“Ursula’s his protÉgÉe— from what I’ve observed, she does what he tells her. Though Gina’s death seems to have really shaken her up, so perhaps she’s the weak link. I intended to talk to her today, but she left before I had a chance.”
“ProtÉgÉe, huh? But the print ended up in her office.”
“Maybe the print was just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Art for her, cash for both of them? Course at these prices, a million or two wouldn’t buy that much art, would it?”
“We have only Glenn Anger’s word on how much Gina received every month. He could have programmed his computer to read any way he wanted.”
“Why would Gina give the Gabneys dough?”
“Gratitude, dependency— same reasons cult members give everything to the guru.”
“Could have been a loan.”
“Could have been, but she’s not around to collect, is she?”
He frowned and pushed his cake aside. “Ramp and Nyquist, the button-down boys, now her goddam shrinks. Suspect hit parade. Poor thing was an equal-opportunity victim.”
“Like ants crawling over a beetle carcass,” I said.
Milo tossed his napkin on the table. “What else do you know about this Moriarty?”
“Just her address. West Hollywood.” I pulled out the paper Jan Robbins had given me and handed it to him.
“Hey,” he said, “we’re neighbors— this is maybe six blocks from my place. Could have stood next to her in line at the supermarket.”
“Didn’t know you went to the market.”
“I was speaking symbolically.” He lifted his briefcase to his knee, rummaged, and pulled out his notepad, copied down the address.
“I can stop by,” he said, “see if she’s still living there. If she isn’t, anything further’s gonna have to wait, ’cause of all the other stuff I’ve got to deal with. You want to spend some time pursuing it, that’s fine, too.”
“Do I get a brand-new private-eye briefcase?”
“Buy your own, ace. We’re talking free enterprise.”
30
I paid the check and Milo chatted with Joyce, complimenting her further on her food, commiserating on the problems of running a small business, then somehow easing into the subject of Kathy Moriarty as if it were the next logical step. She had no new facts to offer but was able to come up with a physical description of the reporter: mid- to late thirties, medium height and build, brown hair cut short, Buster Brown style, rosy complexion (“like what you’d expect in an Irish girl”), light eyes— either blue or green. Then, as if realizing she’d given more than she’d taken, she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Why do you want to know all this?”
Milo crooked his head and led her to the rear of the restaurant— a needless concealment, since we were the only customers. He showed her his inactive LAPD badge. She opened her mouth but said nothing.
He said, “It’s important you don’t say anything to anybody. Please.”
“Sure. Is something—”
“No danger to you or anyone. We’re just making a routine inquiry.”
“About that place— the clinic?”
“Does something about the place bother you?”
“Well,” she said, “like I was telling this gentleman, it is odd so few people come in and out. Makes you wonder what they’re really doing in there— this day and age, you’ve got to wonder.”
“Yes, you do.”
She shivered and seemed to enjoy the conspiracy. Milo obtained another pledge of silence from her. We left the restaurant and headed back toward Sussex Knoll.
“Think she can keep a secret?” I said.
“Who knows.”
“Not that important?”
He shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen? It gets back to the Gabneys that someone’s asking questions. If they’re not up to anything, it goes nowhere. If they are, maybe they’ll get scared and do something rash.”
“Such as?”
“Sell the Cassatt, maybe even do some other quick cashing-in that lets us know they’ve been holding on to some other assets of Gina’s.”
Gina. He said her name with an easy familiarity, though they’d never met. A homicide cop’s intimacy. I thought of all the others he’d never met but knew so well. . . .
“. . . so,” he was saying, “that okay with you?”
“Is what okay?”
He laughed. “You’re making my point for me, champ.”
“Which is?”
“Go home and get some sleep.”
“I’m fine. What were you saying?”
“That you should catch some Z’s and check out Moriarty’s place tomorrow morning. If it’s an apartment building, talk to the landlord or the manager, if you can find them. Any other tenants, too.”
“What’s my premise?”
“Your what?”
“My reason for asking questions about her— I don’t have a badge.”
“Buy one,” he said. “On Hollywood Boulevard, one of the costume shops. Be as legal as the one I’m using.”
“Well, aren’t we bitter,” I said.
He gave an evil grin. “Okay, you want a premise: Say you’re an old friend just come out from the East Coast, you’re looking her up for old time’s sake. Or you’re a cousin— the grand Moriarty family reunion’s coming around soon and no one can seem to get hold of dear Kathy. Make something up. You met her sister— you should be able to make it sound realistic.”
