CHAPTER
24
At four forty-five we took the unmarked to Ricki Sylvester’s office. When we were moments away, I got a text.
Maxine Driver. Pitcairn has no idea who the palooka is. She’ll look into Drancy. Intrigued. As am I.
Milo said, “Palooka? That’s prof-speak? Okay, here we are.”
Diminishing sun had altered the building’s glass walls to a yellow-gray that suggested chronic liver disease. The lights in the windowless waiting room had been switched off and the bearded receptionist was gone. Milo tried the door. Locked.
He phoned Sylvester.
“This is Ricki.”
“Lieutenant Sturgis again. Could you spare a few minutes?”
“Tomorrow’s kind of full.”
“How about now. We’re outside your door.”
“Oh, boy…hold on.”
Moments later, she appeared wearing a puffy gray jacket and carrying a purse. Unbolting the door, she flipped a switch that triggered the waiting room light.
“I hope this is quick. I’m tired and kind of famished.”
Milo said, “Happy to tag along while you dine, my treat.”
She waved a hand. “Let’s just do it right here.”
She took the receptionist chair. We stayed on our feet.
Milo said, “We’ve learned about your grandfather.”
The flush that captured her face was instantaneous and intense. “What about my grandfather?”
“He seems to have led an interesting—”
“Uh-uh, don’t even go there, Lieutenant. It’s hearsay innuendo and I don’t have to listen to it.” She stood. “You’re wasting my time with ancient history? End of discussion.”
“No offense intended,” said Milo. “Not that I see why you’re so off—”
“Of course I’m offended. You come here the first time, I do everything to help you, hand over every lick of information I have on Thalia, and you repay me by implying that one of the most important people in my life was a criminal. He was not. That’s an ignorant way to look at it and you, as a peace officer, should know better. Grandfather provided defense to those who deserved it.”
“Ma’am, I never meant to imply—”
“ ‘We learned about your grandfather’? Like that’s supposed to alarm me. To what end? I already told you everything I know.”
She smiled. “Let me guess: no progress on Thalia, so you began snooping around on anything related to her, found something about Grandfather in the documents I gave you, looked him up on the Internet. If I was trying to protect Grandfather, don’t you think I’d have taken the time to remove any references to him?”
She shook her head. “The Internet is a garbage dump.”
Milo said, “Sorry if I touched a nerve. Though I’m not sure why it’s a sore point.”
“It’s a sore point,” she said, “because I dealt with it a lot in law school and don’t want to repeat the experience. Please leave.”
I said, “What happened in law school?”
“Hearsay innuendo from a smug bastard visiting professor, some idiot named Gallico, I still remember his name because he was a total ass.”
“He insulted your grandfather?”
She glared.
I said, “A lecture on stretching the moral boundaries of legal representation?”
Her mouth dropped open. “That’s nearly verbatim. How the hell?”
Because I know academia.
I said, “Lucky guess.”
She said, “He brought a slide show, showed unflattering photos. Roy Cohn, people like that. And yes, Grandfather. He singled Grandfather out. ‘This one even looks like a mug.’ The lecture hall erupted in laughter. A few days later, one of my idiot classmates dug up the fact that I was related to ‘the mug.’ So of course, that spread and became the hot topic. Not just students, the faculty had fun with it. Staring at me, barely hiding their amusement. I thought I’d die. Built up my courage and confronted Gallico, stupid me, thinking he’d have regrets. Instead, he told me to ‘man up’—I was ‘supposedly’ studying to be a lawyer, not a wet-nurse. And of course, in his final lecture, he made sure to pay extra attention to Jack McCandless and kept looking at me pointedly. So you can see why I don’t feel like raking that muck up, years later. Our system guarantees a right to representation for everyone and Jack McCandless represented all sorts of people. That’s what criminal work’s all about. You don’t work with saints.”
“Same for police work,” said Milo.
“But you people don’t get excoriated for doing your job.”
