The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes

by David Handler

  He studied me curiously. “What about it?”

  “She was wearing it when Patrick attacked her. Told me she took it off to soak up the blood that was streaming from her nose. It wasn’t doing a particularly effective job so I grabbed a towel for her from the bathroom. When I put the shirt in the sink I noticed something odd about it.”

  “Which was . . . ?”

  “The cuffs were buttoned at the wrist. That tells me Monette wasn’t wearing her sleeves rolled up when Patrick attacked her. She had deep, bloody gouge marks up and down both of her forearms, yet there were no corresponding bloody marks on her shirtsleeves. Wouldn’t you think there would be?”

  “You said she’d gone upstairs to use the bathroom. Maybe she’d taken the shirt off.”

  “Stripped down to her tank top, you mean? Maybe. But if she was going to fetch something to soak up the blood pouring from her nose wouldn’t she have chosen a towel? Why the shirt?”

  Lamp stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully. “You were out on the patio with Patrick shortly before the shooting, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Is there any doubt in your mind that he was capable of becoming enraged enough to punch the lady in the nose?”

  “No doubt at all. But your medical examiner will be able to tell that for certain, won’t he? The knuckles on one of Patrick’s hands will be bruised or reddened, I would think.”

  “Not necessarily. In fact, the preliminary exam showed that neither fist was bruised. The human nose is soft tissue, Hoagy. It’s not like hitting someone on the jaw, which is hard bone. And it doesn’t take much of a blow to produce a lot of blood. The ME did say it looks as if the victim had somebody’s blood and tissue under his fingernails.”

  “Which you’ll be able to identify as Monette’s blood and tissue.”

  Lamp frowned at me. “Will we?”

  “Won’t you? I keep hearing all about this magic DNA wand of yours.”

  “This DNA business has been blown totally out of proportion by bad TV cop shows. The reality of PCR—polymerase chain reaction—is that it’ll enable our lab people to identify the blood type that’s present under Patrick’s fingernails. But they can’t individualize it to a specific person. Not yet anyhow. That’s strictly make-believe. Let’s say they find a blood sample under his nails that’s the same blood type as Monette’s, okay? If it’s Type O then that represents 45 percent of the population, which is to say practically half of the people who were there at the time of the shooting. If it’s Type A then that’s another 42 percent. A prosecutor can’t walk into a criminal court with that and call it evidence, understand?”

  “I understand.” I drank down the last of my coffee. “How long will it take for them to determine the blood type?”

  “For a super high-profile case like this one, the whole lab will be called in tonight. They’ll have results by tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is Sunday.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’ll be on the job.”

  “And so will you, I imagine.”

  “Count on it.” He gestured to the waiter for our check before he studied me carefully from across the table. “It’s good to see you again, Hoagy. I enjoy your company. I sure do hope I don’t have to land on you hard this time.”

  “Why would you need to do that?”

  “For holding out on me,” he said quietly. “Possibly even lying to me.”

  “We’re both interested in the same thing, Lieutenant.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “You’re right, we’re not. But you have my word that Lulu and I will do everything we can to point you in the right direction. Besides, no matter what happens, you’ll still come out ahead.”

  “How so?” he asked me as the waiter brought us our check.

  I grabbed it. “Because I’m paying for dinner.”

  Back at Aintree Manor, Monette was seated in the library with Elliot watching the live cable news coverage of Patrick’s murder, which had officially crossed over into surreal, as in what they were watching as I stood there with them was me pulling up at the front gate on the Roadmaster a few seconds earlier. Me not responding to any of the questions that were being shouted at me by the mob of reporters out there. Me.

  Monette and Elliot were sipping Sancerre as Monette held an ice pack to her nose. She wore a pale blue silk kimono with wide sleeves, the better to allow those bloody fingernail gouges on her forearms to breathe. The gouges were shiny with ointment. There were two prescription pill bottles on the end table next to her.

