Chasing Darkness (13 page)

LEVERAGE ASSOCIATES
occupied two floors of an older glass building in the downtown business district, not far from City Hall. They were less than fifteen minutes from the Repkos' home in Pasadena. Michael Repko called back twenty minutes later as I circled the building.

“My dad talked to her. You're all set up.”

“Okay. That's great.”

“He kept it vague like you said. He told her you were working for us. He wasn't so thrilled about that, but he told her.”

“This will make things easier, Michael. I'll keep you advised.”

I pulled up in front of the building as I closed the phone, parked at a meter, then took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor. It was a nice floor in a nice building with tasteful, conservative decor. Steel letters fixed to the wall read
LEVERAGE ASSOCIATES
. I identified myself to the receptionist, told her Casey Stokes was expecting me, and took a seat to wait.

I didn't sit long. An attractive African-American woman in a grey business suit came down the hall. She offered her hand with a quick, professional smile and an expression of condolence.

“Mr. Cole, Casey Stokes. I was Debra's supervisor.”

“Thank you for seeing me. The Repkos appreciate it.”

“I was surprised when Mr. Repko said there were questions. I thought the case was closed.”

I tried to look noncommittal.

“Something like this happens, families always have concerns. I hope you understand.”

“Oh, of course. Here, we can speak in my office.”

She ushered me along a hall decorated with black-and-white photographs of people and places from the city's past—the Angels Flight funicular climbing Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine when it was goat farms and barrio housing, and William Mulholland opening the aqueduct to bring water down from the Owens Valley. Along with the historic scenes were photographs of past state and local politicians of both political parties. I didn't recognize most of them, but a few had gained national prominence and two had been elected to national office. A Who's Who of California's power elite.

Ms. Stokes was saying, “Do you know what we do here, Mr. Cole?”

“You run political campaigns.”

She gave a benevolent smile, as if she was the teacher and I was slow.

“A campaign is a point-in-time event. A political career is an ongoing effort. We manage political careers.”

“Ah. The wizards behind the curtain.”

“Only if we're successful. We develop election strategies, but we also advise on public relations and help our clients refine or perfect their political identity.”

“If I decide to be governor, you'll be my first call.”

She laughed. She had a lovely laugh, and a charming, genuine manner.

A faint buzz cut through her laugh, and she took a PDA from her pocket. She glanced at the screen without breaking stride.

“Sorry—a meeting was changed. This business, everything rolls from one crisis to the next.”

“I understand.”

She thumbed out a reply, then slipped the PDA back into her pocket as we passed a glass-walled conference room before entering her office. Several people were in the conference room shaking hands and smiling. Beyond her office were cubicles with men and women talking on phones or texting. Most appeared to be Debra's age. One might have been Debra's replacement.

Casey Stokes offered me a seat, then went behind her desk. She laced her fingers and maintained the professional smile.

“Now, how can I help?”

“We have a few questions about some things that were brought up during the investigation.”

We. The family and the ghost of Debra Repko were now in Casey Stokes's office. She seemed genuinely pained.

“When I remember that evening and what happened only a few hours later—it was awful.”

“Yes, ma'am. It was. I understand you were the last person to see her.”

“That's right. We attended a dinner honoring Councilman Wilts at the Bonaventure. The councilman is one of our clients.”

“So you spent the entire time together?”

“More or less. Debra's job was to make sure each reporter had their five minutes with the councilman before the dinner began. Debra and I. Actually, five of us from Leverage attended, but we all had different responsibilities. Debra and I had our own segment of the evening to handle, so we were together.”

“She was your assistant?”

“Debra was what we call a first-year. All our first-years work as floaters to experience the different aspects of what we do. I had Debra join me that night so she could gain experience with the media. Once the interviews were over, our job was finished. We walked out to our cars together.”

“Did Debra tell you her plans for the evening?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Maybe mention she was going to meet friends or wanted to stop for a drink?”

Ms. Stokes studied me, then cocked her head.

“What does this have to do with a chance encounter with a maniac?”

“It has to do with her personal life.”

Something that might have been sadness flickered in her eyes.

“Now I understand. That rumor about her seeing a married man.”

