The FBI Thrillers Collection (47 page)

“There were drug users, alcoholics, people who were mentally ill, people just ground down by circumstance, all mixed together. There was so much despair, it was pervasive, but the thing was—everyone wanted to survive.”

“And then there was you.”

“Yes, but I suppose you could say I was one of those who’d been ground down by circumstance.”

She stopped, looked down at her left hand, still stroking her wool coat. “The alcoholics and the addicts—they were self-destructive. It’s not that I didn’t feel sorry for them, but they were different from the other homeless people because they’d brought their misery on themselves. And they never seemed to blame themselves for what they’d become. It was the strangest thing. One of the shelter counselors said it was because if they ever had to face what they really were in the mirror, they wouldn’t be able to bear it. Everyone there had so little. But they were the ones responsible for what had become of them, responsible for where they were. And because they wouldn’t face the truth, there was no hope for them.

“The mentally ill people—they were the worst off. I truly can’t understand how we as a society allow people who are so ill they can’t even remember to take their medications or even know that they need medication, to just roam the streets. They suffer the most because they’re the most helpless.”

Dane said, “I remember when one of the New York mayors wanted to get the sick people off the streets and into safe houses, but the ACLU went nuts.”

Nick said, “I remember. The ACLU cleaned up this poor
woman, dressed her like a normal person, fed her meds so she could pass muster, and they won. Except that poor woman lost. Within days she was back on the street, off her meds, cursing and spitting at people, vulnerable and helpless. I wonder if any of the lawyers at the ACLU lost a bit of sleep over that.”

“Who are you, Nick?”

She grew very still, didn’t move, just stood there when he opened the door to the Grand Am. She said, “My name is Nick, short for Nicola. I don’t want to tell you my real last name. All right?”

“You mean, if you tell me your real name I would have heard of it?”

“No. It means that you have a computer and access to information.”

So there was something on her, something to be found, something other than just who she was. What had happened to her?

When he was seated in the driver’s seat, the key in the ignition, he turned to her and said, “I want to know who you are, not just your name.”

She looked straight ahead, saying nothing, until he pulled out of the Holiday Inn parking lot onto the street.

She said, “I’m a woman who could be dead before the first day of spring.”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Bullshit. You’re just being dramatic, and you’re wrong. I think by the first of spring, you’ll be doing what you were doing last month. What were you doing in December, Nick?”

“I was teaching medieval history.” She didn’t know why she said that. Well, he already knew she had a Ph.D., this much more wouldn’t tell him anything.

“Are you by any chance Dr. Nick?”

“Yes, but you already guessed that. You know that your brother loved history.”

“My brother was an impressive man, he was a very good man,” Dane said, and shut up, really fast. He could feel
himself breaking apart, deep inside, where his brother’s blood and Dane’s own pain flowed together. He remembered Archbishop Lugano at Michael’s service, his hand on Dane’s shoulder, telling him to take it just one day at a time.

He concentrated on driving. He was momentarily distracted by a girl on roller skates, wearing shorts that showed half her butt cheeks, and she was waving to him, grinning and blowing him kisses over her shoulder. He waved back, grinned a bit, and said, “That’s some presentation.”

“Yes indeed, you’re right,” Nick said. “I agree, she does skate very well.”

Dane jerked around, surprised. “That was funny, Nick.”

She smiled. It was a small smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re all meeting at The Green Apple, over on Melrose.”

Nick sighed. “Doesn’t sound like they’ll have tacos, does it?”

“I just hope they don’t serve fried green apples. I’m an American, I love fat, but you know—my belly rebels fast if I eat even two pieces of KFC. It’s a bummer.”

“Don’t whine. It means you won’t ever have to worry about your weight.”

He smiled at her, then said, “I sure hope someone has found out something useful. The bottom line is that what you and I found out just leads to more questions.”

As it turned out, Sherlock and Savich had struck gold.

