“That’s Roger Park’s trailer.”
She recalled the miniature spy-camera she had found hidden above the TV producer’s bed. Owing to the camera angle, the man’s face could not be seen, but a familiar blond ponytail, not to mention the locale, gave her a pretty good idea of who was co-starring in this particular video. From the looks of things, Park’s fetish for horror movies extended to his private life.
Talk about too hot for TV, she thought. Now if we can just get a good look at his face.
As if on cue, the couple rolled over in bed, so that the woman ended up on top. “Busted,” Catherine muttered as the camera caught the flushed, sweaty features of Roger Park. It was the first time she had ever seen him without his Bluetooth on his ear. More than ever, she was glad that she had turned down that consulting gig.
“Who is that? Park?” Nick asked. He had yet to meet the producer.
“In living color,” Catherine said.
“Or unliving,” Greg quipped.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “They both look pretty animated to me.”
On the screen, the woman started inching down Park’s body, heading south.
“Um,” Greg said. “If she wants to eat his brains, she’s going in the wrong direction.”
Catherine begged to differ. “Not where most guys are concerned. Okay . . . I think we get the gist of it.”
Eventually, a CSI was going to have to review the footage in its entirety, but at the moment she was inclined to delegate that chore to someone else. As a criminalist in 21st century Las Vegas, she had already seen more than enough sex tapes to last a lifetime. Even if this one was slightly more outré than most.
“Okay, that was just freaky,” Nick said as Archie hit the Pause key, freezing the image on the screen. “And not in a good way.”
Greg shrugged, affecting a seen-it-all attitude. “I don’t know. Some people like cosplay, you know?” He smirked at the screen.
“Way too much information,” Catherine said. She quickly turned the discussion back to the evidence. “What’s the story, Archie? She ever take that mask off?”
“I’m afraid not,” he replied. “And, yeah, I watched the whole thing, for which I deserve a day off.” He leaned back in his seat. “What do you think? Not exactly a smoking gun, but I thought you guys might be interested.”
“You thought right.” Catherine gazed at the frozen footage, which Matt Novak had been carrying on his keychain right up to the moment of his death. “Looks like prime blackmail material to me.”
Nick nodded in agreement. “Isn’t Park married to some big-time Hollywood executive?”
“Tricia Grantley,” Catherine confirmed. She had looked up Park’s A-list spouse after their last visit to his luxury trailer. “She heads the studio that bank-rolls his movies and TV shows.”
Nick pointed at the zombie girl. “You think that’s her?”
“Not a chance.” Catherine had seen Park’s wedding photo. “Ms. Grantley is a zaftig African-American woman.” She contemplated the masked white girl on the screen. “Wrong skin color. Wrong body type.”
“In that case,” Greg said, “does Park’s wife know about his extramarital grave-robbing?”
“I doubt it,” Catherine replied. The why of Matt Novak’s shooting seemed to be coming into focus at last. “No wonder Novak had been lording it around the set lately, and acting like he was a shoo-in to star in Park’s new TV series. He figured he had Park wrapped around his finger.”
“Or dangling on his keychain, to be precise,” Nick added.
Greg grinned in amusement. “How’s that for irony? He who lives by the hidden camera, gets screwed by the hidden camera.” The producer’s predicament was obvious to all concerned. “Park had a big problem.”
“Which definitely gives him an incentive to get Novak killed,” Catherine realized. “All he needed was the right scenario and a properly armed and jumpy patsy. Like Jill Wooten.”
“But why Jill?” Greg asked. “How did he find just the right unwitting accomplice for his scheme? Unless she was actually in on it all along?”
“That’s what we need to find out,” Catherine said. She looked at the masked zombie girl again. “It might help if we knew who she was.”
Nick ran through the possibilities. “Jill Wooten? Debra Lusky? Some anonymous casting couch cutie?”
