True Detectives

CHAPTER 20

Ax Dement left the motel first, after thirty-two minutes of party.

Moe, antsy the whole time, watched him go and decided to stay until the couple exited.

Hoping a couple would exit. Given what he'd learned. Talk about guilt… to his relief, the woman stepped out, tying her hair in a high ponytail. Heading straight for the motel's front office, she got buzzed in without ringing the bell. Once inside, she placed her hand on the clerk's shoulder. Smiled. Squatted and disappeared from view.

The lights went out for just under three minutes. The woman exited the office massaging the back of her neck, waited by the Corolla until her companion appeared.

He staggered to the car. She rubbed his bald head and the two of them got back in. The Corolla bumped out of the parking lot, turned right on Sunset.

Again, the idiot forgot to turn on his lights. This lapse extended for three and a half blocks.

The idiot had a name, courtesy Moe's mobile terminal.

Raymond Allison Wohr.

Street moniker: Ramone W. Every mope considered a nickname his birthright.

Male white, five eleven, one eighty, brown and brown. A DOB that made him thirty-seven, an address in La Puente that was probably outdated.

A little younger than Moe's guess, but no surprise given Wohr's history.

The MDT had spat out a twelve-page sheet, and that didn't include the sealed juvenile record. Nearly two decades of arrests, mostly dope. Lots of weed possessions, a few intents to sell the herb, pills, cocaine, a heroin charge that went nowhere. Wohr had served lots of county jail time awaiting trial, meaning he was no big-time player and no one cared enough to go his bail.

Despite that, his win-loss record wasn't bad, split nearly evenly between acquittals and convictions. The latter had sent him on periodic trips to various branches of the California penal system where Wohr had been judged a possible “affiliate” of the Aryan Brotherhood, but never a member. Meaning the gang didn't want him because he was too stupid, unpredictable, or lacked courage, but was willing to use him for low-level scut.

During Wohr's intermittent spells of freedom, he amassed traffic violations, resulting in a license suspension, still in effect.

The Corolla was registered to Arnold Bradley Wohr, two years older. Same address in La Puente, no criminal record.

The older, law-abiding brother, giving his clunker to Ray out of pity, family loyalty, whatever?

Too bad, Arnie, you've left your law-abiding self damn vulnerable.

Raymond Wohr's vehicular infractions included a couple of speeders, a trio of failures to make a full stop, some ticky-tacky license/reg stuff in La Puente that was probably a local uniform knowing Ramone was a mope and harassing the fool.

The kicker was four-count 'em!-driving without headlights and two DUIs, both of which Wohr had managed to beat.

As if not busy enough, Ramone W had also managed to rack up a slew of petty larcenies: the small-change shoplifting and sneak-thieveries that financed an impoverished druggie's chemistry experiments.

Now he was pimping shopworn street girls to Hollywood brats.

Moe calculated how much of Wohr's thirty-seven years had been spent behind bars, came up with just over fourteen, not counting juvey time. Your basic turnstile con, nothing particularly interesting until you got to Wohr's latest involvement with the criminal justice system.

Eighteen months ago, he'd been hauled in by Hollywood Homicide-by Petra Connor and Raul Biro, talk about your small cop-world-as a person of interest in the murder of a woman named Adella Bertha Villareal.

No charges had been filed against Wohr, and as far as Moe could tell the case remained open.

Adella Villareal's body had been found three months before Caitlin Frostig stepped into darkness and melted away.

There were limits to what the computer could teach him; the details he needed were in a blue-bound Hollywood murder book. He'd call Petra in the morning.

Now he followed Wohr's illegal wheels west on Sunset, but this time the Corolla bypassed the boulevard at Virgil, continued north to Franklin, turned left.

Back into Hollywood, the quieter, seamier east end of the district, where European tourists sometimes ended up on deserted, creepy side streets, hoping to spot someone like Mason Book but more likely encountering someone like Raymond Wohr.

