“I had to tell him about Shelby and the spa. He couldn’t believe it.”
“Ooof,” Cruz said. “I feel for the guy.”
“Me too,” I said. “Ever wish you were wrong?”
“He fired us because you told him the truth, huh?” said Del Rio.
“He’ll change his mind in a few days.”
“You think?” Cruz said.
“So, how are you doing?” I asked them. “We’re still working this case, right? We’re going to find out who murdered Shelby.”
Cruz put a hand in his inside pocket. He withdrew a narrow notebook and started to report. He said that he’d interviewed a woman who worked at Glenda Treat’s spa and that she’d given him the names of two clients who saw a lot of Shelby Cushman.
“They’re both in the entertainment business,” Cruz said. “I did some research. Also, I checked with the New York office. One of the guys, Bob Santangelo, came from Brooklyn. You know him?”
“I know his name. I think I’ve seen him in a couple of movies.”
“Pugnacious type from back east. One of those actors who don’t give TV interviews. Likes to throw his weight around.”
“He saw Shelby a lot?”
“A few times a week, apparently. The other guy is Zev Martin, an A-list director, works for Warner Brothers a lot. People say the A stands for asshole in his case. Apparently, he’s quite in love with himself.”
“Bat Out of Hell,” Del Rio said. “Horror classic, freakin’ masterpiece. I saw it about six times. Martin directed it. Santangelo played the bad guy.”
“Both of them are married,” Cruz continued. “Neither has a record.”
“License to carry?” I asked.
“Negative,” said Cruz.
“You have a preference?”
“Nope.”
“You take Santangelo,” I said to Cruz. “Keep in touch.”
Chapter 56
Del Rio and I drove to Warner Brothers studios out in Burbank. I showed my badge at security, then told them to check with the studio head, who was a client. A couple of minutes later, I drove down the wide, bright roadway through the lot, past the commissary and the soundstages, out to the bungalows that were laid out in a campus-like setting.
We found Zev Martin working on his motorcycle to the side of a white house with his name stenciled over the door. He was a small guy in his thirties with tightly clipped facial hair and a barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps.
I introduced Del Rio and myself while Martin squinted up at us suspiciously. “What?” he asked.
“We’re investigating the death of Shelby Cushman,” I said. So far, this line had proven to be a conversation stopper. This time was no different.
“You saw her several times a week,” Del Rio said. “At the Benedict Spa. Did she ever say anything to you about anyone giving her trouble there?”
Martin stood up, wiped his hands on a dirty rag, and said, “You don’t go to see girls like that so you can listen to their problems. Pretty funny idea, actually. Is that what you do?” Martin said to Del Rio. “You pay women to talk about themselves? Why don’t you just get married?”
Del Rio ’s bruises were still dark and plentiful. He looked like a pit bull who’d been matched with an equal-and won.
“I don’t pay women,” Del Rio said. “What kind of guy does that, I wonder.”
“Rick,” I said, “wait for me in the car, please.”
But he didn’t listen to me. He grabbed Martin by the shirt and pulled the collar tight at his throat. The bike went over, folded in on itself.
“We don’t want any of your bullshit,” Del Rio said into Martin’s face. “Tell us about Shelby or after I beat your brains in, I’ll personally tell your unfortunate wife about your unfortunate visits to the spa.”
“Hey! What’s with you?” Martin squealed.
I heard the bleeping of a security cart coming up the roadway in our direction.
Martin was going red in the face as Del Rio wrung the next few words out of him. “ Shelby was in love with some guy. Not her husband, okay?”
“Rick,” I said, grabbing him from behind, “let him go.”
“Who was this guy she loved?” Del Rio said, shaking the director.
“I don’t know. It was a rumor with a few of the other girls. Shelby never mentioned it herself.”
I wrenched Rick off Zev Martin and apologized as Rick stalked off toward the car.
“Are you okay?” I asked Martin.
“Fuck no,” he said, running his hand around his throat.
“ Del Rio is a vet,” I said, leaving out that he was also an ex-con. “He’s suffering from PTSD. I’m very sorry.”
“I should have him charged with assault,” Martin said, as the studio cop cart parked at the curb.
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think you want any more attention drawn to this situation,” I said.
I avoided looking at the security cop and walked back to my car. I got in and slammed the door.
“It better not be that Shelby was in love with you, Jack,” Del Rio muttered. “ ‘Close friends,’ I think you called it.”
I started up the car and said to Rick, “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you take yourself off your meds?”
He was curled up against the passenger door. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Have you ever sleepwalked?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I wake up, I’m behind the couch, or in the closet, or outside on the lawn. I have no idea how it happened. I have nightmares, bad ones.”
“Take the rest of the day off, Rick. Go home and get some sleep before you get us killed.”
Chapter 57
Justine sipped room-temperature coffee from a cardboard cup.
The cop she’d tracked down, Lieutenant Mark Bruno, was sitting behind his desk in an office overlooking the homicide division bullpen. Bruno was somewhere around forty years old, stocky, thoughtful. Five years ago, he’d been one of the detectives working the Wendy Borman murder case in East LA.
“Wendy had been dead a day when she was found in that alley,” Bruno was saying. “It had rained. That just added to the tragedy. Whatever trace might have been left on her body was washed right down the tubes.”
“What’s your theory of the case?” Justine asked.
“More than a theory. There was a witness,” he said. “Somebody saw the abduction.”
Justine started and sat up straight in her chair. “Wait. There were no witnesses.”
“Yeah, there was. The papers didn’t carry the story because, for one thing, the witness was eleven years old. A girl, Christine Castiglia. Her mother wouldn’t let her talk to us for long, and what she saw didn’t actually amount to much.”
“I’m desperately seeking a lead,” Justine said. “I need whatever you’ve got, however insignificant it may seem.”
