“That’s an interesting situation,” Aidan said.
Mrs. Solov smiled that bad-girl smile again. “So, can you be of assistance?”
Sofia looked to Brendan. As founder and head of the agency, he had the final say on which cases the agency took. They’d done divorce work before, although Brendan didn’t like it. She didn’t either. No matter how hard you worked, nobody ended up happy.
“Well, Donna,” Aidan jumped right in, “we’ll do our best.”
Before Brendan had a chance to say anything, Aidan reached across and shook Mrs. Solov’s hand. In the Maloney family, that was as good as a signed contract.
Brendan’s face froze into a mask as impassive as Mrs. Solov’s.
Uh-oh.
“He should be at the clinic today. I’ve written down his schedule.” Mrs. Solov pulled a stack of papers out of her bag. They’d been folded in half and neatly creased. “And the make and model of his car, his license number, and so on.”
Aidan took her papers and gave her his own. “Here’s the standard agency contract.”
While Mrs. Solov signed, Brendan sat there like a block of ice. Sofia read through the schedule. It was very detailed, practically minute by minute. If Leonid Solov was screwing around, he was going to have to overcome serious logistical challenges. Which people managed to do all the time.
“What evidence are you looking for?” Aidan asked.
“I would need photographs, or preferably video. Audio. Email. Texts. Really, anything and everything to build an indisputable case. The more, the better.” Mrs. Solov stood. “Thank you for the tea.”
Brendan rose, too, ever the gentleman, and walked her out of the office.
Sofia sat there, trying to decide how she felt about the new case. It was the same kind of divorce work they’d done before, except they’d never had a client who hoped their spouse was screwing around. That was new. It felt underhanded, but if he was screwing around, then she guessed he’d get what was coming to him. And, in this case, his wife would get even more.
“Interesting case,” said Aidan.
“You know your dad’s not going to be thrilled about you taking the case without a group discussion, right?”
Aidan gathered up the documents. “Priscilla says I need to start taking the initiative.”
She could get sick of hearing Priscilla says pretty quickly.
“And,” Aidan continued, “we need the money for the remodel.”
“I get the feeling he didn’t sign off for that either.” Sofia stood and tidied the tea things onto the tray. “I’m going to take these to Cassie and thank her.”
“Don’t forget to use the bathroom. We have a long stakeout in front of us.”
She flipped him off, picked up the tray, and left. On one of her first stakeouts she’d had a well-publicized peeing-next-to-the-car incident, and she wasn’t going to rise to his comment.
Before he’d said that, she’d thought of starting a drinking game—she’d take a drink every time Aidan said Priscilla says. But she couldn’t really do that on a stakeout without access to good bathroom facilities or she’d risk a repeat of the incident. How about peanuts? One nut for every nutty statement. Could you overdose on peanuts?
She was about to find out.
Cassie’s office had a vending machine with peanuts. She bought three packs.
4
“Did someone steal your car?” Sofia asked. The office parking lot was Lemon Drop free. The painter’s van was all alone, with its drop cloths and whimsy.
“Priscilla knows this great place and she’s taking it to be detailed.”
Sofia took a peanut out of her purse and ate it. It wasn’t quite Priscilla says, but it was close enough. “She seems like a detail-oriented person.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I guess it means we’re taking my car.” Just as well, because she preferred to drive. Aidan drove like a little old lady. Although maybe Priscilla was giving him driving lessons, too.
They headed over to the dusty Tesla.
“It’s a disaster,” Aidan said. “Do you ever wash it?”
“I’ve been gone,” she said. “And I don’t have a girlfriend to take it to be detailed.”
“What about the cowboy?”
“Jaxon? He has more important things to do than wash my car.”
He drew a line through the dust on her dash. “Not everyone can be as hands-on as Priscilla.”
Sofia pressed the start button and headed back toward her house. Solov Clinic was on the way. She’d driven by it a million times. According to the schedule, the suspected stray would be there all day.
