Chasing Venus (27 page)

He turned right from
Melrose onto a narrow side street chock full of tightly parked cars in both
directions.
 
The atmosphere abruptly
shifted from Hollywood glamour to gritty urban reality.
 
Rundown apartment buildings lined the
block, all of them distinguished by peeling paint and security bars.
 
The cruiser’s headlights bored twin
beams of light onto the pot-holed asphalt.
 
After a year or so of working this beat, Cutter did little more than
keep on the lookout for the unusual—strange levels of activity or inactivity,
knots of males in unexpected places, Dumpsters moved into odd positions.

“Hey!” Guerra shouted
and Cutter slammed on the brakes just as a boy chasing a soccer ball darted out
into the street from between two parked cars just a few yards ahead.
 
The kid, no more than seven, barely gave
the cruiser a glance as he scooped up his ball and kept going.
 
The cops needed a second or two longer
before they were ready to continue on.

Cutter had barely put
his foot back on the gas when the rear license on a white compact car a few
vehicles ahead caught his eye.
 
2ORN846.
 
He frowned and braked.

Guerra glanced at
him.
 
“What is it?”

Cutter cocked his chin
at the car.
 
“The plate on that Kia
Sephia
doesn’t look right.”

Guerra leaned
forward.
 
Both men narrowed their
gazes at the California license plate, seven dark blue letters and numerals on
a white background.

“It’s been altered,”
Cutter said, just as Guerra opened the passenger door to get out.

Cutter had started
keeping a spiral-bound notebook with him on duty, filled with all manner of
things he wanted to remember.
 
He
pulled it out and searched for a particular memorandum he’d jotted days
before.
 
Quickly he found what he
was looking for: ANNETTE ROWELL, APB, 2009 KIA SEPHIA, WHITE, 2CPN316.

He glanced up to see
Guerra crouching by the
Sephia’s
rear plate, peering
at it under the bright beam of a mini flashlight.
 
Cutter watched his partner lick his
index finger and rub on the 8, which morphed as if by magic into a 3.
 
Immediately Cutter pulled the police
radio to his mouth.

He was filled with a
mixture of elation and disappointment.
 
He’d have an exciting night, all right.
 
Just not the way he’d wanted.

*

Annie realized it was
helpful to be familiar with a man’s quirks if you wanted to break into his
house.

For example, she knew
that Frankie was haphazard about using his alarm system.
 
His security system of choice was male,
a hundred ten pounds, of German extraction, and to Annie’s knowledge had never
undergone training as a police dog.
 
Fortunately she had met
Luto
the German
Shepherd numerous times and prided herself on having a way with canines.
 
She hoped that would continue to hold
true even when she suddenly invaded
Luto’s
territory.

Annie did a quick
glance around before she scampered up Frankie’s shadowy driveway to the rear of
the house.
 
Here a 6-foot-high
wooden fence stood between the house’s southeast corner and the garage’s
northwest wall, blocking entry to the garden that sloped gently toward the
chain-link fence that separated Frankie’s property from the Wilshire Country
Club golf course.
 
She’d previously
decided that this would be the best place to get inside the house.
 
Thanks to the long driveway and the
placement of trees, back here she wasn’t visible either from the street or to
the neighbors.
 
And she seriously
doubted that at this hour there would be anybody on the golf course to see her.

Annie paused outside
the fence to survey her options.
 
There was good news on two fronts: the rear of the house was as unlit as
the front and no noise emanated from inside.
 
If Frankie was home, he was being quiet
as a mouse.
 
That didn’t exactly
describe Frankie.

On the other hand, just
the other side of the fence in the garden, she could hear
Luto
making noisy sniffing sounds.
 
So
Frankie had left the dog outside.
 
Clearly
Luto
was patrolling the perimeter,
notably the ten yards of wooden fence between the rear of the house and the
garage, where Annie stood.
 
She
could hear the dog halt directly across from her and give a low growl.

“
Shhh
,
Luto
,” Annie whispered.
 
“Nice doggie,” she added, then lowered
her hand to the narrow gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground,
carefully keeping her fingers away from any snapping jaws.
 
She could just see
Luto’s
shiny black nose and could feel tiny gusts of air as he vigorously sniffed her
hand.
 
Have a good memory
, she begged him silently,
remember all those hors d’oeuvres I slipped you over the years at your
master’s parties
, and maybe he did, for the next sound he made was a short
bark that might even have been construed as a welcome.

Not wanting to risk accidentally
leaving her carryall in the house, she hid it behind a shrub, then stood back
and eyed the fence, which rose eight or nine inches above her head.
 
This was yet another of those times when
she was grateful she worked out.
 
She took a deep breath, made a silent plea to the heavens, and jumped,
latching on to the top of the fence and scrabbling her feet crab-like against
the wood in an effort to gain height.
 
A few seconds later, with a mighty heave, she managed to swing her right
leg over the top and mount the fence, leaving one leg dangling on each side.

She stilled and waited
for the fence to stop shuddering beneath her weight.
 
Luto
eyed her
and she eyed
Luto
—a woman/dog standoff.
 
He didn’t growl, though, nor did he bare
his teeth.
 
“Nice dog,” she
whispered again, then swung her left leg over the fence and balanced at the top
for an instant before dropping with a thud to the lawn below.

*

Lionel Simpson emerged
from his rental car with the taste of his half-eaten dinner—a platter of
KFC’s original recipe—still on his lips.
 
