Sunset Express

Two small bedrooms bracketed the bath. I searched each thoroughly, looking for receipts or ticket stubs or anything else that might provide a clue as to when and where Elton Richards and Steve Pritzik went. There was nothing. I went into the bathroom and checked behind and beneath the toilet and in the water tank. I pulled the medicine cabinet out of the wall. I checked in the little wooden cabinet beneath the lavatory. Nada. I went back into the living room and pulled the cushions off the couch and found a single 9 by 12 manila envelope. It was the kind of envelope you get in the mail from those sweepstakes companies declaring that you've just won ten million dollars, and it was addressed to Mr Elton Richards. The end of the envelope had been scissored open, then retaped. I pushed my car keys under the tape, opened the envelope, and looked inside. Then I sat down.

I took deep rhythmic breaths, flooding my blood with oxygen and forcing myself to calm. Pranayamic breathing, they call it.

I looked in the envelope again, then tilted it so that the contents spilled out onto the couch. Inside there were seven separate photographs of Susan Martin and Teddy Martin, and two hand-drawn maps. One map was the floorplan of a very large house. The other was a street map showing the layout of someone's neighborhood and a house on Benedict Canyon Road. It was Teddy Martin's neighborhood, and it was Teddy Martin's house.

CHAPTER 13

I went to my car for the new Canon Auto Focus I keep in the glove box. I made sure I had film and that the flash worked, and then I took a pair of disposable plastic gloves and went back into the house. I put on the gloves, then photographed everything as I had found it, making sure I had clear shots of the hand-drawn maps as well as the photos. When I was done, I left everything lying on the couch, then went next door and asked Tyler if I could use her phone.

I called Truly first, who listened quietly until I was finished, then said, 'I'll notify Jonathan and we'll get there as quickly as we can. Don't let anyone else in the residence.' He cupped the phone, and I could hear muffled voices. Then he came back. 'We'll notifiy the police, too. Cooperate with them when they arrive, but keep an eye on them. Watch that they don't destroy the evidence.'

'Truly, they won't do anything like that.'

He said, 'Ha.'

When I hung up, Tyler was leaning against the back of her couch, arms crossed, a long paintbrush in one hand. Her home smelled of fresh jasmine tea and acrylic paint, and was decorated with oversized sunflower sculptures that she'd made from cardboard and wire. 'You really think that this creep next door had something to do with Susan Martin's murder?'

'Maybe.'

'I thought her husband did it. That restaurant guy.'

'You never know.'

'They said on TV that he did.'

'That's TV.'

She shook her head. ' L.A. is so perverted.'

The first black and white arrived eighteen minutes later. The senior officer was a guy named Hernandez, and his partner was a younger African-American woman named Flutey. I went out to meet them carrying a glass of Tyler 's jasmine iced tea. Hernandez said, 'You Cole?'

'Yep.' I told him what we had.

He nodded. 'Okay. Flutey, get the tape from the car and let's seal it, okay? I'll check inside and around back.'

Flutey went for the tape, and Hernandez looked at me. 'Where you gonna be?'

'I'll hang around out here unless you want company.'

Tyler called from the porch. 'Would you and the other officer like some iced tea?'

Hernandez smiled at her. 'That'd be real nice, miss. Thank you.' Tyler ducked back inside. Hernandez stared after her,. Portrait of the crime scene as a social occasion.

Two detectives from the L.A. County Sheriff's Office arrived, followed almost immediately by a criminalist van. The lead detective was a heavyset guy with thinning hair named Don Phillips. A DA's car came next, offloading a thin woman named Sherman, a bald guy named Stu Miller, and an intense African-American guy in dark glasses named Warren Bidwell. Sherman was the Assistant Deputy DA charged with prosecuting the Teddy Martin case. Miller and Bidwell worked for her.

All three of them slipped under the tape and went into Richards' duplex, then Miller and Sherman slipped out again and came over to me. Tyler gave them a bright smile and pushed aside her bangs. 'Would either of you like iced tea?'

Sherman said, 'No.' She squinted at me. 'I'm Anna Sherman from the district attorney's office and this is Stu Miller. Would you come inside, please?'

'Sure.'

Tyler said, 'Can I come, too?'

Anna Sherman said, 'No.'

I shrugged at Tyler and followed them.

Inside, Sherman said, 'Okay. Walk me through what happened.'

I told them about getting the address from Pavlavi and finding the duplex deserted and popping the lock to let myself in. I told them about finding the envelope under the couch cushions and opening the envelope. Sherman stopped me. 'You touched the envelope?'

'That's right.'

The criminalist said, 'What about the contents?'

I shook my head. 'Edges only. When I saw what I had I slid the stuff out onto the couch. I used my knuckles to separate the pages first time through. When I photographed the material I was wearing gloves.'

Bidwell was glowering so hard his body was making little jerks and lurches and I wondered if he knew he was doing it. He said, 'I want those photographs.'

I shook my head. 'I don't think so.'

Bidwell lurched harder. 'You don't? Are you a sworn officer? You have a search warrant or any authority to break into a private residence?'

I looked at Sherman. 'You want me to continue or should I call my lawyer?'

Sherman closed her eyes and shook her head. 'Not now, Warren.'

The yard and the walk outside grew crowded with cops and media people and rubberneckers from the neighborhood drawn by gathering news vans. Between questions I watched the on-air television talent fan out among the cops. A woman I'd seen a thousand times on the local NBC affiliate was talking with her camera operator when the camera operator saw me standing in the window and pointed me out. The reporter said something and the operator trained his camera on me. The reporter ducked past Flutey and hurried over to the window. She was all frosted hair and intelligent eyes. 'Are you the detective who found the kidnappers?'

I gave her Bill Dana. 'My name Jose Jimenez.'

She waved her camera operator closer. 'Look, we know that two men named Elton Richards and Steve Pritzik lived here and we'd like an on-camera statement.' The camera operator held the camera over his head, trying to scan the room.

Don Phillips saw the camera coming through the window and said, 'Jesus Christ!' He pushed in front of me, then leaned out the window and yelled at a uniformed sergeant. 'Clear the area, for Christ's sake. Seal it off from the street back.' The sergeant hustled away, and Phillips looked at me. 'Are you trying to be cute?'

I spread my hands. 'Trying has nothing to do with it.'

The uniforms were pushing the press and gawkers along the walk when a ripple spread up from the street and across the crowd as if someone had amped a jolt of electricity through the air. Heads turned and voices rose, and the TV people surged toward the street. Phillips said, 'Now what?'

Jonathan Green and Elliot Truly and the videographer from Inside News were working their way through the crowd. The videographer's sound tech was trying her best to move people out of their way, but it was hard going until Hernandez and Flutey and a couple of other uniforms lent a hand. Anna Sherman came to the window, then gathered Bidwell and Miller for a whispered conference. When Green and the others pushed their way through the front door past the uniformed sergeant, Phillips said, 'Where in hell do you think you're going?'