In Cold Blonde (19 page)

“No, ma’am,” Syd said. 

Ryan looked at Syd.  “This happened last night by the way, about nine-thirty. 
A room service attendant opened the door to get the dog for Mrs. Kaye, but he
never entered the room because there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

“Damn, that’s fifteen hours ago,” Syd said.  “We could have figured
out her next victim by now.”

Hanrahan’s cell phone rang.   He answered, listened, said,
“Thanks,” and snapped it shut.  He looked at Ryan and Syd, “Ready to meet
the Lady in Red?”

They had caught her three times on two cameras.  The Lady in Red and
Adam Devlin passed through the lobby crossing from the Windows Lounge toward
the bank of elevators.  He held a bottle of champagne in one hand, two
flutes in the other.  The Lady in Red had her left arm entwined in his and
leaned against him as they walked.  But there was no good view of her face
from this angle.  Adam was taller than the Lady in Red, and since they
were walking side-by-side, he blocked her face.

“You think she did it on purpose?” Hanrahan asked.  “Scoped out the
cameras ahead of time and tucked behind him to hide her face?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, Chief,” Syd said.  “She’s been one step
ahead of us from the beginning.”

“There is one more shot from this angle,” the head of security
said.  They were in his office.  Hanrahan, Ryan and Syd stood behind him
looking at the monitor.  The head of security fast-forwarded.  “This
is three hours and six minutes later.”   The Lady in Red entered the
left side of frame and walked out the front door.  Her back was to camera
the entire time. 

“That’s no help,” Hanrahan said.

“Let’s see the other angle,” Ryan said.  The head of security hit a few
buttons and the scene shifted to a bank of elevators.  Adam Devlin and the
Lady in Red turned a corner and walked straight for the camera.

“Gotcha,” Hanrahan said. 

The video was silent but you could see the Lady in Red’s mouth moving and
Adam Devlin smiling.  “Okay, freeze it there,” Ryan said.

The tape froze with a big clear shot of the Lady in Red and Adam Devlin.

“She’s pretty,” Ryan said.

“And diabolical,” Syd said.  “Imagine, she’s walking arm-in-arm,
flirting up a storm with a guy who she knows she’s going to kill and mutilate
in just a few minutes.”  Syd crossed to the screen, looked closely at Adam. 
“What did you do to her, you bastard?”

“You’re calling him a bastard?” Hanrahan asked.  “She’s the nutbag
rearranging their anatomy.”

“That’s right.  She’s methodically killing certain handpicked
men.  She has planned this for a long, long time.  And when we find
the connection between these victims, I guarantee you we’re going find out that
she,” Syd pointed at the frozen image of the Lady in Red, “was the first
victim.”

Ryan looked at his partner.  “She’s a murderer, Syd.  No matter
what they did to her, you can’t take the law into your own hands.”

“Of course not,” Syd said.  “I’m just saying as bad as I want to
catch her, I’m dying to find out why.”

“Well let’s start with catching her,” Hanrahan said.  He turned to
the head of security.  “I’ll need a copy of that tape.  Media
Relations will make copies for all the news outlets.  We should have her
face on every TV in Southern California by dinner.”

“And we’ll talk to the widow,” Ryan said.  “Maybe she’ll know what Zachary
Stone, Colin Wood and Adam Devlin have in common.”

Anne sat across from Travis Taylor.  The private detective was a
good looking man, reminding Anne of a young Clint Eastwood.  He had steel-gray
hair and a trace of Texas in his gravelly speech.  He dressed in a dark
blue suit, probably a throwback to his FBI days, and smelled of Old
Spice. 

They sat in a quiet corner of the Beverly Hilton lobby bar.  Anne
had checked into the hotel, treating herself to a suite, but the room wasn’t ready
yet.  She still had to move out of the Santa Monica apartment and her
office at Rogers, Middleton and Roberts, but two things took priority; getting
ready for the California Lottery in the morning, and finding out about Syd Curtis.

“She’s a good cop,” Travis said.  “She was only on the street for
five years before getting bumped to detective.  She had a solid rep as a
uniform.  She earned three commendations before actually winning a Medal
of Valor last year.”

The Medal of Valor was the highest honor an LAPD officer could earn, not
given out lightly and always involving bravery and heroism above and beyond the
call of duty.  “What did she do?” Anne asked.

Travis read from his notes, paraphrasing the police report.  “A man
started beating his pregnant wife in a grocery store in Sherman Oaks.  One
of the customers tried to stop him; the husband pulled a gun and shot the
customer, killing him.  Chaos erupted inside the store, panicked people
running out the doors, employees fleeing out the back and one of them called
911. 

