Geography of Murder (20 page)

It turned out Goleta actually had some decent restaurants.

Who knew, right? He took me to the Ming Dynasty where he patiently taught me the difference between Hunan and Szechuan and the regions they came from. We ordered—well, he ordered and I ate—tea-smoked duck, delicious soup with minced beef and cilantro, ta-chin chicken, sichuan hotpot and too many others to remember. None of which I'd ever heard of. My exposure to Chinese food was egg rolls and chicken balls. Even with his tutelage I still couldn't resist the lure of a dozen deep-fried wontons dipped in sticky red sauce.

Over our fortune cookies and green tea he asked what was going on tomorrow.

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"Going out with Phil. He said we should be back around four."

"Good." He shifted in his seat. "If he wants to talk about the murder, let him. Don't tell him about us, though."

"Sounds very James Bond-ish."

He shrugged easily. "People will tell civilians a lot more than they'll tell the cop. They tend to clam up when we're around."

"Well you are pretty intimidating," I said, touching his foot with mine under the table.

"I can demonstrate it again when we get home."

"I'll hold you to that."

"Yes, you will."

He didn't take us straight home. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Vault I sat up in the passenger's seat. I hadn't been back here since the last time we had come together. A lot of water under that bridge. I glanced over at him and found him staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

"What?"

"We're going in there. You got a problem with that?"

Since I doubted it would matter to him if I did I shook my head. He climbed out, clunking the door behind him. I followed, trailing him into the dark bar. Business was brisk tonight. Almost every inch of floor space was occupied by men. There must be some kind of contest on, nearly everyone was gigged out in leather or vinyl and there were enough dog collars to dress the Westminster Dog Show. The air reeked of testosterone and the unmistakable smell of poppers. I'd never 194

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seen so many acres of male bodies encased in black leather, vinyl and latex. I could see why Alex liked his forays into Santa Barbara's underworld of leather and bondage. Here he was just one of the guys. And not even one of the really weird ones.

He led me through the crowd to stand by the bar. The bartender, a young Hispanic, gave Alex a burst of delighted smile and barely glanced at me. Alex ordered two beers and leaned over the bar to say something to the bartender. I couldn't hear what he said and trust me, I tried.

A massive, tattooed bear shoved past me to get to the bar.

He pushed me into Alex who steadied me. Their eyes met over my head and the tension ratcheted up.

The bear huffed like his namesake and cleared the space around me. The Hispanic bartender hovered around us and I caught him eyeing Alex. My hackles went up. We were quite a pair, both getting bent out of shape when another man looked at our man. I burst out laughing, earning a quizzical look from Alex.

He straightened and nudged my elbow. I followed his gaze and saw a large, rouged drag queen in a knee-length slinky red dress and a feather boa around her neck entering the bar.

The low cut gown showed a vast acreage of hair that matched what was on her bare legs below the hem of her dress. Alex leaned down to shout in my ear. "Think she's out of place?"

She steered her broad bulk through the dancers who parted like water before the bow of a ship. When she docked at the bar the bartender automatically brought her a ruby 195

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cosmo. So she was a regular. She looked around and saw us.

Or rather she saw Alex.

She teetered over on her six-inch heels and thrust her phony tits in his face. "Dance, mister?"

He shook his head. "Sorry." He pointed down. "Broken leg."

She snapped around and headed to the other end of the bar. I saw Alex breathe a sigh of relief. A few minutes later he touched my arm.

"I see some friends. I have to go say hello. I'll be right back."

I was watching him when two guys I recognized from other places came to stand on either side of me. I nodded a greeting but didn't speak.

The tallest of the two, a slender black man leaned over me and shouted to the other guy, an equally skinny Anglo. "Is he hot or is he hot?"

Both of them were staring hungrily at Alex. The black guy turned to me. "You two together? Is he hot? He looks like a powerhouse." He reached over and snagged the beer the bartender handed over. The Anglo also got a beer. He and the bartender traded words.

The two conferred again. Then the black guy leaned over and spoke in my ear. "Rafe told me they spent the night at his place and the guy was a fucking machine." He threw a slug of beer down his throat. I wanted to believe he was talking about someone else, but I knew it was Alex they meant. So the bartender was one of his fucks. No biggie. I knew he wasn't a one-man kind of guy. But the informative 196

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asshole wouldn't give up. "Rafe bragged to everyone here that he walked like he was fucked by a bull for a week. Lucky guy. God, I'd love a piece of that."

I wanted to cool him off with a drink over his head, but could just imagine how that would go over. Instead I leaned over the bar and fumed.

Alex came back and got another beer. He didn't get me one. I said screw that and ordered my own. He raised one eyebrow but didn't say anything. More friends must have shown up because the next instance he was gone again. I nodded in time to the music, wanting to dance more than anything. The beat hammered through me; my body vibrated to it.

The skinny black guy touched my arm and held out a vial.

Poppers. I started to shake my head then saw Alex on the other side of the room with an elfin blond draped all over him.

I grabbed the popper and inhaled, my lungs expanding as the vaporous drug was sucked into them. I was instantly buzzed; my heart raced.

Alex was coming back. Before he could reach my side I pushed through the field of writhing bodies and grabbed his arm.

"Come on, dance."

Alex might be a great cop, I know he's an incredible lover, but he sucks big as a dancer.

But he was game, I'll give him that. He didn't exactly lumber, though he did step on my feet several times. It was nice to see there was something he didn't excel at. I on the 197

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other hand, knew I had a hot set of feet—when they weren't being pinned to the tile floor by Alex's chunky boots.

When I winced for the fourth time he took my arm and pulled me off the dance floor back to the bar. Over the pounding techno-music he shouted, "I don't dance."

"I can tell," I shouted back.

