It was the miracle of the snake-oil salesman. The miracle of one concoction after the next brought to the marketplace with good intentions. The miracle of fruit rotting on the vine. The miracle that ended in a trail of misery.
It seemed clear enough that the list of symptoms requiring any of these drugs matched the symptoms listed on the blackboard for the focus group. As Lena thought it over, what Tremell was talking about smacked of disease mongering. The fact that he wanted to market his drug directly to patients and sell them on the idea seemed a mile or two beyond dangerous. Nothing had changed in more than a hundred and fifty years. Except for her mood, which had suddenly turned very grim.
The door finally opened, and Justin Tremell stepped into the darkness. He was alone, staring at his father. The man who writes the checks.
“Is there a problem?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Have a seat,” his father said. “These detectives would like to talk to you. They’ve said they believe you witnessed a crime, but I suspect that it’s more than that.”
The room went silent. Justin Tremell turned to them, but remained on his feet. Although he glanced at Lena, his attention was focused on Rhodes.
“Witnessed what?” he said.
Rhodes turned to his father. “Is there anyway we could speak with him alone?”
Dean Tremell laughed. “Not on your life. I own the place.”
“I thought your son did.”
“I’m staying,” the man fired back. “I’m his father.”
Lena pointed to a chair and Justin finally sat down. “We’re interested in your relationship with a woman calling herself Jennifer McBride.”
“What relationship? I’m married.”
Lena pulled the victim’s picture from her file and handed it to him.
“You don’t know this woman?” she asked.
He made a cursory glance at the photo, checked in with his father, then looked back and shook his head. All things being equal, Lena regarded his performance as the ignorant bystander unworthy of an award, and guessed that he may have picked up his poor technique from some of the lowlife actresses he’d fucked or beaten up in his so-called former life. She noticed his hands as he held the picture. They were unusually soft. So soft and unlined that they could have been a woman’s. Even more telling, they were rock steady. He wasn’t nervous and he should have been. As she looked him over, she wondered why she thought of him as a kid. Justin Tremell was at least two years older than her, yet his demeanor appeared frozen in time. Almost as if he was locked into his teens and unable to move forward. After a second look, she began to wonder if it wasn’t an act. That just maybe Justin Tremell was a better actor than she first thought. He wasn’t playing the ignorant bystander. He was playing the good son.
Rhodes snatched the photograph away from him and held it in front of his face. “You’ve never seen this woman before in your life? Is that what you’re saying?”
Justin Tremell shrugged. “I don’t know her.”
“I didn’t ask that. I asked if you had ever seen this face.”
He looked at Rhodes like he was bored. “This is getting pretty technical, isn’t it?”
“It’s a simple question,” Rhodes said. “Have you seen her or not? Yes or no?”
The kid smiled at him. “Uh-uh.”
Rhodes stepped back, the veins in his neck throbbing. When Lena turned to check on the father, she caught him staring at her. His eyes were roaming up her thighs and hips and lingering on her breasts. As she moved to her right and broke his line of vision, he looked back at her face without any sign of embarrassment.
She shook it off because she knew that she had to and turned to his son.
“Where were you Wednesday night?” she said in an even voice.
“Home,” he said. “Where the heart is.”
“A woman was murdered, Justin. Do you think this is funny?”
“Not at all.”
“So where were you Wednesday night?”
The kid shrugged. “Home.”
Lena rolled a chair over and sat down in front of him. “You know something, Justin. I wish that I could believe you. I even want to believe you. It looks like you’ve got it made. Like you’re living the perfect life. But we’ve got a problem. Actually, it’s your problem, too, because we just left a handful of witnesses who said that you were at the Cock-a-doodle-do last Wednesday night. Even better, they said that you were sharing a table with Jennifer McBride. Talking and drinking with a woman you just claimed you don’t know and have never even seen. A young woman who ended up dead a couple of miles down the road.”
“Witnesses?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Then they must be mistaken, because I was at home.”
His father cleared his throat. “What the hell is a Cock-a-doodle-do?”
Lena turned and looked at him. The curiosity had left his eyes and he no longer appeared to be undressing her in his mind.
“It’s a whorehouse,” Rhodes said.
“A what?”
“A whorehouse by the airport.”
“You mean that you’re here asking questions about a prostitute?”
“That’s right,” Lena said. “Your son was one of the last people to see her alive on Wednesday night.”
The man who wrote the checks suddenly appeared dumbfounded. Lena realized that she had crossed the line and shown her anger. The truth was that she didn’t care. They were an inch away from being thrown out and her suspicions had already been confirmed. Justin Tremell would continue to lie, using his father as a shield. And the motive for the murder remained in play. She didn’t know how the pieces fit, but this was still about blackmail. As she tried to get a read on the kid, his face didn’t reveal concern, remorse, or any emotion at all. His expression was completely blank, like he didn’t have a worry in the world.
Dean Tremell leaned forward in the leather chair, the overgroomed bull pointing a steady finger at her. “Let me tell you something about my son,” he said in an exceedingly soft and slithery voice. “Justin’s a happily married man. A new father with a newborn son, Dean Jr. It may have taken a while, but he’s a responsible member of society now. I don’t know who your witnesses may or may not be, but I’ve got a good idea where they came from. And I’m not going to sit by while you take the word of a lowlife-ruin my son’s reputation or possibly even mine-then make some weak apology when you realize that it was all a mistake. Believe me when I say that you need to proceed with great care. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Lena glanced at Rhodes. Dean Tremell finally reached for the phone.
“Then get out,” he said.
20
Her eyes snapped open. She caught a glimpse of the empty wine glass standing beside the murder book on the coffee table, then the shelves on the far wall filled with hundreds of vinyl records and CDs.
She could hear music-Buddy Guy’s live version of “Sweet Little Angel” playing softly in the background. Not from her CD player, but from the computer wired into her audio system. As her mind began to clear, she remembered logging onto 88.1's Web site and listening to the station out of Long Beach over the Internet. The winds had been strong last night. Too strong to pull the FM signal out of the cold air sweeping through Hollywood Hills.
The Santa Anas were back. The Devil Winds.
Her eyes meandered across the ceiling, following the shadows into the kitchen. The wall clock over the stove read 7:30 a.m. She was still dressed. Still lying on the couch after a short and troubled sleep. And her cell phone was vibrating. On the table and bouncing up and down.
She sat up and checked the screen. Although the caller had blocked their ID, she flipped it open anyway, said hello and listened.
“Lena Gamble?”
It was a man’s voice. Smooth as silk. Someone she didn’t recognize and couldn’t place.
“Is this Lena Gamble?” the man repeated.
“Yes.”
“Lena, it’s Buddy Paladino.”