He smiled.
Ricki Sylvester said, “Fine, you have your problems, all the more reason to get where I’m coming from. Grandfather doesn’t deserve to be demeaned, he should be honored for serving the Constitution.”
Milo said, “We’re not here to demean anyone. But seeing as you inherited Mr. McCandless’s practice and we’ve since learned that Thalia had some links to criminals, we’re trying to find out if that relates to her murder.”
The logical question: Which criminals?
Ricki Sylvester said, “I didn’t inherit his criminal practice. He’d already switched to estate work.”
Milo said, “You know about Thalia’s criminal associations.”
Eyeblink. Shift to the right. “I haven’t the faintest what you’re talking about.”
“She was the girlfriend of a man named Leroy Hoke.”
“Don’t know him.”
“He was a mobster in the thirties and forties. Mr. McCandless represented him in a tax evasion trial back in ’41 that ended up with Hoke going to prison.”
“No one wins every case.”
“The point is, Thalia’s criminal connections, even though they go back a long time, need to be explored.”
“Everything I know about Thalia was in the file I gave you. To me she was a sweet old lady—what, you think she was some kind of moll? Decades ago? How can that possibly be relevant?”
She headed for the door. “Am I being defensive? You bet. Because some things deserve a good defense. Let’s go.”
Milo said, “Bear with us for a few moments, please.” He rummaged in his attaché case.
Ricki Sylvester said, “When you do that you look like one of those loser lawyers who hang around the courthouse.”
He showed her Gerard Waters’s mugshot.
“And this is…”
Instead of answering, he produced Henry Bakstrom’s prison headshot.
“He looks like an over-the-hill musician. Why are you showing me these?”
“They’re known criminals who may have had contact with Thalia.”
“You think they killed her?”
“We’re not saying that—”
“Whatever you are saying, I can’t help you. Now if you’ll be so kind and allow me to have my dinner.”
“Sure. Sorry.”
She switched off the lights and the three of us left. As she locked up, Milo said, “Does the name William Wojik mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does. He managed Thalia’s money before Joe Manucci, his name was also in that file. What, he’s got criminal associations, too?”
Milo said, “Just groping, ma’am.”
“Good luck with that.”
—
An uncomfortably silent elevator ride ended when Sylvester got out a level above us.
When she was gone, Milo said, “Not even a ‘bye-bye’? I’m feeling micro-aggressed.”
His pace to the unmarked was a near-jog that I matched. Speeding out of the parking lot, he positioned himself on a dark stretch of block with a clear view of the exit.
He said, “My layman’s view is that was an incredible overreaction. What does a behavioral pro say?”
“An incredible overreaction.”
“All traumatized about something that happened back in law school? Did you see her eyes shifting? She knows more than she’s letting on and our asking about the past frea
ked her out.”
“More important,” I said, “Wojik’s name wasn’t in the file. And there was another broker between him and Manucci—Guidon.”
“She knew Wojik personally, wants to keep herself out of something. Think Dr. Belinda was using all that spectrum weirdness to bullshit us?”
“My gut says no but I’ll ask Ruben about her.” I texted. A few questions about Belinda W.
His return message: Crazy clinic. Can we talk tomorrow?
Milo said, “Tell you one thing, getting that emotional wasn’t a smart move on ol’ Ricki’s part. If she’d stayed cool, I’d probably have forgotten about her. You’d think a lawyer would know better.”
“Her specialty doesn’t demand being cool under pressure. She sits in an office, shuffles paper.”
“Unlike McCandless, before he became a shuffler.”
I said, “McCandless could’ve switched because an important client wanted it that way. Hoke had amassed tremendous wealth and knew he wouldn’t be getting out of prison. So his emphasis shifted from criminal defense to wealth preservation.”
“Aka laundering,” he said.
“With Thalia controlling the detergent.”
“Looky here, our touchy gal shows herself.”
