Too Big to Die

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  Kelly looked up from the table. “I believe it was the smashing of her car window.” She went to the front window of the shop and gazed out. “She’d picked up another garment and brought it back to the window right here. She wasn’t here but a few seconds when she dropped what was in her hands and ran straight out the door.” Kelly turned back to us. “I tried to see what was going on, but I couldn’t see much except a crowd starting to form. One of the kids from the pizza place dashed over there, then filled me in on what had happened when he came back. Later that night my husband and I watched it on the news.” She paused. “I do hope they took that poor dog away from that horrible woman. Do you know if they did?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but Marla Kingston did get a hefty fine for leaving him in her car.”

  Zee held the scarf in her hand toward Kelly. “Kelly, I’ll take this. I think my daughter would love it.”

  “Aw,” the proprietor said with a smile, “please don’t feel obligated to buy something just because I’m answering your questions.”

  “I’m not. I really do think this would look lovely on Hannah,” Zee told her. “She just had a baby, and it would be nice for her to get a gift not baby-related.”

  “Alrighty then,” Kelly said, clearly pleased. She took the scarf to the back counter to ring it up.

  While Zee and Kelly were transacting business, I stood by the window and looked out toward the parking lot where my car was parked. I couldn’t see it clearly because of the other rows of cars, but the parking row was angled just enough for me to note that it was my car through the gaps of other parked vehicles. I could see the car parked next to me more clearly, but not by much. On Saturday, that’s where Marla’s Mercedes would have been parked. But even then, looking out this window on Saturday, Marla would only have been able to see a crowd gathering, not what was actually going on. But a crowd would have been enough to alarm her into leaving the shop and rushing toward her vehicle.

  After thanking Kelly, Zee and I left the shop and stood outside under the awning protecting the storefronts. “What do you think?” Zee asked. “Do you think Marla was waiting for someone?”

  “Sure sounds that way,” I said with a slight rise of my shoulders to show I wasn’t 100 percent sure. “She could have been waiting on someone but keeping out of sight and keeping cool in Kelly’s place. Maybe she kept checking out the window to see if Maurice was okay, although at this distance she’d never be able to monitor his condition.”

  “Do you want to check out the other places?” Zee asked as she tucked the small bag with the scarf into her handbag.

  “No,” I said, turning to scan the other businesses. “It seems like she might have gone only to Kelly’s. You know, maybe she was going to meet someone at Starbucks but was keeping an eye out for him or her.”

  “Maybe someone she’s cheating on Kingston with?” Zee suggested. “It would make sense why she would pick a place this far away from one of her homes.” Zee and I both turned our heads toward the coffee shop, which was right next door to Kelly’s. The clothing store would be a perfect place to scout out anyone heading in or out of Starbucks.

  “Feel like an iced coffee?” I asked her.

  Zee smiled. “Lead the way.”

  Starbucks wasn’t very busy. A few tables were occupied by people with laptops. Zee and I laid claim to two of the upholstered chairs by the entrance. While she held down the fort, I went to the counter to order our iced drinks.

  “I asked the girl at the counter if she recognized Marla’s photo,” I said when I returned with the drinks and took my seat, “but I struck out. She wasn’t here Saturday and never recalled seeing her any other time.”

  We were kicked back in our comfy chairs, enjoying our iced coffee drinks and tossing out possibilities, when someone I recognized entered the coffee shop. It was a young guy, late teens or early twenties, but this time he didn’t have a skateboard with him. He went straight to the counter and ordered his drink. Without a word to Zee, I got up and went to the counter.

  “I’ll pay for his order,” I told the girl at the counter.

  The kid turned to check out his benefactor, and I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Remember me, Charlie?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, from Saturday. You and the guy in the wheelchair rescued that dog.” He turned back to the cashier. “If she’s paying, throw in a couple of those big cookies and bump my drink up to the largest size.” The girl looked at me and I gave her the okay.

  After paying and waiting for Charlie to get his cookies, we moved over to stand in the area where the drinks were picked up. “Can I ask you a couple of questions, Charlie?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, you’re paying.” He pulled one of the cookies out of the bag and took a big bite. I glanced over at Zee, who was only a few feet away and watching us.

  “Do you hang around here a lot?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Enough. Don’t live very far away.”

  “You know the woman whose dog we rescued?” I held up my phone with Marla’s photo. “This one. Have you ever seen her here before Saturday?”

  He studied the photo while taking another bite of the cookie. “Don’t think so.” He looked up at me. “She’s some famous bitch, isn’t she?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “But you don’t recall seeing her around before?”

  “Nah.” The barista called Charlie’s name and he picked up his drink. It was an iced something topped with whipped cream and drizzled with caramel sauce. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen her before Saturday. Why you asking?” He stuck a straw into his concoction and took a long drink. He was taller than me by several inches. Sweat and heat radiated from him.

  I took a second to think of something to say. “Her husband is making things difficult for my husband and me because of the broken car window.”

  “But even the cops said you were in the right with that,” he said.

  “I know, but that isn’t stopping them from harassing us.”

