L.A. Bytes Page 6

  He had a feeling Alice didn’t entertain much.

  “Tea, offi cers?”

  She poured three cups, gently stirred in milk and handed David a cup, then Martinez. The tea was weak; the milk cut whatever bitterness it might have had.

  David took a sip then put the tiny fl owered cup on the glass coffee table. Alice set the tray down and sat facing them in a gently worn easy chair. Her peach-colored dress pulled up to reveal two skinny, veined legs held primly together. She clasped her hands in her lap and leaned forward.

  L.A. BYTES 55

  David instantly knew that she and Nancy Scott had performed this ritual after every Wednesday for as long as Scott had lived here. He also knew something else.

  “The boy came here, didn’t he, Mrs. Crandall? He picked his mother up here,” David asked.

  Alice nodded, her orange hair bobbing precariously on her tiny skull. “Every other Wednesday he’d pick his mother up here.

  We liked to have our tea and Bible reading. Smiling like he always did, but his eyes fair creeped me out.”

  David knew he wasn’t going to make any friends with this upcoming interview. But his gut told him Adam was dirty. He’d come to trust his gut over the years.

  When the doorbell rang, David and Martinez stood at the same time. They followed Alice, who opened the door to a slender youth in black jeans and an even blacker T-shirt. The same youth in the photos in Nancy Scott’s place, only a couple of years older.

  Short, dark hair framed a thin face, emphasized by eyes two sizes too large. Put ten pounds of muscles on his skinny frame and he would have been one little hottie, as Chris would say.

  “Adam. God bless you, boy,” Alice said. “Right on time.”

  David stepped forward as the boy entered the apartment.

  “Adam Scott?” he said.

  Adam froze, his black eyes looming large in his narrow face.

  He darted a question at Alice, then stared bug-eyed at David.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Who are you?”

  “Detective David Eric Laine,” David said. He fl ashed his badge, hoping Adam wouldn’t ask too many questions right away.

  “We’d like to ask you few questions, if we could.”

  Martinez introduced himself.

  “Questions? Sure... what’s this about?” Adam edged into the room, keeping Alice between him and the detectives. He seemed unable to take his eyes off David. “Where’s my mother?”

  “Benny—”

  56 P.A. Brown

  The kid winced at Alice’s use of the nickname.

  “I’m sorry,” David said. “I thought you said your name was Adam.”

  “It’s not Benny,” Adam said. He threw Alice a dark look.

  David could see what the woman meant about his eyes. They were cold.

  She opened her mouth to speak and David cut her off before she could say any more. “Thank you, Mrs. Crandall. Is there someplace we could speak to Mr. Scott privately?”

  Not hiding her disappointment, Alice led them into her kitchen. “I’ll stay in the other room until you tell me you have fi nished.”

  David indicated Adam should sit. The boy took the chintz-cushioned chair facing the stove. Martinez pulled a similar chair up beside him and plucked a mint from the glass bowl on the table.

  David leaned against the stove.

  Adam had to rotate his head ninety degrees to take in both of them. He fi xed his gaze on David. “You’re that gay cop, aren’t you?”

  David had heard that question, or similar, less polite ones, enough times to show no outward reaction. He shared a brief glance with Martinez who did not look pleased.

  Most gays, when they came out, had the luxury of choosing when and to whom they revealed their secret. David had been outed to the whole world when a violent psychopath tried to destroy Chris. He’d been in the public eye ever since.

  “What’s this about?” Adam asked.

  “We’d just like to ask you a couple of questions about your mother.”

  “Why don’t you go talk to her yourself? She’s just down the hall.”

  L.A. BYTES 57

  “We’ll get to that in a minute,” David said. “When was the last time you saw her, Mr. Scott?”

  Adam’s head jerked, he glanced uneasily at Martinez then at David. “My last name’s not Scott. It’s Baruch.”

  “Is Baruch your father’s name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is your father, Mr. Baruch? We may have some questions for him, too—”

  “I don’t know.” Adam’s eyes shifted away from David’s.

