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  FLEA FLICKER

  Book # 9 in the Burnside Mystery Series

  By

  David Chill

  Copyright © 2018 by David Chill

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons living or deceased, is purely coincidental. The author assumes no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein.

  For Joanne Baker

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Curse of the Afflicted

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 1

  A wayward drunk can cause a lot of harm, but he normally inflicts most of it upon himself. This was largely true in the case of Tyler Briggs, although being accused of cold-blooded murder was an unusual way to wrap up a weekend.

  Tyler Briggs was an unemployed former football coach with a nasty drinking problem. And a womanizing problem. So, when an upstanding citizen like this fails to arrive home one night, it’s normally not a cause for alarm, except perhaps for the man’s long-suffering wife. The police will pacify her by checking the drunk tanks, the local ERs, and then the county morgue. If none of these prove fruitful, the cops will just shrug and say she has to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report. Some wives rail at the narrow-minded rules. Some just shrug and go along. And then there are the ones, be they peeved or petrified, that get the innate sense that something is very wrong. That’s when they talk to someone like me.

  I normally don’t make house calls, but this was an exception. Hannah Briggs worked in the City Attorney’s office with my wife, Gail. When her husband Tyler had moved to Los Angeles to take over the Chargers’ head coaching job last year, he reached out and asked if I knew where a beautiful attorney might find gainful employment here. He figured I might know something about this, and he was right. My wife was an attorney, and she was also beautiful. I personally didn’t think Hannah held a candle to Gail, but I admittedly looked at the world through a different lens.

  Tyler and Hannah Briggs lived in a spacious five-bedroom house along the Silver Strand in Marina del Rey. A century ago this area was mostly wetlands, not far from the Pacific Ocean, largely uninhabitable and mostly populated by an occasional duck hunter and his prey. That changed dramatically in the 1930s with the discovery of crude oil beneath the terrain, and for decades it featured an ungodly skyline of oil wells. Once the black gold was pumped from the ground, though, the oil men left and the real estate people swooped in. What they inherited was an ugly mess, but any property close to the ocean had value. Lots of value. After the cleanup, Marina del Rey was born, home to everyone from yacht owners to flight attendants. And within the Marina was the Silver Strand, a narrow strip of gorgeous homes, and for the most part, gorgeous people.

  Today was overcast, and there was even some fog rolling in. It was typical of L.A. weather in December, a phenomenon that happened like clockwork. I waited a minute before ringing the doorbell, taking time to step back and admire the home and admire the neighborhood. The house was the type of elegant structure you might see featured in architectural magazines, owned by people who earned or inherited fortunes. In the case of Tyler Briggs, it was actually a combination of the two. Born into a coaching family, his father had been an NFL head coach for years and had raked in the money. Even before the NFL coaching boom had begun generously paying head coaches upwards of $10 million a year, they were still very well-compensated.

  Other young men in Tyler’s situation had drifted into becoming trust fund babies, enjoying the fruits of their fathers’ labor. But Sid Briggs was old school, and he wasn’t keen on his offspring becoming an idle layabout. He pushed Tyler into playing football, but he wasn’t able to go far; his talent earned him a college scholarship, and a seat on the Miami Hurricanes bench for four years. Tyler did take an interest in coaching though, and soon found himself rising quickly through the ranks. Too quickly perhaps.

  The front door opened and a tall blonde with platinum hair and high cheekbones opened the door. She was attractive, but her face was taut, her comely looks impacted by a harsh weariness. Her brown eyes sagged, and her pink mouth was drawn. But she was still quite fetching. Some women look good no matter what storm they might be weathering.

  “Mr. Burnside,” she managed, her voice lightly brushed with a melodic southern twang.

  “That’s me.”

  She opened the door and motioned me inside. She was wearing a pink sweater and faded blue jeans, slashed appropriately at the knees. Her legs were like long sticks, seemingly going on forever until they nestled into a new pair of pink and white Nikes.

  The Briggs’s home was impressive. The foyer opened up into an expansive, sunken living room. A pair of blue velvet couches faced each other, and an assortment of toys, games and stuffed animals were sprinkled haphazardly across the floor. A working fireplace crackled in the corner. I stepped over a colorful little toy piano and found a seat on one of the couches. Hannah Briggs sat down on the other side of the couch after discreetly scooping up a few errant Cheerios in her hand and dumping them onto the corner of a walnut end table.

  “Thank you for coming on a Saturday,” she started. “I didn’t know who to call. Then I thought of Gail. And you.”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay, this is what I do for a living. I only take weekends off when there’s no work.”

  She looked around the room and sighed. “I apologize for the mess. With a toddler, our home is in a constant state of chaos.”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “No worries. I have a little one at home, too.”

  “How old?” she asked.

  “He’ll be five in a couple of weeks. Born on New Year’s Day. We’re planning on taking him to the Rose Parade in Pasadena. Maybe to the Rose Bowl game, too. If I can score a few tickets, that is.”

