Murder With Sarcastic Intent Page 9

  Like many other Los Angeles mayors, he had chosen to stay in his original home so that his children could attend the same schools.

  Mayor Baxter lived in the Mt. Washington neighborhood, an upscale group of homes just north of the city.

  Mary knew the address because she had once been invited to a cocktail reception at the home by a grateful client. Her client had been a successful movie producer whose gay lover had disappeared. Mary had found the wayward man in the Caribbean, simultaneously doing daily truckloads of cocaine along with several native island men.

  As part of the deal, Mary had agreed to be the client’s beard for one night. Mary had suffered through it, although the champagne had been top-notch.

  Now, she found her way to the house again. It was hard to miss. A giant Tudor built in the 1920s, it was the centerpiece of the street.

  Mary knew this might be a bit tricky. She doubted the mayor would be there. In fact, she hoped that would be the case.

  Mary parked and approached the house. There was a black, wrought iron fence running around the property. The main entrance was gated, with a small intercom next to it. Mary tugged on the gate’s door, just to make sure it was locked.

  It wasn’t.

  She debated for a moment, then pushed her way through. She walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Before she could ring the bell, she heard footsteps behind her.

  “Freeze,” the voice said.

  She did.

  “Turn around.”

  Mary did, and she faced a man in a black suit, but it wasn’t Derek Jarvis.

  The door opened behind her, but she didn’t turn.

  “I’m here to see the mayor,” Mary said. “I have an appointment.”

  “No she doesn’t,” the voice behind her said.

  This time, Mary glanced over her shoulder. It was the driver of the Tahoe, the one she’d hit with the seven iron.

  “The cops are on their way,” he said. “We followed her from downtown.”

  The guy in front of Mary lifted his chin toward her. “Put up your hands,” he said.

  “I’ve got a handgun in a shoulder holster,” Mary said. “I thought it matched my blouse perfectly.”

  “Looks like we have an assassination attempt,” the guy behind her said, with a stupid grin.

  They took her gun and looked at her private investigator’s license, then cuffed her and moved her to the front of the security gate.

  Another Tahoe pulled up, along with an unmarked police car. From the Tahoe, Derek Jarvis exited.

  From the squad car, out came someone else she recognized.

  Lieutenant Arianna Davies.

  “Well, this is going from bad to worse,” Mary said.

  Thirty-nine

  Jail was not Mary’s favorite place to be. In fact, it wasn’t even in the Top Ten.

  They had thrown her into an interrogation room and let her sit for several hours. The least they could have done was ask some questions, but Mary had a feeling they knew it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

  Score one victory for her.

  So now she was back in a holding cell, examining stains on the concrete floor, trying to guess which type of fluid had caused each of the marks.

  One of the stains was shaped like the state of Idaho, and Mary had narrowed the probable fluid down to blood or Diet Coke when the frizzy hair of Joan Hessburg, attorney-at-law, appeared over the top of the door.

  Mary could not have been happier.

  Hessburg was a tall, severe woman with a pinched face and highly brusque manner, but she knew her stuff.

  “Let’s go,” Hessburg said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mary said.

  They walked out past the holding pen. Davies was waiting.

  “You are withholding information, Cooper,” Davies said.

  “Prove it,” Attorney Hessburg said.

  “Prove you’re not a robot while you’re at it,” Mary said. “And why don’t you take a look at Derek Jarvis instead of me?”

  “Let’s go,” Hessburg said to Mary.

  “Because you always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Cooper,” Davies said. “Haven’t you ever noticed that?”

  “Don’t answer,” Hessburg barked at Mary. They left the building and walked outside. Hessburg turned to Mary.

  “Call me if they come after you again,” she said.

  “They will, and I will,” Mary said.

  “You look tired,” Hessburg said.

  “Thanks for the compliment,” Mary said. “It’s my sexy new look. Men are totally attracted to women who appear fatigued. Less resistance that way.”

