Open Season (Alex Delaware #40)

Chapter 27

Chapter

27

Robin was busy in her shop but my workday had ended. Nothing like free time to make you antsy.

I tried to tolerate the quiet, failed, left the house and got into the Seville.

The drive from the Glen into the flats of Beverly Hills was smooth and pretty. At North Bedford Drive, I hooked a right off Sunset and cruised two and a half blocks to Gerald and Kiki Boykins’s impeccable Tudor.

As before, the gates were closed. Unlike before, Walt Swanson’s orange Camaro was gone, replaced by a black Mustang GT. And a different guard.

Swanson had preferred sitting in his car. This guy had positioned himself in front of the house’s main door, face impassive, arms folded across his chest. Pink face but everything else black. Black suit, black shirt, black shoes, black crew cut, clipped black beard, black sunglasses.

Bigger than Swanson. Arms as thick as thighs. A defensive-tackle-sized column of muscle, bone, and hard suet. If he cared about my slow drive-by, he didn’t show it.

Our easy entry to the house the first time had angered Boykins. Time for an upgrade.

The Swede’s useless, give me someone scary.

I continued a block, reversed, and returned, wondering if that would capture the new guard’s attention. Thought I caught the merest movement of a face, florid and compressed as a canned ham.

By the time I risked a third pass, the guard had moved and stood facing the house’s open door talking to someone.

Voluptuous, good-looking blond woman in black velvet sweats, standing just outside the doorway.

As Kiki Boykins spoke, Ham listened attentively. Short conversation, business-like, no evidence of emotion or urgency. Neither of them noticed me and as she walked back inside, he began to turn back to the gate and I drove off.

I kept going to Lomitas Avenue, drove to Whittier Drive, the westernmost street in the flats, and hooked north. Caught a red light at Sunset and used the time to wonder.

Had there been a reason other than a client complaint for Walt Swanson’s departure?

What if Swanson had taken on an after-hours assignment and once Milo and I showed up asking questions, needed to disconnect from his client?

No need to travel to find help for a certain type of problem. Not with an ex-cop attached to your household.

Back to keeping it local.

The longer I contemplated, the more what-ifs piled up.

Kiki Boykins—or her husband, or the two of them in concert—paying Walt Swanson to deal with the problem Jamarcus Parmenter had become.

That job accomplished cleanly, no problems for nearly two years, use the same guy for Paul O’Brien.

For the same reason as Parmenter: protecting Keisha.

I’d resisted Milo’s assumption that Boykins had contracted O’Brien’s death but now I wondered. There was no indication O’Brien had ever gotten on Gerald Boykins’s bad side. Yet. But O’Brien had worked for Boykins and he had a penchant for poor impulse control when it came to women. Meaning ample opportunity for Boykins to bristle at something O’Brien had done. After that, sniffing out O’Brien’s predatory nature and realizing he’d hired the wrong guy to guard the door—especially with Keisha around—he’d taken action.

My original thoughts about the girl returned: a bright only child with some sort of health issue could easily kick up the protectiveness level, meaning no need for O’Brien to have actually made a move on the teenager. An errant glance, a smart remark, the wrong kind of wink might’ve been enough.

Or just Keisha complaining about the creepy security dude.

Time to take action: Got a second, Walt?

The light turned green, I turned left on Sunset and thought about the scenario most of the way home. Nothing illogical about it and an ex-cop hit man could explain the professionalism of the kills. But there wasn’t a single fact to back any of it up and I needed to be careful not to jump on it out of self-interest.

And maybe I was over-eager because the Boykinses contracting a hit on O’Brien eliminated a link to Vicki Saucedo and conveniently got me off the hook for holding back info.

Then my thoughts shifted to a young woman and a toddler in a boat. To Jay Sterling somehow linking up with Walt Swanson and hiring him to clean up his custody mess so he could take Jarrod to New York.

Sterling had come across likable and horrified by Whitney’s death, but he was a salesman, expert at promoting himself. So maybe I’d been snowed.

But there was a problem with that. A possessive father allowing his son to witness the murder of his mother then drift in a rowboat seemed unlikely.

A whole different level of cold than the elimination of Parmenter and O’Brien. Was Walter Swanson cruel enough to pick off a mother in front of her child?

Time to learn more about the man in the orange Camaro.

—

Back at my desk I drank coffee and ran a search. Futile; Swanson had no online presence.

That could be explained by a middle-aged guy not enamored of the cyber-world. Or did Swanson have a good reason to maintain a non-profile?

Over the years, I’d learned about several sites on the alleged dark web and tried them.

Lots of ominous logos and sinister allusions but a big zero. Everything boiled down to blather and cons and piling up clicks.

The amateur route wouldn’t work. I called the pro.

—

Milo listened and said, “Him. Why?”

“Cops have been known to use .308s.”

“On the other hand, he could just have been fired.”

“Absolutely.”

“Hmm. Lemme see what I can find out.”

Forty minutes later, he was back in touch.

“Guy worked Venice for twenty years, just like he told us. Twenty-one, to be exact. Started out on patrol then, ten years in, earned himself a motorcycle gig working Traffic near the beach. Did that until six years ago when he had an accident and hurt his back. Instead of quitting, he got himself transferred to a desk. Maybe because he liked being on the job. Or he wanted to stretch it out to get max pension plus disability.”

I said, “Add private security to all that and he’s got a good thing going money-wise. Where does he live?”

“Not some pricey place if that’s what you’re getting at. Cop Central, Simi Valley. Ran a Google Maps on his address and if he’s raking it in, he’s not spending it conspicuously. Your basic box. Camera even caught the Camaro in the driveway. Next to a minivan, so maybe he’s a family guy trying to pay bills.”

“Any excessive force complaints?”

“Nope, spotless record. Including a couple of commendations for helping accident victims. I called the private outfit—Pacific Security—and asked for him, got told he no longer worked there, they had no idea where he’d gone. So the firing thing is feeling likely. Can’t rule anything out but I don’t see a way—or a reason—to do a deep dig on him. But thanks and keep thinking.”

“Even if it hurts?”

He laughed. “Long as I have you, here’s the current situation. Or lack thereof. Petra checked out the eight serious criminals who got parking tickets and they’re all alibied, no other sightings of Hoodie Man have surfaced, and Raul’s visits to every damn pay lot fizzled to nada. Given all the less-than-zero, I’m gonna opt for the classic coping mechanism.”

“Meditation?”

“A meeting. Can you make it tomorrow around noon?”