Serpentine: An Alex Delaware Novel

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I ingested a french fry.

  She shook her head. Loss of faith in humanity.

  A minute or so later, she put down her utensils and grinned. “Keeping you in suspense? Yeah, I’m a coldhearted biddy. Learned about delay of gratification from being married.”

  I said, “Your delay or your husband’s?”

  She glowered at me, then her lips worked as she fought laughter. Finally, losing the battle, she let out a belch of guffaw. Her chest heaved. A pearl snap came loose. “Slim’s a comedian. Well, I’m taking the Fifth on that.”

  She swigged Diet Coke and sat back.

  “Okay, I won’t torture you anymore. Strictly speaking, Arlette wasn’t followed. But someone rode into the forest soon after her.”

  Milo said, “How soon?”

  “A few minutes—three, four, five. I didn’t think much of it until I heard what happened to her.”

  Milo said, “Who’d you see?”

  “Can’t swear to it but my impression was a woman, from the size and the way she moved in the saddle. Women have wider pelvises, sometimes they shift around a bit until they get a firm grip. That’s what this one was doing.”

  I said, “Maybe someone without much experience?”

  “You and your maybes. Yeah, could be that, but even experienced females sometimes jiggle around. My daughter was a dressage champ and when she’d first get on, she’d be this and that and back to this before she settled down.”

  Milo said, “What did this person look like?”

  “No idea, it was far away, a hundred yards give or take. Maybe it was like you said, Slim. A rookie rider, female or some small guy. All I can tell you is the horse was brown and not one of mine. There were two other rental ranches near me, one north, one south. Clip joints, anyone could waltz in and pay for an hour ride. Their animals were old and tired, more chance dropping on the trail than going wild and throwing anyone. I told the rangers all this. They looked at me like I was nuts.”

  “Are either of the other ranches still in business?” said Milo.

  “Nah, it’s all strip malls and apartments. You obviously haven’t taken the time to look.”

  “You’re our first stop, ma’am.”

  “Am I supposed to be flattered?” Her fist did another swan dive. “Strip malls.”

  I said, “Did you see the person who followed Arlette emerge from the forest?”

  “Nope,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have, by then a ranger had found the body, it was a hubbub, all sorts of official vehicles. So I was pretty distracted.”

  Milo said, “So someone could have come out without being noticed.”

  “Absolutely,” said Winifred Gaines, “and there are also other trails that would lead you north or south of where Arlette started.”

  Milo pulled out his pad. “Just to be thorough, what were the names of the other ranches?”

  “Clip Joint One was Open Trails, Clip Joint Two was River Ridge, which made no sense ’cause there’s no river anywhere nearby.”

  “Do you happen to recall who ran them?”

  She put down her fork. “Open Trails were some Armenians from Glendale, River Ridge was this woman from Tujunga, real scatterbrain, had no clue. Neither of them lasted—maybe a year after Arlette died. That’s when the Armenians started selling off land and the whole development thing started. Now you answer my question: Why so gung ho after all this time?”

  “Just what I told you, ma’am. We’re looking into a thirty—”

  “Six-year-old murder. You’re thinking he did it to Arlette and then to someone else?”

  “I can’t really get into—”

  “Ha. Your eyes just got shifty, there’s my answer. Well, makes sense. Do you have any idea what he got up to after Arlette died?”

  “We’ve been told he had women living with him at his house.”

  “Bimbos coming in and out,” said Winifred Gaines. “Like he was that Playboy character…Hefner. It was common knowledge. Not a wholesome environment for the kids, especially the little one. He even changed the way he looked.”

  “How so?”

  “Before then he was this engineer-businessman type. Suits, ties, little Walter Pidgeon mustache.” She wiggled a finger under her nose. “Coke-bottle eyeglasses, the whole Mr. Wizard thing. Next time I saw him—we ran into each other at Huntington Gardens—he was with the little girl, had a total switcheroo.”

