Brad Dowd said, “Everything looks normal.” His eyes shifted to an open door, stage right. “Did you check in back?”
Milo nodded. “Yup, but feel free.”
Dowd went in there and I followed. A short, dark hallway led to two small rooms with an old lav between them. Once-upon-a-time bedrooms paneled with bead board below the chair rail, painted pea green above. One chamber was vacant, the other stored additional folding chairs and was decorated with more movie stills. Both closets were empty.
Brad Dowd moved in and out quickly. The aging-surfer insouciance I’d seen at his house had given way to gamecock jumpiness.
Nothing like family to shake you up.
He left. I lingered and glanced at the photos. Mae West, Harold Lloyd, John Barrymore. Doris Day and James Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me. Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia. Voight and Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy. Black-and-white faces I didn’t recognize. A section devoted to youth acts. The Lennon Sisters. The Brady Bunch. The Partridge Family. The Cowsills. A quartet of grinning kids in bell-bottoms called the Kolor Krew.
I returned to the front room. Milo and Brad Dowd sat at the edge of the stage. Dowd’s head was down. Milo was saying, “You can help by trying to remember where your sister goes when she travels.”
“She wouldn’t let that thing in the garage and just go off somewhere.”
“Covering bases, Mr. Dowd.”
“Traveling...okay, she flies to Paris every year. Later in the year, mid-April. She stays at the Crillon, costs a fortune. Sometimes she goes on to the south, rents a little chateau. The longest she’s been away is a month.”
“Anywhere else?”
“She used to go everywhere— England, Italy, Germany— but France is the only place she really likes. She speaks high school French, never had any of those problems you hear about.”
“What about here in the States?”
“She’s been to a health spa in Mexico a few times,” said Dowd. “Down in Tecate. I think she also goes to a place in Ojai. Or Santa Barbara, somewhere in that vicinity. She likes the whole spa thing— you think that could be it? She just wanted to be pampered and I’m worrying about nothing? Hell, maybe Meserve did learn the combination and stashed that piece of shit and Nora knows nothing about it and is getting a mud pack or whatever.”
His fingers drummed his knees. “I’ll get on the horn, call every damn spa in the state.”
“We’ll do that, sir.”
“I want to do something.”
“Help me by thinking back,” said Milo. “Did Nora mention anything about traveling recently?”
“Definitely not.” Brad bounded up. “I’m going to check on Billy, then it’s over to Nora’s house, Lieutenant. She doesn’t like me using my key but what if she fell and needs help?”
Milo said, “When’s the last time you remember seeing her with Meserve?”
“After Meserve pulled that stunt and she assured me it was over.”
Milo said nothing.
Dowd’s laugh was bitter. “So what’s his damn car doing here, right? You think I’m clueless.”
“Your sister’s an adult.”
“So to speak,” said Brad Dowd softly.
“It’s tough being in charge,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a day at the beach.”
Milo said, “So you have a key to Nora’s house.”
“In my safe at the office but I’ve never used it. She gave it to me years ago— same reason I gave her the combination to the garage. If she’s not home, maybe I’ll look around just a little. See if I can find her passport. I’m not sure where she keeps it but I can try. Though I guess you could find out faster— just call the airlines.”
“After Nine-Eleven, it’s a little complicated,” said Milo.
“Bureaucratic bullshit?”
“Yes, sir. I can’t even go into your sister’s house with you, unless she explicitly gave you permission to bring in guests.”
“Guests,” said Brad Dowd. “Like we’re having a goddamn party— no, she never did that. Truth is, I’ve never gone in there myself without Nora. Never thought I’d need to.”
He brushed invisible dust from his sweater. “I’m firing Reynold.”
“Please don’t,” said Milo.
“But— ”
“There’s no evidence against him, Mr. Dowd, and I don’t want to alert him.”
“He’s a goddamn pervert,” said Brad Dowd. “What if he does something on the job? Who gets sued for liability? What else haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Dowd stared at Milo. “Lieutenant, I’m sorry if it messes up your case, but I am going to fire him. Once I’ve talked to my lawyer and my accountant, make sure everything’s by the book. It’s my prerogative to handle my business any— ”
“We’re watching Peaty,” said Milo, “so the likelihood of his stepping out of line is next to nil. I’d strongly prefer you to hold off.”
“You’d prefer,” said Dowd. “I’d prefer not having to deal with everyone else’s shit.”
He left us, passed the rows of folding chairs. Kicked a metal leg. Cursed under his breath.
Milo remained on the stage, chin in hand.
One-man show. The Sad Detective.
Brad Dowd made it to the entry hall and looked back. “You planning on sleeping here? C’mon, I need to lock up.”
CHAPTER 23
Milo toed the curb and watched as the Corvette sped off.
I said, “You wanted Brad to take Peaty more seriously.”
He reached behind and slapped his rear. “C.Y.A. time. If it turns out something bad happened to Nora, he’ll be looking for someone to blame.”
“You didn’t tell him Nora left Friday night.”
“There are limits to my honesty. First of all, Beamish never saw who was in the car. Second, there’s no law keeping her inside her house. She coulda been going out for drinks. Or she did have travel plans. Or she got abducted by aliens.”
“If Meserve snatched her, why would he leave his wheels at her school and broadcast the fact? And if the snow globe’s some kind of trophy, he’d take it with him.”
“If?” he said. “What else could it be?”
