Sixteen

I made my way to Anna Will’s the next day. The drive was pretty quick when you spend it thinking about a murder investigation rather than who you have to eat lunch with. After Aubrey and I ID’d the card as belonging to Oscar Blue, we thought maybe it was his car that Jamie Smith had stolen. But luckily Sienna called Fab, who called his paparazzi contacts. Not only did Oscar Blue not own a Range Rover, he wasn’t even in LA on July 1st—much less at T-Mart—which meant I was back at a dead end.

It took me three tries, but I was able to parallel park and find my way to the restaurant. The food at Anna Will’s had to be amazing because the decor was as no-frills as you could get. It even had that bare-bones, black-and-white color scheme like the one you used to find on generic supermarket cans. I arrived at 2:29, but of course Omari beat me there.

He stood up when he saw me and smiled. He hadn’t gained four hundred pounds and buckteeth in the forty-eight hours since I’d last seen him, which was unfortunate. He pulled me in for a hug, which I tried not to enjoy too much, and then we sat. We had the place to ourselves.

All I could think was “Control your peanut butter.”

I’d been worried about making awkward small talk, but my fretting was for nothing. Our waitress didn’t give me a chance to put my foot in my mouth. She shuffled over as soon as my butt hit the hard chair. She was older and looked like she kept a change purse in her bra. Her boobs were big, but then so was the rest of her. Her body type could best be described as fluffy. Her grandbabies probably loved stretching out on her. I know I’d loved to do that with my grandma.

She plopped two waters on the table and smiled like it was her good deed for the day. When she spoke, she had a touch of a Southern accent like most black people born in LA. “Name’s Mae. Y’all know what you want?”

I’d barely realized there was even a menu on the table. It was one page and wilted like it had been on the wrong side of a spill. “We’ll need a minute,” Omari said.

“Baby, you can take as loooonnnngg as you want,” Mae said. “You single, sweetheart?”

My eyes jumped up from my menu to Mae. Not to sound too cliché, but she was looking at Omari like she wished he were on the menu.

He smiled at her. “Trying to hook me up with your daughter?”

“Trying to hook you up with me. Let her find her own man.”

“Even better.” He looked her dead in the eye and smiled. “As much as it breaks my heart to say this, I’m taken.”

He moved his eyes from her to me, and Mae suddenly remembered I existed. “Oh, so this is you right here?” she asked me.

She lifted her right hand up for a high five. It was Omari’s turn to be amused as I hesitantly brought my hand up. “I know that’s right,” she continued.

We slapped palms and she stood nodding at me and smiling, appreciation deep in her eyes.

I moved my eyes back to my menu, trying my best not to start laughing. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold it in anymore, Omari spoke up. “We’ll both have the chicken special.”

“Coming right up, beautiful.” Mae shuffled back to where she came from.

I burst out laughing. Omari stared at me, but he was struggling not to smile himself. “Did you really have to give her a high five, though?”

“You don’t leave a woman like Mae hanging. She might spit in our food.”

“Your food. I’m pretty sure I’m in her good graces.”

We smiled at each other and it felt like it was supposed to, like I was with a friend again. “Before I forget.” I reached into my bag and handed him his cell. He made a big to-do of inspecting it.

“I did take some pictures,” I added.

As soon as I said it, he stopped and looked at me. I realized how that could be taken. Oh God. I’d been doing so good, too. “It’s for the case.” My words were rushed.

“Case? You sound like you’re auditioning for Law & Order.”

“I kinda, sorta started looking into who killed Haley.”

“Besides just telling the police about the car we saw?”

“Yeah, that didn’t work out so well.”

I launched into what had happened, starting with finding Montgomery’s car. I paused when Mae returned with food and some more sexual harassment but quickly picked up where I left off as soon as she was gone. I expected Omari to pull a Sienna-and-Emme and tell me that I’d gone mad, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all. He just listened as he played with his cell phone.

“So then the Range Rover showed up and Aubrey and I—”

“Aubrey?”

“Aubrey S. Adams-Parker.”

He smiled, no doubt finding the S as amusing as I did. “S. Adams-Parker,” he repeated. “And who is that?”

“Former cop. Also looking into Haley’s murder. We’re now kinda working together.”

“You have a partner?” I thought about it. I guess I did. “Who’s Cagney and who’s Lacey?” Omari asked.

