“When was this?”
“A few years ago. Two, three, I’m not sure.”
“How did Naomi die?”
“The police said she overdosed, but Zara said that was a lie. She told me Naomi was clean. The fact is, most of the high-end escorts never do drugs. In Zara’s business, you have to be on your game all the time. Physically, socially, mentally, everything. Drugs don’t mix with that.”
“So what did Zara think really happened to Naomi?” Frost asked.
“She said Naomi was going to expose a client who was abusing her, and the client somehow arranged the overdose to prevent her from talking. Zara was devastated. And angry, too. I tried to talk her out of saying anything — I didn’t want her getting killed, too — but she swore she was going to do something about it. She wanted revenge.”
Frost sat in his Suburban outside Fawn’s house. With his laptop open on the dashboard, it didn’t take him long to find Naomi.
More than three years earlier, a twenty-one-year-old woman named LaHonda Duke had been found near the BART tracks in Balboa Park. She’d died of a heroin overdose. The investigation showed no evidence of foul play. There was nothing in the police file to indicate that LaHonda had led a separate life as a high-priced escort and nothing to confirm that her street name was Naomi.
Even so, Frost knew he had the right victim. One hundred yards away from where her body had been found, Coyle had discovered a red snake on a concrete wall bordering the 280 freeway. LaHonda Duke was on his list.
He dialed Coyle’s number.
“It’s me,” he said when he heard the private detective’s voice. “Do you remember the LaHonda Duke case? It was an OD near Balboa Park. She’s one of the snake victims.”
“Sure,” Coyle replied. “Accidental death, my ass. Someone shot her up.”
“Did you look into LaHonda’s background? Did you find out anything else about her?”
Coyle sounded as if he were gulping down a late dinner. “Like what?”
“Like her being a high-end hooker.”
“No. If she was, I never found it, but those girls are usually pretty good at keeping the secret.”
“Do you remember anything else about her case that would connect her to what’s going on now? Anything that might tie her to Denny or Greg Howell or any of the other victims?”
“I’ll have to pull my file,” Coyle replied, “but I don’t think so.”
Frost sat in the truck and was silent for a moment. He was sure he was on to something. “I’m going to send you a photo. It’s a girl with the street name Fawn. She’s another upscale escort. I want to know if she came up in your research on any of the other snake cases.”
“Sure thing.”
Frost hung up the phone and sent the photo of Zara Anand to Coyle. Then he started up the SUV’s engine and was about to pull into traffic when his phone rang again. The private detective was already calling him back.
“You better get over here,” Coyle told him. “We need to talk right away.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I got the photo, and I don’t need to check my files on this one.”
“What do you mean? You know Fawn?”
“I do. Remember I’d been following that vice cop for a couple weeks before he was murdered? I spotted him having dinner in Pacific Heights with a really stunning Indian brunette. Got some photos of her, too. She wasn’t the kind of girl you’ll ever forget once you lay eyes on her.”
“Let me guess,” Frost said.
“Yeah. The girl was Fawn. She was meeting with Alan Detlowe.”
18
The man in the charcoal-gray BMW watched Frost Easton drive away. He didn’t follow the Suburban. Instead, he opened the glove compartment of the car and pushed a button that released a false bottom. Inside was a cell phone. He powered it up and used the latest contact number to call in his report.
“Identification,” the woman answered with her usual clipped, assured voice.
“Sutter,” he said.
“Password.”
“87126.”
“Status.”
“Golden Gate.”
“Report,” the woman said.
She always wanted a clean update. Quick, focused, no unnecessary details, no speculation. His job was to say what happened. After that, the information got passed along, and it was up to Lombard to make the decision.
“Easton went from Mr. Jin’s place to the girl’s house. Fawn. He met with her sister.”
“Did you have ears on the conversation?”
“Yes.”
“What did the sister tell him?”
“Most of the conversation was harmless, but she mentioned Fawn’s interest in an earlier victim. Easton tied the reference back to LaHonda Duke. He knows she was one of the snakes.”
“That’s unfortunate,” the woman said.
“There’s more. Easton just talked to Coyle, and Coyle made a connection between Fawn and Alan Detlowe.”
“Let me hear the conversation.”
The man took his voice recorder out of his coat pocket. He held the machine up to the phone and played the most recent digital recording.
When it was over, there was a long pause from the other end.
“Hang on,” the woman told him.
He waited. At least five minutes of silence passed. He knew not to hang up. The silence meant the woman was passing the information directly to Lombard and soliciting instructions.
Finally, she came back on the line.
“That’s all for now,” the woman said.
“Do you want me to follow Easton again? He’s obviously heading to Coyle’s.”
“No, you’re done for the night, so you can stand down,” the woman told him. “We need to keep the field clear for Geary. He’ll be delivering two snakes tonight.”
19
Coyle lived and worked on the upper floor of a two-story office building tucked among the industrial warehouses of Toland Street. His neighbors were electrical supply companies and food storage facilities. It was nearly midnight when Frost arrived, and the area was a ghost town of overhead electrical wires, corrugated metal walls, and empty loading docks. The only noise was the thunder of traffic on the elevated lanes of the 280 freeway a few blocks away.
The building entrance was locked. He squinted to see a stairwell inside. Tall glass windows stretched along the offices on the first floor, but there were no lights. He pounded on the door, and not long after, he saw Coyle’s doughy frame as the detective hustled downstairs and let him into the building.
“This is an interesting location,” Frost said.
“Yeah, a buddy of mine owns the place. He was having trouble leasing the upstairs space after the last tenant went belly up. He lets me have it cheap, at least until he finds somebody else.”
Coyle trotted up the stairs, and Frost followed. The first door in the drab corridor had a sign announcing COYLE INVESTIGATIONS. The detective showed him into a small anteroom. Coyle’s PI license was framed and hung above a tweed sofa. It looked like an office for someone who’d watched too many detective movies.
“It’s not much to look at, but clients don’t usually come here,” Coyle told him. “I usually go to them.”
He opened another door and led Frost into a larger room where Coyle obviously worked and slept. All the walls were covered in cheap wood paneling. Frost saw a messy twin bed shoved in one corner, a refrigerator, and a bathroom not much bigger than a phone booth. Two rectangular card tables were pushed together in the middle of the floor and covered with papers and books. There was a desk against the wall with an old Gateway computer and an electronic setup that included three monitors. On the screens, Frost could see video surveillance feeds of the street and parking lot surrounding the building. The windows in the office were covered over with plywood, making the space claustrophobic.