“Can’t get into it, sorry.”
“Whoa,” said Bogomil. “Another one bites it. Rumors have been circulating that he got fired by the Arabs, the place is definitely closing down. Shit. It’s like this place is Heartbreak Hotel.”
Milo said, “Let me ask you something else. Thalia’s lawyer, she always show up alone?”
“The sad-looking, dumpy blonde? Yup, every time I saw her, she was flying solo.” Her face tightened. “You’re saying she’s also—”
“I’m not saying anything.”
Bogomil looked at him.
“I wish I could say, Alicia. This is a damn whodunit.”
“Got it. Sorry,” she said. “But the place is closing down, right? Like I told you before, no new guests, and now the snip tucks have tapered off.”
“I have no facts on that but it sounds logical.”
Her hands clenched. “Damn, I got to start looking. Probably have to settle for another boring private thing so I can pay bills. But that’s temporary, working with you showed me I need a real badge again. Preferably you guys. If I can’t get that, San Diego, Santa Barbara, something with a warm climate and real cases.”
“What I said holds true. Once you apply, let me know, Alicia.”
“You can count on it, Loo, thanks.” Her arms began what might’ve been a hug, but dropped down. “Meanwhile, I’ll stick around long as they pay me, keep my eyes open for you. Not that I expect anything, place is a tomb.”
—
Same temp at the desk—Kelli. No sense showing her the drawing. We found Refugia vacuuming the hallway of the original wing, pushing the machine around in slow arcs and looking defeated.
She studied the rendering. “Yes, that’s the one in Cinco.”
“What can you tell us about her?”
“She looks like this—maybe a little narrower, here.” Pointing to the left jawline. “She’s a bad person?”
“We’re still investigating, Refugia.”
“She wasn’t nice.”
“How so?”
“I came in to clean, she was leaving, I said hello, she walked by me. I know she heard. She was making like I wasn’t there. Sometimes they’re like that.”
“Guests.”
“Rich people,” she said. “Not everyone, I know some nice ones. But you know.”
“She came across like a rich lady.”
“Nice clothes,” she said. “Chanel purse.”
“That so.”
“Could be fake Chanel, I don’t know.”
“What color?”
“Black silk, this thing.” Shaping a diamond. “This pattern sewn into it.”
“That time,” said Milo, “was she by herself?”
“Yes, and the place was very messy. Bottles, glasses, food, messed-up bed. Also the pull-out.”
Her color deepened.
I said, “Big mess.”
She looked away. “It smelled. The bed and the pull-out.”
“Of…”
“You know,” she said. “Like it happened there? Doing it all over the place?”
“Sex.”
Quick nod. She fooled with the handle of the vacuum cleaner. “They’re saying we’re losing our jobs.”
Milo said, “Who’s saying?”
“Everyone. Also, DeGraw’s not here, there was something to do, he’d be here but they’re saying he quit. Is it true, sir? Should I look for another job?”
“Don’t know the facts, Refugia, but it might be a good idea.”
Her shoulders dropped. “I thought so. Not another hotel, I want to take care of an old person. I like old people.”
Her eyes filmed. “I liked Miss Mars.”
CHAPTER
30
I drove home and worked the computer, searching for any kind of familial link to Fred Drancy. No success in his birth state of Massachusetts, same with New York and California. The people I talked to in a few neighboring states were baffled. My last call was to a man in Berlin, New Hampshire, who said, “Are you from that magazine outfit with the big check?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Who cares, I don’t read, anyway.”
I was trying to figure out a next step when Robin came in, hair tied back, T-shirt flecked with sawdust. Behind her bounced Blanche wearing a frosting of wood shavings.
Robin ran her fingers through my hair, trailed them down to my neck, kneaded.
“No progress, huh?”
“My neck tells you that?”
“All of you tells me that.”
“We’ve got a good idea about motive and a couple of dead suspects. The problem is finding the live ones.”
I told her about DeGraw.
She said, “Another one? These people are relentless and greedy. You think they got away with a huge amount of Thalia’s cash?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Okay,” she said, adding pressure to her fingertips.
“You don’t think so?”
“I’m on the outside, honey, but why would someone in her situation keep substantial cash around?”
“Milo found three thousand.”
“That, I can see,” she said. “Tips, gifts, shopping. But you said she’d stopped going out and her basic needs were taken care of by the hotel. You didn’t describe her as a hoarder or any other kind of eccentric. She’d been investing successfully for years, wasn’t one of those under-the-mattress types.”
The value of a fresh eye.
I said, “It’s a good point.”
She pushed down harder. Muscles I hadn’t realized were tight began to slacken.
“The other thing, Alex, is once upon a time she had a boyfriend who stole jewels. What if he left her a souvenir or two? Something really valuable but small, that a thief could stick in a pocket and walk out with?”
I said, “Unbelievable.”
“Doesn’t make sense?”
“It makes total sense. You’re unbelievable.”
“Did you find any jewelry in her room?”
“A couple of decent pieces. An amethyst ring.”