The fried chicken sat cooling in his
downtown hotel room next to a warming bottle of Dos
Equis
and a television still blasting the Lakers playoffs.
 
When he got the call that the car rented
to Annette Rowell had at long last been found, and only a few miles from his
location to boot, he didn’t take the time to switch off the tube or finish his
dinner.
 
He got his ass out the
goddamn door.

“Officer Cutter.
 
Officer Guerra.”
 
Simpson shook the men’s hands in turn
and watched them eye him with the peculiar mix of curiosity, nervousness, and
resentment that colored most interactions between local law-enforcement
officers and their federal brethren.
 
“Good work tonight,” he added.
 
He didn’t say
Why the hell didn’t
you find the vehicle sooner, since it’s right here in your own frigging
backyard?
though he had a hard time keeping the words from pouring from his
mouth.

Under the yellow glow
of a streetlamp he regarded the car, its white chassis covered with nearly a
week’s worth of grime.
 
Within
minutes the vehicle would be towed to a secure location and pored over by
gloved investigators seeking evidence.
 
He shook his head at the doctored license plate, now partially
smeared.
 
Annette Rowell was no
fool, though he’d known that before tonight.

Why had she driven the
car to Los Angeles and abandoned it here?
 
Why hadn’t she headed east?
 
Or, for that matter, why hadn’t she gone south to Mexico, only an hour’s
drive from Corona del Mar?
 
He
turned back toward Cutter and Guerra.
 
“What’s around here?” he asked.

Cutter spoke.
 
He was a short blond guy with a
bodybuilder physique, as if he thought bulking up would make up for what he
lacked in height.
 
“Paramount
Studio’s nearby and Hancock Park’s a little southwest.
 
But what you should know, sir, is
there’s a Greyhound bus station about fifteen blocks north, at Hollywood and
Cahuenga
.”
 
The
young officer puffed up, clearly proud of his deductive abilities and eager to
show them off to the high-ranking federal agent.
 
“It’s my guess that’s why the suspect
left her vehicle here.
 
It’s far
enough from the station so as not to tip us off, yet easy walking distance for
someone Rowell’s age.”

Simpson set his hands
on his hips.
 
“Son, you want to tell
me why Rowell would drive fifty miles just to board the bus?
 
How many other Greyhound stations do you
think there are between Corona del Mar and here?”

Cutter deflated like
the Wicked Witch of the West when hit by H2O.
 
Simpson shook his head and looked
around.
 
“I’m gonna take a drive,”
he said, “I’ll be back,” and he returned to his car to cruise the area in the
hope inspiration would strike.

He made a few
uneventful passes of the immediate vicinity, then widened his search to include
another quarter mile east on Sunset Boulevard.
 
He stopped at a red light and eyed a
nondescript two-story building that looked vaguely familiar.
 
He drove on when the traffic signals
changed.

He had to stop again
for a red light near the Hollywood freeway overpass.
 
He watched a homeless man huddled
beneath a frayed plaid blanket, muttering to himself and rocking back and
forth.
 
Suddenly the guy raised his
head and through Simpson’s windshield the two men locked gazes.
 
Simpson broke the stare, vaguely
disturbed.
 
The light turned green
and he put his foot to the gas.

And then it hit him,
why he remembered that two-story building.

It was the
Crimewatch
studio.
 
Simpson had been there a few times.
 
He’d met Reid Gardner for lunch there;
he’d been interviewed on one of the studio’s stage sets.

A few beats later he
decided to retrace the route to Annette Rowell’s abandoned rental car.

It wasn’t all that far
from the
Crimewatch
studio to her
vehicle.
 
Simpson did the trek
again, this time measuring the distance.
 
Six-tenths of a mile.

Simpson pulled over to
the curb and let traffic flow past him, trying to settle the thoughts cascading
through his head.
 
Was this why
Rowell had abandoned her car in LA?
 
Specifically in this part of Hollywood?
 
Was it so she could connect with Reid
Gardner, who from the first had exhibited uncharacteristic partiality toward
this particular fugitive?

One thing seemed
undeniably true.
 
Given Gardner’s
recent behavior, it certainly was possible that he was aiding and abetting
Annette Rowell.

The agent shook his
head, both stunned and not in the least surprised.
 
If someone had told him a month ago that
Reid Gardner would throw his good sense out the window for a nice piece of ass,
Simpson would never have believed it.
 
But there you go.
 
Women
could have that effect on men.
 
It
was what made the world go round and what occasionally made law enforcement
tricky.

He pulled out his cell
phone and speed-dialed the private line of the deputy chief of the Los Angeles
Police Department.
 
After the
requisite pleasantries and dispensing of key information, Simpson detailed what
he wanted.
 
For starters.

“I want the area
combed, a mile radius in each direction.
 
I want every fleabag motel from Fairfax to Virgil avenues checked
out.
 
I also want a certain party to
be put under surveillance.”
 
At that
last, Simpson sensed surprise in his fellow officer of the law.
 
He plowed forward.
 
“Name’s Reid Gardner.
 
The host of
Crimewatch
.”

*

Reid sat on his living
room couch, watching the Lakers game without seeing it, drinking a beer without
tasting it, waiting for a knock on his door or a call on his cell to put him
out of his misery.
 
Neither came.

He leaped up and paced
the room.
 
Where the hell was that
woman?
 
Had she gotten lost?
 
Had she been assaulted at the overlook
or on the walk to the motel?
 
Had
she freaked out and boarded a bus?
 
Had she been arrested and the media simply hadn’t been notified yet?