Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I have nothing…legal going on. There must be some mis—”

“It’s not regarding you, ma’am. It involves others, and you are on the periphery of it. Can we come in, or would you like to accompany us to our office in Van Nuys for the conversation?”

It was a gamble offering her another location that didn’t actually exist, but I was betting she wouldn’t want to leave her home.

“What others?” she asked.

I was hoping she wouldn’t ask that until we got inside. But that was the rub. I was bluffing, trying to act like I knew something about something I knew nothing about.

“Gloria Dayton, for one. You might know of her as Glory Days.”

“What about her? I have nothing to do with her.”

“She’s dead.”

I can’t say she looked surprised by the news. It might not have been that she knew Gloria was dead, but that she had a knowledge that Gloria’s life could lead to a bad end.

“In November,” I said. “She was murdered and we are taking a look at how her case was handled. There are ethical questions regarding the conduct of her attorney. Could we come in? I promise we won’t take much of your time.”

She hesitated but then stepped back. We were in. It was probably against her instincts to let two strangers into her home but she also probably didn’t want to keep us— our business—out on the front porch for the neighbors to see and wonder about. I went through the doorway and Earl followed. Kendall directed us to a living-room couch and she took a chair opposite.

“Look, I am very sorry to hear about Glory. But let me just say that I haven’t had anything to do with that world in a very long time and I don’t want to be dragged back into it. I don’t know anything about what Glory was doing or how her case was handled or what happened to her. I had not talked to her in years.”

I nodded.

“We understand that and we’re not here to drag you back into it,” I said. “In fact, we actually want to help you avoid that.”

“I seriously doubt that. Not if you come to my house like this.”

“I’m sorry but these questions have to be asked. I’ll try to be as quick as possible. Let’s just start with me asking what your relationship was with Gloria Dayton. You can be open and honest. We know about your record and we know you’ve been clean a long time. This is not about you. It’s about Gloria.”

Roberts was silent for a moment while she came to a decision. Then she started talking.

“We covered for each other. We used the same answering service, and if one of us was busy and the other was not, then the service knew to call us. There were three of us, Glory, me, and Trina. We all looked alike and the clients never seemed to notice unless they were repeat customers.”

“What was Trina’s last name?”

“Why don’t you have it?”

“It just hasn’t come up.”

She looked at me suspiciously but then moved on, probably for the sake of getting the interview over with as quickly as possible.

“Trina Rafferty. She went by the name Trina Trixxx—with a triple x —on her website.”

“Where is Trina Rafferty now?”

Wrong question.

“I have no idea!” she yelled. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said? I am not in the life anymore! I have a job and a business and a life and I have nothing to do with this!”

I held up a hand in a halting gesture.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just thought you might know. Like maybe you had stayed in touch, that’s all.”

“I don’t stay in touch with any of it, okay? Do you get it now?”

“Yes, I get it and I realize this is digging up old memories.”

“It is and I don’t like it.”

“I apologize and I will try to be quick. So you said there were the three of you and the calls came in to an answering service. If the caller asked for you and you were otherwise engaged, then the call would go to Glory or Trina and vice versa, correct?”

“That’s correct. You sound just like a lawyer.”

“I guess because I am. Okay, next question.”

I hesitated because this was the question that would either get us thrown out or take us to the promised land of knowledge.

“Back then, what was your association with Hector Arrande Moya?”

Roberts stared blankly at me for a moment. At first I thought it was because I had hit her with a name that she had never heard before. Then I saw the recognition in her eyes and the fear.

“I want you to leave now,” she said calmly.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I just—”

“Get out!” she yelled. “You people are going to get me killed! I have nothing to do with this anymore. Get out and leave me alone!”

She stood up and pointed toward the door. I started to rise, realizing I had blown it with my approach on Moya.

“Sit down!”

It was Earl. And he was talking to Roberts. She looked back at him, stunned by the force of his deep voice.

“I said sit down,” he said. “We’re not leaving until we know about Moya. And we’re not trying to get you killed. We’re actually trying to save your ass. So, sit down and tell us what you know.”

Roberts slowly sat back down. I did, too, and I think I was as stunned as Roberts. I had used Earl before with the fake investigators move. But this was the first time he had ever spoken a word.

“Okay,” he said after everyone was seated again. “Tell us about Moya.”

14

For the next twenty minutes Kendall Roberts told us a story about drugs and prostitution in Los Angeles. She said that the two vices were a popular combination in the upscale escort market, with the escort providing the client with both. It more than doubled the profitability of each liaison. And that was where Hector Moya came in. Though normally a middleman who took kilo quantities of cocaine across the border for distribution to lower-level dealers in the network, he had a taste for American prostitutes and always kept a quantity of powder on hand for himself. He paid for these liaisons with cocaine and quickly became a supply source for many of the upscale escorts working in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

It became obvious to me in the telling that what I thought I knew about Gloria Dayton was vastly incomplete. It also confirmed my earlier suspicions, that in the last deal I made for her, I had been merely a puppet carefully manipulated by Gloria and others. I tried to keep up the outward pretense of already knowing everything Roberts told us, but inside I felt used and humiliated—even eight years after the fact.

“So, how long did you and Glory and Trina know Hector before he was arrested and went away?” I asked at the end of her story.

“Oh, it must’ve been a few years. He was around a while.”

“And how did you learn of his arrest?”

“Trina told me. I remember she called up and said she heard he got busted by the DEA.”

“Anything else you remember?”

“Just that she said we were going to have to find another source if he was in jail. And I said I wasn’t interested because I wanted to get out of the life. And pretty soon after that I did.”

I nodded and tried to think about what I had learned from her and how it might fit with whatever the Fulgoni play was.

“Ms. Roberts, do you know an attorney named Sylvester Fulgoni?” I asked.

She creased her eyes and said no.

“You’ve never heard of him?”

“No.”

My sense was that Fulgoni needed Roberts as a corroborating witness. Her testimony about Moya would confirm information Fulgoni already had. That pointed toward Trina Trixxx as the likely origin of that information and possibly the source that gave up the name Gloria Dayton. Valenzuela had said nothing about having to serve paper on Trina Rafferty. This might be because Fulgoni already had her on board.