A punishing breed, p.11
A Punishing Breed, page 11
DJ smiled, a deadhead grimace. “Bobtail . . .”
“That’s not my name,” said Talbot. “I find it insulting.”
“Okay, okay, don’t get your boxers in a twist. Aren’t you supposed to be calm? Isn’t that the Buddhist way?”
“How do you know I’m a Buddhist? That’s private.”
“Christ,” said DJ. “I’m a detective, aren’t I?”
Talbot gave DJ a non-Buddhist fuck-you stare.
The conference room table held a chaos of coffee cups, doughnuts, bagels. The bag of apples and oranges sat among the sugar and caffeine. DJ detected a faint aroma of something sickly sweet as Talbot raked through the bag and grabbed two apples. DJ needed the younger man on this case even if he was a fucking Buddhist.
“Well, what do your friends call you?” asked DJ.
“My friends call me Bobby. You can call me Talbot, sir, or Detective.”
DJ was bulletproof to insults from inferiors. And he considered everyone inferior.
“All right, Talbot,” said DJ. “So what do you think? Any of those three women lying?”
The younger man gathered his thoughts.
“Each one is hiding something,” said Talbot.
“Hiding is lying,” said DJ. “Omitting things from fear or embarrassment. Maybe they all slept with Will Bloom.”
“If Trish Ballentine slept with Bloom,” said Talbot, “she should win an Oscar.”
The right side of DJ’s lip curled, the beginning of one frightening smile.
“Yeah, not Bloom’s type. The other two don’t like her, well, none of them really like each other. I think Trish knew who her boss was sleeping with. Maybe she took down names and numbers.”
“Even when Bloom asked her not to? Why?”
“For power. Secrets are power, Bobttt . . . Talbot,” DJ caught himself.
“And Dolly?” asked Talbot. “What about Dolly Ruiz?”
“Why was she so insistent we check out his house? She knows what Bloom did yesterday afternoon. It has her worried.”
“So why not tell us?” asked Talbot.
“She was his right hand. She’s still keeping Will Bloom’s secrets. Even in death.”
“She’s loyal,” said Talbot.
“Trish called her a gossip, Serena called her a gossip and a liar.”
Talbot screwed up his face. “I don’t think so.”
“Listen, Tal-butt.” DJ couldn’t help himself. “Sometimes the sweet pretty young things are the worst.”
Talbot slumped in his chair. He couldn’t wait to finish this case and ask for a transfer. He didn’t believe Dolly Ruiz had anything to do with Will Bloom’s death, nor that she was a liar. Talbot changed the subject.
“And Serena Rigby?”
“You tell me.”
Talbot took a moment. “I think she’s lying about Will Bloom. Maybe he made a pass, maybe not, but she’s lying about something. No one turns that red from telling the truth.”
DJ’s lip curled again. “Agreed, perhaps it was pass completed.”
But did she kill Will Bloom? DJ thought that Serena, of the three women, had the strength and height to lift a sword and bring it down. But did she have the rage? Whoever pinned Will Bloom to his conference table was full of rage.
“I’ll have the second unit start checking alibis,” said Talbot.
“And the other one,” said DJ. “The young woman who made Will Bloom hum?”
“Hoa Phan,” said Talbot. “I spoke to her sister today. She said Ms. Phan was too distraught to come to the phone. But she’ll be here tomorrow morning for an interview. Nine a.m.”
“Good. And I want you personally to check out the photo I sent you. The receipt under the letter opener. I think it’s from a dry cleaner. I’m sure your friend Trish can give you the name of Bloom’s regular dry cleaner. And check out his car. See if there is anything of interest there.”
“Yes, sir,” said Talbot. “What about the blackout?”
“Now that is interesting. Serena said she saw something moving inside. And the rest of the campus had lights.”
“But how would the murderer know Will Bloom would stay in his office during a blackout?” asked Talbot.
“Maybe he was waiting for someone? A woman? Maybe an angry husband or boyfriend showed up instead.”
“We can check with Campus Safety about the blackout and the call.”
“I’ll ask Hedy Scacht about that.” DJ grabbed Will Bloom’s key ring from the evidence bag. He took off the house key and gave the car and office key to Talbot. “I’m going to check out Will Bloom’s house this afternoon. See what Dolly Ruiz is worried about.”
