Sunset Express

She pushed her hands in her pockets. 'You know, now that I think about it, I haven't seen him in a while. I haven't heard his TV or anything.'

'You think he might've moved?'

'I don't know.'

'Can you give me a guess how long he's been gone?'

She scrunched her face, thinking. 'Couple of months, maybe.'

'Between three and four months?'

She waffled her hand. 'He's just such a creep I try to duck him. Sorry.'

I said, 'You ever see a tall blond guy hanging around with him?'

She frowned.

'Maybe four months ago.'

She was swaying with Alanis, then she kind of cocked her head. 'You know, I think maybe there was a guy like that. Elton had such scuzzy friends.' She nodded, then, starting to see it. 'Yeah. There was this blond guy.' She nodded harder, the image pulling into focus. 'Oh, yuck, what an asshole. He sees me on the street and follows me up the walk one day. He asks me if I want to go inside and fuck, just like that. Oh, yuck. I think he worked at a gas station or something.'

I nodded.

'All of Elton's friends were like that. Real lowlifes.' She suddenly put out her hand. 'I'm Tyler, by the way.'

'Hi, Tyler.' We shook, and I gave her the big smile. 'Can I ask you something?'

'Sure.' She smiled back, anxious to hear what I was going to ask. Alanis was really tearing it up inside.

'I'm thinking about popping Elton's door and sneaking in to look around. You wouldn't call the police if I did that, would you?'

Her smiled grew wider as I said it. 'No way! Could I come, too?'

I shook my head. 'Then if we're caught, we're both in trouble, you see?'

She looked disappointed. Behind her, Alanis stopped singing and Tyler pulled a hand out of her pocket long enough to brush at the bangs. They were pretty incredible. 'You really know how to pick locks and stuff?'

I'm a full-service professional, Tyler.'

She stared at me for a few seconds and then she crossed her arms. She looked out from under her bangs at me. 'And just what kind of service do you provide?'

'I've got a girlfriend. Sorry.'

Tyler stared at me from under the bangs for another couple of seconds, then uncrossed her arms and looked at my card again. 'Yeah, well. If I ever need anything detected, maybe I'll call.'

'How about the cops?'

Tyler made a zipping move across her lips.

I gave her the big smile again, then went next door, slipped the lock, and let myself into Elton Richards's half of the house. It was dim from the drawn shades, and I flipped the light switch but the lights stayed dark. I guess the power company had killed the juice. I said, 'Mr Richards?'

No answer. Next door, I could hear Alanis start again, faint and far away.

The house smelled musty. A ratty couch was against the wall under a Green Day poster, fronted by a coffee table made of a couple of 2 by 10 planks lying on cinderblocks and cornered by someone's secondhand lawn chair. A black streamline phone waited on the planks. A pretty good Hitachi electronics stack was against the opposite wall, and a beat-up Zenith television with a coat hanger antenna was on the floor, and everything was covered with a light patina of undisturbed dust.

I crossed into the kitchen and turned on the tap. No water. I went back to the living room, used my handkerchief, and lifted the phone. No tone. I guess Elton Richards had ignored his bills long enough for the power and water and phone companies to turn everything off. Say, about four months.

I stood in the living room by the phone and thought about it. James Lester had met a short dark man and a tall blond man named Steve in a bar about a week before Susan Martin's kidnapping and murder. Steve speaks of snatching a rich woman as a means of attaining the better things in life, and maybe the two are connected, but maybe not. Four months after the fact, I identify a possible Steve and trace him to this address which, in fact, is apparently owned by a shorter, darker man named Elton Richards. Maybe they are the same two men, but maybe not. Maybe tall blond guys named Steve just naturally have short dark friends.

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.