by M. Z. Kelly
“Are you kidding?”
She slapped my shoulder. “I got a feeling I could tell you there’s monkeys on Mars and you’d believe me.” She regarded me. “Maybe you’re havin’ a stroke. You feel numb anywhere else, like maybe your vagina?”
“If she’s numb down there, it’s got nothing to do with your drink, baby sis,” Mo said.
I sighed. “If it is a stroke, at least it will save me from having to go to my upcoming family reunion.”
“Is your sis still comin’?” Mo asked.
“’Fraid so. And her idiotic husband.”
“That bloke who’s as rich as a royal?” Natalie asked.
I nodded. “From what I heard, Geoff paid off some family in Europe and is now calling himself a duke. We’re all supposed to go to some fancy restaurant for dinner.”
“Why don’t you have baby sis and me come along with you for moral support?” Mo said. “If you gotta spend your night with your sister and Duke Dumbshit, you’re gonna need some help. And besides, we’re your real family.”
Maybe it was because I was exhausted, or drunk, or both, but I said, “Why not? I could use the support.”
My phone chimed, and I saw that the call was from Noah. “Shit.”
“You need the potty?” Natalie asked.
“No. I forgot all about having dinner with Noah tonight.” I excused myself, walked away, and took the call. I spent five minutes apologizing for not getting back to him.
“It’s okay,” Noah said. “I saw the news. It sounds like you had a crazy day.”
“That’s an understatement. Why don’t we try again Friday night, if you’re available?”
“You know I’m here when you’re ready. Just let me know when it works out.”
I told him I’d be in touch and ended the call. I then looked over at the pool area as I heard Natalie yelling, “He’s either gonna go belly up or belly flop.”
I went over to her and Mo. “What’s going on?”
Mo shook her big head. “Krump’s drunk and he said he’s gonna jump off his balcony into the pool.”
We all watched in both horror and fascination as Hermes Krump stood on the railing of his balcony, flexed his puny arms, and yelled, “I’m king of the world!” He then lost his balance, screamed like a girl, and flapped his arms like a wounded bird. Seconds later, he landed in the water like a tubby seal in a leather tourniquet. He then began flapping around in the water, screaming for help.
“I think his leather suit is starting to shrink,” Mo said. “A couple more minutes in the water and he’ll be strangled.”
“Anybody up for saving the bloke?” Natalie asked us.
We both shook our head. As we all began walking toward our rooms, the last thing I heard was Nana yelling to her gaggle of gigolos, “Somebody drag him out of there so I can give him mouth to mouth.”
Mo grimaced and made a retching sound. She looked at Natalie and me, then said, “If I was Hermes Krump, I’d just pack it in, call it a lifetime.”
SIXTEEN
The next morning, I got up early and made arrangements with Marlo Stratton to pick Bernie up late in the day. I then checked out of the Mission Bell Inn, using guest services on my TV. I was headed down the hallway to the elevator when I saw Hermes Krump open the door to one of the rooms and pick up a newspaper.
Krump saw me and stammered, “Hello…De…Detective.”
I stopped and said good morning, adding, “I didn’t know you were staying here.”
I heard Nana’s familiar voice calling to him from inside his room. “Get back in here. I’ve still got a few tricks to teach you. You need a lot of work.”
Krump turned scarlet and said to me, “I’m just…I’m visiting someone.” He rushed back into the room and slammed the door.
I spent my drive from Malibu to Hollywood Station trying to purge horrifying thoughts about Hermes Krump and Nana in bed together. When I got to the station, I saw that Leo was already at his desk across from mine.
I took a moment to unburden myself, telling him about Nana and Krump. “I think I’ve been scarred for life. I’ve seen a lot of horrifying things, including my mother meditating in the nude, but…” I shook my head, unable to continue.
Leo laughed. “It sounds like your lawyer friend has found himself a cougar.”
“More like a dinosaur with dentures.”
We made small talk for a moment, telling one another that we would never understand human behavior, before we got down to business.
“The warrant to search Marisha Dole’s house came through,” Leo said. “We’re supposed to meet with Edna in a few minutes. I guess you’ve seen the papers.”
I shook my head. “I was busy making arrangements to pick up Bernie later today and doing the Nana-Krump mind purge. What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask me how it happened, but the press has picked up on our victim embezzling money from his family with Marisha Dole. They’re speculating Kirkland was in on it and Swenson was killed to cover things up.”
“It might have gone that way, but I think it could be even more complicated.”
Leo agreed with me, then asked how things were going with Darby.
“I’m tolerating him, but it’s not easy. How about you and Buck?”
“No problems.” His eyes held on me for a moment. “I think…”
When he didn’t go on, I said, “What is it?”
“Just a hunch, but I think he still has feelings for you.”
I brushed a hand through my hair, thinking about Buck, but also about needing to make an appointment at my brother’s salon. “I’m not sure what to say.”
Leo smiled. “You don’t have to say anything.” He moved some paperwork around, then asked, “You and Noah still seeing one other?”
