Mendoza referred to a notepad, and then said: “It was sent from the victim’s computer at seven-forty-two. That’s a discrepancy.”
“I don’t have the speediest email system,” I said.
“That was the last time you had contact with Nora Frost?” Colfax asked.
“Yes.”
“And Elena Cates picked up the kids at nine-thirty, so that’s the last time we know Nora Frost was alive.”
“That would follow logically.”
“And you said earlier that you got over to her house and found her at eleven forty-five or so?”
“I think that’s right. I found her a few minutes after I arrived. If you need to know the exact time, wouldn’t the recording of the 911 call I made have it?”
Colfax turned to Mendoza. “Have you checked the 911 call yet?”
The younger detective shook his head.
“A rent-a-cop can figure out to check the call, and you can’t? Do you want to make Detective Two or not?”
“What’s to say he didn’t arrive earlier in the morning and shoot her himself?” Mendoza spat.
“And then I called the police on myself? I said. “Hey, I have an idea, why don’t you put me in a lineup and see if I can pick myself out?”
Mendoza took a step toward me, clearly intending to look intimidating, but Colfax put a hand out to stop him. “Just go check on that 911 call, okay, Hector?” he said.
“Fine,” Mendoza said, pulling out his cell, and shooting me with a 9mm police special eye bullet before going out into the hall to make his call. Good strategy, Bogart’s voice said, hacking off a cop who already hates your guts. Yep, that’s me, always thinking. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Detective Colfax?” I asked.
“I think we’re done. Go file that report, like I told you.”
“I will. Scout’s honor. But in return, can I take a look at that piece of paper that Elena wrote out for you? The information might come in handy.”
“No, you cannot,” Colfax said. “I told you once you’re officially through on this case, unless I arrest you.”
“I’m not responsible for Nora’s death.”
Colfax smiled, and somehow the expression was less than friendly. “You said you know where the Northeast Station is, right?”
“Well, it’s.…” I glanced down at the card he had given me, and saw it was on San Fernando Road. But San Fernando Road runs through at least three different cities. “Actually, I’m not sure I do know.”
“It’s just past Forest Lawn. You can’t miss it. I’ll expect you within the hour, but if for some reason I don’t come out, ask for Mendoza, though you may want to hope that I come out. If you don’t show up, though, I’ll come back for you. See you, Beauchamp.” Detective Colfax spun around and headed out the door, calling, “We’re done here, Hector,” on the way out.
After my shivering stopped, I went and sat at my desk. Pulling my notebook out of the bottom drawer, I opened it and jotted down: What’s the point of being helpful, agreeable and cooperative with the police if they are going to hate you on first sight anyway? I wonder how many private investigators before me had made note of such an observation. Sticking the notebook back in the desk, I sat for a few minutes and thought. So Nora Frost had a sister. You learn something new every day. Maybe if I stayed on this case long enough, despite Detective Colfax’s exhortations against it, I’d learn why those twins acted like they’d been built by Disneyland. But who knows? Maybe all twelve-year-olds act like robots these days and I was slow finding that out. In any event, I wanted to talk to Marcella DeBanzi. I also felt that remaining in touch with Elena Cates was probably a good idea. Sure, Colfax had taken the paper with her information, but he apparently had spent too little time watching mystery movies to know the oldest trick in the book: the imprint shtick.
I fished through my desk drawer for a number two pencil, and to my delight, also found a ten dollar bill hiding amidst the Post-It notes. The pencil wasn’t sharp, but it did not need to be. I lightly rubbed the point over the page on top of the pad until the imprint of what Elena had written on the sheet above began to emerge. It was faint, only barely readable, but barely was good enough.
