We started with the next closest sex worker. “Good evening, I’m Andrea Bachman—Serendipity when I’m turning tricks—and I’m a private investigator looking for a missing person.”
I received from them a polite and well-advised “No thanks, I don’t talk to the authorities without a lawyer.”
((Well. Shit. Being a sex worker isn’t enough to gain their trust.)) “That’s—well, that’s a very good policy. And I hope you never have to talk to the cops. But I’m not a cop anymore.”
“And why should I believe you?”
Shosh helpfully suggested, “Tell her we’ll turn her in for being complicit in the kidnapping after the fact unless she becomes a believer in the next few seconds.”
“Um. So—if you don’t believe me, you should… consider… that I could…” I stuttered and trailed off. ((Is intimidation really the right technique?))
Judith, on the other hand, pointed out with a whisper, “(Now’s the time to apologize for being a cop.)”
“(—Uh)—You should consider that—I could—that if you don’t believe me, then you—then, well, that’s fine, that’s your right, and you have—you don’t have any reason to trust me, so that makes sense, you’d be crazy to trust me. All I can say is… I regret that decade of being a… pig. The department is abusive and hateful. I would—never go back there, even if—if I—even if I wanted to. And I don’t—want to. Nothing could ever make me go back there. I’m done with being a cop. Never should have joined the force in the first place. Bad people, bad institution. I’m trying to make up for my organization’s abusive behavior—that maybe I didn’t participate in, but I failed to fight. I’m trying to save Alexander Brookvale to prove to everyone that—that I regret what I did do and what I didn’t do, and to prove that I’m not a bad person—anymore. Well, I’m trying to stop being a bad person. But I can’t do the good things I want to do unless I have your testimony. Please. I need your help. I… can’t prove… that I’m a decent person… without it. At this point, all I can do is beg, and that’ll probably just annoy you, or make things awkward, or make you despise me even more. So… um… yeah. I’m—gonna shut up, now. Th-thank you… for listening.”
They considered me for a moment, first with pity, then with a more skeptical eye, then with beneficent acquiescence.
A red F-150 circa 2015 pulled up. “How much?” called out the driver.
“I’m busy,” replied my interviewee.
“Are you shitting me?”
“We’re having an important conversation, please wait.”
“I don’t have all night, whore.”
“5 minutes.”
“It’s now or never, lady.”
“5 minutes or no deal,” they replied firmly.
“Fuck you, bitch,” replied the would-be john as they shifted into drive and moved on.
The sex worker sighed. “Alright. I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Thank you. You didn’t have to turn down business for me.”
“I turned it down for Alex.”
I smiled. “He’ll appreciate your sacrifice.” They gave me everything they could—which was just about nothing—but I had their trust, and that’s what mattered in the long term. I asked for their name, and they reluctantly told me, “Lisa… Harris.”
From the moment the next sex worker stepped out of their john’s white 2021-ish Honda Civic and asked me suspectfully how they could be of assistance to me, the next interview went rather more smoothly—I opened with an apology for having been a cop and not doing anything to fight the system, and they agreed to hear me out. “Did you see Alex the morning of Wednesday the 10th?” I asked them.
“No.”
I sighed. “Another ‘no’. Alright. That’s all. Thank you for your help.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
“He was kinda worthless,” remarked Shosh.
I nodded solemnly. “They can’t all be winners.”
“Andy, can’t you think of anything else to ask him? Any way he can help us?”
“No. But—well, people not seeing Alex tells us he might possibly have been hidden somewhere nearby before the meeting was interrupted. If everyone else has the same answer, we can safely assume that was the case. So… Thank you, friend. You may feel like you didn’t help, but you did. In fact, you made a valuable contribution to our investigation.”
“She’s right,” added Judith. “Any honest answer, even an ‘I don’t know’, is another piece of the puzzle.”
“Oh, come on,” groaned Shosh. “He didn’t tell you shit.”
“Judith’s right. ‘I don’t know’ still tells us something worth knowing.” I concluded the interview with, “Thank you. Seriously,” along with a smile pale with disappointment and germinating resignation. “I guess… if I can think of anything else to ask you… could I have your name?”
“Well, I already have an arrest record, and if you were Vice you’d already know everything there is to know about me anyway, so there’s no point in not sharing. Paulo. Paulo Rodriguez.”
“Thank you, Paulo.” I offered my hand.
They hesitated but accepted my handshake. “Anything for Alex.”
I nodded and smiled warmly. “That’s the spirit, Paulo. Have a profitable and peaceful night.”
The next several interviews—with Frederica, Joaquin, Lola, Sandra, Antonia, and Charlotte—proceeded with much the same results. However… as my desperation—climbing slowly, step by step—approached its unbearable peak, I finally—with smothered exasperation—clarified to one of the workers that Alexander Brookvale would have shown up between about 9:10 and 9:51—and I was reminded, “There was a raid on the hotel.” They then helpfully explained, in vivid and intricate detail, “I didn’t see him amidst the chaos.”