“We’re supposed to have dinner and talk things out whenever things settle down for me.” I saw that Darby and Buck were headed for the bat cave along with Selfie and Molly. “I guess we’d better go see what Edna has on his mind.”
Leo smiled. “I’ll bet it begins with f.”
As it turned out, I was the one dropping the F-bomb, at least to myself, when I found out that Lieutenant Edna had invited Mel Peters to the meeting to make an announcement.
“The department is releasing information at the division level this morning,” Peters said, after some small talk. “Chief East submitted his resignation yesterday. Until the mayor appoints a new chief, Assistant Chief Reginald Dunbar will be running the department.”
There were groans all around, causing Peters to tell us we needed to be professional and accept the hand that we’d been dealt.
While I had no great fondness for Chief East, his temporary replacement was even worse. The line staff referred to him as Assistant Chief Dumbbell. Dunbar had quickly worked his way up the promotional ladder in recent years, thanks, in part, to a stint as the head of the Professional Standards Bureau, LAPD’s version of Internal Affairs. He was a loud-mouthed, arrogant jerk, and those were his good qualities.
Peters went on. “The department is also taking a second look at Section One. Your work on the pending case may determine whether or not you have a future here.”
There was silence for a moment as we all took in what she’d said. While the cases that came to Section One were difficult, I liked the challenges and, for the most part, my colleagues. The thought of going back to regular duties and working run of the mill cases didn’t appeal to me.
The lieutenant said, “I guess that means we’d better solve our f…” He took a breath, maybe deciding to try and rein in his language because Peters was representing command staff. “…our case before we all end up working patrol. I don’t have to tell you all that with the press picking up on our victim and Dole stealing from the wife and daughters, the heat is really on us.” Edna looked at Leo. “Do we have the warrant to search Dole’s house?”
“It came through last night,” Buck said, holding up the paperwork. “We can head over there this morning.�
�
The lieutenant nodded and looked around the room. “Anybody have any thoughts on what went down yesterday?”
Darby gave us his opinion that Bert Prince, Marisha Dole, and Danika Kirkland had all been working together to embezzle from the Princes, with Mark Swenson’s help. “You ask me, Dole sent Kirkland to take out the attorney to keep things quiet. When Kirkland saw us, she panicked and ran.”
Edna looked at me. “What do you think?”
“It might have gone like that, but until we talk to Dole I think it’s just speculation.”
“What about the DNA? Any word?”
I shook my head. “Brie’s hoping something will come through by tomorrow.” I then mentioned our meeting with Carlyle Waggoner. “He described the Princes as having a lot of baggage. I got the impression that he felt there’s a lot of secrecy behind what goes on in their home.”
“This is Hollywood—or to be more exact, Beverly Hills,” Darby said. “All those rich nut jobs have baggage. It comes with the real estate.”
I ignored him, telling Edna, “I got the impression Waggoner thought there was more than the usual craziness going on at Nirvana. Despite all their denials, I have a feeling that Lady and her daughters know more than they’ve told us about what went on there.”
“Like what?” Peters asked, the irritation in her voice apparent.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure at this point.”
Darby then went back to his previous theory about Bert Prince, Marisha Dole, and Danika Kirkland all being involved in the embezzlement from Lady and her daughters. “It looks to me like we’ve got a three-way,” Darby said. “And if you ask me, Dole was behind it all.”
Leo added his thoughts. “It seems strange to me that Dole would let Kirkland use her car when she went to murder Swenson. It could be that Kirkland took the car to set up Dole.”
“What do we know about the Kirkland woman?” Buck asked Selfie and Molly.
Molly had the bio. “She was fifty-two, divorced, and lived alone. According to sources that were close to Prince, she’d worked for him for about five years, starting out as his accountant.”
“Accountant,” Darby said. “I’ll bet she was the one Prince and Dole used to cook the books.”
“Unless we find Dole and get some answers, it’s all just speculation,” Edna said. “The day’s not getting any longer. Let’s head over there and serve the warrant.”
“Don’t forget the press conference is at three,” Peters told him.
“Yeah, I almost fu…forgot.” Edna looked around the table. “The new chief is holding a press conference at the PAB this afternoon. Everyone is invited, which means your attendance is mandatory.”
After the meeting broke up, I said to Leo, “Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse after the Nana-Krump hookup, I get to spend an afternoon with Chief Dumbbell and the press.” I thought about Lady Prince’s elderly attendant. “Maybe Griselda Lugosi put a curse on me.”
***
Marisha Dole lived in a renovated midcentury modern in the Hollywood Hills. It was an area referred to as the “bird streets”, with names like Nightingale and Robin, which offered great views of the city. Dole’s house was no exception. The sprawling home was on the upper level, with a pool and guest house located on the lower portion of the property. It took us less than an hour to go through the house and realize there was no evidence linking her to what happened and nothing in the way of computers or spreadsheets anywhere.
“She must have cleaned everything out before she left,” Leo said after we all gathered in the living room.
“I’ll bet she’s already left the country,” Darby said.
I wandered over to where Buck was looking at some framed photographs, while the others speculated about Dole’s whereabouts.
