Down and Out in Beverly Heels

by Kathryn Leigh Scott

Less than an hour after roaring out of the parking lot, Donna and I are once again barreling down the 405 toward San Diego. But this time, after considerable negotiation, I’m behind the wheel. Donna is riding shotgun, the cash box hugged to her chest, her expensive St. John cardigan buttoned around it.

  The Mercedes is parked at the airport. I’m driving a rental blue compact with a lousy radio. Thank God the air conditioner is working, because I’m steamed. I would have preferred it if Donna had driven her tub back home and stayed there, but she is not a reasonable woman. She also remains in possession of the cash box, and no matter what, Donna isn’t about to let go of it. She’s steamed, too, and I don’t care. She did not have to come along. She turns down the radio, which means I’m in for another earful.

  “You can get mad at me all you want, but I can’t help worrying about the way you just throw money around.”

  “So I have to travel with my banker? Half that money is mine.”

  “There’s no reason we couldn’t have driven my car. For that matter, it would’ve taken no time at all to go home and pack some things. We don’t even have toothbrushes. I assume we’re not making the drive back home tonight?”

  “That Proznorov kid knows your car. He also knows where you live, and by now he’s let someone know what happened. Chances are, he’s also managed to hotwire his car. It’s better to get a jump on them.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “So you’ve said. I didn’t force you to come along.”

  “Just for the record, my credit card secured this vehicle. I should be the one driving.” She sniffs, knowing there’s little reason for me to respond, as it’s a moot point. I’m the one behind the wheel, and I won’t be giving up the keys. The silence lingers as long as Donna can stand it. “So what do you think you’ll find there anyway?”

  “I just want to check something out. If you can bear to pry your hands off the cash box, take a look at those letters in my shoulder bag. The only envelope without a postmark is that fat brown one. Several of the letters are addressed to Grigori Proznorov, but look at all the others with different names going to the same post office box. Do you see the name on the large white envelope? Ms. Jerilyn Fenster. That was our waitress in the Eat ’n’ Run.”

  “The pickle face who served us coffee?”

  “Right. Jeri was her name. Ms. Warmth. But maybe we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

  “You’re kidding! How do you know she’s dead?”

  “Jack told me. Her body was found in a Dumpster yesterday morning.”

  “Somebody killed her?”

  “I’m afraid so, unless she crawled in and committed suicide.” I glance at Donna. Her lips are pursed, and she gives me a reproachful look. “Sorry. Yes, she was killed. I don’t know how, because Jack didn’t say. But here’s the question: What is the Proznorov kid doing with Jeri Fenster’s mail?”

  “Isn’t this something you should tell Jack about?”

  “Is it? I’d kind of like to figure this one out on my own and see where it leads. Especially since he’s not willing to let me in on anything. He had to have known about Paul and Lucy long before I told him, and he didn’t bother to tell me.”

  Donna shifts sideways and turns the radio down even lower. “A woman was murdered—and you want to barge down to the crime scene? What makes you think we’ll get anywhere near the restaurant? There’ll be police everywhere.”

  “Probably, but I need to check an address and see if I’m right.”

  “That’s about all you’ll have time to do. It’ll be dark when we get there.”

  And cold. By the time we exit the freeway and head toward the vicinity of the strip mall, I’ve turned the heater on. We both fall silent as we pass through the bleak industrial backwater. We reach an intersection lit in the poisonous glare of a street lamp, and turn into the grim residential section. Truth to tell, I’m glad I have Donna for company. I’ve spent enough solitary nights sleeping in my car to be wary of dark, isolated streets.

  But the strip mall, when we reach it, is anything but a lonely place this evening. We drive past the parade of shop fronts, checking them out. The Eat ’n’ Run is bustling. How many of its occupants are police detectives? The Laundromat is brightly lit. At least three people are standing at washers. The nail salon and pet supply are both closed, but two people are leaning against the brick wall between the plate-glass windows. Only Luck o’ Lucy’s is entirely dark. Even the neon martini glass isn’t blinking tonight.