“Officer Syd Curtis and her partner, Bruce Carroll, were the first to
arrive at the scene.  Witnesses told them that the man with the gun and
his pregnant wife were still inside the store and he’d also taken a teenage
girl hostage.  The hysterical mother begged the officers to save her
daughter.

“Officers Curtis and Carroll entered the store with weapons drawn and
spread out trying to find the suspect.  As Officer Curtis turned down an
aisle, she found the husband holding his wife and the teenage girl at gunpoint. 
He immediately put the gun to the back of the teenage girl’s head and said if
the police didn’t leave immediately, he was going to shoot the girl.  The
man was clearly unstable and Officer Curtis feared for the lives of the hostages. 
   

“Then she spotted her partner moving up behind the suspect.  But her
partner was unable to risk apprehending the suspect because of the imminent
threat of the suspect’s gun to the teenager’s head. 

“So Officer Curtis lowered her gun to the floor and placed her hands
above her head.  Then she began to slowly approach the suspect.  The
official language reads, ‘With disregard for her own safety and a high degree
of courage and bravery,’ she asked the suspect to please release the hostages
and take her instead.  Closer and closer she stepped, gently urging him to
let the hostages go.

“Finally the suspect took the gun away from the teenage girl’s head and
pointed it at Officer Curtis.  That gave her partner the opening he’d been
waiting for.  He fired, killing the suspect.”

“Wow,” Anne said, impressed.  The diminutive, freckled-faced little
red head was full of surprises.

“She got her detective shield and was transferred to Vice.  She
distinguished herself both as an undercover officer soliciting johns on the
street and in a deep cover operation to break up a Russian white slavery
ring.  The brass was impressed and she got her pick of assignments. 
She chose Homicide.”   

What Travis didn’t tell Anne was that he also checked on Syd Curtis’s new
partner in Homicide, Ryan Magee, and discovered that Ryan and Anne used to be
married.  And Travis heard that Magee had just hit the Lotto.  Judging
by her LAPD photo, Syd Curtis was a looker; so, like any trained detective,
Travis put two and two together and figured Magee was fucking his partner and
now that he was rich, Anne wanted Magee back.  And since Anne was paying
Travis six hundred dollars a day, he was perfectly willing to help her for as
long as possible.

“Now that’s all official file stuff,” Travis said, sipping his club soda. 
“But I did find out some intriguing inconsistencies.  On her police
application she lists her name as Syd Curtis from Riverside, California. 
She claims to have attended Arlington High School before getting an AA at Santa
Monica College.  Santa Monica College does list her as a graduate but
there is no record of her ever attending Arlington High School.  In fact,
there is no record for her in the State of California before she got a driver’s
license ten years ago when she was eighteen.”

“Kind of old to get your first driver’s license,” Anne said.

“That’s what I thought,” Travis said.  “And there’s more.  A
friend of mine works at the Police Academy and I had him pull her
application.  A letter of recommendation accompanied the application,
written by an LAPD officer, Andrea Templeton.  Syd Curtis’s address while
she attended the Police Academy was the same as Andrea Templeton’s.”

“They were living together?”

“Apparently.  Officer Templeton was killed in the line of duty a few
days before Syd Curtis graduated from the Academy.  I checked her obituary;
one line stuck out to me.”  He referred to his notes again.  “In lieu
of flowers please send a donation to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against
Defamation.”

Anne tried to make sense of this.  “GLAAD?  What’re you saying,
Andrea Templeton was gay?”

“I don’t know.  But that kind of obit is generally a pretty good
indicator.”

“Do you think she and Syd Curtis were lovers?”

Travis shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’ve only been on the case
for a few hours.  But I could try and find out.  I’m also curious
about Syd Curtis’s life before she suddenly appeared at Santa Monica
College.  We know she lied about going to Arlington High School, I’d like
to know what else she’s lied about.”

“Me, too,” Anne said.  “How much time do you need?”

“One day, maybe two.”

“Excellent.  And, Travis, don’t bill Rogers, Middleton and Roberts
for this; I’ll be taking care of it personally.”

“Of course,” he said, her request confirming his suspicions.  “I’ll
call you when I’ve got something.”  Travis collected his files and left.

Secrets and lies.  Everybody’s got them, thought Anne.  It was
one of her favorite things about being a lawyer, finding those lies, exposing
the secrets, exploiting a weakness.  And sometimes what you found even
surprised someone as cynical as Anne.

Surprise me Syd, thought Anne. 

Surprise the hell out of me.

