Milo said, “You never saw Paul do anything but weed or booze?”
“At the club,” said Kehoe, “he’d sometimes do a little Molly. It was all around the clubs.”
“What about at home?”
“Never saw nothing, sir. He kept his bedroom locked.”
“When he had women over.”
“Uh-uh, always.”
I said, “Which made you even more suspicious.”
“Yes, sir. Who does that?”
“During your time living with Paul, how many women would you say left unconscious?”
“Maybe... fifteen? Twelve? I wasn’t counting.”
“Did any of the women ever show up more than once?”
“Never.”
“No girlfriends?”
“No, sir. Paul wasn’t into relationships. Said relationships were like cancer, you had to cut them out to be healthy.”
“Any reason he’d feel that way?”
Kehoe shrugged. “He was married, maybe he got burned?”
“Married to who?”
“No idea, sir. Way before I met him. He called her The Bitch, that’s all I know.”
“Did he have any children?”
“Not that he talked about.”
I looked at Milo. He paused in his writing and gave me the nod.
I said, “Was Paul from L.A. or somewhere else?”
“He said somewhere in the East, that’s all I know.”
“He didn’t talk much about himself?”
“Just about how good he was... with sex. He said he’d worked as a dancer. Doing bachelorette parties. Said he ended up doing a bunch of women at those. That’s all I know. We didn’t talk much. Just when we were doing doors and it got slow. But not about us. As people, you know? All Paul wanted to talk about was sex.”
He squirmed. “He did a couple of pornos. Showed them to me on his phone.”
Milo said, “Anything unusual about the films?”
“You mean weird stuff?” said Kehoe. “Nah, what I saw was just the usual. They were old. I could tell ’cause he was younger and they were kind of blurry. He said he could do it again, they were using all types. Said we both could be mature studs and make some buck.”
He shook his head.
I said, “He tried to recruit you.”
“I told him no way, too many diseases. He laughed and called me a pussy and said he was just kidding anyway.”
“Speaking of bucks,” said Milo, “what’d he borrow for?”
“Not the rent,” said Kehoe. “He always had his half.” Another eye shield. Big shoulders quaked.
Milo said, “What’s the matter, Marty?”
“I been thinking about that. Did he use my money to dope them? I don’t want to be part of that. I hope I wasn’t.”
He let both arms drop. His face was flushed, his breathing rapid.
Milo said, “Marty—”
“That’s the real reason Caitlin didn’t want me to talk to you. She says you could try to mess me up for not stopping it.”
Milo said, “Tell her don’t worry, Marty. All we care about is homicide.”
Kehoe’s eyes bulged. “Yeah, but what if one of them homicided? Look what happened to the one on the internet.”
“We’ve got no evidence of that, Marty. And even if it did happen you’ve got absolutely no culpability.”
Silence.
Milo said, “Okay?”
Kehoe shook his head frantically. “Caitlin says — I hope you’re right.” He shuddered. Sweat flew. Another Newfoundland lumbering ashore.
“Do not worry, Marty. You’ve done nothing that could be considered criminal and the fact that you came forward to give us information shows you’re a good person.”
Kehoe looked at him. “Thanks for saying that.”
“Anything else you can tell us about Paul?”
“Like what?”
“Like who’d want to kill him.”
“Caitlin says a lot of people,” said Kehoe. “Because of what I told her about Paul. But I don’t know who.”
Milo showed him Jamarcus Parmenter’s photo.
Kehoe said, “He did it?”
“No, he’s a victim of an older homicide. Know him?”
“Never seen him before.”
“Could he be a guy Paul mighta known?”
“Sure,” said Kehoe. “Yeah, I could see that.”
“Why?”
“He could be a club dude and Paul kept doing clubs after I quit.”
Milo kept the photo at Kehoe’s eye level. “You’re sure you’ve never seen him.”
“If I did, I’d tell you. Believe me, I’d tell you.”
We followed the usual routine, asking the same questions rephrased. Sometimes people get spooked because they realize they’re being played. The process calmed Marty Kehoe, loosening his voice, his phrasing, and his posture.
For all that, nothing new to say.
Milo looked at me. I shook my head. We stood.
“Thanks, Marty. If you think of anything else, here’s my card.”
“Yes, sir.” Kehoe retrieved the broom. As we left, he swept. More circles.
Out on the sidewalk, I said, “That question about racial preferences. You’re wondering about if O’Brien came on to Keisha. Or another woman Boykins cared about.”
“You bet. Yeah, it’s a racially narrow approach, why would I think Boykins wouldn’t care equally about a White woman? But all I give a damn about is doing the damn job.” He glanced at his Timex. “Time for your job. The one that pays.”
Chapter 15
Custody interviews kept me busy until noon on Friday. I drank coffee, had a sandwich, returned to something I’d woken up thinking about, and phoned Milo at his desk.
He said, “Still dealing with the real world?”
“As opposed to?”
“The surreal, reeking underbelly of our city.”
“The chamber of commerce should put that on a brochure,” I said. “I’m calling because of what Marty Kehoe said about living with O’Brien in Culver City. That could explain why O’Brien chose to drive there to dump Marissa rather than leave her closer to his apartment in Hollywood.”
“Sticking with his old comfort zone?” he said. “Sure. So?”
“More than that,” I said. “What if he’d had other emergencies with drugged women who’d survived. A woman left impaired could also inspire revenge and a Culver City link could narrow down the search. I looked up hospitals and urgent-care centers and it’s a short list. One hospital and four smaller facilities.”
“Sean and Alicia already looked for priors, Alex. Zip.”
“How’d they go about it?”
“Checked our files for victims left outside hospitals. All they came up with were a couple of male drunks who’d been beaten up and dumped.”
I said, “Would a woman found lying outside with no evidence she’d been dumped get into your files? Especially if it was classified as a medical emergency and there was no criminal investigation?”
“In the best of worlds it would,” he said. “Could it slide under the radar? Sure. Meaning good luck finding out.”
“A malpractice suit would leave a paper trail.”
“If it went to trial, it would. If it settled with a non-disclosure agreement, forget it.”
“Okay, just thought I’d pass it along.”
Silence. “Gimme that short list.”
When he’d finished copying, he said, “Long as I have you, might as well give you an update. Such as it is. Marissa’s car was found in South L.A., stripped. So someone stole it and had their way with it, which tells us nothing about where her last party was. Petra impounded it and it’s being printed. I got Marissa’s phone records and there’s no activity a couple of hours before she was likely dead. And nothing postmortem so O’Brien probably did toss it.”