  I pull up at the stop sign on the corner, my eyes scanning the mustard-colored stucco house. It’s dark, too, except for a low-wattage porch light that’s probably on a timer. The illumination is faint, but sufficient to read the black numerals next to the front door.

  I signal and turn left, driving slowly past the side of the house. There’s no sign of occupancy. Window shades are pulled. Garage doors closed. I drive down another block and pull to the curb.

  “What do you want to check out?”

  “I’ve already done it. The house on the corner is number 3194, the same address as the one on those mortgage documents sent to Jeri Fenster.”

  “But the address on the envelope is that kid’s post office box.”

  “Take a look inside at the address printed on the documents.” Quickly, before Donna can flick on the bright overhead light, I reach across her to open the glove compartment. We lean into the faint glow, and I show Donna the street address printed on the first page of the mortgage document.

  “You mean that place actually belonged to the waitress, not Lucy?”

  “According to this mortgage application, that’s the way it appears. Maybe she did own the house and was only renting the place to Lucy. But even if that’s the case, I think Jerilyn Fenster would have been shocked to learn how much her house is worth.”

  Donna’s mouth hangs open as she stares at the figures. “Come on, there’s no way that ugly little tear-down is worth that much. Not in this neighborhood.”

  “Look, all I know is that someone was running paper on that property. Maybe Jeri was in on the scam. If not, imagine her counting on tips to come up with the mortgage payments. By the time she knew what was going on, the house would be in foreclosure and her credit destroyed.”

  “That’s what happened to you.”

  “More or less. Actually more, since I was married to the bastard who did it.”

  Donna’s face looks fierce in the ghoulish light of the glove compartment. I laugh in spite of myself.

  “Would you mind telling me what’s so funny?” she demands. “You really are something else. Maybe you’re just trying to find Paul so you can give him half the money you made today. You lined Dirck’s pockets. Why not Paul’s?”

  The jibe stings, but I can’t blame Donna for getting her licks in when she can. I flip the glove compartment closed and check the rearview mirror, then pull away from the curb and make a U-turn.

  “Are you hungry yet?” I ask.

  “Starving. But I don’t think I care to dine at the Eat ’n’ Run.”

  “No, but how about getting us some coffee to go?” I pull up at the curb next to Luck o’ Lucy’s.

  “Sure. Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “There’s one other thing I want to check out.”

  “No. Absolutely not, Meg. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “I’m not going to drive off and leave you, for God’s sake. You can take the cash box with you.”

  “That’s not it!” She looks out at Luck o’ Lucy’s and groans. “I’ve got a creepy feeling you want to sneak in there for another look around. Am I right?”

  “Wrong. But there’s something in the Eat ’n’ Run I want. I’d just as soon not take the chance someone in there will recognize me. Maybe you could just ask a few questions while you’re at it.”

  “What about?” I’m relieved to see Donna look more intrigued than suspicious.

  “Ask about Jeri. You might even mention Lucy’s name. See what ha
ppens. But go back to the ladies’ room and have a look at the bulletin board. If you see a brochure about sportfishing, take it.”

  “Sportfishing? Why in the world—”

  “Just a thought. I’ll be parked right here.”

  Donna unplugs her seat belt, then gives me a grudging look. “I’m going to trust you, okay?” She unbuttons her jacket and stuffs the cash box in a canvas holdall. “But I’m taking this with me.”

  “Whatever.” I smile. “And make mine full strength. No decaf, please.”

  “You got it.” Donna slides out and closes the car door. She hugs her arms and hurries across the parking lot in short, quick steps. I’m glad I didn’t tell her to take her time in there. It would only have made her more suspicious. She stops before opening the door to the diner and looks back at me. I wave, then she steps inside and I lose sight of her. I open the car door, climb out, and quickly lock the door behind me.

  The night air is cold. I duck across the side street, avoiding the pool of light spilling from the strip mall’s lamppost. I hurry down the darkened sidewalk across the street from the mustard-colored house. Once I’m directly opposite the garage at the rear of the property, I pause for a quick look around. The street is empty. I make a break for the shadows cast by the tall laburnum hedge.

