Massage and Murder

Detective Tom Stone found the woman, scared and trembling, and wondered how to best serve justice

She stood in a figure-flattering dress, her face glowed beneath a soft light bulb. Fire danced in her eyes as she stood inside the door frame.

She looked like the perfect date, except she was pointing a gun at my chest.

“This kind of a welcome can’t be good for business.” I had pushed the door open but didn’t realize that she was on the inside, pushing back.

“We’re closed. I was trying to lock up.” Her hands clutched the handgun and her legs were just wide enough to steady her petite body.

“Timing is everything, isn’t it?”

She looked familiar and I might have seen her before since I visited the Kitty Corner Bar, just off Lankershim Boulevard, to catch a cold draft and watch games on the big screens.

“I’m an officer of the law,” I replied, with one hand reaching inside my jacket. “I’ll prove it if you don’t shoot me first.”

“Move nice and slow.”

I didn’t dare take my eyes off her and she wouldn’t peel hers away from me. The bar was empty except for a silhouette huddled at a table in the far corner. That was the woman I was interested in. I reached inside my blazer and pulled out my badge.

“Detective Tom Stone, LAPD.”

“What do you want?” She wasn’t impressed.

“First put down the gun and I promise that I’ll stand right here. I won’t move.” I wondered if anyone else was lurking in the dark. Sniffling, like muffled crying, broke the otherwise quiet interior.

She lowered the gun and I kept my promise with my legs braced and feet fixed firmly.

“There was a shooting two blocks away. Witnesses said they saw someone run here and duck inside.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

I searched her eyes. Solid and cold. “And I don’t know much more than that. Except some guy was shot at the Bangkok Massage Studio, and now he’s fighting for his life at St. Joseph’s Hospital.”

“Like I said, I don’t know anything.”

I looked hard through the darkness and saw the silhouette of a petite woman move from the table and toward a doorway on the far side of the bar.

“Maybe she does.” I called out to her. “Excuse me — ”

And then she was gone.

I dashed around the pistol-packing hostess, banged against a table, and headed toward the hallway, under a sign that read Restrooms. There was another door, a rear entrance to the bar, but I didn’t hear it open. Down the hallway on either side were two more doors: Guys, Gals. Both were shut.

The woman who greeted me scampered behind.

“Choices. Which one?” I asked.

The hostess’ eyes scanned the ladies’ room door.

I tried the door, but it was locked. “Tell her to come out.” I wasn’t desperate enough to break into a woman’s restroom. “What’s your name?”

“Sara.”

“Help me out, Sara, will you?”

“Help you out?”

“Yes, me. And your friend, if she is a friend. What’s her name?”

“Emily. And why does a tough cop like you need me to help you out? Go ahead. Bust in there and drag her out.”

“That’s not what I’m here for.”

“You don’t want to arrest her?”

The question made me curious. “Why do you ask?”

“Isn’t that what cops like you do? Arrest people?”

“Only if we have to.” The closed door made me think I would have to.

Witnesses at the Bangkok Massage Studio included the girls who were working there and a couple clients who were hesitant to talk. They heard a scream, some thumping, a man yelling and then a shot. The struggle took place near a room that was closest to the back door.

I studied Sara. “So is Emily a friend of yours? Is she one of the girls working here with you?”

“I own the place and she’s a friend.” Her eyes were defiant and her rigid body language confirmed that her thoughts were like bricks and she wanted to hurl them at me. “I have a lot of friends.”

I nodded toward the ladies’ room. “Is she one of them?”

Sara looked annoyed. “Give me a minute.”

She produced a key, unlocked the door and entered the restroom.

I leaned against the opposite wall. Reports from the shooting filtered in. The man was shot in the chest. He had lost a lot of blood by the time paramedics arrived. But my mind was sifting the pieces and seeing what fit. He was heavy. Loud. And a few of the girls at the massage parlor said they knew him.

The door opened and Sara came out. “Emily’s wondering if you’re going to arrest her.”

“Right now, I don’t know if she’s done anything that’s worth an arrest. Has she?”

Possibilities sped through my mind. If the man matched the picture that was forming in my mind and the woman had struggled and screamed, that sounded like he was the aggressor. I didn’t yet know who owned the gun. Since they were in a massage parlor, it didn’t take much imagination to figure what he wanted and she didn’t want to give it to him.

Sara kept her mouth tight lipped, stepped inside again. “Emily?”

A car engine started and I charged out the back door as a four-door sedan squealed out of the back parking lot. A woman was driving away.

Now, I’d have to hunt for her and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“I know where she lives,” said Sara, sticking her head out the back door.

“Oh?”

“I’ll show you.” She had the look of a gambler, ready to roll the dice.

“Then let’s go.”

