Private Eyes

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “This is Detective Sturgis,” Melissa said, handing us the Cokes. “He’s here to figure out what happened to Mother. Detective, meet Madeleine de Couer, Lupe Ortega, and Rebecca Maldonado.”

  Milo said, “Ladies.”

  Madeleine folded her arms across her bosom and nodded. The other two women stared.

  Melissa said, “We’re waiting for Sabino— the gardener. He lives in Pasadena. It shouldn’t take long.” To us: “They were waiting in their rooms. I couldn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be able to come out. Or even why you shouldn’t get started right now. I already asked them—”

  The doorbell cut her short.

  She said, “One sec,” and ran down the stairs. I watched her from the top of the landing, followed her descent to the front door. Before she got there, Ramp was opening it. Sabino Hernandez walked in, trailed by his five sons. All six men had on short-sleeved sports shirts and slacks and stood at parade rest. One wore a bolo tie; a couple had on sparkling white guayaberas. They began glancing around— awestruck by circumstances or the scale of the house. I wondered how many times, after all these years, they’d actually been inside.

  • • •

  We assembled in the front room. Milo standing, note pad and pen out, everyone else sitting on the edges of the overstuffed chairs. Nine years had turned Hernandez into a very old man— white-haired, hunched, and loose-jawed. His hands had a permanent tremor. He looked too frail for physical labor. His sons, transformed from boys to men by the same stretch of time, surrounded him like stakeposts protecting an ailing tree.

  Milo asked his questions, told them to search their memories very carefully. Got wet eyes from the women, bright stares from the men.

  The only new development was an eyewitness account of Gina’s departure. Two of the Hernandez sons had been working in the front of the house at the time Gina Ramp had driven out. One of them, Guillermo, had been pruning a tree near the driveway and had actually seen her drive by. Seen her clearly, because he’d been standing to the right of the right-hand drive Rolls-Royce, and the tinted window had been rolled down.

  The seÑora hadn’t been smiling or frowning— just a serious look.

  Both hands on the steering wheel.

  Driving very slowly.

  She hadn’t noticed him or said goodbye.

  That was a little unusual— the seÑora was usually very friendly. But no, she hadn’t looked frightened or upset. Not angry, either. Something else— he searched for the word in English. Conferred with his brother. Hernandez Senior looked straight ahead, seemed cut off from the proceedings.

  Thinking, said Guillermo. She looked as if she’d been thinking about something.

  “Any idea what?” Milo asked.

  Guillermo shook his head.

  Milo addressed the question to all of them.

  Blank faces.

  One of the Hispanic maids began crying again.

  Madeleine prodded her and stared straight ahead.

  Milo asked the Frenchwoman if she had something to add.

  She said Madame was a wonderful person.

  Non. She had no idea where Madame had gone.

  Non, Madame hadn’t taken anything with her other than her purse. Her Judith Leiber black calfskin purse. The only one she owned. Madame didn’t like a lot of different things but what she had was excellent. Madame was . . . trÈs classique.

  More tears from Lupe and Rebecca.

  The Hernandezes shifted in their seats.

  Lost looks from all of them. Ramp stared at his knuckles. Even Melissa seemed drained of fight.

  Milo probed gently, then more insistently. Doing as deft a job as I’d ever seen.

  Coming up with nothing.

  A tangible sense of helplessness settled over the room.

  During the course of Milo’s questions, no pecking order had emerged, no one stepping forth to speak for the group.

  Once upon a time it had been different.

  Looks like Jacob’s a good friend.

  He takes care of everything.

  Dutchy had never been replaced.

  Now this.

  As if the big house were being assaulted by destiny, allowed to crumble, piece by piece.

  17

  Milo dismissed the staff and asked for a place to work. Ramp said, “Anywhere’s okay.”

  Melissa said, “The downstairs study,” and led us to the windowless room with the Goya painting. The desk at the center was white and French and much too small for Milo. He sat behind it, tried to get comfortable, gave up, and swung his glance from wall to book-lined wall.

  “Nice view.”

  Melissa said, “Father used it as his study. He designed it without windows for maximum concentration.”

  Milo said, “Uh-huh.” He opened desk drawers and closed them. Took out his note pad and placed it on the desk. “Got any phone books?”

  Melissa said, “Here,” and opened a cabinet beneath the shelves. Removing an armful of directories, she piled them in front of Milo, obscuring the bottom half of his face. “The black one on top’s a San Labrador private directory. Even people who don’t list their numbers in the regular phone book put them in here.”

  Milo divided the books into two short stacks. “Let’s start with her credit-card numbers.”

  “She has all the major ones,” said Ramp, “but I don’t know the numbers offhand.”

  “Where does she keep her statements?”

  “At the bank. First Fiduciary, here in San Labrador. The bills go straight there and the bank pays them.”

