"Besides Scott Berman, how many clients were there?" I asked.
"About twenty."
"Did you see the shooter?" "No."
"Did anybody?"
"I don't know. I doubt it. It was over in seconds. For reasons of client confidentiality, we didn't use a caterer to serve hors d'oeuvres or drinks. After they set up, they left. Yeo-Sing and I did the serving. I was in the pool house with him pouring champagne. We heard the shots. It sounded like a machine gun. A lot of bullets, people screaming. We both dove under the serving table so we didn't see anything."
"You have no idea who the gunman was?"
She hesitated for just a second before she said, "No."
Her pause was the tip-off. She was holding something back. I set the cuffs on the table in front of her.
"I thought you were going to cooperate," I challenged.
She again glanced at Edith, who I don't think moved a muscle this time, but she was coaching her client to be quiet, nonetheless.
"I can go on the Internet and start downloading pages," I said. "We'll run every one of your models through Vice. We'll get old arrest records, start pulling people in. We'll sweat names and build this party list. It's a lot of work but we can do it, and then once we're through, I'll come back here and bust you for obstructing justice and failing to cooperate with a homicide investigation."
I looked her right in the eye. "I'm not Vice, Ms. Dublin. I may have opinions about what you do, but I'm not the morality police. I've got three dead bodies. One of them is an international celebrity.
"This is going to be big news tomorrow. It's gonna mushroom out until the politicians in this town get itchy and decide to make an example of someone. You look like a good candidate. Its as much in your interest to put this down fast as it is ours."
"I can't give you the names of my guests. Some are married. I'll go to jail first."
"Then you better find something to give me that goes someplace," I said.
She sat silently for a minute, considering it. Then she stubbed out her cigarette, got to her feet, and said, "Come with me."
She led us into her media room, where she sorted through a stack of DVDs until she found the one she wanted. Then she put it in the player and fast-forwarded until she came to a picture of a man pulling up on a motorcycle in front of her house. Obviously this was a security video.
On the screen we watched while the man took off his helmet. He was a blond, scruffy-looking guy with a low forehead who gave off a bad vibe even on video. He looked angry and slammed his gloves into the helmet as he dismounted the bike.
"That's Carl Sweet," Yolanda said. "He was Chrissy s about-to-be-ex. She had just filed for divorce. He's originally from Czechoslovakia and if you ask me, he's nuts. She moved out on him two weeks ago and into an apartment I helped her find. After Chrissy moved out, he came here looking for her. My security cam got that shot. He was screaming at me over the intercom. He wanted to know where she was. I wouldn't tell him."
"And you think this guy is the shooter."
"Maybe. He's violent enough. He used to beat Chrissy. There were times when she was so messed up I couldn't send her out on modeling assignments or dates."
She shut off the camera, then turned to look at us. "Does that buy me some space with you, Detective?"
"We'll see. I'm going to need that DVD." She nodded and handed it to me. "Do you have the address where they used to live?"
"After Chrissy left, she told me the landlord threw Carl out, so the old apartments been re-rented. Carls always broke. When they were married and living together, Chrissy paid for everything. After she split and filed, he had no steady income. I have no idea where he lives now."
"How about the address of the new place you helped Chrissy find?"
"I'll copy it down for you."
She got it from her address book, wrote it on a slip of paper, and handed it to me. It was an apartment in Glendale, on Brand Boulevard.
Once we were outside and back in the Carerra, Hitch paused before starting the car. "I've heard of that Christmas party," he said. "It's called the Prostitutes' Ball."
"But unfortunately for you, it seems Act One just fizzled big-time," I said. "Carl Sweet kills his wife and Scott Berman, hits poor Paula by mistake. Like you said bing-bang-boom. End of story. No movie."
"Yeah." He grinned. "But what a title, huh? The Prostitutes' Ball… Who wouldn't go see that one?"
Chapter 13.
Before we left Yolanda Dublin's driveway I picked up the mic for the police radio in Hitch's glove box and ran Carl Sweet for wants, warrants, and DMV.
The run came back empty. He wasn't in our system, not even at Motor Vehicles. Then I put in a request to run him with the state to see if he had a Russian Bizon machine gun registered to him. We probably wouldn't get that info back until tomorrow.
"If the guy was beating on Chrissy, it's hard to believe he didn't get at least one spousal abuse complaint," Hitch said after I hung up. "He should be in the system."
"Maybe Sweet's not his real name," I said as Hitch put the car in gear and pulled out.
"Hows that possible, Shane? Alexa ran Chrissy. She checked out. It was Chrissy's married name, so it had to be his."
"You're right. Just thinking out loud."
We got on the Coast Highway, heading toward Brand Boulevard in Glendale. I didn't trust Hitch's motives, so it was hard to solicit his opinion. But I've been trained to always check with my partner after an interview to see if he or she picked up on something I'd missed.
"Gimme your take on what just happened back there," I said as Hitch drove.
"Some lies are more believable than truth," he replied.
"Who dropped that pearl of wisdom?"
"I did, just now." The dashing smile was gone, replaced by a seriousness that gave me hope.
"We walk in there and after a few rounds of'No, I won't,' 'Yes, you will,' out comes the little DVD with Carl Sweet," he said. "I know it's almost Christmas, but do we really think there's a Santa Claus?"
"Good point. But sometimes it happens that way."
"That's not a take. That's wishful thinking."
"You're still looking for first-act moves," I told him, my disappointment showing. "If Carl Sweet, a jealous husband, shoots his ex and her boyfriend, you got nothing to give the movie department at UTA."
"I'm just saying, before we ring up SWAT to go out and throw a net on this guy if we can even find him I think we need to check out Scott Berman, work on some victimology. My gut tells me we're going to find some juicy stuff there."
"We'll get to the victimology tomorrow," I snapped. "Tonight we're following leads and this lead points to a dead girl's apartment in Glendale."
It wasn't going well between us. We didn't speak again until we got to the address on Brand Boulevard. It was a small, seventies-style building, boxy but neat. Each unit had its own garage in back. Chrissy Sweet was renting B-6 on the second floor. We found her five-year-old silver BMW still in her parking spot.
"So Scott Berman must ve picked her up here, driven her to the party up on Skyline," Hitch said.
"Which begs the question of who drove Berman s car off Skyline Drive after he was dead and where is it now," I replied.
We woke up the manager. It was three thirty in the morning and he wasn't happy about it.
"Jesus Christ," he griped.
"Nope," Hitch said. "But people tell me there's an amazing resemblance."
The manager didn't find that funny. Neither did I. He was a grumpy bald guy who didn't know anything about Chrissy Sweet. He also didn't seem to be very shocked that she was dead.
"I try not to get involved with my renters. L. A. is transient and superficial. People move on, they transfix, they die."
"Gee, good one," Hitch said. "We should get that off to Deepak Chopra immediately."