by James, David
I winked right back.
“So, Amanda, I think we can conclude that the killer had planned this rock gesture all along.”
“As what, pray tell?”
“As a message—a warning.”
“You mean, like, ‘Back off, rock huggers, don’t stand in the way of us developing the Chino Cone area.’”
“Well, Doc was known for one thing lately—opposing the building of houses up in the Cone.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “It’s pretty much a no-brainer. So what do we do next?”
“I think a visit to Cathy Paige is in order. Followed by one to Ed Jensen.”
Alex took out his cell phone and checked it to see if he had any messages.
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“I know that a man was killed here and all that, but . . . but . . .”
“. . . this is kinda fun?” Alex finished.
“Yeah, kinda fun. Exciting, really. Just like the old days, huh?” I suggested.
Alex gave me a glance that spoke volumes.
“Yes, yes, it is . . . with one exception.”
“And what is that?’
“When this whole thing is over, I don’t think we’ll start a photo scrapbook about it.”
As I closed up Boulder Drive, Alex went to talk to the landscapers who were working a few doors down. He came back a few minutes later, hopped in the seat next to me, and started the engine.
“So what did you find out?”
“They all saw a woman in a red dress, wearing a hat. That’s the only person they saw that morning.”
“A red dress? And a hat? Who wears a hat nowadays?”
“My question is, if you were going to kill someone, assuming that the woman spotted that morning was the killer, would you wear a red dress? Hardly. I’d wear something dark, plain, and no hat.”
“Exactly. Unless the women that the landscapers saw wasn’t the killer.”
“They said they only saw one person that morning,” came Alex’s reply.
“Hey, did they say what kind of hat she was wearing? Did it have a wide brim?”
“Funny you should say that. The guys said it was big. Like a sombrero . . . but not a sombrero, of course.”
“Well, it just occurred to me that the killer would wear a hat to hide her identity. The bigger, the better. Did the guys say anything else?”
“Well, Spanish is the only language I don’t speak well, so I used my smartphone and recorded what they saw.”
“Very smart,” I replied.
“Now, we just have to get someone to translate it.”
“Roberto, my hairdresser. He can do it. He speaks Portuguese and Spanish. Alex, I think we should tell the police what we found out.”
“They were way ahead of us. Detective Becker talked to them already. Now I think we need to pay a visit to Cathy Paige and see what she was doing in your listing that morning.”
Alex placed a call to Cathy to set up a time that the both of us could see her. I listened to Alex talking with Cathy, with the conversation stalling and lurching like a Third World bus.
“. . . no, no one’s saying that. . . but it’s important that we . . . yes, we realize that . . . no, that’s not true . . . but you’ve got to see Amanda’s point . . . yes, I see that . . . but if you just . . . I understand that . . . yes . . . okay, in an hour. Yes, thank you, Cathy.”
Alex flipped his cell phone closed in his usual manner, like an expert gunslinger holstering a favorite Smith & Wesson, but with more force than usual.
“Jesus Christ, that woman is trying to hide something!”
“Jimmy Hoffa?”
“He’s buried under the third row of the Bloomfield Hills First Baptist Church auditorium.”
“That’s what I always thought too. It went up at the same time Jimmy disappeared. You don’t think she killed him, do you, Alex?”
“Jimmy Hoffa?”
“No, Doc Winters. Is this going to be that easy?”
“Discovering the killer on our first try? It’s a nice thought, but life never seems to work out that easily, does it?”
“No, but it would be nice, wouldn’t it,” I said with no real conviction. “To have all this behind me—us. So we could go on with our lives.”
“I guess so,” Alex replied. “I guess so.”
Alex’s comment was followed by a pause so uncomfortable, I swear I could hear the second hand on my wristwatch ticking. Alex, always the one to break the silence, did so with his signature, German-accented, karate-chop word. “ZO! Vat next?” he asked, rubbing his hands.
Taking the clue, I dove in. “Let’s go see Cathy.”