“Thank you, Mr. Moto,” I muttered as I held the page up and read:
Elena Cates
619 Lemon Grove Ave.
Hollywood, CA 90029
(323) 853-1436
Under it was written:
Marcella DeBanzi
1707 Hanford Ave.
San Pedro, CA 90732
There was also phone number for her, but the digits were harder to make out. After transferring the information as best I could decipher onto a clean sheet of paper, I folded it up and stuck it into my pocket, and then headed out for my appointment with Colfax. On the way I sidetracked into the drive-thru at the local Burger Heaven to grab lunch. I could eat it in the car and still make it to the station within the insisted-upon hour.
Finding the LAPD’s Northeast station turned out to be easy after all. I just went to Forest Lawn, like Colfax had recommended, and waved a ketchup-stained hand at Dick Powell, Alan Ladd, and George and Gracie as I passed, hoping they’d tell all the others I said hi, then headed down San Fernando. The plain-looking police station was about a half-mile away on the left.
Once inside the building I asked for Colfax, and was delighted when he came out, blissfully free of Detective Mendoza. “You know, detective, you came straight here, and I came straight here,” I commented.
“So?”
“Why didn’t you just bring me down with you instead of racing me back?”
“In the car, you mean?”
“Because it’s Hector’s car,” he said, “and I wanted him to keep his mind on his driving, instead of getting distracted because you’re in the backseat.”
“You make it sound like he’d try to kill me if he got the chance.”
“We’re only here to protect and serve the community, Beauchamp.”
Yeah, but what if Mendoza was convinced that murdering me and covering it up was a form of serving the community?
“Follow me,” the detective said, and I tailed him back to his desk. Never having been inside a police station before, I couldn’t help but notice that it looked dunkier than those in movies and on TV, and had far fewer extras. Once we were at his desk, which was in a large, crowded office area that contained several other desks and several other officers all talking, I sat down and made my statement. It was comprised of everything I had previously told him, but now was on the record.
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted Mrs. Frost dead?” he asked when I was finished.
“I knew her only a few hours, but that was enough to conclude that everyone who ever met her at least wanted her in traction.”
“Including you?”
“No. She was a client, and she paid up front. I like that in a person.”
“Everybody else had it out for her, though?”
“Do you know what a stage mother is?” I asked, and he nodded. “By all accounts Nora Frost was the most extreme example of the breed anyone had ever encountered. She torqued everybody.”
“Great. The only thing worse than not having any suspects is having too many.”
“Am I free to go now?”
“One more thing.” Colfax pulled something out of a cardboard box and handed it to me. It was a framed photo of a man in military uniform. “Who is that?” he asked.
“That’s the boys’ father,” I replied, having seen the picture in Nora’s house. “He was killed in Afghanistan.”
“Okay.” Now he reached back into the box and pulled out another picture. This one showed a guy of about thirty, whose hair and style of dress strongly implied that the photo had been taken sometime in the mid-1980s. “Tell me who that is.”
I studied the photo, but came up blank. “I’ve no idea. Where did you find this?”
“In Mrs. Frost’s house,” Colfax said. “It was in her desk. Oh,
by the way, Beauchamp, I’m afraid you’re wrong about that letter.”
“How so?”
“We found samples of Nora Frost’s handwriting all over the house and even though we’ve called in a specialist, a blind man could see that the writing on the note is different.”
That was something of a setback for my theory, though I did not let on to Colfax.
“Well, thanks for finally coming in,” he said, punching the qualifier. “Now, there’s something I’m going to tell you, and I want you to listen and listen good. Stay out of this investigation. I appreciate whatever help you offered up to this point, but this is it, David, you’re out of it now. I’m serious.”
That was the first time he had called me by my given name.
“You’re client’s dead,” he went on, "so there’s no reason for you to keep poking your nose in it and get in our way. If you do, I’ll wash my hands of you. You may want to do the same, by the way. That isn’t blood on your fingers, is it?”
“Ketchup,” I said. “I grabbed a burger and fries on the way here.”
"So are we clear?”
"I understand what you said.”
"Cause I’d hate to have to turn you over to Menendez and let him deal with you.”
The voice of Fred Astaire suddenly popped into my head, singing: You say a good cop, I say a bad cop; you say a hood cop, I say a mad cop.…
"You listening?” Colfax demanded.