  I peer through a grimy garage window and see no vehicle inside. Inspecting the rear of the house near the hedge, I spot broken panes in a corner bedroom window. A plastic recycling bin has been overturned and placed in the weedy patch below it. How convenient. Someone else without keys has managed to find a way to get inside.

  I stand on the bin and gingerly push aside the window shade. The touch is enough to release the spring. I cry out and leap off the box as the shade snaps halfway up the window with a loud clatter. Standing motionless in the damp grass, my heart pounding, I watch the bottom of the shade flap noisily against the window frame.

  No one appears. No one calls out. If that blood-chilling racket didn’t raise an alarm, I probably have the place to myself. I’m about to jump back up on the box when it occurs to me that whoever broke in through the window probably took the easy way out.

  I run up the three steps to the back door and gingerly turn the knob. The door swings open almost too easily. I take my penlight from my shoulder bag and flash the narrow beam around the interior of the kitchen before stepping across the threshold.

  The air is musty, the house itself cold and dank. I shiver, not necessarily because of the chill. The only sound is the burr of the fridge. I open the door, as much for the illumination as to check the contents. A carton of soy milk, a tomato with puckered skin, two raisin bagels tied in a plastic bag, a jar of instant coffee. No wonder Lucy took all her meals at the Eat ’n’ Run.

  The living room, a low-ceiling box with ratty shag carpet, is furnished with a Naugahyde recliner facing a TV set on a metal stand. A sagging couch is shoved against the wall. In this slumping housing market, this dump couldn’t be worth a quarter of the mortgage appraisal.

  The larger of the two bedrooms appears to be recently done up, with light-colored carpet and a matching suite of blond furnishings. The bed is unmade. The pink flowered sheets look none too fresh. I rummage through a chest of drawers heaped with lingerie, scarves, and T-shirts. The vanity overflows with lotions and cheap cosmetics.

  A mound of soiled clothing is heaped into an overflowing laundry basket on the closet floor, along with a tangled pile of belts and bags. I back away from the stink of shoes and stale deodorant, having no stomach for a closer inspection. What would I hope to find, anyway? The jumble of clothing dangling off wire hangers belongs to Lucy, not Paul. He traveled light, and this hole-in-the-wall couldn’t have been more than a stopover for him. I take a quick look in the bathroom, checking out the medicine cabinet, finding the usual unguents and cold remedies but no surprises.

  The back bedroom is a deep freeze. A cold draft from the broken window flutters the window shade. I flick the penlight across a bed frame and bare mattress upended in a corner, then follow the beam as it lights up a telephone, its receiver hanging like a plumb line.

  I jump. There’s a cold draft, then eerie shadows sway across the floorboards to my left. My hand shaking, I dance the penlight across a string of dangling telephone receivers. Above them is a bank of maybe a dozen multiple-line wall phones. Index cards are thumbtacked alongside each telephone. I bend closer, trying to make out the names penciled on the first card: LINE ONE—EDUARDO VASQUEZ; LINE TWO—OZZIE BISHOP; and LINE THREE—LOLA DETROIT. Moving along the wall, I read several other names jotted on the cards, spotting JERILYN FENSTER—LINE TWO on the fourth telephone.

  Moving backward, I brush up against a long folding table stacked with forms, file boxes, and metal trays piled high with manila folders. I flip open the top file marked BRUCE HARLEY. Inside are printouts of W-2s, paycheck stubs, employment records, and a credit statement. On another worktop, dusty computers, a fax machine, two printers, and a copier are crowded next to stacks of blank Social Security cards and credit applications. A grimy box contains pens, Wite-Out, and an assortment of rubber stamps, everything anyone would need to forge counterfeit employment and credit documents.

  I stand in the L of two folding tables, focusing my penlight on a box of computer forms, trying to take it all in. Shaking off a flash of déjà vu, I realize why I feel like I’ve been here before. Jinx, in a St. Patrick’s Day episode about conmen trying to score off the Irish Sweepstakes, broke into just such a boiler room. The Holiday series screened long before computers and fax machines, but the telephone setup is familiar.