CHAPTER 9
Vee Haf Ways of Making You Talk
An hour later, we pulled up into the parking lot of Dodge & Dodge Realty, the powerhouse of real-estate firms in Palm Springs. We walked past a profusion of bedding plants that had been hammered into blooming perfection, up sparkling-clean sidewalks, and through crystal-clear doors into the reception area. Mary was obviously the love child of Martha Stewart and Attila the Hun. On the wall behind the receptionist’s desk was the glittering logo of Dodge & Dodge, a hulking brass vulture that stared down at visitors, treating them as just so much roadkill. Okay, maybe it was just a very mean-looking eagle.
The receptionist announced us, and before she could hang up the phone, Cathy Paige came careening around a corner, shook our hands like they were maracas, escorted us to a conference room, and shut the door behind her as she motioned for us to sit down.
“What can I do for you two?” Cathy chirped happily.
A little too happily, I thought, considering that, under the circumstances, she should have been a frightened mess. After all, I’m sure the police had already questioned her and considered her a possible suspect.
“Cathy,” I started, “you do know why we’re here, don’t you?”
“It’s about your listing, right? On Boulder Drive?”
“Y—e—s. You were in the house just an hour before Doc was murdered there.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose that does look suspicious!” she blurted.
“Kinda,” I said. “Only two people were in 2666 Boulder Drive between the time I left on Tuesday night and the time I showed it in the Multiple Listing Service on Wednesday morning.”
“Yes,” Cathy said, staring over my shoulder, out the window, down the street, and out to the Hawaiian islands. This girl was clearly under some terrific strain. “I was previewing your house that morning.”
“At seven-eighteen A.M.?” I asked.
Still staring, Cathy continued, “I had a client who was looking for a house just like yours. And considering the hot market we’re in, I didn’t want someone to get the jump on it . . . so I got up early. Oh, and Mary was after me to preview it for her. She had a hot client too.”
Seeing that Cathy wasn’t going to tell us the truth about why she was in my listing, I decided to probe elsewhere. Alex, always the gentleman (and observer extraordinaire), sat back and let me continue my questioning.
“Cathy, I need to ask you if you saw anything strange the morning you entered the house—like someone standing around, or a car sitting there on the street that didn’t seem to belong there.”
Cathy’s gaze returned to the room for the first time since she sat down. She was still avoiding looking directly at me, but at least she was looking in my general direction.
“Let’s see, let’s see . . . uh . . . no, not really. The streets were empty that hour of the morning. It was pretty early.”
“Try hard, Cathy. Nothing?”
“No, I didn’t see anyone around. Like I said, it was early.”
“Cathy, was there anything out of the ordinary when you entered the house?”
Cathy searched the ceiling with her eyes, looking for an answer.
“Let’s see,” she said, her hands visibly shaking on the table. “I entered the house, looked around the living room, then went into the master bedroom, then t
he other three bedrooms, scanned the kitchen, opened the door to the garage, then I left. No, nothing out of the ordinary. Could I get you some coffee?”
“Sure,” I replied. “Alex, how ’bout you?”
“Yes, I’ll take a mug.”
“Fine, I’ll go get you two some,” Cathy said, getting up so quickly the conference chair she was sitting in shot back against the glass wall on its roller wheels and came to a stop so loud, it was a miracle it didn’t crack the glass from top to bottom. “Oops,” she said, grasping the chair and marshalling it back to its position at the table. She darted out of the room. I was about to comment to Alex, when we could hear a teaspoon rattling against the side of a mug with such ferocity, it sounded like an alarm bell. He put his finger to his lips, suggesting that we hold our conversation for later. Just as soon as she had disappeared, Cathy swooped back into the room, holding two mugs of coffee that she slammed on the tables in front of Alex and me.