In that moment, as I approached my breaking point, my desperation and frustration planted within my brain a pseudo-epiphany. “He might have been on his way, tried to run from the raid… only to get lost in the chaos… and then was taken!”
“Okay, so, like… that’s a possibility,” said Judith doubtfully. “But remember: he froze about 5 minutes before the raid started, and the GPS was never inside the building. He was definitely outside the hotel when he was kidnapped, and I think he would have seen the raid coming and would have run if he was able to.”
“Yeah. Hm. And he sprinted and stopped 5 minutes before they arrived on the scene, which means he could have—for reasons I can’t imagine—could have abandoned his backpack and gone into the hotel before the raid.”
Her sidelong glance made her concern clear. “And… we both remember that… y’know… nobody at the meeting saw him. So we know that was not the case.”
“Ye—es. Right. Of course. I knew that. Him going inside definitely makes no sense. He had to be outside during the raid. Obviously.” ((How do I make it sound like my dumbass thought was actually me being smart…?)) “I was just… exploring our mystery… (um…) via the Socratic method.” I had read the phrase Socratic method mentioned in online discussions about Columbo, so I figured that—whatever it was—it was something that smart detectives used.
She nodded and smiled. “Oh, of course that’s what you were doing, obviously! That was a textbook example of the Socratic method if I’ve ever seen one. Very smart of you to use that investigatory technique. Very smart. Anyways… if he was outside—and free—in the minutes leading up to the raid, he must have fled into a nearby building before they could catch him.”
“Maybe… maybe. That might be when he was abducted. ‘Which building?’ is the next question.”
“How much time would he have had to react?”
“So—the police would have been out of their vans and inside the building without delay as soon as their wheels had stopped spinning—to make the best of the element of surprise—in 60 seconds or less. So the very earliest they would have arrived would have been 9:14. He would’ve seen them coming, though there would have been only about 5, maybe 10 seconds from the moment the police vehicles turned the corner to the moment their doors flew open, and the raid cops probably would have grabbed him as soon as the first boots hit the ground, so…”
She looked up and down the street, from property to property, which were for the most part vacant. “COVID wiped out a lot of businesses in the neighborhood—I don’t think there’s anywhere safe he could have made it to in just 10 seconds. Unless he was already hanging out inside the Sunrise-to-Sunrise convenience store all the way at the end of the block for coffee and a donut—but that’s doubtful.”
I huffed. “Good point; taking a detour for a coffee break when he was already running late to the meeting would be a little odd. Hm. Then there’s the question of what they would have done with him after grabbing him—theoretically, he would have ended up in one of the same paddy wagons they were loading the sex workers into before ending up in a cell, making his phone call, posting bail, and going home. And nobody saw him in any of those places.”
“Square one.”
“Yep.”
We resumed going up and down the block interviewing sex workers—this batch being Ximena, Eduardo, Felicia, Carmen, Olivia, Maria, Gilda, Elena, and Isabella. To our established routine Judith added, “Did you see anybody who resembled Alex?”
“No.” “Nope.” “Nobody who looked anything like him.” Interview after interview, no one had spotted even his doppelgänger.
Until—
“I saw a man in the back of a car who might, might have been him, right in front of the steps of the hotel.” I did my best to remain calm as they spilled sentence after sentence of beautiful information. “I barely got a look at the person’s face, the tint on the windows was almost black.”
“Could you pinpoint the time?”
“In the beginning I tried to hide in the broom closet, but the jackboots found me in just a few minutes. I think I musta been the last person they pulled outta the hotel—9:20-ish, maybe 9:25.”
“Did you see what happened to him after that?”
“Nah, I barely saw whoever it was for a second or two. They rushed me down the sidewalk past the car and threw me in a van.” My excitement leveled off.
“Alright. Were there any other occupants in the car?”
“I could just barely make out a driver and front passenger.”
((Yes…!)) “Did you get a good look at them?”
“Like I said, the windows were tinted. I’m not even sure the person in the back seat was actually Alex.”
“But you think it was probably him.”
“Maybe.”
“Would you say ‘more likely than not’?”
“Flip a quarter and cross your fingers it lands on its edge.”
“Oh.” ((Well. Fuck me.))
While I moped in defeat, Judith asked them, “Do you remember any part of the license plate?”
“Well, I caught the last four numbers when I broke loose for a moment, halfway to the van: 8801. I was so far away I could barely read it, and I couldn’t tell you the state.”
I smiled wide as I was lifted high once again by a gust of good fortune, and the little hairs on my back and forearms prickled pleasantly. I logged the string of digits inside my mental automobile database. ((All I need is someone willing to do a plate search, and this case will be half-solved.)) “Just to be clear, was it a car-car, or an SUV, a truck, something else?”