  “So why ask if she hangs out around here? It’s a free country. She can be anywhere she wants to be.” He polished off his cookie.

  Charlie had a point. Marla Kingston could be anywhere she wanted to be, so my explanation seemed lame. I wasn’t sure about telling him that I was trying to put Marla here for a reason, to try and link her somehow to Burt Sandoval. I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring up Burt.

  “True,” I told him. “I guess we’re just grasping for straws—anything to get Kingston off our backs.”

  His eyes brightened. “You looking to blackmail them to stop bugging you? That could be cool. I could get into that.”

  “No, no,” I quickly said. “Nothing like that.” It was a bit scary how eager this kid was to jump on the blackmail wagon. “We are just trying to see if she’s done this before.” It was a lie and not a very good one, but it was all I had up my sleeve at the moment. “Do you work around here or are you off from college or something?” I asked. It was a deflection, but also I was curious. Charlie was at that awkward age. He was either on the tail end of high school or recently passed it and waiting out the summer to move on to the next phase in his life. Like before, he was dressed in beach clothing—board shorts and a T-shirt—but except for the sweat that all of us were wearing, his clothes were clean. It looked like he took decent care of himself. He could also still be living at home.

  “Got a summer job working nights,” he said without enthusiasm. “Nothing great, but it’ll do until school starts. You know, make a few bucks. Then I’m off to Santa Barbara for college in the fall.” That information told me that he was about eighteen. “If I do see the crazy bitch,” he continued, “do you want me to call you or something?”

  I thought about giving him my contact information but changed my mind. Not that I was worried he’d use it, but he seemed the type to become too enthusiastic, and not in a good wa
y, should something come up.

  “No, that’s okay,” I told him. “I don’t think she’ll be back.”

  Charlie grunted and left, and I returned to my seat next to Zee. “Who was that?” she asked as soon as I sat down.

  “His name is Charlie. He’s the kid who took the video Saturday that showed up on the news.” I took a long pull off my iced coffee. “I was hoping maybe he’d seen Marla here before, but no such luck.”

  “Unless she came to this plaza a lot, people probably wouldn’t notice her,” Zee said.

  “Ha,” I scoffed. “Marla Kingston is hardly an incognito type of personality. She’d stick out like a sore thumb in this place. She did Saturday the way she was dressed and acting.” I finished my coffee. “Just to be thorough, let’s show her picture to the other shops in this place.”

  No one in the other businesses remembered seeing Marla. Striking out, we picked up a couple of bottles of cold water from our last stop, the drugstore, and returned to my car.

  “Westminster, then home?” asked Zee.

  “First I’d like to swing by Holly’s mailbox place,” I said, unscrewing the top from my water bottle. I took a drink and set the bottle into one of the cup holders in the console. “It’s not that far from here.” I turned to her. “Do you mind?”

  Zee took a swig from her own water bottle. “Not at all. Lead on.”

  The mailbox place was an independent business, not one of the big chains. The name of the place was Your Office. In addition to mailboxes and mail forwarding, it offered all kinds of business assistance, like packing and mailing packages, notary services, office supplies, and even computer time rental. It was in an old building that housed two other small businesses—a computer repair shop on the bottom floor next to it and a small accounting firm taking up the top floor. The floor of Your Office was scarred linoleum and the walls needed painting, but it was clean and the inventory neatly displayed. To one side was a bank of individual mailboxes, small ones on top with larger ones on the bottom. To the left of the space was a service counter. A young black man was seated behind it reading a graphic novel. Both his head and his face were clean shaven. A loose black T-shirt covered a thin but wiry body. He glanced up with sharp eyes when we approached. Close up, he didn’t look much older than Charlie.

  “Can I help you?” he said. He put the book down but remained in his seat.

  “I have this address for someone and didn’t realize it was a mail place,” I lied. “I was hoping to speak with her in person.”

  “A lot of people use our address as theirs,” was his response, delivered in a bored voice.

  “Can you tell us,” Zee chimed in, “if a Holly West has a mailbox here? Maybe we simply have the wrong address.”

  The young man eyed Zee and then me, then said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t give out the names of our customers. Most use a box for a reason, get my drift?” Zee and I glanced at each other. We both got the drift, and it was one I’d expected.

  Zee dug a twenty-dollar bill from the depths of her bag. She smoothed it and set it flat on the counter but kept her fingers on top, holding it down tight. She looked at the man but said nothing.

  Again, he looked at both of us. “But there are two of you.”

  I got that drift too. Reaching into my tote, I dug out a twenty of my own and set it on the table next to Zee’s. “That should buy information and you keeping your mouth shut about our visit here,” I told him.

  The guy leaned forward. “That last part will cost you another twenty.”

  It was Zee’s turn to lean in. She removed her sunglasses and latched her eyes onto his. “Didn’t your momma ever teach you that greed is one of the devil’s tools?”

  He leaned forward more, their dark faces close, their eyes unflinching. “Only thing my momma taught me was to grab what you can when you can from whoever you can.” He leaned back, keeping his eyes on Zee. “I’ll bet that’s not what you taught your kids, is it?”

