Sorority Row. Cruz pulled the Mercedes up to the curb next to a gatepost where the Greek letters phi beta gamma were screwed into the wood.
Cruz and Del Rio got out of the car and went through the gate and up a path to the front door of the old earth-colored stucco house. Del Rio pressed the buzzer.
A twenty-something Hispanic male answered the door, hair slicked back, eyebrows waxed, wearing flip-flops, spotless white yoga pants, and a white tunic.
Cruz flashed his badge. Gold shield in a leather wallet. Looked like the real official thing.
“Can I help you?” the man asked.
“We need to see the lady of the house. Susan Burnett. We’re investigating a homicide.”
“Please wait here,” said the guy in white.
Cruz said, “Might be better for us not to stand on your doorstep.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
Cruz turned away from the door and stood with his chin tilted up, hands clasped behind his back, taking in the smells of jacaranda and banana trees, while Del Rio stood on one foot, then the other until the guy came back.
“Miss Burnett will see you now.”
The madam or booker or whatever she called herself had a cappuccino complexion and a Pilates build. She was jogging on a treadmill in the gym at the back of the house, jalousie windows overlooking the pool.
Del Rio thought she was smokin’, probably a hooker herself a few years back. He tapped her shoulder and she turned, hit the power button, and got off her Nordic Track. Draped a towel around her neck.
Del Rio held up his badge again, not saying he was with the LAPD but implying it. No crime called “implying,” although impersonating a police officer was a felony.
“I’m Rick Del Rio. This is my partner, Emilio Cruz. We’re investigating a homicide. We’re not here about your business activities. This is all about a homicide last night at the Beverly Hills Sun.”
“We may have a witness, a girl who works for you,” Cruz said. “If I can put my CD into your player.”
“Oh, my. You’re very forward, Mr. Cruz,” said Susan Burnett, giving him a dry smile. “Let me see that badge again?”
Cruz took it out of his jacket pocket, preempting her indignation by saying, “We’re investigators with Private. We’re not going to talk to the cops. If we don’t have to.”
Burnett said, “I should call the cops just to see what you would do.”
“You want to turn this little inquiry into an official case, go ahead,” said Del Rio. “The tabloids will love it.”
Burnett thought for a second. “I wouldn’t want to play cards with you, Mr. Arroyo,” she said. “Follow me.” She went up a spiral staircase ahead of Cruz and Del Rio.
CHAPTER 25
The room where the business was done had once been a bedroom but was now outfitted with a conference table. Three women over thirty, and in one case over fifty, sat around it wearing headsets, each with a Sony workstation.
Travel posters were on the wall. St. Barts. Cozumel.
The older woman was making flight arrangements, saying, “I’ve got you two first-class bulkhead seats on the fifteenth, Mr. Oliver.”
Decent cover for an escort service, Del Rio thought.
The two other women just stared back at him.
Burnett was saying, “So, let’s have that CD.”
Del Rio handed it over and went to stand behind Burnett as she brought up the video.
“What am I looking at?”
“May I?” Del Rio asked.
He leaned over Burnett’s shoulder and reversed the CD to the time and date just before the hooker got off the elevator.
He hit “pause” and said, “We have Mr. Maurice Bingham entering room 502 of the Sun at five-thirty-eight last night. He called Phi Beta seven minutes later, at five-forty-five. Call lasted three minutes. Credit card transaction at five-forty-eight for twelve hundred dollars plus tax, payable to Phi Beta Girls.”
“I don’t know that Mr. Bingham was a client,” Burnett said. “Our clients don’t always use their real names.”
“Bingham used his real name and a real MasterCard. We checked. What you’re looking at is the fifth floor at six-thirteen p.m. last night. This is Mr. Bingham’s ‘date,’” Del Rio said, hitting
“forward,” showing the girl walking to the room.
“Miss Cutie Patootie was in 502 for two hours on the nose, and now”-he sped up the action-“we see her leaving. Bingham was never seen alive again.”
Del Rio froze the image of the six-hundred-dollar-an-hour escort, then ejected the CD and handed it to Cruz.
Del Rio said, “We need to talk to this girl. If she didn’t do it, you’re done with us.
“I want to remind you that if you don’t help us, we will turn this disk over to the cops. So let’s play nice, okay, Susan? Who is the girl in the blue dress? And how do we find her?”
CHAPTER 26
“Party girl at two o’clock,” Cruz said to Del Rio. They were parked illegally on Charles E. Young Drive, right outside the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine.
“You go first,” Del Rio said. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
The escort’s name was Jillian Delaney and she was between classes, coming up a path between the brick buildings and geometric-shaped greens of the campus.
Cruz walked up to the pretty young woman, brunette, slim, walking by herself, books in her arms, knapsack on her back. He showed her his badge and the girl backed up a couple steps, looked around for a way out, but by then Del Rio was behind her, his badge in his hand.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“Last night. Room 502 at the Beverly Hills Sun,” said Cruz.
“Oh, my God, ” she said.
Talk about a deer in the headlights. But, Del Rio thought, here again was where playacting got tricky. You couldn’t say to the girl, “Get into the squad car. Let’s discuss this downtown.” Just had to bluff and hope for the best.
He and Cruz walked Jillian Delaney toward a bench, and Cruz introduced them as “investigators.” They all sat down.
The girl was petite without the five-inch heels and looked much smaller sitting between them than she had on the surveillance tape. She weighed maybe a hundred and ten pounds with her clothes and shoes on.
Cruz said, “Let me hold your books, okay, Jillian?”
The girl looked at him. “Are you arresting me?” When Cruz didn’t answer, she handed them over.
Del Rio said, “Please hold out your hands.”
Jillian did as instructed, and Del Rio checked out her perfect nails, pale pink polish, no chips, no breaks. She turned her hands over, palms up.
There were no cuts or bruises on her baby-soft hands.
Even if she’d been wearing gloves, there should have been some physical signs from strangling a man to death with a wire.