Catherine squinted at the screen. “I don’t think that’s Jill’s body. She’s taller and curvier. Hard to say for sure, though, what with the odd angles and all.”
Unfortunately, the rubber mask covered the top of the woman’s head, including her hair. Catherine found herself wishing that the makeup in Zombie Heat hadn’t been so extensive.
“What about Debra Lusky?” Nick asked.
“Possibly,” Catherine said. “The woman in the video seems to be about the right size and weight.” She thought back to her interview with Jill’s former roommate, remembering a rather plain young woman who paled in comparison to her more glamorous friend. “Again, I can’t be positive. Needless to say, Debra was wearing a good deal more clothing the night I met her, and she didn’t have a naked producer on top of her at the time.” She tapped Archie on the shoulder. “You see any tattoos? Scars? Any other distinguishing marks.”
“Not that I recall,” he said. “But I can go through the footage more carefully if you like. Try to zoom in on some of the better shots of her.”
“Thanks.” Catherine appreciated his initiative. “Take it frame-by-frame if you have to.” A question occurred to her. “Just how long is the footage anyway?”
“Approximately twelve minutes,” Archie sighed. “Give or take a bit of kinky role-playing.”
That was a lot of frames, she realized, and Archie probably had some other cases backed up. She made an executive decision. “Greg, you take over examining the footage.”
“Me?” His face fell. Greg looked less than enthused at the prospect of poring over the entire tape in mind-numbing detail. Not that she could blame him; twelve minutes of slow-motion, freeze-framed zombie sex sounded like a surefire recipe for eye-strain, not to mention a certain loss of appetite. “What did I ever do to you?”
Nick snickered and slapped Greg on the back. “Have fun, pal.”
Despite his brief attitude, Greg knew better than to try to weasel out of the assignment. Catherine was the supervisor now. She called the shots.
“Keep me posted,” she told him. Exiting the lab, she took one last look at the macabre tryst on the screen. “I want to know who that horny zombie is.”
Nick chuckled as he followed her out the door. “I can’t believe you actually just said that.”
“Neither can I,” she said.
20
FANG WAS NOT his real name.
Ted Santana lived in a trailer park outside Henderson, an industrial town a few miles southeast of the glitz and glamor of Sin City. The low-rent ambience of the park could not have been more different from the upscale environs of The Nile. Rusty mobile homes, in varying states of repair, squatted along both sides of blacktop roads. Drying laundry hung on clotheslines. Barbecue grills, toys, and cheap plastic playground equipment littered the patchy brown lawns. Weeds and potholes infested the pavement. Santana’s neighbors eyed Sara and Vartann with myriad combinations of curiosity and suspicion. Laughing toddlers splashed in a blue plastic wading pool, oblivious to the strangers’ arrival. A chained mutt growled at Sara, who remembered investigating a murder-suicide here a few years back. She doubted that Rita Segura had ever set foot in the vicinity.
“There he is,” Vartann said, leading the way. The park’s manager, not wanting trouble, had told them where to find Fang Santana. It was mid-afternoon and the temperature had climbed into the mid-fifties. Sara was starting to forget what sleep felt like.
Their target was already in the system, due to a prior conviction for selling dangerous reptiles over the internet, but he would have been easy to spot even if Sara hadn’t already eyeballed his mug shots
. The black-market snake dealer was a walking advertisement for his wares. His shaved cranium had a distinctly serpentine cast to it. A snakeskin vest exposed a smooth, hairless chest. A curved fang hung like a pendant from his neck. Bony rattles were strung around his wrist as a bracelet. A bad case of eczema made his skin dry and scaly. Torn jeans and alligator boots completed his ensemble. Frown lines made him look older than his thirty-plus years. Old bite marks scarred his bare arms.
Talk about overkill, Sara thought, getting a nasty vibe from the guy. No wonder LaReue didn’t want to get on his bad side.