  Another sub-nose wiggle was followed by a four-finger fan under her chin. “Now he had one of those goatee beards. Dyed it black, as believable as a campaign promise. And he was wearing those bell-bottoms. And one of those shirts.”

  She stuck out her tongue, retrieved her fork, ate four shrimp.

  I said, “Tasteless shirt?”

  “Shiny silk,” she said, as if that settled it. “Shiny fake-diamond buttons, puffy sleeves—sissy sleeves. Paisley in crazy colors. Probably got it along with the boots on Rodeo Drive. I heard he went there for entertainment, too.”

  “What kind of entertainment?”

  “Some tacky nightclub. My husband told me. Jack was a lawyer with Skinner Thorndike downtown, avoided the Westside like a plague but had to take a deposition in Beverly Hills. Some movie producer who’d cheated someone, big surprise. The crook kept Jack waiting, he got stuck there until evening. He was walking to his car and guess who he spotted going into some club on Rodeo.”

  “The new Dr. Des Barres.”

  “New and not improved,” said Winifred Gaines. “When Jack came home he was laughing. ‘Honey, you’ll never guess who turned all hippie-dippie.’ ”

  Milo said, “Did Jack tell you the name of the club?”

  “I didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. Like I said, he steered clear of anything west of Spring Street.”

  “Was Dr. Des Barres with anyone?”

  “Jack didn’t say, so he probably wasn’t. I’m sure all the company he needed was inside.” She snorted. “Beverly Hills. Place hasn’t been classy for a long time. Last year my granddaughter insisted we go there, there’s a store she likes on Beverly Drive, it was her birthday. You should’ve seen it. Hordes of Orientals, they’re dying their hair blue and yellow and whatnot, you’d think you were in Tokyo.”

  Milo said, “So Dr. Des Barres made a lifestyle change. Anything else you can tell us about him or his family?”

  “We didn’t socialize, they were just clients—Arlette was.”

  I said, “What kind of person was she?”

  “Sweet, soft-spoken, nice British accent. When we chitchatted it was about the horses. She knew her stuff. That’s why I can’t see her taking a tumble from a sweet thing like Bramble. So you suspect Tony of being a really bad guy. Even so, why bother? He’s dead, it’s all ancient history.”

  Milo said, “Doing my job, ma’am. Trying to do it well.”

  Her lips pursed and her brows arced.

  “Well,” she said, “guess you can’t ask more than that from anyone.” New voice. Soft, unguarded. “Don’t mean to give you grief, you’re just catching me at a bad time. Yesterday was the anniversary of Jack’s death.”

  “Sorry about that, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a laugh a minute.”

  He said, “How long has he been gone?”

  I figured that might elicit a sharp retort. Winifred Gaines sighed.

  “Four years. Year after that, Alex moved away, six months later, Melinda. Can’t blame them, they’ve got great jobs, I’m grateful they’re not wastrels. When the area turned into a construction zone, the riding business dried up. I finally sold everything at auction. Except the horses, those I personally made sure were adopted by good people.”

  She shook her head. “Now it’s just me and the house, which is too darn big. But I can’t bring myself to sell it. Bridget?”

  The waitress
came over. “What can I get you, Mrs. Gaines?”

  “A beer. I know I said I was watching the calories but to heck with that.”

  “Sure, Mrs. Gaines. Sam Adams like always?”

  “Anything as long as it’s not some poor-excuse light. I want to feel full.” She looked at our plates. “Obviously you don’t. Bridget, set them up with to-go bags.”

  Milo said, “That’s okay.”

  “Waste,” said Winifred Gaines, “is not okay. You don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

  * * *

  —

  Milo and I drank good robusto coffee as she nursed a tall glass of lager. When she’d emptied it, she called for the check.

  He said, “On us, ma’am.”

  “No chance. I pay my own way.”

  But when Bridget came over and he was ready with enough cash to evoke a grinning “Thank you, sir!” Winifred Gaines made no attempt to stop the transaction.

