No criminal record for Marcella Douquette. The girl was young, give her time.
Maybe none of it meant a thing, but it was time to do some legwork.
Albert and Lyle Leon’s addresses were bogus. Same setup as Sandra’s: multiunit apartments, no record of either man ever living there. Neither con was on parole and neither had registered any motor vehicles, so there was no way to trace them.
Petra drove to Venice. The Brooks Avenue house was one of three clapboard single units on a dirt lot in definite gang territory. Teeny little shacky thing, sitting askew on a raised foundation. Tar-paper roof, ragged boards. The surrounding lot cordoned by chain link and full of litter: spare tires, an old washing machine, rolls of plastic tarp, soda bottles, beer cans, splintered parts of wooden pallets.
It was one P.M. and the shaved-head crowd was sleeping in. Petra could smell the ocean- a nice, salty fragrance with just the slightest undertone of rot. The shack was a total dive but only a quick hop to the beach. Venice Beach, where deviance was the norm and scamsters worked the tourists every Sunday.
Perfect for The Players and their ilk. Petra’s chest twitched. Maybe she was finally on to something.
She got out of the car, looked up and down the block, let her fingers settle atop the spot on her hip where her gun rested. A platter of soupy, gray fog pressed down on the ocean- the usual June gloom- and the entire neighborhood was washed in newspaper-photo tones.
Maybe that’s why the head-basher chose June to do his thing. Depressed over ugly weather.
She waited some more, took in Marcella Douquette’s alleged residence from a distance and made sure no low-riders were cruising. The chain-link fence was locked and bolted but low, barely at waist level.
Petra approached the property, waited for the requisite pit bull to show. Nothing.
She checked out the street one more time, got a toehold in a chain-link diamond, and was over.
No doorbell, no answer to her assertive knocks. She was about to walk around behind the shack when the door to the neighboring unit opened and a man stepped out, squinting.
Hispanic, mid-twenties, bare-chested, wispy crew cut. Wispy mustache to match. Like that old actor… Cantinflas.
He wore baggy blue swim trunks and nothing else. His soft, hairless chest- all of him- was the color of mocha ice cream. Nicely burgeoning potbelly. Outsized outie navel that resembled a summer squash- sue that obstetrician.
No tattoos or scars that she could see. No macho-swagger either. Just a sleepy-looking, flabby guy getting up at 1:20 P.M.
She gave him a businesslike nod.
He nodded back, sniffed the air.Yawned.
She went up to him. “You live here for a while, sir?”
His reply was too soft to make out so Petra got closer and said, “Pardon?”
“Just for the summer.”
“When did you start living here?”
The guy stared at her. She flashed the badge. He yawned again. Through the door to his shack she saw a gray-carpeted room with a blue couch and a pumpkin-colored beanbag. Outsized black leather case atop the couch. The window shades were drawn. Mildew from the carpet wafted out to the stagnant June air.
“I started May one,” he said. “Why?”
“Why May?” said Petra.
“That’s when school was over.”
“College?”
“Cal State Northridge.” He hitched his swim trunks. They slid back down. “What’s up?”
Petra evaded the question with a smile. “What’re you studying?”
“Photography. Photojournalism. I live in the Valley, figured Venice would be a good place to get shots for my portfolio.” He frowned. “What’s going on?”
Petra looked up at the sky. “How does the fog affect your photography?”
“With the right filters you can do cool stuff.” Another frown. “Are there problems? ’Cause I didn’t realize how sketchy the neighborhood was but now I see where it’s at.”
“Problems?”
“I wouldn’t leave my equipment in the house, alone.”
“Bad neighbors?”
“The whole neighborhood. I don’t go out much at night. Probably, I’ll leave at the end of the month.”
“No lease?”
“Month to month.”
“Who’s the landlord?”
“Some corporation. I got it from an ad at the C-SUN bulletin board.”
“Cheap?” said Petra.
“Real cheap.”
Petra said, “I’m trying to track down a young woman named Marcella Douquette.”
“She the one next door?”
“There’s a girl living next door?”
“Used to be. Haven’t seen her for a while.”
“How long’s a while?”
He scratched his chin. “Maybe a couple of weeks ago.”
Right around the time of the Paradiso shootings.
Petra said, “Could I have your name please, sir?”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“Ovid Arnaz.”
“Mr. Arnaz, I’ve got a photo here. Not the kind of thing you’d take. From the Coroner’s Office. You up for looking at it?”
“I’ve been to the coroner’s,” said Ovid Arnaz. “For a class. We met with crime photographers.”
“Strong stuff.”
Arnaz stretched his neck. “It was interesting.” He glanced at the shack next door. “What, she’s dead?”
Petra showed him the least disturbing postmortem of the girl in the pink sneakers.
Ovid Arnaz regarded it without a trace of emotion. “Yup,” he said. “That’s her.”
Petra phoned Pacific Division, explained the situation to an amiable sergeant, and within five minutes three patrol cars had sped to the scene. The tech van took another twenty minutes to arrive, during which the uniforms stood around and Petra talked more to Ovid Arnaz.
On the quiet side, but he turned out to be a first-rate source. Photographer’s memory, keen eye for details.
He remembered Marcella Douquette’s pink shoes- she always wore them- and described her face and body to a T. More important, he reported that she’d lived with two other people. Another girl, pretty, slender, blond, who had to be Sandra. And an older guy with a weird, bushy haircut and a soul patch.
Lyle the Dude Leon.
Petra showed Arnaz Lyle’s mug shot to be sure.
“That’s him. Dressed like a pirate.”
“What do you mean?”
“Silk shirts with those big sleeves. Like pirates used to wear.”
He was less helpful when it came to describing behavior or emotion. No, he’d never seen any conflict among the three of them. No, he had no idea how they got along or how they spent their free time.
None of the three had spoken to him much. They went their way, he went his.
“During the day I’m mostly out shooting film. When I go out at night, it’s in the Valley, ’cause that’s where my friends live. Sometimes I spend the night there.”
“At your friends.”
Arnaz looked away briefly. “Yeah, or my folks.”
Scared by the neighborhood, he returns to mom and dad at night.
He said, “They don’t like me living out here. I tell them it’s cool.”
Petra said, “Makes total sense, though. Long as you’re out there, avoid the drive back.”
“Yeah,” said Ovid Arnaz. “And I know my equipment’s safe.”
CHAPTER 24
Mac Dilbeck looked at the photo of Marcella Douquette. “Our victim.”
Petra said, “Maybe our main victim. She’s got no record but was living with a member of a known criminal enterprise. Could be the other kids just happened to be in the parking lot at the wrong time.”
The two of them were having coffee at Musso and Frank, the front room, one of the stiff-backed booths. Hollywood oldsters and retro types Petra’s age loped in and out. Petra was having apple pie and Mac had chosen rhubarb with vanilla ice cream. Luc Montoya, occupied with his new case, a Selma Avenue stabbing, was off the Paradiso case permanently.
Mac forked loose an equilateral triangle of pie and guided it smoothly into his mouth. It was five P.M. and he’d been on for a day and a half, but his gray sharkskin suit was immaculate and his white shirt looked freshly pressed. Petra had left a message with Isaac at USC, canceling their P.M. meet. She felt exhilarated by the I.D. on Douquette but on the verge of letdown because of all the whodunit that remained.