  “Yes,” she said absently. “I’ve been to the Orange Bowl game a few times. That’s where we’re from. South Florida. Although it seems like a lifetime ago.”

  “You’ve only been in L.A. for a couple of years.”

  “A tough couple of years,” she sighed. “You know about Tyler’s situation. The Chargers brought him out here and then fired him after one season. He’s had it rough.”

  In some ways that was true. Tyler Briggs had been the boy wonder of football coaching, and as such, he had been cursed with achieving success at a too-early age. When he took over the New York Jets five years ago, he became, at age 29, the youngest head coach in the history of the NFL. Following three years of progressively worsening results, the Jets fired him. The Chargers, thinking he might regain the magic he once had, quickly brought Tyler in upon moving to L.A. from San Diego, then just as quickly fired him when the team had a spectacularly awful season. No one hired him this year, and rumors were rampant that no one would, at least not anytime soon. In shooting up the coaching ranks quickly, he had alienated more than a few people with his attitude. Arrogance probably helped propel his career, as team owners often equated that with future success. My experience had been the two were not connected.

  “So Gail told me a little about your situation,” I started. “Tyler didn’t come home last night. Ever happen before?”

  “No, never,” she said, shaking her head briskly. “I mean, Ty would go out drinki
ng plenty of times. Too many. But I’m used to that. I just go to sleep and when I wake up, there he is, always next to me.”

  “Except for this morning.”

  “Yes,” she said, her face becoming even more drawn. “I went to the police, but they couldn’t help much. He wasn’t in the system, at least we know that. They said I’d need to wait a day before I could file a missing persons report. I knew that too, but, well, it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  “And that’s what led you to me,” I mused. I knew the routine. The police would look the name up in the system, but beyond that, they were much too busy to do any investigation. The reality was that people who didn’t come home one night often came home the next day, and usually with a lame excuse, a sheepish expression, and the enduring scent of alcohol and infidelity oozing out of them. But my 13 years with the LAPD also taught me something else. If they didn’t come home the next day, the chances that they’d never come home increased exponentially.

  “You have a unique background,” she said. “You’re a private investigator who’s been in the football world. Not too many people like that around here.”

  “I’m indeed unique,” I agreed, not bothering to stray further down that path. Potential clients don’t like to know their new hire had once been kicked off the police force and endured more public humiliation than any decent person deserved. The fact that I hadn’t broken any laws was immaterial. My reputation as a disgraced former cop would overshadow and stain the fact that I was a darned good investigator.

  “I need you to find Tyler. Bring him home. Wherever he wound up. I’m hoping he just realized he drank a little too much and slept in his car.”

  “Always a possibility,” I acknowledged. “I’ll need a few things. Recent photo, type of car he drives, license plate number, bars he frequents. That sort of thing. Whatever might be relevant. Names of people who might know something about this. What he was wearing last time you saw him. Anything would help. No detail too small at this stage. And I need to tell you my rate is a thousand dollars a day. I’ll prorate it by the hour so it doesn’t pile up too quickly.”

  Hannah looked down at the gray-and-blue speckled Berber carpet. “All right. Money’s obviously not an object for us. You know, Tyler often frequents some of the bars along Venice and Washington. He likes a place called the Alibi Room. He took me there once, they serve this bizarre plate of Korean tacos. There’s a few other places. Babe’s, the Harborside Grill, The Mar Vista.”

  “Those are very different types of bars,” I mused. “I don’t see a pattern.”

  “Are you familiar with alcoholics, Mr. Burnside?”

  “Somewhat,” I said, recalling that my past careers as a police officer and football coach both had more than their share of heavy drinkers.

  “Well then you know they are not always particular about where they drink. In Tyler’s case, he wasn’t particular about where he ate these days, either. Sometimes he ends up at one of those greasy spoons like Tito’s Tacos, Johnnie’s Pastrami, or that awful Tom’s Burgers. Sometimes it’s a donut shop, depending on what time of the night it is and how many beers he’s had.”

  I took this in. All of those greasy spoons were well-known; all had been local landmarks for many decades. But a few were familiar simply because these were the places I frequented as a teenager growing up in Culver City. They were also the places I stopped going to when I became an adult with an occasional interest in eating healthy. The things that tasted great at age 17 no longer tasted so special.

  “Let’s step back a little,” I said. “Did Tyler always have a problem with alcohol?”

  Hannah frowned for a moment. “Drinking’s been part of his life since high school. That’s where we met. Sophomore year. He was the quarterback, the captain of the football team, the big man on campus everyone looked up to. I was this nerdy, awkward girl no one noticed.”

  I looked at her. “That’s a stretch.”

  She shook her head. “I was always tall, and I had a weight problem. The summer before my sophomore year, I lost the weight and suddenly became popular. Funny how that works.”

  “High school kids aren’t known for their depth of character,” I commented.

  “Yes, that’s for sure. I let my hair grow, too, and well, the ugly duckling turned into a swan. People noticed. Tyler noticed.”

  “You’ve been together ever since?”