Said felon pulled in front of a cheesy-looking apartment building on Taft and Franklin and let his hooker girlfriend off. She looked cross as she turned her back on Wohr. Entered the building as Moe jotted the address.

Wohr continued south on Taft, parked just above Hollywood Boulevard, slouched, head down, hands in pockets, straight to a bar not dissimilar from The T ll Tale.

Bob's Evening Lounge.

Cheap plywood door painted red, porthole window.

A bit of nautical? Shades of Riptide?

Moe watched as Wohr paused to light up a cigarette. Tossing the match on the sidewalk, Ramone W flung the door open.

Two minutes later, Moe was inside, too, at the far end of a sticky, urethaned bar, nursing a Bud, staring down at souvenir drink coasters from long-dead Vegas casinos, trapped in the varnish like insects in amber.

His fellow drinkers were half a dozen rummies well into their cups. Seven, including Raymond Wohr, rubbing his hairless crown and tossing back double bourbons. A cop show played on a fuzzy TV. A grubby pay-to-play pool table topped with wrinkled felt had attracted no comers. Wohr chain-smoked and drank and tried to follow the show when he could keep his eyes open. On the screen, big-bosomed blondes intimidated bad guys who looked like waiters at the Ivy, everyone double-handing their guns in absurd poses, tossing around “perp” and “forensics.”

Moe's beer tasted diluted and sour and he avoided it while sneaking quick looks at Ramone W Up close, Wohr looked way older than thirty-seven, with silver streaking the long side hair, pitted, gravelly skin, a lumpy, rummy nose, kangaroo pouches beneath exhausted eyes.

It took fifteen minutes for the mope to finish drinking. In all that time, he'd talked to no one, no one had talked to him. Six doubles and to Moe's eye, Wohr had entered the bar intoxicated.

Still, he managed to stay on his feet, was able to open the door on his second try.

Moe tossed cash on the bar, was back on Taft in time to see Wohr enter the same ratty building as the woman in the white tank top.

Pimping his girlfriend. A man of sterling character.

He drove back to West L.A. Division, found the big D-room empty except for a night-shift detective named Edmund Stickley filling out paperwork. Lots of empty desks, but Stickley had chosen Moe's.

Moe had talked to him a few times; one of those older burnouts who liked catching cases at shift's end, passing everything along.

He said, “Reed? You're up past your bedtime.”

“Nightlife ain't no good life,” said Moe, “but it's high life.”

“The lyric is ‘my life,’” said Stickley. “Got something to do? I'll move.”

“Don't bother, I just need a screen.”

Stickley shifted to a neighboring desk anyway. Moe logged onto the reverse directory, plugged in the address of the apartment building on Taft, obtained eighteen landlines running to that address. Raymond Wohr's name wasn't among the registered users. Seven were female.

He began working his way through the list, found a match on his fourth try.

Alicia Constance Eiger, thirty-two, two-page biography emphasizing dope and prostitution.

Blond and brown in her most recent mug shot, nearly a year ago. Deep lines scored her face. The nightlife, indeed.

Moe Googled her name combined with murder victim Adella Bertha Villareal, pulled up zilch. Same for Villareal by herself. The media hadn't covered the crime and no one close to the victim had created a website.

The criminal data banks also came up empty, as did missing persons sites. No easy link to Caitlin, too bad.

Maybe because the cases weren't connected.

Nothing else to do before daybreak. Moe felt like jumping out of his skin but left the station and drove toward the 405 on-ramp. Changed his mind and stayed on Pico, going east, took Beverly Glen to Sunset and sped east.

Climbing toward Swallowsong Lane for the second time, he found his eyelids lowering. He tuned to a hard-rock radio station, cranked it loud.

None of that worked and he was considering pulling over for a catnap when high-intensity headlights snapped him alert.

Some idiot speeding toward him. Racing down the narrow street, passing within inches of the Crown Vic.

Moe strained to catch a glimpse of the fool.

Silver Porsche Cabriolet. Top up, driver's window open.

Aaron's face expressionless as he downshifted for the next curve.