None of the above answered the big question: Who killed Park Holloway?
“Maggie?”
Jean-Paul had set plates on the table and was waiting for me.
“Sorry,” I said, walking toward him. “A lot to ponder.”
He gave my arm a pat as I took the seat he held for me.
“A caveat, Maggie,” he said. “You must now consider that once the cat is out of the bag, he cannot be put back in.”
“Who is the cat?”
“Gilbert. I told him about Madame Snow’s private catalogue. By now he has made some phone calls of his own. And from there...?”
The possibilities that could ramify from those phone calls still hung heavily in the air when the first shot cracked the night stillness; a bullet pierced the patio window and lodged in the wall ten inches from Jean-Paul’s head. As reflex, we both dropped to the floor.
“You have no curtains for the windows,” he whispered, an unfortunate discovery.
“There’s no one up here to see in,” I said.
“Except when there is.” He reached up and snapped off the light over the table. “Where is he?”
“At least fifty feet from the house, or he would have tripped the backyard lights.”
The kitchen doors opened onto a patio that was walled on its far side by a sheer, stony canyon face. A stairway cut into the stone led up to a dirt fire road, which was about fifty feet above the house. The motion sensors that tripped the back lights began near the top step. Because the area remained dark, the shooter was probably up on the fire road, shooting down through the trees into the lighted kitchen.
I crawled out of the eating alcove into the middle of the kitchen, shielded on both sides by cupboards. When I reached up to hit the light switch, a second bullet zinged through the window too near my hand and ricocheted off the front of the stainless steel oven door, a shot that was sufficiently well-placed that the shooter must have been waiting for someone to show himself at the window, like playing Whack-a-Mole with a firearm.
“Are you okay?” I said into the sudden black void around me.
“Yes.”
When my eyes adjusted, I saw a ripple in the dark that was Jean-Paul edging toward me. I grabbed for him, found his elbow, and, staying low, made a dash through the living room, past the big windows opening onto the front, and into the relative protection of Mike’s study. We dropped to the floor behind the desk. I opened the bottom drawer and felt around until I found Mike’s Beretta.
“There’s a box of rounds somewhere in the drawer,” I said, taking Jean-Paul’s hand and nestling the gun butt into the middle of his palm. “Do you know how to use this?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. I heard the snap of the clip being ejected. “Oh! It’s fully loaded. Maggie, you shouldn’t keep a loaded weapon in such an accessible place.”
“Tell me that later,” I said. “And watch the door.”
I angled the desk lamp so that it would hit anyone who came through the door, leaving us in the dark, and then, from the floor, pulled the telephone by the cord until it was within reach at the desk’s edge.
He laughed, part nerves, part realization of how ridiculous his concern was in the circumstance. As apology, or from adrenaline, he pulled me against him and kissed me passionately.
“I saw that movie,” I said, reaching up for the phone. “Bogart and Bacall, To Have and Have Not.”
“Exacte,” he said. “Also The Big Sleep. Everything I know about romancing women while under fire I learned from Bogart movies.”
“Good tutor.” I hit speed dial and waited impatiently through three rings before Roger answered.
“Don’t tell me someone is shooting at you again,” Roger said when he picked up.
“Yes, someone is. I am not kidding, Roger. And this time it looks like real bullets. Two shots fired into the house from somewhere in the back. Jean-Paul and I are pinned down in Mike’s study. Tell your people that we have a gun.”
“Ah, Jesus. Mom was just dishing up pot roast.” I could hear him dialing another phone. “You know how I love Mom’s pot roast.”
“You just stay home and enjoy it, Rog.” I knew he was teasing to keep me calm, but I didn’t have time for the banter. “But will you send someone over, ASAP? And don’t say anything to my mom, please.”
“Sure, sure. Hold on, emergency line just picked up.”
I heard him barking orders into the other phone, and then he was back on my line.
“We’re on our way, honey,” he said. “Five minutes max. Keep your head down until we get to you. And don’t shoot yourself with that damn gun.”
Next I called my neighbor, Early Drummond.
“Maggie, did you hear gunfire?” he said as greeting. “I don’t see anyone out there.”
“I think he’s up on the fire road. He put two through the kitchen windows.”
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
“No. Stay where you are and take cover, Early. Cops are on the way.”
The third call, while we waited, lying flat on the floor of Mike’s study, was to Sly.
After some preliminaries, during which I hoped he didn’t sense that anything was wrong, I asked him if he remembered how he lost track of his phone on Monday afternoon.
“Yeah,” he said. “I lent it to this girl I know—she was in my life drawing class last fall.” He told me her name; the same girl Preston Nguyen mentioned. “Her phone was dead and she needed to call someone she was supposed to meet at this coffeehouse up in Ventura where a lot of the art kids hang out.”
“And somehow she left it out in the gallery patio.” I did not add, in the rain.
“I guess. That’s where Lew said he found it. Why?”
“I’ve been getting some hang-up calls. I’m just trying to track down who might have my unlisted numbers.”
“Do you think she...?”