Sherlock
said between bites of a carrot stick, “We dug up a guy who’s a real good friend of Weldon DeLoach’s. His name is Kurt Grinder. He’s a porn star. Yeah, yeah, I know—the name. I just couldn’t help myself so I asked him. He said it was, actually, his real name. He’s known Weldon for some eight years, ever since he came to LA. He said he saw Weldon DeLoach two and a half weeks ago at the Gameland Bowling Alley in North Hollywood. Said he and Weldon went bowling together every week, on Thursday night, said Weldon told him that bowling always relaxes him. He was getting worried because Weldon hadn’t called him and he couldn’t get an answer at Weldon’s apartment.”

Detective Flynn said, “I can see by that gleam in your eyes, Agent Sherlock, that there’s more to it than that, and you’re just leading us slowly down the garden path.”

“Enjoy it,” Savich said. “Let her string it out. I promise, it’s worth it.”

Sherlock waved her carrot stick, sat forward a bit. “Turns out that Kurt Grinder had some problem with his bowling shoes and had to stay awhile. Weldon left before he did. When Kurt came out of the bowling alley he saw this guy stop Weldon before he got to his car. They talked for a couple of minutes. Before Kurt could catch up, Weldon and this man went off together, in this man’s car, not Weldon’s.”

Delion said, thumping his fingers on the tabletop, “All right, Sherlock, what man?”

“Kurt said he’d never seen him before, but he got a real good look at him.” She dropped her voice so everyone had to lean forward to hear her. “Kurt said he looked to be in his thirties, had dark hair, lots of it. But what really stuck in his mind was that the guy’s skin was as white as a whale’s belly.”

“And that means,” Savich said, “that if Kurt is telling the truth, and as far as I could tell he had no reason to lie, that DeLoach could be connected to the killings.”

“Or maybe,” Dane said slowly, “someone’s setting him up. Don’t forget. We can’t find him. And him being the killer has always been too obvious.”

Savich nodded. “One of the first things we asked Mr. Grinder was had he ever seen Weldon with black hair and no tan. He laughed, said Weldon was always changing his look, that he loved disguises, but he’d never seen him go that far. Okay, Sherlock, the
pièce de résistance
.”

Everyone at the table leaned forward again.

“Kurt got his license number.”

“Jesus,” Flynn said, “Kurt Grinder can come work for the LAPD.”

Delion said, “Okay, so who owns the damned car?”

Savich said, “Belinda Gates. Frank Pauley’s wife, the costar of
The Consultant.
”

No one said a word for a good three seconds.

“But it was a man who met Weldon at the bowling alley,” Flynn said slowly. “The car belongs to the actress?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “Savich was thinking that just maybe we could pay a little visit to Belinda and Frank this evening.”

Nick, who’d been silent, said now, “Do you think Belinda Gates disguised herself as a man?”

“Ah, Jesus,” Delion said. “My brain’s getting constipated. Hey, at this point I’m ready to believe in aliens landing in the Hollywood Bowl.”

“The question is, where is Weldon DeLoach?” Savich said. He looked over at Nick and Dane. “Okay, let’s look at this again. Dane, tell us what you make of all those events at the nursing home.”

“Captain DeLoach is demented,” Dane said. “No question about that. But I swear to you, when I first spoke to him, he was lucid. Do you know that when I told him I was FBI, he saluted me? Maybe he really did fall out of his chair, maybe he really did make all that up. I just don’t know.”

Dane turned to Nick, who was sitting with her hands in her lap, just staring down at the remains of her chicken salad, and said, “Nick? What do you think?”

Nick said, “Everyone at the nursing home believed Captain DeLoach had fallen, and no one had been around. I don’t want to agree, but what else can we believe? That’s a lot easier to swallow than a son trying to kill his own father.”

“If,” Sherlock said, raising another carrot stick, “if Weldon really did bang him on the head and toss him out of his chair, the question remains, what wasn’t the old man going to keep quiet about?”

“About the fact that Weldon was murdering people according to his own scripts,” Flynn said. “That’s pretty obvious.”

“Maybe,” Sherlock said, but she was frowning. “Maybe. But you know, that’s just too easy.”

