Hollywood Taken Read online

  After leaving the bedroom, we met up with Leo and Al, at the same time SID, LAPD’s version of a crime scene unit, entered the room and began setting up.

  “Anything in the way of an ID or personal effects?” I asked Leo.

  A pair of pants and shoes on the floor in the living room, nothing in the way of a purse, wallet, or phone.”

  “I think she’s a working girl and the john lost control,” Al said, pushing a stick of gum into his mouth.

  I detected the faint odor of alcohol on his breath. “What makes you think that?”

  He shrugged. “High end hotel, pretty young girl. She was probably supplementing her income, waiting until she became the next Reese Witherspoon.”

  What he’d said wasn’t an unfamiliar scenario. Lots of young girls became lost in their Hollywood dreams, but something about our victim made me think otherwise. The girl was young, maybe barely legal. It was probably wishful thinking on my part, but I didn’t want to believe she’d fallen into a life of prostitution.

  I looked over, seeing Earl Mumford entering the room. The deputy coroner was lazy, arrogant, and seldom helpful at crime scenes. I looked at Leo and rolled my eyes.

  “Why don’t we take a walk,” Leo said to me. He’d also had past issues with Mumford. “I think we both need some air.”

  I told Olivia that I’d catch up with her in a few minutes and rode the elevator to a top floor observation deck with Leo. It was after midnight as we took a walk over to the railing, the lights of the city shining brightly in the distance.

  We discussed our case for a couple minutes, before the discussion turned personal, Leo asking, “How are you doing with everything?”

  I knew it was his way of wanting to know how I was coping after receiving Daniel’s video tape.

  “I think I’m still trying to process things. I guess the only good news is that Daniel told me before he died that he arranged for someone to send me additional tapes”

  Leo nodded. He looked at the skyline of downtown Los Angeles in the distance. He was a big man with a shaved head, the grandfather to two young girls that he doted over. “If Daniel is dead, it has to be the work of the Rylands.”

  “They’re the ones who stole the money my adoptive dad left us, so it would stand to reason.”

  Harlan Ryland, along with his granddaughter, Harlee, were terrorist, responsible for some recent attacks on Los Angeles. Years ago, Harlan and his recently deceased partner had formed a new age religious group called the Tauists as a front for importing drugs through the movie studios in Hollywood.

  I’d recently learned that, almost three decades earlier, my father had ties to Ryland. Even though I didn’t want to believe it, I knew it was possible that he’d also been involved in the illegal drug trade with him. Ryland had ordered my father’s murder when I was a little girl, possibly as a payback for my dad wanting a bigger piece of the drug profits.

  I’d also learned that my adoptive dad had left several million dollars to Daniel and me in an offshore account. Those funds had been withdrawn from the account by Daniel at the behest of Harlee Ryland. The Rylands had told me as much when I’d recently met with them in Brazil where they were imprisoned. They’d escaped following our conversation and were on the run again.

  “I got a phone call.”

  Leo’s statement made my thoughts surface. “From who?”

  “Not sure. He just said his named was Joaquin. He told me he thinks Pearl is alive.”

  My voice pitched higher. “Where is he?”

  “All I know is that Joaquin said he was on a boat with Pearl that was lost at sea. He said they made it to shore and Pearl asked him to contact me. I got the impression Pearl’s trying to lie low, probably because the Rylands are still after him.”

  Pearl and my adoptive dad had worked together on the police force over thirty years ago. He had recently gone to Brazil, trying to learn the truth behind my adoptive father’s death and the Rylands’ involvement in the drug trade. The Rylands had made it known that they wanted him dead.

  “If Pearl is alive, I guess that’s as close to good news as I’ve had for a while,” I said.

  Leo met my eyes and nodded. “There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you tonight.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I got a call from Joe Dawson earlier tonight. He said he would have called you with the news, but said something about your relationship being a bit strained.”

  Joe was an FBI agent, a friend who wanted to be more than friends. We’d recently parted ways, but on amicable terms, after he’d become involved with a criminal profiler named Eva Vasquez. He had subsequently ended that relationship, but I’d made it clear I didn’t want to be anything more than friends with him.

  “Joe and I have had our issues,” I said, not wanting to go into details. “What did he say?”

  “They found Harlan Ryland’s body in a hotel room in Phoenix. Apparently, he and Harlee were back in country and headed this way. It looks like he had a heart attack.”

  “And, what about Harlee?”

  “She’s in the wind. Joe thinks she might be coming after you.”

  TWO

  I spent another ten minutes with Leo, not getting any new information, but processing what he’d said about Harlee Ryland. The fact that Harlee had a personal vendetta against me was nothing new. She’d held me captive in the past and had come close to killing me, only letting me live because her grandfather had wanted to keep me alive for some reason.

  It felt like I’d spent months, watching my back, waiting for the Rylands to come after me again. Now, with the certain knowledge that Harlee was back in the country acting on her own, it only increased my anxiety. Would it always be like this, me waiting for the woman who was determined to kill me to come out of the shadows?

  When Leo and I got back to the hotel room, I asked Olivia how things were going with Earl Mumford.