  The three of us got up from the table and she picked up the to-go bag containing our uneaten food. Her walk aimed for confidence but there was slight unsteadiness in her step.

  I held the door open for her. “Thanks, Slim.”

  She made her way to the brown Mercedes. She’d left the car unlocked, opened the rear door and placed the bag on the seat.

  Milo said, “Anything else you want to tell us, ma’am?”

  “Just thanks for dinner. I noticed you paid with legal tender. Maybe there’s hope.”

  We stood by as Winifred Gaines backed heedlessly into traffic, setting off tire squeals but no honks or road rage. She sped off, gray smoke belching from the Mercedes’s rear exhaust.

  Milo said, “No one flipped her off. Place is a bastion of etiquette.”

  I said, “Unlike that nest of barbarians, Beverly Hills.”

  He laughed, studied the sky, turned serious. “The club she was talking about is probably The Azalea, only place I know of on Rodeo. Foil paper walls, disco ball, drinks with parasols, bad Chinese food. And perfect for a guy like Tony Des Barres two point oh.”

  “Older guys and younger girls?”

  “Members-only if you were male. The girls were a perk.”

  “Where’d they come from?”

  “Who knows?”

  We got in the unmarked.

  I said, “Sounds like you were inside. When was it active?”

  “Before my time but not before Dr. Silverman’s.”

  Rick was four years older than us. I did the math. It didn’t add up.

  Splotches of pink had formed beneath his ears. I decided to let it ride.

  He inserted the key but didn’t turn it. “Strictly speaking, also before Rick’s time. He wasn’t legal to drink—barely seventeen, junior at Harvard-Westlake, but even then he had the mustache. He got taken there by a school benefactor—some finance honcho who’d seen Rick play varsity b-ball and wanted to ‘counsel’ him about a scholarship to an Ivy. Rick was figuring a steak dinner, instead they end up walking through an unmarked door and into all that merriment.”

  I said, “Older guys and younger girls? How’d taking Rick there figure in?”

  “There was also a room upstairs where the perks weren’t girls.” Deep breath. “Lavender foil, fake-fur seating, Aubrey Beardsley prints. Subtle, huh? When the letch went to the john, Rick got the hell out of there and took a cab home. No further communication from the guy and no more scholarship talk. His parents couldn’t afford the Ivies so he went to the U., undergrad and med school. You know the rest—chief resident, the job at Cedars. When he gets home tonight, I’ll ask him what else he remembers about the place. If no one died in the E.R. and his mood’s okay.”

  He waited for a lull in the traffic and backed out more smoothly than usual. As if compensating for Winifred Gaines’s heedless shotgun entry.

  At the first opportunity, he swung a U on Huntington. “Any thoughts about what we just heard?”

  I said, “Someone riding into the forest a few minutes after Arlette doesn’t mean much by itself. But with one staged accident we know about and two others that could also be setups, it is interesting.”

  “Hate that word,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get fascinating.”

  * * *

  —

  Two options for getting back to the Westside: Arroyo Seco Parkway to the Pasadena Freeway and through the downtown interchange, or reversing our trip on the 210. Both featured sections of red on Waze, creating online peppermint sticks. The 210 would deposit us closer to Beverly Glen.

  At this hour, the on-ramp was metered and we idled in a queue of commuters, mostly people driving alone.

  Milo said, “For argument’s sake, let’s say ol’ Winnie was right about a woman following Arlette and that it actually means something. That take you anywhere?”

  I said, “A love rival.”

  “That’s where my head went. Arlette died a year before Dorothy showed up. What if Des Barres started playing around while he was still married? Before he went all harem. He hooks up with a young lovely, she gets Dollar Sign Fever and sets her sights on being Wife Number Three. Only problem is, Number Two’s alive and kicking, so Dreaming Girl decides to clear the deck.”

  “If so, it didn’t work. Des Barres never married again. But maybe she settled for a position in the harem, figuring it was temporary. Especially if it was a prime slot.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Top girl. What Tony Junior felt Dorothy was aiming for.”