She ate another peanut one-handed so as not to interrupt her driving. By the end of this stakeout she was going to be the size of an elephant. “I don’t need any more details about Priscilla’s hands.”
“She can do amazing things with them.”
Time for a new tactic to shut down that line of discussion.
“Like what exactly can she do with her hands?” She slowed for a right turn. “Give me details so I can put them on Twitter. Gray has a couple million followers, so they’ll get lots of attention.”
After that, the car was blessedly silent all the way to the clinic. She parked across the street and down the block. In some places, a bright red Tesla would attract a lot of attention, but her little car looked right at home here. She counted three Beemers, a Benz, two Porsches, and a Ferrari. Also one Prius and a blue Mini Cooper. “Does that gray Porsche have the right license plate?”
“It’s not gray. It’s agate gray metallic.”
“How many shades of gray do Porsches come in?” she asked. “Fifty?”
“For this model? Three.” He checked the documents Mrs. Solov had provided. “And, yes, it’s Dr. Solov’s car.”
She studied the building. It looked like two shoeboxes stacked on top of each other, except the top one was larger and overhung the bottom. Both were faced with rough gray stone and had black glass privacy windows. Minimal landscaping—grass and river rocks. No place for anyone to hide. Including them.
Solov Clinic was known for its discretion. It was supposed to have the best anti-paparazzi security of any plastic-surgery clinic in the state. The guards were rumored to be retired Special Forces, and authorized to shoot down drones.
They’d never see what Dr. Solov was up to without going inside. And that wasn’t going to be easy.
“It probably has a back entrance.” She looked at the cars parked on the street. All were empty, but it wouldn’t surprise her to see a pap jump out of one at a moment’s notice. It had happened to her, such as during that peeing incident. “Should we try to get inside and see if he’s there?”
“Security is probably just as tight around the back, and surveillance will get a lot harder if he sees us.”
She couldn’t argue.
“Today let’s sit and watch. According to the schedule, he’s been there an hour and fifteen minutes. Plenty of time to have left already—either with another car or out the back door. No point in blowing our cover so soon if we don’t even know he’ll be inside.”
“OK.” She studied the black windows. Smoky and opaque. Like Darth Vader’s soul.
“How was the cruise?” Aidan asked.
She filled him in on the trip, including Violet and Van’s antics. He laughed at all the right places. He and the kids liked each other. When she came to the end of her story there were about five seconds of quiet in the car.
“I know you’ve always thought my checklist criteria are crazy—”
She interrupted him. “Because they are. Who cares how a woman holds a fork?”
“It’s important. And it’s important to say that Priscilla meets them all. Every single one. She’s absolutely flawless.”
Priscilla had been contemptuous to his father and rude to his co-worker, but maybe that was on Aidan’s list as a positive. She looked at a peanut, trying to decide if “flawless” was a sickening enough comment to me
rit eating it. It was. She popped it into her mouth and pulled another out of the bag. She sensed she’d need it soon.
“She’s been great for my health—I eat better than ever before and I’m working out every day.”
“That’s good.” She had the peanut in her hand, but waited.
“But there’s this thing.” He looked out of the window at the cars baking in the sun. She followed his gaze and watched little heat waves rise up around them.
It didn’t seem like he was going to continue. She jumped in. “Are you blushing? Is it a sex thing?”
“No,” he said. “Not a sex thing.”
Nothing stirred in the parking lot. Not even a bee or a fly. It was hot and boring.
“What kind of thing?” she asked.
“Never mind.”
“You know I won’t tell.” Probably.
“It’s about my ear.”
“Your ear?” She studied his ear. It looked the same as it always did—a very ordinary ear. “Are you going deaf?”
“Of course not!”
“Then what about your ear?”
“Don’t you see the dimple?”
She looked more closely.
“On the right side,” he added.