  Hessburg left, and Mary took a moment to feel the warm sun on her face. Did she look tired? Hell yes—getting arrested and sitting in jail isn’t exactly rejuvenating spa time.

  “Cooper!” a man’s voice called out from the street.

  Mary looked and saw a limo parked in the no-loading zone. The driver was standing by the front passenger door.

  Mary walked down, sensing it was another Derek Jarvis ambush. The nerve, right in front of the fucking jail.

  “Funny, I don’t remember calling a car,” Mary said. “Are you with the Playboy Mansion? Does Hef have my room ready?”

  The driver ignored her.

  The windows were all privacy glass so Mary couldn’t see inside the limo. But the rear window slid down.

  Mary half expected to see a silenced pistol poke out and drill one right through her forehead.

  But instead, Mary was surprised to see a woman’s face looking at her.

  It was the wife of the mayor.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  Forty

  Veronica Baxter was a beautiful woman. It being Los Angeles, Mary was fairly accustomed to seeing gorgeous men and women roaming the streets looking like someone had spilled several truckloads of department store mannequins all over the place.

  But the mayor’s wife was something else.

  She was definitely beautiful, but in addition to the sheer perfection of the woman’s face, there was a striking quality Mary couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  Veronica Baxter had coal-black hair, black, smoky eyes, and perfect lips. The features were sharp, almost hatchet-like, and it was the severity, that type of cutting beauty, which added an element of danger to Veronica Baxter.

  Mary was intrigued.

  “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a limo like this?” Mary said. She raised her chin at the row of whiskey decanters and cognac snifters arrayed on the side of the interior space.

  “Believe me, if I were a nice girl, and I’m not, I wouldn’t last two minutes around here,” she said with a sad, wistful smile.

  “Yeah, you’ve lasted, what, four years?” Mary said, trying to remember exactly how long Baxter had been in office. She wanted to ask the mayor’s wife to pour her a stiff drink, but couldn’t figure out a tactful way to put it.

  “Can you pour me a drink?” Mary said. “I just got out of jail.”

  Fuck tactful.

  The mayor’s wife sloshed some scotch into a thick glass and handed it to Mary.

  “Six years in office, seventeen years in marriage,” Veronica Baxter said. Mary couldn’t tell which one disappointed Veronica more.

  “All without any help from Mary Cooper,” Mary said. “So what changed?” She took a sip of the liquor. Its warmth burned and soothed simultaneously.

  Veronica Baxter sighed and drummed her beautifully manicured nails on the leather armrest between them.

  “I hate to even say it because it’ll sound like such a cliché,” she finally said.

  “That’s okay, I love clichés,” Mary said. “If it weren’t for clichés, what would everyone say at funerals or right after sex?”

  The mayor’s wife took a deep breath. “Nothing changed. The affair just happened.”

  “And who did Thomas sleep with?” Mary said.

  Veronica Baxter shook her head of lovely hair.


  “Oh, Thomas didn’t have the affair,” she said. “I did.”

  Forty-one

  “I’m not going to bore you with the details,” Veronica Baxter told Mary.

  “First of all, I’m sure the details are from boring,” Mary said. “Second, I need a refill. And third, I have to ask: was it your landscaper?”

  The mayor’s wife looked like she’d been slapped.

  “How did you know?“ she said. She topped off Mary’s glass, her hands shaking a bit as they performed the task.

  “I’m a detective, remember?” Mary said. “Besides, those guys love to whack more than just weeds, if you know what I’m saying.”

  Veronica Baxter clasped her hands together in her lap, as if she was about to pray.

  “It didn’t actually come together for me until now,” Mary said. “Now that I see your face, I immediately recognize Nina in you. And not Elyse Ramirez, or whatever her name was.” Mary sipped her scotch. “Did you hire her to pose as Nina’s mother?”

  Veronica Baxter nodded.

