I could start calling masseurs on massageformen.com and ask if they’d ever had a guy try to choke them. That might not be a bad idea. It would be time consuming, and I might not get too many answers, since they’d likely think I was just a perv into scarfing myself and not call me back. But if I found one guy who’d…then I another idea. A better one.
Hyped up on two cups of coffee, I got to work. I called and left a voicemail for Tiffany asking if Cameron had cracked the file yet. Then I clicked over to the Internet and found a site that sold phone numbers and addresses. I paid nearly twelve bucks for info on five Sylvia Navarezes in Los Angeles County. I picked out the one I thought most likely to be Eddie’s fiancée, GPSed her address on my phone, and headed out.
The address was on the very edge of Echo Park. As I drove east along Sunset, the neighborhoods got poorer and poorer. Finally, I took a sharp turn north and zigzagged over a few streets until I was heading up a small hill. Halfway up the hill, I turned and found the address I was looking for, 2216 Popping Jay.
The street was narrow and made a sudden, treacherous curve right after 2216 and continued upward. I parked a few hundred feet above the house, where the street was cut into a sandy hillside. I was glad it wasn’t raining. The wall of sand and rock I’d parked next to was likely to come down in a bad storm.
Walking down toward 2216, I noted that the curve lacked a guardrail. I was able to look straight down the hill to the back of someone’s yard fifty feet below. It seemed likely that someone went off the road and ended up in their backyard at least once every decade or so, probably more often.
The Navarez house was a small Craftsman badly in need of repair. The only updates I could see from the street were the bars on each window and the steel security door covering the front door. The house was set above the street about fifteen feet, and the yard behind it continued up hill.
Opening the vine-covered front gate, I climbed up the driveway to the sagging front porch. I pressed a doorbell and nothing happened, silence. I tried again, and when nothing continued to happen, I knocked on the metal door. The wooden front door beyond was open, and I could hear my knock clanging through the small house. I could also see that the tiny living room was stuffed with large, leather furniture and a giant plasma TV. I heard footsteps, and then Sylvia Navarez was at the door.
Nailed it the first time. This was the Sylvia Navarez I was looking for. I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the universe was on my side, after all. “Sylvia Navarez, right?”
“Yes. Who are you?” Apparently, she didn’t watch the local news.
“I’m Matt Latowski. Your fiancé was killed at my house.”
“I can’t talk to you.” She began to shut the inner door.
“Please, you have to talk to me. There are things I need to know.”
Leaving the door open just a crack, she peeked out at me. “What do you need to know?”
“One of my neighbors saw a woman sitting in a black SUV crying. Was that you?”
I thought I saw a tiny flinch when I asked my question, but she said, “No. It wasn’t me.”
“The police are pretty sure I killed Eddie, I mean Javier, but I didn’t, so I have to figure out who did.”
“No, I can’t help you. I’m sorry.” She slammed the door shut like I was some freak selling religion door-to-door. I was stunned. Staring at the metal door, I stood there deciding what to do. I could knock and ring the doorbell until she called the police. Not a good idea. Or I could leave with my tail between my legs. Also, not a good idea.
I looked around the porch, then walked down to the driveway. In the driveway sat a recent model Ford Mustang. When I looked closely I noted that it was a Shelby edition. I knew they only made a few thousand of these each year. Even used, a Shelby like this was in the forty to fifty thousand dollar range. It looked to be loaded with every possible option, and unlike the house, it was spotlessly maintained. I remembered the extra Ford key on Eddie’s key chain. This was Eddie’s other car. Nice.
Something was obviously wrong, the expensive leather furniture, the enormous TV and now the Shelby. Yeah, Eddie and Sylvia might have gone crazy with credit cards, but I doubted it. I also doubted she was the kind of girl who came with a trust fund. There was no way they could have paid for all this on just what Eddie made giving massages. Something else was going on, something more lucrative than a rub and a tug.
My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at it. David Barker was calling me. I decided to let it go to voicemail. It was flattering that he’d call so soon, but booking repeat clients was not a priority. I ignored the call and was about to go back to wondering about Eddie’s situation when I looked up and saw a Hispanic guy of about twenty coming up the driveway. He had a basketball in one hand. He wore over-long gym shorts, a pair of high tops, and a layer of sweat. He was a nice-looking kid. He reminded me a