“Car-car.”
“Do you remember the make, model, and color?”
“It was blue.”
“And the model?”
“Cars all look the same to me.”
“Manufacturer, at least?”
“Like I said, they all look the same.”
“They… don’t all look the same, though. They all look unique.”
“They all look the same to me.”
“She has no taste for automobiles,” scoffed Shosh. “Probably couldn’t tell a tailpipe from her own asshole.”
I sighed. “Yeah. And it’s annoying and it’s making my job harder. Friend, could you describe the car?”
They rolled their eyes. “It had windows and wheels. Like I said, they all look the same.”
I grunted. “Can you give me any details? The hubcaps or the grille emblem or hood ornament?”
They stared.
“Do you… know what I’m talking about?”
“No. You yourself admitted that cars all look the same and that it’s making your job harder.”
Hoping to vindicate my frustration, I looked to Judith for reassurance.
“What’s up?”
“Did I really say that cars all look the same?”
“You agreed with her to that effect and even admitted, ‘It’s making my job harder.’”
I groaned. “No, I was talking to—” I caught myself, hesitated, and course-corrected. “Ugh. Never mind. This investigation is a God damn disast—”
“(Shhh…)” Before my tirade could turn any sourer she shushed me and pulled me aside. “What’s bothering you?”
I explained, quietly. “We have gathered next to nothing from interviewing these people, and I am at my wits’ end… At this rate, we’re never gonna find him.”
She gently reminded me, “Being a detective is hard work, Andy. You gotta keep going, even when it feels like your wheels are spinning in the mud. Keep asking questions, leave no stone unturned. Don’t stop until you’ve accounted for every possibility. As the Master Sleuth himself once said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ So, go on, eliminate the impossible.”
“Columbo never said that.”
“(Ah. Ummm…) I wasn’t… quoting… Columbo. I was quoting Sherlock Holmes.”
“Oh. Different ‘master sleuth’,” I replied with disdain. “That’s why I didn’t recognize it.”
She had no words.
“Judith?”
“Just out of curiosity… What’s your favorite Sherlock story?”
“I don’t have one—I’m not a fan, to put it gently.”
“Okay. Uh. When’s the last time you read Doyle?”
“Who’s Doyle?”
She cocked her head. “Sir Arthur… Conan… Doyle?”
“Okay, but who is that?”
She stared for a moment before replying, “The man who created Sherlock. Poe pioneered the mystery, Doyle perfected it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the biggest name in the genre. You hafta be familiar with some of his work.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, I gave Cumberbatch and Freeman’s genius performance a go, but I gave up after a whole season of their queerbaiting tango led us to nothing; I would hardly call the main character a ‘master sleuth’. It wasn’t very good in my opinion—don’t tell the Superwholockians I said that—so I never understood why people make such a big deal about the books.”
“You haven’t read any Sherlock Holmes stories… because you didn’t like the shitty BBC show or its interpretation of Holmes and Watson.”
“Yes. The way Doyle wrote that show…” I shook my head. “It was more about action and flashy visual effects and nonsensical melodrama and trying to make Sherlock look smart with cheesy mind palace animations and by withholding information from the viewer until the parlor room reveal to give the illusion of a mystery, rather than about actually presenting evidence to the viewer, to challenge them to solve the crimes—with their own theories and logic—alongside the hero, so that they feel like a junior detective shadowing an intelligent and complex protagonist instead of watching from a distance as some self-important know-it-all stumbles around the crime scene insulting people with half-baked attempts at wit. The audience’s participation in the mystery and anticipation of how the lieutenant is going to solve the mystery is what makes Columbo such a great show. Doyle could have learned a lot from Levinson and Link, and even more from studying Peter’s additions to the character.”
Her eyes detached their focus from the world and wandered lost as she retreated into thought.
“Is something wrong?”
“(…Didn’t like the BBC show…)”
“Judith?”
“(…So she’s never read the original books…)”
“Judith, are you okay?”
“(…She’s never read any Doyle…)”
“Why do you sound so worried?”
“(…A detective who hasn’t read Sherlock Holmes…)”
“Judith, please talk to me.”
“(…Thinks Doyle created the show, never heard of his books…)”
“Judith!”
She snapped out of it and—after a second of staring at me with a face that, aside from the pinch of horror in her brow, was blank as a fresh ream of copier paper—a smile broke across it. “The books and short stories are better than the 2010s BBC show. Way better than the BBC adaptation. You should read them.”
“I’m not much of a reader.”
“That can be fixed, just like everything else. We can read together. We can go to the library sometime. Call it a date.”
I shrugged. “Just One More Thing was romantic, why can’t detective books be romantic, too?”