“Anything interesting?” I asked.
Buck motioned to what I realized was a series of photos of the house and grounds. “These look like they were taken back when the house was built. It shows the renovations and pool being added a few years later.”
“Nice place, if you got about five million,” I said, scanning the photos. My gaze held on one of the early photographs of the area. It showed a doorway on the lower portion of the property that was up against the hillside, but there was no adjoining structure.
I pointed it out to Buck. “What do you suppose that was? It looks like a doorway to nowhere.”
“Hard to say for sure, but some of the places built after the middle of the last century had fallout shelters in case the Russians dropped the A-bomb on us.”
“Did you see the door when you checked down below?”
“No, but we weren’t necessarily looking in that area.”
“Let’s go check it out.”
After telling the others we were going to take a second look at the lower section of the property, Buck and I did a search and found the original doorway. It was concealed beneath a stairway with lots of overgrown landscaping. I turned the knob, finding the door was locked.
“You have something we can use to pry it open?” I asked Buck.
“I might have something in the car.”
Ten minutes later, he returned with a pry bar and was able to break the lock. The door creaked open, and we saw there was a passageway that looked like it opened to a larger area where there was a light burning.
Buck pulled out his gun. “Let’s be alert.” He smiled. “When the Hardy Boys found a place like this, there was either a hidden treasure or a bad guy hiding out.”
As it turned out, the stories Buck had read as a child paid off. We didn’t find a treasure, but we did find a bad guy—or in this case a gal.
A woman stood up as we entered the fallout shelter. She held up her hands and, just like in an old mystery novel, Marisha Dole said, “I surrender.”
SEVENTEEN
“I didn’t do it,” Dole told Darby and me an hour later in an interview room at Hollywood Station. “I’m innocent of everything.”
Lieutenant Edna and the others were watching us on a closed circuit feed outside the interview room after Dole had waived her rights and agreed to talk to us.
“Then you’ve got a lot of ‘splaining’ to do,” Darby said, borrowing an old line from a dead sitcom actor. “Let’s begin with you telling us about the scheme you and Bert Prince put in place to steal from his wife and daughters.”
Dole was surprisingly calm, given the fact that she was likely facing murder and embezzlement charges. We had removed her handcuffs, and she took a moment to brush the dark silky hair from her eyes.
“I’ve heard what’s been reported on the news about me stealing from Lady and the girls, but none of it’s true. My role as their agent was to see to their financial well-being. I didn’t take a dime for any services that I didn’t earn.”
Darby dropped a stack of spreadsheets on the table in front of her. “That’s interesting, since these financial statements clearly show that you and Bert Prince were taking their money and diverting it to cover his business losses.”
“Can I have some time to review the documents?”
“Take your time, since you’re not going anywhere except to jail.”
Dole put on her reading glasses and spent several minutes going through the documents. When she finished, she removed the glasses and fixed her dark eyes on us. “I had nothing to do with any of this. It’s all a setup.”
“Your name is on all the spreadsheets and financial statements,” I said. “How do you explain that?”
“I can’t explain it, other than to tell you that Bert Prince was apparently in the process of framing me when he was killed. Everything you’ve shown me has been falsified. I wasn’t a part of any of it.”
Darby leaned forward, his voice growing deeper. “Your firm provided false bank statements to the victims, at the same time their money was being diverted to keep Bert Prince’s businesses afloat. You kept just enough money in their accounts to cover their expenses so they wouldn’t become su
spicious. And your name is on everything.”
Dole’s voice pitched higher, in defiance. “If false bank statements were provided, they didn’t come from my firm. Bert must have falsified the spreadsheets and financial documents to hide what he was doing.”
Darby went at her for the better part of the next hour, going through the financial statements month by month, showing how they were falsified and the funds transferred to Bert Prince’s many businesses. Each time, Dole stuck with her story, denying that she had any knowledge of what had been taking place.
When my temporary partner had exhausted himself, I took over, moving the conversation in a different direction. “Let’s talk about Mark Swenson. What was your relationship with him?”
“I didn’t even know Mr. Swenson, other than hearing Bert mention his name a couple of times.”
“How do you explain Danika Kirkland driving your car to his house when he was killed?”
“My car was stolen shortly after Bert was murdered. I didn’t report it, since I knew the authorities were looking for me.”
“So, you’re telling us that you had nothing to do with stealing your clients’ money, shooting Bert Prince, or killing his lawyer,” Darby said.
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Then you’re a goddamned liar. You need to begin telling the truth or you’re going to prison for the rest of your life.”
Dole’s eyes became glassy for the first time, but there were still no tears. “I don’t know what else there is to say, except that I’m innocent.”
Darby chuckled as my phone chimed. “Really? Even your alibi doesn’t hold up. We checked with the club you said you were at when Prince was murdered. Based on the coroner’s estimated time of death, there was a window of opportunity for you to commit the crime.”
There were now tears on Dole’s cheeks for the first time. “I swear I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“I’d say you have another problem,” I said, after checking the text I’d just received.
Our suspect brushed her tears. “What are you talking about?”