Hitch chirped the car lock and we walked past a space where my Acura was parked.
Inside, as we approached a back booth where Alexa was sitting, I could see a worried look on her face. Before we even sat down I knew she had more bad news for us.
Chapter 10.
"Both of the dead girls were high-dollar Internet prostitutes," Alexa said as soon as we slid into the booth with her. "The blonde was named Chrissy Sweet. Her working name was Slade Seven. The brunette was Paula Morgan, working name Steel Cavanaugh. These were five-thousand-dollar dates. They worked for Yolanda Dublin, the Mulholland Madame. This hooker angle is gonna be media catnip so the case just got more sensitive, if that's even possible."
"Doesn't Yolanda Dublin run an Internet site called the Double Click Club?" Hitch asked.
"Right," Alexa said. "And from their pictures on that site, the girls were both gorgeous."
The waitress came and Hitch and I ordered coffee, along with ham and eggs and orange juice because we were probably going to be up all night, working through breakfast.
After the waitress left, Alexa continued. "The way her Internet site works, a client gets thoroughly screened by Yolanda first. Then, if you pass muster, you're issued a password which allows you access to the exclusive services section of the site. There, you can scroll the girls' pictures and streaming videos. The rates are listed on each girl's page as a modeling or therapist's fee. If you're a preferred client, once you double-click on a girl, the date is made."
Hitch was writing this down in his journal.
"Detective," Alexa said, and Hitchens looked up. "Hopefully this won't be talked about to third parties operating outside the scope of the investigation."
"What exactly does that mean, Captain?"
"UTA," I said. "Jamie Foxx. Studio development execs."
He smiled at her and nodded. "Me and Shane already been through this," he said, collegially.
"Good." Alexa smiled.
"Anything from Ballistics?" I asked.
"There were nine bullets, three in each body. All of them were 9 x 18 mm Makarov slugs. The most common machine gun weapon that fires those is a Russian-made Bizon. Ballistics says a Bizon uses a standard sixty-four-shot helical mag and can burn through six hundred rounds a minute. According to the people who heard the gunshots, and from the number of brass shell casings we retrieved so far, I think he must have gone through most of that magazine."
"Is Ballistics trying to confirm the weapon?" I asked.
"We're going to test fire a Bizon to see if the ejection striations on the brass are similar," Alexa said. "Tomorrow you guys are going to have to get back out there on the crime scene with CS1 and some metal detectors and find all the stray slugs and brass. We need to know exactly how many rounds he squeezed off."
Hitch looked up with a thoughtful expression on his handsome face. "We can't ignore the idea that this could have been a contract hit and if it was, then we probably have only one primary target. That would probably be Scott Berman, which would make the two other vies collateral damage."
He looked down at the notes he had made in his red leather journal, then clicked his pen and tapped it on the tabletop. "There could be a lot more going on here than we can see on the surface."
That last remark sounded to me like a man still scaring up interesting plot points for Act One.
"There's always that possibility," Alexa agreed. Then she picked up her purse. "I'm gonna take the Acura and go on home. Sumner, will you take Shane back to the office so he can check out a slick-back to drive?"
"No problem."
I left Hitch in the booth and walked my wife outside to the car.
"How's it going with him?" Alexa asked as she unlocked the MDX.
"I'll find my way. We're still circling each other, checking out punching styles."
"I will not look kindly on leaks," she cautioned.
I kissed her and said, "Stop being such a "
"Such a what?" she interrupted, smiling.
"A newly minted, tight-ass captain."
"You wanta talk tight asses, you need to come home," she teased. Then she kissed me again and drove off.
After she was gone, Sumner Hitchens and I sat in the restaurant, finishing our early breakfast without talking.
Tm thinking we need to go badge Yolanda Dublin/' he said as we were paying.
"Yep, that's definitely the next move. Let's go get the Mulholland Madame out of bed. Try and catch her with a head full of cotton."
"I ran her while you were outside. She lives out on the Coast Highway in Santa Monica. 2300. That's up by the Malibu line. The even numbers are on the beach side of the road."
Pricey.
Chapter 11.
The first good thing that happened since I got this damn case was parked in the driveway in front of Yolanda Dublin's multimillion-dollar beach pad. It was a new black Mercedes 350 with the partial plate number 4 L M C. The rest of the plate read 292.
"That ride was coming down Skyline Drive when Alexa and I got the call and were going up," I told Sumner.
He shined his Mini Maglite inside the Mercedes. The top was up and both bucket seats as well as the back bench were empty. We proceeded up the walkway to the house and rang the front doorbell. The lights were on inside so apparently we weren't going to be gaining an advantage from the element of surprise.
Yolanda Dublin was a well-known Hollywood fixture who had once been a five-thousand-dollar-a-night girl herself, a centerfold who had gone into high-end hooking and then management. The word was that she was occasionally still available to party with clients, but only if she liked them and that was extremely rare, if it happened at all these days.
The door was opened by a striking six-foot-tall woman in her late thirties who had shiny long blond hair, a very nice shape, and a freckled beach tan. She was barefoot, wearing tight white jeans and a tank top. Her outfit complemented a spectacular body.
"Yes?" she said.
"Yolanda Dublin?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Police."
She looked over her shoulder and called out, "Edith!"
A few seconds later Yolanda s exact physical opposite lumbered up a short flight of stairs from the sunken living room and stood a few-feet behind her.
This woman was built like a refrigerator. Big enough to get picked for the NFL draft, she was even taller than Yolanda and weighed well over three hundred pounds.
She had a feathered masculine hairstyle that was carefully trimmed. Her mahogany brown suit jacket and long skirt were tailored to camouflage her boxy shape, but managed only to accentuate it. Piano legs with anvil-sized feet encased in flats held it all upright. Her jaw was set pugnaciously, projecting an overall impression of severe, relentless aggression. She looked vaguely familiar to me.
"This is a police matter," I said, and we showed them our credentials. "I'm Detective Scully from Homicide Special. This is Detective Hitchens."
Yolanda Dublin didn't seem surprised that we'd come calling, so there was little doubt she'd been expecting us.
"This is Edith Stillwell. She's my attorney," Ms. Dublin said, confirming my suspicions. She'd obviously called Stillwell for help and they'd been sitting here well past two A. M. waiting.
Now I remembered where I'd seen Edith Stillwell. It was in the hallways at the Criminal Courts building.
"Edith advised me that I don't have to discuss anything with you guys," Yolanda said in a sexy, contralto voice.
"So you know then, that two of your working girls were found dead in a swimming pool up on Skyline Drive along with an unidentified man."
I thought it was best not to throw Scott Berman s name out at first. I wanted to see if she volunteered it. We were still on the front steps. Nobody had asked us inside yet.