Jonathan Kellerman - True Detectives

Moe said, “Who's the dad?”

“Good question.”

Petra said, “Adella grew up in a conservative family, Dad's an auto mechanic, Mom provides home health care for old people. I was also raised in Arizona, know her neighborhood. Solid working class, lots of religion. Adella was a decent student, high school cheerleader, until tenth grade when she started hanging with a different crowd, got into some dope trouble, ended up posing for the wrong kind of pictures. Her parents found out, there was a huge scene, Adella ran away to L.A.”

“High school porn?” said Moe.

Biro said, “She got wangled into some nudies by a guy claiming to work for Hustler. What he called art shots-getting explicit with herself.”

Petra said, “By today's standards no huge freak, but by her parents’ standards she was speeding in the fast lane to hell. After she left, there was a total breakdown in communication-zero contact. Until one day the bell rings and Adella's standing there, with a one-month-old. Paternity never came up because Adella never volunteered and the family didn't want to pressure her, afraid she'd leave again, they'd never hear from her. Despite their treading on eggshells, she only stayed three days, Mom woke up, found her bed and the crib empty. She and Adella had just bought the crib-fun shopping trip. Poor woman was upset. Now she's shattered. Family gave us names of some tough kids Adella hung with in Phoenix, as well as the photographer. We worked them all, no dice. The Villareals are salt of the earth but the sad truth is they're clueless about Adella's life for the last eight years.”

Biro said, “She lived in a single on Gower, not a dump, but nothing fancy. Slept on a foldout couch with the kid next to her in a porta-crib, most of what was in there was baby-stuff. We found some pay stubs, traced back to a poker club in Gardena where she cocktail-waitressed for three years until a few months before the pregnancy. Wohr tended bar at the same place but only for a month before he got fired for not reporting his felony record. We got interested in him because surveillance cameras showed her walking with him to her car several times and another dealer remembers the two of them hanging out during smoke breaks. Wohr's sheet is thick, but there's no violence against women. But you know how it is. Guys get away with stuff, decide to kick it up a notch. We looked at him right away.”

Petra said, “Once we found him. He'd been off parole for a while, last address was way out of date. One of our cruisers finally spotted him on the boulevard. He claimed to be living in La Puente but that turned out to be his brother's house, where he crashes from time to time. We never did put him at a local address.”

Moe said, “Now he's got one.”

“Pimping and living with a hooker,” said Biro. “Interesting.”

“Brother Arnold,” said Moe. “The car Wohr's driving illegally is registered to him. Maybe somewhere down the line, we can leverage that.”

Biro said, “You're figuring to lean on the reverend.”

“He's a minister?”

“Runs a small neighborhood church, feeds the homeless, has a wife, two kids, all of them about as wholesome and straight as it gets.”

Moe groaned.

Petra said, “But feel free to talk to him. To anyone. We've put this one in the fridge, welcome anything new.”

“Does your gut say don't bother with the rev? With Wohr, period?”

“There's no evidence implicating Wohr, but our gut's not strong on this one.”

“He have an alibi for the time frame of the murder?”

“That's part of the problem, we're not sure of the time frame. Adella's cell phone record breaks off thirty days before she was found, but she wasn't dead nearly that long, coroner estimates two, three days tops. She d.c.'d the account, switched to pay-as-you-gos.”

“Hiding something?” said Moe.

Biro said, “If she was hooking, throwaways would come in handy.” Looking at his partner.

Petra said, “We did have one person-old woman living in the same building who thought she was hooking but she had nothing to back that up, just ‘intuition.’ No one else felt that way. In fact, every other neighbor we talked to said that one was loony. They liked Adella, said she was quiet, minded her own business, concentrated on the baby. Now that you've told us Wohr's pimping, it opens up possibilities. Adella did have money-nearly four thou in a WaMu account and she was long gone from the casino.”

Biro said, “Problem is we've got nothing saying Wohr was pimping back then and I'm having trouble seeing him with someone like Adella on his payroll. We're talking a big step upward for Ramone W.”

Moe said, “What about cell phone records from before she canceled the account?”

“Mundane stuff,” said Petra. “Takeout, baby shops, Southwest Airlines to buy her ticket to Phoenix. She booked both ways, clearly had no intention of sticking around. We got into her computer, and she didn't use it much. Some online ordering of clothes for her and the kid, some eBay purchases of kiddie books and toys.”

Biro said, “When we questioned Wohr, he said Adella was a casual work buddy, he walked her to her car for her safety. He volunteered knowing she lived in Hollywood, but denied he lived here. Though he did admit to coming down on the bus, hanging around the boulevard.

When we asked him why, he gave a dumb smile and said, ‘To have fun.’ All of us knew he was scoring, maybe selling, he really wasn't trying to hide what he was.”

“Too far gone?” said Moe.

“Just his general demeanor. He came across more dumb-ass loser than conniving psychopath and that was verified by our Vice guys and a couple of uniforms who knew him.”

Moe glanced at the photo.

Petra said, “Poor little thing. We found the baby's vaccination records in Adella's apartment. Western Pediatric, there was no regular pediatrician, Adella used the clinic. The nurses who remembered her said she was a happy attentive mom, showed up on time, into breastfeeding. One nurse did recall a comment Adella made about her boobs finally being put to proper use. Which led us to wonder if she was back to posing, stripping, whatever. Or had never stopped. We canvassed topless clubs, photographers who do that kind of thing, never turned up a lead.”

Moe flipped to the murder book's front-page summary. “Body in Griffith Park.”

“Back of Fern Dell, near the stream.”

Biro said, “Crawfish got interested.”

Moe said, “That's pretty close to her apartment.”

“Reasonably close,” said Petra. “But the park wasn't the kill-spot, just the dump. Her place wasn't the crime scene, either, we still don't know where it happened. Once the coroner gave us that three-day frame, we had Wohr picked up again and talked to him. Guy was un-fazed, said he'd been drinking on all three nights, produced backup from other juiceheads at the bar. Bob's, where you just saw him, he's a regular. By itself, that's no alibi, the murder could've happened during the day. But nothing indicates guilt either.”

“You felt strongly enough to question him twice.”

Biro said, “He's all we had.”

Petra said, “We figure whoever killed her picked her up somewhere, because her car was never moved from her parking slot at the apartment. The seat adjustment fit her height, there was no sign anyone but her had driven it. Maybe she was freelancing to pay the bills, ended up on a real bad date. If we could tie her to Wohr, or to any other pimp, we'd be dancing in the hallway, Moe.”

“She did drugs in high school. What about later on?”

Biro said, “Nothing in her apartment and her blood was clean.”

Moe turned back to the picture. “You're probably right about being a bad fit for Wohr. She had the looks to play in a bigger league. But that could've led to some high-rolling clients. Like a zillionaire director's kid.”