She said, “Semi-precious—that’s what some women do. Leave the cheaper stuff out, hide the good stuff. If there was major-league bling, that’s what I’d go for.”
I turned. She smiled. “If I was criminally inclined, that is. Were the jewels from the Beverly Hills robbery ever recovered?”
“There’s no record of recovery. But we suspect they were cashed and the money was taken by the IRS with a possible share going to the department.”
I told her about the Demarest report.
She said, “Even with that, Hoke could’ve left his babe a bauble or two as tokens of his affection.” Wider smile. “You were a hood and I was a moll, I’d expect it.”
“You’re brilliant.” I got up and kissed her.
She said, “That was my commission for being smart?”
“A down payment.” I found my notes on the case, came upon what I was looking for. Read and sat back down.
“Oh,” I said. “You’re a genius!”
No reply. I swiveled again.
Just me in the office.
From the kitchen came the singsong Robin glides into when discussing topics of substance with Blanche.
Return yip. The rattle of kibble on the porcelain of a dog-bowl.
I went in, waving a piece of paper. “Look at what you’ve wrought, Einsteinia.”
She resealed the food bag and grinned. “Appreciate the sentiment, but it’s been a bad-hair day, maybe you can come up with a girlier analogy?”
“How about Ada Lovelace?”
“Sounds like a porn actress.”
“She was Lord Byron’s daughter, a math genius and probably the first computer programmer.”
“Now we’re talking—how do you know these things?”
“Malignant curiosity.”
“Ha. Okay, what have I wrought?”
I showed her the Beverly Hills Monitor puff piece on Count Freder
ick LaPlante, pointed to the last two lines.
She said, “Wine of the Nile? The pyramids?”
“A big ruby’s one helluva motive.”
“Sure, but why’re you focusing on this one and not the others?”
“Because of a pencil notation on the back of that LAPD report. ‘Win. Ni. 57.’ ”
“Wine, Nile,” she said. “You think she got to keep the ruby?”
I pointed.
“Ah,” she said. “Fifty-seven carats, that’s some boulder.”
“What if Demarest made a note because it was never recovered?”
“The one that got away? Because Thalia kept it all these years?”
“Diversified investment,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find a picture of this trinket.”
—
Easier than I’d expected. The ruby was listed in the holdings of an Egyptian banker named Adel Fawzi Sayed, whose collection had been loaned to the British Museum for a 1929 exhibit titled Treasures of the Pharaohs.
The tit-for-tat: Sayed’s knighthood a month before the show opened. Soon after it closed, Sir Fawzi sold much of his cache and used the proceeds to buy a mansion in Belgravia.
Fuzzy black-and-white photos included a shot of “a 57 carat, oval, pigeon-blood ruby said to have been unearthed in one of the Pyramids of Giza. However, the Burmese origin of the gem and the nineteenth century style of cutting casts doubt on that assertion. Nevertheless, it is a jewel of uncommon size, beauty, and rarity.”
“Nice,” said Robin. “I’m thinking brooch. Something falling right above the cleavage.”
She demonstrated.
“Now you’re distracting me.”
“Me? Never.”
I stayed distracted all the way to the bedroom. Achieved focus without trying.
—
Afterward, lying on the bed, as Robin showered, I replayed my time with Thalia. Had trouble conjuring images. Then they came to me, as if a mental drainpipe had been snaked.
So did a snip of conversation.
The lapidary reference that had escaped me.
Thalia asking me about criminal tendencies, then expressing dismay.
I was hoping for better. Would still like to think of our planet as an evolutionary gem.
And again, moments later, describing images taken by the Hubble telescope.
I was cheered. The universe seemed…jewel-like.
Playing games? Or rehearsing a story she planned to tell me later.
There hadn’t been a later.
Robin began humming as she dried off. Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita.”
I returned to that first time in the bungalow. Nearly snagged an image but lost it—one of those tip-of-the-mind frustrations.
I gave up. Sat up. It came to me, clear as a digital photo.
Robin walked in, wrapped in a towel. “Hi, babe…are you waiting for something? Love the passion, but if you don’t mind—”
“Honey, I think I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“The ruby.” I told her where.
“Crafty,” she said. “Now, that could be a motive.”
—
I got dressed and phoned Milo. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“At this point I’m open to all kinds of beliefs, including ecologically justified cannibalism. What religion do you want me to convert to?”
“The Church of Cautious Optimism.” I filled him in.
He said, “Win. Ni.”
“Fifty-seven carats, that’s got to be it.”
“You just came up with this?”
“Robin led me to it.” I repeated her logic.
“That’s some smart girl you’ve got.”
“Lord Byron would be proud.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Why don’t you call the crime lab and find out?”
“No call, something like this, the evidence chain needs to be solid, I’ll check it out personally. Can you meet me in front of the station, say immediately?”
“I’ll be there sooner.”
CHAPTER
31
L.A. County’s Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center is six stories of white punctuated by red brick and glass, perched at the mouth of the Cal State L.A. campus.
The ride on the 10 East took the unmarked where tourist buses don’t venture: a sixty-five-mph drive-by of big-box discounters, car lots, and purveyors of industrial grit.