“Good point. We’ll find you some mystery romances.”
“Raunchy ones?”
“Only the most tastelessly filthy.”
“Then I’ll give reading a try!”
After a few seconds of awkward silence, she asked, “Would you like to resume our investigation?”
Inspired by the logical wisdom imparted by my best friend and excited by our date plans, we tracked down our interviewee and I got back to our investigation by asking them, “Where were we? Ah! How many doors did the car have?”
“Four.”
((Excellent.)) “Do you recall what particular shade of blue it was?”
“Deep, kind of royal blue.”
“Great, great. Did you see it leave the scene?”
“No, I was in the van and on the way to the station before it left.”
“Could I get your name?”
“Uh.” They hesitated.
“You don’t have to tell me. Your testimony would be useful, but whether you make a statement now or testify later is entirely up to you.”
They gave my request some thought, then said, “If it puts the bastards in jail, I’ll show my face in court. Yoly Jimenez. Y-O-L-Y.”
I smiled warmly. “Thank you, Yoly. Your information is going to make a huge difference. I’ll try to find another way to sneak everything you’ve told me into the record so that you can stay out of it.”
“Thank God.”
“Wait, I just remembered—” I dug through my purse and pulled out 5 Jacksons and handed them over. “Ah, found ’em! Here.”
They accepted the money with some hesitation… and I felt a rush. I had to stifle a pleased gasp. “What’s this for?”
“For…” I said, struggling to catch my breath. “For providing information. Compensation for your efforts.”
They looked at me like I was a freak.
“You’ve really helped out my investigation, I want you to have it.” Really wanted them to have it.
“I can’t… accept this,” they said, handing it back. “It’s too weird. I’m already talking to a cop, I can’t accept a bribe from a cop.”
Frantically, I extended my palms in refusal. “Please, take it, you deserve a reward for your invaluable contributions to finding Alex. And you really have no reason to trust me with anything personal. This is the only way I can think of to express my gratitude for that trust, and to extend an olive branch to assure you I won’t stab you in the back. Please. You earned this. I want you to have it.”
“Alright… If you insist.” Pleasured that they had accepted my offering, I suppressed a sigh of satisfaction. They pocketed the money, and we parted ways.
Following Yoly’s critical testimony I asked the remainder about the royal blue car—Erin, Celia, Miranda, Valeria, Julia, Lucía, Alicia, Desiree, and Carlos—with only a handful remembering so much as spotting it in the corners of their eyes while being hauled to the paddy wagons or trying to escape, and fewer still having managed to seek refuge in Rene’s Liquor to notice it abiding amid the chaos, a sentinel impassively witnessing the mayhem of a one-sided but miraculously bloodless street brawl; even these had returned to their homes immediately following the conclusion of the raid, as soon as the last van departed and was out of sight, a few minutes before 9:30—and still the blue car remained as they left, immobile to the point of near-invisibility, impenetrable to the eyes, immune to analysis. In two words: an enigma. (That sentence would have sounded far more dramatic if only I could have said, ‘in one word’, but I couldn’t think of a way to word the answer so that it was just ‘enigma’.)
For the sake of thoroughness, I went back and asked each of them, ‘Was the meeting reconvened later?’
We received many variations on ‘no’. Judith suggested that I refrain from asking that question from then on but I insisted that there was a possibility that at least one of these people might have a new story to tell. After she tried to convince me (several times) that receiving contradictory testimony was extremely unlikely, I asked her not to tell me how to do my job. She nodded slowly and replied, “Whatever you say, boss.”
Next I would ask, ‘Could you tell me why not?’
Numerous answers along the lines of ‘We were locked out afterwards.’
‘Do you know why the hotel was locked?’
The answer was ‘no idea’ every time—until a single heavenly interviewee speculated, “My guess? New owners.”
I perked up at this new answer. “Oh? Is there a particular business or individual you suspect?”
“No fuckin’ clue, but I just can’t see another explanation.”
((Pursuing this lead is probably a waste of time… but my gut says to keep going.)) “Alright. So we’re looking at the possibility that someone bought a profitable business and just… shut it down without warning?”
“Right under our noses.”
((Who would buy that dump and be foolish enough to turn away the few regular customers willing to rent out rooms at probably inflated rates? This is pure speculation, so for the time being this rumor ought to take a back seat to the facts… but it’s interesting enough that I need to hear more.)) “When do you think they would have bought it?”
“I bet it was during the week, because all the hotel staff got termination letters telling them their last day was Wednesday. Hm. I think they got the letters the day before everything went to shit, so it might have been as late as when they sent the letters, unless they sent them before they made the purchase, knowing they’d own the place by the time they arrived.”
“That’s some very good reasoning. How did you find out about the letters?”