“He wasn’t going to keep quiet any longer about what his son was doing,” Dane said slowly, spacing out each word. “It sounds possible that Weldon was telling his father he was a murderer, and the old man finally freaked.”

Nick said, “But the thing is, who would believe Captain DeLoach if he told everyone that his son was murdering people? His only audience is the nursing home staff, and they all think he’s demented. They’d just shake their heads and say how sad it was. They’d just give him more medication. Weldon would have to know that. Why would he hurt, maybe even try to kill, his own father when there was no downside for him?”

Over coffee and tea, Flynn told them his snitches were plugged in and would send juice his way if they found out anything. As for the writers and crew on
The Consultant,
as well as two supervising producers, there was nothing on any of them to raise red flags.

“Typical stuff,” Flynn said. “An arrest for prostitution, some drugs, rehab, parking and speeding tickets, a couple of spousal abuse calls, but no charges pressed, nothing to start my gut dancing.”

“Yeah?” Delion said. “What? The rumba?”

“Nope,” Flynn said, “straight salsa. My wife tells me she likes to see me play basketball, but she loves to see me salsa.”

Nick looked at Flynn and said, “I’m pretty good myself, Detective Flynn.”

Flynn’s eyes gleamed. “We’ll have to try it sometime.”

Savich said, “Yeah, yeah, now, what about Pauley and Wolfinger?”

“Mr. Frank Pauley has been knocking around Hollywood for going on twenty-five years. He’s been married four times, and the current Mrs. Pauley, Belinda Gates, according to insiders, is in for the duration. There’s nothing
unusual about him, nothing we can find hiding in his closet.”

Sherlock said, “Surely if Belinda is involved, her husband has to at least suspect something.”

“Agreed,” Flynn said. “Now, Belinda Gates. She came to LA five years ago, got some minor roles, did some commercials, a couple of soft porn flicks, even did makeup for several sitcoms. Landing Pauley really made her career.

“From what we can tell, Linus Wolfinger is indeed a boy wonder. An arrogant little prick, evidently likes boys, but that’s gossip, not fact. He came from nothing; an orphan in and out of foster homes. Put himself through college—UC Santa Barbara—went to work in various production jobs at Premier Studios a year after he graduated, and somehow managed to impress Burdock at the tender age of barely twenty-three, and the rest, as they say, is history. There’s nothing on him, just one damned speeding ticket—and that was on the first day he was driving his new Porsche.”

“What was he doing that year after he graduated?” Savich asked.

Flynn’s eyes lit up. “Don’t know yet. We’re checking it.” He pulled a small black book from his inside jacket pocket and wrote in it. “One thing’s for sure, no one involved in
The Consultant
will be making a move without our being aware of it.” Then he smiled at everybody. “How about some dessert?”

Flynn and Delion ordered slices of apple pie, with French vanilla ice cream. When the two servings of dessert arrived, Flynn looked around the table. “All you pantywaist Feds, you nibble around like birds. No wonder you need the locals—we provide not only the brains, but the bulk.”

Sherlock, head cocked to the side, her red hair corkscrewing out, said, “You mean that’s our problem? A simple lack of sugar? I never thought of it like that.” She grabbed up her fork and cut a big piece of apple pie from Flynn’s slice.

Nick laughed. Dane joined in. It felt good.

Frank
Pauley and Belinda Gates actually did live in a glass house, Dane thought, staring up at the monstrosity atop a cliff off Mulholland Drive. It was filled with lights, and if someone was wandering around inside naked, people five miles away could enjoy the view.

Five cops and one civilian trooped up to the gigantic double wooden doors. Flynn knocked.

A woman answered the door wearing a French maid’s outfit, replete with stiletto heels and stockings with seams up the back. She had a sexy little white cap on her head. The only thing was, she had to be at least fifty and a good twenty pounds overweight, her dark hair sprinkled with gray and cut butch.

Everyone managed to keep it together, even when she asked them to follow her into the living room.

“Sir, you have visitors. I believe they’re all police officers.” Then she nodded, perfectly serious, to each of them in turn and glided out on those three-inch black heels.

