I did a U-turn and was about to head back into the valley when I noticed a Crown Vic turning into the street I was on. Detective Hanson was in the driver’s seat, glaring at me as she drove by. Crap! I’d put the GPS back onto my car and hadn’t bothered to take it off. I made a quick turn back toward L.A.
I drove through the Cahuenga pass as quickly as I could. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I didn’t see Hanson. She was back there, but the road I was on took a number of dips and turns as it worked through the Cahuenga Pass. I had the sudden realization that Hanson hadn’t framed Tripp to get him to take the blame for to murders, she framed Tripp so he couldn’t help me. Hanson and Maldonado wanted the file. They weren’t at all concerned about the murders. Hanson probably thought she’d be able to make sure they went unsolved.
My first impulse was to go home, but that was crazy. I’d be a sitting duck there. Instead, I drove south on Highland down to Sunset, where I took a right, heading west. Traffic was thick. I glanced in my rear-view mirror; no sign of Hanson. I made a sudden, sharp turn onto Formosa and double-parked in a driveway. I jumped out of the car, ran around to the passenger side wheel well and retrieved the GPS. Then I ran back and hopped in the driver side. I made a U-turn and headed back to Sunset.
I could have stuck the GPS onto a parked car or thrown it onto someone’s lawn, but I was too worried that Hanson would resort to other methods to find me. Like police APBs or even helicopters. I had to keep her busy for as long as possible. Though at first, I wasn’t sure how I’d accomplish this.
Back on Sunset, I looked around trying to think of a way to get rid of the GPS. Ahead of me, in the next lane about two cars up, I noticed an old Buick convertible. It was an enormous boat of a car with a huge back seat. The top was down; it was L.A. after all.
There were two cars in front of me, so I couldn’t just pull up next to it. I had to be patient and try to figure a way to get next to it. It took three blocks before I was just one car length behind them. I kept my fingers crossed that they wouldn’t make a left turn and disappear. Then, at the next light, I was able to pull up next to them. The driver was a middle-aged man in his fifties. His balding head was sunburned, and he looked about as happy as a man can while driving. I could tell he just loved that car. He kept scanning the sidewalks to see if anyone was noticing him.
I buzzed my electric window down and got the GPS in my left hand. I’m right-handed, so I knew it would be a little on the tricky side. There was room to move ahead, but I wasn’t budging. The guy in back of me seemed to getting annoyed about that, but I couldn’t worry about him.
At the next stop light, as the driver looked at a pretty blonde entering the crosswalk, I carefully tossed the GPS into his back seat. He heard something, but he wasn’t sure what. He turned and looked at me. I smiled and nodded my head at the blonde. Just as I’d hoped, he went back to watching her. When the light turned, I sped up and drove west on Sunset.
I had it in the back of my mind where I could go. I had Peter’s key on my keychain; I could go to his place in Venice and hide out. No one would know I was there. It took another forty minutes to get there. Most of that time I spent freaking out a little. I turned my cell phone off. I read somewhere that the signal could be used to pinpoint a location. There wouldn’t be much point of getting rid of the GPS if my cell could be used for the same purpose. I was pretty sure they couldn’t do the same thing with a computer. It would be safe to use my laptop when I got to Peter’s.
His apartment was on a side street in the not-so-good part of Venice where it borders on Culver City. Just off Venice Boulevard, the apartment complex was five pre-World War Two clapboard buildings on a large lot. Each building had two units. Peter lived in the back building.
Inside, the apartment was composed of a tiny living room, a cramped, makeshift kitchen, a bathroom barely big enough for the tub, toilet and sink it held, and a closet-sized bedroom. In the living room, a mattress sprawled on the floor in front of an over-large flat screen television hooked up to a new DVD player and an Xbox. As though suggested by its size, the bedroom was now a closet. It held a dresser, two metal clothes racks, several laundry baskets full of clothes, and stacks of plastic boxes full of shoes. In the kitchen, the appliances were covered with dust and the refrigerator empty.
When I got there, I set my things by the door; my laptop and the bag I used for massages into which I’d shoved some clothes. I used Peter’s landline