  “When she was taken, I didn’t know what to do. I went to Derek—he’s the head of my husband’s security detail—but I didn’t like his solutions,” the mayor’s wife said. “I just wanted to pay them and get Nina back.”

  “Pay the blackmailers,” Mary said, putting two and two together.

  Again, Veronica Baxter nodded.

  “So while Derek Jarvis was going to take care of it in his own way, you decided to hire your own private investigator and try to solve the problem yourself,” Mary said.

  “Yes, I don’t like or trust Jarvis. I regret going to him in the first place.”

  “I’m guessing a lot of people once formerly alive and now dead wish you hadn’t gone to him either.”

  Veronica Baxter’s face went three shades of white.

  “You don’t know?” Mary said.

  “I knew the woman I hired to hire you was murdered, but I didn’t know it was Derek,” she said. “I figured it might have been the kidnappers.”

  “I don’t know for sure, either,” Mary said. “But I have some strong suspicions. And another question.”

  Baxter’s shoulders sagged, and Mary thought the woman suddenly looked exhausted.

  “Since I am a detective, I can’t help but do the math on this situation. Nina is seventeen, and you’ve been married for how long?”

  “Seventeen years,” Baxter said. “Initially, mine and Tom’s relationship was … fluid.”

  “I think fluid is what caused this problem in the first place,” Mary said. Okay, she hadn’t become that sensitive with clients.

  “I made a mistake very early in our marriage,” the mayor’s wife said. “It’s one I obviously regret. And now have to set right.”

  The limo pulled to a stop.

  Mary glanced out the window and saw her car.

  The driver got out and popped the trunk.

  “I need to hire you to do something for me,” the mayor’s wife said. “I will triple your normal fee.”

  Alarm bells went off in Mary’s head. No one paid triple for something that wasn’t totally fucked up and dangerous.

  “I need you to deliver a suitcase containing quite a bit of cash. It is for the safe return of my daughter.”

  Mary didn’t like it one bit.

  Baxter handed Mary the suitcase, which had been next to her on the floor of the limo, and a piece of paper, which she pulled from her pocket.

  “This is where they want the money delivered,” she said. “Be careful.”

  The side door opened, and the driver stood, letting Mary know it was time to go.

  Mary got out.

  Baxter looked like she wanted to say something else, some type of “good luck” comment, but nothing came out. Instead, she just looked at Mary.

  Mary shut the door.

  The driver got back in the limo and took off.

  Mary looked at the suitcase, and then at her car, then at the piece of paper in her hand. The address was right on the border with Mexico.

  Hmmm, she thought. Driving toward Mexico with a suitcase full of cash.

  Sounded like a party.

  Forty-two

  It took her nearly three hours to get to Imperial Beach, a little town south of San Diego, a stone’s throw from the border and Tijuana, Mexico.

  Imperial Beach was considered a beach and surfing town, but parts of it were downright dangerous and scary.

  Mary followed her navigation to the drop location—a parking lot near a military range.

  Maybe they’re going to send a few missiles my way after they get the money, Mary thought.

  Or a drone strike.

  She parked the car and waited.

  There was no question she was being watched. The sensation picked at her, like hints of impending doom. She had no backup. Jake was usually her ace-in-the-hole, but with him not answering her phone calls, she now thought of him as an ass-in-the-hole.

  Her cell phone rang.

  Mary glanced at the caller’s number. It was one she didn’t recognize.

  Mary answered and a highly synthesized voice told her to take the suitcase out of the car.

  “Yes sir,” Mary said.

  She got out, popped the trunk, lifted out the suitcase and set it on the ground.

  A black Chevy Impala with tinted windows and black wheel rims pulled in next to her.

  Two men got out.

  One was a short, fat, swarthy man in dress slacks and a black T-shirt with prison tats covering every exposed inch of skin, including his neck and half of his face. His hands had been in his pockets when he got out of the car.

  The other was Derek Jarvis.

  He smiled at Mary.

