to get into Lotz’s place. Like now... yes, I have a warrant... see you out front.”

Whatever Pena said made him smile.

I said, “Penitence?”

“More like terror. He impresses me as a guy who’ll always be afraid of something.” He tapped his foot and scrolled through his email. “Crap... crap... crap... all crap. The disinformation age.”

The door opened and Pena came out. “I called the company about the feed. Person in charge was out.”

“Who’s that?”

“Sandra Masio.”

“What’s her number?”

“Got it on speed dial, don’t know it by heart.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“Back in my office.”

“Where’s that?”

“Ground floor of B,” said Pena. “So I can be in the center of things.”

“Here’s my card, Bob. Find the number and email it to me while we look over Mr. Lotz’s grand palace.”

“He never complained about living there.” Pena licked his lips. “Nothing like this ever happened.”

I said, “How long have you been working here?”

“Four years.”

A year and a half before Cassy Booker’s death. “How many deaths have there been during that time?”

Pena blinked twice. “Why would there be deaths, sir?”

“Four years, lots of people,” I said. “Things happen.”

“What I meant was no employees ever” — Pena looked at the floor — “did what he did.”

I said, “What about resident deaths?”

A beat. “There was a professor — an old guy, visiting from somewhere, U. put him up here for a year. Right after I started he had a heart attack. He was old.”

His eyes raced to the left, faltered, reversed direction, and slid past my scrutiny.

Milo said, “What else, Bob?”

“A little later there was one other one.”

“A professor?”

Head shake. “A student, don’t know exactly what happened. The EMTs took her away, later the family came and took her stuff without talking to me. Company didn’t hold her to the lease.”

“Big of them,” said Milo. “How’d she die?”

“No one told me, sir,” said Pena. “They took her in an ambulance and she never came back.”

“You weren’t curious.”

Pena tried out a smile, ended with a queasy parting of lips. “You know what they say about the cat.”

I said, “Did this girl die two and a half years ago?”

Milo’s eyebrows rose.

Pena chewed his lips. “That sounds about right. I wasn’t here, someone else did the 911.”

“Who was that?”

“I had an assistant.”

“You don’t anymore?”

“Not necessary.”

“Corporate downsizing.”

“I don’t know what it was, but he’s gone and I don’t need it,” said Pena.

“He met the parents.”

“Don’t know what he did, just the 911. Back then I was also supervising some Section Eights the company has downtown.”

Something he’d just said he’d avoided.

Milo said, “What’s your former assistant’s name?”

“Kramer.”

“First name.”

“Pete. He was part-time.”

I said, “What was the girl’s name?”

“It’s important?” said Pena.

Milo said, “Maybe, maybe not. We can check county records, but it’d be easier if you just told us.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, but like I said, don’t know their names, even the ones living here now. Unless they cause big problems, there was this kid, son of an ambassador. Long name I couldn’t pronounce, called himself Tim. Him I remember, nothing but problems. We finally expelled him.”

“When was that?”

“When I started.”

Clear memory of four years ago.

I said, “The girl who died, which building and unit did she live in?”

“Building B,” said Pena. “The unit I can’t tell you. Don’t even remember the floor — it wasn’t One, that I can tell you, my office is on One, she wasn’t near there. Maybe Two. Probably Three. I’m pretty sure not Four.” He scratched beneath his lower lip. “I want to say Two or Three.”

Another failed smile. “It was a long time ago.”

“Was her name Cassandra or Cassy?”

Milo’s eyes widened.

Robert Pena said, “Like I said... maybe. Could be, sounds right. Like you said, you can check records.”

“Right,” said Milo. “And what you can do is unlock that gate and the metal door and give the company another call about the camera feed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pena trudged off.

Milo turned to me. “What was that all about?”

“Maxine told me a girl in the same program as Amanda had committed suicide. I ran some searches and found her name. Cassy Booker. Pena seemed evasive about other deaths, so I gave it a shot.”

“Same program as Amanda. She write an essay, too?”

“As a matter of fact, she did.”

He folded his arms across his barrel chest. “You didn’t think to say anything because...”

“The case was going in a lot of directions and at the time it didn’t seem to clarify anything.”

“Protecting my feeble brain from too much input?”

“Trying to be efficient, Big Guy.”

“Hmph.”

“I’m still not sure it’s relevant. College student suicide isn’t all that rare — five to ten per hundred thousand, meaning two to four a year on a campus the size of the U.”

“But now you’re asking Pena about it.”