"Yes, yes, I’m listening,” I said, chasing Fred away and calling the whole thing off. “Am I free to go now?”
"I’d actually appreciate it if you did.”
He was such a charmer. After muttering goodbye, I got up and weaved my way through the station, and ultimately out of the building.
So the letter was not a hoax and Nora had not been playing me for a chump. I should have felt relieved upon learning this, but instead I grew more concerned, since it strongly implied that the boys were still in danger. On the other hand, with Nora dead, their careers were effectively over, which is what the sender of the letter wanted. Maybe she or he would be happy now, and that would be that. But how could I be sure of it? And how could I just drop the entire matter without even trying to find out who had written the threat that had gotten me into this case in the first place? There was also Elena to consider. She seemed a little too vulnerable to simply leave fending for herself in the company of two strange kids and an army of inquisitive cops. Still, Colfax’s admonition to do just that had been strongly delivered.
I mentally sized up both arguments. Either I took the money Nora had paid me and ran like Jesse Owens, or I kept at it until I found out who had threatened the twins and then killed Nora. No matter how I weighed it, the negatives of remaining on the case definitely outweighed the positives. Only an idiot would keep investigating.
So of course you’re gonna do it, Bogie said in my head.
Of course I was.
EIGHT
Technically, San Pedro was a part of L.A., though you wouldn’t know it. Located on the water about twenty-five miles from downtown, it looks like its own city, and houses the Port of Los Angeles. While I had been to the touristy parts of the town before, like the little harbor village, I had never ventured into the residential areas.
Marcella DeBanzi lived in a rather hilly neighborhood that might have been in any one of a dozen outlying areas of L.A., except that it was here. The lights were on in her smallish, Spanish-style house when I pulled up to the curb, so I got out of the car and went to her door. If the imprint of her phone number on the page under which Elena wrote had been clear enough, or had she been listed in the book, I would have called first, though simply showing up might be for the best, since it was much easier to get rid of someone over the phone than it was to slam the door in their face.
I had to ring the doorbell twice (and I hoped there wasn’t an ordinance against impersonating a postman) before I heard any movement coming from inside the house. I was about to try a third time when a voice on the other side of the door asked, “Who is it?”
“Ms. DeBanzi, my name is Dave Beauchamp,” I called through the wood. “I’m here in regards to your sister, Nora Frost.”
The door was yanked open, almost violently.
I was not quite prepared for the woman on the other side. If anyone in Nora’s immediate family belonged in show business, it was Marcella DeBanzi. Whereas Nora had come close to being movie-star-photogenic, her sister was more than ready for her close-up. She was, not to put too fine a point on it, drop dead gorgeous: lustrous dark hair that cascaded down to her shoulders, a perfect cream complexion that was even more perfect because she appeared to be wearing no makeup, large hazel eyes, a naturally pert nose, full lips and the promise of dimples were she to smile. But she wasn’t smiling. And she was holding a fireplace poker in her left hand. “Are you a lawyer?” she demanded.
“Well, yes, of sorts, but—”
“God, you people work fast! I learned that my sister died less than an hour ago, and you bottom-feeders are already showing up on my doorstep. Go away!”
She started to slam the door shut (okay, maybe it was easier than I thought), but I held it open with one hand. “Please, Ms. DeBanzi, hear me out,” I said. “Yes, I’m a lawyer, at least technically. I used to work in a law firm, but now I’m a private detective. Your sister hired me to do a job right before she…well, I suppose I should really begin my saying that I’m very sorry for your loss.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, and apparently it was long enough to decide that I wasn’t an axe murderer. “What did you say your name was?”
“Dave Beauchamp.”
“Are you the one Elena Cates told me about?” she asked.
“Well, I don’t really know what Elena said to you.”
