Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [116]
“Is Bridget here?”
“No, she’s working with one of the gentlemen.”
I looked around for another doll in a cowboy hat.
“Where?”
“She went with him for a little while,” the mom explained, shifting the infant to the other shoulder.
“Where did they go?”
“To his studio.”
“You said you’re always present at a photo shoot.”
My heartbeat had kicked up to a hundred thirty.
“I am,” she said haughtily, “but I have the babies.”
I was angry enough to nail her to a tree. She never went on shoots. And you know Bridget never got the hundred fifty bucks; it’s how mom kept the girls tied up inside her own spandex dreams.
“Is this the photographer?”
The lady peered at Ray Brennan’s picture.
“That kind of looks like him, but this man’s name is Jack.”
“Kind of, or is it? He might have changed his hair color, or his facial hair. He’s six feet tall, weighs about two hundred, in good shape.”
I might not have the creds, but I had the attitude, and it was rattling her.
“Let me ask Sonoma.”
I stood there, knowing. It was like suddenly being encased in ice.
Sonoma minced over, walking on toes to keep the high heels from sinking into the sweating grass. She was the older one, not so pretty close up.
“What is the problem, Mom?” she snapped, looking at the picture. “That’s Jack. Who else would it be?”
“Don’t use that mouth,” the mother whined. “I just wasn’t sure.”
“It’s chill,” the girl told me. “My sister knows him really well.”
“How well?”
“He’s come here before.” Then, less certain, “I know she’s talked to him …”
I realized why the other photographers claimed not to have seen the hard face of Ray Brennan in their garden. They had not wanted to see him. He was forty years younger, stronger, pumped with male vitality, capable of getting real girls to do the real thing.
“Bridget left with this man? How long ago?”
“Half an hour. Forty minutes.”
“They’ll be right back,” the mother assured me.
“Where is the studio?”
They looked at each other.
“—Somewhere close.”
“—Five minutes away.”
“—He said it was at his mother’s house.”
It was not supposed to be this way. Not without an arrest plan, or a warrant, for God’s sake. Not without backup. I sped down the 134 Freeway while punching the address book on my personal cell phone.
Donnato.
Jason.
Barbara.
Galloway.
Vernon.
Eunice.
Voice mail. Voice mail. Voice mail. Voice mail.
Donnato was at a wedding with his Nextel turned off, but where the hell was everybody else? What did they do on Sunday afternoons? Damn, they were probably all at the ceremony—it was Vicki Shawn and Ed Brewster, the firearms instructors who had posed for Hugh Akron in their wedding clothes. I roared out loud with frustration. It would take too long to go through the rigmarole with some rookie on the switchboard. I needed to connect in the next two minutes with somebody who knew the Brennan case.
Fingertips on the wheel, I reached back with my other hand and felt around the rear seat for the envelope of files concerning the preliminary hearing. The files were in folders, which took the finesse of a bomb squad expert to extract from the envelope at eighty-five miles per hour in a convertible. Glancing from the gyrating road to the pages flapping in the open air, I located the list of witnesses, and there was Kelsey Owen’s home phone number.
I guess she was not invited to the wedding, either, because she picked up on the first ring.
I explained as concisely as I could: Ray Brennan had taken a teenage Juliana look-alike from a photo shoot less than an hour before.
“Where are you?” she shouted.
“Almost to the Ventura Freeway. They said he took her to a studio in his mother’s house. I’m guessing his mother’s house is somewhere around Culver City or the park—”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I didn’t mean for it to go down like this—” I was yelling.
“It’s okay, Ana. Calm down. You’re doing good. I’m here and I’m going to help you. Tell me, clearly and slowly, what you want me to do.”
“Go to Rapid Start. Either on his military record, or on one of the three-oh-twos, it’s going to say