  Zee reached into her bag for her wallet, but he stopped her with, “No, I want the other twenty from her.” He jerked his chin in my direction. “The white lady.”

  With a nod to Zee, I pulled out another twenty, glad I’d hit the ATM before picking her up this morning. “There,” I said putting it on the counter. “So what do you know about Holly West?”

  He scooped up the three twenties. “Tough chick but kinda cute. She comes in once a week to pick up her mail. Every Wednesday around 6, just before we close.”

  “Never any other time?” Zee asked.

  He shrugged. “Not that I can tell. She could come in after hours. Our clients all have a security code that lets them into the box section. But I don’t think she comes in except on Wednesday.”

  I glanced back at the bank of mailboxes and noticed for the first time the sliding gate that ran from one side of the front door to the short wall next to the boxes. When extended, the gate would cut off the inventory and counter from the box area and front door, allowing customers access to only that area when the place was closed.

  “Why don’t you think she comes in after hours?” I asked.

  “Because her box is always full until Wednesday,” he told us. “I put the mail in the boxes every day, Monday through Saturday. She don’t get much, but her box is never emptied until Wednesday night. Starts clean on Thursday.”

  “And you said she’s a tough chick,” I said to him. “Does that mean tattoos, piercings, stuff like that?”

  “Nah,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “I’ve never noticed anything like that. I mean, she’s not gangsta or anything like that.” He paused. “It’s more her attitude. She’s not very…um…approachable. You know what I mean?”

  “You mean,” Zee said, “that you hit on her and she rejected you, right?”

  For the first time, the guy smiled. “Hey, like I said, she’s cute. Pretty long hair, got that half Asian, half white thing going on. You know. But man, she’s cold. Whenever I speak to her at all, I mean, even for business, she doesn’t talk. Just gives you this steely look that can freeze a man’s balls.”

  Back in the car, I called Greg and put him on speaker. When he answered, I asked without any lead-in, “Hi honey, was Jane Newell Asian?”

  “Yeah, she was,” he said. “Korean. She was adopted when she was a baby. Why?”

  “The guy at the mailbox place just told us that Holly West is half Asian, half white, so I wanted to check that out with you.”

  There was quiet on the other end of the line, then, “Who is the other half of the us, Odelia?”

  “Me,” chimed in Zee. “I’m helping out Odelia a little bit.” An audible groan came from the phone.

  “Gee, Greg,” Zee shot back at the phone, “tell me how you really feel.”

  There was a slight chuckle from the phone. “You know I love ya, Zee, but Seth is going to have our heads if anything happens. You know how he feels about you chumming along with Odelia on this stuff.”

  “I do,” she replied, “but nothing is going to happen, and I’m a grown woman. I don’t need my husband’s permission to hang out with my best friend.” She took a breath. “Besides, that last incident was not Odelia’s fault.”

  “All right,” Greg said, “I’m just pointing out a fact. Have you girls found out anything?”

  “Little threads here and there,” I told him. “Not much more. And those threads don’t tie together at all. There’s a Jordon West in Costa Mesa, but he says he’s not related to Holly West. We’re on our way to check out another Jordon West who lives in Westminster, then I’m dropping Zee off and heading home. I’ll give you a full report over dinner.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, “although you’re going to be right in the thick of rush hour. You’re already facing the start of it now.”

  “Well,” I said, “it can’t be helped. We’re on a roll of checking off
the obvious leads.”

  “Since there’s no leftover Chinese food from last night and you might be late, how about I pick up a pizza for dinner?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I told him. “Half and half?”

  Again Greg chuckled. “Half and half,” he assured me. My husband loves pineapple and ham pizza, which I dislike. I’m a purest: I prefer pepperoni. In all our years of marriage, this is one of the few things we haven’t been able to compromise on. Both of us like green peppers, mushrooms, and onions on our pizza, so our usual order is half and half with the veggies on both sides.

  fourteen

  Usually when I head someplace new, I like to check it out on Google—not just on the map, but also through the street view feature. I like to know what the building looks like before I get there so I can identify it easier instead of looking for street numbers that might or might not be visible. I didn’t do this with Jordon West number two’s address, though, and as we pulled up in front of the address Marigold had given me, I wished that I had.

  We pulled up in front of a sprawling two-story building that took up the corner of a busy street and stretched down a small side street. It was an older building, solid looking but in need of a paint job. Small patches of dried grass bordered it, with scrappy low hedges hugging the building just below window level. The main entrance was on the side street.

  Pulling up in a loading area in front of the place, I leaned across Zee for a better look at the address numbers painted across the front door. “This can’t be the place, can it?”

  “Does the address match the one you have?” Zee asked.

  I double-checked. “Yes, the address matches.”

  The two of us stared at the sign attached to the wall next to the front door: Bayview Assisted Living. “I don’t think there are any bays around here for anyone to view,” Zee noted.

  I put the car in gear and moved it to a curbside parking spot just up from the main door. After we both took swigs from our water bottles, we opened the door to the heat and slogged our way into the air-conditioned lobby of Bayview Assisted Living.