Santana was seated on the steps outside his trailer, entertaining a couple of teenage girls who were way too young for him. The girls acted both repelled and fascinated by the banded milk snake Santana was handling for their amusement. They squealed in delighted horror as he extended the snake’s narrow head toward them. A forked tongue flicked in and out of its jaws.
“Go ahead,” Santana urged the teens. “Touch it. You know you want to.”
Ick, Sara thought. Looks like we got here just in time.
Intent on his performance, he didn’t notice Sara and Vartann until they were practically in front of him. The detective’s shadow fell over him. “Mr. Santana?”
“Who wants to know?” He glared up at the new arrivals, annoyed at the interruption. Novelty contact lenses gave him yellow eyes with slitted pupils. A lisp impeded his speech.
Vartann produced his badge. “LVPD. We’d like to ask you some questions.”
The girls evaporated at the sight of the badge. Santana scowled at their departure. He rose angrily to his feet. “What’s this all about?”
“Coral snakes,” Sara said. “You sold any lately?”
“Without a license?” Santana feigned shock at the very notion. “Why, that would be illegal!” He leered at Sara, undressing her with his eyes. “And you are?”
“Sara Sidle,” she replied coldly. “I’m with the crime lab.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sssara Sssidle.” He drew out the sibilants in her name. A forked tongue flicked into view, revealing the source of his lisp. His breath reeked. “Want to play Eve and the Serpent sometime? Maybe take a bite of my apple?”
“No thanks.” She found his bisected tongue more repulsive than shocking. She knew of several tattoo parlors in the city that performed the procedure, which involved a red-hot wire and an excess of bad judgment. “Too wormy for me.”
He shrugged. Lifting the snake to his lips, he kissed it on the mouth. “Don’t know what you’re missing, babe.”
“That’s enough,” Vartann growled. “Save the sideshow act for the jailbait.” He got in Santana’s face, standing at least three inches taller than the alleged snake dealer. “You dealing in hot snakes again?”
“Like I’d really tell you if I was,” Santana hissed, not backing down. “I’ve checked in with my probation officer this month, right on schedule. You’ve got no right to hassle me.”
Vartann rapped the corrugated metal wall of Santana’s trailer. “And if I checked out your digs here, I wouldn’t find any illegal reptiles?”
“You got a warrant?”
That would certainly make life easier, Sara thought. Unfortunately, even with Santana’s record, there was no way a judge was going to issue a warrant based on a vague tip from an unproven informant. Chip LaReue hadn’t even known for sure if Santana knew anything about the Nile incident.
“You’re a convicted felon on probation,” Vartann reminded him. “All I need is probable cause.” He peered at the brightly colored snake coiled around Santana’s arm. “Hey, Sidle. That look like a coral snake to you?”
Sara played along. “Could be.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” Santana protested. “It’s a harmless milk snake, perfectly legal.” He held out the snake for their inspection. “Look at the bands. You know how it goes, ‘red on black, pat it on the back.’”
“I don’t know,” Sara hedged. “That only applies to North America. For all we know, that could be some exotic coral snake from overseas or south of the border.” She called Vartann’s attention to the carefree children in the wading pool. “Lots of kids in this park. A loose snake could pose a major threat to innocent lives. If there’s even a chance our friend here is in possession of dangerous reptiles, seems to me that’s grounds for immediate action.”
To be honest, she wasn’t sure that argument would hold up in court, but Santana was already on probation. All they needed now was an excuse to turn up the heat . . . and see just how cold-blooded Santana actually was.
“Works for me.” Vartann pulled his best cop face on Santana. “So what’s it going to be? We going to do this the easy way or not?” He tapped his jacket pocket. “Just for the record, I have your probation officer on speed-dial.”
If he’d been a cobra, Santana would have been spitting poison by now. Deprived of that option, he had no choice but to give ground. “Fine,” he snarled. “It’s no skin off my nose.” He stepped aside to give them access to the trailer’s front door. He held onto his pet snake like it was a security blanket. “See for yourself. I’m clean.”
