Chapter 21
21
“A ny chance you’d let me shower at your place?” I asked David as I finished parking my ticketed car at my usual spot at the Eastern Columbia’s parking area. I suspected that my water heater would still not be working.
“Do you want company?” he offered, and I let my eyes accept.
The day had started with my mother waking me up abruptly. I then had to read an extremely untalented piece of journalism, I had pissed off my dad, faced the cops, and was chased down by a lunatic. But it was finally shaping up to be a promising journey.
Perhaps we should have had that damn conversation before. We’d been all mellow vibes and heated stares since our lunch chat and on our way from the eatery.
I allowed myself to anticipate everything I wanted to do to David in the shower, and becoming extremely aware of the tingling sensation between my legs. But then I saw the car, and dread washed over my body.
“Aargh!” I cried out.
“Elena, ?qué pasa?” David asked, concerned, looking around us.
“I’d bet my Critics Choice Association Super Awards nomination that’s Dashing Henry’s car,” I said, referring to the only accolade I’d received in my entire career as I signaled a car of the same distinct model and color as the one Marky/Troubelmakr had described as Dashing Henry’s. It was parked in the visitor’s area of our building’s garage.
“And you’re despising it because...?”
“Because now we’ll have to find a way to break into it and see if there’s anything that helps us in this investigation.” I sighed. “And that’s probably going to take us at least half the afternoon and distract us from our previous and much more appetizing endeavors.”
David’s jaw dropped. “You think we should break into it?” He had already forgotten about our shower arrangements and had journalistic thrill written all over his face. “Elena, I’m not saying we shouldn’t shower together. I’m just saying, the day is still young.” His reassuring words may have done something to appease me, but his grin stirred that something between my legs again.
“Is there anything else to do other than break into the car?” I said. “Apart from calling the cops, I mean.”
“Which we said we wouldn’t do,” David completed my thoughts. “But you know a car break-in is a crime, right?”
“Hmm. With a good lawyer, we could probably be charged with a misdemeanor and not a felony,” I said. And I knew that not because of my identity as a lawyer’s daughter but as a crime screenwriter.
“Still sounds awful to me,” he said.
“The alternative is letting the cops find this thing first.”
“This is a very bad idea,” David continued arguing, but I thought he was starting to contemplate the scenario seriously.
“We could just pretend I never saw that humongously big car and return to our initial afternoon plans,” I said, but even if that was what I wanted to do, I knew that wasn’t the smartest decision.
“Do you even know how to break into a car?” David asked, and I guess he’d reached the same conclusion I had.
“Should we Google it?”
“You Google, I’ll YouTube it,” he said, and we both took our cell phones and approached the task at hand in the most digitally native way possible.
…
Half an hour after having watched an extremely informative video from an online roadside assistance business owner, and after a trip to the hardware store, we were back in the garage with an inflatable pry bar and a reach tool with a flexible tip. Following the instructions from the roadside assistance guru, I introduced the airbag bar between Henry’s car frame and the passenger door and inflated it, prying the door about half an inch open. David then used the reach tool and, after a few failed attempts, managed to pull the door handle and open the car’s passenger door.
The alarm started blasting.
“We should have thought this through a bit better, perhaps?” David asked. The possibility of the car having an alarm system hadn’t even crossed our minds.
“I’d say we have two minutes until George comes snooping around from the tenth floor or someone else gets here.” I pursed my lips.
“Let’s make it count,” David said.
“Has that security camera always been there?” I asked over the alarm noise when I saw the recording device above our heads.
And perhaps I should tell you here that the pry bar and the reach tool weren’t the only things we’d bought, with cash, at the not-necessarily-nearest hardware store. We were also wearing gloves, head masks, and some hilarious-looking hooded white jumpsuits. They brought me memories of Breaking Bad , but mostly I hoped they would cover our clothes and most of the details that would make me or David recognizable, should someone see us breaking into Henry’s car. That was the only reason we weren’t running away already from the sound of the car alarm.
“I think the security team only had that one installed a few days ago,” David yelled so I could hear him. He was going through the contents of the glove compartment, which were sparse: owner’s manual and car registration. “The car registration says Atticus Mortimer. Are we sure we didn’t break into the wrong car?”
“Stop panicking, that’s his assumed name.” David raised an eyebrow in confusion. “It’s the fake name he used to book appointments or check into hotels if he didn’t feel like being bothered.”
Everyone at LA Misconducts knew Henry had an alternative name for certain occasions. David shrugged and kept searching, apparently satisfied with my explanation.
“No food wrappers, no paper cups, not even a used tissue. This guy must get the car detailed every week,” he said, crouching to see if there was something on the floor of the vehicle.
I checked the non-contents of the trunk.
“It’s almost as if he didn’t live in Southern California,” I added. “No beach blanket, no spare jacket for the chilly summer days, no reusable bags for grocery store runs!”
“Yeah, as if he did his own grocery shopping. Should we call it a day and preventively call our lawyer?”
“He wouldn’t want to know about this,” I said. “Plausible deniability and all that.”
David snorted. “Not sure that’s what plausible deniability means.”
“Are we really arguing about words now ?” I couldn’t believe I had been thinking about giving us another try and having a more committed and even conventional relationship with him when he could be so insufferably meticulous. “What the fuck is that?” I said, pointing to a cartoon-looking cat hanging from the car’s rearview mirror.
“One of those cutesy car mirror charm thingies?” David asked.
“The hell it is. Henry hadn’t been cute a day in his life. Plus, he hated animals—even cats. Grab that, we’re taking it,” I said decisively. “And we’re leaving.”
…
“I’ll take that shower now, even if it’s without you,” I told David.
We were entering the main vestibule of the Eastern Columbia after having left the garage via its car ramp, shedding our camouflage attire, and dumping it in a trash can three blocks from there.
“I’ll join before you know it,” David said. “But something occurred to me while we were having our undercover adventure at the garage, and I don’t think it can wait.”
“Is that what we’re calling it? Undercover adventure at the garage. ”
“It has a better ring than breaking and entering ,” he said.
“Look who’s here? You two talk to each other now?” I recognized the rich, timbered voice immediately. George stood in my and David’s way.
Ugh .
“You,” I said, sending a killing stare George’s way. The only reason I hadn’t seen my neighbor approaching was that my gaze had been entirely fixed on David.
“Hey, George. How’s it going?” David greeted him with his charming personality fully engaged.
“Are you seriously being nice to him?” I asked, pointing at George with disdain.
“Elena, it was an anonymous source. We can’t assume,” David said patiently.
“Oh my god! I can’t believe you right now! You are so infuriatingly... you!”
David smirked, and that only made me angrier. “So infuriatingly me?”
“So you two are definitely talking and humping now then,” George said with a tone of pure insinuation. He looked as if David and I were the latest, spiciest installment of Love Is Blind , Too Hot to Handle or whatever reality dating gameshow he favored. “Have you heard there’s a car in the garage with the alarm sounding? They think it may be Dashing Henry’s, only it’s registered under a fake name and the cops missed it when they first found the body,” added George sotto voce. Without another word, he left in the direction of the garage.
“Have you noticed George keeps finding out about everything before everyone else?” I asked David, still mad at him for showing so much niceness with George.
“Yes, so?”
“Don’t you find that suspicious?”
We looked at each other, letting our eyes have the rest of the conversation. Could the chatterbox be the person responsible for Henry’s death? It would explain his ability to know everything before anyone else.
“Nah!” we both said in unison. George hardly seemed like a potential killer.