“I found out about the layoffs only after we tried to get back in, when I ran into Jodi—she was one of the staff who got swept up in the raid—and I asked her why it was locked, and she didn’t know anything ’cept that the owners had let everyone go.”
((Hmm. This theory might have something to it.)) “Do you know if anyone’s attempted to contact these possible new owners?”
“Nope. Like I said, I don’t know for certain who bought it—or even if that’s what actually went down. It really is just a hunch.”
“A hunch I will certainly look into. This could be big, so thank you for sharing your thoughts.” With bated anticipation I pulled out another hundred and presented it.
“Uh…”
“A reward. For helping me find Alex.”
“Okay…” They accepted the money; their reluctance did nothing to dampen the rush of paying an informant.
“Could I get your name? It isn’t mandatory, and I’ll do my best to avoid involving you in any trial that may come of this.”
“Ronnie Hernandez.”
“Thank you Ronnie.” I gave them a grateful smile as we departed.
“You’re doing great, Andy,” said Judith with a worried smile.
“Good work, Esti,” Shosh said, her discomfort still audible in her shaky voice and still visible in her awkward posture.
“Thank you,” I said in a bright, totally-not-sarcastic tone. “Your support has kept me going and all-in-all you’ve been a huge help.”
Shosh frowned, but kept her feelings to herself.
Judith, on the other hand, gave my hair an affectionate muss and pointed out, “You did most of the interviewing. And you did a great job. Very… thorough with the questioning.”
We wandered back to Yesenia and summarized our findings in hopes she might be able to fill in any gaps. “I think we might actually have enough to find him… assuming I can find somebody willing to run a license plate search for me.”
“You’re serious about this disappearance.” She sounded and looked genuinely mystified.
“Should I put on big shoes and white face makeup and a red rubber nose? It’s a missing person case, of course I’m taking it seriously.”
“A cop investing this much effort to find Alex would be… odd. You either sincerely mean to leave that life behind you, or you’re real damn good at undercover work.”
“As much as the idea of undercover work excites me, SOP for choosing operatives is to pick anybody besides the one redhead who every member of the organization being targeted for infiltration is going to recognize as a cop on-sight.”
“If by ‘SOP’ you mean common sense, I agree. My heart’s telling me not to trust you, and I must say my heart’s a pretty solid judge of character.” She shook her head. “But I’ve been following you at a distance, and you’ve been upfront with everyone, you’ve only asked for information relevant to your investigation, you haven’t tried to pry into their private or business lives, you haven’t attempted to coerce them into giving up anything sensitive about the guild or the meeting, you’ve left people alone if they told you they’re still not talking even after you’ve explained that you’re trying to find Alex—you have been respectful. And you aren’t breaking a sweat. A real pig would have struggled to sustain that level of civility for so long on this street.”
Hope filled my lungs, along with a healthy dose of disbelief. “So you’re saying I’m… not a cop?”
“You might not be. You don’t really act like one.”
I held back tears and the urge to wrap my arms around her as I asked, “Would you mind if I hugged you?”
She stared but said, “Um… Knock yourself out.”
I squeezed her tight-but-not-too-tight and tried not to cry as I asked, “Do you think I can be a good person?”
She gave my question thought, then said, “Perhaps?”
“‘Perhaps’ is good. It’s all I can ask for. Thank you.” I peeled myself off of her.
“And now that that is over… I’ve a bit of member-only info nobody’s supposed to share with you, because you’re still probationary. Do not speak of this to anyone who isn’t in the guild, you understand?” I nodded. “We had plans to purchase the Torrey Pines, then fix it up to run it as a co-op providing rooms free-of-charge to paying guild members. The closing was agreed upon at Wednesday’s meeting before the police raid interrupted the proceedings, but when we approached the real estate lawyer we’d retained to tell him to close the purchase, he told us that he was no longer representing us. The same thing happened with the bank we borrow from, and then the seller’s real estate agent straight up ignored us when we tried to get ahold of him. I don’t know whether our lawyer learned that the business we established for the purchase is a front for sex workers and got cold feet, or if he was aware and was planning to betray us all along.”
“Oh. Wow. That sucks. This really, really sucks. I imagine owning the hotel would have been a big help to the streetwalkers.”
“It would have been, and to nearly everybody else, as well. The hotel co-op project has been overwhelmingly popular among the escorts, webcam models, doms, pornographers, and streetwalkers—so that the final vote was near-unanimous, with just a handful of abstentions. I am certain that the deed would be in our possession had it not been snatched from us while we were putting the purchase to a vote.”
“I have a hunch… that this sniped purchase might be related to Alex’s disappearance—though I have no idea how… yet.”
She nodded, her eyes and brows lending the appearance of intrigue. “Y’know, I never made that connection. Very smart. You should see where that rabbit hole leads you, Miss Serendipity.”
“I certainly will. Anyways, thanks, Yesenia. You and your—” I smiled bashfully. “—our fellow sex workers have been a major help.”