“The prettier one’s me,” I said. “I have to say Aubrey—”

“S. Adams-Parker.”

“Aubrey S. Adams-Parker is growing on me. We pursued a lead yesterday.”

“The locker combination?”

“No, T-Mart.” I realized what he’d said. “What locker combination?”

He showed me the cell phone photo of the receipt and pointed to the handwritten numbers: 9 31 14.

I practically snatched the thing out his hand. I’d been so focused on the receipt being from T-Mart that I’d hardly paid attention to what was scribbled on it. “How do you know it’s not, like, a zip code?”

“Because I practically live in a gym. And because the guy also bought a Master lock. It’s listed on the receipt.”

I scanned it. What could only be an abbreviation for Master Lock was midway down, between a pack of Trident and a shower curtain. Did Omari just provide me with another clue? “What uses a lock?” I asked.

“A locker.”

“Thanks, you solved the case.” I got serious. “I doubt they’re keeping stolen goods at LA Fitness. Train station, maybe.”

“Or a storage facility.”

That one made sense. The robbers needed to keep the stolen stuff somewhere. “Can you use your swag phone to look up the storage facilities in Los Angeles? Maybe I can call them all.”

Omari rolled his eyes but did a quick search. “There are 208 listed.”

“Or maybe I can’t. What about the ones in Los Feliz?” It was a reach, but I had to start somewhere, and that somewhere were the ones closest to Clothes Encounters. I doubted the Rack Pack would want to drive long distances with stolen merchandise in their car.

“Twenty.”

“Ten each for us to call,” I said.

“Or twenty for you.”

I stopped the busboy as he was passing. “Excuse me, can you get Mae? I need to tell her my friend here is single and ready to mingle.”

The busboy nodded like he knew what the heck I was talking about while Omari put his hands up in mock surrender. “Ten, you said?”

We divided the numbers. I’d bought another phone card but was only able to afford fifteen minutes. Since it would have to last two more weeks, I needed a hit quick. I dialed the first facility. The bored employee answered on the fourth ring. He obviously didn’t know about my phone card situation. “Stor-It-All Self Storage for all your storage needs. This is Devin.”

“Hi Devin, I was wondering if you can tell me whether a Jamie Smith has a storage unit there?”

“We aren’t allowed to give out that information.”

No clue why I thought the honest approach would work. I could hear Omari spinning a long, twisted tale of a husband who believed his cheating hussy of a wife might be stealing furniture in anticipation of divorce proceedings. He could do that. He had unlimited minutes and steady employment. “It’s for an investigation,” I told Devin.

“Are you the police?” He continued speaking after I hesitated. “I can’t give out that information unless you’re the police or Jamie Smith.”

He hung up before I could say anything further, but that was okay since he did give me an idea. I dialed the next number. “A-1 Self Storage, for all your storage needs.”

“Hi, I need to pay my bill.”

“What’s your unit number?”

“I can never remember.”

“Name?”

“Jamie Smith.” I held my breath and waited.

“I can’t find you under your name. What about a phone number?”

“Wrong place. Sorry.”

I quickly hung up, impressed my plan had worked. I dialed three more facilities using the same story, and all three fell for it. I quickly learned two things. First, storage facilities were not creative when it came to their slogans. They all were there to “help with all my storage needs.” Second thing I learned was that none of them had a Jamie Smith.

I was getting worried, more about my cell phone minutes than anything else. When I dialed number five, I launched into my spiel before she could even say hello. “Hi, I need to pay my bill and I can’t remember my storage number for the life of me. Name’s Jamie Smith.”

I could hear the clacking. “Unit 8A?”

My eyes must have bugged out because I saw Omari smile. “Oh yes, that’s me. I’m such a knucklehead.”

“You’re paid up until March.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I got off the phone with two seconds left until I hit two minutes on my phone card. “It’s StorQuest on Sunset,” I told Omari.

He immediately threw some cash on the table and got up. “Let’s go.”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to come.”

“I know,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I got up. “Okay, but I need to use your phone first.”

He handed it over and I dialed Aubrey’s number from memory. He picked up on the first ring. “Aubrey S. Adams-Parker.”

“Hey. It’s me.”

“Ms. Anderson.”