  Jinx, of course, busted up the boiler-room gang in the nick of time. No such luck here. This boiler room is stone cold. Whoever was involved in forging documents and flipping property is long gone, and Jeri Fenster is very dead. Did she even know she was a straw buyer? Or did she get too snoopy—or greedy?

  Whatever happened, it’s obvious the scammers cleared out quickly. I pivot toward the closet, its door standing slightly ajar. Copping a move I picked up playing Jinx, I press myself against the wall and kick back the flimsy door. With a bump of adrenaline, I shine my penlight around the interior. No dead body heaped on the floor. No clothes, either. Just empty wire hangers.

  I flash the light into the dark corners, almost jumping at the sight of a pair of shoes with curling rawhide laces. I know without looking that the dusty, well-worn Top-Siders sitting there are size eleven.

  The shelf above the hanging rack looks empty, but standing on my toes, I spot a brightly colored cigarillo tin. Next to it, just within reach, is a cloudy plastic box I also recognize. I pry the lid off the shallow Tupperware, Paul’s customary traveling cigar container. Inside are three silver tubes of Romeo y Julieta Churchill Habanas and a crumpled cocktail napkin with COOP’S printed in jaunty red letters below the logo of a blue sailboat, in wavy blue lettering: BAJA.

  I blink hard at this found treasure, then quickly stuff the booty into my shoulder bag and toss the Tupperware back on the grimy shelf.

  The blood pounds in my ears as I hurry through the other bedroom. I glance once again at Lucy’s closet, the doors open and sagging off their tracks. I can’t leave without taking a closer look. I plunge my hand quickly in and out of all the jacket pockets, finding only odd change and crumpled Kleenex. The handbags yield the same sort of detritus. If she left all this behind, she must have had scant warning to clear out.

  It’s time for me to get out of here, too. I don’t bother closing the back door on my way out. I sprint down the street, hugging my shoulder bag to my ribs. When I see Donna’s head above the passenger seat, I run faster. I pull at the door handle, which is locked, then rap on the window. Donna releases the lock, her face livid in the sudden light as I open the door and jump in.

  “I don’t believe you! Where the hell have you been?”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be gone so long.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be gone at all! Do you know how long you left me sittin
g here?” She looks like a ferocious terrier, her short, wiry hair vibrating with fury.

  “I’m sorry. How did you get in?”

  “I opened the door. Whaddaya think?”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No, other than people leaving the restaurant. I looked around when I didn’t see you in the car, but then I got in and waited. Hang on, you didn’t go to Luck o’ Lucy’s, did you?”

  “No. I went down the street.” I realize this isn’t the time to tell Donna I locked the car doors before I left. Nor is there any need to mention my search of the mustard-colored house. I toss my shoulder bag in the backseat and press the key into the ignition. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

  “Fine. You want your coffee? It’s cold.”

  I take the cup, but my hands are shaking too much to manage more than a sip. “Sorry. I’m freezing.”

  “Here’s an idea. How about we get back on the freeway and stop at one of those discount stores? We can pick up whatever we need and find a room closer to San Diego. Frankly, I don’t care where we eat. Let’s just hit the road and get out of here.”

  I half-listen to Donna plot the rest of our evening and try not to think about the Top-Siders on the closet floor, or how the car doors got unlocked. I pull away from the curb and swing into the alley behind Luck o’ Lucy’s to turn around. As the car bumps up the slight incline and across a pothole, the headlights flick up and down on a Dumpster in front of us. It’s wrapped in neon yellow tape. A squad car, unoccupied, is parked behind the bar, facing the Dumpster.

  “Well, at least I feel better knowing there were cops nearby,” Donna says, looking out the side window. “You know, you’re crazy to leave a car unlocked, even for a minute. What were you thinking?”

  “Sorry. Good thing the cops were around.” I glance at the Dumpster again, knowing it’s where Jeri Fenster’s body was found yesterday morning. I hear Donna suddenly gasp. She’s made the connection, too.

  “My God, Meg! That’s the—”

  “I know.” I cut into the parking lot and swing back onto the side street, heading toward the freeway onramp. “What about the restaurant?”