She gave him a tentative smile, then her aggressively groomed brows furrowed in concern. “Are you okay?”
Sam suddenly felt his strong legs start to wobble and weaken and he let himself sag to the base of the tree as squiggly red lines started to dance in front of his eyes and across the woman’s forehead.
It’s important not to panic when these things manifest, Sam. Try to breathe through it. Brains heal, but it’s a process.
Easy for you to say, Dr. Frolich. “I’m fine, thanks. Overdid it is all,” he lied.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure…” his peripheral vision started to blur as the red lines morphed, writhing into letters. That had never happened before. He watched in fascination as a word formed on her smooth forehead, like it had been seared there with a branding iron: Accident.
“Katy, come on!” The impatient voice of one of her running pals.
“I’m okay, go,” he reassured her, then closed his eyes, focused on the rhythm of his heart. The red word eventually pixilated and disappeared into a fine, sparkling dust. When he opened his eyes again, Katy and her fit, fashionable, impatient friends were gone, replaced by a lone male jogger who was glancing at him warily. Just another crazy, freaking out under a tree in a Brentwood median—it happens every day, his expression said.
Sam’s vision was normal. No colors, no words. And miraculously, no headache. Up ahead, he saw a cluster of flashing police lights. He hadn’t heard any sirens, which meant he’d blacked out. For how long, he didn’t know. He never knew.
What did you see? What do you remember?
“Nothing,” he said, startling the nervous jogger and propelling him forward against the traffic light.
He wouldn’t make it to the ocean today. He’d be lucky to make it home.
Chapter Twelve
REMY STEPPED INTO THE GLOOM OF the Kitty Corral and was hit by the sour smells of spilled beer and unhygienic humans. A substandard sound system was blasting a thirty-year-old EMF song, a staple of strip clubs still. Behind smeared Plexiglas, a wasted, topless woman wobbled on spike heels, trying unsuccessfully to keep time to the music. It was painful to imagine that she’d been a child once, with an unwritten future. The author of her life was a sadist.
Four ragged denizens were scattered around the bar and in unison swiveled their heads laconically to look at him. It wasn’t noon yet, but they were all drunk or high or both and didn’t seem to care that there was obviously a cop in their midst. They didn’t seem to care about anything—not themselves, not the drinks in front of them, not the woman trying to dance. He recognized all the men from last night, when he’d come in to canvass. Maybe they’d never left.
The man behind the bar hadn’t been here last night. Impossibly, he looked even more dissolute and slovenly than his mug shot. He was missing a front tooth and his bloated face looked like a greasy, overinflated balloon. He squinted, then scowled as Remy approached.
“You’re a cop.”
“And you’re Thom Rangel.” He showed his shield. “Detective Remy Beaudreau.”
He let out a rattling cough and spit on the floor. “You want something to drink, Detective?”
“I want to know about Stella Clary. She worked here.”
His rheumy eyes narrowed. “On and off. I haven’t seen her for a while.”
“Yeah? Well, I just talked to Ray Lovell and he says different. He had amnesia last night, but I just jogged his memory.”
“I don’t know no Ray Lovell.”
“Sure you do. He works across the street. At the Aqua.”
“I heard there were tons of cops there last night. Is that what this is about?”
Rangel was really bad at playing dumb, which was incredibly ironic. He was a natural. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Stella Clary is dead. Murdered.” No reaction. “But you already knew that, your buddies here probably couldn’t wait to tell you.” He looked around the bar—all the customers were studying their drinks.
“Ray Lovell says you were at the Aqua with her yesterday, and I’ve got your prints on a vodka bottle we found in her room.”
His eyes were suddenly busy, scoping the room, presumably for potential avenues of escape. “No surprise, we partied sometimes.”
“Yesterday?” When he didn’t answer, Remy leaned across the bar. “Don’t fuck with me, Thom.”
“We may have had a drink or two.”
“And then you killed her?”
“No! Hell, no! I liked her.”
“I took a look at your rap sheet. You’re a violent guy. You like to get rough with women. You used a knife on the last one.”
“Bitch attacked me with it first. It was self-defense.”
“The jury had a different opinion.”
“Look, I served my time and I’m off probation, so stop harassing me.”
“I haven’t even started. Do you know Holly Churak?”
“No.”
“Olivia Riemers?”
“Never heard of either of them.”
“Not even from the paper?”
“I don’t read the paper.”
“They’re dead, too. They hung around this neighborhood.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll be showing your mug shot around.”
“Go for it, I’m not a killer.”
Remy considered the waste of human flesh in front of him. Serial killer? It was possible. Ted Bundy had created an unrealistic perception that they were charming and intelligent, but statistically they were average or below and typically socially isolated. They were all incapable of remorse, all pathological liars, and Rangel wasn’t remorseful or forthcoming. He nodded at the bulge at his waist, a gift from God that made things even easier. “Felons aren’t allowed to possess firearms, you know that.”
Rangel’s face flushed red and he started to back away. “This is a dangerous place. We get trouble in here sometimes.”
“Raise your hands and step out from behind the bar. And don’t even think about running.”
The bar flies watched Rangel get cuffed with bovine indolence. Remy wondered how long it would take them to figure out the drinks were on the house.
* * *
“Look, man. Detective. I told you, I partied with Stella for a little bit yesterday, then went home around two and slept it off. Ask my landlady, she saw me come in.”
“From where I’m standing, you’re the last person who saw her alive.”
“That’s bullshit! She partied with a lot of people. I stopped at two o’clock, but she didn’t.”
“Give me some names.”
“Don’t know any names. We just drank together sometimes, that’s it. It was always just me and her, that’s the way we both liked it. I’m clean except for the booze. She never did drugs around me.”
“Considerate.”
His expression became oddly pensive, extraordinary for somebody with the intellect of an annelid. “Before I left, she said she was going downtown to score.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, where the drugs are. That should narrow it down. Can I get some more coffee?”