While thanking her I thought she might correct my use of the word ‘our’, but she just said, “You’re… welcome, Sister Serendipity.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
She puffed her nose and considered her response carefully. “Ask, but bear in mind that I may not give you a satisfactory answer, or any answer at all.”
“If streetwalking is such a hard job, why do you do it?”
“It may surprise you to learn that there are advantages to working here. I have no boss, no agency to take a cut (just guild dues); I don’t need to confine my work to a brothel or follow the rules of a madam or an agency; I don’t need to give away my home address to johns; I have a hive of friends prepared to tail my ride to make sure I stay safe; I don’t need an escort agency to kick a new client my way when I lose a regular—there’s a constant flux of johns out here, as you can see by the hustle and bustle of our thoroughfare, most of them seeking nothing deeper than a blow job or some verbal intercourse to soothe the ache of loneliness—and… and this street is mine. I own it. We own it, this street belongs to us, whoever may own the Hotel Torrey Pines. The businesses on Adams all rely on us to bring them customers, the parking trolls…” She jabbed my shoulder playfully. “…rely on us to lure their victims across their bridges, the hotel… relied on us to fill its rooms. And when it reopens, it will still need us to stay afloat.”
“Wow. Thanks, that was educational. And I guess—if I do cave and decide to work here full-time—”
“I’d say it’s closer to part-time work. The hours are flexible, so I’ve been able to teach courses on the Bard and English Lit at a community college by day.”
“You’re a professor?”
“Yes, though you may be amused to learn that I make more off of streetwalking—I only kept my job as adjunct for the sake of feeding my scholastic passion for the English tongue.”
“Wow. That’s cool. Thank you. Where do you teach?”
“You’re welcome. Santa V Community.”
“I know where to go if I develop a taste for Shakespeare.” I winked and she smiled and shook her head.
“Adriana Valenzuela. I’d be happy to teach you.”
“She’s interested in Doyle,” interjected Judith. “I explained to her how he…” She cleared her throat. “How he wrote a lot of mystery novels and was extremely influential.”
“You… introduced her to Doyle.”
“Yes.”
“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“The Mystery Master himself.”
“She, a detective, had never heard of him.”
Judith shook her head, and Yesenia responded by slowly nodding hers. “She’s watched Columbo and the first season of BBC’s Sherlock,” explained Judith.
“I… see. Um. Andrea… How many Agatha Christie books have you read?”
“Who’s Agatha Christie?”
She grimaced. “Grisham?”
“Grish-what?”
“Raymond Chandler? He wrote The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely.”
“I’ve watched The Big Sleep, but I’ve never heard of Raymond Chandler. These are some very obscure screenwriters.”
“Have you read any mystery stories?”
“I’ve read the Columbo books.”
The two of them traded blank stares for a few seconds, then—with a smirk and a knowing look at Judith—Yesenia told me, “You will do fine, Andrea. I’m not gonna bother wishing you ‘good luck’ because you simply don’t need it. You are gonna blow this case wide open.” They both chuckled, Judith a little nervously.
“We sure will!” I confidently proclaimed. “Alright, Judith, I have another hunch—let’s check the front door to the hotel, on the off chance somebody unlocked it since the raid. There might be evidence in there.”
She shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
As we walked up the stairs of the Torrey Pines, Shosh—relaxing now that we were putting a little distance between us and the other sex workers—asked, “You ready to solve a mystery, Esti?”
“I am very ready to solve a mystery.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Judith before Shosh could respond.
“So fuckin’ ready.”
“Me, too!” exclaimed Judith.
“Go find him, Esti!”
The outside of the building looked about the same as always, though this was the closest I had ever been to it: brick and stone that had steadfastly endured a century of architectural progress. Though the paint had seen better decades, underneath the top layer the stone looked like it had been chiseled only yesterday, all but a few bricks still in place, and all the original glass was miraculously well-preserved. If someone scraped away the paint and slapped a new coat on and rid the building of the gaudy neon ‘vacancy’ sign so artlessly bolted to the front, there was nothing preventing that ancient hotel from becoming a lovely place to stay for a weekend… or a night… or an hour.
“Windows aren’t boarded up,” Judith noticed, “and the lights are still on, so it’s not like they’ve decided to condemn it.”
I checked the front door. “Locked.”
“Smash the glass,” suggested Shosh.
((People breaking the law to eke out a living freaks you out but of course you’re the first to propose breaking and entering… Death hasn’t changed you one iota, Shosh)). “I am not smashing any windows.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m not keen on damaging this place, either,” agreed Judith, “I respect it too much. It’s elegant, and has a forgotten prestige. Plus, we don’t know the guild won’t get the chance to buy this place after all. If we break anything, they might have to fix it. And these windows…” She tapped on one a few times, and it made a series of very full, very satisfying clinking noises that massaged my ears and tickled my scalp. “…look like they might’ve been made with some ancient craftsmanship that can’t be duplicated with modern techniques and technology.”