  “He’s with the body, doing his preliminary exam and doesn’t want anybody present.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know about you, but the thought of that jerk working this crime scene feels wrong.”

  “You mean because our victim is so young?”

  “Maybe that’s part of it. It feels like she’s enduring a second violation with Mumford on the case.

  While we waited for the coroner to finish up, I asked the SID supervisor, Harry Dench, for his preliminary findings.

  “We didn’t find much before Mumford tossed us out,” Dench said. He was a small man in his fifties who had a habit of squinting over the top of his reading glasses. “Nothing obvious in the way of physical evidence, but we did take prints off the body and got a match.”

  Olivia had come over to us and asked, “Who is she?”

  Dench lowered his eyes, reading from his phone. “Anna Levkin, age nineteen. She has an AB60 license, with an address on Marlboro Street in Brentwood.”

  “What’s AB60?” Al asked, now joining the conversation with Leo.

  Leo explained, “It’s a driver’s license for individuals who can’t prove they have a legal presence in the country.”

  “She’s an undocumented alien.” Al looked at Olivia and me. “I believe we just established our victim’s profession.”

  “What’s that?” Olivia asked.

  “She’s a Russian working girl, probably on the circuit. Her pimp is likely on the street, wondering where she is.”

  What he’d said was possible. There had been an influx of prostitutes from Russian and the Ukraine in recent months. They often targeted wealthy johns, in some cases even marrying them and taking every cent they had, before moving on. Our victim was very young, so I wasn’t sure if she fit that profile.

  “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Olivia said. “If she is a working girl, why would she be living in Brentwood.”

  Al shrugged, his fleshy features lifting into a half-smile. “Maybe she has a sugar daddy.”

  Olivia released a long breath and walked away. I
followed her, going over to the balcony off the living room. The night was cool since it was still several hours before the sun would come up.

  “What do you think?” I asked Olivia.

  She looked at me. “I think Al’s a jerk, but he could be right.”

  “And the Brentwood address?”

  She looked at the darkened city. “I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t like it any more than I do.”

  Olivia looked back at me. “What’s that?”

  “The possibility that she’s a prostitute.”

  Olivia shook her head slowly, her gaze moving off again. “She’s just a baby.” Her breath came out in an audible gasp. “Sometimes I hate the world.”

  I moved closer so that I could squeeze her hand without the others seeing. “Me too. Children should be...” I stopped in mid-sentence, feeling her sense of hopelessness. “Never mind.”

  “Mumford’s finishing up,” Leo said, calling to us from inside the hotel room.

  We met with the deputy coroner in the living room. Mumford was a big guy in his forties, with oily skin and hair. I was surprised when he offered up some preliminary information without prompting. Maybe his superiors had persuaded him to work on his PR skills.

  “Your victim was strangled, sexually assaulted,” Mumford said. “We’ll do a complete work up, DNA analysis, nail scrapings, and colposcopy analysis when we do the autopsy.”

  Al, who had apparently had no prior dealings with Mumford, asked, “A copo what?”

  Mumford scowled at him. “Why don’t you come to the autopsy, so you can see for yourself.”

  Al was about to respond when I said, “What was the time of death?”

  Mumford heaved out a breath, probably in disgust, since we’d gone toe to toe on other occasions. “Four to six hours ago based on what I have now. I’ll know more when we cut.”

  He started to move off. So much for his PR skills.

  “What about the tattoo?” Olivia asked.

  Mumford looked back at her. “What about it?”

  “You ever seen anything like it?”

  “No.” He began packing up some supplies, then added, “Don’t know what it means, but it’s fresh.”

  Olivia took a step closer to him. “What do you mean?”

  “The wounds inflicted by the tattoo needle during penetration were perimortem, at or near the time of death.”

  “Meaning, the tattoo could have been done here, in the hotel room?” I asked.

  Mumford shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Thanks for sharing,” Olivia said, obviously upset that he hadn’t offered up information that was pertinent to our investigation without coaxing.

  Mumford didn’t look at her, but decided to offer up something else. “The penetration was anal.”

  I went over to him, standing next to Olivia. “Say again.”

  Mumford started at me, his face flushing. “The assault on your victim was forced anal penetration with a foreign object.”

  THREE

  “If I’m arrested for the murder of Earl Mumford, I want you to testify that is was justifiable homicide,” I told Olivia as we made our way downstairs in the elevator after the deputy coroner had left. We’d left Leo and Al behind to finish up with the SID staff.

  “I’ll be your material witness, providing I’m not in jail on the same charge.” Her voice kicked up a notch, her anger surfacing. “That asshole purposely withheld information, and only gave it up when we dragged it out of him.”

  We stopped in the lobby, where Bernie seemed enthralled by the pond full of fish. “I think it’s a power and control thing with him,” I said.

  “I don’t care what it is, I’m having a long conversation with his superiors. His behavior is unacceptable.”

  After we agreed to talk to Mumford’s supervisor together, we found Gerald Ramsey in an office behind the registration counter. The fussy little hotel manager fixed his eyes on Bernie and sneered. He then used his phone to call the hotel’s IT supervisor into the office.