Once we got off the freeway and drove up a hill to campus, all was sunny and crisp. None of the ivy-clad antiquity of the city’s Big Two, here. This was unpretentious functionality spread across gently rolling terrain.
After nearly a decade, the crime lab still sparkles. This morning, a sky scrubbed blue by hot dry winds added extra wattage. Parking was ample. A few students and staffers strolled. The view to the west was crystalline, the Hollywood sign visible thirty miles away.
Pleasant place; you’d never know death paid the bills.
We checked in at the glassed-in reception desk and waited. White-coats and cops in blue or tan uniforms passed by. L.A. crime is handled by a pair of goliaths: LAPD tends to the four million people living and misbehaving within the city limits, the sheriff has dominion over the eight million who reside in the remainder of the county.
At Hertzberg, that leads to a curious accommodation: Labs and offices are divided up and demarcated by green and blue nameplates. Two evidence rooms, separate microscopes, but some facilities are shared. The potential for chaos seems obvious but everyone seems to get along. These are scientists and techs who take the job seriously.
The lab’s commanding officer, a trim blonde named Noreen Sharp, came out to meet us.
She said, “You’re here to arrange transfer of the Mars property. Thanks.”
Milo smiled and did that shambling aw-shucks thing. “Actually—”
“You’re not,” said Sharp. “What’s going on, Milo?”
“Noreen, I swear I’ll do it soon as I can, but right now I need to check a specific piece of evidence.”
“In the Mars bunch.”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
He explained.
Noreen Sharp said, “I wish someone would’ve told me, we’d have logged it separately.”
“Someone didn’t know.”
She smiled. “Got it. Well if it’s not here, it never arrived. I supervised the initial loading myself due to the volume of objects and my code’s the only one that unlocks the bay. What exactly is it worth?”
“Don’t know yet, Noreen.”
“But obviously we’re talking huge. Lucky for you I’ve held on to my moral compass.”
We took the elevator down and entered a white corridor. Quiet as a Trappist monastery; the entire facility was. Any time I’d been there, it was like that. Shrine to Science.
Noreen Sharp picked up a video camera and walked us past darkened labs and the gun library to the auto bays. Stopping at one, she used her left hand to conceal her right as she punched a code into a numbered grid. Hiding the combination but doing it casually. No offense, business as usual.
The door clicked open. The interior was the size of a double garage with a high ceiling, block walls, a cement floor, and a hydraulic lift stored in a corner.
Chilly. Noreen Sharp said, “Yup, nippy, be nice for wine.” She pointed to a rear door. “You know where that leads.”
Milo said, “The loading area.”
“Got to get the cars in somehow,” she said. “Have you ever been back there?”
“Nope.”
She walked over, pushed a similar grid on the far wall, and the back door opened. Daylight over asphalt, a lot big enough for a fleet.
“Completely fenced, guys. No one gets in unless we want them to. I’m telling you this so no matter what you find, there’ll be no misunderstanding. Ms. Mars’s property arrived on one of our trucks that stopped just outside as the contents were unloaded.”
She closed the door.
“Okay, all this is cataloged but it’s not arranged in any order, so you’ll have to look.”
“All this” referred to a mass of shapes in the center of the bay, wrapped in heavy-duty plastic that brought to mind bodies in the crypt, and secured by duct tape. Along with that, several cardboard boxes were marked Mars, T, along with a case number, date of death, and a stick-on label stating Deceased Personal Effects.
The sizable objects were a couple of sofas, a mattress, and a deconstructed bed canopy. Even with them, Thalia’s possessions took up a pitiably small space.
A century of life memorialized in less than half of a cold, gray room.
Milo turned to me. “See it?”
“Right there.” I pointed to a vertical package sandwiched between the cartons and what I recognized as an end table.
“Can he go over there, Noreen?”
“Sure.” She hefted the camera. “But given what we’re looking for, I’m going to video you, Doctor. For documentation.”
I made my way to the upright form. Floor lamp with a glass shade. What Milo had called a Tiffany but I knew to be improbably crude for such.
The shade, a dome studded with bubbles of red glass.
The last time I’d seen it, it had sported a red finial. Oval, faceted, of a size that made me assume cut glass.
“Can I touch it?”
Noreen Sharp said, “First point, then touch.”
I prodded the top of the shade, pushing down on taut plastic to make sure.
No need to unwrap. I’d felt and seen enough.
Where the finial had sat, just a socket.
I said, “It’s gone.”
Noreen Sharp exhaled and talked to the camera. “Dr. Alexander Delaware, a police consultant, has just identified what he feels is an absent component of what appears to be a floor lamp. The lamp in question was delivered to us wrapped precisely as it is now, as were all of Victim T. Mars’s personal effects. No one has been in this storage area since the arrival of those objects and the subsequent locking of the auto bay in which we currently stand.”
She swung the lens toward Milo.
He said, “This is Lieutenant Milo Sturgis, LAPD Homicide, West L.A. Division. I was present at the crime scene of victim T. Mars and personally oversaw the wrapping and carting of all personal effects of victim T. Mars.”
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