I walked a few steps away and filled Aubrey in on what we’d discovered. He promised he’d meet us there. When I hung up, Omari was standing by the exit pretending not to notice the two women pretending not to notice him. I handed him back the phone. “Aubrey’s meeting us.”

“Okay. You ready?”

I was. But first I had to use the bathroom.

As far as storage facilities went, StorQuest was not up there with the fancy-shmancy indoor ones. The place was surrounded by the standard metal fence and required a code to drive onto the lot. Once inside, it looked more like a junkyard. I bet it even had a hungry pit bull named Buster that its security managers let loose at night.

StorQuest’s office was actually a double-wide trailer sitting on a block of decaying cement. Aubrey and his bike were waiting when Omari pulled into the lot and parked. He’d gone with a green color scheme under his reflector outfit. I jumped out the car. Omari took his time.

“Ms. Anderson.” Aubrey nodded at Omari. “Ms. Anderson’s friend.”

“Omari Grant … ” Omari trailed off, expecting something. Something neither of us provided him, because he spoke again as he offered Aubrey his hand to shake. “And you are?”

“Aubrey S. Adams-Parker, pleased to meet you. Do you mind if I speak with Ms. Anderson in private?”

Aubrey took me gently by the elbow and led me a few feet away. His hand rested there while we spoke. “I should speak to an employee to learn whether he or she encountered one of the killers. You said it was 8A, correct?”

“And what should I do?” I asked.

“You should stay outside.”

I immediately saw red. “Are you really still on that ‘leave the investigation to the professionals’ BS? I thought we had an understanding!”

Aubrey sighed, as if mentally preparing for another of my freak-outs. “Ms. Anderson, I simply do not want the employee to know that we are associates. If I do not get the information I need, we can send you in using a different method.”

Oh, in that case. “I’ll be with Omari.” I smiled innocently.

I watched him walk away, then joined Omari in his car. “He’s going to take this one,” I said.

Omari just nodded, staring at Aubrey as he made his way inside. After a moment, he finally spoke. “So Aubrey’s a dude.”

“Of course. Wait, you thought he was a girl?”

“Aubrey S. Adams hyphen Parker? Now why would I think he was female?”

He had a point. “His middle name is Steven.”

“If I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have thought he was a girl.”

“If he were here, he’d go into a spiel about gender neutrality.”

“Good thing he’s not here.” We both stared at the double-wide in that comfortable silence that only comes when you’re around people you’ve known forever and a day. It was nice. Omari finally spoke. “You must talk a lot to know his middle name. And his number.”

“You mean, by heart?” I used my pointer finger to draw a heart on my chest, then started laughing. I cracked myself up sometimes.

“And what’s with his bike?”

“I never asked. He probably cares about the environment or something like that. He bikes everywhere. His abs are like steel, though. You gotta feel them.”

“I’ll pass.” Omari finally looked away from the office. “Why are we here and not over there?” He motioned to the rows upon rows of storage.

“You need the code to drive in,” I said.

“Or we can walk.”

He pointed to the left of the car entrance. There was a small door to allow the young and carless to get to their stuff, too. I was glad they were concerned with transportation equality. “It’s probably locked,” I said.

“Let’s find out.”

I watched him get out the car, casually walk across the driveway, open the door, and walk in. I waited for sirens to go off or Buster the world’s hungriest pit bull to charge him. When neither happened, I took that as a sign I should join him.

I quickly glanced at the office. Aubrey would kill me if he knew what I was doing. Neither Aubrey nor the employee was paying me any attention. I took that as another sign and got out the car. I booked it across the driveway and scurried through the door. It took me five minutes to find 8A.

Omari was standing in front of it. We stood there a minute and stared. “You should open it,” Omari said.

“So I can be the one who gets arrested?”

“Because I have a crappy memory and left my old cell in the car. Don’t act like you don’t remember the numbers, Rain Man.”

He was right. I did. I took a breath, then grabbed the lock. I was so nervous it took a couple of tries to hit the exact numbers. I finally did and slid the lock off. Omari pulled the door open.

I don’t know what I was expecting to find inside. Maybe a note saying “Hi, our names are X,Y, and Z and we stole everything in here.” What we did find was stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. And there, on the ground in the front of the unit as if it had accidentally been dropped, was Emme’s necklace.