  “I know you’ve got my money,” he said. He shook his head. “I know all of Veronica’s moves. Even hiring that other bitch. So stupid.”

  The fat man now took his right hand out of his pocket and along with it came an automatic. An ugly little thing, probably a .38 or maybe even a .22.

  “So I think I have it figured out,” Mary said. “Buslipp and Trey Williams must have found out who Nina really was. “

  “Apparently she liked to talk during sex.” Jarvis said. “I’m pissed I never got the chance to find out for myself.”

  “She probably would’ve just said, ‘that’s not it! That’s not it! That’s not it!’” Mary said. “But seriously, she told one of those two idiots, and they decided they could make more money blackmailing the Baxters than trying to get her a film career.”

  Jarvis nodded knowingly.

  “It didn’t help that Buslipp’s heroin habit was out of control, and he was in deep debt to these guys,” he said, jerking a thumb at the fat man next to him. “Ever met a member of MS-13 before?”

  Mary knew of the legendary gang—if you lived in Los Angeles, you certainly knew.

  “I think I met one before,” she said, thinking of the ambush at Lonzo Vega’s address. “Have to say they don’t take kindly meeting new people.”

  “Enough talk,” Jarvis said. “Show me the money.”

  Mary didn’t move.

  “So you tracked down Buslipp and Williams, and rather than busting them, you took over the operation?”

  “I can’t stand unprofessionalism,” Jarvis said. “That’s why I immediately disliked you.”

  “You took care of Williams at Styx. What about Buslipp?”

  Jarvis smiled. “Oh, he’s around.”

  “And the ambush at the house?”

  “Hey, once you went to Sol Landscaping, we knew you might track down Lonzo, so we put a guy at the house just in case you showed up. Sure enough, you did.”

  The rest of it fell into place for Mary.

  “So the guy at the landscaping place I chased—”

  “Nina’s biological father?” Jarvis said. “Absolutely. I tell you, Veronica really slummed around back then, didn’t she?”

  It was a wild guess, but Mary took it anyway.

  “Except for yo
u, right? You hit on her, I bet, and she turned you down. You just bided your time, right?”

  For once, the smug smile on Jarvis’ face was gone, replaced with gritty rage.

  “Those two assholes deserve each other. She’s a bitch and he’s a moron. Fuck both of them,” Jarvis said.

  Behind them, an explosion sounded from the artillery range. Jarvis didn’t flinch, but the fat one did.

  It was all Mary needed. She drew her .45 and shot the fat one center mass.

  Jarvis had his pistol out of his shoulder rig, but Mary was faster and pumped two rounds straight into his heart. Double tap.

  He looked at her, his bright-blue eyes wide with surprise. Mary approached the Impala, her gun still at the ready.

  There was a shape in the backseat behind the privacy glass. Mary held the .45 ready, squatted down, and pulled open the door.

  She glanced up and saw a man whose wrists and ankles were tied, and whose face had been worked over so badly it looked like one giant blood splatter.

  Still, Mary recognized what was left.

  “Well, if it isn’t Vince Buslipp,” she said.

  The body groaned.

  “How’s your day going so far?” Mary said.

  Forty-three

  She put him in her passenger seat and got the hell out of Dodge.

  It was likely that homeowners in the general area of the military range wouldn’t be calling the cops at the sound of a few gunshots. Still, there was no point in taking chances.

  “I need to go to a hospital,” Buslipp said through his mangled lips.

  “That’s for sure,” Mary said. “Your face looks like someone puked up a few cans of Spam.”

  “Are you taking me to an emergency room?” he said.

  “Fuck no, you worthless piece of shit,” she said. “I’m taking you out into the desert where I’m going to shoot you and bury you.”

  Buslipp’s lopsided head lolled forward.

  “Please,” he said.

  Mary thought back to the first time she met him—what an arrogant prick he’d been at ExtReam Productions.

  “Look, asshole,” she said. “I know that you know where Nina Ramirez is.”