A Trace of Murder

“What?”

“She hasn’t been heard from since yesterday morning. When is the last time you spoke to her?”

Becky tried to answer but suddenly began coughing and wheezing. After a few moments, she recovered enough to speak.

“We went shopping on Saturday afternoon. She was looking for a new dress for the fundraising gala tonight. Are you really sure she’s missing?”

“We’re sure. What was her demeanor like on Saturday? Did she seem anxious about anything?”

“Not really,” Becky answered as she sniffed and reached for a tissue. “I mean, there were some minor hiccups with the fundraiser that she was dealing with, calls with caterers and so on. But it wasn’t anything she hadn’t dealt with a million times. She didn’t seem that bothered.”

“How was it for you, Becky, listening to her make those calls about a fancy gala while she bought an expensive dress?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re her best friend, right?”

Becky nodded. “For almost twenty-five years,” she said.

“And she lives in a mansion up in the hills and you’re in this one-bedroom apartment. You don’t ever get jealous?”

She watched Becky closely as she answered. The other woman took a sip of her water, but coughed as if some of it had gone down the wrong pipe. After a few seconds, she answered.

“I do get jealous sometimes. I’ll admit that. But it’s not Kendra’s fault that things haven’t gone as well for me. Truthfully, it’s hard to ever get upset with her. She’s the nicest person I know. I’ve dealt with some…issues and she’s always been there for me when things got rough.”

Keri suspected what those “issues” might be but said nothing. Becky continued.

“Besides, she’s very generous without lording it over me. That’s a tough line to walk. She actually bought me the dress I’m wearing for the gala tonight, assuming it’s even still happening. Do you know if it is?”

“I don’t,” Keri replied brusquely. “Tell me about her relationship with Jeremy. What was their marriage like?”

“It was good. They’re great partners, a really effective team.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic. Is it a marriage or a corporation?”

“I don’t think they were ever a super-passionate couple. Jeremy’s a very buttoned-down, matter-of-fact kind of guy. And Kendra went through her sexy, wild-guy phase in her twenties. I think she was happy to have a stable, sweet guy she could count on. I know she loves him. But it’s not Romeo and Juliet or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“Okay, so did she ever long for that passion? Could she have maybe gone looking for it, say on a high school reunion trip?” Keri asked.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Jeremy said that she seemed a little rattled after she returned from yours.”

“Oh, that,” Becky said, sniffing again before breaking out in another brief coughing fit.

As she tried to regain control, Keri noticed a cockroach scurry across the floor and tried to ignore it. When Becky recovered, she continued.

“Trust me, she wasn’t messing around on the trip. In fact, it was the opposite. An ex-boyfriend of hers, a guy named Coy Brenner, kept coming on to her. She was polite but he was pretty relentless.”

“How relentless?”

“Like, to the point of being uncomfortable. He was one of those wild guys I told you about. Anyway, he just wouldn’t take no for an answer. At the end of the reunion, he said something about looking her up in town. I think it really got to her.”

“Does he live here?”

“He lived in Phoenix for a long time. That’s where the reunion was. We all grew up there. But he mentioned something about moving to San Pedro recently—said he was working down at the port.”

“How long ago was this reunion?”

“Two weeks,” Becky said. “Do you really think he had something to do with this?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll run it down. Where can I find you if I need to get in touch again?”

“I work at a casting agency over on Robertson, across from The Ivy. It’s about a ten-minute walk from here. But I always have my cell. Please don’t hesitate to call. Anything I can do to help, just ask. She’s like a sister to me.”

Keri looked hard at Becky Sampson, trying to decide whether to call her on the elephant in the room. The constant sniffing and coughing, the total disregard for maintaining a livable home, the white residue and rolled up bill on the floor all suggested that the woman was deep into cocaine addiction.

“Thanks for your time,” she finally said, deciding to hold off for now.

Becky’s situation might prove useful later. But there was no need to use it yet, when it served no tactical advantage. Keri left the apartment and took the stairs down, despite the jarring twinges in her shoulder and ribs.

She felt slightly guilty for keeping Becky’s coke problem as a potential card to play down the road. But the guilt faded quickly as she left the building and breathed in the fresh air. She was a police detective, not a drug counselor. Anything that could help her solve the case was fair game.

As she pulled out into traffic and headed for the freeway, she called into the office. She needed everything they had on Kendra’s aggressively interested ex-boyfriend, Coy Brenner. She was about to pay him an unannounced visit.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Keri tried to keep her cool even as she felt her blood pressure rising. Rush hour traffic was starting to back up as she made her way south on the 110 to the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. It was after four in the afternoon and even using the carpool lane and her siren, progress was slow.

She finally got off the freeway and wended her way through the complicated basin roads to the administration building on Palos Verdes Street. There she was supposed to meet her port police liaison, who would assign her two officers as backup when she interviewed Brenner. Port police participation was required since she was in their jurisdiction.

Normally Keri chafed at that kind of bureaucratic requirement but for once she didn’t mind having backup. She usually felt pretty confident going up against any possible suspect, as she was trained in Krav Maga and had even taken some boxing lessons from Ray. But with her gimpy shoulder and battered ribs, she wasn’t as sure of herself as usual. And Brenner didn’t sound like a pushover.

According to Detective Manny Suarez back at the precinct, who ran a background check for Keri while she was on the road, Coy Brenner was a piece of work. He’d been arrested a half dozen times over the years, twice for drunk driving, once for theft, twice for assault, and most impressively for fraud, which had earned him his longest stint behind bars, six months. That was four years ago and since he wasn’t allowed to leave the state for five, he was technically in violation of his parole.

Now he was a dockworker at pier 400. Even though he’d hinted to Becky and Kendra that he’d just moved to San Pedro in the last few weeks, records showed that he’d been living in a Long Beach apartment for over three months.

The port police liaison, Sergeant Mike Covey, and his two officers were waiting for her when she arrived. Covey was a tall, thin balding man in his late forties with a no-guff demeanor to him. She’d briefed him over the phone and he’d obviously done the same with his men.

“Brenner’s shift ends at four thirty,” Covey told her after they’d exchanged introductions. “Since it’s already four fifteen, I called the pier manager and told him not to let the crew out early. He’s been known to do that.”

“I appreciate it. I guess we should head right over. I want to get a look at the guy before I interview him.”

“Understood. If you want, we can take your car over first to arouse less suspicion. Officers Kuntsler and Rodriguez can follow separately in the squad car. We patrol the piers constantly so having them in the area won’t seem odd to your suspect. But if he sees an unfamiliar face get out of one of our vehicles, it might raise eyebrows.”

“That sounds good,” Keri agreed, appreciative that she wasn’t facing a turf war. She knew it was likely because the port police hated bad publicity. They would happily dispose of this thing quietly, even if meant ceding authority to another agency.

Keri followed Sergeant Covey’s directions across the Vincent Thomas Bridge and to the visitor parking area for pier 400. It took longer than Keri expected and they arrived at 4:28. Covey spoke into the radio, telling the pier manager he could release the crew.