Body Copy - Michael Craven [80]
Angela didn’t invite Tremaine in. She motioned for him to sit on the chair on the little deck outside her front door.
“What, are you investigating Kelly’s murder?” Angela said.
“Yeah, I am. I’m wondering if it’s tied to another thing I’m looking into, the murder of a guy named Roger Gale.”
The expression on Angela’s face couldn’t have been blanker. No way. Tremaine looked at the scratch, followed it from one end to the other.
“I don’t know nothing about Kelly’s death. Alls I know is she thought she was better than everyone, and went out to Hollywood and became a druggie. It runs in our family.”
“What, the drugs?”
“Yeah.”
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This honest admission from Angela endeared her to Tremaine. He felt for her in this moment.
Tremaine said, “Did you know anything about her life around the time of her death? Like, did you know her boyfriend at all, Evan?”
“Nope. She never called me. We really didn’t speak. We weren’t friends.”
Tremaine could see some pain come over her face. Emotional pain, not physical pain like the scratch. He knew that look, said she loved her sister anyway.
“How ’bout a guy named Dean Latham? Did you ever hear that name?”
Something else registered on her face.
“Why do you care, anyway?” Angela said.
“I can’t say I was personally affected by Kelly’s death. I didn’t know her. But what I can tell you is, I care about justice. I care that people like you, and people like the woman who hired me to look into all this stuff in the first place, get to the truth. Because what’s really happening here, what I really do this for, is I don’t like it when people get fucked over. And that’s what happens when someone kills someone else and nobody does anything about it. Somebody is getting fucked. Like it just doesn’t matter somehow that they’re dead. So, that’s why I care.”
Angela said, “Hold on a second.”
She walked inside and shut the front door behind her.
About a minute later she came back out holding a picture, and said, “This was in Kelly’s stuff. Cops looked at it, they didn’t want it.”
Before she showed Tremaine the front of the picture, she showed him the back of the picture. Written on it in 251
Michael Craven
a pink ballpoint pen was With the one and only Dean Latham.
“That’s Kelly’s handwriting,” Angela said.
Tremaine turned the picture over and looked at the front. Kelly—beautiful, sexual—on the left, Dean on the right. They were at a black-tie party, and from the looks of the picture, it was a fun one. They were arm in arm, laughing hysterically. Kelly looking right at the camera, almost flirting with it, her big eyes saying look at me. Dean had his head tilted back, in the throes of an exaggerated laugh.
Like Burt Reynolds on the Carson show, head tilted back, letting out that high-pitched laugh. Tremaine looked at the picture, looked at Kelly on the left, looked at Dean on the right. Dean with shoulder-length black hair and black Elvis Costello–style glasses. It was an odd way to look at Dean’s face, seeing mostly his chin. He had that black hair, though, longer here but still the hip look, and he had the glasses, too, just a different style. It was enough.
“Can I have this picture?” Tremaine said.
“No. It’s all I have. It’s literally the only picture I have of her.”
“I may need it to prove a point to someone. To Dean.”
“No, I don’t know you. What if I never see the picture again? Then I’ll never be able to see Kelly again.”
Tremaine’s cell rang. He recognized the number.
“Tremaine,” he said.
“Hey, it’s Sally.”
“Hey.”
“So, Kelly Burch?”
“Yeah.”
“She was an extra in Aliens in America.”
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“You’re the best, Sally. Thank you.”
Tremaine clicked off the phone.
He looked at Angela, at that face with the scratch, and said, “Thank you for seeing me. As it turns out, I don’t need the picture.”
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C H A P T E R 3 5
Tremaine got back to L.A., tired from driving through the desert heat, thinking, Dean Latham is lying and I need to make him admit