“He was the salesman?”
“That’s right. I think he recognized me but he always claimed he didn’t.”
“From directing?”
“No, I was still a performer back then. I think he’d seen me on video and came running across the showroom, you know, wanting to help put me into something sweet. He always denied it but I think he’d seen my work.”
Ballard pointed a thumb toward the door.
“Shady Sadie, that’s your porno name?”
“One of many. I’ve had a long line of names and looks. I sort of reboot every few years, like the audience does. Right now I’m Shady Sadie the director. Let’s see, I’ve been Ebony Nights, Shaquilla Shackles, B. B. Black, Stormy Monday, a few others. What, you seen me?”
She had noted Ballard’s smile.
“No, it’s just a weird coincidence,” Ballard said. “Two nights ago I met a man who called himself Stormy Monday.”
“In porn?” Beaupre asked.
“No, something else entirely. So you said Trent had fantasies.”
“He was all fucked up. He was into pain. He wanted to give pain, see it in their eyes.”
“Their eyes? Who are we talking about?”
“I’m talking about his fantasies. What he liked in my videos, what he wanted to do in real life.”
“You’re saying he never acted out?”
“Not with me. I don’t know about with others. But he got arrested and he had metal knuckles on him. That was crossing the line.”
“That’s why you left?”
“That whole thing. Not only was he going there to hurt someone but the police were saying it was a boy. When I heard that, I had to go. It was too fucked up, even for me.”
“What’s your take on the psychology of this?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“My victim’s Latina. With the brass knuckles thing, he was going to see a Latino male. His ex-wife is African-American but light-skinned. There’s a victim type here and—”
“I was no fucking victim.”
“Sorry, I misspoke. But he’s got a type. It’s part of what is called a paraphilia. Part of his sexual program, for lack of a better word.”
“It’s part of the subjugation and control thing he has. In my films, I was the top, the dominatrix. In our marriage, he wanted to control me, keep me under his thumb. Like I was a challenge to him.”
“But he wasn’t abusive?”
“He wasn’t. Not to me, at least, because I would have been out the door. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t use intimidation and his physical size to control things. You can use your size without being physically abusive.”
“How much porno did he watch?”
“Look, don’t go down that road. The whole porno-made-him-do-it thing. We provide a service. People watch these films and that keeps them in check, keeps it in fantasy.”
Ballard was not sure Beaupre believed the words as she said them. Ballard could easily take the side that pornography was a gateway to aberrant behavior, but she knew now was not the time. She needed this woman as a source and eventually a potential witness. Calling her on her lifestyle and occupation was not the way to do it.
“I need to get back to the stage,” Beaupre said abruptly. “There’s no tomorrow on this. I lose one of my performers at midnight. She has school tomorrow.”
Ballard spoke urgently.
“Please, just a few more minutes,” she said. “You lived with him in the house on Wrightwood Drive?”
“Yes, he had that when I met him,” Beaupre said. “I moved in.”
“How’d he get a place like that selling cars?”
“He didn’t get it selling cars. He exaggerated his injuries from when he was in a helicopter crash coming back from Catalina. Got a hack doctor to back him on it and sued. He ended up getting like eight hundred thousand and bought the upside-down house.”
Ballard leaned forward in her chair. She wanted to proceed cautiously and not feed any answers to Beaupre.
“You mean like it was in foreclosure?” she asked. “They were upside down on their mortgage?”
“No, no, it was literally upside down,” Beaupre said. “The bedrooms were downstairs instead of up. Tom always called it the upside-down house.”
“Is that how he would describe it to others? To visitors? The upside-down house?”
“Pretty much, yeah. He thought it was funny. He said it was ‘an upside-down house for an upside-down world.’”
It was a key piece of information, and the fact that Beaupre had volunteered it made it all the more convincing. Ballard kept moving.
“Let’s talk about the brass knuckles,” she said. “What do you know about them?”
“I mean, I knew he had them,” Beaupre said. “But I didn’t think he’d ever use them. He had all kinds of weapons—stick knives, throwing stars, metal knuckles. He called them metal knuckles because technically not all of them were brass.”
“So he had multiple pairs?”
“Oh, yeah. He had a collection.”
“Did he have duplicates? The pair that were seized during his arrest said good and evil on them. Did he have another pair like that?”
“He had a bunch of them, and most said that. That was his thing. He said he would’ve had that tattooed on his knuckles—good and evil—except that he’d probably lose his job.”
Ballard knew it was a big get. Beatrice was giving her the building blocks of a case.
“He kept his weapons in the house?”
“Yeah, in the house.”
“Guns?”
“No guns. He didn’t like guns for some reason. He said he liked ‘weapons with edges.’”
“What else is in the house?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been there in a long time. I know this, though—he put all his money into buying the house because he said real estate was better than putting money in the bank, but that meant he didn’t have much left over to furnish the place. A couple of those bedrooms were completely empty, at least when I lived there.”
Ballard thought about the room she saw off the lower deck. Beaupre stood up.
“Look, we wrap at midnight,” she said. “You want to hang and watch or come back then, we can talk more. But I need to go. Time is money in this business.”
“Right,” Ballard said. “Okay.”
She decided to take a shot in the dark.
“Did you keep a key?” she asked.
“What?” Beaupre said.
“When you got divorced, did you keep a key to the house? A lot of people who go through a divorce keep a key.”
Beaupre looked at Ballard with indignation.
“I told you, I wanted nothing to do with that man. Back then or now. I didn’t keep a key, because I never wanted to go near that place again.”
“Okay, because if you did, I might be able to use it. You know, in an emergency. The guy who did the damage to my victim, it wasn’t the kind of thing he’ll do only once. If he thinks he got away with it? He’ll do it again.”
“That’s too bad.”
Beaupre stood next to the door to usher Ballard out. They moved down the hallway, and when they passed by the alcove where the snacks were, Ballard saw a woman who was naked except for thigh-high boots, pausing over a choice of candy bar.