“You want a unit to accompany you?” asked Talbot.
“No,” said DJ. “I’ll go solo.”
No surprise there, thought Talbot as he left.
DJ wanted to be alone, but not for reasons Talbot might think. He liked to take his time, get to know the victim. There was always a small detail, sometimes hidden, that told the crux of their story.
DJ peered into the bag of fruit. There was only an apple and orange left. He decided to take the bag with him.
He stepped outside into the bright sun, checking the time. It was 2:00 p.m. Students were dragging suitcases and catching rideshares to the airport to take advantage of the early holiday. He imagined Will Bloom, the womanizer, alcoholic, and ticking bomb tarnishing this pretty little fiefdom of Hesperia College. What damage did the man inflict on this place and its inhabitants before he was murdered?
According to President Reese, he had seven days to close this case. DJ had scoffed at the president’s demand, but he felt the urgency to find the murderer. The killer walked on this campus, among students, staff, and faculty.
DJ pulled out the last orange in the bag. The scent of mold invaded his nostrils as his fingers dug into a mush of spoiled fruit. He threw the orange to the ground. It made a sickening thump sound, something rotten falling to earth.
“Goddamn it.”
His fingers dripped with the smell of rot. Metabolic gas feeding on pulp, juice, and skin, invading the sphere, until the fruit was porous, blue, and the center could no longer hold.
DJ picked up the orange remnants from the ground, threw them into the trash.
There was nothing good about a blue orange.
CHAPTER 20
Evidence
(Friday afternoon)
DJ Arias called Hedy Scacht from his car. Her phone went straight to voicemail. He left a message describing Serena Rigby’s story of a blackout in Sliming at seven last night. And that someone identifying themselves as Campus Safety had told her she should leave.
“Hedy, give me or Talbot a call about this as soon as you can.”
He hung up, driving east on the Ventura Freeway.
DJ took exit twenty-eight, climbed into the hills of Sierra Madre above the San Gabriel Valley. Sun-drenched houses clung like scraps of brush to parched hillsides.
Will Bloom was murdered in his office. His home would provide clues to his life, if not his death. Maybe DJ would find out why Dolly Ruiz insisted someone check on the dead man’s house as soon as possible.
He wound his car around Morning Glory Road to Morning Glory Circle to Happy Valley Circle. Who named these streets? Doris Day? Miss Day had founded an organization to save cats and dogs, another factoid from late-night television. While others slept, DJ, bleary-eyed, gathered little ingots of information.
DJ didn’t like pets. His grandmother rescued strays that fought with her tough little cockapoo named Jack. DJ called the dog Jack Ruby, the assassin. Yap, yap, yap.
DJ kicked at the mutt, who was always biting his ankles, when he didn’t back off.
Morning Glory Road again.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “Where the hell am I?”
One day his grandfather, his mind already beginning to fail, backed over Jack Ruby as the dog attempted to bite the car’s tires. That was the end of Jack.
DJ pulled over, thumbed through his Thomas Guide. Most people used their cell phone’s GPS, but DJ was old-school. If he stopped reading maps, his brain might atrophy like the other assholes tethered to their phone’s navigation system.
The page was a maze of switchback streets and circles—all with similar names. He found the address: 1333 Little Knell Road.
It was up ahead around the next series of curves.
DJ pulled into a long narrow driveway; Will Bloom’s house. Isolated by shrubs and steep hillsides, it was unlikely any neighbor knew of Bloom’s comings and goings. The exterior of the house was white stucco, dark gray wood. A midcentury modern with clean lines. DJ unlocked the front door painted glossy red. He entered a cream-colored living room furnished in varying shades of beige. There wasn’t an alarm system.
Unlike Bloom’s office, the house was immaculate, almost sterile. There was a faint chemical scent, perhaps from the carpet and new paint. There was an emptiness to the living room; no photos, the books, mostly nonfiction, were organized by genre, mostly history and a few slim volumes of poetry. Art pieces, modern and muted, were scattered across the walls as if the house had been staged by an indifferent decorator to hide the character of the man who dwelled here. DJ took off his shoes; he didn’t want to dirty the dead man’s carpet.
Bloom’s home was open concept. He knew this from late-night television. Another 2:00 a.m. diversion that featured bickering couples hell-bent on a better life with a bigger house and sight lines running from entrance to backyard. DJ’s bungalow had small boxy rooms, each with its own door. He liked it that way.