Once the door closed behind her, Delion said to Frank Pauley, “Nice house.”

“Thanks. My second wife was an architect. She designed it and it was built to her specifications. Since my third wife and Belinda both really liked it, I haven’t made any changes.” He cleared his throat. “The only thing is, Belinda picks the staff and doesn’t like anyone to be younger than fifty, and so we have FiFi Ann, who really is a very nice person, frighteningly efficient, and something of an exhibitionist.”

“FiFi Ann?” Sherlock said, an eyebrow up a good inch.

“She decided that was the name she wanted. She’s a former actress. She, ah, picked out her French maid’s outfit herself, said she wanted to adjust her image. Now, why are you all here at nine o’clock at night?”

“We would like to speak to Belinda,” Sherlock said. “Is she here?”

“Certainly. Her partying days are over unless she’s on my arm.” Pauley walked to the phone, punched a couple of buttons, and called, “Cops in the living room. Come save me.”

“Cute,” Flynn said.

Belinda came in not five minutes later, wearing black leggings and a sweatshirt, no sneakers. Her face was shiny with sweat, her hair plastered to her head. She was wiping her face with a towel.

“Hi, Agent Sherlock, Agent Savich. Frank, you don’t need help from them. They’ve got a little kid who’s adorable. Who are these other folks?”

Introductions were made. As usual, Dane included Nick, making her seem to be just another Federal agent.

“Are you here to arrest Frank?” Belinda said.

Flynn reached for the handcuffs in his back pocket, pulled them out, and waved them toward Pauley. “You want me to take him to the floor, ma’am? We officers of the law like to be obliging.”

Belinda laughed, continued to wipe sweat off herself. She suddenly pulled off her sweatshirt. Underneath it she was wearing only a little workout bra.

The men in the room nearly expired on the spot. Nick laughed. “That was very well done. I’ll bet you Detective Flynn has already forgotten the handcuffs.”

Belinda just smiled. “Frank, why don’t you get us all a soda?”

When everyone was seated on the stark white leather chairs, love seats, and huge long sofa, facing a fireplace Nick couldn’t ever imagine using in LA, Sherlock said, “Belinda, please tell us why you met Weldon DeLoach two and a half weeks ago at the Gameland Bowling Alley, why you were dressed like a man, and where you went.”

Frank Pauley jumped to his feet and walked fast to a huge set of floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Actually, since the entire living room that faced out toward the ocean was glass, he had no place else to go.

Belinda drank down her soda and said after a moment, “Isn’t it strange how easily you can get tripped up?”

“Yeah, but that’s how we make our living,” Delion said. “What were you doing meeting Weldon DeLoach? Why were you dressed like the perfect description of our murderer?”

Frank whirled around. “I knew it, I just knew it. Weldon is crazy about you, wants to make you a star and—”

Four wives, Nick thought, getting a glimmer of reality in the glass house.

Belinda smiled toward her husband, who looked ready to break into small pieces he was standing so rigid. She didn’t seem at all perturbed. “Actually, sweetie, he’s not. Weldon isn’t my type, you are. Now, Weldon and I had arranged to meet that night, at the bowling alley, and I was to pick him up. We went to La Pomme in Westwood, sat at a booth and brainstormed story ideas. He wanted my role in
The Consultant
to be bigger.” She shrugged. “Yes, I was dressed like a man. Weldon asked me to, told me what to wear, what disguise to use. Of course, now that’s academic since Weldon is nowhere to be found and the show’s been yanked.”

Sherlock said, “Weldon wanted to change your role to a man’s? This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Belinda.”

“He was thinking about another idea, a woman who was a spy and had the international community believing she was a man. He wanted to see if I was a good enough actress to fool people into believing I was a man. Nothing more than that. I think I did well. Nobody gave me a second look. Weldon laughed and laughed, he was so tickled. You know, Frank, how he acts when he’s excited.”

“How did you carry it off?” Sherlock said. “You’re beautiful and you’ve got lots of hair.”