by M. Z. Kelly
Leo was impeccably dressed, as usual. He straightened his silk tie. “If Marisha Dole was framed to take the fall for Bert’s death and the embezzlement of the family fortune, it means that somebody took a lot of time and effort to set things in motion.”
“Someone with a certain degree of sophistication,” I agreed.
We were still mulling over the possibilities when Selfie stopped by and told us the lieutenant was ready to meet. Darby and Buck were already in the bat cave with the lieutenant when we arrived. Selfie took a seat next to Molly and we all exchanged pleasantries.
Leo wasted no time telling Edna our thoughts about the Prince case. “I’ve been at this business a long time and something doesn’t feel right about Marisha Dole going down for Prince’s murder.”
Edna leaned back in his chair and smirked. “Is that so? Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Leo and I took turns, rehashing the case and the degree of sophistication that was involved in the financial scheme. I ended the discussion by saying, “Marisha Dole’s an intelligent woman. If she was stealing from Lady and her daughters, why would she leave a financial trail behind that was so easy for us to follow? It doesn’t add up.”
“Greed never adds up,” Darby said. “People smell money and they become idiots. Look at what happened with that Bernie Madoff guy and his victims.”
“Many of those victims lacked sophistication,” I said. “Dole has a master’s degree in accounting and finance. If she was involved, she would have covered her tracks better.”
Darby continued. “It’s the idiot factor.” He smiled. “You, of all people, should be an expert on that.”
I raised my voice. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I could start with your family history…then there’s that idiot you were married to, and…”
“Enough!” Edna bellowed before I could respond. He shot lasers at Darby. “Stop with the personal stuff right now.” He reached over to his desk, grabbed some paperwork, and tossed it on the table in front of Leo and me. “This report just came through from SID. Apparently they neglected to test some clothing they took from an upstairs bedroom after the shooting. There was GSR on a silk blouse. Lady and her daughters have ID’d it as belonging to Dole.” He leveled his brown eyes on Leo. “I’d say that’s as close as we’re ever going to get to a smoking gun. We’re moving on.”
“It still doesn’t add up,” I said, irritated that he’d had the evidence while we made our case and hadn’t said anything. “Dole murders Bert Prince and leaves her blouse in a bedroom before leaving. It just doesn’t add…”
“Enough.” The lieutenant leaned forward, his eyes drilling into me. “Leave it alone. The case is going to the DA’s office for prosecution. It’s up to them to fill in the blanks.”
I released a long breath and glanced at Leo, knowing it was useless to continue arguing. I wasn’t ready to give up on the case, but I also knew that if we continued to work it off the radar and Edna and the brass found out, we would be facing certain discipline. I wasn’t sure how Leo would feel about that, but I wasn’t ready to let an innocent woman go to prison.
I pushed everything out of my mind for the time being, and turned my attention to the new case Edna told us was coming to Section One.
“The victim is a guy named Cole Abrams. I don’t know much about it, other than he was worth a small fortune and his family has political connections. The responding officers found the body a couple of hours ago, so the scene is still being processed. I advised them you all would meet Brie and SID there.” He looked at Selfie and Molly, who hadn’t said anything during the meeting. “You guys can send what you have as background on the victim and his family to their phones.”
We were heading for the door when Edna said, “We’re still operating under CTA, so let’s change things up again. Kingsley’s with Hall, and Sexton’s with McCade on this.”
I was moving through the door when Darby glanced at me and Buck, then said to Leo, “It looks like love is in the air.”
I glared at him. “Sorry, but I have a feeling you’re wasting your time. Leo has better taste than short, balding cops.”
TWENTY-SIX
As Buck drove us to the crime scene in Westwood, he tried to take the edge off Darby’s comments during our meeting. “Just so you know, I think I’m gonna miss working with Darby.”
“Why the hell is that?”
“He’s a renaissance man. It’s not often you run into someone who invented the Idiot Factor.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I have to agree. He is a natural.”
As we made our way onto the freeway, he added, “Just so you know, I’m gonna have it out with Darby again, make sure he understands any talk about our past is strictly off limits.”
“I appreciate that.” I chuckled. “Just don’t get yourself into any trouble on my account.”
He smiled. “When I was a kid back in Laredo, we had a name for guys like Darby.”
“Asshole?”
He laughed. “Close. We used to call ‘em horny toads, ‘cause they’d puff themselves up to look bigger when they were threatened. I think it’s time I let a little air out of my partner.”
After we finished disparaging Darby, I read aloud what Selfie and Molly had sent to my phone about our new case. “Cole John Abrams was thirty-four. He became a multimillionaire in his mid-twenties after selling an Internet startup company that developed semiconductors that are used in computers and smart phones. He was considered brilliant, but difficult and eccentric. His parents, Jerry and Wendy, are wealthy political contributors to various causes. Abrams had a girlfriend who he was on and off with—Addison Blaine.”
“What do we know about her?”
I scrolled through the information. “Just that she graduated from USC, and her hobbies are acting and dance.”
“Why am I not surprised?” He smiled at me. “You ever been bit by the acting bug?”
