Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

“Trained observer, a cop, anal- retentive careful.” “Right.”

“So what does Billy Shears, possibly unaware he’s zeroed in on an off-duty cop, have to do to penetrate that much defense?”

“Be one sneaky mother,” Polk said. “Smart, too.”

Amari said, “I’ll say... Let’s go in and see if we can be smart, too. And maybe even sneaky...”

The interior was dark barn wood, cowboy paraphernalia, and a hardwood dance floor; a mechanical bull lurked in one corner, a seventies artifact on display. Customers were scant, with a female bartender on hand, as well as the owner, a tall woman, six-two easy in her cowboy boots, towering over Amari.

Her name was Julia Stowe and her jeans were tight, her tank top emblazoned with the bar’s logo. She and Amari spoke in a corner booth while Polk talked to the bartender and handful of patrons.

Once they were seated, Amari felt a little less like one of the munchkins interviewing Dorothy.

Hard but attractive, the owner asked, “So is this about that murder over at the old Ramada Inn?”

“Yes, Ms. Stowe. This is the victim.”

Julia looked at the photo. “Christ, it’s Danny...”

“Friend, or just a regular customer?

“Both. He came in to dance damn near every week. Good guy. Cute-ass scarecrow, our Danny.”

The woman wasn’t tearing up, but her sadness didn’t seem faked.

“Was he here last Wednesday?”

“Think so.”

“Think or know?”

“Know.”

“His car was in your parking lot.”

”That Mustang?”

“Yeah.”

“Peggy, she’s the bartender talking to your partner?”

“Yes?”

“She mentioned the Mustang on Friday, said it’d been here a couple days.”

“Why didn’t you have it towed?”

“Well... I knew it was Danny’s.”

“And you didn’t call him, or do anything else about it?”

“I did call. Left messages on his cell Friday, Saturday, too — fact, I just called about an hour ago and said if he didn’t get it out of here tonight, I would have to have the damn thing towed.”

“You have the cell numbers of a lot of your customers?”

“No. Danny and me were... friendly. No wonder it went straight to voice mail...”

“You see him Wednesday night?”

“Yeah, sure. I said I did.”

“Talk to him?”

“Just said hi. Not a real conversation.”

“See him with anybody?”

“Well, he was dancing. That’s why he came here. Saw him with a few different girls. He didn’t have a regular partner, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“He wasn’t a... one-girl guy.”

Amari nodded. “You ever... dance with him?”

“A few times.”

“So then he wasn’t gay?”

The owner grinned. “Danny Terrant? Boy, are you confused. Danny had plenty of notches on his belt. And they weren’t guys.”

“Could he have batted for both teams?”

“No. Trust me, honey. He liked girls.”

What the hell was going on?

The family of their other Billy Shears victim insisted their man was straight; now someone who knew Terrant — probably had slept with him — was telling her their second victim was straight, too.

Had the West Hollywood hotel been strictly to throw them off the track? Smart. Sneaky.

But who... what ... was Billy? A cross-dressing man who could conceivably be perceived by his victims as a woman?

Or was Billy Shears really... Billie Shears?

Amari said, “Tell me about your security cameras.”

“One by the bar, one by the door, another on the parking lot.”

“Do we need a warrant?”

“No need. I liked Danny. Just Wednesday’s DVDs?”

“For now,” Amari said.

“Be right back,” the woman said, climbing out.

Polk came over, jerked a thumb toward the bar. “Danny hooked up with that cute bartender.”

“He also nailed the owner.”

“For a shy beanpole, boy got around. Probably not gay.”

“Probably not.”

“You think our killer’s maybe a transvestite?”

“Maybe. Or a woman.”

“... A woman?”

“Yeah. A woman. A female. The fairer sex?” Polk sat down. “This is some screwed-up shit, Lieutenant.” “You think?”

Show day again — not another live show, strictly speaking, but because of Don Juan, Harrow would be doing live wraparounds. Decisions had yet to be made about just what he would say about — and to — Don Juan.

No studio audience, thank God. Harrow was in his office going over material for tonight, feeling the strain of a fast-moving, brutal week.

The team had been working very long hours since that body had been left as a grisly message on their doorstep. LAPD had quickly identified the victim, a dental assistant named Gina Hannan, by her fingerprints. Turned out in college Gina had been booked for disturbing the peace when she had been arrested at... a peace rally.

But Don Juan had already emptied Gina’s bank account into a Caymans one, and by the time Jenny tracked it down, the funds in the Islands had disappeared.

The video from the network’s security cameras revealed very little — a shoulder here, a blur of rear view there, killer walking away. He wore a baseball cap, jeans jacket, gloves, jeans, and work boots, and Jenny figured him at medium height. Dark shaggy hair.

Don Juan had cased the building well. He knew the holes in the cameras’ coverage and exploited them.

Though the delivery of the corpse was not caught on camera, there was footage enough to pinpoint the time — 9:28 P.M. Downtown Los Angeles, around the UBC complex, was a ghost town Sunday evening.

Jenny hacked traffic cams for blocks without spotting Don Juan returning to his car. Security footage from UBC and its neighbors offered no indication the killer had parked out front when he dumped the body.

Pall and Choi helped Jenny check security footage of the parking garages within three blocks of UBC. Carting the body more than a relatively short distance seemed unlikely, and a parking garage would provide some shelter for whatever preparations were needed to transfer the corpse (wrapped in some fashion?) from a trunk or backseat.

Each tech took a garage and, finally, Jenny spotted something: a Ford Focus pulling out of a parking ramp nine minutes after the body had been dropped.

“Gotcha,” she said, blowing up a still frame to where she could make out the license number.

Frowning, Pall asked, “Who waits almost ten minutes before he leaves a crime scene?”

Choi put in: “And what the hell was he doing for ten minutes?”

“Nine,” Jenny said. “Calling the media?”

Her associates paused; then both nodded.

Soon she’d hacked the DMV to learn the plates on the Ford Focus were registered to a rental company’s silver Nissan.

Another dead end.

Like the card stuck in the flowers — a run-of-the-mill greeting, available in a hundred flower shops around the Southland.

The roses, on the other hand, were rare. Michael Pall was able to identify them as Black Pearls, an uncommon variety.

Utilizing interns and production assistants, Harrow’s team contacted the over seventeen hundred retail and wholesale florists in the greater Los Angeles area. None had received orders for that particular type of rose.

“He’s got to be getting them somewhere,” Harrow said to Pall and Jenny. “Either he has a rose garden, a greenhouse, or works at one. Find out who sells Black Pearl roses and start digging from that direction.”

Meanwhile, Amari was keeping Harrow posted on what was now being called the Billie Shears case — the gay angle of the first killing apparently a red herring courtesy of a killer, who was likely female.