“Yeah. I’m at home, just watchin’ Law and Order.”

“Oh god, not you.”

He chuckled. “Well, it’s escapism to me. So what cha got?”

“I know who killed Ladowski.”

He was silent for a moment. “Goddamn, you work fast. Okay, so hit me with it.”

Roan prefaced everything with the fact that there was much speculation on his part, and then went ahead and told him his theory. “What tipped it was Desiree’s job. Did you notice? She worked at the Social Security Administration.”

“A lot of people do.”

“Yeah, but just think what an identity thief could do with access to even a small portion of legitimate SSNs.”

“You think she was working with Ladowski?”

“I think she was intending to, or there was some attempt at blackmail. And I believe Mackey and Nelson were in on this as well. At some point, Jones had a change of heart - she didn’t want to do this, wouldn’t cooperate, whichever, and they were afraid to let her go because she might talk. One of them killed her and the group then split up, all running to different identities, which is why they all fell off the radar. I think murder freaked out Ladowski - and why not? He stole money and identity, not actual Human life - and he tried to start a more settled existence up here. But then his past caught up with him in the form of Randall Mackey. By the way, you can stop looking for Mackey.”

“Why?”

“He’s dead.”

There was a long pause. “Not according to the database.”

“That’s because his fingerprints were all burnt off, and Mackey never had a DNA sample taken. He died under the identity of Jeremy Halva, in a fireworks factory explosion almost three years ago.” After seeing Mackey’s mug shot, he thought he looked familiar, and going through the press clippings he’d saved on his computer about the explosion, he discovered that with a shave and a haircut and the addition of twenty pounds, he looked exactly like the AP photo of Halva. A closer look into the Halva identity eventually turned up discrepancies that showed the name to be false. It was unlikely his wife ever knew.

Hansen was silent again for a while, clearly mulling this over. “You sure that explosion was an accident?”

“No idea, and ultimately it doesn’t matter. Maybe he was trying to blackmail Ladowski, maybe they were attempting to run an insurance scam together, maybe it was just freakishly bad timing, but I’m certain Ladowski was planning to run before the explosion, probably due to Mackey. The factory explosion gave him a great excuse, but someone else knew what Mackey was up to, and that he had failed.”

“Nelson?”

“You got it. I’m fairly certain that Ladowski knew his days were numbered, that his old roommate/buddy, and possibly more, was on his trail, so he sent up the equivalent of a signal flare: he used a credit card in his real name. He probably figured he was flagged on a computer and the cops would be dispatched to find him as soon as possible. The problem is, that didn’t happen before Nelson found him.” That was probably also why he was carrying those cancelled credit cards in his coat - if the card in his own name failed to get attention, those other cards would, but he died before he could use them.

“More? Are you implying that Ladowski was gay?”

“I don’t know; I have no information on his sexuality at all. It could be that Nelson is just a psychopath. But I know that relationships gone wrong can cause some people to act spectacularly evil, way out of normal character for themselves.”

Hansen grunted an acknowledgement. “Yeah, I hear that. So Nelson killed him?”

“He must have.”

“If Ladowski was so freaked out, why didn’t he just turn himself in to police?”

“More speculation here. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do that - he didn’t have a good history with police - or he didn’t think Nelson’s threat was as great as the threat of Mackey. I think Nelson told Ladowski that Mackey killed Jones, when in fact it’s more probable that Nelson killed Jones.”

“And they made up the movie alibi to cover.”

“Which is another thing that led me to believe that their relationship might have been more than it was. Nelson had to have told Ladowski he needed an alibi. Wouldn’t that have struck him as funny?”

“Except he’s an ex con. He probably wouldn’t care.”

“Yes. And maybe he and Nelson had something they wanted to cover up anyways, beyond identity theft.”

“Oh.” Hansen paused again, thinking. “Damn. That kinda fits, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why’d he take all his stuff from the motel room?”

“Physical evidence? Or maybe because he’s a vindictive queen?”

Hansen chuckled, but it quickly died. This really wasn’t a laughing matter. “So we have to look for Nelson.”

“Which may be difficult, as he’s surely living under a different identity now. But I leave that up to the brilliant investigative skills of the LVPD.”

“You’re bowing out now?”

“I’ve discovered what I needed to know for my client.” Well, yes and no. But if a little wild speculation helped his client sleep at night, he wouldn’t knock it. “And I don’t work for you guys, even as a consultant.”

“Chickenshit.”

That made Roan laugh. “I wish you luck trying to explain this to your sergeant.”

He groaned. “Crap. I forgot about that.”

“Say a man matching Nelson’s description was seen at the motel the day of Ladowski’s death. That should help.”

He was silent for a long moment. “You want me to lie?”

“It won’t hold up in court, but all you need to do is get Nelson in the box. I bet if you lean heavily on the suspected relationship between him and Ladowski - or suggest one between Ladowski and Mackey - he’ll say something incriminating. Spurned lover or irrational psychopath, if you unbalance them a little, they have a tendency to completely collapse.”

He tsk-ed in sarcastic disapproval. “You give cops a bad name.”