“Nothing like a little deception to spice up the morning, huh.”
“Hey,” he said, “makes the world go ’round.”
• • •
As we parked in front of the house, Noel Drucker came out the front door carrying a large blue suitcase with a designer logo.
He said, “She’s up in her room. Writing.”
“Writing what?”
“Something to do with the bank guy and the lawyer, I think. She’s really ticked off, wants to sue them.”
Milo pointed at the suitcase. “For the boss?”
Noel nodded.
“Any idea where he’s gonna be living?”
“I guess he’ll stay with us till he finds a place. With my mom and me. Upstairs at the Tankard. It’s his, anyway.”
“You rent from him?”
“No, he lets us stay there free.”
“Pretty nice of him.”
Noel nodded. “He really is a nice guy. I wish . . .” He threw up one hand and said, “Whatever.”
“Must be hard for you,” I said. “Caught in the middle.”
He shrugged. “I figure it’s practice.”
“For international relations?”
“For the real world.”
He got in the red Celica and drove off.
Milo watched his taillights until they disappeared. “Nice kid.” As if he’d just tagged an endangered species.
Slapping his briefcase against his leg, he checked his Timex. “Nine-thirty. Gonna make a few calls. Then I’ll boogie on down to the mission and try to get a rise out of Mr. Deadbrain.”
“If Melissa doesn’t need me, I’ll go with you.”
He frowned. “What about sleep?”
“Too wound up.”
He said nothing for a moment, then: “Okay. He’s a nutcase— maybe your training will come in handy. But then do me a favor and go home and crash. Don’t keep driving on high— the engine burns out.”
“Yes, Mom.”
• • •
Melissa was in the windowless room, sitting at the desk behind a growing pile of papers.
She looked alarmed when we came in, stood suddenly, and knocked some pages to the floor. “Strategy planning,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out ways of getting the bastards.”
Milo picked up the papers, glanced at them, and put them on the desk. Blank. “Come up with anything?”
“Sort of. I think the best way to go is reviewing every single thing they’ve been doing since . . . sin
ce the very beginning. I mean really make them open up all their books and go over every line, every number. At the very least it’ll freak them out so much they’ll forget about ripping me off and I can concentrate on getting them.”
I said, “Good offense the best defense.”
“Exactly.” She clapped her hands together. There was color in her cheeks and her eyes glowed, but it wasn’t a healthy light. Milo was studying her, but she didn’t notice it.
“Did you get a chance to talk to any lawyers, Dr. Delaware?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay, but as soon as possible, all right? Please.”
“I could try right now.”
“That would be great. Thanks.” She lifted the phone from the desk and thrust it at me.
Milo said, “I could use something to drink.”
She looked at him, then at me. “Sure. Let’s go get something from the kitchen.”
• • •
Alone, I dialed Mal Worthy’s home number in Brentwood. A machine with his third wife’s voice on it answered. I began leaving a message and he broke in.
“Alex. I was meaning to call you— got a juicy one coming up. Two psychologists splitting up, three really screwed-up kids. I’ve got the wife and it’s shaping up as one of the nastiest custody fights you’re ever going to see.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You bet. How’s your calendar, let’s say five weeks from now?”
“I don’t have it in front of me but that far in advance I don’t see a problem.”
“Good. You’re going to love this— these are two of the craziest people you’ll ever meet. The thought of them messing with other people’s heads is— What is it with your profession, anyway?”
“Let’s talk about your profession,” I said. “I need a referral.”
“For what?”
“Estate and taxation.”
“Word-processing or litigation?”
“Could be both.” I gave him a general summary of Melissa’s situation, leaving out names, numbers, and identifying marks.
He said, “Suzy LaFamiglia, if your client doesn’t mind a woman.”
“A woman would be fine.”
“Only reason I mention it is, you’d be surprised how many people still come in with rules— no women, no minorities. Their loss, because Suzy’s the best. CPA as well as a law degree, worked for one of the big accounting firms and brought in more business than any other associate until they kept passing her up for partnership because she had the wrong genitals. She sued, settled out of court, used the money to go to Boalt— top of the class. She’s a real black-hearted litigator. Made her mark working for film people, getting money back from the studios. In situations where the finances are so hairy they go beyond my not inconsiderable skills, she’s my main man.”