“Long as we had him, I figured why not.”

He stared at me. “You don’t see Amanda as Princess of Doom.”

“I was actually wondering if she’s a potential suicide.”

“Why? The program’s too much stress?”

“Her affect’s off — flat, withdrawn. At her brother’s wedding she opted out emotionally. You could see it as hostility but it could be serious depression.”

“Or she’s just got a weird personality.”

“Weird people can get depressed.”

His arms tightened, bunching his jacket sleeves. “Sad, not a brat, huh?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“You took your cautious pills today.”

“Take ’em every day.”

He freed his arms, began finger-counting. “On the other hand, her brother’s wedding is totally ruined by a murder involving heroin and fentanyl and she doesn’t appear to give a damn. A few days later a junkie who just happens to clean up her building spikes himself to death. If we find Lotz died from the same cocktail as Red Dress, I’m breathing hard. We find out so did this Cassy Booker, I’m hyperventilating.”

“You see Amanda as a dope dealer?”

“I don’t see anything, I’m just feeling weird.” He slipped on rubber gloves. “You’re obviously not, good for you. I’m gonna go excavate.”

“Want help?”

“No, too cramped in there.”

I get paid irregularly and stingily by LAPD but refuse to go on the department payroll because it would kill my spirit and radically slash my income. The uncharted arrangement Milo and I have makes a lot of what I do — driving him around, questioning witnesses, inspecting crime scenes — a potential violation. That’s never caused a problem because Milo’s solve rate is astonishing and the chief thinks I’m part of that — he’s the one who tried to lure me into civil servitude.

On top of that, for all its paramilitary stance, LAPD flexibility is commonplace even when there’s scant benefit to the department. A glaring example is celebrities swapping ride-alongs for autographs and selfies cops can show their kids.

Back in 1991, a charming, good-looking Austrian writer named Jack Unterweger came to L.A. on a magazine assignment about international law enforcement and got chauffeured around the downtown red-light district by veteran detectives. Unterweger turned out to be a sexual sadist who’d strangled seven women in Europe and he used what he’d been shown to savage three additional victims.

Despite that, no change in policy resulted, because L.A. is Improv City: Reinvent yourself, make up the rules as you go along, all the while inhaling whatever whiff of fame you can suck from your aspirational bong.

I’m fully at ease tossing victims’ residences, not so much standing around and doing nothing as Milo pulled a peeved solo.

No problem, it would pass.

I walked around the parking garage until I snagged some bars on my phone, checked my mail and my messages, wrote a few replies. Then I looked up Academo, Inc.

Closely held corporation in Columbus, Ohio. Scant info beyond a couple of articles in business magazines that specialized in financial porn.

The forty-five-year-old brainchild of an Ohio State alum and benefactor named Anthony Nobach, the company was presented as a model of entrepreneurial spirit. Born to humble beginnings, Nobach had earned spending cash as a freshman by charging fellow students modest fees for locating cheap housing. The following year he created a moving company named Cheap Tony’s with rates tailored for students.

By the time Nobach graduated, he’d amassed several parcels of depressed real estate near campus and was converting slums and tear-downs to low-rent student rentals. His next step was rehabbing a failed government housing project bought on the cheap and creating a private student dorm, with much of the cost absorbed by the university and a federal housing grant.

Academo now owned and operated mega-structures in Boston, Cleveland, Syracuse, Rochester, Bloomington, Salt Lake City, Tucson, L.A., and San Diego. Anthony Nobach, described as “religious and a model of mid-Western probity,” remained as CEO. A younger brother, Marden, was the chief operational officer.

Online consumer ratings were the predictably meaningless mix of adoration and excoriation. Overall grade: 3.5 stars.

Keywording academo inc and death produced nothing. So did substituting suicide and murder for death. An image search pulled up shots of other properties. The company favored characterless structures with the same unbroken façade as the building we were in.

I called Maxine Driver and asked her if the students in the DIY program knew one another.

She said, “No idea. What’s cooking?”

“Nothing yet.”

“When dinner’s ready you’ll ring the bell?”

“Your reservation has been duly noted.”

With Milo already cranky, I figured an overstep wouldn’t make much difference and phoned Basia Lopatinski at the coroner. Away from her desk, voicemail. I asked her to look up Cassy Booker’s file.

Heading back to Michael Lotz’s room, I entered the utility area and came face-to-face with Milo, flush-faced, waving a piece of paper.

“Where’d you go? Look at this!”