I put the phone away. “I never even wanted to be in a school play. What about you?”
His blue eyes found me again. “Wasn’t exactly on the course curriculum in Laredo.” He turned off the freeway. “I was more into horses, not to mention girls, when I was in school.”
It was my turn to smile at him. “Why am I not surprised?”
As we waited at a red light, Buck asked me, “How are things with you and…sorry, forget his name…that vet you’re seeing?”
It took me a moment to come up with a lie. “Things are about the same.” I saw he was holding on my eyes. “We’re good.”
“You sure?”
I exhaled. “I’m sure.” I saw the light had changed. “It’s green.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence. I realized that my relationship with Noah was going to be a continuing topic of interest to everyone I worked with and I would need to be prepared with some standard answers. I hoped that Molly would come up with something of interest about him soon.
The city where our victim was found was usually handled by the West LA Division, but since Section One was authorized to handle cases anywhere LAPD had jurisdiction, the responding officers had been notified to expect our arrival. We met up with Leo and Darby in front of the Westwood Towers, where our victim owned a condo, then met with Detective Vince Hill who gave us an overview of the crime.
“Our vic, Cole Abrams, was found by a guy named Jimmy Dietz, just after eight this morning. Dietz had a key to the apartment and said he was Abrams’ assistant. I guess the guy was some kind of inventor, worth a small fortune.”
“COD?” Darby asked, chewing a wad of gum.
“Two rounds to the chest. There was no weapon recovered.”
We were about to head upstairs to work the scene when Hill said, “There’s one other thing you should know.”
Darby blew a bubble, popped it, then said, “What’s that?”
“Abrams’ girlfriend was in bed when it all went down. Dietz said she woke up after he found the body. If what h
e’s claiming is true, it looks like she slept through the murder of her boyfriend.”
Abrams’ apartment was in the penthouse suite of the high rise. The complex looked like a newer, upscale building that was still in the process of selling units. A doorman was on duty, and I saw there was a gymnasium and indoor pool on the ground floor.
“Looks like about a ten million dollar neighborhood,” Leo said as we all got off the elevator that opened to the top floor residence with an expansive view of Los Angeles.
We found the body on the living room floor in a pool of blood. There were no signs of a struggle. After we made a cursory examination of the area, finding nothing unusual, a uniformed cop told us that Abrams’ assistant and his girlfriend were in a vacant apartment on the first floor, waiting to be interviewed. Brie Henner and Kathy Maitland arrived just as we were heading downstairs to talk to them.
“We’ll go ahead and process the scene,” Maitland said. “When you’re finished with the interviews, let’s meet up again and compare notes.”
After agreeing to what she said, Brie and I exchanged greetings. My friend looked tired, and I asked her how she was feeling.
She took me aside and said, “Just a little under the weather because of my last chemo session. I think I’m going to take a look here, then go home and rest. I probably won’t get to the autopsy until tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
I touched her arm. “Just take care of yourself.”
Buck and I rode the elevator down with Leo and Darby. Leo’s newly assigned pudgy partner made his desires known to everyone. “I want to take the lead on the interviews.”
I was tired of Darby trying to control things. “There’s two teams working this case. We can divide up duties. Buck and I can interview the girlfriend.”
Darby looked at Leo, back at me. “We want the girl, since she’s guilty.”
The elevator came to a stop. “What makes you say that?”
“She was in the apartment all night. She shot her boyfriend, then went back to bed. It’s just a matter of sorting out the details.”
I looked at Leo. “It must be nice to have a partner who knows what happened before investigating a case.”
Leo looked at his new partner. “We’ll try to keep an open mind while we gather facts.”
As it turned out, the interview with Addison Blaine had to wait because she had called Howard Lang, her lawyer, who was on the way over to meet with her. While we waited for her attorney, the four of us took Jimmy Dietz into the home office of what we learned was a model apartment unit used by the Westwood Towers to entice prospective buyers. It occurred to me that selling the units after there had been a murder in the building would be the ultimate marketing challenge.
We grudgingly let Darby take the lead in interviewing Jimmy Dietz. After introductions, Cole Abrams’ assistant, a slender young man with dark hair, told us about finding his employer’s body.
“Cole and I were scheduled to go over his appointment calendar this morning,” Dietz said. “I got off the elevator and found him on the living room floor. I knew right away he was dead.” His eyes filled and he used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his tears.
“What did you do next?” Darby asked.
Dietz took a breath. “I freaked out and called 911.”
“And then?”
“Addie came out of the bedroom and scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know she was there and asked her what the hell happened. She said she didn’t know what I was talking about, so I showed her Cole’s body.”
“I’m assuming Addie is Addison Blaine?” After a nod from Dietz, Darby asked, “How did she react when she saw the body?”
“It was kind of odd. She said something like, ‘Oh, he’s…not breathing,’ then she went back into the bedroom.”
Darby looked at us, then back at Dietz. “What happened after that?”
“I just waited in the hallway until the police and fire department arrived. I didn’t want to be in the apartment with…after what happened.”
