‘Last night.’ Alice nodded.
Neither detective was expecting that.
‘Look, I knew you were both out chasing new leads. I came across this information late yesterday, and decided to dig a little deeper instead of waiting. It so happened that I managed to meet up with her last night, and we talked.’
‘How did you manage to get her talking?’ Garcia knew from experience that getting anyone related to LA’s illegal sex trade to talk was no easy feat.
‘I proved to her I wasn’t a cop or a reporter, and guaranteed her that whatever information she gave me, it would never be detrimental to her.’
‘And that worked?’
‘Well, I also have different avenues open to me that you, as police officers, usually don’t.’
‘You paid her,’ Garcia concluded.
‘It works every time,’ Alice admitted. ‘How do you think the DA’s office keeps its informers, by giving them donuts and hot milk? She’s a submissive escort. She gets paid to do worse things than simply talk. Getting money in exchange for a conversation was probably her easiest ever job. Plus I gave her a free get-out-of-jail card. I told her to call me if she ever needed a lawyer, and in her profession that’s a very attractive proposition.’
Garcia couldn’t argue. ‘So what did you talk about?’
‘You can hear it for yourself.’ Alice took a Dictaphone out of her briefcase and placed it on Hunter’s desk. ‘I’ve done this kind of thing before.’ She gave both detectives a quick wink.
Surprised, Hunter and Garcia approached the desk.
‘It’s all cued up,’ Alice said. ‘I had just showed her Andrew Nashorn’s picture.’ She pressed the play button.
‘Oh yes, Paul, he’s pretty much a regular. I see him about once a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less.’
The voice that came through the tiny speaker was very feminine and sensual, the voice of someone who was probably in her mid-twenties; but there was a hard edge to it, the kind you’d expect from a streetwise person.
‘Paul?’ Alice’s questioning voice came through the speakers.
‘That’s the name he uses. Look, I know that none of my clients use their real names. He told me his name was Paul, I call him Paul. That’s how it works, lady.’ There was a short pause. ‘He likes playing rough.’
‘Rough?’
‘Yep. He likes to tie me down, gag me, sometimes blindfold me, slap me about a little . . . you know, play the tough guy.’ Nicole chuckled. ‘It’s all right, I enjoy it too.’
Hunter guessed that last comment was made because Alice had pulled a shocked face.
‘Did he come to you?’
‘Sometimes. Sometimes I went to his boat. Sometimes he hired a professional dungeon. There are a few scattered around LA. The equipment is better.’
‘And how long has he been a . . . client?’
‘A few years.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Not so long ago.’
‘Could you be more specific?’
There was a new short pause, soundtracked by the sound of objects being shuffled. Hunter presumed that Nicole had reached into a handbag or a drawer.
‘Just over five weeks ago, May 13th.’
‘OK, how about this guy?’
Alice paused the recording. ‘Right then I showed her a picture of Nathan Littlewood,’ she clarified before letting it play on.
‘Yeah, I see him too . . . from time to time. Not as often as I see Paul, though. This one calls himself Woods.’ A more animated chuckle this time. ‘I wouldn’t quite put it that way, if you know what I mean, but that’s the name he likes, that’s the name I call him.’
‘Was he also . . . “rough”?’
Nicole gave a dirty, full-throated laugh that sounded too old for her. ‘All my clients are rough in their own way, lady. That’s why they come to me and not some two-buck-an-hour ho from West Hollywood. They get what they pay for here.’
In the office, Alice subtly shook her head, obviously failing to understand how any woman could subject herself to verbal and physical abuse and other humiliations for money.
‘And when did you see him last?’
Some more pages flipping. ‘Right at the beginning of the month, June 2nd.’
‘Let me show you one more picture.’ Looking at Hunter and Garcia, Alice mouthed the words ‘Derek Nicholson’.
‘Umm, no. I’ve never seen him before.’
‘Are you sure?’
Several silent seconds. ‘Yep, positive.’
‘So he wasn’t a client?’
‘That’s what I just said, lady.’
‘OK, just one more thing. Do you know if Paul and Woods knew each other? Have they ever done a session together with you, or something like that?’
‘No, I don’t do group sessions. Way too intense. And my clients are too greedy. When they book me, they want me all for themselves.’ Another throaty laugh. ‘But yes, they knew each other. That’s how Woods became a client. When Paul first started seeing me years ago, he said that he had a friend who would probably love to see me too. I told him to pass his friend my number. A week later Woods called me.’
Ninety-Four
When Alice turned the recording device off, Hunter brought her up to speed on what he’d found in Nathan Littlewood’s apartment the day before. She couldn’t hide her disappointment that her big discovery turned out to be not so big after all, but Hunter knew it was significant. What he’d found out from the picture he’d got from Littlewood’s apartment was that Andrew Nashorn and Nathan Littlewood knew each other about thirty years ago. What Alice had found out was that they had kept in touch ever since, which was a whole new discovery. Hunter knew it was easy to lose touch with old friends – people from school, college, neighborhood, or former workplace. Finding out that Nashorn and Littlewood spent an afternoon drinking beer in a park thirty years ago didn’t mean they were friends. Alice’s discovery had proved they had been and still were.
‘I went through all the phone records,’ Alice said. ‘There’s no direct contact between Nashorn and Littlewood. At least not through that phone. But as you know, many people have more than one cellphone, and sometimes their second phone is the untraceable kind.’
‘How about Derek Nicholson?’
‘I spent half of the night going over all the phone records we have for him,’ Alice said. ‘Going back six months prior to him being diagnosed with cancer. Neither Nashorn nor Littlewood’s cellphone numbers showed up. His number doesn’t show up on their bills either.’
Towards the end of the afternoon, Garcia received a preliminary report from his digging team. So far they’d managed to check school and college records for the victims, together with early addresses. They’d found nothing to suggest that any of the three knew each other from either their neighborhoods or their learning institutions. Garcia told them to keep on digging – gym memberships, social clubs, anything that would’ve left behind a paper trail; but he understood that even if that paper trail existed at one time, today it would be almost impossible to find it.
The sun had already set, and so had another day coated with frustration.