Chapter 39
Chapter
He picked me up at ten fourteen.
I’d left Robin snuggly under the bedcovers, smiling and close to sleep. We’d spent the past four hours together. A bit of good food, a lot of romance, and that wonderful sense of serenity that follows. Then she asked about the case.
“A woman with tools,” she said. “Giving the rest of us a bad name.” She nudged me. “Does it make you nervous, handsome?”
“Notice I rarely get close to your bench.”
“Phobic, huh?” she said. “We could do that desensitization thing. Use the bench for other purposes.”
I said, “Long as the saw’s off.”
“Of course, darling. We do tend to move around a bit.”
I was waiting outside when the Impala sped up and came to a sharp stop.
Milo sped downhill to the Glen and turned south. Sitting tall behind the wheel, jaw jutting.
On the hunt.
I said, “How’s it going?”
“Peachy. You?”
“Great.”
One hurtling minute later: “I finally traced her as Rhonda Cronin to Albuquerque using her Social Security number.”
“She lived there before L.A.?”
“She was born there and got into trouble there. ADW when she was nineteen that landed her in jail for a month followed by another month of probation and an anger management class.”
“Pretty light for a felony attack,” I said. “What was the weapon?”
“Pool cue. She used it to smack another girl upside the head.”
He rubbed his temple. “Not your usual drunk thing in a bar, this took place in the rec room of a community center. Rhonda and the victim were both beauty contestants—Miss some kind of chili—and were there to pose for photos. Words were exchanged and all of a sudden, boom, the other girl’s down on the floor, out cold and bloody, and Rhonda’s standing over her with the cue. ”
I said, “Pageant jealousy?”
“No, that’s the thing. Rhonda had already come in second, the victim, third.”
“Number One got away clean.”
“Number One was on a tour endorsing a hot sauce. Albuquerque guy I spoke to, Dick Sanchez, remembered it because it was so weird. He called it The Beauty Brawl. They never got to the bottom of what caused it, other than Rhonda accusing the victim of being a mean girl and the victim leveling the same thing at Rhonda.”
“Serious injury?”
“Concussion and hospitalization but full recovery. That and no priors is why Rhonda only got the month and Sanchez says they put her in a pretty quiet jail. He had no idea what happened to her after that but I managed to find her P.O. Nancy Odom, and she remembered Rhonda for the same reason. Gorgeous girl, no priors, just exploded, made no sense.”
“Rhonda didn’t give her an explanation?”
“Odom said she refused to talk. Then Odom got defensive, going on about caseload, meth dealers, other serious baddies.”
“Rhonda got no scrutiny because she was low priority.”
“Her sentence says she wasn’t any kind of priority.
The entire probation arrangement was one meeting at the beginning of the month and another on the final day.
Both of which Rhonda showed up at. She also never missed an anger class.
Odom did say she asked what her plans were and Rhonda told her she was going to college in Vegas.
Odom suspected it was more like trying to break in as a showgirl because Rhonda had spent years in pageants, was all about her looks. ”
“Any information on her family?”
“Rhonda was an adult so Odom never met the family, relied on what Rhonda told her. Intact, no issues, Dad was in some kind of business, Mom was a stay at home who’d also done the beauty thing.
Rhonda did show Odom a recent family photo with her in a tiara and the only thing that jumped out at her was all three of them were good-looking. ”
“Only child.”
“Seems to be. Is that important?”
“One less relative to talk to. Are the parents alive?”
“Don’t know and not gonna talk to anyone at this point, Alex. Intact families can get protective and I don’t want her to know we’re looking at her.”
—
He took Westwood to Pico, turned left, passing through the Rancho Park district and the southern border of Century City where high-rises pretend L.A.
’s a real city. Hooking a right on Beverly Drive, he continued through the original ranch houses and recent McMansions of Beverlywood, once a start-up neighborhood for newlyweds, now a final stop for the affluent.
As we continued south, the street got curvier, darker, quieter. Beyond quiet, the silence of slumbering suburbia. The trajectory gradually veered from affluence as big houses gave way to small houses, which finally conceded to blocks of apartments and the drone-buzz of the freeway.
Turning left on National, he made a series of GPS-directed turns, found his way to Holt Avenue, and cruised slowly before locating the address.
The building looked just as it had on my screen but for pink stucco darkened to an indecisive gray barely defined in the nocturnal haze. L.A. ranks architecture somewhere below slime mold, and the block was the usual mix of charmless boxes from various decades.
Milo said, “What’s that, a bow tie?”
“Dressing for success.”
He grunted, backed up, and parked in the only available space. Three buildings north and across the street, with a diagonal view of Tiana’s.
Switching off his headlights, he worked his phone. “City has it listed as ten units, five on the first floor, five on the second. The Safe Place thing you sent me says hers is number eight, so she’s on top.”
Lights on in one apartment on each of the floors but that said nothing about rear units.
Milo thought for a while, said, “Stay here,” got out, closed the driver’s door softly, looked up and down the block, and crossed the street.
He was back moments later but remained outside the car talking through the open driver’s window.
I said, “Nothing?”
“Nope. Door’s security-coded. Gonna look around a bit more, stay put.”
He was gone longer, returned breathing rapidly.
“Tenant parking in the back. God was merciful and it’s open carports and in the number eight slot is a dark-blue Highlander. Expired registration, hopefully the plates haven’t been switched.”
He ran them, gave a thumbs-up. “Owned until a couple of years ago by an eighty-year-old guy in Woodland Hills. He kept up the reg and duly recorded the sale. But then the buyer—guess who?—notified DMV it was going to be junked so it was never re-registered.”
I said, “Ghost wheels. Good way to avoid reg fees. Also helpful if you’re planning something nasty.”
“She planned for two years? Or maybe she was doing other bad stuff in the meantime.”
“If she killed Martha and Lynne, we’re talking a seven-year grudge, so two years doesn’t seem like much.”
He chewed his cheek, pushed hair off his forehead. “Good point. And going ghost is relatively low risk. Even if you do get pulled over, you can probably talk your way out of anything but a warning.”
I said, “If you’re a former beauty queen, highly probable.”
“Little Miss Scofflaw,” he said, punching a palm with a fist. “Finally I have something.”
—
We watched the building for another hour. In all that time, three cars drove by and a single late-night dog-walker passed by with a trudging, older Lab in tow.
“Quiet night,” said Milo. “Nice when I’m trying to sleep, crap when I’m working. Let’s call it.”
But ten minutes later, he pulled over on the southern tip of Beverly Drive and got on his phone.
Reaching the West L.A. duty sergeant and requesting as many drive-bys as the schedule allowed on Tiana Crown’s block, giving her name and vehicle details.
“Yup, female. More important, Bob, she’s a multiple murder suspect, otherwise I wouldn’t bug you…three…exactly. Thanks. Something happens call me at home.”
Next: texts to Alicia, Sean, and Moe.
Time for a new meeting. Seven a.m.
Resuming the drive, he said, “If you’re busy or it’s too early for you, sorry, can’t delay. We need to get a plan going.”
I said, “Oh, ye of little faith.”