  Monette lowered the ice pack from her face and hit the mute button on the TV remote. “I’m glad you’re back, Hoagy,” she said, continuing to strike me as eerily calm considering that she’d pumped four shots into her husband that afternoon. “I feel better with you here.”

  “That’s kind of you to say,” I responded as Elliot glared at me resentfully. “How is your nose?”

  “Not broken, happily. It’s just a quote-unquote contusion, although I swear I sound as if I’m wearing a clothespin on it.” She sounded slightly nasal, though not that bad considering how swollen it was. “My doctor gave me an antibiotic ointment for my arms and warned me that I’ll probably end up with visible scarring, which will mean plastic surgery if I ever want to wear short sleeves on air again. Assuming, that is, that I still have an on-air career after this mess is over,” she added offhandedly. “You’ve missed dinner. Maritza can rustle something up for you if you’re hungry.”

  “I’m all set, thanks. How is the rest of the family doing?”

  “Joey’s in his room being Joey. When I suggested that he might want to talk this out with his therapist he told me to kindly leave him the fuck alone. So I am. Danielle and Reggie are in Danielle’s bedroom, watching a videocassette of Dirty Dancing together and pigging out on ice cream. Reggie’s idea. She is being so wonderful.” Monette arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you mind if I ask where you’ve been?”

  “I was having dinner with Lieutenant Lamp. We’re old pals.”

  “Oh, that’s just great,” Elliot grumbled.

  “Be nice, Elliot,” she scolded him. To me she said, “Did he talk to you about the case?”

  “No, he’s very tight-lipped.”

  “I trust that you were also . . .”

  “Tight-lipped? Of course. Besides, I don’t actually know anything.”

  “You know everything there is to know,” Elliot said, stabbing at the air with a chubby index finger. “You know that Patrick tried to kill this brave lady and that she fought back. End of story.”

  “I wish it were that simple,” Monette said, staring at the muted image of the dozens of TV cameramen who were mobbed outside of Kat Zachry’s Laurel Canyon bungalow where, according to the crawl at the bottom of the screen, the pregnant young star was “in seclusion with her closest advisers.”

  “You ought to turn that off, Monette. It’ll just make you crazy.”

  I got no argument from her. She reached for the remote and flicked the TV off.

  “So you and the detective who’s in charge of this case are friends,” Elliot said to me accusingly.

  “Exactly where are you going with this?” I asked him.

  “Please don’t take offense, Hoagy,” Monette said. “Elliot just wants to make sure that we can rely on your discretion. Isn’t that right, Elliot?”

  Elliot didn’t say yes or no. Just glowered at me. He didn’t like having me around. He especially didn’t like the ease with which Monette spoke to me.

  “I’m a celebrity ghost. Keeping my mouth shut is what I do for a living. I don’t blab to the police. I don’t blab to the press. However, if you don’t trust me, I’ll collect my things and check in to a hotel.”

  Monette’s pale blue eyes widened with alarm. “Please don’t do that. You’re absolutely right. I apologize. We apologize. Isn’t that right, Elliot?”

  Again, Elliot didn’t say yes or no. Just kept on glowering at me.

  Maritza entered the
library, looking very uneasy. She and Monette couldn’t quite manage to make direct eye contact, I noticed. “Would you like for me to make up your bed for you now, Senora?”

  “My own bedroom is an official crime scene,” Monette explained to me. “I’m now in the room next door to Reggie’s. Yes, please, Maritza. The powder blue sheets and pillowcases, please.”

  “Si, Senora.”

  “In fact, why don’t I give you a hand? It’ll give me something to do.”

  “And I’ll be taking off,” Elliot said, wheezing as he hoisted his magenta marshmallow self up off the sofa. “Sleep tight, hon. Call me anytime for any reason. Nobody on this earth matters to me as much as you do. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, okay?”

  Monette smiled at him wearily. “Thank you, Elliot. You’re a rock.” Then she went up the grand, curving stairway with Maritza.

  “Walk me out, would you?” he asked me gruffly.