  Liar. David didn’t challenge him right then. Time enough for that later.

  Adam twisted around so that he faced David. “I want to know what’s going on. Why are you asking these questions? Has something happened to my mother?”

  “When did you last see her, Mr. Baruch?”

  “Two weeks ago,” Adam whispered. “Wednesday—”

  “Your mother diabetic?” Martinez asked.

  “Yes—”

  “How do you get along with her?” Martinez asked. “Old ladies, they can be a pain. You oughta meet my mother some time.”

  “We got along fi ne. Is she sick? Is that why she’s not here—?”

  “You last saw your mother two weeks ago today?” David asked, making sure he didn’t react to Adam’s use of the past tense. Just a couple more and he’d have the bastard. “You haven’t been back since?”

  “I come every two weeks. I’m sure Mrs. Crandall told you that. Will you please tell me what happened to my mother?”

  “We’re sorry, Mr. Baruch,” David said. He stepped away from the stove, aware that between Martinez on Adam’s right and his six-four bulk on the young man’s left, Adam must be feeling hemmed in. He leaned down and said, “Your mother’s dead.”

  58 P.A. Brown

  Adam stared at David. His head swung from side to side in denial even while his gaze never left David’s face.

  “H-how?”

  “That’s still under investigation.”

  Adam grew pale. “You think I had something to do with my mother’s death?”

  Martinez suddenly leaned forward, crowding Adam back into his chair. “I don’t know. Did you?”

  “No!” Adam’s eyes were noticeably wet. “I did not hurt my mother. Please, tell me what happened.”

  “Your mother was found two days ago in her apartment. She had been dead for several days at that point. We’re still looking into the exact cause of death.”

  “My mother was a very sick woman. Her doctor will tell you that.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be talking to him,” Martinez said. “Right now we’re talking to you.”

  Abruptly Adam stood up. His chair scraped across the linoleum. “No, you’re not. I’m going home. You want to talk to me again, call my lawyer.”

  “Lawyer, huh?” Martinez leisurely pulled a candy cane striped mint out of the bowl and slipped it in his mouth. “What’s his name?”

  Adam sputtered and fl apped his jaw.

  “Thought so.” Martinez grinned. “I can recommend a couple of good ones.”

  “My mother is dead!” Adam shouted. “Why aren’t you out there trying to fi nd out who killed her?”

  David cocked his head sideways, but it was Martinez who responded.

  “I don’t know as we had established she was murdered,” he said. “Interesting.”

  L.A. BYTES 59

  “Your mother like to eat chocolates?” David asked.

  Adam’s gaze skidded away from David, then came back, trying to look fi erce. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s a simple question. Did your mother eat chocolates?”

  “N-no—yes. She wasn’t supposed to, but she did sometimes.”

  “Where were you Saturday and Sunday of last week—?”

  “No more questions!” Adam clenched his fi sts. “When can I get my mother so I can bury her?”

  �
��You’ll have to talk to the coroner about that,” David said.

  He fi shed out a card and wrote a number on the back. “Call here.

  They’ll be able to help you out.”

  Adam muttered a stiff “thanks” and shoved the card in his jeans pocket, after only the briefest glance. When he stamped out of the kitchen, David and Martinez followed. They met Alice at the front door.

  “All done, are you?” she asked. Her pale skin was drawn and her eyes darted between the three invaders. David noted she seemed almost afraid of Adam.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Crandall.” David held out his hand, which she took gingerly. He glanced at Adam trying to edge past him to the door. “We’ll need a way to contact you.”

  Adam spat out a North Hollywood address and number, then hurried out before they could ask any more questions or demand to see some ID. David stepped into the hallway to watch him exit the building. Adam reached the sidewalk and turned left, away from the parking lot. So he either wasn’t driving or he’d parked elsewhere.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I want to pick up my car at the station.”

  But by the time they reached the sidewalk, Adam was nowhere in sight. David scanned the street north and south, but there were no pedestrians or moving cars.

