Bruno said, “Nobody ever put Wendy Borman together with the schoolgirls. You’d make a good cop-if you could afford the precipitous drop in pay.”
“Thanks,” Justine said. “But I could be wrong about this angle.”
“Well, you just keep sticking your neck out,” said Bruno. “I’m not one of the cops with a hate-on for you, Dr. Smith.”
“Justine.”
“Justine. I don’t care who catches the son of a bitch. In fact, now I’m rooting for you. Obviously, we need all the help we can get.”
Justine smiled. “Tell me about Christine Castiglia.”
Bruno swiveled his chair a hundred eighty degrees, opened a file drawer behind him, and took out a spiral notebook with “Borman” written on the cover in thick caps. He swiveled back around and rubbed his forehead as he flipped through his notes, saying, “Uh-huh,” from time to time before he looked up again.
“Okay, I remember most of this pretty well. Bottom line, Christine and her mother, Peggy Castiglia, were in a coffee shop on the corner of Rowena and Hyperion. The girl is facing Hyperion and she sees two guys throw a girl into a van-”
“Two guys?”
“That’s what she said. She couldn’t be sure that the abducted girl was Wendy Borman. And we couldn’t establish Wendy’s time of death close enough to say if she was killed within the time the Castiglias were eating.”
Bruno sighed. “But she saw two guys. In effect, that was pretty much the beginning and end of our investigation. Nothing else was turned up.”
“Was Christine able to give a description of the men? Of either of them?”
Bruno shuffled through the pages and came up with an Identi-Kit approximation of a young man with curly hair and glasses. His features were regular, almost bland. Not much help there.
He turned the book so Justine could see it.
“This drawing tells me Christine didn’t get a good look at his face,” Bruno said. “The perp had dark hair and glasses, and that’s all she saw.”
“Too damn bad, huh?”
“Yeah, but I’m remembering now. Christine also saw the back of the second guy. He was shorter and had longer, straighter hair than the first guy. Great news, huh? That eliminates all but a couple of million white males in LA.”
“Did she look at mug shots?”
“No, we couldn’t get her to. The mother rushed her daughter out of here like her hair was on fire. Nothing we could do to change her mind.”
“She was eleven,” Justine said. “So she’d be sixteen now, high school sophomore.”
“I never really stop thinking about Wendy Borman,” said Bruno. “Here’s the Castiglias’ last known address.”
Justine said, “Thanks, Mark. One more thing that might help me. I could use an introduction to the best cop you know in cold cases.”
He nodded his head slowly. “Consider it done.”
Chapter 58
It took Cruz the rest of the day and into the night to get anywhere near the film star Bob Santangelo-and he only managed it by hanging outside Teddy’s Lounge like some goofy groupie waiting for the actor to head out to the street with his entourage.
Cruz drifted a ways behind a bodyguard through the mob scene. He got to the pearly gray Mercedes at the curb as it started to roll. He pressed his badge up to the tinted glass of the windshield, and the car jerked to a stop.
The back door opened, and a bodyguard climbed out. Asian or Samoan. Big. “What do you want, sir?”
“I just have a couple of questions, then Mr. Santangelo can be on his way.”
A voice came from inside. “It’s all right.”
Santangelo was in the backseat. He was tanned, with short brown hair and ten o’clock shadow. He sported a brown leather bomber jacket like the one he’d worn in The Great Squall. The actor slid over, and Cruz got in beside him.
Once again, the gray sedan moved off from the curb.
Cruz said, “My name is Emilio Cruz. I’m a private investigator.”
“What the hell?” Santangelo said. “I thought you were a cop.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Cruz said.
“So what is this? Is Ellen having me followed?”
“I don’t know your wife.”
“But you know her name is Ellen. Tell me what this is about and do it fast. When we get to Gower, that’s the end of the ride.”
“I’m investigating the death of Shelby Cushman.”
“Jeez. Poor Shelby. I’m serious. I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”
“You knew her for a while? How long, Bob?”
“Just a couple of months. You ever meet Shelby? Well, she was one sweet lady. Plus she was hilarious. Here I am, married, have everything, and all I really wanted was to be with Shelby. I fell in love with her. I think I actually did.”
“Where were you when she was killed? Sorry to have to ask.”
“I was flying to New York with Xo,” he said, indicating the muscle in the front seat. “I had dinner with Julia Roberts at Mercury that night. Check it out if you need to.”
“I will. If you had to name someone who might have wanted to hurt Shelby, who would it be?”
“I don’t know, man. Her dealer? Orlando something. She borrowed some money from me to pay him once. I never actually met the dirtbag. He set up a lot of girls at the spa.”
The actor leaned toward the driver, told him to pull over. He said, “This is your stop, Mr., ah, Cruz.”
Cruz smiled and shook his head. “Drive me back to Teddy’s. That’s where my car’s parked. Now that we’re such good friends.”
“Teddy’s,” the actor said to his driver. “I don’t want to see you again,” he said to Cruz.
“Only at the movies, dude.”
Emilio Cruz settled back into the plush leather. The case was starting to make some sense, at least. Shelby Cushman, the girl with the golden heart and a rich husband, also had a drug dealer. Maybe she was hooking to support her habit.
Andy wasn’t going to like that, and neither was Jack. Nobody liked hearing that somebody they loved was a junkie.
Chapter 59
Uncle Fred was on his mobile, leaning against a wall in a corner of my office with his back to the door when I walked in. It had been almost a week since he, David Dix, and Evan Newman had hooked me in with a major assignment and a big bonus sweetener. So far, I felt we had barely earned the retainer.
Fred had looked worried then. Now his forehead was so rumpled he reminded me of one of those Chinese dogs. Football was not only his livelihood, it was his passion, the one thing he’d found to love in life. He’d told me as much a dozen times or more, ever since I was a kid. If the game was fixed, his world would become a sinkhole.