  “Pretty much,” she replied. “He got a football scholarship to Miami. I got a financial aid package and cobbled it together with student loans. I actually turned down a scholarship offer to Duke to be with him.”

  “Duke’s a great school.”

  “Yeah. But love makes you do strange things. I figured if I let Tyler go, I’d never get him back.”

  I thought back to that old chestnut. If you love someone, set them free. If they return to you, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were. It’s an easy bromide to recite, a tough one to follow. After Gail and I had been together for a year, she was accepted into law school at Berkeley, and was even offered a full scholarship. She was torn about going, upset about the three years we’d be apart, but I convinced her she shouldn’t pass up the opportunity. I wasn’t actively trying to set her free or provide a test for us; I just wanted her to take advantage of something good. If I held her back by not being supportive, she might have resented me for it. Maybe not overtly, but I knew there would be disappointment. I also figured our bond was strong enough to survive three years of separation.

  “Okay,” I said. “So, how did Miami work out for you guys?”

  “Better for me than for Tyler,” she admitted. “I made the dean’s list every year, he couldn’t get past third string on the football team. Miami recruited lots of good quarterbacks. By his senior year he was ready to quit the sport. He was also drinking a lot, but you know, it was college. Everybody was drinking. Then his dad suggested coaching, not surprising since his dad’s been a coach since like, forever. Tyler gave it a shot. Took to it well. The following year they gave him a graduate assistant’s role, and he moved up to QB coach the next year. Then he got really lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “Miami’s offensive coordinator got a job in the NFL. Larry Tenant. He got hired as an OC with Jacksonville, and he brought Tyler along as his QB coach. I don’t think they even interviewed anyone else. I swear, that profession is so insular, it’s almost inbred. After a couple of years, Larry moved up to head coach at Jacksonville and he promoted Tyler to take over his old job. So Tyler became the offensive coordinator. Ty was all of 26 years old. That was a blessing and a curse.”

  “I can imagine. Pretty hard for someone that young to command respect from players who might be five or ten years older. Guys who had to work like a dog for everything they got.”

  “Yes. And that’s when the drinking started getting out of hand.”

  I thought back to my own days as a former football coach at USC. I was only in the coaching ranks for three years, but the pressure to win was enormous. Most coaches are driven to succeed, but at some point they need something to take the edge off. The smart ones find a physical outlet, be it lifting weights, running, something that can create positive energy when blowing off steam. The others usually turned to alcohol. Drinking was an easy lure. You didn’t have to do much beyond open a bottle or a can. It could quickly relax you.

  “He seek out any help?”

  “The usual. AA. But he couldn’t stick with it. And by that point, I had my own career to think about. I was a straight-A student throughout school, and here I am, sitting in a big house in Jacksonville, with not much to do. When he became the Jets’ head coach and we moved to New York, I applied to law school. Tyler did his thing, I did mine. It worked out fine. For a while.”

  “Then the Chargers made him their head coach last year,” I said. “He just kept hitting the jackpot.”

  Hannah Briggs drew in a breath and thought twice about what she was about to say. She smoothed her blonde hair back, an
d at that moment an adorable toddler with the same light blonde hair as her mother skipped into the room. She wore pink and light blue as well. She was followed by a heavy-set nanny who smiled apologetically.

  “Madison. Ven aqui!”

  “It’s all right, Tia,” said Hannah, and scooped the little girl in her arms.

  “I want Da Da,” the little girl said with a small pout.

  “We’re working on that, hon,” Hannah replied, rocking the girl in her arms as she turned back to me.”You may recall I had a job offer lined up with the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York. Southern district. It was a big deal.”

  “And you had to pass because of Tyler’s job offer here.”

  “And because I was suddenly expecting. The funny thing was, if we didn’t have Madison, I might have just stayed in New York,” she said a little wistfully.

  I nodded. This was not unusual, either. Women sometimes put off their own career ambitions in deference to their husbands. They get paid back with a big house, stylish clothes, and a lot of empty nights. Then, just as the woman’s questioning if it’s worth it, a baby comes along. Sometimes it’s a blessing, in that they turn their attention to the child. Sometimes they resent both the husband and the child. As they say, kids change everything.

  “Okay. Anyone on the Charger staff that Tyler stayed close to? Or really anybody who might know something?”

  “Not many. Oh, there’s Anthony Riddleman, he’s been friends with Tyler since Miami. He’s actually still with the Chargers, coaches the quarterbacks. Most of the coaches fanned out around the country, got jobs with other teams. Funny how they can just up and move, and keep doing what they’re doing. I’ve moved three times in six years, and I’m just over it.”

  I understood. Coaches were like soldiers of fortune, always moving around, their loyalty intense to the team employing them, and then becoming equally loyal to the next team that hires them. It was a life which required adapting quickly while still maintaining ties within the coaching fraternity. Getting fired was an occupational hazard, and not always the coach’s fault. But if he handled it well, there would normally be another gig around the corner. One door closes, another opens.