DJ was interested in four areas; the kitchen, home office, bedroom, and bathroom.
First was the kitchen. The stove and oven were high-end, looked brand new and pristine. He opened the refrigerator; tonic water, wine, beer, olives. Nothing with an expiration date. The freezer held several brands of vodka.
“That’s my boy,” said DJ.
The coffee maker was a fancy gadget that dominated the center counter. DJ opened the cabinet above it, found coffee beans, a grinder, a giant-sized bottle of extra-strength aspirin, a fifth of Jameson Irish whiskey.
“The Breakfast of Champions.”
DJ knew this was a first aid station. He had one in his house.
“I know you, Mr. Bloom,” DJ said. “How you felt each morning when you woke up. A hammering headache, but not enough to stop, not yet.”
He closed the cupboard doors.
For Will Bloom, “not yet” had never come.
DJ headed to an office area right off the kitchen. Unlike his office at Hesperia, this desk was orderly, with bills in a hanging file under the heading “To Pay,” which was filled with utility, dentist, dry cleaner bills; “Paid,” the same bills, only older; and “To File,” the same, only much older. He couldn’t find any personal correspondence. Part of a dry cleaner bill lay crumpled on the otherwise tidy desk. DJ smoothed it with his gloved hands. It was from The French Laundry.
There was nothing else of interest except a receipt indicating that Will Bloom recently underwent an expensive tooth whitening treatment.
“What a waste,” said DJ.
Next, he headed into the bedroom. Here was the same generic color scheme. Light beige, medium beige, dark beige. How much beige could one man stomach?
A king-size bed, a night table, and a chair made up the furnishings, along with a chest of drawers with socks, jockey shorts, T-shirts. Beneath the socks was a stockpile of Viagra.
“I knew you wouldn’t keep it in the bathroom medicine cabinet, pal. Where some snooping Nancy might see it.”
Other drawers held neatly folded sweat clothes, casual shirts. Nothing feminine was tucked inside, no nightgowns or errant panties or bras.
Once again, DJ thought the house oddly sterile. As if Will Bloom bought it fully furnished and took up residence like a hotel guest.
In the closet hung six expensive suits—the seventh never made it home. One for every day of the work week, two spares. There were labels where each piece of clothing hung indicating color and fabric.
“Organized,” DJ said. “Or obsessive compulsive.”
One trench and one heavy wool coat rounded out the suits and jackets. Dress shirts, mostly white, wrapped in dry cleaner’s plastic hung on the other side. Expensive built-in shelving completed the closet. Everything was coordinated down to the oak wood shelves and matching clothes hangers. Shoes with smooth leather soles stood at attention on individual caddies. DJ glanced down at his socks. His big toe poked through a hole. His worn shoes by the front door had soles pockmarked with dirt and debris. He needed to go shopping when this case was over.
There was one last place he wanted to check out off the bedroom—the en suite. Another phrase from late-night TV that meant a connected bathroom. The door was shut tight. DJ opened it, experienced the scent of something odd in this pristine house: shit.
There in the middle of the floor, next to a puddle of pee and pile of excrement, was the last thing DJ expected to see.
“What the hell?”
A small dog lay on a round shag rug. It was trembling. The dog looked like a golden miniature pinscher. DJ knew his breeds. Grandma Amelia was a dog show devotee. The creature was reddish brown, short-haired, and, like a bathing beauty, lay stomach down with its long spindly legs capped by delicate white paws. Other than lifting its head with a direct gaze at DJ, it stayed put.
The dog’s large amber eyes stared at him with gravity and intelligence as if taking stock of its reluctant rescuer. Resting its head back on outstretched legs, the dog awaited its fate. DJ closed the door and took out his phone, ready to call Talbot to send animal services over to pick up the mutt. He expected to hear the dog scratching at the door, the inevitable whimper, whining, yapping of his grandmother’s pack of mutts. The house remained silent. There was nothing so quiet as a dead man’s house. He put down his cell phone.
DJ opened the bathroom door again. The dog remained as he left it, lying on the rug, staring at him.
It was the dog’s eyes that undid him. Its gaze exhibited some kind of wisdom and a soul. DJ couldn’t turn away. “Come here.”