“Maybe later,” Sara said. “First, I think we’ll check out your other trailer.”
Santana’s cocky attitude wilted a little. “Other?”
“C’mon, Ted,” she said, rubbing in his real name a little. “You think we didn’t check with the park’s management first? We know you’re paying rent on two spaces.” She savored his obvious discomfort as she confronted him with the fruits of their homework. “You trying to hoodwink your probation officer, in case she drops by for an unannounced visit, or are you just afraid to sleep under the same roof as your venomous contraband?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blustered, but she could tell that they had him on the ropes. He nervously toyed with the milk snake. “You can’t do this!”
“Watch us,” Vartann said.
The detective stayed close to Santana as they escorted him across the park to a second trailer three lots away. A rusty old Shasta travel trailer rested in the middle of an untended lawn. Its white aluminum exterior looked like it hadn’t been washed since the Clinton Administration. Cardboard was taped up over the windows. A KEEP OUT sign discouraged nosy neighbors. A sheet was draped over a box by the steps. Sharp little squeaks escaped the sheet. Sara yanked the sheet away to reveal a cage full of live mice, resting atop a plastic milk carton. The mice scurried away from the disturbance.
“Dinner for some scaly friends?” she guessed.
Santana glowered balefully. “No law against keeping mice.”
“Maybe.” Vartann took hold of the suspect’s arm, in case he tried to make a break for it. “But let’s see what else you’re keeping.”
By now, a small crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings. “Wonder what your neighbors would think if they knew you might be keeping poisonous snakes this close to their kids?” Sara didn’t bother keeping her voice low. Angry mutters emerged from the crowd. “If I were you, I wouldn’t count on them to back you up.”
She tried the door, only to find it locked. Vartann frisked Santana for the key and handed it to Sara. Leaving the detective (and the surly residents) to keep watch over Santana, she entered the trailer. The cardboard over the windows kept out the daylight, so she resorted to a flashlight. The beam from the flash swept over the cramped, shadowy interior.
It was obvious at a glance that nothing human lived in the extra trailer. The furnishings had been gutted to make room for a wall of metal racks supporting rows of large, plastic containers. The bins were piled on the racks all the way up to the fiber-glass and particle board ceiling. Coiled snakes slithered inside the bins, which had been labeled by a magic marker. Sara scanned the labels, which were practically a who’s who of hot reptiles: sidewinders, green mambas, Gila monsters, cobras, rattlers . . . and coral snakes.
In no hurry to check out the contents of the bins herself, Sara decided to take the labels at thei
r word. Emerging back into the sunlight, she gave Vartann a thumbs-up. “Notify Animal Control that we have a situation here,” she informed him. “Multiple situations, in fact.”
Santana looked around anxiously, as if contemplating an escape attempt, only to find himself surrounded by a sea of hostile faces. Even if he managed to break free from Vartann’s grip, he wasn’t going to get far. In fact, judging from his irate neighbors, he was probably better off in police custody.
I think this is one snake we can handle ourselves, she thought.
She carefully locked the trailer door before rejoining Vartann. She took the milk snake off Santana’s hands while Vartann cuffed him and read him his rights. “Theodore Santana, you’re under arrest for possession of illegal venomous reptiles, possibly with intent to sell.”
Assuming a judge didn’t throw the evidence out, he was looking at up to five years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for each charge against him. At the very least, he was in clear violation of his probation.
“Not to mention accessory to an attempted homicide,” Sara added.
“What the hell?” Santana said. “Where you’d get that from?”
Sara played a hunch. “We can run the DNA on those coral snakes. If they’re related to this other snake we confiscated recently, one that attacked a woman near Summerlin a few days ago, you could be in even bigger trouble than you already are.”
“Holy crap,” Santana swore. He was shaking so hard his bracelet rattled. Slitted eyes pleaded for mercy. “Hey, maybe we can make a deal or something?”