He laughed at his own wit.
I said, “Sounds perfect for my client.”
He gave me a number. “Century City East— she’s got a whole floor in one of the towers. I’ll call you on the other thing. You’re going to love it— our little pair of snarling, snapping therapists. I call them the Paradox. TrÈs À propros.” He laughed more heartily.
I hung up without telling him I’d heard the joke before.
• • •
Milo came back without Melissa, holding a can of Diet Coke.
“She’s in the bathroom,” he said. “Throwing up.”
“What happened?”
“She just gave out. Started in with more of the tough talk— getting the bastards. I said something to her— then boom, she’s crying and gagging.”
“I saw you looking at her like a detective. Then you got her out of the room while I called. Why?”
He looked uncomfortable.
I said, “What?”
“Okay,” he said, “I have an evil mind. It’s what I get paid for.” He hesitated. “I didn’t want her out. I wanted to get her alone— get a closer look, without you running interference for her. Because her demeanor, just now, bothered me. It got me thinking— we’d missed one possibility in our little dinner discussion. Very ugly possibility, but sometimes those are the most important ones.”
“Melissa?” I said, feeling my gut tighten.
He started to turn away, reversed direction, and faced me. “She’s the sole heir, Alex. Forty million bucks. And she’s sure ready to fight for it before the body’s even cold.”
“There is no body.”
“Figure of speech. Don’t chew my head off.”
“You just come up with this?”
He shook his head. “I guess it’s been floating around in the back of my head from the beginning. Because of my training: when there’s money involved, look for the person who benefits. But I repressed it, or whatever— maybe I just didn’t want to think about it.”
“Milo, she’s fighting because she’s channeling her grief into anger. Taking the offensive instead of letting herself be crushed. I trained her to do that in therapy. In my book, it’s still good coping.”
“Maybe,” he said. “All I’m saying is that in a normal situation, I’d have looked at her early on.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Hey,” he said, “I didn’t say I thought it was a probability. Just something we left out. No, not we—me. I’m the one trained to think ugly. But I didn’t. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been working for the city.”
“Well, you’re not,” I said, raising my voice, “so why not allow yourself a vacation from that kind of thinking?”
“Hey,” he said, “don’t kill the messenger.”
“She had no opportunity,” I said. “She was here when her mother disappeared.”
“The Drucker kid could have had one— where was he?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded, but without satisfaction. “From what I’ve seen, he digs her enough to eat her fingernail dirt and call it caviar. And he took care of the family’s cars. He’d know all about how the Rolls worked. Gina would’ve picked him up, that’s for sure. And you yourself said he twanged your antennae.”
“I didn’t say I sensed anything psychopathic about him.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, man,” I said, feeling a grinding headache coming on. “No way, Milo. No way.”
“It’s sure not anything I want to believe, Alex. I like the kid and I’m still working for her. She was just looking a little too . . . hardbitten, just now. Going on and on about getting the bastards. What I said to her out in the kitchen was “sounds like you’re raring to go.’ And she just stopped and fell apart. I felt shitty for making her feel bad, but also better. Because she started looking like a kid again. If I did something untherapeutic, I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said. “If it was that close to the surface it would have happened sooner or later.”
“Yeah,” he said.
Neither of us putting into words what we were thinking: if it was real.
Feeling suddenly weary, I sat down in the chair near the phone table. The paper with Suzy LaFamiglia’s number was between my fingers. “Just got a lawyer for her. Female, tough, combative— likes to take on the system.”
“Sounds good.”
“Sounds,” I said, “like someone Melissa could grow up to be.”
31
Melissa came back to the five-sided room looking a long way from grown up. Her shoulders were stooped, her gait had slowed, and she dabbed at her mouth with a piece of toilet paper. I gave her the lawyer’s number and she thanked me in a very soft voice.
“Want me to call for you?”
“No, thanks. I’ll do it. Tomorrow.”
I sat her down behind the desk. She gazed out blankly in Milo’s direction and gave a weak smile.
Milo smiled back and looked at his soda can. I wasn’t sure for whom I felt sorrier.
Melissa sighed and put her hand under her jaw.
I said, “How’re you doing, hon?”
“I don’t know,” she
said. “This is all so— I feel like I’m just being— Like I’ve got no . . . I don’t know.”
Private Eyes Page 44