“Which one would that be now?”
“Sending the link right now,” Victor said. “Take care,” he added, and I know he meant it.
We finished saying goodbyes with the same fondness we’d always shared for each other and, before opening the link he’d sent me and simply moving forward to a new event on an extremely eventful day, I allowed myself to think about us. I cherished the time we’d shared.
We’d met almost a year before when he’d just moved to Los Angeles. My mother introduced us at some city hall party. He was her newest recruit. He was originally from Boston, and the fact that he was a stranger in a new city attracted me to him instantly, endeared me to him. Well, the fact that he looked outrageously sexy in a suit may have helped as well. And I say that fully aware that suits and blonds had never ticked anything for me before.
We managed to get drunk on the free booze at the party. Technically, he was off the clock and didn’t start working for the city until two days later, and I’m simply an incredibly bad influence. We told each other our life stories—a sanitized version of them, at least—and we ended up on a run to a pharmacy in need of condoms and from there straight to his place. I’d never been one to fuck on a first date, let alone the day I met someone. But it felt the most natural—and urgent—thing to do with him.
It fizzled out extremely fast after that though, and we soon found ourselves in a comfortable relationship based on frequent outings, infrequent chats about the same interests, and even more infrequent intimacy.
My phone buzzed then because I still hadn’t checked the message Victor had sent me with the link. I was brought back to that Friday in February where I had to add a breakup to the long list of things happening in a single day. I remedied my inattention to my phone and opened the link to the article Victor had shared with me.
Investigative Reporter David Ramos Looks Guiltier by the Minute
The LAPD has found new evidence that links formerLA Gazettecontributor David Ramos with the death of celebratedLA Misconductsactor Dashing Henry. Ramos was seen this morning at the Downtown police station with Mayor Aurora Valls’s oldest daughter, the perennially unemployed screenwriter and wild child Elena Freire Valls.
By Gloria Fucking Kingsley
We’ve already told you aboutLA Misconductsillustrious actor Dashing Henry’s fatal death in a hit-and-run that went terribly wrong. His body was found yesterday at the garage of the Downtown art deco apartment building Eastern Columbia.
Today new evidence arises connecting the death of the actor to the so-called investigative reporter David Ramos. Only a few hours ago, the city beat journalist was first suspected of having been the one driving and dispensing the final blow to Henry. Now the evidence against Ramos keeps piling up in a difficult-to-ignore way.
Sources familiar with the investigation say Henry’s autopsy results have shown high amounts of alcohol overdose. Even if the autopsy wasn’t able to determine the exact type of substance Henry drank—due to how quickly alcohol metabolizes in the body—the LAPD has hired the services of an expert forensic odor profiler.
What the actual fuck!Not in my wildest, most imaginative moments as a screenwriter would I have thought about adding a character who was a smell expert! I was hooked by the turn of events, and I continued reading.
The smell expert was brought in by the lead LAPD investigators to determine if there were any connections between the evidence found at the crime scene and a potential suspect. Law enforcement sources who wish to remain anonymous say the forensic odor profiler was able to identify the intoxicating beverage Henry had drunk before his death as Fernet-Branca Liqueur.
Fernet-Branca has a characteristic licorice-like odor and around 75% of its world production is consumed in Argentina.
Ramos, who is of Argentine descent, is a self-proclaimed Fernet-Branca lover. The reporter has openly written about his taste for this spirit in several of his posts on social media, and the police believe this furthers their case against him. They believe Ramos would have made Henry badly intoxicated before running him over. They should be ready to make an arrest in the next 24 hours if Ramos stops running interference.
The journalist was at the LAPD Downtown station on Friday morning to recant his previous statement where he’d lied and said he’d been alone all night on Wednesday, the night the killing of Henry took place. Ramos was joined at the station by intermittent girlfriend Elena Freire Valls and their lawyer, Mateo Freire, who also is Freire Valls’s father and is married to Los Angeles mayor, Aurora Valls.
A Now Tarnished, Once Promising Journalistic Career
But facing being charged with murder is not the only issue that should be a source of preoccupation for Ramos at the moment as the journalist may also be confronted with questions about his reporting.
There have been insinuations that Ramos could have concocted the allegations made against Henry when he first published a series of damning articles about the actor six months ago. Even if we’re still gathering evidence to corroborate it, Ramos is suspected to also have fabricated some of the sources on his articles that were meant to end Henry’s career.
That’s where I stopped reading. As if Gloria Fucking Kingsley could pretend she’d ever cared about the appropriate way of gathering evidence while writing an article.
It was preposterous that she was insinuating David had fabricated any evidence or sources in his reporting against Dashing Henry.
I was so enraged that I did the only logical thing. I called my dad. My hands trembled as I dialed his contact.
“Did you see the article?” I asked when he picked up the phone, trying to breathe slowly, my heart rate spiking.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, and good afternoon to you too. How are you doing?”
“Not so great. Just read another article in theVoice. This one is saying that David made up the evidence against Henry to ruin his career.” My tone was elevated, and I was hyperventilating. But my dad had a way of calming me. He’d always had.
“That’s preposterous!” he said.
“Exactly my thoughts.” Long inhale in, long exhale out. “Papá, call the cops and tell them I’m willing to talk to them in case they’re giving any credibility to that article. David didn’t kill Henry in fear that he was going to uncover him as a fake reporter who made up sources. I can tell the cops exactly what Henry tried with me and how he was unequivocally a predator. I can talk to them about how David’s article probably helped a lot of people by stopping him.”
“Are you sure about talking to the police?”