“All the more reason for me to respect the building’s integrity,” I added before tapping on the window several times to appreciate and derive pleasure from this new nerve-stimulating sound. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to rely on somebody getting close and whispering into my ear to cause the effect. I only needed to come to this hotel and tap on the window whenever I was in the mood to feel it. Eventually the effect plateaued, then began to lose its intensity. I gave up on the tapping and decided to try again later.
“If you aren’t willing to break a few eggs, your omelet is fucked,” concluded Shosh. “On the bright side, we can finally leave and never come back to this cursed hellho— Um, what is she doing?” Judith had retrieved a pair of metal probes from her purse and inserted them into the keyway of the lock.
“(Hey Judith, are you really—?)”
“Picking it.”
“Badass!” exclaimed Shosh.
“Sure, it might be ‘badass’, but… it’s also trespassing, which might get us in trouble.”
“Do you see any cops here?” asked Judith. “Besides yourself.”
“No,” I admitted, “but…”
“You’re a P.I., now, you should learn how to do this yourself. I’ll teach you if you want.”
“I would appreciate that, except… that’s a Horton.”
“It is. Very observant of you. What does it matter?”
“You’re not going to have enough room for your rake while attacking with the tensioner top of keyway. And Hortons usually have enough security pins that a rake isn’t gonna accomplish very much.”
“Oh, so you’re an expert? You’re full of surprises. Wanna give it a shot, show me what you’re made of?”
I shrugged and I took her tools and got to work.
“So. What motivated you to learn the art of lockpicking, Andy?”
“It’s a useful skill for detective work.” ((False set on four.)) “Sometimes you need to break into people’s homes.”
“Just fuggin’ break in? To plant bugs?”
“To execute warrants when nobody’s opening the door and you aren’t in the mood to kick it in.” ((Three’s good to go.))
“I see. Have you ever needed to pick a lock?”
“This is my first time picking a lock I don’t own.” ((Five’s good to go.)) “I never imagined I’d be breaking into a place without a warrant.” ((Gah. Three has a spool. I’ll try again later.))
“Where did you learn?”
“Self-taught.” ((Two is good.)) “I pick every lock I buy to check how secure it is.” ((One is good, now to take care of three.)) “How about you?”
“I apprenticed with a locksmith.”
“You wanted to be legit before you decided on a life of crime?”
She grinned. “Nope. Just pretended to.” I lowered the tension a little to reset pin three, then lifted it again; the tensioner turned a quarter of a circle and the latch receded. “I wanted to break into places and steal shit. Good job, that was quick.” I pulled the door open and handed back her tools, and with a few brazen steps forward, we broke the law.
“(Oh, where-oh-where did the sex workers meet?)” I sang quietly as we passed the front desk.
“There’s a wonderful room in this place to hold a meeting.” She led me to a large hall with very nice wooden tables, 8 times as many equally lovely wooden chairs, a medium-ish stage, and a podium, all laid out for a congregation of sex workers. “This is the Torrey Pines Grand Ballroom. The hotel was built in the spring of 1929, and up through October of that year they put on plays, held dances, and hosted gatherings in this hall. You can guess what happened at the end of the month; the property values on Adams tanked like they did everywhere else, giving pimps and drug dealers a haven where police were mostly uninterested in protecting the assets of the wealthy or the morals of the community, because both the wealthy and the community got the hell out of here. This room didn’t see another gathering for nearly a hundred years, but the Sex Workers Guild broke that streak when they began organizing, a month before election day.”
“Great. Welcome to Hooker HQ,” quipped Shosh.
I shushed her. Judith perked her ears up, listened every which way, then whisper-asked, “(Did you hear something?)”
“(No, did you?)” I whispered back.
“(No… but you shushed me, so I figured you did.)”
“Oh. No, it was meant for—” ((Shit, she can’t hear her, remember?)) “I mean, I had a sneeze.”
Immediately obvious were the sheets of copy paper scattered across the tables and floor like debris flung to the four winds by a tornado.
“Three guesses what these are,” I said.
We each picked one up. “Agendas.”
“And… just like Yesenia said, ‘co-op initiative’ is the first item.” I left mine where I found it rather than take it home and risk evidence from a potential crime scene being found at my home in a surprise police search, instead opting for securely filing a snapshot in my mental evidence locker. “Let’s check the front desk and office for records, maybe we’ll get lucky and find something.”
“I doubt it.”
“Do you have a better idea of where to go next?”
She shrugged. “Yer the boss.”