Just where the top of the ear curved out of his face there was a hole about the size of an ear piercing. “That thing? It’s pretty small.”
“I know,” he said.
“I never noticed it before.” She wondered if he had ever noticed it before Priscilla.
“It’s called a preauricular fistula.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“No, but Priscilla says it’s unsightly, and it represents a potential infection risk.”
She was so surprised that she dropped her peanut on the floor mat. Technically, she had to eat a peanut, but not that one. “Unsightly? It’s only a couple millimeters long.”
“Externally, yes, but internally it’s connected to my sinuses or something.”
“Have you ever had an infection?”
“No.” He looked back at her. “But it’s unsightly.”
Before she’d been on vacation, he’d never used the word “unsightly” and now he’d used it twice in one conversation. It had to be a Priscilla word. “Why should you fix it if it’s not broken?”
He looked past her at the parking lot. “Subject on the move.”
She ate two peanuts because the ear thing was doubly ridiculous and waited, finger over the start button.
5
Dr. Solov ambled out of the bottom shoebox like a man going on a picnic. He wore a pair of gray slacks and a white button-down shirt. Even from across the street, they looked designer. His face was perfectly symmetrical—round eyes, arched brows, high cheekbones, and a straight nose.
His plastic surgeon was better than his wife’s. Of course, he was his wife’s plastic surgeon. Clearly, Mrs. Solov should have hired the surgeon her husband used. Sofia wondered if they’d fought about it. No way to make that argument less awkward.
Dr. Solov eased into his Porsche and peeled out without looking back. An interesting combination of mellow and speedster. She aspired to that.
“He hasn’t spotted us,” Aidan said. “Be careful.”
She waited until the Porsche was halfway down the block before pressing the start button and easing the Tesla out into the road.
Brendan had told her that the best way to tail someone was to leave a lot of space between her car and the vehicle she was tailing. Apparently in the movies they always did it wrong. No surprise. Frankly, tailing someone the right way wasn’t very exciting.
The doctor pulled out onto the Pacific Coast Highway, and she followed. Easy to let a couple of cars get between them. She let an extra car in front. The doctor’s immaculate Porsche sparkled in the sun—she wasn’t likely to lose sight of him. On the other hand, she hated poking along in the slow lane. Being a detective wasn’t all fun and games.
They slid along the coast, ocean on the left, mountains on the right. Midmorning traffic wasn’t too bad. An hour either way, and the whole highway would be transformed into a smelly parking lot.
She spent too much of her life in traffic. It made her feel better to know the Tesla had a HEPA filter pulling out the air pollution so she didn’t have to breathe it. Or that was what their website said. She hoped it was true. If not, well, she didn’t even want to think about what was going into her lungs right now.
“It’s nice to see you driving so cautiously,” Aidan said. “Like the world isn’t a giant race track.”
His phone moaned before she came up with a good answer.
“Is that your new porn notice?” she asked.
“It’s Priscilla’s text tone.” His eyes went to the phone’s screen, and his thumbs started flying.
Priscilla moaned a reply. Sofia had seen the gimmick on a TV show, and didn’t think it was funny even then, but the sound made Aidan smile every time. Yeah, men were complicated. Not.
“Your phone makes that sound around Brendan?” She couldn’t begin to imagine Brendan’s face if Aidan’s phone started getting hot and heavy during a client meeting.
“I mute it at the office.” He didn’t even look up from his texting.
She kept driving, and Priscilla and Aidan kept moaning and smiling.
Dr. Solov went to a racquetball club, where he played one game. Aidan went inside the club and pretended to be a potential member. He got a full tour, pronounced the club as overpriced, and kept a close eye on their doctor. The doctor won his game and never noticed Aidan.
Then Dr. Solov did something out of character. He was supposed to go back to the clinic, but he drove right by it.
“Thank God,” Aidan said. “The man is ready to sin. And it’s not even lunchtime. Maybe we can wrap this case up today.”
