by Mary Marks
Everyone said, “What?”
“I think Arthur’s just found the missing Nathan Oliver.”
CHAPTER 16
The squad cars came first. Three of them. Uniformed officers taped off the backyard and shooed us inside the house.
A half hour later I watched from inside the family room as Farkas showed up to examine the grave.
Then he ambled through the French doors. “How’d I get so lucky? Two homicides in one day. He gestured toward the yard. “Did you touch anything out there?”
I showed him the ring. “I removed this from the third finger of the left hand.”
“I don’t believe it,” he growled. “You know you’ve broken the chain of evidence, right?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t think it would matter. You need more than just a ring to identify a body, don’t you?”
“This is exactly why we ban people from crime scenes. I thought someone as smart as you wouldn’t need to be told.”
“Sorry.”
He gave his head one hard shake as he put on blue latex gloves. Then he took the ring from my hand and read the inscription out loud: “Nathan and Harriet June 15, 1980.” The gold band went inside an evidence bag. “We gotta wait for the coroner’s positive ID, of course, but it appears you finally found the missing Nathan Oliver. How’d you discover the corpse, anyway?”
The dog yawned and I patted him on the head. “You’re looking at a retired police K-9. He located the grave.”
Farkas narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me. You were using a police dog to investigate your friend’s murder?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Where’d you get him? These dogs usually retire with their police handlers. The big dude I saw in your kitchen, he’s a cop?”
Like I’m a runway model. “No, Arthur’s just visiting. His real owner’s on vacation.”
“It’s lucky you brought him. Otherwise the body could’ve lain there forever.”
I brushed a curl away from my eye. “How soon do you think you can get an ID?”
He shrugged. “Depends.”
Birdie twirled the end of her white braid around her finger. I could tell she itched to jump into the conversation. An avid fan of CSI, she knew a thing or two about police procedure—at least according to the script writers. “Well, if you need a DNA comparison, you’ll find hairs belonging to Nathan’s son in the boy’s hairbrush upstairs. Lucy spotted them earlier today.”
Lucy nodded in agreement.
Farkas looked at them. “Is the brush still there?”
“On the dresser in his bedroom.”
He motioned to a uniform standing in the doorway. “Go upstairs to the kid’s room and bag the hairbrush.”
Carl stepped over to Birdie and hugged her shoulder with a supportive arm. “You sure know your stuff.”
I peeked outside. A tech had set up a square sifting box and screened the dirt Arthur dug up for pieces of evidence. Other workers were on their hands and knees, carefully removing the earth covering the corpse with small hand shovels and brushes. They were meticulous, but slow. “How long will this take?”
“The grave’s not very deep. It’s Wednesday today? They’ll work around the clock and probably be out of here before Friday. Meanwhile, you’ll have to stay away from the house again.”
I threw my hands up. “You’re kidding! We’re not finished yet. You’ve already searched the premises. Why can’t we finish our work inside?”
“For one thing, we’re required to secure the area against possible contamination of the crime scene. And since you seem to ignore the rules, you’ll have to hand over the keys again until this is done.” He stuck out his hand. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”
I dug the key out of my purse and signaled Carl to hand over his copy. “Fine. Will you at least notify me with the ID and the results of the autopsy?”
Little beads of sweat sat on the detective’s forehead, and he pulled out a handkerchief to dab them away. “You’ll be notified. Right now, I want all of you to go to the West LA station to give statements.” He gave us directions as we gathered our things to leave.
Lucy and I drove with the dog to the West LA Division on Butler Avenue. Carl and Birdie followed us in the yellow Vette.
“Well, obviously Nathan Oliver didn’t drown at sea like the suicide note said.” Lucy curled her fingers in an air quote. “How’d he end up buried in the backyard?”
“You’re asking me? Like I know?”
Lucy made a left into the parking lot. “Do you think your friend Harriet killed him?”