Her words nearly stole my breath. ((I’m the boss. I’m running a detective business, and she’s decided to be my partner—and she’s letting me be the boss.)) “I’m… the… boss.” Another reminder of what I was becoming, of the accomplishments I had to look forward to, bringing me close to the edge once more.
We checked the front desk for clues, and the only item of obvious interest was the guest log. “Ryan Ryanson, Jennifer Jenniferson, Sheldon Sheldonson,” I listed off, “I refuse to accept these are real guests.”
“Yeah, they’re quite fake. I knew they would be fake.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I didn’t want to question your leadership so soon into your career.”
I groaned in frustration. “Next time you know something that will save us from wasting time, please… tell me.”
“I don’t want to discourage you from following your hunches. You’re an ex-cop, and for all their flaws, cops are instilled with razor-sharp instincts.”
“‘Sharp instincts’? Really?”
She guffawed heartily and gave me a jolly slap on the shoulder. “Hell no! Cops have shitty instincts! They’re constantly fingering the wrong suspects, they think everyone is out to get them, they’re paranoid assholes.” She continued giggling.
Shosh was unamused, to say the least. To say more than the least, she was fuming.
“Don’t get worked up, it was just a joke,” I told her. She shook her head, unswayed. “It might have been at my expense, but it wasn’t directed at me.” Shosh continued to hold her tongue even as she continued to be ticked off.
Judith wiped tears from her eyes as she confessed, “You’re right. I’m sorry, Andy, I didn’t mean to insult you personally. Thank you for being a good sport. In the short time I’ve known you, I’ve learned that you’re one of the most trusting and compassionate people I’ve met, and so far I haven’t known you to jump to conclusions without compelling evidence. You’re nothing like other cops. Your hunches are actually useful.”
“Oh. Thank—thank you. It’s all in good fun.” I smiled and Shosh relaxed. She was still annoyed, but her protective wrath had melted away. My eyes wandered absent-mindedly as the compliment continued softly stroking my ego, before alighting upon an anomaly. “Judith, we need to check room 410.”
“We need to check all of the rooms.”
“The key for 410 is missing from its hook.”
“Oh. Shit. That was a smart observation. You… are good at this detective business.” My heart picked up the pace, I shivered as her compliment touched me in exactly the right spot.
Shosh smiled for the first time that evening, and echoed her, “She’s right. All those Columbo episodes are paying off.”
We found room 410 in a hurried instant. As we approached the door, cracked just an inch with no signs that it had been picked or forced, I smelled just a hint of… something. Something foul. I whispered, “Don’t touch the doorknob—actually, don’t touch any part of the door with your bare hands. Do you have gloves or a rag?”
“I have my handkerchief.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a lacy square of fabric. I noticed an embroidered monogram: ‘J.E.L.’
“That’s your handkerchief?”
“Yes. Why are you so surprised?”
“It’s a lot girlier than I would expect.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It was my aunt’s. Jacqueline Edith Lucas.”
“Well, it’ll do the job. Without touching the knob, open the door, but just enough for us to listen before we go in.”
She nudged the door gingerly, silently widening the crack just half an inch. We listened for any signs of life, but heard none. I smelled something bad, but not enough of the odor was being carried on the draught for me to pinpoint exactly what it was. She pushed the door the rest of the way open, and our noses were assaulted by a weak but nonetheless offensive stench. My stomach turned as I realized what it must be. “What is that… smell?” she asked.
“Gee, what smells like shit and turns up in sketchy hotel rooms?” asked Shosh.
“I think it’s pretty obvious,” I answered.
“I got COVID a year ago,” explained Judith. “Tested positive the day before my vaccine appointment. My sense of smell hasn’t been too good ever since.”
“That sucks, but my nose is functioning exceedingly well at the moment and it’s giving me a very good idea of what the mystery odor is.” And yet, as certain as my nose was… I needed to verify with my eyes. “But we can only confirm it visually. I would rather keep it a mystery, but…”
“Must needs go that the devil drives?”
“Um. I’m just gonna assume those are the words I was searching for. Let’s proceed. Remember, don’t touch anything, and look before you take a step.” We stepped over the threshold and discovered that the room was a honeymoon suite, and that the bed was hidden behind a privacy screen. “Here’s your last chance to not be grossed out.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It’s gonna be gross.” We crept around the screen, me first, then her. “Yep,” I murmured, my suspicions confirmed as I spotted the pile of clothes on the floor. “That’s… what I figured.”
I checked on Judith; she was staring in disgust at the abandoned shoes, soiled underwear, and stained jeans scattered on the pale Berber carpet.
The mystery of where Alex Brookvale had been at the time of his abduction was solved, and the rush of triumph being injected straight into my ego filled my head with fuzzy fantasies of future mysteries and left my skin softly glowing.
And the best part about the mystery I was solving? The missing person case had turned into an honest-to-goodness kidnapping… if not a thrilling murder.