Petra said, “Once we found him. He'd been off parole for a while, last address was way out of date. One of our cruisers finally spotted him on the boulevard. He claimed to be living in La Puente but that turned out to be his brother's house, where he crashes from time to time. We never did put him at a local address.”
Moe said, “Now he's got one.”
“Pimping and living with a hooker,” said Biro. “Interesting.”
“Brother Arnold,” said Moe. “The car Wohr's driving illegally is registered to him. Maybe somewhere down the line, we can leverage that.”
Biro said, “You're figuring to lean on the reverend.”
“He's a minister?”
“Runs a small neighborhood church, feeds the homeless, has a wife, two kids, all of them about as wholesome and straight as it gets.”
Moe groaned.
Petra said, “But feel free to talk to him. To anyone. We've put this one in the fridge, welcome anything new.”
“Does your gut say don't bother with the rev? With Wohr, period?”
“There's no evidence implicating Wohr, but our gut's not strong on this one.”
“He have an alibi for the time frame of the murder?”
“That's part of the problem, we're not sure of the time frame. Adella's cell phone record breaks off thirty days before she was found, but she wasn't dead nearly that long, coroner estimates two, three days tops. She d.c.'d the account, switched to pay-as-you-gos.”
“Hiding something?” said Moe.
Biro said, “If she was hooking, throwaways would come in handy.” Looking at his partner.
Petra said, “We did have one person-old woman living in the same building who thought she was hooking but she had nothing to back that up, just ‘intuition.’ No one else felt that way. In fact, every other neighbor we talked to said that one was loony. They liked Adella, said she was quiet, minded her own business, concentrated on the baby. Now that you've told us Wohr's pimping, it opens up possibilities. Adella did have money-nearly four thou in a WaMu account and she was long gone from the casino.”
Biro said, “Problem is we've got nothing saying Wohr was pimping back then and I'm having trouble seeing him with someone like Adella on his payroll. We're talking a big step upward for Ramone W.”
Moe said, “What about cell phone records from before she canceled the account?”
“Mundane stuff,” said Petra. “Takeout, baby shops, Southwest Airlines to buy her ticket to Phoenix. She booked both ways, clearly had no intention of sticking around. We got into her computer, and she didn't use it much. Some online ordering of clothes for her and the kid, some eBay purchases of kiddie books and toys.”
Biro said, “When we questioned Wohr, he said Adella was a casual work buddy, he walked her to her car for her safety. He volunteered knowing she lived in Hollywood, but denied he lived here. Though he did admit to coming down on the bus, hanging around the boulevard.
When we asked him why, he gave a dumb smile and said, ‘To have fun.’ All of us knew he was scoring, maybe selling, he really wasn't trying to hide what he was.”
“Too far gone?” said Moe.
“Just his general demeanor. He came across more dumb-ass loser than conniving psychopath and that was verified by our Vice guys and a couple of uniforms who knew him.”
Moe glanced at the photo.
Petra said, “Poor little thing. We found the baby's vaccination records in Adella's apartment. Western Pediatric, there was no regular pediatrician, Adella used the clinic. The nurses who remembered her said she was a happy attentive mom, showed up on time, into breastfeeding. One nurse did recall a comment Adella made about her boobs finally being put to proper use. Which led us to wonder if she was back to posing, stripping, whatever. Or had never stopped. We canvassed topless clubs, photographers who do that kind of thing, never turned up a lead.”
Moe flipped to the murder book's front-page summary. “Body in Griffith Park.”
“Back of Fern Dell, near the stream.”
Biro said, “Crawfish got interested.”
Moe said, “That's pretty close to her apartment.”
“Reasonably close,” said Petra. “But the park wasn't the kill-spot, just the dump. Her place wasn't the crime scene, either, we still don't know where it happened. Once the coroner gave us that three-day frame, we had Wohr picked up again and talked to him. Guy was un-fazed, said he'd been drinking on all three nights, produced backup from other juiceheads at the bar. Bob's, where you just saw him, he's a regular. By itself, that's no alibi, the murder could've happened during the day. But nothing indicates guilt either.”
“You felt strongly enough to question him twice.”
Biro said, “He's all we had.”
Petra said, “We figure whoever killed her picked her up somewhere, because her car was never moved from her parking slot at the apartment. The seat adjustment fit her height, there was no sign anyone but her had driven it. Maybe she was freelancing to pay the bills, ended up on a real bad date. If we could tie her to Wohr, or to any other pimp, we'd be dancing in the hallway, Moe.”
“She did drugs in high school. What about later on?”
Biro said, “Nothing in her apartment and her blood was clean.”
Moe turned back to the picture. “You're probably right about being a bad fit for Wohr. She had the looks to play in a bigger league. But that could've led to some high-rolling clients. Like a zillionaire director's kid.”
Petra said, “Sure, but from what you saw last night, Ax Dement doesn't go high-end.”
Biro said, “Maybe he's into variety. Male psychology, it's all about novelty.”
Petra laughed. “As opposed to women who crave the same darn thing over and over?” She turned to Moe. “You're looking at Dement because he hangs around with Mason Book. And you're looking at Book because he's Caitlin's boyfriend's boss?”
Moe said, “And because Book's suicide attempt came only a week after Caitlin disappeared.”
Biro said, “Crushing guilt in an addict movie star? Anything's possible, but those types self-destruct all the time. Just because they're stupid.”
Metal in his voice.
Petra grinned. “My partner loves actors.”
“What I love,” said Biro, “is when I tell people I work Hollywood and they get after me for autographs.”
“‘People,’ as in cute girls,” said Petra. “That's a problem, huh, pard?”
“The problem is, I got nothing to show 'em. Working in Hollywood doesn't mean you get Hollywood. It's Westside has all the fun.”
Moe said, “Robert Blake was the Valley.”
Biro ticked his fingers. “O.J., Hugh Grant, Heidi Fleiss, Mario Fortuno, Paris and Mischa and Lindsay and every other celebutard who DUIs for fun and profit.”
Moe said, “Hey, a lot of that was the Strip, complain to the sheriffs. Phil Spector was out in Alta-freaking-dena.”
Petra mimed a pistol aim. “Blam. Talk about wall of sound.”
All three detectives laughed. Better than thinking about whodunits with no serious leads.
Moe shut the murder book. “Thanks for your time, guys. For lack of anything else, I'm going to try to find out how a mope like Wohr connected with a trust-fund baby like Ax. Then maybe we can backtrack to Book and/or Stoltz, then to Caitlin. And Adella.”
Biro said, “Maybe Ax gambles his daddy's money away, including at the poker palace.”