  He smiled sourly. “A pecking order.”

  “There always is,” I said.

  “Among women?”

  “Among people.”

  “Ah. Don’t tell the internet I just asked that.”

  “I don’t know, man, you’re making me feel kind of uncomfortable.”

  I flashed jazz hands. He flashed a new flavor of smile. Weak around the edges—preoccupied.

  A few minutes later, he said, “Arlette’s in the way of Dreamy’s aspirations so she saddles up and takes action. Ride in, act nonchalant, strike up a conversation, and shove or yank Arlette off. She’s waiting for the marriage proposal but ol’ Tony Senior goes in a whole new directions and now there’s serious competition in the form of Dorothy. One fake accident worked, why not another. Now all I have to do is I.D. Ms. Maleficent.”

  The auto queue opened suddenly and stayed that way. Muttering, “The Red Sea parts,” he eased onto the freeway and merged.

  I said, “The scenario fits Dorothy’s murder but I can’t see any tie-in to P. J. Seeger’s motorcycle crash or Stan Barker’s tumble.”

  “Why not? The same thing we’ve suggested all along. They both got too close to the truth.”

  “Femme fatale clearing the decks years later? And years apart? As far as we know neither Barker or Seeger—anyone for that matter—made a connection to a woman living in the mansion. Du Galoway came the closest, and he didn’t suspect anyone but Des Barres.”

  “Which, now that you mentioned it, could be righteous, Alex.”

  “Des Barres collaborated on both murders.”

  “Guy had enough charisma and dough to corral a harem. So what the hell do I do now?”

  “More archaeology.”

  * * *

  —

  As we passed into Glendale, he said, “All the time it’s taking, maybe we shoulda eaten.”

  Before I could answer, his phone tooted horrific abuse of Handel’s Messiah. He glanced at the screen. “Martz. She’s been bugging me for a progress report. You’d think my ignoring her would be enough.”

  Placing the phone between us on the bench seat, he speed-dialed and switched to speaker.

  A male voice said, “Deputy Chief Martz’s office.”

  “Lieutenant Sturgis returning her call.”

  Throat clear. “Three calls according
to my records, Lieutenant.”

  “And you are?”

  “Sergeant Schifter.”

  “Glad you keep good records. She in?”

  “Not at this moment.”

  “Tell her I called with a regress report.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Regress, Sergeant. It’s the opposite of progress.”

  Click. Wolf-grin.

  I said, “You must’ve been fun to teach in grade school.”

  “Actually, I was the soul of obedience and conformity.”

  I laughed.

  “No, really. By grade four I knew I was different but didn’t really understand it and figured I should keep my mouth shut. I was so quiet the teachers told my parents I needed to be ‘brought out.’ How’s that for irony? What about you? Model kid?”

  “I liked school.”

  “Big shock. Straight A’s, why not.”

  “More than that,” I said. “It was safe. Then I’d go home.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  We rolled up to my house eighty-eight tedious minutes later. Nearly an hour and a half of stop-and-go to cover twenty miles.

  Milo turned off the car. “You mind making some coffee? I’m gonna be up for a while trying to figure things out.”

  “No prob.”

  We trudged up the stairs to the terrace and I unlocked the door.

  Robin was in the living room reading Acoustic Guitar. She’d changed out of her work clothes into a black cowl-necked sweater, charcoal tights, and red flats. A collection of bangle bracelets decorated one wrist, the watch I’d given her last Christmas banded the other.

  She sprang up and hugged me, gave Milo a cheek peck.

  I said, “You look gorgeous. Where’re we going?”

  Milo straightened from petting Blanche. “Have fun, kids.” He turned to leave.

  Robin held him back by his arm. “You look worn out. You both do. I was thinking something simple, burgers, sushi, whatever. Join us, Big Guy.”

  “You’re an angel but I’ve got something protruding here.” He reached around to the small of his back. “Oh, yeah, it’s a fifth wheel.”