A ten-year-old, pale-blue Buick LeSabre nosed out of the lot, Ricki Sylvester at the wheel. She drove to Olympic and turned right. We followed.
By Sepulveda, she’d crossed several lanes and entered a left-turn-only slot. Three cars between her and the unmarked.
Humming “Call Me Irresponsible,” Milo turned after the amber arrow had died. He tailed the Buick to Wilshire, where it drove a block, hooked left onto a side street, then left again and returned. A right took Sylvester west on Wilshire and under the odd metal arch that marks the border with Santa Monica.
Quiet section of Wilshire, most stores closed for the evening. One exception was a brick-faced bar and grill called High Steaks. Extended happy hour, prime beef, surf-and-turf special.
Ricki Sylvester scored a parking space in front of the restaurant, clicked her alarm fob, and entered.
Milo drove two blocks up and we backtracked on foot. At the eatery’s front door, he said, “Wait here, let me scope it out.” Moments later, the door cracked and he gave a thumbs-up.
In front was a busy bar with three TVs tuned to ESPN, separated from the dining area by a freestanding partition wall. Everything nicely dim, not much conversation from the resident drinkers. When the bartender wasn’t pouring, he was washing glasses. We took stools at the far right end. He ordered a Boilermaker, I asked for Chivas on the rocks. While the drinks were being made, he got up and snuck a look around the partition. Sat back down and said, “Go for it.”
Scotch in hand, I hazarded a peek.
No need to be that careful. Ricki Sylvester had positioned herself in a far booth that put the rear of her head in our view. Her attention was fixed on something green and milky in an oversized Martini glass, and a folded newspaper.
For the next twenty minutes, Milo and I alternated between drinking, pretending to watch a soccer game somewhere in Chile, and taking turns checking on Sylvester.
“Still by her lonesome,” he reported. “Second glass of foamy mouthwash.”
“Any food other than the shrimp salad?”
“Nope but she ate all of it so maybe she’s waiting for someone before having her entrée. Let’s make a pool. I say something chicken or a small steak.”
I said, “Sounds reasonable.”
“Don’t be agreeable. You have to bet.”
“I hear you and raise one specificity. Roast chicken.”
He sneered. “You’re not fun.”
Next turn to look was mine.
I said, “We both lost, she just paid. The good news is the waiter’s face. Not a happy camper.”
We rotated, keeping our backs to anyone approaching from the restaurant.
The soccer match was tied at scoreless. The camera panned an arena full of bored faces. The clock said nearly an hour of nothing. Maybe that’s why the game inspired riots.
Milo quarter turned. “There she goes. A coupla minutes and we chat up a disgruntled gentleman in a red jacket.”
He gave paper money to the barkeep.
The guy said, “Come back anytime.”
—
The waiter was in his seventies, squarely built, with a face shaved so impressively it glowed and a head of wavy white hair. A busboy was clearing another table and Clean-Shave had taken on Ricki Sylvester’s scant leavings.
We waited until he’d left the dining room and headed to a nook that led to a glass-walled kitchen. Two men in toques and one woman sautéed away. Off to the side, several carts were piled with crockery and flatware. The waiter added to the collection. As he turned, we approached.
“Sir,” said Milo, offering his best public-servant smile and his badge.
The waiter said, “Yes?” Brass name tag. Arturo.
“Could you spare a moment, please?”
Sudden appearance by the police but Arturo’s shrug was serene. Bragging rights of the innocent. “What can I do for you, Officer?”
“The woman you just served—”
Serenity exited. Indignation walked onstage. “Her,” he said. “She did something wrong?”
“She’s a person of interest.”
“Not to me,” said Arturo. “Then again, she’s a lawyer, they’re capable of anything.”
We laughed. He joined in. It made him look younger.
Milo said, “She’s a regular, huh?”
“Not too regular, thank God. Maybe once a month. Twice, if I’ve offended The Good Lord.”
