Four days and not a single report.
“You can't see it from the street,” Salant added. “Blocked by storage buildings. We get hot cars stashed there all the time.”
“Where is it now?” said Petra.
“Downtown. Have fun.”
She talked to several criminalists before locating a female named Wilkerson who was working on the Porsche. The car was a charred shell, no wheels, seats, engine, front windshield.
“Like locusts swept in,” said Wilkerson.
“What about prints?”
“Nothing so far. I'll let you know.”
She drank Coke and tried to put together Lisa's journey from Doheny Drive to Griffith Park. Where did Venice fit in? Just a dumping ground for the Porsche, or had Lisa driven it behind the bus yard? Meeting up with her date on a deserted street in a high-crime neighborhood?
Was the last-date scenario totally wrong? Had Lisa indeed been carjacked and abducted, forced to drive to Venice by a stranger?
Or by someone she knew? Setting out from Doheny for a date with someone else. The murderer watching, stalking, following, pulling off the snatch.
Ramsey would fit that picture.
Venice… Kelly Sposito, Darrell Breshear's current flame, lived on Fourth Street, walking distance from the bus yard.
Where was Breshear's home base? She looked him up in her pad. The DMV data had him on Ashland, Ocean Park, the border between Santa Monica and Venice. Very close.
Everything gravitating toward the beach. Including the boy, if Wil's Russian tipster could be believed.
Breshear. Another former actor. Everyone performing… news of the recovered car would be in the paper tomorrow. She had to get to Breshear before he had time to construct a story.
It was nearly 10 P.M. Was he with his wife or with Kelly? Betting on the former, she got dressed again and drove west.
Ashland was a pretty, sloping street in the best part of Ocean Park, houses of all sizes, every conceivable architectural style. Breshear's place was at the top, a small, well-maintained craftsman cottage with lots of cactus in the front, thatches of sword plant instead of lawn. White BMW ragtop in the driveway, behind an iron gate. Bright lights over the gate hinted at a fantastic backyard view. She rang the bell, and Breshear answered, wearing a black T-shirt and baggy green shorts, holding a bottle of Heineken. When he saw her, his eyes bulged.
“This is a bad time,” he said. “My wife…”
“It could get worse,” she said. “I think you lied to me. We found Lisa's car today. Right here in Venice. Did you have a date with her Sunday night? If you did, we'll find out.”
He looked over his shoulder. Closed the door and came out and said, “Can we move out to the sidewalk?”
“Won't your wife get curious?”
“She's in the bath.”
Petra accompanied him to the sidewalk.
“It wasn't really a date,” he said. “She just said she wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“I don't know- oh hell, yeah, she wanted to get it on.”
“So you'd continued your relationship past those glorious seven days.”
“Not really,” he said. “Just once in a while, maybe once a month.”
“Your idea?”
“Definitely not. Lisa's, one hundred percent.”
“My, my,” said Petra. “Lisa, Kelly, your wife- what's her name, by the way?”
“Marcia.” Breshear looked back at the house. “Look-”
“Busy guy,” said Petra.
“It's no crime.”
“Obstructing justice is.”
“I didn't obstruct anything. It- I had nothing to say that would help you, because by the time I got there, she was gone. What would it look like, saying I went to meet up with her that night.” Staring at Petra. “A black man, we know what that's all about.”
“Cut the racial crap,” said Petra. “The only civil rights that were violated were Lisa's. What time were you supposed to meet her?”
“Ten-thirty.”
“When did you set it up?”
“She set it up. That day. She called me at work around seven.”
“You were working Sunday?”
“Doing a final cut. Check with the lot guard- I signed in.”
“I will,” said Petra. “So Lisa called you to get together.”
“She said she was lonely, down, had been sleeping all day, took some coke, now she was wired, couldn't sit still, how about a cruise.”
The car; always in the car.
“A cruise,” said Petra.
“She wanted to get together at nine, but I told her I'd be working till then, had a date at Kelly's place right afterward, but I'd see if I could slip out around ten-thirty, meet her behind the bus yard.”
“Why there?”
“We'd met there before. It's…”
“Clandestine?”
“I didn't like it, too much crime around there, but Lisa did. The risk turned her on.” He shrugged.
Petra said, “Go on.”
“I had trouble getting out. Kelly… kept me busy till after eleven. Finally, I told her I needed to get some air, was going to take a little drive. I made it by eleven-ten or so and Lisa's car was there but she wasn't. I waited around till eleven-twenty, figured she'd showed up and left.”
“The car was there, but she wasn't,” said Petra. “That didn't worry you?”
“Like I said, Lisa liked to take risks. Doing it at traffic lights, a cop car right next to us. Coldwater Canyon, that kind of thing. I figured maybe she'd met up with someone else, was having a good time. Which was okay with me. I really didn't want to see her that night. Didn't want to see her at all, but…”
“But what?”
“You know how it is. I have trouble telling women no.”
“When did you get back to Kelly's?”
“Had to be eleven twenty-five, eleven-thirty.”
“And you spent the night there.”
“That's the absolute truth.”
“The perfect alibi Kelly gave you wasn't.”
“Come on,” he said. “I was only out for half an hour max. No way could I have made it to Griffith-”
“You and Kelly are both liable for perjury and obstruction,” said Petra.
“Come on. Please! You're making a big deal out of nothing!”
Petra walked up close to him, pointed at his chest, but didn't touch it. “At the very least, you cost me a lot of hours, Mr. Breshear. If there's anything else you know, spill it now.”
“I don't, that's it.”
She stared him down.
He repeated, “I don't.”
“Listen to me,” she said, pointing again. “I'm not arresting you. Yet. But don't even come close to thinking about going anywhere. There'll be police officers watching your house and the studio. Surveillance on Kelly, too. You guys make the wrong move, it all hits the fan. Including a nice long chat with Marcia.”
Breshear blinked convulsively.
This feels good, Petra admitted to herself. Finally, someone she could intimidate on this damn case.
As she walked away, the front door opened and a woman's voice said, “Darrell honey? Who was that?”
She drove back to her apartment, head suddenly clear, the basic structure of Lisa's last night alive taking form- if Breshear was finally being straight.
A meet at 10:30, abducted between then and 11:20, taken to Griffith Park, at least a half-hour ride, probably longer. Murdered between midnight and 4.
The car. Which one? PLYR 1? PLYR 0? Some other set of wheels? Ramsey, with his multiple vehicles, multiple houses, fences, gates, Larry Schick, was a nightmare suspect. Crime paid if you started out rich.
It was nearly eleven when she walked through the door. Too late to call him? She did anyway. Four rings, then a little girl's munchkin voice said, “When you hear the beep, leave a message. Beep. And beep and beep and-”
Ron broke in. “Banks.”
“Hi, it's Petra.”
“Petra.” Saying her name with pleasure. She could use some adulation. “How's it going?”
She told him about the Porsche, Breshear's revised story, the new time frame.