“And where was Addie all this time?”
“When the police got there, they found her in bed, asleep.”
Darby’s pudgy features hardened. “You mean, she finds her boyfriend’s body on the floor, then goes back to bed?”
Dietz’s dark brows went up. “Yeah. It was pretty strange, but then everything about Cole and Addie was strange.”
“Tell us about Cole,” Leo said. “I take it he was your employer?”
“Sort of, but…” He took a moment, his gaze moving off. “Our relationship is sort of complicated.”
“Spell it out for us,” Darby said.
Dietz took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Cole and I went to college together and met in some engineering classes. I knew right away that he was brilliant, but a little different.”
“As in?”
“He was what you might call socially awkward. He didn’t really fit in with other people and was kind of shy.” He chuckled. “I remember that I once arranged a date for him, so that he and…I think her name was Claire…we could all go to dinner together. The place we went to was pretty casual and had paper tablecloths. Cole spent his time doing calculations on the paper, not even talking to us. Needless to say, his date wasn’t impressed and walked out in the middle of dinner.”
“So he was eccentric,” I said.
“More than eccentric. Other people used words like ‘odd’ or ‘misfit’ to describe him, but I think Cole was just lost in his own world. He didn’t really care what people thought about him.”
“What about him and Addie?” Buck asked. “You said before that their relationship was strange. What did you mean?”
Dietz laughed. “To put it bluntly, it was all about sex.”
Buck’s brows went up. “Tell us exactly what you mean.”
“Cole wanted to have sex with her—a lot. Addie told me a couple of times that she felt used and wanted someone she could have a real relationship with. They broke up a half dozen times, but she kept coming back to him, probably because of the money.”
“You mean Cole gave her money,” I said.
“Yeah. He didn’t have any use for it and let her pretty much control his bank account. After he sold Albedo, she went a little crazy.”
“Albedo?”
“His company that made computer chips. He made around five hundred million, and Addie got to spend a lot of it, however she wanted. She was also the one who paid the bills and wrote my paychecks.”
“Did she kill him?” Darby bluntly asked.
Dietz blinked a couple of times and rubbed his jaw. “I doubt it. Cole was her meal ticket. Despite him using her to meet his needs and her putting up with it, I don’t think she really cared about him one way or another. Like I said, it was all about the money.”
We spent another half hour with Abrams’ assistant, asking about our victim’s other relationships, friends, and coworkers. As it turned out, he didn’t have any. Dietz said, as far as he knew, he and Addie were the only people Cole Abrams had any contact with.
“Guess that narrows down the suspect pool,” Darby said, after Dietz had left. “You ask me, Addison Blaine was tired of being used like a prostitute and shot him.”
“Let’s see what she has to say before you make the arrest,” I said, suppressing an eye roll.
Fifteen minutes later, we took Blaine and her lawyer into the home office. Our victim’s former girlfriend was tall and lithe, with green eyes and long black hair that went down to her ample breasts. Something about her appearance reminded me of a supermodel I’d seen on one of those TV talk shows.
“We’re talking to you merely as a courtesy,” Howard Lang said after we took seats and before we could ask any questions. Her lawyer was small and rotund, with an irritating way of trying to sound confident and in control—maybe something that was taught in Lawyer 101 classes. I thought about Hermes Krump and decided that maybe he’d flunked that class, as Lang continued. “My client has no knowledge of w
hat transpired because she was asleep during the time the crime was committed.”
“Tell us about that,” Darby said, turning his attention to Addison Blaine. “How is it that you slept through someone shooting your boyfriend?”
“My client doesn’t…”
“It’s okay, Howard,” Blaine said. She looked at Darby. “I took some sleeping medication and didn’t wake up until this morning. Insomnia’s a big problem for me.”
“Apparently not that big a problem, since you slept through a couple of gunshots.”
“I took Ambien, Detective. It…it’s very effective.”
“When did you last see Cole?” Leo asked her, softening his tone as a way to take the edge off what Darby had said.
“Last night. I think it was around ten before I went to bed.”
“Did you two argue or have any problems?”
“No…in fact…we were together last night…if you know what I mean.”
“You had sex,” Darby said, stating the obvious. “We heard Cole made it a habit to force himself on you.”
“That’s entirely hearsay and irrelevant,” Lang said.
“And this isn’t a courtroom,” Darby countered. He looked back at Blaine. “Tell me about your relationship with Cole.”
“You’ve obviously already talked to Jimmy.” She released a breath and hugged her sides. “As you already know, Cole wanted a certain thing from me, and I usually complied. Our relationship wasn’t typical, but it worked for us.”
“It didn’t work so well, from what we heard. Jimmy said you and Cole broke up a bunch of times.”
“I won’t deny that we had our ups and downs, but we managed to find common ground.”
“Ground that was covered with money.”
Blaine smiled and I saw a change in her demeanor as she continued. “Cole needed someone to manage his finances. I helped with that.”
“And helped yourself to most of his money,” Darby said.
She looked at her attorney. “I don’t think this conversation is productive.”