“I’ll meet you out front.” She closed the back door and locked it. I hurried around to the front and met her on the sidewalk where she slipped her handgun inside her purse.

“Nice of you to join me.” I motioned to the department’s car, opening the front door for her.

“Why not?” She climbed in the passenger seat while I hurried to the driver’s side. “I figure you’d hunt her down, maybe sooner than later and I’d hate for you to make some scene with all kinds of squad cars pulling up to her building and terrorizing everyone inside.”

I started the Crown Vic and pulled onto the nighttime street, heading south toward the freeway.

“Or it might not be that dramatic. I’d get Emily’s info from the massage parlor, check employment records, maybe even run your name and see what turns up.”

“Yeah, that, too.” She sounded like she was shrugging it off, but I got the feeling she didn’t want me digging around. I changed my tone and tactics.

“So you know her well enough to know where she lives?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Are you friends?”

“I care about her, just like I care about other girls like her.” Sara pointed to the left turn lane toward the 101 South.

“What other girls like her?”

“The ones trying to survive.”

I pulled up to the light, waited and headed south.

Sara continued. “She’s been trying to get on top of life, but it keeps knocking her down. But you don’t care about that, do you?”

“Someone was shot and it’s my job to find out why. Just like I’m curious as to why you felt the need to have your handgun tucked into your purse.”

“I never leave home without it.”

“Fair enough,” I said, “just make sure it stays in there.”

She nodded with a slight tip of her head.

Late night on the freeways in Los Angeles gave a sense of freedom. During the day, so many cars clogged the lanes that you had to crawl and the road was nothing but a tease.

Sara looked out the window. “Take the Alvarado exit.” She spoke in a monotone like she had seen this situation before, maybe even lived it out herself.

“Got it.”

I drove in silence with the lights of downtown Los Angeles shining in the background, looking very much like a movie set. The sight was definitely romantic, unless you were one of the thousands wondering how to pay rent.

The Alvarado exit was in full view and it struck me that beneath the overpass was one of the most densely populated homeless communities in the city. I headed down the on-ramp.

“Take a left.” Sara sounded drained.

I hit the left turn signal and when the light turned green, headed onto the street, past a dense collection of cardboard shacks and pop up tents.

“Up ahead, on the left.” Sara pointed to a motel. The sign read Hourly, Nightly, Weekly.

I pulled into the lot and stopped a few spaces from Emily’s car.

“Let me go in first,” Sara sighed, her purse slung over a shoulder.

“That’s not proper procedure, just like I shouldn’t be having you ride with me.”

She paused, wondering what I’d say next.

“Go ahead.”

She got out, headed along the first floor, past a stair well and stopped at a door, knocked, waited a second and then stepped inside.

I kept an eye for several minutes and got a report on my phone. The shooting victim was in the Intensive Care Unit, struggling to breathe. Sara reappeared in the doorway and motioned to me. Behind her, a woman who looked like Emily ushered a child, a boy, out the door and down the walkway to another room where the door opened and he went in.

I got out of the car, patted my holster, and headed to the motel room. Sara waited just inside the door and Emily sat on the edge of the bed, wiping away tears.

“I told Emily to talk to you. That it’d be okay and you’re just here to help.”

Sara was the mother hen, it seemed.

A sense of pain clouded the atmosphere.

“How do you know each other?” I asked, glancing from Emily to Sara.

Sara answered. “A friend referred her when I needed help at the bar. She’s been working a few shifts a week for me, a couple months now.” Sara leaned against the wall.

I directed my next question at Emily. “And you also work at the massage parlor?”

She nodded.

“I’m here to find out what happened tonight. I just need you to tell me what occurred.”

“Yeah, sure.” Emily was quiet.

“By the way, was that your son I saw just now?”

“Yeah. I don’t want him to know anything.”

I could understand why. The kid was too young to have that in his mind.

Emily sat with her arms in her lap, but when she wiped away another tear I saw bruising just above her wrist.

The kids’ schoolbooks and some toys were piled in a corner, and a chair covered in clothes was near the bed. “May I sit?”

“Sure.” Emily looked at the worn carpeting.

I pulled up the chair. “Emily, where you at the Bangkok Massage parlor tonight when a gunshot was fired?”

“Yeah.”

Sara rolled her eyes and filled the room with a disgusted-sounding groan and sigh.

“I’m going to listen carefully to everything you say, but first I want you to hold your arms out like this, please.” I turned my palms toward the ceiling and Emily copied my movement.

An ugly, dark streak was easy to see from her wrists to her forearms. Deep purple. Fresh bruises were spreading.

“Can you tell me how this happened?”

Emily struggled to hold her emotions in check as she described how the man started undressing and wanted her to get naked and do him a favor.