  Milo turned to Melissa. “Know any numbers?” She shook her head and gave a guilty look, like a student caught unprepared.

  Milo scribbled. “What about her driver’s license number?”

  Silence.

  “Easy enough to get from the DMV,” said Milo, still writing. “Let’s go for vital statistics— height, weight, birthdate, maiden name.”

  “Five eight and a half,” said Melissa. “Around a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Her birthday’s March twenty-third. Her maiden name’s Paddock. Regina Marie Paddock.” She spelled it.

  Milo said, “Year of birth?”

  “Nineteen forty-six.”

  “Social security number?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ramp said, “I’ve never seen her card— I’m sure Glenn Anger can get you the number from her tax returns.”

  Milo said, “She doesn’t keep any papers around the house?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “The San Labrador police didn’t ask you for any of those things?”

  “No,” said Ramp. “Maybe they figured on getting the information elsewhere— from the city rolls.”

  Melissa said, “Right.”

  Milo put down his pen. “Okay, time to get to work.” He reached for the phone.

  Neither Ramp nor Melissa budged.

  Milo said, “Feel free to stick around for the show, but if you’re drowsy, I promise this will finish you off.”

  Melissa frowned and left the room quickly.

  Ramp said, “I’ll leave you to your duties, Mr. Sturgis,” and turned heel.

  Milo picked up the phone.

  I went looking for Melissa and found her in the kitchen, looking in one of the wall lockers. She pulled out a bottle of orange soda, twisted the cap, got a glass from an upper cabinet, and poured. Carelessly. Some of the soda spilled on the counter. She didn’t attempt to clean it.

  Still unaware of my presence, she raised the glass to her lips and gulped so quickly it made her cough. Sputtering, she slapped her chest. Saw me and slapped harder. When the paroxysms died, she said, “Oh, that was attractive.” In a smaller voice: “Can’t do anything right.”

  I came closer, ripped a piece of paper towel from a roll impaled upon a wooden holder, and mopped up the spill.

  She said, “Let me do that,” and took the towel. Wiped spots that were already dry.

  “I know how rough this has been for
you,” I said. “Two days ago we were talking about Harvard.”

  “Harvard,” she said. “Big damned deal.”

  “Hopefully it’ll return to being a big deal soon.”

  “Yeah, right. As if I could ever leave now.”

  Wadding up the towel, she tossed it onto the counter. Lifted her head and looked straight at me, inviting debate.

  I said, “In the end, you’ll do what’s best for you.”

  Her eyes flickered with uncertainty, shifted to the soda bottle.

  “God, I didn’t even offer you any. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I just had that Coke.”

  As if she hadn’t heard, she said, “Here, let me get you some.” She reached up into the cupboard and retrieved another glass. As she placed it on the counter, her arm jerked and the glass skidded across the shelf. She caught it before it dropped on the floor. Dropped it and fumbled to catch it again. Staring at it, breathing hard, she said, “Damn!” and ran out of the room.

  I followed her again, searched for her throughout the ground floor of the house, but couldn’t find her. Went up the green stairs and headed toward her room. The door was open. I looked in, saw no one, called out her name, got no answer. Entering, I was hit by deceitful memories: crystalline recollections of a place I’d never been.

  The ceiling was painted with a mural of gowned courtesans enjoying a place that could have been Versailles. Carpeting the color of raspberry sherbet covered the floor. The walls were pink-and-gray lamb-and-pussycat wallpaper broken by lace-trimmed windows. The bed was a miniature of her mother’s. Shelves brimming with music boxes and miniature dishes and figurines lined the room. Three dollhouses. A zoo of stuffed animals.

  The precise images she’d described nine years ago.

  The place she’d never slept.

  The only concession to young adulthood was a desk to the right of the bed bearing a personal computer, dot-matrix printer, and a pile of books.

  I inspected the books. Two manuals on preparation for the SAT. The College Game: Planning Your Academic Career. Fowler’s Guide to American Universities. Information brochures from half a dozen first-rate colleges. The one from Harvard, dogeared, a bookmark inserted in the Psychology section.

  Manuals for the future in a room that clung to the past. As if her mind had developed while the rest had stagnated.

  Had I been fooled, nine years ago, into believing she’d changed more than she had?

  I left the room, considered looking for her on the second and third floors, and realized how daunting that would be.

  I went downstairs and stood alone in the entry hall. Man without a function. A ten-foot marble clock, with a face almost too ornate to read, said 11:45. Gina Ramp had been gone almost nine hours.

  I’d been hanging around for more than half of it.

  Time to catch some sleep, leave the detecting to the pros.

  I went to tell the pro I was leaving.