“It's eating at her parents. Especially her mother.”

Casey Stokes sighed, and something in her sigh made me feel bad for having said it.

“Mr. Cole, I don't know what to tell you. If Debra was seeing someone, married or otherwise, she never mentioned it to me or anyone else here at Leverage. My understanding is that this rumor started with someone at Debra's apartment building.”

“Yes, ma'am, that's where it started.”

“Then perhaps you should be asking that person. Debra and I only spoke about politics. She was excited by politics. She wanted to work on a national level. She might have. She was serious about her career.”

Her phone rang as she finished. She glanced at her watch, then excused herself to take the call. While she was on the phone, I looked at the people in the conference room. Two men in conservative business suits were making a PowerPoint presentation to the five people who were now seated at the table. The man at the head of the table was a balding guy with a large stomach and white shirt rolled to his elbows. Everyone else was twenty years younger.

While the suits made their presentation, a young man seated beside the older man was texting on his PDA. Nobody seemed to mind. He nudged the older man, then showed him the PDA. The older man took out a PDA of his own and fired off a message. The two guys with the PowerPoint looked as if they didn't know whether to keep going or not.

Stokes put down her phone and checked her watch again.

“I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, but perhaps you'll have better luck with Debra's neighbors. Please tell her parents that, personally, I think this rumor was—and is—absurd.”

She stood to show me out, but I didn't stand with her. When I didn't get up, she sat.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what more I can say.”

“I'm speaking with you and not Debra's neighbors because of something we learned from the police. I feel awkward about bringing it up, but her family is in a great deal of pain. We need to clear the air.”

She waited without saying anything, so I went on.

“The Repkos recently learned that when the rumor first surfaced about Debra being involved with a married man, you folks here at Leverage refused to cooperate. In fact, the detectives felt you were sandbagging them.”

Her mouth drew into a knot as she tapped a perfectly manicured nail on her desk.

“That's not precisely true.”

“Seems like it should be either true or not true, Ms. Stokes. Without the ‘precisely.'”

She tapped the nail again.

“You have to understand. As a first-year, Debra attended meetings with most of our clients. The police wanted to talk to these people. I understood that. We all understood. But our clients are people who live their lives in the public eye, and here were these officers wanting to question them about a young woman most of them probably didn't remember. Just being questioned could be used against them by their enemies.”

“It was a murder investigation. Questions have to be asked.”

Ms. Stokes shifted uncomfortably.

“And those questions were asked. You can assure the Repkos we cooperated.”

“Stonewalling the investigation for two weeks doesn't sound like cooperation.”

“No one here stonewalled. We simply went over the heads of the original detectives and consulted with the command structure. They understood our concerns.”

I stared at her.

“The command structure where?”

“The police. We reviewed our concerns with Deputy Chief Marx. He made what could have been—and was—an uncomfortable situation much more tolerable.”

“You mean the task force?”

“No, no. This was during the original investigation. Chief Marx personally ensured that a thorough investigation was conducted, and had our full cooperation. He even interviewed some of the clients himself.”

I stared at her so hard she frowned.

“Mr. Cole?”

“Chief Marx oversaw the investigation?”

“That's right. The chief is one of our clients.”

I tried to smile. I tried to look as if this was the best news the family could hear.

“Well. That changes things.”

Casey Stokes looked relieved.

“I'm so sorry for this confusion.”

“Of course. The family will be glad to hear it.”

“Please. Tell the Repkos to call me. If they have any questions at all, they can call me.”

I nodded. I smiled.

“So. The chief is going into politics?”

“He's considering it. We believe he can be positioned to fill Councilman Wilts's seat when the councilman retires next year. The councilman is quite a fan of Chief Marx.”

I smiled even wider.

“How could he be anything else?”

“So please assure Mr. and Mrs. Repko the police had our full cooperation. We simply worked at a level where discretion could be guaranteed.”

Her PDA buzzed again. She glanced at the message, then stood.

“I really do have to go now, Mr. Cole. It's been awful for all of us, but I know it's been worse for the Repkos. Please tell them we would never have done anything to hamper the investigation, and we didn't.”