“Of course you don’t,” she said, suddenly smiling. (Houston, we have dimples!) “Sorry. I’m a little scattered right now. Come in, Mr. Beauchamp.” She stepped back and opened the door to allow me inside, then quickly closed the door again. I kept an eye on the hand with the fireplace poker, and she took notice of that. “Sorry,” she said, replacing in the rack by the small fireplace. “Single women can’t be too careful.”
Especially single women who looked like Marcella DeBanzi, I imagined. Inside my head, Errol Flynn was imagining a lot more, but I ignored him.
The house was plainly furnished, but looked comfortable. The walls were white plaster, there was a large curtained window in front, and the fireplace sat off to one side. There was one chair and a short sofa, a round coffee table with a few magazines spread on it, a floor lamp, and that was about it. There was not even a television. The place was incredibly neat, and unlike Nora’s house, there were no photographs of any kind to be seen, only a small painting of a sunset over water on one wall. The lack of photos was something of a shame since my guess is that any camera on the planet would have taken Marcella DeBanzi as a lover, because not only was she beautiful, she had a near-perfect body: slender, but not thin; shapely, but in perfect proportion; high-breasted; low-waisted; and blessed with a delicate swan neck that curved down into a very soft looking brown sweater.
“Would you care to sit down?” she asked, motioning toward the small sofa.
“Thank you.” I sat down on one end of the sofa, hoping she would take the other end, which given the size of the sofa would have made us virtually side-by-side, but she didn’t. Instead she seated herself in the leather chair across from me. “I’m sure all of this must be difficult for you,” I said.
“Unreal is what it is. How did you happen to become involved with my sister, Mr. Beauchamp?”
I gave a quick rundown of how I landed into the middle of this mess, including the fact that I was the one who found Nora’s body in the bathtub.
“The bathtub?” she said. "Was she taking a bath?”
“No, she was dressed and the tub was dry.”
“That’s a little weird, isn’t it?”
As opposed to the normal everyday wa
y of finding a dead body? Bob Hope cracked.
“We’re not yet sure what it, if anything, the location of her body means, Ms. DeBanzi. What can you tell me about your sister?”
“Up until last year I never knew I had a sister,” she replied. “I knew I was adopted, but I never really thought about siblings. Then I was contacted by one of your ilk who informed me of Nora’s existence. At first I thought it was a scam of some sort, you know, ‘I’m you’re long lost sister, and all I need is X number of dollars from you and we can reclaim our inheritance,’ or some such. But upon seeing the paperwork they presented, I came to accept it as the truth. I was Nora’s blood relation.”
“Did she ever tell you why she sought you out?”
“Not in so many words, but I think it may have had to do with the death of her husband, who was killed in combat overseas. Maybe she felt alone in the world and wanted to find someone, anyone, around her, even if it was a virtual stranger. I’m sorry, would you like something to drink, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“Water would be terrific.”
She rose and sashayed into the kitchen (and not everyone can sashay without looking like they mean it), returning moments later with ice water in a glass for me and a diet Dr. Pepper for herself. Then she sat back down again, curling her legs up in the seat of the chair.
“Mind if I ask how you got along with Nora?” I asked, after thanking her and taking a gulp.
She sipped the Dr. Pepper and set it down on a small table. “No, go ahead.”
I had my mouth open to restate the question, when she laughed. “Sorry. Don’t mind me. How did I get along with Nora? Hmmmm. Well, I tried to be as sisterly as I knew how, but I didn’t have any experience in it. The truth is we didn’t have much in common, so after a while I sort of stopped trying to be sisterly. The last time I spoke to her was six or seven months ago.”
“What about Taylor and Burton?”
"What about them?”
"Did you have a good relationship with them?”
She sighed. “Does anybody? Look, I don’t want to sound cold, but I could never find much there there with those two. Nora wanted them to be celebrities, but I did a little bit of film work when I was young, mostly to earn money for school, and the one thing I learned is that if you haven’t got a personality, you haven’t got a prayer. Even if it’s an antagonistic personality, there has to be something there that will project into the lens. Those boys are from a wax museum.”
Kill the Mother! Page 8