  Lulu and I went out the front door with him onto the porch. From where we stood, I could see the lights of the TV cameras that were clustered outside the wall on Rockingham. Reporters were still filing stories for late news broadcasts. Elliot’s Range Rover was parked in the pea gravel turnaround next to Monette’s Land Cruiser. I found it exceedingly strange that so many wealthy people in L.A. had taken to driving four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles instead of luxury cars. Considering that they lived in a place where there was no such thing as an unpaved road, I mean. Or snow. Joey’s rugged new no-top Jeep Wrangler remained parked there, too, waiting for the birthday boy to take it boulder climbing somewhere. I had a feeling it would be waiting there for a long, long time.

  Elliot pulled the front door shut behind us and immediately poked me in the chest with his finger. “Listen, schmuck, I care about that lady in there.”

  I looked down at his finger. “Care to remove that?”

  “I’ll remove it when I feel like it.”

  Lulu let out a low growl. She didn’t particularly care for the tone of his voice.

  Elliot immediately backed away from me. But he wasn’t done talking. No chance. “I’ve known guys like you my whole life. You’re a charmer. Charmed your way right into the bed of an A-list movie star, didn’t you? A class act like Merilee Nash wouldn’t spread those legs of hers unless you had some pretty slick moves. You think I didn’t notice the way Monette lit up when you walked in? That lady’s frightened, vulnerable and very alone right now. You stay away from her, hear me? You want to shtup the crazy sister, go right ahead. You can shtup the hell out of her for all I care. But keep your hands off Monette.”

  “I don’t work for you, Elliot, so don’t tell me what I can or cannot do with my hands. Speaking of hands, I understand you spent some quality time in Rahway for wrapping yours around a client’s throat back in the sixties.”

  “I guess your cop friend isn’t so tight-lipped after all.” He raised his chin at me. “I used to have trouble controlling my temper. So what?”

  “Does Monette know about it?”

  “Of course she knows. I have no secrets from her.”

  “How about the tabloids? Because that would make for a mighty juicy sidebar right about now.”

  Elliot began to breathe more rapidly, his chest heaving. I wondered if he was about to have a heart attack right there on the porch, and if he did whether I’d attempt to perform CPR. His breath smelled like aged muenster cheese. “You . . . going to feed that to somebody?” he gasped. “That what you’re saying?”

  “No, I’m not. Not if you stop crowding me.”

  “I’m not somebody who you want to mess with,” he warned me. “I know people. Powerful people who owe me favors. Understand?” Then he waddled toward his Range Rover and got in, started it up and sped his way toward the front gate.

  Monette was waiting for me at the top of the stairs when I went back inside. “What were you and Elliot talking about?”

  “He just wants to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Dear Elliot. Sometimes I think that he’s my Jewish mother from a former life. After Maritza and I make the bed, I’m going to stretch out and try to relax. It’s early. Why don’t you join me for a few minutes? You can bring the Sancerre up with you. It’s in the fridge.”

  “I’ll be right up.”

  First, I headed toward the kitchen with Lulu. If Maritza was upstairs with Monette, that meant now was our chance. The kitchen lights had been dimmed. There was a faint smell of garlic and chili powder in the air. We went through the doorway off the kitchen that led to the laundry room, service stairs and Maritza’s room. The door to Maritza’s room was open. Her nightstand lamp was on. It was a small bedroom, very tidy. The door to the laundry room was closed. I opened it and we slipped inside. I flicked on the overhead light, closing the door softly behind us.

  The washer and dryer were huge top loaders. Biggest I’d ever seen in a private home. I opened them. Both were empty.

  There was a white wicker basket next to the washer that had a full nylon laundry bag stuffed inside of it. Lulu made straight for the bag and started sniffing at it. I dumped its contents out onto the floor. The crime scene investigators hadn’t searched through it yet, as far as I knew. Why would they? Monette had already confessed to shooting Patrick. They had Monette. They had the murder weapon. They had everything they needed. True, Emil Lamp had voiced his doubts to me about Monette’s version of what happened. But he hadn’t ordered a top-to-bottom search of the entire mansion. Not yet anyhow.