“Here’s some cream and sugar, if you take it,” she said, slamming down a small caddy filled with packets of sugar and nondairy creamer that jumped in their containers when they hit the table. Normally, Alex wouldn’t touch “the fake stuff,” but he seemed more enthralled with Cathy’s nervous behavior than his tastebuds. “I wasn’t sure about offering you our coffee,” Cathy apologized. “The brand we’ve been buying lately has been so bitter.”
I took a sip of my brew and found it to be fine. Alex smacked his lips in approval.
“I had the same problem when I was at the University of Michigan,” Alex confessed. “Every batch was so bitter. So I complained at the shop where I bought my beans. The guy who ran the shop said he was getting the same complaints, but he couldn’t figure out why his coffee was so bitter. It wasn’t until I saw a cat walking through the shop and watched him climb over the open sacks of roasted coffee beans that it dawned on me. That, plus the comment from the owner that his cat’s litter box was always empty, and the riddle was solved.”
I started laughing, but Cathy seemed to be in a dream. Then Cathy burst out laughing as if the punch line had been delivered to her on a three-second delay.
Alex shot me a did-you-see-that look. I countered with a let’s-get-out-of-here look.
“Cathy, thank you for taking the time to talk with us,” I spouted, already half out of my chair. “If you remember anything—anything at all—call us. Here’s my business card. Oh, one last thing, Cathy. Do you own a red dress?”
“No, I look terrible in red. Mary Dodge can wear red, though. She always wears red to a listing appointment. She says it’s her lucky color.”
“How about a hat?” Alex inquired.
“No, I can’t say she does. I’ve never seen her in one.”
“Again,” I began, “thank you for taking the time to talk with us.”
Cathy shot up like a rocket, then sprinted ahead of us, holding the door open for us. We walked down the sidewalk again, past the flowers that had been shouted into blooming, and back to Alex’s car. But before we could get in, a woman came down the sidewalk in a half-trot, nervously looking over her shoulder for a man wearing a hockey mask and carrying an ax.
“Amanda? Amanda Thorne?”
“Yes?”
“My name’s Anne Clexton—I’m on Mary Dodge’s team,” she explained.
“Yes, Anne, what can I do for you? Oh, this is my partner, Alex Thorne.”
“In life?”
“No . . . business. But we were married before.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Alex chimed in, “Don’t be, Anne. We’re still the best of friends.”
“That’s very rare. You both are very lucky. Most breakups and divorces can be so nasty. So terribly nasty . . .”
“So, what can I help you with, Anne?” I interjected.
“Oh, yes, I couldn’t help overhear that Cathy is connected in some way with the murder of Doc Winters in your listing?”
“Yes, I ran a report on the Supra keybox I had on the listing and Cathy was one of two people who entered my listing that morning.”
Anne scanned the parking lot to see if anyone was within earshot. Satisfied, she pulled in closer to the two of us and lowered her voice. “Can we speak in confidence?” she asked.
“Sure,” we both answered simultaneously.
“Well, Cathy has been acting strange lately.”
“How so, Mrs. Clexton?” Alex asked.
“Jumpy as a cat. Dropping things, spilling things, forgetting things, losing things . . . always in motion. I’m really worried about her. I mentioned it to her, but she just brushes it off.”
Oh boy, I thought, this was getting good. “Is this behavior something you’ve noticed in the last few days?” I probed, Alex catching my drift immediately.
“No, she’s been like this for a few weeks now. But it was like, all of a sudden. It was like a light switch. One day she’s herself, then the next”—Anne clicked her fingers for extra emphasis—“she’s all jumpy and absentminded. Then after the police came to question her, whew, she was really acting wigged out.”
Anne looked over her shoulder again, hearing a car pull into the parking lot, then turned back at us. She grabbed my hand dramatically.
“Amanda, you won’t say anything about this to Cathy or Mary, will you? I’m just worried about Cathy. I’ve never seen her like this, and she and I have worked on this team for eighteen years.”
I gave my still-captive hands a friendly shake to emphasize that I would keep my promise of confidentiality.
“You can count on us,” I reassured her.