  “This is Vicky Hart,” Ramsey said, when the security expert arrived. “She’ll show you our operations and assist with any video you’re interested in.”

  “I’m happy to help in any way I can,” Hart told us after introductions. She was an attractive woman, in her forties, but wore no makeup. I had the impression Ramsey had gotten her out of bed to assist us.

  Hart led us to an adjacent office where there was lots of computer equipment and monitors. After having us take seats on either side of her, she brought up security video that was divided into several grids on her monitor.

  “We have sixteen cameras located throughout the property,” she said, “so you’ll need to help me narrow things down.”

  “We’re looking for a young blonde woman who probably entered the building sometime in the past twelve hours,” Olivia said. “Let’s begin my scrolling through the video at the hotel entrance, then take things from there.”

  It took Hart about ten minutes to find our victim. She’d entered the hotel just after nine the previous night with a man wearing a ball cap and a dark jacket. They immediately went to the elevators, without stopping at the registration desk. It was impossible to identify the man from the video.

  “Do you have cameras in the elevators?” Olivia asked.

  Hart shook her head. “No, but we have cameras on every floor where the elevators stop.”

  “Let’s take a look at the twenty-first floor video from the same approximate time period,” I said.

  Hart did as requested. In a moment we saw our victim and the man get off the elevator. A second camera captured them walking down the hallway and stopping at the room that was now our crime scene. The man used a card reader on the lock. He looked back down the hallway before they entered the room.

  “There,” Olivia said. “Can you freeze and enlarge the image before they went into the room?”

  Hart scrolled back to the indicated segment and did her best to enlarge the image of the man. “It’s rather grainy, but it’s the best I can do.”

  Olivia and I studied the image for a couple minutes. The man looked like he was like he was under forty, with dark hair showing from the beneath the fringes of the ball cap. It was impossible to make out his eye color or any other features.

  “We’re going to need a download of everything we looked at,” I told Hart. “Maybe our technical experts can improve the image quality.”

  “No problem,” she said.

  Olivia said, “It’s apparent, from what we know, that the man had a card reader that gave him access to the room, but he didn’t check into the hotel. Do you know how that would be possible?”

  “Was the room rented by someone else?” Hart asked.

  Olivia shook her head. “A maid found our victim when she cleaned the room.”

  Hart nodded, maybe thinking things through before answering. “There’s a couple of possibilities, maybe more than that, actually. It could be that someone stole or convinced one of our staff to give up a control key. Those keys are used by service staff and open virtually any room in the building. There’s also the possibility that someone cloned an RFID card. Despite what you might think about the security of an upscale hotel like ours, there are deficiencies in virtually every aspect of the control system, including the cards, readers, and the backend software.”

  Olivia and I exchanged glances. Hart had been surprisingly forthcoming regarding her employer’s security problems, so I asked her, “Does it take a lot of technical expertise to clone an access card?”

  She smiled. “Unfortunately, no. You can buy what’s necessary on the Internet and even download it directly to your smartphone. It would only take a matter of a couple minutes to gain access to virtually any locked hotel room.”

  We thanked Hart for her help and asked her to forward a copy of the security video in question to CCU, our Computer Crimes Unit.

  As we walked away, I told Olivia, “Remind me to put move the dresser in front of
the door the next time I stay in a hotel.”

  “No kidding,” she said as we began making our say back upstairs. “But, based on what he know so far, my money’s on our suspect paying someone off for access to the hotel room.”

  I agreed. “We might need to divide up duties and interview staff one by one.”

  When we got back to the hotel room, we updated Leo and Al on what we’d learned. Leo then told us the latest on our victim.

  “We ran the name Anna Levkin through NCIC and the other criminal databases. Our victim had no record, but her address in Brentwood is a match to a Laura and Ben Allman. There’s also a marketing firm connected to the address, probably Allman’s business.”

  Al had come over and joined the conversation. “Believe it or not, I was able to get a hold of someone with Homeland Security. Our victim’s name came up on a J-1 visa. She’s originally from the city of Odessa in the Ukraine.”

  “What’s a J-1 visa?” Olivia asked.

  “It’s used for nannies and au pairs. It’s good for a year and pairs families with sponsors approved by the state department.”

  “Meaning, our victim was a nanny, working for the Allmans,” I said.

  Al scoffed. “An au pair and part-time working girl.

  “Something doesn’t add up,” Leo said. “If she’s in the country on a legal visa, why does she have a driver’s license for undocumented aliens?”

  Olivia’s eyes had been fixed on Al, obviously in disapproval. She finally broke eye contact and said to Leo, “Let’s go talk to the Allmans and find out.”

  THREE

  The sun was rising by the time we left the Crosby and drove to the Allman’s home in Brentwood with Leo and Al following us. The day was dawning clear and cool and there was very little traffic in the city, something extremely rare for Hollywood. The weather and road conditions did nothing to improve Olivia’s mood.

  “I feel like I spent my night with assholes,” she said as she drove us.