The Podcast

Chapter 1

February 2022, Los Angeles – Monday Evening

Young women spill from the front door of a butter-yellow Spanish Colonial mansion. They cluster together in undulating clots, necks craning for a better view while clinging to one another in girlish anticipation. A billowing ribbon of half-obscured faces, their phones held up in offering—a sacrifice. Anything for the thirty second clip.

Recently placed demarcations restrict the flow of their movement, forcing them to crowd under the arched porte-cochère. Unnatural female shrieks and protests pierce through the low hum of West Hollywood traffic in the distance. The street is lined with similarly renovated 1920's mansions plastered in shades of lilac, cream, and pistachio, topped with half-moon terracotta tiles and set behind ornate iron gates.

Lucas leans against the side of his parked car, rolling a nicotine toothpick between his full lips. He's waiting for his mark—delaying it perhaps—hoping the pandemonium will calm before he strides toward the sprawling, perfectly manicured lawn. To the surprise of many, he's always found the screaming, hysterical women to be the worst part of his job.

Two patrol cars mark off the area between Hilgard Avenue and Le Conte Avenue, their red and white lights pulsing rhythmically against the sky. The sun squats full and unbothered, spilling gold light toward the west, slowly sinking under its own weight.

"They're ready for you." Lucas' partner, Melanie, sidles up to him, her expression too full of admiration for his liking.

"Alright then. Let's go." Lucas keeps his black aviators on, scanning the crowd as he follows Melanie around to the opposite side of the mansion. He can't deny the presence of the carnal adrenaline rush he used to crave, like a vulture smelling blood in the air. Various uniformed personnel dole out competing instructions, staking their claim over the chaos. Like any scene in Hollywood, a crime scene is a performative act. Just without the need to play dead.

"What do we know so far?" Lucas ducks under the yellow crime scene tape, flashing his pale gold badge.

"Well, we don't know much. Local dispatch got a call about a drunk or possibly high female college student trapped inside her car. They broke the glass and found her dead inside. Currently no apparent cause of death. They want us on the scene now so they can transport her body to the medical examiner." Melanie glances up at Lucas between taut, informative sentences, her stocky stature short and compact compared to his much longer limbs. Everything about her exudes eagerness, if not outright naïveté. Lucas briefly envies it, unable to recall a time in the force when he wasn't jaded. Even when he made detective four years ago, there'd been something dead-on-arrival about it, an unsavory metallic tang that had only grown stronger since.

A familiar and ruddy-faced first responder waves them over. Lucas doesn't miss the way Melanie's throat bobs as she swallows hard, her right hand white-knuckling into a fist as her nails cut into the soft flesh of her palm. It takes a while, especially for the good ones, to not react so strongly at seeing dead girls in innocuous places.

"Detective Saba, how are you?" The first responder greets them with a nod as they brush past a line of medics, ready to tarp, tape, and bag when given the go-ahead.

"Been better, been worse." Lucas rounds a 2019 white Jetta at the center of the commotion, a Greek letter decal sticker on the lower left corner of the back window. "What sorority is that?"

"Pi Beta Phi." Melanie pipes in, masking her previous show of nerves as she coolly assesses the scene.

"When we arrived, we believed her to be alive but unconscious. Broke through the driver side door. No use in performing life saving measures. She'd been dead for some time."