The Wedding Guest

Chapter 8

Three public high schools in Lancaster. DelRay Hutchins didn’t work at Lancaster, Eastside, or Antelope Valley. Same for half a dozen religious academies in the area.

I said, “Maybe he didn’t score a high school gig.”

Milo nodded. “Time to dial down.”

Moments later, the utterly uncurious receptionist at Piute Middle School said, “Coach? Let me try to find him.”

A few beats later, Milo had finished a brief conversation with the fifty-three-year-old former powerlifter/AFL footballer/bouncer now training tweens in the fine art of collision.

No, Hutchins had never worked with a Kimba or a Kimby but maybe there was a girl named Kimmie-Lee who matched the victim’s physical stats? Don’t hold him to it.

Milo said, “Anything you remember would be useful.”

“There’s not much,” said Hutchins.

His hazy recollections jibed with James Johnson’s: quiet girl, stuck to herself, no problems with anyone he’d ever noticed, yeah, he’d heard The Aura closed down, why in the world would she return to “that trash dump”?

He was able to give Milo the numbers of two other dancers at The Aura (“friends of mine, no problem telling them I told you, they love me”).

Anja “Catwoman” Przdowek and Brooklynne “Slinky” Baker roomed together on the western rim of Los Feliz. Both had arrests for minor drug possession and, in Slinky’s case, for prostitution, twice.

They came on the phone simultaneously, giggling about being questioned by a “murder detective.” Both proclaimed their “total adorable love” for Hutchins. “We don’t see DR much since he moved but when he lived in Hollywood, he was kinda like a father to us.”

Neither of them had other than a faint remembrance of the girl they recalled as Kimmy.

Quiet, stayed to herself.

Catwoman said, “Not mean-quiet, like shy-quiet.”

Slinky did recall “two bizarre things.” Kimmy didn’t drink or smoke and she liked to read.

“Like a nerd,” said Catwoman.

Milo said, “What did she read?”

“Like I’m gonna notice? You notice, honey?”

Slinky said, “Like I’m gonna notice? It’s like she wasn’t there, sir.”

Milo said, “Staying in the background.”

“Yeah,” said Catwoman. “Not a star, that’s for sure.”

“Do you have numbers for any of the other girls who worked with her?”

“Negative,” said Slinky. “Them bitches come and gone. Me and Cat are a couple.”

“Got it.”

“Hope you do. We’re in love!”

Shared laughter.

Milo said, “You guys have been helpful. Anything else you want to say?”

“She had no chest,” said Slinky. “Don’t want to yelp her cold, not especially now with her all murdered, but to be honest, sir, she had leetle boobarellas and was a totally non-dancer. But I’m not saying she was nothing. Her butt was nice and her face was hot.”

“Hot face,” agreed Catwoman. “I am totally dis-amayed that anyone would hurt her.”

“Find out who did it,” said Slinky, “and fuck him up.”

Milo hung up. The phone receiver landed with a horse-hoof clop. Out of a jacket pocket came another plastic-wrapped panatela. Again, he rolled it between his palms, creating tobacco dust. He does that more often, now, rarely smokes.

A wrist-snap lob landed the trashed brown cylinder in the wastebasket.

I said, “No net. Impressive.”

“Huh.” He crumpled a few departmental memos and shot them in, too.

A third cigar emerged. How many could he fit into a pocket?

He studied it, put it back. “So let’s sum up blue Monday. Lotsa talk, no solid info.”

I said, “Everyone gave a consistent picture of her.”

“But they can’t even agree on her name.” He swiveled and faced me. “Any of them could be lying and what happened is related to the club and someone knows it. Or they’re leveling and it’s still related to the club. Or the wedding. Or the bachelorette party. Or something else completely. Why the hell would she go back there?”

He shot to his feet like a bottle rocket, leaving the chair creaking in relief. Stretching, he grazed his fingers on the ceiling. Sitting back down heavily, he set off a new chorus of squeaks and pressed a finger to his pocked brow.

“Know what’s flashing in here? My two least favorite words: ‘Anything’s possible.’ Tell me something that narrows it down. You can lie, too.”

I said, “The description of her street clothes, her backpack, and her books makes me wonder about a moonlighting student.”

“Moonlighting coed? Kind of a cliché.”

“Clichés endure because they’re often based on truth.”

“Using her spare time to catch up on classes,” he said. “Or Johnson was right and she was doing puzzles.”

“Maybe both,” I said. “In any case, we just met another student who’s sweet as a wolverine.”

“Little Amanda. My my my.” He sat back and grinned. “Could you lend me some neurons?”

He phoned the campus police at the U., spoke to a fellow lieutenant named Morales and asked about missing students.

Only one active case, a young man from Shanghai who’d taken a trip to San Diego a week ago and hadn’t returned.

“If you can solve that, I’m your new BFF,” said Morales. “Chinese consulate’s calling me daily, along with various Feds and an intern for some assemblyman from San Gabriel. Like we control the brats when they’re here, let alone when they leave. If your girl’s not Chinese, please don’t tell me she’s some other kind of foreigner.”

“Don’t know what she is,” said Milo. “Don’t even have a name.”

“Oh, man, you’re at square minus one,” said Morales. “Good luck.”

Glib, no curiosity. Busy with his own problems.

Milo said, “I do have some possible names. Kimba, Kimby, Kimmie-Lee, Kimberly.”

Morales said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“Wish I was.”

“Nah, none of those ticks any boxes here.”

“One more: Amanda Burdette.”

“Whole different name for the same girl?”

“Different girl and Burdette’s definitely a student,” said Milo. “It’s possible she knew my vic.”

Morales said, “Got forty-three thousand two hundred seventeen students to deal with — hey, here’s a fun idea: Let’s go down the list, one by one. By the time we’re ten percent done, we’ll be pension-eligible.”

He laughed. “Not trying to make your life difficult, my friend, but no Kims or Amandas are on our radar and I can’t help you. Unless your girls are part of that anti-fascist pain-in-the-dick bunch, likes to bust things up for stupid reasons. We got four of those idiots being naughty on CC last week. Breaking windows at a ninety-year-old professor’s house because he brought some speaker to class they didn’t approve of, thank God he didn’t have a heart attack. Skinny little assholes in those Guy Fawkes masks, a couple move like they’re probably females.”

“Masks,” said Milo. “Good luck on that one.”

“Ha,” said Morales. “Now you’re getting even.”

During the conversation, I’d googled missing u. student and paired it with Kim-names.

Only one hit, on a crime history site: Twenty-two years ago, a local girl named Kimberly Vance had vanished. Not from the U., from the old school across town where I taught pediatric psych. Ancient history but I told Milo about it, anyway.

He said, “Guess what, I worked that one.”

“That’s Southwest Division.”

“So it is.”

“How’d it become a West L.A. homicide?”

“It became a West L.A. non-homicide. Rich sorority girl, ran off with a married professor, he took her to a free-love weekend up in Big Sur, got some weed in her, took her clothes off, and then she had second thoughts and hitchhiked back. Took her three days to reach L.A. Besides the prof, the biggest danger was getting run over by a semi.”

“Same question: Why’d you work it?”

“Special request from above.” He smiled. “You’ll notice there was no follow-up story.”

“Family with influence.”

“Family who donated to the mayor’s reelection committee.”

“Too bad our girl has no obvious connections,” I said.

“Our girl’s business as usual,” he said, loosening his tie. “Give me your tired, your poor, your dead.”