  60 P.A. Brown

  “Sonny boy seem all that broken up to you?” In the parking lot Martinez popped open the door to his brown Crown. “Mother’s death, gotta be a hard thing for anyone.”

  “Provided they get along as well as Baruch wants us to think,”

  David said. “You get the feeling he made a point of making sure Crandall saw him come by every two weeks? Like clockwork.”

  “The loyal, loving son. Alice didn’t exactly buy into it.”

  “Notice he barely shed a tear when we told him she was dead?”

  “Nice.” Martinez wheeled out of the tree-lined parking lot and headed east toward the station. “Think he’s good for it?”

  “I’m wondering about this whole religious thing.” David beat a tattoo on his thigh. “I always fi gured mom just switched from, say, being a Presbyterian to Catholicism. Now I’m thinking there’s a whole lot more going on.”

  “Baruch. Adam Baruch. Sounds Jewish. If Nancy Scott married a Jew and they raised their son Jewish, then junior’s bound to get ticked off when Mom goes back to the old faith so soon after his father’s out of the picture. Gotta seem like a major betrayal.”

  “Gives him cause to resent her,” Martinez said. “Enough to off her?”

  “Guess we better fi nd out.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wednesday 1:40 pm, Glendale Boulevard, Silver Lake, Los Angeles Chris spent the day at the hospital with no more damaging discoveries; he was on his way to grab a bottle of wine for Des’s dinner party when he spotted the jewelry store tucked behind the plaza where he parked.

  The interior was well lit and smelled of incense that tickled the back of Chris’s throat. Almost immediately he spotted the glittering row of pendants spotlighted on their dark, velvet cases.

  A thin, delicate Japanese man approached from the other side of the glass case. He eyed Chris with a practiced gaze and must have liked what he saw; the wattage from his smile lit up his face.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  Chris pointed out one platinum pendant. “I’d like to look at that one.”

  Later, after he had selected a couple of bottles of Tantara’s Bien Nacido Pinot Noir, he returned to pick up his other purchase, now engraved, and headed home. For once he hoped David hadn’t beaten him there.

  He was in luck, the house was empty.

  After a quick lunch and a long walk down by the reservoir with the dog, he spent the next two hours in the bathroom, waxing and tweezing until his body was as smooth as raw silk. Then he showered and dressed with extra care, new Martin Margiela pants and an aqua sweater that hugged his chest and showed off every line of his carefully honed physique.

  In the kitchen he opened a bottle of Bettinelli Chardonnay.

  He carried the glass into his home offi ce and logged online to check his email.

  62 P.A. Brown

  No more threatening messages from Sandman. Was that good or bad? Had the stunt at the hospital just been a prank gone bad?

  Had the guy freaked, sent Chris a warning, then skipped?

  Sandman was no script kiddie, he—or she, he amended—

  knew what he was doing. Sandman’s actions weren’t like the teens who compiled code they found online, which they unleashed as viruses that rarely worked. Most system administrators found them more of an irritation than a real threat; they ate up bandwidth and consumed time cleaning up the mess they left.

  Weapons of mass annoyance.

  Sandman was far beyond that level. The danger he posed was real. He was already responsible for taking one life.

  But was he worth pursuing on his own time? David was safe.

  Why expend energy chasing an ephemeral ghost in the machine?

  Didn’t Chris have enough work?

  He heard the front door open and close. David’s footsteps echoed across the tiled foyer, fi rst hard, then soft, after he took his shoes off and put his gun and badge in the hall safe.

  Chris logged off and stood just as David stuck his head round the corner, his mustache quirking upward as he smiled.

  “Hey, it’s after fi ve,” David said. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking this evening off?”

  “Hmph, you should talk.” Chris kissed him. “Hope you haven’t eaten.”

  “Not unless you count Martinez’s donuts.” He looked Chris up and down. “You look nice. Got a hot date?”

  “Funny,” Chris said. “Why don’t you grab a shower while I get you a drink.”