“If it’s her, then there’s no problem, sweetie.” I changed the subject to the hanging ceremony the following week. He wanted pizza to be served at the reception because to Sly pizza represented haute cuisine. We talked for a minute about which toppings we should order, and then we said good night.
“Are you actually that calm, Maggie?” Jean-Paul asked, holding me against him.
“No. I’m scared half out of my wits. But you’re a father—what would you say to your son in a circumstance like this?”
The backyard lights popped on. I ventured to look over the bottom sill of a window and saw Early manhandling someone down the stone stairway, heading toward my back patio. Jean-Paul was on his feet and off at a run, with me close on his heels.
Early and Jean-Paul wrestled the captive onto a chaise longue in a covered area of the patio, out of the drizzle. As he struggled, they bound him to the frame of the heavy iron chair with gaffer’s tape—duct tape—a primary tool of Early’s trade.
Frankie Weidermeyer, AKA Franz von Wilde, looked up at me and spat, missing his mark by ten feet.
“Bitch,” was the first intelligible word he uttered in a spitty stream that seemed to be equal parts rage and humiliation. Early gave the chaise a shake.
“Settle down, kid. Your ride is on the way.”
Frankie turned his head away and grew quiet, though he trembled as if he were deeply chilled.
As he secured Frankie’s ankles, Early showed me the Luger wedged under the belt of his jeans at his back.
“Maggie, will you go put this somewhere out of reach? This little shithole is a scrapper; I’d hate for him to break loose and get his hands on it.”
“Is that his?” I asked, pointing to the gun.
“None other.”
Thinking about fingerprints, I slipped the sleeve of my sweater over my hand and retrieved the gun from his belt.
“Where’s your gun, Early?” I asked.
“What gun? I saw the kid moving around up on the fire road, so I circled around behind him, got him in a forearm choke hold and squeezed till he let loose of his cannon. Th
e idiot obviously never had commando training.”
“Semper fi, Early,” I said. “Good job.”
I reclaimed Mike’s Beretta from Jean-Paul and carried both guns inside. I put the Luger inside a kitchen cupboard, nestled among water glasses, and took the Beretta back to its drawer in Mike’s study. As I walked back outside to wait with Jean-Paul and Early, I checked my watch; four minutes had elapsed since I called Roger.
A chopper rose over the top of my mountain and hovered over the house, its NightSun spot washing the patio with wavery silver light. Out front, Duke set up a fuss, snorting, bumping against his rails, running in tight circles until he had his two companions het up as well.
As a Sheriff’s Department SWAT team surged down both sides of the house and converged toward us, Early, Jean-Paul and I formed a crescent behind Frankie Weidermeyer, the three of us as immobile as statues with hands raised in supplication to the heavens. Frankie wept.
Chapter 23
“This is where you live?”
Thornbury seemed uncomfortable as his eyes scanned the floodlit mountainside down to the house, as if something wasn’t sitting quite right with him.
“Anything wrong with that, Detective?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head, seemed to shake off something else, too. “It’s great up here. Those your horses out front?”
“Two of them.”
“It’s just...” He looked back up toward the mountain. “I never knew this was here. This area, I mean.”
“That isn’t what you started to say, is it?”
“No.” He flashed a quick, self-deprecating smile. “It’s what we were talking about before, jumping to conclusions too soon. When I thought you were just a temp worker, if I ever thought about where you lived, I thought maybe a little apartment in the Valley. Then when I found out you were in television and lived up here and you were hanging out with some foreign diplomat, I expected iron gates and swimming pools and gold-plated crappers.”
“Sorry to disappoint you; it’s just a house in a canyon.”
“No, I’m the sorry one.”
“Where do you live, Detective?”
“I live in a canyon, too. The stucco canyons out east in Diamond Bar.”
“Quite a commute,” I said.
“It is that.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
Two hours earlier, Roger had hooked up Frankie and taken him down the freeway to the Sheriff’s substation in Lost Hills for safekeeping until Thornbury and Weber had a chance to talk to him. After that, the young man would be transported to LA County’s Central Jail south of downtown where he would wait for arraignment. We were just waiting for the scientific team to finish up inside.
Thornbury kept his eyes on the mountain, but turned his chin a few degrees my way.
“The kid says he’s going to charge you and your friends with kidnapping, unlawful detainer, and assault.”
“I wish him luck with that,” I said. “The laundry list of charges against him starts with attempted murder and moves on to felony assholery and impersonating an artist, just for starters.”
Thornbury dropped his head and chuckled in spite of himself. After a moment, he asked, “Can you see the kid for killing Holloway?”
“I don’t know enough about him to answer that.”
Jean-Paul came outside with my overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Weber followed.
“Maggie, are you ready?” Jean-Paul asked, slipping his arm through mine. “Everyone is gone and the front is all locked up.”
“Detective,” I said to Thornbury. “Any reason for us to stick around?”
He glanced at Weber, got a head shake as response.
“No. Go ahead—we know where to reach you. We’ll follow you down.”
Before we got into Jean-Paul’s Mercedes we gave Duke and company some carrots and scratched their forelocks. They seemed awfully proud of themselves, but for what I had no clue.
