Body Copy - Michael Craven [70]
Tremaine said, “I’m sorry to make you dredge this up. I appreciate your talking to me.”
“It’s okay. Like I said, it’s nice to know someone is looking into it. Even if you’re actually investigating another case.”
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Tremaine said, “Have you ever heard of a man named Dean Latham?”
“Dean Latham?”
“Yeah.”
“No. I’ve never heard of him. Why do you ask?”
“It’s a name that has come up in my investigation.”
“Who is he?” Evan said.
“I don’t know, actually. It’s just a name I came across in looking at some of the information on Kelly’s death. I managed to get access to the LAPD computers and police reports.”
Tremaine didn’t want to get into the fact that Vicky Fong had showed him the box of Kelly’s personal stuff. He didn’t want Evan to know this random P.I. got a glimpse into the very personal items of his dead girlfriend. So he threw out the police report bullshit and hoped Evan wouldn’t question it any further. He didn’t.
Evan said, “Well, I don’t know Dean Latham. But if he had anything to do with Kelly’s death, I hope you find him.”
Tremaine said, “Finding him won’t be hard. He lives right up the street, in the Hollywood Hills. Whether he had anything to do with Kelly’s death, that’s another story.”
Evan got up. He had finished his second beer. He was holding the empty bottle gesturing to Tremaine. Want another?
Tremaine said no thanks, he needed to go. Tremaine had just wanted to meet Evan, put a face to the name, see if he could connect Roger Gale to Kelly, see if he knew Dean Latham.
“Man, a P.I. What a cool job,” Evan said. “How do you become a P.I.?”
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Evan was letting out his “guy’s guy” side.
“You apply for a license,” Tremaine said. “Then if you get one, you hope you can get some business.”
Evan nodded and said, “Well, if you have any more questions, come back, call me, whatever.”
Evan jotted his number down and handed it to Tremaine, who was standing now, just about ready to leave.
“Thanks,” Tremaine said, meaning it. A number to call never hurt, especially in this case. Then Tremaine pointed to the front bedroom that was used as the office. “Do you work out of your house?”
“No. I work at a dot-com called Chainsaw. It’s a company that rates other dot-coms. I’ve been there for five years. We’re one of the few that survived the crash.”
Evan knocked his hand on the table next to him. It was wood.
Tremaine made his way to the front door. As he opened the door, he said to Evan, “I really appreciate you talking to me without notice.”
“Hey, no problem. I hope you find something.”
“I’ll keep you posted if I do.”
It had been a long day. Tremaine got in his car, fished around in the glove for his smokes, only a few left, he’d have to get some more soon, then cruised back down La Cienega to the Ten, which he would take all the way back to his familiar Pacific Coast Highway.
In the car, headed home, he thought about everything he knew so far. The things he’d been able to discover had indeed continued to lead him into new directions, but how close to the truth, at the end of the day, was he? Not that close. He’d discovered some interesting things about 221
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Roger Gale. But did the things he’d found all connect? Did they?
Tremaine took a deep breath as he got his first glimpse of the ocean, hitting the PCH from the Ten. It seemed from a cursory investigation into the other murders around the time of Roger Gale’s that the only one that could possibly be connected to Gale’s was Kelly Burch’s, and there was literally no evidence of that.
Now that he was back at the beach, back home, a step back from the new developments, Tremaine felt more skeptical about a connection between the Kelly Burch case and the Roger Gale case. They seemed to be worlds