“That’s what I was hoping!” Anne replied, then released my hands, turned and hurried up the walk, and was swallowed back into the building.
I turned to Alex.
“Would someone please tell me what just happened?”
“I’m not sure myself,” Alex replied. “But if I do, I’ll drop you a postcard.”
Alex and I sat in the parking lot for a while with the air conditioning on and the windows up. We were both eager to compare notes.
“What the fuck is that Cathy on?” I asked.
“Offhand, I’m guessing Pop-Tarts and amphetamines.”
“I’m surprised that the cops didn’t pick her up already. She comes across as guilty as sin.”
“Okay,” Alex started. “Let’s assume she killed Doc—what’s the motive?”
“More speed?”
Alex chuckled.
“Motives are usually pretty straightforward . . . and they’re always the same ones: money, revenge, or love—love that’s gone bad.”
“From what I’ve heard by asking around, Doc’s never had a girlfriend,” Alex said.
I let out a grunt. “I’m not surprised. From what I’ve seen of him, I think his personal hygiene scared the ladies off. It looks like you could pull a bird nest out of his beard.”
“So what’s Cathy’s connection to Doc?”
“None that I know of. But then again, I don’t know much about Cathy or Doc.”
“Then I think we should investigate that angle. Cathy, after all, works on Mary Dodge’s team, and Mary’s one of the most successful real-estate agents in Palm Springs. She’s a wealthy woman.”
“So what’s your point, Alex? That because Mary Dodge might want to get her hands on the land up there at the base of the mountain?”
Alex turned to look at me. “It seems like the natural thing to assume.”
“So do you think she killed Doc for Mary? It just seems too bizarre!”
“But just think of it for a minute, Amanda. The biggest piece of land in Palm Springs available for development . . . looking down on the city by day and the city lights at night, towering mountains literally in your backyard . . . Wouldn’t you like to have your hand in that deal? Maybe she promised to cut Cathy in for killing Doc.”
“Yeah, but what about the electronic key? It leaves a clear trail,” I said.
“I don’t think Cathy is thinking very straight. She might
not have considered the ramifications.”
“Oh, c’mon, Alex. Cathy has been an agent for a long time. She knows that when she uses her electronic key, she leaves a big neon arrow pointed at herself.”
“Okay, try this on for size. Maybe Mary steals Cathy’s key . . . or better yet, she says she can’t find her own key—she’s misplaced it—and she borrows Cathy’s key. She goes and kills Doc, then brings the key back like nothing happened. When Cathy finds out what happened at 2666, she’s scared because she’s going to be the number one suspect.”
“Well, then, Alex, why wouldn’t she just tell the cops that Mary borrowed her key that morning?”
“We don’t know what Cathy told the cops. And we’re unlikely to.”
“Okay, but let’s say we don’t know. But if you were Mary Dodge, would you borrow the key, knowing that Cathy could very well blab the truth?” I posed.
“No, not unless I were sure that Cathy would take the fall like a loyal employee.”
“Alex, do you really know that many employees who would set themselves up for a murder rap just because someone employs them?”
“No, so my favorite theory is that Mary knew the personal identification number for Cathy’s electronic key, took the key, murdered Doc, then brought the key back without Cathy ever knowing it was gone. Cathy finds out it was her key that was used to gain access to Boulder Drive, she freaks out and clams up. She says, maybe, that she lost her key. Meanwhile . . . oh shit!”
“What?”
“Mary knows that she has to kill Cathy at some point . . . to shut her up permanently.”
“Oh shit is right. Cathy could be in danger right now. Now, wait a minute, Alex, do you think Mary would do all that just to make another million dollars? Mary already is a wealthy woman. Why would she want more money? She’s got more than she can use.”
“Silly Amanda, when you have all the money in the world, you’d be surprised to learn what people would do to get their hands on just a little more of it. Money creates its own momentum.”
“Touché, Alex.”
“And people are willing to kill for it,” Alex warned.
“Often, far less. There’s the prestige, too, I guess.”