“It’s why I’m not a cop anymore.”

“Fair enough.” He paused again, but this time it seemed more meaningful. “You really walking away from this one?”

“Have to. But if you want to keep me updated, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Leave me more work to do.”

“Exactly.”

He let Hansen go, and decided to veg out by watching television, trying not to chew over the story too much. While the Daily Show distracted him for a while, he kept coming back to it. He hoped he was wrong; he hoped Nelson was honestly just a psychopath. It’d be terrible for him to turn out gay. While hets had a far and away lead in the realm of killers, their sexuality was never brought up - if they were gay, it was, like it proved gay guys were fundamentally evil.

While he got ready for bed, he worked out the story he would tell Dalisay tomorrow, and left a message on her machine that he was going to drop by tomorrow to discuss a resolution to the case. He had it all worked out. The fact that most of it was speculation and well intentioned lies didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should have.

He slept fairly well, thanks to the beer and vicodin combination, and went out to eat breakfast, this time picking a spot other than Gracie’s, a coffee shop close to his office. He should have rethought that, as instead of being intercepted by Dylan, he was joined by Randi, who wanted to know what was going on with the Ladowski case.

He could have lied, but Roan didn’t honestly see the point. He told her of his conclusions on the case, and how there was probably a whole ugly sub-plot that they’d never know involving Ladowski, Mackey, Jones, and Nelson. Randi kept stealing bits of his croissant while he told the story, but then she applauded at the end. “Who needs to watch Mystery on PBS when they have you for a friend?” She asked.

He raised an eyebrow at that. “PBS still shows Mystery? Have you ever seen it?”

“Now I’m offended. Are you implying I’m an idiot?”

“No, but even I only watch PBS to see Red Dwarf.”

“Red Dwarf? Oh my god, Paris was right about you - you’re a big geek.” She made an L out of her forefinger and thumb and put it on her forehead, grinning almost maniacally.

He gave her a sarcastic scowl. “You know what it is, lady CPA. You’re a geek too.”

“Prove it.”

“You just made a PBS Mystery reference.”

“Aw fuck.” She went ahead and stole the rest of his croissant off his napkin. “By the way, geek boy, I hear there’s going to be some big hedonistic gay party on Saturday night, in some warehouse downtown.”

“I know, I’ve been hired as part of the security crew. How’d you hear about it?”

Her almond eyes fixed him with a caustic glare. There was just something about Randi that told you in school she was the “mathlete” who wasn’t picked on by the bullies because they were actually scared of her. She had the soul of a nerd and the personality of a Teamster. “You’re not my only gay friend, you know. So come on, invite me.”

“You don’t want to go.”

“The fuck I don’t.”

“Parties like that are fucking scary. Male sexuality unfettered can be frightening, and I’m saying that as a gay guy. You get a whole bunch of tweaking, horny guys in the same room, and fucking hell, it’s suddenly Thunderdome.”

“Since when do gay guys riot?” She teased.

“Stonewall.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Since then.”

“It’s an ugly scene. I wouldn’t be going if I wasn’t getting paid.”

“Chicken. It’s not like they’d be grabbing my ass.”

“True, but still, I’d rather you not be there. And actually there are gonna be guys there who really don‘t care what they fuck as long as it has legs: men, women, coffee tables. You want to avoid them.”

She smiled slyly, eyes brightening behind her red framed cat’s eye shaped glasses. “You’re gonna be cruisin’, huh?”

It was his turn to give her the evil look. “I will fucking not. I’m working, Randi.”

“It doesn’t take long …”

“I’m working. I don’t mix the two, and I wouldn’t there.”

She sat back with a resigned sigh, eating the last of his croissant. “Does this have something to do with that hot guy you’ve been seen with?”

He felt a twinge in his gut. “What are you talking about?”

She gestured at the window, as if that was supposed to mean something. “Some guys have mentioned that they’ve seen you with this smokin’ hot piece of ass. A built guy with brown hair, kinda young. Ring any bells?”

“He’s not … I’m not seeing him, all right? He’s just a friend.”

“Why? Go for him! You know Paris would be rootin’ for you.”

He did, but that didn’t make him feel any better. If anything, he suddenly felt very sick.

****

It went better at Dalisay’s than he could have hoped.

Roan told her that it was his belief that Vance ran because he wanted to protect her from his past, namely his past in the form of a violent ex-con named Randall Mackey. Roan told her that he believed that Vance was trying to start a new life and honestly loved her, which he’d written in the note. She cried while he told her all of this, but seemed satisfied by it, and he was glad, as Roan wasn’t sure exactly how full of shit he was. It was possible that Vance did love her, but frankly none of them would ever know the truth. He left no journal, no blog, no scraps of how he thought or what he felt - if he felt anything at all. Vance lived so many other people’s lives, he probably never had much of his own. And he’d probably been good with that.

He went home afterwards, aware he should get started on the Tolliver case, but he still felt exhausted and slightly sickened by having to lie to a client, and the possibility that he was lying to himself. It probably wouldn’t be the first time.

He tried to call Matt, as they hadn’t yet had the conversation he knew they needed to have, but he just got his machine. He left a message, and wondered if he’d ever bother to call him back.