“Where do you suppose he’s going?” Sofia fell further back on the Pacific Coast Highway so the doctor wouldn’t spot them.
“I have my camera ready.” Aidan patted it: state-of-the-art, hanging around his neck, with a giant zoom lens. “Here’s hoping it’s somewhere juicy.”
Sofia guessed this must be how the paparazzi felt. Hours of waiting for a moment’s excitement. Hoping that someone would do something awful so you could get a picture. She didn’t feel good about it.
Dr. Solov had nearly reached Nirvana Cove, Sofia’s trailer park. She wondered if he’d turn off. Maybe he was having a lunchtime fling with her elderly neighbor, Tex. Not as crazy as it sounded, since Tex saw more action in a week than Sofia did in a year. Then he rolled right past.
“He’s turning off the highway!” The familiar Porsche turned into the street after Nirvana Cove, Zuma View Place.
She followed cautiously. It was a cul-de-sac. A couple of big houses, newly built with red tile roofs and tennis courts, and an older home, dating from before she was born, with a basketball hoop out front. Mixed housing, her realtor would call it.
She was pulling for the old place. She wanted it to stick around a little longer. Eventually, of course, it’d be bulldozed and replaced with a McMansion. But maybe it could hold its own. Maybe.
Dr. Solov parked in front of a brand new McMansion. A square gray box, like his shoebox office, actually, but smaller and without the stone that gave the office character. Incredibly ugly. She bet it had cost a fortune. It was across the street from a house with an empty tennis court. Who played tennis so often that they needed a private court?
“This is looking promising,” Aidan said.
Sofia rolled by the shoebox and parked in front of the old house further down the street. A eucalyptus tree shaded her car. Score.
“He’s going inside,” she said.
“In a minute I’ll try to circle around back on foot,” Aidan said.
“What if he has a dog?”
“Don’t even think that.”
“What do you suppose he’s doing there?” The house’s driveway had a couple of cars in it—a Lexus, which was trendy and expected, and a dusty
Volvo, which wasn’t. Plus the doctor’s shiny Porsche.
“It doesn’t seem deserted enough for an illicit rendezvous,” Aidan said.
“Maybe it’s an orgy.”
“Who drives a Volvo to an orgy?”
Sofia thought for a second. “Lady Vulva. In her Volvo.”
Aidan groaned. “Maybe it’s a party,” he said.
“It’s eleven in the morning! People in Malibu don’t usually get up at this time of day, let alone party. Except the old folks in my neighborhood. They’re up jogging at dawn. And surfers.”
“Priscilla says rising early is the best thing for your biorhythms.”
She ate another peanut. The peanut thing had been a bad idea. Now she was thirsty. She had a water bottle in the pocket in her door, but she didn’t want to drink it and have to go to the bathroom in the bushes. She’d never hear the end of it.
Tomorrow, she’d use M&Ms. Or maybe raisins. She’d have lots of opportunities to eat them, so she should at least eat something with fiber.
She reached across Aidan and got her own camera out of the glove box. She always kept it there for stakeouts. She took a picture of Dr. Solov’s car in the driveway, zooming in on his license plate. She took pictures of each car parked there and in the street, making sure that she had their license-plate numbers, too. Finally, she photographed the street sign.
All the images were tagged with the time and location. They had a clear record that Dr. Solov had come here and met with the people who drove those cars, but it was anybody’s guess as to why.
It was a start.
She rolled down the windows so the car wouldn’t heat up. “Shouldn’t we go inside? Or skulk around the yard and take pictures?”
“In a minute. Give the guy time to get undressed.”
“It’s going be tough to get close enough to get pictures.” She pointed at a giant pink and white bougainvillea hedge that ran along the sidewalk. The best-looking part of the house. Considering the size of the hedge, it had been there before the shoebox was built. Score one for the previous owner, even if their home had been bulldozed. “And how are you going to get over that gate?”
F is for Fred Page 3