Alice was staring at herself on television.  Surveillance footage
taken at the Bel Air Regent Hotel showed her walking to the elevator with Adam.

Adam looked so, what was the word, expectant, yes, expectant.  Look
at that smile on his face, she thought.  Joyful but still a little bit
naughty.  You could almost feel his enthusiasm as they walked.  Here
was a man who ruled his world.  Here was a man about to get laid.

The blonde didn’t look so bad either, if she did say so herself. 
The short skirt showed off her long legs, the low cut blouse showcased her
tits, and the sexy way she walked promised carnal delights.   

She owed it all to Charlotte, her look, that is.  Charlotte came to
the Institute three years ago; she was bi-polar and a sex addict.  They
had all sorts of fancy theories for sexual addiction these days –
compulsion, disease, impulse control disorder, sexual desire disorder – but
Charlotte happily called herself a nymphomaniac.  In fact, during her
three-month stay, Charlotte seduced three of the doctors (two men and a woman),
four nurses (all women), three orderlies (men), six patients (four women and
two men) and a husband she found in the atrium who was waiting to visit his
wife.

And here was the thing; Charlotte wasn’t that pretty.  Average at
best.  And for a long time she had trouble seducing the people she wanted
to have sex with.  So she taught herself how to use clothes, make-up and
attitude to become irresistible. 

“But it takes discipline,” she told Alice as they lay naked together. 
Alice had watched Charlotte sleep her way through the Institute, and though not
gay, Alice was so fascinated by Charlotte and her spellbinding sexuality that
Alice slept with her just to experience it.  And the pillow talk afterward
changed Alice’s life.

“You have tons of potential, Alice.  But right now you’re dumpy,
frumpy and grumpy.  You need to lose weight, look and dress better and
learn to
exude
.  Exude fun.  Exude mystery.  Exude sex.”

Charlotte made Alice her personal project.  She worked out with her
at the gym and taught her what to eat; Alice lost twenty pounds in a
month.  Alice’s brown hair was blah, so Charlotte convinced Alice to dye
it blonde.  Her brown eyes were dull so Charlotte got her green contact
lenses.  Losing the weight brought out Alice’s cheekbones; Charlotte
taught her how to use make-up to accent them.  And, of course, clothes
make the woman.  So Charlotte worked with Alice using pictures from
magazines to design an ideal wardrobe.  But color was the key.  With
Alice’s blonde hair and green eyes, her new dominant color had to be red.

Last but most important was attitude.  It’s tough to get depressed,
suicidal people to simply change their personality, so Charlotte made it a
game.  Alice needed to pretend she was someone else.  A movie star
blend, if you will.  Charlotte taught Alice to walk like Charlize Theron,
flirt like Angela Jolie, listen like Anne Hathaway and laugh like Scarlett
Johanssen. 

As Alice perfected her skills, she didn’t realize that one day she would
be using them for revenge.  But she could have never ensnared the fearsome
foursome without Charlotte’s life lessons.

The image on the television switched to a blow up of the surveillance
photo, now just a close up of Alice, with a phone number beneath it.  The
announcer said, “These images were just released by the Los Angeles Police
Department and this woman is being sought for questioning in a number of
homicides.  The Police request that if you’ve seen this Lady in Red or
know her identity, please contact the LAPD at the number on the bottom of your
screen.”

The picture switched back to the two shot of Alice and Adam.  Then
the camera zoomed in on Adam.  “Once again, sports agent Adam Devlin has
been found dead at the Bel Air Regent Hotel.”

Alice muted the TV as the announcer handed off to the weatherman. 
Okay, she thought, my picture is finally out there.  But the shot isn’t
great and I had my hair down when I was with Adam.  Anticipating this, Alice
wore her hair tied back for this morning’s encounter with Blake, and would keep
it back for tonight’s rendezvous.

But since the police had found Adam’s body it was just a matter of time
until they tumble to her.  And if they were smart enough to put two and
two together, they could soon predict Blake would be her next victim.  It might
take them some time, a day or so at least she hoped, but just in case they were
waiting for her when she went back to Blake’s beach house, it was time to leave
the message. 

Her manifesto. 

Alice took out the cell phone she bought last week at Best Buy, switched
on the video recorder, turned it toward herself and said, “Test, test, test,
this is a test.”  She shut it off, spun the phone around and hit
play.  Her face filled the screen and was slightly distorted because she
held the phone so close.  “Test, test, test, this is a test.” Her recorded
image said.

Alice was satisfied.  She erased the test, turned on the video
recorder, held the phone a little further away, a final surrender to vanity,
and started talking.