“Not much in the way of tipping.”
“Five percent?” said Arturo. “Who does that? Even when I started out, it was ten.”
“Five,” said Milo. “That is nuts.”
“Nuts and cheap. Plus, she’s boring, the same thing every time, two Grasshoppers—who drinks that, anymore?—and the shrimp salad.”
He winked. “Frozen shrimp, not our tour de force. We got great steak, sometimes excellent fresh fish. Years ago, before I got to know her, I tried to steer her away from the shrimp. Try the Dover sole except on Sunday. No fish on Sunday, period. No deliveries since Friday. You have to have shellfish, do the crab salad, it starts out fresh, it’s chilled real cold. Frozen shrimp? We defrost and throw in a bunch of spice and oil. So what does she order?”
“Not an adventurous type.”
“Two Grasshoppers, you ever taste one of them? Even for a female, there’s all these good brandies and fruit stuff, or just toss in the simple syrup. My daughters drank that crap when they were in college, it’s like she’s living in the old days.”
He shook his head. “Five percent. When did anyone do five? So what do you want to know about her, I can’t even tell you her name, she pays cash. All these years, you’d think she’d introduced herself. I think of her as Poodle Hair.”
Milo said, “You know she’s a lawyer.”
“She sometimes reads lawyer magazines. Or is she one a those—paralegals?”
“She’s a lawyer.”
“There you go,” said Arturo.
“Does she ever come in with anyone?”
“Only once, a guy. I remember because it’s the only time, I’m thinking, someone’s stupid enough to date her?”
“Not a business dinner?”
“Can’t swear it wasn’t, sir, but that wasn’t my impression.”
“They were lovey-dovey.”
“The way they talked—close to each other. Softly, keeping a big secret. Also, one time he had his hand on her thigh.”
“A big secret,” said Milo.
“I got five kids, I know when someone’s keeping secrets. But what it was, I can’t tell you.”
“Who paid?”
“Him, the tip was ten, which isn’t great but it’s better. Also with cash. I’m thinking what, they’re members of a cash-only club?”
Milo
said, “How long ago was this?”
Arturo straightened his bow tie. “Months—maybe two. Or three. Not four. So what’d she do? Cheat a client?”
“Sorry, can’t say,” said Milo. “Can you describe the guy she was with?”
“Not really, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Black, white—”
“White. Older than her, younger than me. I’m seventy-nine.”
“No way,” said Milo.
“Genetics,” said Arturo. “And eating right. She ever gets to seventy-nine on frozen shrimp and toothpaste we’ll be talking hag in a bag, right?”
“What about the guy? Good shape?”
“I honestly don’t remember. You want, he comes in again, I’ll call you.”
Milo handed him a card and a twenty.
“You don’t need to do that, sir.”
“Enjoy, friend.”
“Appreciate it,” said Arturo. “Today, you’re the lottery.”
—
Walking back to the unmarked, I said, “Ex-spouses and disgruntled waiters, let’s hear it for resentment.”
Milo said, “Five percent. He’s right, who does that?”
“Someone who’s not big on social relations.”
“In her own way, kinda like Dr. Belinda? Two social Grandpas and they end up with dodgy prodge.”
“It’s a gene pool,” I said. “All kinds of things swimming beneath the surface.”
We got in the unmarked. I said, “Sylvester eats by herself except for one dinner out with an older man. On the surface, not much, but you know what I’m wondering.”
“A blast from the past shows up and connects with her,” he said.
My phone rang. Ruben calling in response to my text.
I switched to speaker.
He said, “Yes, she’s pretty unique. I didn’t tell you much because I figured, let you form your own impressions.” A beat. “Also, I like her, didn’t want to reduce her to an odd personality.”
I said, “How does she deal with patients?”
“Really well, Alex. When she was a resident, she was among the kids’ favorites. Super-gentle, took the time to listen, endless patience.”
Heartbreak Hotel Page 17