This time I left to go to the bathroom. The black guy followed and I took a couple more popper hits before going back. I guess it was so crazy and electric that Alex didn't notice my buzzed state—or he attributed it to being out with him. Alex had no shortage of ego.

The buzz faded and I started getting a headache. I headed back to the bathroom where a new crowd had gathered. The energy level was high. Someone I didn't see groped my crotch. I twisted away from him. Someone else put their arm around my shoulder and before I could shake him off he showed me a small plastic package full of white powder.

"Want to share some blow?"

I should have run. I shouldn't have let him guide me over to the counter where he laid out a line. My headache still throbbed in the back of my skull. Maybe a small hit would clear that problem up. I leaned down and snorted. Instant bliss. I grinned and turned to thank my benefactor only to find him gone. Too bad. I wouldn't have minded a second taste.

Eventually I wandered back out to the bar area, to find Alex in deep conversation with a chain-festooned leather daddy. He didn't look around when I reached him, but he did 198

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slide his arm around my waist and draw me tightly against him.

The evening wound down and I was wilting. Alex finally noticed and indicated we were leaving. He got no argument from me. We hit the cool air outside and my buzz returned with a rush of oxygen.

He steadied me when I swayed. "Think you had a bit too much there, boy. Come on, let's get you home."

I think I dozed in the truck only waking up enough for him to guide me into the house where he coaxed me into getting undressed. I was exhausted but amorous as hell. I kept grabbing his crotch and mumbling that I wanted him to fuck me. Gently he put me down on the bed and held me firmly when I would have stood up again.

"Wait," he said sternly.

Out of habit I obeyed. After several minutes—or hours, I had no time sense—he slid in beside me. I immediately draped myself over him dry humping his hip.

"Want to fuck?"

"Not tonight, hon," he said. "Go to sleep."

Again I obeyed, sinking down into the welcome embrace.

My last conscious thought was, he called me hon. Oh shit.

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I got off the phone with a woman who wanted to file
a missing person's report on her daughter, who had not
been seen since Friday. I had tried telling her that this
was homicide and she needed to direct her questions to
missing persons. Then on the off chance that we might
be dealing with a potential AMBER Alert I asked her
how old her missing daughter was.

"She's thirty-three. This is the third time this year she's done this. Really, I wish you'd find her and make her stay."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry you're having problems with your daughter. If you wish to file a missing persons you have to call this number." I rattled off the front desk number wishing I could tell her that thirty-three year olds were supposed to leave home. It was called growing up.

I groaned when Nancy dropped a mass of folders on my desk, nearly knocking off my vente coffee, the second of the day. Not that they were helping.

"Tox screens on both vics," Nancy only used that slang term when she had no respect for the dead. "The other one is for your boyfriend. Don made a big point out of making sure you saw that one. Is everyone in on your extracurricular activities?"

I grabbed the tox screen and scanned it rapidly. Massive quantities of Dichloropheyl-Dimenthylaminocycolhexan, then looked for the translation Don kindly provided. Ketamine.

"I don't think my mother knows. Should I call her?"

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"I'm sure all she's going to have to do soon is pick up a newspaper, or did you miss that too?"

She dug through the files of papers and photographs and pulled out a copy of the
Independent
conveniently open to the local section.

Nothing subtle about the headline:

Local police losing focus on double homicides, by Martin E.

Boulton.

What do ravens and bloody trophies and horrific murders done in the name of vigilante justice have in common? A Poe novel? An episode of CSI Miami? No, this is the ever competent Santa Barbara Police bumbling their way through a case that has them baffled. They released their prime suspect last week and he was last seen in the company of the off duty homicide detective who originally laid the charges against him. Forget Poe, this is more like the Keystone Kops in all their glory. No new suspects have been put forward, meanwhile the city quakes in fear..."

I raised eyes to look over at Nancy. "Are you quaking? You don't look like you're quaking."

She patted her side where I could see the butt of her Beretta. "I've got a gun. No mother fucker is going to mess with me."

"Oh good, can you protect me, too?"

"How so?"

I lifted the paper off my desk and flung it at her. "Go and shoot that reporter for me."

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"Wish I could partner. Really wish I could. One less rat-fuck in the world. It would indeed be a better and happier place."

"Should I ask the Lieutenant if he's quaking?"

"If I were you, I'd stay as far away from him as you can."

"Better advice has never been spoken. We're in luck. Our favorite taxidermist has agreed to take time out of his busy schedule to look at our bird. Want to ride with me?"

"Someone has to keep you safe from reporters lying in wait."

I signed the raven out of evidence then Nancy and I drove over to Geoffrey Lowe's shop. It was the same dark interior full of mounted heads and all those beady eyes I now knew were glass. While I had waited to set up this appointment I had done some research. As we waited for Lowe to finish up a phone call I moved around studying the heads that festooned the walls. I stopped in front of the boar again. I wanted to reach up and touch the thing's snout, to see if it was as coarse as it looked. But I didn't think that would go over well with Lowe. Nancy came up behind me and I could feel her displeasure.

"Did you know they don't use anything but the antlers, and sometimes the hide, to make these things?" I said. "It's all forms and airbrush, clay and wax. Sometimes even the hair is faked. It's more art than animal."

"It's gross is what it is," she said. "Surrounded by dead animals, knowing they got shot by some whacked out red neck with a shotgun and a case of beer in his belly, who goes 202

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home and brags about how many spikes the deer they butchered has on its head."

"Hmmm," I kept my voice non-committal. I wasn't about to argue with her. She had a point in a way. I also saw the hunter's side of it. It had to take a certain amount of skill to get close enough to one of these things and get a good shot out. I could believe that boar at least could do some serious damage on you if you missed your shot. But she didn't want to hear any of that.