“Absolutely not. Murder just wasn’t in her makeup. ”
Farkas met us at the door and we all walked in the station together. He took my statement in a small blue interview room. The walls and ceiling were covered with those acoustic tiles riddled with tiny holes. I wondered if somewhere in front of me, behind one of the openings, a camera lens recorded our session. I reached in my purse, put on some pink lipstick, and smiled at the wall.
The detective rested his iPhone on the table and pushed a button. “Okay, Mrs. Rose. I’m going to tape your testimony.” He made a preliminary statement for the record and then began. “Please start with your arrival at the Oliver house.”
I told him about our search for the missing Declaration Quilt and showed him the photo from Harriet’s Coach bag.
“This quilt is worth two million dollars?”
“Now you get why we were anxious to go through every item in the house. We were searching Harriet’s closet when Arthur barked for a potty break, so I let him outside. He sniffed out the burial site in the garden. I watched from an upstairs window as he dug in the dirt. I paused and smiled. “He wanted to give us a hand.”
Farkas grunted. “Hilarious.”
“Anyway, by the time I rushed outside, Arthur had stopped digging. I looked in the hole and saw the bones. I stuck my arm in, brushed away some dirt, and removed the ring. Then we called you.”
Detective Avila walked in the room and nodded at me. He handed his partner a folder and left. After a minute, Farkas looked up. “We caught a break. This is the missing person’s file on Nathan Oliver with his dental records. It’ll make ID-ing the body much easier.”
I slung my purse over my shoulder and stood. “Great. Do you have all you need from me?”
Farkas pointed to the chair and frowned. “No. Sit back down.”
Whoa.
When I stiffened at his tone, he added, “Please.”
From previous experience, I knew the police sometimes made you repeat your story to double-check details. I slumped back down in the chair. I hoped this wouldn’t drag on forever.
“Anything else missing from the house?”
“Yes. We’ve almost concluded our inventory. Several things have vanished. First-edition books by the Founding Fathers, a watch belonging to Benjamin Franklin, the Declaration Quilt, and Harriet’s fine jewelry.”
Farkas shoved a pad of paper and pen across the table. “Write it all down. We find the stuff, we find Mrs. Oliver’s killer.”
“Maybe.” I picked up the pen.
He squinted. “What do you mean, maybe?”
“Several rare and valuable things were left behind.” I described the baskets made by Dat So La Lee and Nellie Jameson Washington. “And you saw for yourself only one of the ten pocket watches is missing. I think the killer wanted specific items. Historically significant Early Americana.”
Farkas scowled. “Really? Then how do you explain the missing jewelry?”
I screwed up my mouth and frowned. “I haven’t worked that out yet.”
“Do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Don’t try to work it out. Just tell me everything you’ve twigged so far and let me do the detecting. He pointed to the yellow lined pad in front of me. “Go ahead, put together a list of the missing items. And hand over the photo of the two-million-dollar quilt. I’ll make a copy.”
I clicked the top
of the pen. “I’ll do better. I’ll provide you with photos and descriptions of everything.”
I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and my stomach growled. “I’m hungry.”
He picked up his iPhone and consulted his watch. “Interview stopped at two-thirty.”
“I’ll have someone make a run to the nearby Subway.”
“Fine. I want a six-inch turkey on jalapeno bread with extra cheese, avocado, and all the veggies. And chipotle mayo. You can also get me a couple oatmeal cookies and a Coke Zero.”
He raised one eyebrow. “You said a diet Coke?”
He has an opinion? He should talk. I tugged my T-shirt over my hips. “Don’t forget to feed my friends waiting for me out there.”
Farkas got up, put his hand on the doorknob, and turned back. “By the way, I heard from Kessler. He thanked me for referring you.”
“Julian Kessler is . . . interesting.”
Farkas scratched the side of his neck. “Give the guy some leeway. He’s a little jiggy, but he’s the best in the business. Kessler can afford to turn away potential clients if he doesn’t like ’em. He made a point of telling me how much he liked you.”
If you only knew.