Jean-Paul lived in the French consul general’s official residence, an early-twentieth-century Tudoresque house in the middle of a block of similarly gracious, large old houses in the Hancock Park neighborhood west of downtown Los Angeles. The English consul lived down the street.
A young Mexican couple, Yolanda and her husband Teo, lived in an apartment over the garage and took care of the yard, the house, and Jean-Paul. The young man, from time to time, doubled as Jean-Paul’s driver, and his wife prepared his meals when he ate at home, unless there was an official event. For those occasions, a private chef and serving staff were brought in. Yolanda and Teo were pleasant, efficient and unobtrusive.
The arrangement had worked very well for Jean-Paul until December when his son, Dominic, went back to France to study for his college exams. I knew he felt lonely living alone, another reason to be cautious about getting involved with him too quickly.
“Hello, Miss MacGowen.” Yolanda opened the door for us; she had heard the car. “How nice to see you again.”
Teo said a quiet “Good evening,” as he took my bag from Jean-Paul and waited for instructions.
“To my room, please, Teo.”
I caught a faint blush coloring Yolanda’s cheeks, though the cheerful expression on her face did not change, as Teo headed up to the master bedroom.
“I have a soufflé in the oven, Mr. Bernard.” We never got back to our dinner. “It will be ready for you in about ten minutes. Would you prefer the dining room or the small parlor?”
“The kitchen, please,” he said. “If we won’t be in your way.”
His answer surprised her, but still smiling, she said, “Not at all.”
When we were alone, I whispered, “I think we have scandalized the help.”
“And isn’t it about time?” He seemed very pleased with himself, so I kissed him, right there in the middle of the foyer.
* * *
Guido was the first to call in the morning. He had finished with the task I had set for him the night before, and was on his way with a crew to film the bullet holes in my kitchen windows before the glazier showed up to replace the broken panes.
The second call came from Mom, just as I had wrapped a towel around my head after a shower. It was a little past seven o’clock and Jean-Paul was still in the shower, a tidbit I did not divulge.
“I’m not snooping, Margot,” Mom said. “But I need you to tell me you’re fine.”
“I’m fine.”
“Every time Roger goes out on a police call he announces where he’s going. Another drunk wrapped around a tree, or college pranksters making too much noise—you know the sort of thing. But last night he said nothing. His face was red when he came back from his call, and then he gave Kate a look that made her turn white, so I knew immediately that whatever it was had to concern you.”
“Could have been anybody, Mom.”
“Kate and Marisol were on either side of me at the table, his parents were both there and he had just spoken not an hour earlier with his grown children. That leaves you, my dear daughter.”
“Nothing to worry about, Mom. Someone shot out a couple of my kitchen windows last night, that’s all.”
“Where were you when it happened?”
“At dinner with Jean-Paul.”
There was just the slightest pause before she asked, “What did you cook last night, dear?”
“The kid was a lousy shot, Mom. Don’t give it another thought.”
“Hah!”
“Have you persuaded Gracie you aren’t in the clutches of a cult?”
“If it’s a cult, she likes everyone in it very much. Here she is.”
Gracie Nussbaum was on the phone. “What was all that about last night?”
“Business as usual, Gracie,” I said. “So, has Mom said anything more to you about moving down here?”
“I think she’s made her decision, honey. She talked with your former housemate Lyle last night about the logistics. He suggested that she keep the house furnished, except for the things she’ll want in her a
partment, and turn that big heap over to the university housing office to rent out to graduate students and visiting faculty. The arrangement will give her a nice tax break and she’ll be able to go up and stay there whenever there’s a vacancy.”
“I knew Lyle would know what to do.”
“That boy is a treasure.”
Gracie told me that she wasn’t ready to move out of her own house yet, but she planned to come down for regular visits. And of course, Mom would be up in Berkeley from time to time.
She handed the phone back to Mom who had one more thing to say.
“Lyle will want to borrow Mike’s pickup when I get around to the actual move.”
Of course he would. I hung up and couldn’t help laughing. Was I ready for Mom as a neighbor? Ready or not, I had brought this on myself.
* * *
Hiram Chin, sweating although the living room of Mme Olivier’s Broad Beach mansion was chilly, paced between the massive front windows and the table where his empty apéritif glass rested on a coaster, as if maybe hoping that after each short trip the glass had magically refilled itself.
Mme Olivier, Lisette, to give Hiram and me some privacy after a rather stiff attempt at brunch—no one seemed interested in food—was giving Jean-Paul a tour of the house. The first floor had an open floor plan so wherever they were he could keep an eye on Hiram and me by doing no more than leaning around a pillar or massive sculpture. The living room was two stories high. In order to catch the light and the ocean view, all of the rooms upstairs opened onto a walkway that overlooked the living room below. When the two of them made it upstairs, I spotted Jean-Paul checking on us regularly.
“Ethics,” Chin was saying. “Now there’s a term with variable meanings. Actions that in my mother country might be considered smart business practice might be considered unethical, even illegal, in yours. The reverse is as true. Can you not see the genius involved in creating a perfect replica?”
“I can appreciate craftsmanship in an imitation. But genius? No.”
“You see? That is where we differ.”
The Hanging Page 24