“Why do you think he called it a favor?”

“Because he had seen me three times already in the past month and claimed that he was my regular. He had always talked real sweet to me and wanted more than just a rubdown over his back, I could tell. But I never did. I said the rules didn’t let me, so I couldn’t.”

“And he accepted that?”

“No. Once, he laughed right in my face. Said he knew what the real rules were. The last time, he gave me a big tip after the session and said that he’d be back, and that next time I better relieve all his stress, and make him… happy.

“How’d that make you feel?”

“Scared. When he came in tonight he had a look — ”

I waited as the tears welled up. “A look? Why didn’t you refuse to go in the room with him?”

Emily huffed. “I guess you’ve never worked there. You don’t have a choice. You do what you’re told. Besides, he always got his way because he spent plenty.” She looked away, clearly embarrassed. “He reached for me — ”

I waited.

“He was rough and yanked me close. I told him ‘no’ but he grabbed my ass, my breasts, tits, whatever you want to call them. I pushed him away and then he was mad.” Emily was quiet. “I need the money.”

“He offered you money?”

“No. I work there because I need the money. A lot of the men are nice, usually don’t say much. He could be nice. Funny. But it was like he flipped. I got scared and started pulling off my dress, but then stopped. I was like, no way.

“Then what happened?”

Fighting back tears, she looked to Sara who encouraged her to continue.

“He came at me again, grabbed me here — ” she pointed to her forearms — “and it hurt real bad. He was holding so tight that I couldn’t pull away.”

“Did you call for help?”

The question triggered something inside Emily and she stiffened, shed a few tears, and then stopped. “I was afraid. Embarrassed. Didn’t want to the manager to think I was a problem. I didn’t know what to do. I was, like, freaking out.”

“Why didn’t you run out the door?”

“I tried and that’s when he pulled out the gun.”

“He had the gun?”

“Yeah. It certainly wasn’t mine. It was his and he was in a frenzy. Extra horny? I don’t know, maybe. I totally lost it, lunged for his arm and that’s when the gun went off. I was so scared that I ran.”

“Why’d you go to Sara’s bar?”

Emily glanced at Sara. “I was scared out of my mind, hers is the only safe place around here. Do you get it?” She sat upright, like a shot of adrenaline zipped through her. “I don’t shoot people. He pulled a gun on me. He was going to rape me. I’m not going to let anybody do that to me again.”

Memories became too much for her to bear.

“I get it,” I assured her.

Emily, drawn by the need to make money, was a victim in a bad place with a bad customer. Giving her a moment to compose herself, I stepped outside and thought through the next steps I’d have to take. Text messages showed the man was struggling to breathe and his organs weren’t cooperating.

Emily would need a lawyer to navigate the courts and prove that he was the aggressor, the bad guy. It shouldn’t be too hard, but it would be scary knowing that when life’s tide is rolling against you then it’s hard to catch a break.

While questioning her I thought about her being a single mom, a young single mom who was just trying her best to survive and raise her son, give him a good life. Which she never had.

I had come face to face with too many women like Emily.

From an early age she was the victim of abuse, followed by one bad relationship after another. Her last one was the worst, but she knew for her son’s sake that she had to get away, break that cycle, and she did. They left in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their backs. They had nowhere to go and lived on the streets until she met Sara. Now, she’s working two jobs, paying for a room at the motel, saving a little money, and getting back on her feet.

She didn’t want anybody to know that she worked as a masseuse at the Bangkok Massage Studio, didn’t want that to follow her and her son, so she’d been working under a fake name and social security number. She always wore a wig while working there, never met the owner, and barely talked with the other workers. They didn’t know who she really was. As far as they knew, she was just another undocumented worker passing through to make a few bucks.

While I soaked in what Emily was telling me, I got another text. The man had died. He was a real creep. A loner and convicted felon. Criminal history a mile long; everything from domestic abuse to rape to robbery. Preliminary reports said his death appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. There were no signs of struggle on the man, no bruising and no money was taken. It wasn’t a robbery gone bad.

It was an accident. Emily was only defending herself, the gun went off, and she got scared and ran. It was cut and dry, and I believed her.

I went back inside and stood at the foot of the bed. A deafening silence filled the room as I studied her, long and hard. I had a decision to make. Bring her in for questioning, put her kid in Child Protective Services, and, no matter how the trial turns out, hang the weight the legal system around her neck for the rest of her life.

Or — my mind churned with what else I could do —

File a report that nobody knew who the masseuse was. She had fled into the night without a trace, and disappeared with no leads.

I choose the latter, and stepped out of the room — closing the door behind me.

Detective Tom Stone is the hero of the Tom Stone Crime Stories thriller novel series, featured on Stone Cold Crime Stories.

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