Twenty minutes later the detective returned with my sandwich, two cookies, and a can of Coke Zero. He sat with his own can of regular cola, maneuvered his heavy bulk in the chair, and returned the photo of the Declaration Quilt. “Finished with the list?”
I handed him the legal pad and peeled the paper from around the sandwich. “Thanks for lunch. I couldn’t remember every piece of missing jewelry, but I’ll e-mail you the details when I get home.” I took a bite. “Along with photos.”
When I finished eating, he placed his iPhone in the middle of the table again. “Interview resumed at three-ten.”
“How much longer will this take? I left Arthur with Lucy and the others. I hope someone thought to take him outside for a break.”
“I appreciate your cooperation. We’re almost done here.” Farkas cleared his throat. “Assuming the corpse turns out to be Nathan Oliver, can you tell me who might’ve killed him and why?”
“Nathan Oliver was a bully. There are bound to be people he pissed off.”
The detective tapped the can of soda with his pudgy fingers. “I’m going with the wife. Do you know if she had a reason to kill him? You said he bullied her?”
“I don’t believe for one second Harriet murdered Nathan, but I understand why she could have. Two years after Jonah’s death, Isabel Casco told Harriet the boy drowned because Nathan was too drunk and preoccupied to watch him. Even worse, Nathan didn’t jump in the water to save his own son.”
“Who’s Isabel Casco?”
I told him about Harriet’s college roommate and how she discovered the details of Jonah’s death.
Farkas handed the pad back to me. “Write a list of everyone you’ve talked to so far.”
As I recorded the names, he said, “Mrs. Oliver could have killed her husband in a rage. The timing coincides with his disappearance.”
I put down the pen. “No! There has to be another explanation. Harriet would never commit murder. I won’t let you ruin her good name just because you think she might have. What’s more, ever since she was a teenager, she’d suffered a mild case of scoliosis. She couldn’t participate in highschool sports and never did hard physical labor. She couldn’t have dug Nathan’s grave.”
Farkas took a drink from his can of soda and studied me for several seconds. “The truth hurts sometimes.”
My neck muscles tightened, a sure sign of stress. I stood. “You’re wrong, Detective, and I’ll prove it.”
“Don’t do anything reckless, Mrs. Rose. A killer is still out there.”
“Well, of course, I won’t. I’m not an idiot. My ultimate goal is to disburse Harriet’s estate according to her wishes.”
And find those books.
And the quilt.
And the Benjamin Franklin watch.
And the jewelry.
In the lobby, a uniform squatted down and scratched Arthur’s belly. “Hey, buddy.”
When the dog saw me, he jumped up and wagged his tail. Lucy handed me the leash and we walked toward the door.
“Where are the others?”
Lucy’s keys jingled in her hand. “We finished our statements a long time ago. Carl took Birdie home, and Arthur and I waited here for you. He’s been outside twice.”
Huge black clouds covered the tops of the mountains to the east as we headed down Santa Monica Boulevard to the 405. Pinpoint specks of drizzle covered the windshield. Lucy turned a switch and the wipers thumped slowly across the glass, pausing between each stroke. “So, what happened in there with Detective Farkas?”
“He thinks Harriet killed Nathan.” I stared at the drops of water getting bigger on the windshield. “I just don’t believe the Harriet I knew could kill anyone, even an abusive husband. And another thing doesn’t add up.” I told her about Harriet’s scoliosis. “She couldn’t have moved his body and buried him.”
Lucy clicked her tongue. “Let’s say she didn’t kill her husband. How did his body end up buried in the backyard? How could Harriet not know about that?”
Lucy had a point. How much did Harriet know about the grave in the flower bed? And who wrote the suicide note? Did Nathan’s killer also kill Harriet?
I thought about the tarot card with the picture of people falling out of a tower. “Great danger,” Paulina had warned. But all that stuff—tarot, tea leaves, auras—was nothing but quackery. Right?
