gatehouse again, everyone who worked for Pete Stick, and anyone else who might know something.
And it would have to happen fast. Any one of them might be in on it or might be the source of a leak, even if only by accident. The longer it took, the more likely word would get back to Officer Davis and what little evidence there was might disappear. Or perhaps he might disappear.
Which created problems for Jendrek, given the charges against him. I’d asked Wilson about it. What would happen with the heroin possession case? He just grinned at me and told me not to worry. If it turned out that Officer Davis was behind it all, it wouldn’t be a problem. “These things have a way of working out,” he’d said. “Evidence gets lost all the time.”
“Just like it has a way of getting found,” I said back. He winked at me and turned around and walked away.
Jendrek seemed happy enough that he’d gotten bail and was back on the street. But the happiness was temporary. Sunshine and smiling faces only got a guy so far. By the time we turned up La Cienega and headed into Laurel Canyon, we were all back to speculating about David Daniels and Tiffany Vargas, what the money was for and who was behind it all. Who had the power to get someone like Officer Davis to run around threatening people? And if they had that kind of power, why threaten these people? What made them so interesting?
Police Chief Dixon came up again. Jendrek was liking that idea more and more, now that he was on the business end of a bullshit frame job. I was liking it less, now that Daniels was involved. Keeping his relationship to Tiffany a secret had to be important, and it seemed less relevant if the Police Chief was just trying to rub out a pornmonger. Liz was convinced that Daniels was the key. Maybe he was blackmailing his sister. But how would that get him killed? He was the guy who made the noise disturbance call, there had to be a connection between him and Officer Davis. But maybe the killing was just a mistake. And there we were, right back at the beginning.
But it wasn’t a mistake. It couldn’t be. If it were a mistake, Officer Davis wouldn’t be out shoving guns in people’s faces or planting heroin in their cars. He was scared of something, and whatever that something was, it undoubtedly showed that Don Vargas’s death was anything but an accident.
Then I told the two of them about my realization that Don and Pete were standing in the opposite positions that they naturally should have been standing. That had to mean that Pete was in on it, which only made sense because Daniels worked for Pete. Which brought us back to Pete Stick. Where did he fit into all of this? None of us believed he’d killed himself. Whoever killed Daniels had killed Stick.
It went on like that for another half hour. We finally stopped talking when we pulled into the driveway of the Vargas house to find Detective Wilson leaning against his car, watching movers carry furniture into the back of a large truck. We pulled up beside him and got out.
“She’s not here.” He said it like an accusation, like it was somehow our fault. “The concubine inside says she left early this morning and hasn’t been back.”
Jendrek asked, “What’s going on with the movers?”
Wilson studied him for a second, and I realized the two of them had never met. I said, “Detective Wilson, this is Mark Jendrek.” I suddenly realized the two of them were probably the same age. They shook hands and nodded at each other.
Then Wilson said, “Apparently blondie inside has decided to move out. She wasn’t too interested in talking to me.” Wilson stared up at the entrance to the house, as if mystified that his powerful charm had not worked on Brianna Jones. “She said she’d just been living here because Don Vargas had let her. Now that he’s gone, she thinks it’s a pretty good idea for her to be gone too.”
“I guess she found a place then,” I said, before I realized how it sounded.
Wilson squinted at me and sneered, “I guess so. Either that or she’s going to live in this truck.” Then he turned back to look at the house and shook his head slightly. “Girl like that wouldn’t have trouble finding someone to take