  • • •

  He was standing behind the desk, tie loosened, sleeves rolled carelessly mid-forearm, phone tucked under his chin, writing rapidly. “Uh-huh . . . Is he generally reliable? . . . He does? Didn’t know you guys were doing that well. . . . That so? . . . Really . . . Maybe I should be thinking about that, yeah. . . . Anyway, what time was this? . . . Okay, yeah, I know where it is. I appreciate your talking to me at this stage of the game. . . . Yeah, yeah, officially, though I don’t know that they’re actively involved— San Labrador is. . . . Yeah, I know. Just for strokes, though . . . Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it. Bye.”

  He hung up, said, “That was the Highway Patrol. Looks like my freeway theory’s getting some validation. We’ve got a possible sighting of the car. Three-thirty this afternoon, on the 210, heading east, out near Azuza. That’s about a ten-mile drive from here, so it makes sense time-wise.”

  “What do you mean “possible sighting,’ and why did it take so long to find out if it was spotted that long ago?”

  “The source is an off-duty motorcycle guy. He was hanging out at home, listening to his scanner, happened to hear the bulletin and called in. Seems at three-thirty he’d pulled some speeder off onto the left shoulder of the westbound 210, was in the process of writing out a ticket when he happened to notice the Rolls, or one just like it, zip by on the eastbound. It happened too fast for him to get the plates, other than to notice they were English. That answer both your questions?”

  “Who was driving?”

  “He didn’t see that either. Not that he would’ve if it was her, because of the smoked windows.”

  “Did he notice smoked windows?”

  “Nope. It was the car he was looking at. The body-style. Seems he’s some sort of collector, has a Bentley from around the same period.”

  “Cop with a Bentley?”

  “That was my reaction, too. The guy I was just talking to— sergeant at the San Gabriel chippy station— is a buddy of the first guy. The call came in to him, personally— he’s also a motorhead, collects Corvettes. Lots of cops are into wheels— they work extra jobs to pay for their toys. Anyway, he informs me that some of the old Bentleys aren’t that expensive. Twenty grand or so, cheaper if you buy a wreck and fix it up yourself. Rolls from the same year cost more ’cause they’re rarer— only a few hundred of those Silver Dawns were made. That’s why the first guy noticed it.”

  “Meaning it’s probably hers.”

  “Probably. But not definitely. The guy who saw it thought it was black over gray, but he couldn’t be sure— it might have been all black or dark gray over light gray. We’re talking a sixty-mile-an-hour zip-by.”

  “How many old Rolls would there be driving around, that time, that place?”

  “More than you might imagine. Apparently, a hell of a lot of them ended up in L.A. back when the dollar was worth something. And there are plenty of collectors concentrated in the Pasadena–San Labrador area. But yeah, I’d say we’ve got a ninety-percent-plus chance it was her.”

  “East on the 210,” I said, picturing the wide-open highway. “Where would she be heading?”

  “Anywhere, but she’d have had to make a decision fairly soon— the freeway ends around fifteen miles from there, just short of La Verne. North is Angeles Crest and I don’t see her as the type to rough it. South, she could have caught any number of other freeways— the 57 going straight south. Or 10, in either direction, which would take her anywhere from the beach to Vegas. Or she could have continued on surface streets up into the foothills, checked out the sights at Rancho Cucamonga— what the hell is out there, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. But my guess is she’d probably stay near civilization.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Her type of civilization. I’m thinking Newport Beach, Laguna, La Jolla, Pauma, Santa Fe Springs. Still doesn’t narrow it much. Or maybe she turned around and headed for her own place in Malibu.”

  “Ramp called there twice and she didn’t answer.”

  “What if she wasn’t in the mood to pick up the phone?”

  “Why would she go in one direction, then reverse herself?”

  “Let’s say the whole thing started out impulsively. She’s just driving, for the hell of it. Gets on the freeway, gets swept along— going east by chance. Maybe it’s just a matter of it being the first on-ramp she sees. When the freeway ends she decides upon a specific destination. Closest thing to home: home number two. Or let’s say she was heading east intentionally. That means Route 10 and a whole bunch of other possibilities: San Berdoo, Palm Springs, Vegas. And beyond. The great beyond, Alex— she could drive all the way to Maine, if the car held up. If it didn’t, with her dough she could’ve ditched it, gotten another one fast. All you need to chew up the open road is time and money, and neither of those is her problem.”

  “An agoraphobic doing the scenic route?”

  “You said yourself she was in the process of getting cured. Maybe the freeway helped it along— all that blacktop, no stoplights. It can make you feel powerful. Make you wanna f
orget about the rules. That’s why people move out here in the first place, isn’t it?”

  I thought about that. Thought of my first time on the open road, heading west for college at sixteen. The first time I’d driven over the Rockies, seeing the desert at night, thrilled and terrified. My first view of the dirt-brown haze looming over the L.A. basin, heavy and threatening but incapable of dimming the gilded promise of the city at twilight.