2 Sisters Detective Agency(25)

“…of the eighteen-year-old has not yet been ruled a homicide, but LAPD officers have issued an urgent call for witnesses who might have seen a white van in the area of Trousdale Estates.”

“Trousdale Estates,” Baby said. “That’s in Beverly Hills.”

“White van,” I said, turning up the radio.





Chapter 29



It was the moments before the raids that Vera liked the most. When all the preparation had been done, when she had run the choreography through in her mind a hundred times and had nothing more to do than enjoy the beautiful dance as it began on the stage.

Vera had recognized the same electric excitement in her father and his friends on the nights he held meetings beside the pool at their lavish home. Vera wasn’t stupid. She’d known from age thirteen that her father was in the Russian mob and those meetings were probably about killing someone. Those were the only times when a bunch of guys ever got together so quietly, without drinks, without food, without women. She’d watch from her bedroom on the second floor, but never heard anything. She just knew. It was the whites of their eyes, their heads bent close together, mouths working fast as a plan was formed. A week later, there was always a funeral. Big floral wreaths and lots of serious handshakes.

The whites of their eyes. Ashton’s were big and almost blue against his dark pupils in the night. They were gathered at the back of Vera’s car in the dark beneath a huge oak tree as she handed out the voice-distorting mouthpieces, which they pulled over their heads and tightened with straps behind their ears like gas masks. They always distorted their voices when they hit the house of someone they knew.

“Where’s Benzo?” Vera asked, switching on her headpiece. Her voice came out deep and robotic. “Did anyone get an answer yet?”

“He probably just forgot,” Penny said. “Benzo’s been sweating over some stupid yacht he’s trying to buy from up in San Fran. I told him two yachts is enough for anybody, but he wouldn’t listen. Nobody ever listens to me.”

“What?” Sean nudged her. Penny slapped at him.

“He’s never missed a Crew meeting before,” Ashton said. “And he always answers. I think we should abort. This isn’t right. And hitting one of our teachers? It’s too risky right now. It’s too close to home, and with everything that’s been—”

“We’re not aborting,” Vera snapped. The other three watched her, eyes bugging. “I’ve been looking forward to this one. We’ve done all the research. If Benzo misses out, that’s his fault. Bitch needs to learn how to set an alarm.”

“Yeah, let’s do this.” Penny high-fived her twin brother. “I’ve been ready to hit that smart-ass prick Mr. Newcombe forever.”

Vera pulled a skull mask over her mouthpiece and tightened the straps on the wrists of her gloves. The excitement was hammering in her now, a hot, heavy thumping of her heart behind her ribs. Her Midnight Crew had hit twelve homes, and the raids were always good—but they were even better when she picked the target.

Vera’s science teacher, Mr. Newcombe, was constantly dropping hints that he knew about Vera’s father. Asking if Vera’s dad had any tattoos, if that old Viggo Mortensen movie Eastern Promises was accurate. A couple of months earlier, Mr. Newcombe had been reading a newspaper while the class worked through exercises from their textbooks. On the front page had been a story about a cocaine shipment arrest at LAX linked to the Russians.

“How are things at home, Vera?” he’d asked, grinning, flipping the page of the newspaper suggestively.

Vera didn’t know if the teacher wanted to be a part of her father’s world or if he was simply lording over her that he knew about her criminal family. Whatever the case, she didn’t like it. She had the feeling Mr. Newcombe wanted her to feel small. She’d known teachers like him before, men who’d been picked on in school and who now spent their days punishing the popular and powerful kids in their classes as revenge. Vera was going to make him feel small that night. She was going to make him feel like the lowliest of creatures.





Chapter 30



They turned onto Mr. Newcombe’s street and approached his home. Vera nodded to Sean as he clipped the wires on the neighbor’s surveillance camera, so the device wouldn’t catch them going in. Ashton and Penny were breathing hard, making their voice-distorting devices growl quietly. Vera led them down the side of the teacher’s house to the back porch, where Ashton set up a mobile jammer on the railing to block the signals of any devices on both floors of the house. Vera took the key she had copied from Mr. Newcombe’s set, which he regularly left on his desk in the classroom throughout lunch, and slipped it into the lock of the back door.

This wasn’t like the jobs they’d done in rich suburbs like Palos Verdes or Brentwood, where they’d had to overcome security patrols, infrared cameras, guard dogs. Darrel Newcombe’s teacher’s salary provided locks on the doors and not much else. Their biggest obstacle had been ensuring Newcombe’s neighbors on all sides would be out on the night of their entry, so no one would hear their activities and call the cops. Having each household coincidentally win tickets to a one-night-only performance by Neil Diamond at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre had taken care of that.

The house was dim and silent. Ambient light that would usually have been generated by electronics was gone, but Vera had cut school the day before and taken a tour of the man’s house, memorizing the path to the stairs. She’d stopped to look at a framed photograph of Newcombe and his boyfriend on a skiing trip in Austria on the walk up the stairs. She tapped it gently as she passed now.