CHAPTER 17
On the drive to the valley, Lucy sped up her windshield wipers against the heavy drizzle. Thunder clapped somewhere to the northeast over the San Gabriel Mountains. When we got to Encino, the storm hit in earnest. Arthur and I bolted for the house. While he and the cat ate their kibble, I checked my e-mail. Out of forty-four unopened messages, one was from Abernathy with contact information for Harriet’s employees.
I called Delia Pitcher, the housekeeper, first.
“Yeah, I heard Miss Harriet died.”
“Since you worked for her, Delia, I thought you might help me.”
“Don’t see how. I worked for Miss Oliver, but she let me go almost a year ago.” Children argued in the background. Something made a loud pop and they exploded into gales of laughter. Delia muffled the phone. “Hush!”
“Maybe so, but Harriet left so many unanswered questions behind, I hoped you could fill in some of the blanks. She was murdered shortly after she let you go, but her body wasn’t discovered until a few weeks ago.”
Delia’s voice rose two notches. “I heard, but I didn’t kill nobody!”
“No one thinks you killed her. I just need to talk about the way she lived, who came to her house, things like that.”
“I’m busy. Work all day for a family on the West Side; then I ride the bus back to Hargis Street to take care a my own. Don’t have time for no chitchat.”
“Are you home on the weekends? I could drive to your house. This is important.”
“Yeah, I suppose, but I can’t talk about it right now.” She lowered her voice. “My kids will hear. But Miss Oliver, she had some strange ways.”
“How?”
Delia whispered, “Ghosts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on Saturday.” She hung up the phone. That was weird. Delia Pitcher seemed like a hardworking woman who was willing to talk. She didn’t sound like the kind of person who had something to hide, but you never knew. Did she ever return the key to Harriet’s house? Did the housekeeper take the missing items? Did she kill Harriet?
A pleasant baritone voice answered my call to the gardener. “Rudy.”
I introduced myself. “I know you must be aware of what’s been happening at Mrs. Oliver’s house.”
“Yes, ma’am. They found a body buried in back today,” he said with a slight Spanish accent. “We showed up like always, but they wouldn’t let us in. The police, they questione
d me and my guys. We come here two times every week, but we didn’t see nothing.”
“Did you ever see the ground dug up before?”
“No. We work for Mrs. Harriet for over ten years and never saw nothing.”
Rudy made sense. The killer dug the grave in 1997. Anyone hired after wouldn’t have known the ground had been disturbed. What about the gardeners working at the time of the crime? Would Farkas bother to locate and question them?
I remembered how the flower bed looked unkempt and weedy compared to the rest of the well-groomed backyard. “The weeds in the flower bed seem so out of place in such a nice yard. Why didn’t you take better care of that area?”
“Mrs. Harriet didn’t like us to touch the flowers. When the weeds got too high, we used the weed whacker or sometimes Mrs. Delia pulled weeds by hand. But Mrs. Harriet told us not to dig. She said her dog is buried there.”
Oh crap! For sure Harriet knew about Nathan’s grave. Farkas must have already been aware of this when he questioned me today. But that didn’t mean Harriet killed her husband. And because of her scoliosis, she certainly couldn’t be the one who dug the grave.
“Did you ever notice anything disturbed around the house, like a window or door left open? Possibly someone wandering around you didn’t recognize?”
“No.”
I shifted the phone to my other ear. “How about visitors? An unfamiliar car in her driveway during the last ten months?”
“You mean after they said she died? A black Cadillac, a red SUV, and a yellow Corvette.” He hummed. “Nice car.”
I wished he’d tell me something new. Those cars belonged to Lucy and the two guys guarding the house. “Didn’t you wonder why you didn’t see Mrs. Oliver for ten months?”
“Like I told the police, Mrs. Harriet didn’t come outside. If she wanted something, she send Mrs. Delia to talk to me.”
How did someone not worry when they didn’t encounter their employer for almost a year? “Who did you talk to after Delia left? Didn’t you need approval to buy supplies or make repairs?”
“Uh-uh. I got checks every month from the lawyer. For extra charges, like fertilizer or sprinklers, I send the bill and they pay.”