  Lulu sniffed and snorted her way through a heap of soiled kitchen towels and linen napkins, bath towels, hand towels. She found the salmon-colored dental hygienist’s uniform that Maritza had been wearing yesterday. But not the pale pink one she had on earlier today—the one she’d changed out of after Patrick got shot. There was no sign of the clothing that Joey had been wearing prior to the shooting either. Lulu didn’t get so much as a whiff of gunshot residue on anything in the bag. She would have let me know if she had. Instead, she simply backed away from it and gazed up at me in silence.

  Damn.

  I crammed everything back in the laundry bag, returned it to the wicker basket and got the hell out of there. Next I headed for the kitchen trash bin, which was built in under the sink and disguised as a pullout drawer. I was moving fast but not fast enough—I’d only made it as far as the refrigerator when Maritza strode into the kitchen from the main hallway, silent in her white Nikes.

  “I can help you with something, Senor Hoagy?” she asked, flicking on the overhead lights.

  “I don’t suppose you have any licorice ice cream tucked away in the freezer, do you?”

  She frowned at me. “Did you say licorice ice cream? There is such a thing?”

  “There is, and it’s hard to find, let me tell you. Actually, I was looking for the bottle of Sancerre Monette and Elliot were drinking. She suggested I bring it upstairs.”

  “It is in the refrigerator in the billiard room. There are clean glasses behind the bar. I will get it for you if you wish.”

  “No need, I’ll get it,” I said, noticing how much strain was etched on her pretty young face. Her dark brown eyes shone at me like wet stones. “Is everything okay with you, Maritza?”

  “It has been a hard day.”

  “Yes, it has. Is there anything you wish to tell me?”

  She peered up at me uncertainly. “Tell you?”

  “The bedroom door at the top of the service stairs wasn’t locked at the time of the shooting. You weren’t honest with me about that, Maritza. You also changed into a different uniform.”

  “The police . . . they know this?” she whispered, trembling with fright.

  “Not yet. And they don’t have to. Not as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I see . . .” Her face went totally blank. “You want sex from me, is that it?”

  “No, I don’t want sex from you, Maritza. I want the truth. If you help me, I can help you.”

  “I am concerned only for the senora.”

&
nbsp; “I admire your loyalty, but you have to look out for yourself. If you don’t you’ll get sent back to Guatemala.”

  “You cannot help me, Senor Hoagy,” she said with quiet resignation in her voice. “No one can. I have nothing more to say. I am sorry.”

  “So am I, Maritza.”

  She stayed put in the kitchen. Fetched canisters of flour and sugar from a cupboard over the counter, eggs and butter out of the refrigerator. She intended to bake something, it appeared, meaning I’d have zero chance to search that kitchen garbage bin any time soon. So I went into the billiard room, grabbed the open bottle of Sancerre out of the fridge, found two glasses and made my way upstairs with Lulu.

  Yellow police tape was stretched across the double doors to the master suite. Joey’s door was closed. So was Danielle’s, though I could hear the sounds of Dirty Dancing, the movie that she and Reggie were watching on TV together.

  Monette had chosen a modest room for herself, one that was no more than three times the size of my apartment. It had a four-poster king-sized bed with a huge old steamer trunk parked at the foot of it that was covered with stickers from long-gone cruise ship lines and European luxury hotels. It had an early twentieth-century walnut desk with a high-back leather swivel chair. The matching wardrobe cupboard and chest of drawers were at least a century older than the desk and appeared to be made of cherry. The shutters over the windows were closed. The nightstand lamp was on, casting the room in a warm, soft glow. Monette lay propped up on the bed in her kimono with a blanket thrown over her legs. She was still holding an ice pack to her nose.

  Lulu climbed from the steamer trunk up onto the foot of the bed, pausing for permission before she proceeded any farther.