“I'll tell them, Ms. Stokes. Thank you.”

Her PDA buzzed once more, and now she touched a button to make it stop. Everyone at Leverage seemed to have them.

“Does everyone here carry one of those things?”

“It's how we stay in touch. One of the perks, but also one of the pains. We carry them twenty-four/seven.”

“Did Debra have one?”

Across the hall, the meeting in the conference room was breaking up. The young guy who had shown his PDA to the older guy was still texting.

Ms. Stokes said, “She did. All of our associates and principals have them. Leverage provides them.”

“You saw her with it that night?”

She gave a halfhearted shrug.

“Of course. We used them to coordinate the interviews.”

Her PDA buzzed again, but this time she didn't look at it. She touched my arm to herd me toward the door.

“One more thing about this rumor, and I hope her family will find some solace in this. I can't definitively say Debra wasn't involved with someone, but she never hinted at such a thing, or acted the way young women act when they're infatuated. She never mentioned anything like that to me or the other first-years. I know because I asked them, and so did Chief Marx.”

Casey Stokes walked me out, but did not say good-bye. I didn't say good-bye, either. I was too busy thinking about Marx.

WHEN I
reached my car, I shuffled through the papers Mr. Repko had given me. Among them was the receipt Darcy and Maddux provided when they returned the items they had taken to examine. A cell phone and a laptop were on the list, but not a PDA, and I didn't recall seeing it at the Repkos' home.

I found Darcy's card, called him, and asked if they recovered a PDA with Debra's body.

He said, “Sure. It was still in her purse. We gave it back to the family.”

“Not her cell phone. She also had a PDA.”

“Like a BlackBerry?”

“Yeah. Did you find one?”

“Hang on—”

He spoke to someone in the background, then came back.

“No, nothing like that. We had her cell. Maddux says it was a Samsung.”

“I just left Casey Stokes. Leverage gives out PDAs to their associates. Debra used hers that night at the dinner.”

“All we had was the Samsung. We ran the call log on the cell and the hard line in her apartment. If we had the PDA, we would've run that, too. Maybe her family has it.”

“They would have it only if you gave it to them. It should have been on her body, in her car, or in her apartment.”

“I don't know what to tell you. I know you're thinking the killer nabbed it, but how can we know that or prove it? She might have lost the damn thing.”

“Hang on, Darcy. Think about this. If Leverage provided the PDA, they probably take care of the bills.”

“I know where you're going, but there isn't anything I can do. If this case was mine I'd subpoena their call records and hit up the provider for her email and text messages. But this isn't my case. It's Marx's case, and he closed it.”

“Did you know Marx is a client at Leverage?”

Darcy was silent.

“Darcy?”

“You're kidding.”

“When Leverage was freezing you guys out, they were talking with Marx behind the scenes. He walked them through the investigation to keep their clients out of the headlines.”

“That sonofabitch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That's why the pressure came down for us to back off. Nice of him to tell us.”

“Marx's name never came up?”

“Not until now. Maddux is going to shit.”

I called Michael Repko next. Michael remembered that his sister had a PDA, but didn't know where it was. He agreed to ask his parents and brothers. I was still talking to him when my phone beeped with a call from Pat Kyle. I finished with Michael, then switched over to Pat.

She said, “Am I the best or what?”

“I've been saying that for years, and not just to annoy your husband.”

“A little annoyance is good for him. You have something to write with?”

“I do. You find Tomaso?”

“He's with a commercial agency called Figg-Harris. Figg tried to reach him to see if it would be okay to give out his contact info, but the kid hasn't returned his calls. I had to pressure him.”

“I get it. Give me the stats.”

“Okay. This is his cell.”

She read off an 818 phone number and an address in North Hollywood. I thanked her, then called Angel's number, but didn't have any better luck than his agent. Angel's phone rang five times before a message picked up.

“Hey, this is Andy, the next big thing. Leave the 411 and I'll get back. Peace.”

Andy. The next big thing.

I left my 411, but didn't wait for the next big thing to get back to me. I headed north toward the valley.

The breathtaking clarity we enjoyed during the Santa Anas had vanished when the winds died. The air, now sleeping, was heavy with haze. A misty shawl blurred the Hollywood Sign and the skyscrapers lining the Wilshire Corridor appeared to be in a fog.