The dog rose cautiously, tail between its legs. DJ bent into a crouch and the dog perched on DJ’s knees, sniffed his face, his nose, finally licked his left eye.
“Okay,” DJ said. “I could live the rest of my life without my eyeball being licked again.”
The dog immediately jumped into his lap as DJ teetered above the floor. He’d been right, it was a girl.
Despite the mess on the floor, the dog smelled of baby powder.
DJ stood up, cradling her in his arms. They looked at each other eye to eye. He stroked her ears, her head lolled backward, her eyelids at half-mast.
“Fuck it,” DJ said.
He headed to the kitchen and found a plastic grocery bag under the sink. He wrapped the bag around the dog’s bottom half.
“In case of accidents.”
The dog sniffed his face again. This time her tongue barely brushed his lips. DJ was a goner.
“Evidence,” DJ said.
“That’s what you are, and that’s what I’m going to call you.”
CHAPTER 21
Mindfulness
Bobby Talbot, wearing latex gloves, sat in the passenger seat of Will Bloom’s Buick Regal Sportback. He took a deep breath, held to the count of one, two, three, released slowly, four, five, six. He repeated the breath. Mind and body connected, a sense of calm flowed through his body. He breathed in a third time. “Ahhh.” Better, much better. Equilibrium restored until the next time he spoke to DJ Arias.
Bobby suspected LT SS, Lieutenant Stella Steel, teamed him with Arias because he was a Buddhist; she thought there would be less conflict. LT SS was wrong.
Still, Talbot was focused and efficient. He had ordered their second unit, Officers Browning and Butter, to check out witnesses’ alibis. It was grunt work, calling up spouses, partners, friends, showing up at stores and restaurants for receipts. Each date and time carefully noted and corroborated. Kathy Browning and Bonnie Butter were good cops. He knew they would be thorough.
Before he left Sliming, Talbot had checked in with Trish Ballentine. She was still in the lobby, chatting with colleagues.
“It has been quite a day,” she said, cheeks flushed, a twinkle lit in her eyes. Talbot realized Trish would be front and center during the French Revolution, excited for the beheadings to commence.
“Yes, it certainly has,” said Talbot. “Hey, do you know off the top of your head the name of Will Bloom’s dry cleaner?”
“Will Bloom frequented The French Laundry on Lake Street in Pasadena,” said Trish. “Only the best for Mr. Bloom.”
“Thank you,” said Talbot as he jotted down the name. “I appreciate your help.”
“Anytime!” With a girlish smile, she turned on her heel and sashayed away in her personal scent cloud of roses.
Will Bloom’s Buick was parked askew in a no parking zone near the Sliming Academic Center, no ticket on the windshield. This was either normal Will Bloom behavior or vice-presidential privilege. He thought the former. Will Bloom appeared to have been a rules don’t apply to me kind of guy.
Bobby searched through the glove box. The car was registered to Hesperia College, a stack of receipts told the story of full tanks of gas pumped free from the Facilities garage. Bloom had a company car, endless gas in the tank, a college full of intelligent, attractive women. A hunting ground with all the trappings.
Other than a green parking tag hanging off the rearview mirror, the car’s interior was clean. Talbot popped the trunk, walked to the back of the car.
The space was tidy, with a gym bag of clean workout clothes and running shoes. A grocery bag of old books sat next to it. A plastic garment bag and hanger was crumpled into a heap toward the back of the cargo space. Talbot pulled out a man’s dark blue suit. Bobby checked the label, size 36, slim, Brooks Brothers. Will Bloom was tall, 6’1”, with broad shoulders and round muscles; an ex-football player, not slim. At least a 42L.
“You should have hung this in the back seat,” said Talbot. The suit was wrinkled, not that Will Bloom had to worry about that anymore. He checked the dry-cleaning bill and receipt stapled to the plastic. Not The French Laundry. Retrieving his phone, he saw it was a duplicate of the receipt in the photo DJ Arias had sent from Will Bloom’s office. The larger slip of paper was old-fashioned carbon; the customer filled out their own name. The address and phone number were left empty. The letters were smeared, but the customer wrote in neat cursive, “Hoa Phan.” The suit was not from Bloom’s regular dry cleaner, The French Laundry in Pasadena. It was from Lau ’N Dry in Eagle Rock.