  When David entered the kitchen, hair still damp, Chris had a second glass ready. They shared the last of the Chardonnay, while David read the paper.

  Des met them at the door of his Beverly Hills bungalow. His classically beautiful, pale bronze face was wreathed in smiles as he clasped Chris’s hands in his and air-kissed him. “Darlings, you L.A. BYTES 63

  came.” He repeated the gesture on David, then held the larger man at arm’s length while he studied him with knowing eyes.

  “Have we lost weight? You look marvelous, David. And I must say that suit looks divine on you.”

  Chris ignored David’s rolling eyes and grinned. “He does look good, doesn’t he?”

  Des guided the two of them into his living room. “You must visit the shop again. I just got the most incredible Brunello Cucinellis in. You’ll just die when you see them—”

  He broke away to take the wine Chris offered him. He gestured them to sit.

  “We’ll open this later,” he said. “Right now I have something you simply must try.”

  Under their amused stares the slender African-American man slipped behind his bar, a Fin de Siecle ebony and brown leather piece taking up half the wall. Over it loomed a series of movie posters from the thirties and forties, preserved behind glass on acid-free mats.

  Over Des’s hairless head, Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine stared down raptly from “Suspicion.” On either side of the Hitchcock thriller, Nick and Nora dabbled in mystery and martinis in images from their various Thin Man movies.

  Des produced a chrome cocktail set and soon delivered Chris’s favorite Cîroc martini. For David he poured a bottle of beer into a tall glass. David watched him, then took the bottle from him.

  “Tuchers?” he asked. “Where do you fi nd these things?”

  “I’m a shopper hon, I can fi nd anything.”

  David shook his head, but drank the imported beer anyway, since he knew Des refused to stock domestic beer. “Not even for you, sugar,” he said, whenever David forgot and asked for a Bud.

  “Sit, sit,” Des said, herding them toward the pair of Savoy Art Deco club chairs facing the brocade love seat across a walnut-veneered coffee table.

  64 P.A. Brown

  At one time the room
had been fi lled with Louis XIV antiques.

  Then Kyle, Des’s lover, had been murdered and the man who later tried to kill Chris had assaulted Des. The brutality occurred right in this room. Chris wanted Des to sell the place and move someplace, anyplace else, but Des resisted the idea. He had clung to his home through all of Chris’s gentle encouragement to move on.

  But he sold the furniture.

  Chris slipped onto the love seat and pulled David down beside him.

  “So what’s this big surprise?” Chris asked. “Something really juicy, I hope.”

  “Oh you’ll love it, I know you will.” Des had barely parked his delicate rump on the Savoy when he jumped back up, too excited to sit still. “First though, you just have to sample Kozi’s sushi. He got it all ready for me, just hold on, I’ll go get the fi rst tray—”

  Des vanished into the kitchen, a wisp of scented air. He was back almost immediately carrying a massive split bamboo tray on which an array of Japanese delicacies were artfully arranged.

  There was kappa maki, and nori, crab rolls and soba noodles, along with a bowl after bowl of wasabi, sesame oil and shoyu for dipping.

  Chris grabbed a pair of chopsticks and dove in. David gingerly followed suit, though his skills with the sticks were never strong and he favored his fi ngers when Des refused to allow him to use a fork.

  “So are you two all set for next week?” Des asked between bites of nori.

  “Next week?” David looked puzzled.

  It was Des’s turn to roll his eyes. “The party. Have you forgotten already? It’s Halloween.”

  “I don’t know, Des—”

  “David, you promised.” Des looked at Chris. “Didn’t he promise?”

  L.A. BYTES 65

  “Chris...” David said.

  “You did promise,” Chris reminded him.

  “Oh, you’ll have fun, David. Really, inside that gruff bear is a silly old queen just dying to get out and have some fun.”

  Chris almost burst out laughing at the look on David’s face. He patted David’s muscular thigh but David wasn’t into reassurances.

  “Silly old queen?”