It was almost one o'clock when I dropped off the freeway at Universal to hit Henry's Tacos for lunch. Four tacos later, I turned onto a neat residential street wedged in the flats between Toluca Lake and Studio City. The main house was a small Craftsman with a large porch and a For Sale sign in the front yard. A narrow drive ran past the main house to a converted garage in the rear.

I parked on the street and walked down the drive.

The guesthouse had once been the garage. The double-wide garage door had been replaced by French doors with sun curtains pulled across the doors for privacy. A patio table and chairs sat on the driveway outside the doors, shielded from the sun by an overhead trellis matted with crimson bougainvillea. I rapped on the glass.

“Angel? It's Elvis Cole.”

Angel didn't answer.

I rapped again, then stepped off the patio into the yard. Two windows and a door were cut into the side of the guesthouse, and had probably been there before the garage was converted. The backyard was hidden from the neighbors by a chain-link fence overgrown with trumpet vines and more bougainvillea. Violet trumpets drooped from the vines and fought with the bougainvillea for attention.

The side door was locked, and more curtains covered the windows. I returned to the French doors, knocked again, then decided to talk to his landlords. If nothing else, I could ask them to let Angel know I had come by.

I went back along the drive, climbed onto the front porch, and rang the bell. No one answered at the main house, either. I cupped my face to the window, and was able to see the living room, dining room, and part of a hall. The furnishings were gone. The owners or tenants had already moved. Maybe Tomaso had moved out with them and hadn't bothered to tell his agent, but the odds of that were small. Struggling actors would live in their agents' pants if they could.

I went back to the guesthouse to leave a note, but after I wrote it I decided to call Angel again. He might be around the corner, but he could have gone to Vegas with friends and might not be back for weeks.

When his cell phone rang I heard it inside his house. I lowered my phone and listened. The ringing went on for five rings, and then the ringing stopped. Angel's message was playing in my phone.

I said, “Angel?”

Nothing.

I put away my phone, then knocked again. After I knocked I tried the handles. The first set of French doors was locked, but the second set opened when I pulled the lever.

The guesthouse was set up like a studio apartment with a cheap dining table, a TV, and a pull-out couch. A cell phone, wallet, and keys were on the table. Books on acting and directing were stacked on the floor, and unframed posters of modern crime films like
The Big Lebowski
and
Gone Baby Gone
were tacked to the wall. The furnishings were spare, but Angel had filled his apartment with the stuff of an aspiring actor, only now he would never see it again.

Angel Tomaso was facedown on the couch with the side of his head so dark with crusted blood it was black in the bad light. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. His bare arms and legs were purple where the blood had settled. Someone had written on the wall in uneven red letters. The message read:
I LOVED U
.

I listened, but knew Angel was alone. The tiny apartment was still, with only a single fly circling the body. In the time I stood in the door, more flies joined the first.

I stepped inside and went to his body. The couch beneath his head was rich with dark blood, and the ceiling above the body showed a thin splatter trail from the rise of the weapon. The side of his head behind his right ear had been struck with something heavy more than one time. Whatever had been used to kill him was no longer present.

The message appeared to have been written in blood, but when I examined it more closely I realized it had been written in lipstick.

The windows and doors showed no sign of forced entry. His apartment appeared in order, and did not look as if it had been searched. I was careful not to leave fingerprints or disturb the scene. His wallet contained sixty-two dollars, a Visa card, and a MasterCard. A letter from his aunt was unopened on the kitchenette counter. I felt sad when I saw it, thinking he should have opened it when he had the chance.

I studied the body and the blood patterns for a while, then stepped outside to call the police. I sat at the little table beneath the bougainvillea and breathed the good air that didn't smell like the air inside with the body. I should have closed the French doors, but didn't. He had been alone long enough. I thought about Angel's aunt, and knew it would be hard on her and the rest of his family in Austin. It was always hard that way.

I was still sitting there when two uniformed officers came through the picket gate, walked up the drive, and saw me. Then they saw Angel's body through the open doors and told me to raise my hands.