“Nope.”
“Honesty,” he said. “Don’t get to deal with that often. Okay, see you soon.”
Chapter 29
I walked into the meeting a few minutes late.
Same room, same whiteboards, different atmosphere.
The first time the aura had been anxiety tempered by the excitement of taking on a new case. Today the room felt deprived of air and the detectives looked dejected.
That included Buck Buxby, who looked surprised to be there. Probably invited as a courtesy. Or Milo hoping some old memory from the Parmenter case might surface.
Two long tables were occupied by him, Alicia, Moe, Petra, and Raul. Two empty seats: mine and Sean Binchy’s.
Milo looked at his Timex. Made a call. “Voicemail. Anyone seen Sean?”
Alicia said, “Not since yesterday.”
Moe Reed nodded assent.
Buck Buxby said, “Hey, maybe he solved the whole darn thing and is writing his report.”
The attempt at humor was met by sad smiles. Buxby flushed and looked down at the table.
Milo said, “Your mouth to God’s ears, Buck.” Throwing the old D a lifeline. He makes cracks about me never taking off my therapist hat but he sells himself short in that department.
Another glance at his watch. “Okay, let’s start. Obviously, I’d love to report progress but we’ll have to settle for pooling data. Petra?”
She said, “We pulled thirty-nine traffic tickets — mostly parking — within a mile of O’Brien’s murder scene that night. Eight offenders had felony records. I’ve spent the last few days tracing each of them and conducting face-to-faces. Unfortunately they could all account for their whereabouts during the murder.”
Buxby said, “Watching a Disney show at the Pantages?”
Petra said, “Actually one of them was, Buck, with two grandkids. Former armed robber turned gramps. My best candidate, a manslaughter parolee, was getting soused at Café Berlin and his presence is backed up by CCTV. The same goes for the remaining seven. That leaves me with thirty-one citizens I’ll need to talk to. Now that Raul’s free, we’ll split that lovely task.”
Raul said, “I’m free because all the pay parking lot stuff zeroed out, the only exception being one place where the chain was cut. But of course, there’s no surveillance there so no idea what that means. I did go back and search for anything that might be evidentiary. Unfortunately, the area was cleaned and cleared.”
Alicia said, “Sympathies, guys. What about Mr. Hoodie?”
“One additional sighting,” said Raul. “The informant would be in a position to actually observe something — he sleeps in several alleys pretty close to the crime scene. But he’s also homeless and conspicuously psychotic.”
I said, “Despite that, did he have any details to add?”
“Sorry, Doc, no. Just a pedestrian in a hoodie, no idea if he was carrying anything.”
Petra said, “On the one hand, there’s consistency to the sightings. On the other, there’s no shortage of guys in hoodies in Hollywood after dark. We also went over O’Brien’s apartment for the second time and found a big stash of GHB under his bed that we missed. So doping and exploiting women was a thing for him. Which is backed up by Milo’s interview of his former roommate.”
Milo summed up the talk with Martin Kehoe.
Moe said, “Other victims, other potential avengers.”
Petra said, “Unfortunately. They’ve got to be out there but we haven’t found them and despite Marissa’s death being on social media, there’s been no tide of me-too.”
Alicia frowned. “Same old story, too ashamed to come forward.”
Petra nodded. “No doubt. But even if victims do surface, someone who paid to have O’Brien murdered isn’t going to be one of them.”
Milo had listened to all that without a glance at me.
By the way, Alex knows of another victim.
Friendship.
He returned his attention to the boards. “Which brings us back to the one decent suspect we do have. A gentleman who knew both Parmenter and O’Brien.”
He tapped Gerald Boykins’s photo. Did the same to an image that had been added next to it. Kiki Boykins in a smiling party shot taken from her Instagram.
“His wife?” said Moe.
“Yup, calls herself Kiki.”
“Why’re you considering her now, L.T.?”
Milo tapped a third shot. Keisha Boykins, smiling prettily. This time, he looked at me.
I said, “You all know that Parmenter laid down a vulgar rap focused on Keisha. We’ve since learned she’s an only child with some sort of chronic illness that keeps her out of school. That could kick up the parental protectiveness level so we need to look at both parents. Operating individually or in concert. And given the fact that O’Brien worked for Gerald Boykins, we can’t eliminate the possibility that he wasn’t just fired, he was taken care of permanently because of something to do with Keisha. Real or imagined. The wrong comment, the wrong look.”
Petra said, “The serpent can’t control its nature plus Mommy and Daddy are already primed after Parmenter, so they’re looking for problems.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And ready to use the same shooter because he’d done a clean job on Parmenter.”
Buck Buxby said, “You finally find a good plumber, keep calling him.”
Moe said, “On the other hand, like we said, O’Brien could be the result of another pissed-off family.”
No tell, from Milo.
Moe said, “Wide, wide world of suspects.”
Milo said, “If the Boykinses are behind one or two hits, there’s someone we need to look at as the shooter. Private guard who was there the day Alex and I visited them. Guy named Walt Swanson, used to work at Pacific Division.”
He looked at Buxby.
The old D said, “Sorry, never get that close to the beach.”
Moe said, “Why’s he on the radar?”
Milo said, “He really isn’t. But turns out he no longer works for the Boykinses or the private security firm they got him from. It’s possible Gerald got pissed off because Swanson opened the gate for us easily so he canned him. On the other hand.”
Alicia said, “Guy did two freelances for the Boykinses then you show up asking questions and it’s time to make himself scarce. Anything scary in his background?”
“Nope, spotless record when he was on the job. Alex did me a favor this morning and took a look at his place of residence. Simi Valley, low-key, but he does have a sick wife so theoretically that could exert financial pressure.”
Alicia said, “Are we going to start watching him?”
“Don’t see that as high priority unless we get something else on him. First thing is to learn if he was fired or quit, but Pacific Security isn’t being helpful.”
Buck Buxby cleared his throat.
Milo said, “What is it, Buck?”
“I might have an in, there. Nothing high-level but a — someone — a person I used to know, worked there, maybe still does. Which office did you call?”
“Their main one, North Hollywood.”
“Oh,” said Buxby. “She — the person — is in the Orange County office, Buena Park. That’s how I met her, there was this gang case, Mexican Mafia shooting up the competition across both counties, one of them actually had a job at a warehouse and Pacific had security footage there so I—” Another flush. “Sorry. TMI, like the kids say. Anyway, I could call, see if she can find out.”
Milo said, “That would be great.”
“Want me to do it right now?”
“Why don’t you wait until we’ve gotten through everything.” Another look at the Timex and Binchy’s empty seat. “Try Sean, Moses.”
Reed made the call, shook his head. “Voicemail.”