Roan spent the day doing chores around the house, trying to catch up on all the things he’d let fall by the wayside while he stayed in his pit of misery. He also checked his bike, which had held up well for being in storage for about a year … if it had been. He suspected someone had taken it out at least once. Maybe Matt, possibly even Diego, just to piss him off.

He started talking to Paris again, although he wasn’t sure when he started. He was straightening out his shelves in his “library” when he realized Paris wasn’t responding. So even his mind had decided to stop doing that? He hated it when his subconscious knew what was better for him than he did.

Roan ordered a pizza for dinner and started reading all the papers in the envelope on the Tolliver case. Kai/Jacob was a fairly good looking kid: six feet tall and one hundred and sixty pounds of pure, lean sculpted muscle and a nearly concave stomach, he had stylishly cut black hair and clear hazel eyes that almost had a yellowish tint to them, and the picture looked like a modeling shot. It had him from the waist up, his worn blue jeans worn very low on his hips and just barely visible, his shirt off to show off his pecs (he shaved his chest) and the small black circle of a tattoo around his belly button, and he had his head thrown back slightly, giving a haughty look to the camera, the pout highlighting his full lips. This was clearly from the escort agency. According to the profile for Kai that Kevin had downloaded, he was a “straight type” who was a “basic dominator” (that meant he’d be willing to do minor BDSM, but only if he’s dishing it out) but disliked most other fetishes. Although Kevin said he was twenty three, Kai’s age was listed as nineteen, but that was okay, as he could pass for that. He worked for the Diamond Escort Agency, but Kevin had made a note that the agency was known to change its name often, sometimes up to three or four times a year.

Kevin had friends at the DMV, which showed, as he had all of Jacob’s info from his driver’s license. Yes, he was twenty three, and he lived on Larchmont Avenue, apartment 3-B. Larchmont didn’t have a lot of apartment blocks, so he probably lived in that one that had that big ass mural painted on the side. What was it called? Royal Oaks or something like that? Jacob shared his apartment with a guy named Bret Finch, who worked at the escort agency as well, as a guy named “Phoenix”. He passed himself off as a “surfer” type, basically submissive, but not into BDSM. It was Bret who first mentioned that Jacob never came home. According to the notes Kevin left, Bret and Jacob weren’t involved, just friends. At least according to Chris, who worked under the name “Miguel”, but Kev hadn’t included any more information on him. Kev had to leave him some work to do, he supposed.

Roan found himself on the web, doing something he’d never done before - surfing porn sites. Seriously, he hadn’t. He didn’t actually like the idea of masturbating anywhere near his computer. He’d spilled water on a keyboard once, and frankly that was bad enough.

He found Diamond Escort’s page, but it was full of little more than teasing still photos and superficial profiles on its “models” - for more, you had to give a credit card number, and he didn’t need to commit to that yet. There was also a chat room where you could talk to the models. But he wasn’t ready to go there either. After all, it would just be sex talk, and all he wanted to know was where the hell Jacob Tolliver was. Besides, he would hate to run into Kev there, if Kev was there. There was just no words for how icky that would be. How awful would it be to find out the guy you were having IM sex with was one of your cop buddies? Eww!

He was about to call it a night when his phone rang, and he picked it up, hoping it was Matt. He heard loud house music in the background, and then Dylan’s voice, much closer to the phone, and yet almost not audible. “Roan? Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got a situation down here.”

Okay, that was never an auspicious start. “What? Why call me?”

He heard glass breaking, close to the phone, and an angry shout of “Whore!” along with something unintelligible. “Umm, it’s Matt. He’s totally wasted and just started busting shit up -” Dylan suddenly covered the phone and shouted, “Don’t hurt him!”

“Wasted? He’s clean. He went through - oh shit. What do you think he’s on?” Matt had to pick now to fall off the wagon? And he’d been doing so well! He’d been clean what, three years now?

“He’s drunk, and I think he’s on some kind of speed.”

“Not meth?”

“No … I don’t think he’s tweaking. But I don’t know for sure.”

“Shit. Why is he breaking stuff up?”

“He’s angry at me, because apparently he thinks you and I are … involved, and he doesn’t like that.”

Oh god. This was unbelievable. What the hell was that stupid twink thinking? “I assume you told him we were just friends.”

“Yeah. But he thought I was lying, and called me all sorts of names, and started throwing tables and chairs around. I’m almost flattered. I haven’t been called a slut since … well, ever, now that I think about it. Luis wants to call the cops and have him hauled off, but I’m more inclined to call an ambulance, ‘cause I swear Matt started foaming at the mouth. But I thought since he works with you I’d better call you instead.”

He wanted to deny Matt worked with him, but fuck it. He had carried the slack for a long time, and whether he had actually hired him seemed like a moot point now. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll come and get him.”

“I didn’t think you two were, uh - “

“We’re not. He just … has a crush on me. I’ve discouraged him in every way I can think of, I’ve even been a total dick to him, and it hasn’t seemed to dissuade him.”

“Perhaps it’s time to consider a restraining order.”