A few feet away, dressed in a black suit, shirt, and tie, thick arms folded across a puffed-up chest, was Paul O’Brien.
Narrowed eyes lasered on Vicki Saucedo’s back.
At some point, she’d responded to him. And ended up vegetative.
I printed and sat for a long time taking in the image. He, repulsively focused. She, blissfully unaware of what was to come.
In the eyes of the law, every victim deserves full effort. But that’s an abstraction, not reality and, besides, I’m not the law. So if a predator’s crumpled body on a balcony was the only issue, I’d have left it alone.
But a little green boat...
The chance that something in Vicki Saucedo’s past would link to a cool, efficient sniper for hire was remote. But at this point, what else was there?
My only possible lead was the high school pal who’d stayed local. But I couldn’t see any way to contact Sherilyn Dorsey-Komack and keep my word to Lee Falkenburg.
I took out my guitar and wrestled with Bach, always a humbling experience. He’d never composed for the guitar and attempts to translate him have led to a lot of improbable stretches. I’d thought it a unique situation until a concert pianist friend told me, “J.S. put the notes in place. He didn’t give a shit how you got there.”
That level of distraction drew me away for a while. But when my fingers began aching and I stopped playing, everything rebounded. I called Lee at home and told her about the Chanel party.
She said, “Used to go to their sales until Rodeo got clogged with gawkers. Never got invited to any of their fancy parties... so she definitely worked with your dead guy.”
“And he had his eye on her. Want me to send you a photo?”
“Definitely not. Why are you even telling me this?”
“None of Vicki’s family looks likely to hire a shooter so I was wondering about an avenging boyfriend. Her Facebook page doesn’t list any but there’s not much to it, period.”
I began describing the rose-wreath.
Lee cut me off. “Too much information. The poor little kid in the boat got lodged in my head until I got home and had two Martinis.”
I told her about contacting Sherilyn Dorsey-Komack. “Would that create a problem for your source?”
She said, “Probably. Anything that opens the box would.”
“Okay, forget it.”
“Shit,” she said. “Now I’m feeling like I’m part of some sleazy hush-job — welcome to Murdergate. What the hell, Alex, do your best to be discreet, you know the parameters.” Her breath was a whoosh. “Two years old.”
Chapter 21
I searched for Sherilyn Dorsey-Komack’s home number and came up predictably empty. But her husband’s name led me to Redondo Beach Fire Station 1, one of three in that city. And that linked me to Chairman Of The Boards, a surf shop in nearby Huntington Beach owned by the couple.
Plenty of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, and LinkedIn.
More important, open on Sunday. For another hour.
I spent a portion of that time trying to come up with a believable approach. Came up with nothing and decided to speak in generalities and hope she’d say something that would give me an opening. Not so different from what I did as a therapist. But in therapy, you’re out to help the person sitting across from you, and I’d be doing nothing but using Sherilyn Dorsey-Komack.
For a good cause. Theoretically.
At least, I rationalized, I’d be doing her no harm.
I punched numbers.
An adenoidal teenage male voice mumbled, “Chairman.”
“Is Sherilyn there?”
“Sher? For you. Don’t know. Hold on, dude.”
Half a minute later: “This is Sher. What can I do for you.”
“My name’s Anthony Davenport, ma’am. I work with LAPD and wondered if you could spare a few minutes to talk about a victim named Victoria Saucedo.”
“Police? About the hit and run?”
Bingo.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m with Traffic Safety and we’re sorting various accidents and doing what’s called a victimology. Basically learning as much as we can to see if we can safeguard people better.”
“I respect what you do, my husband’s an EMT, but what does Vicki’s accident have to do with me?”
“We’re talking to Vicki’s friends to learn more about her. Your name came up.”
“From her parents? I knew her real well in high school and for a few years afterward, but not much since,” said Sherilyn Dorsey-Komack.
“I see. Well if you feel there’s nothing you can say—”
“All I can tell you is Vicki’s super nice, really sweet and gorgeous but not full of herself. Just the opposite, super-shy. At least when I knew her.”
“Shy with people.”
“Yup. Can’t see that mattering when a drunk plows into you, huh? Some customers just walked in, sorry, gotta go.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh sure.”
Click.
Thirty-second conversation during which I’d failed to draw out anything related to a vengeful love interest. But I had learned the cover story the family had used to explain her injuries.
And the fact that she was extremely shy to the point of being unaware of her looks. And that made me consider the little I did know about her family.
Sister a teacher, brother on full scholarship at a selective college.
Vicki serving drinks to rich people.
Had social anxiety resulted from failure to measure up academically? Had there been some sort of learning disability?
All that might explain vulnerability to a predator.
So what? These were the kinds of questions and answers that occupied me as a psychologist but not what Milo meant when he asked for “insight.”
Milo had no knowledge, period, of Vicki Saucedo.
With nothing to offer him, best to leave it that way.
I returned to Bach for an hour, was putting my guitar back in its case when Robin and Blanche came in looking buoyant.
“Good,” said Robin. “We’re all in fun mode. I’m thinking steaks and whatever.”
Blanche’s nubby tail twitched.
I said, “Perfect.”
Later, that night, Robin and I lay naked and entwined and kissing deeply. Her tongue sweet, her compact body smooth and tan and glossed by sweat sheen.
Guitar-shaped.
Chapter 22
Monday at ten a.m., Milo called.
“Morning, Doctor Professor. Come up with any overnight insight?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither but something different just happened. Remember that party website Marissa and O’Brien both contacted?”
“BeThere.com. They answered your email?”
“They phoned,” he said. “Actually, she did. Nice lady at a call center in Bangalore, India. She told me they’re instructed never to answer unless it’s a paying client — as in people throwing fancy parties. Company’s business model is they supply bodies for events all over the world and take a per-head cut. She decided to contact me because two of her brothers are Bangalore cops and she wants them to be proud of her. Turns out the last party Marissa and O’Brien attended had nothing to do with music or fashion. Opening at an art gallery on Melrose. I looked it up. Some rich guy’s kid who thinks he’s an artist.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “A five-year-old could do better.”
“I was thinking Blanche could do better. Anyway, doesn’t look like Boykins — or Jay Sterling for that matter — has any connection to that night... hold on, someone’s beeping in.”