“Maybe a defiant message to Brad from Dylan and Nora: ‘We’re still together.’ That also fits with planting the Toyota in one of Brother’s Treasured Spaces. Is there some reason you don’t trust Brad?”
“Because I didn’t tell him everything? No, I just don’t know enough to be sharing. Why, does he bug you?”
“No, but I think his value as a source of data is limited. He clearly overestimates his authority with Nora.”
“Not so take-charge sib.”
“He assumed the caretaker role because Billy and Nora aren’t competent. That allowed them to remain adult children. Nora’s more of a perpetual adolescent— self-centered, casually sexual, smokes up. And what do rebellious teens do when they’re cornered? They resist passively or fight back. When Brad insisted she break off with Meserve, Nora chose passive.”
“Tooling off in her Range Rover and leaving lover boy’s heap behind so they can travel in style? Yeah, could be. So what do we have, just a road trip? Bonnie and Clyde in fancy wheels cutting town because they’ve been doing bad things.”
“Don’t know,” I said. “People who attend Nora’s school keep disappearing, but now that we know Peaty’s got wheels he’s got to remain center focus.”
“A van. Your basic psycho meat wagon. And soon he’s gonna be unemployed. If Sean’s yanked off surveillance and that bastard sneaks away, I’m further back than when I started.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “I screwed up by telling Brad about Peaty’s van.”
“Peaty cleans lots of buildings,” I said. “It was the right thing to do, morally.”
“Weren’t you listening? I was covering my own ass.”
“Sorry, can’t hear you.”
While we waited for the L
APD tow truck to arrive, Milo tried phoning Binchy. Again no connection. He said something about the “high-tech big lie” and paced up and down the block.
The truck appeared, moving slowly as the driver searched for the address. Milo’s wave went unheeded. Finally, the rig pulled up and a sleepy-looking driver around nineteen got out.
“In there, the Toyota,” Milo told him. “Consider it a crime scene and take it directly to the forensics garage.”
The driver rubbed his eyes and shuffled paper. “Them wasn’t my orders.”
“Them is now.” Milo handed him gloves. The driver slipped them on and slouched toward the little car’s driver’s door.
Milo said, “There’s a snow globe on the seat. It’s evidence.”
“A wha?”
“One of those doohickeys that snows when you turn it upside down.”
The driver looked baffled. Opened the door and drew out the globe. Upending the toy, he watched plastic flakes flutter. Peered at the writing at the base and wrinkled his brow.
Milo gloved up, snatched it away, and dropped it in an evidence bag. His face was flushed.
The driver said, “I’m supposed to take that in?”
“No, Professor, I keep it.”
“Snow,” said the driver. “Hollywood and Vine? Never seen no snow there.”
* * *
As I drove back to the station, Milo said, “Do me a favor and contact that lawyer— Montez— soon as you can. Find out if Michaela told him anything about Meserve and Nora that she didn’t tell you. Any idea who Meserve’s P.D. was?”
“Marjani Coolidge.”
“Don’t know her.”
“Me neither, but I can try.”
“Try is great.”
The second call to Binchy connected. Milo told him, “Check out your phone, Sean. You still on him? Nah, don’t worry about it, he’s probably working. I’ll figure something out for nights. What you can do for me is start calling health spas from Santa Barbara County down to mid-Baja and see if Nora Dowd or Dylan Meserve have checked in...spas— like in massages and health food. What?...no, it’s fine, Sean.”
He jammed the phone in his pocket.
“Stuck on robbery detail?” I said.
“Seems to be.” He beat a fast cha-cha rhythm on the dashboard. I could feel the vibrations through the steering wheel.
“Better get over to Peaty’s place myself tonight. The unregistered van’s grounds to arrest him. Maybe we can chat in his apartment so I get a look at the dump. Meanwhile, I make those spa calls myself— hello, ear cancer.”
“I can do that. Leave the big-strong-guy detective work to you.”
“Such as?”
“Finding out if Nora used her passport. Is it really tougher post Nine-Eleven? I’d think there’d be more interagency communication.”
“What a sage,” he said. “Yeah, I fibbed to Bradley, figuring he’d be motivated to get into Nora’s house, let me know if anything’s off. Technically, nothing’s changed, you still need a search warrant to access passenger lists. And the airlines, being busy figuring out ways to torment their passengers, still take their sweet time complying. But there is more buddy-buddy stuff. Remember that granny shooting I closed last year?”
“Sweet old lady subbing for her son at the liquor store.”
“Alma Napier. Eighty-two years old, perfect health, some methaddled dungball unloads a shotgun on her. The search of said dungball’s dump turns up a carton of video cameras from Indonesia hollowed out inside with pistol-shaped compartments. I thought the Federal Air Marshals might want to hear about that, got to know one of the supervisors there.”
He retrieved the phone, asked for Commander Budowski.
“Bud? Milo Sturgis...fine. You? Terrific. Listen, I need a favor.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes after we got to his office, a civilian clerk brought in the fax. We’d split the task of locating and phoning spas, were coming up empty.
Milo read Budowski’s report, handed it to me, got back on the phone.
Nora Dowd hadn’t used her passport for foreign travel since the previous April. Three-week trip to France, just as Brad had said.
Dylan Meserve had never applied for a passport.
Neither Nora nor Dylan’s name appeared on any domestic flights out of LAX, Long Beach, Burbank, John Wayne, Lindbergh, or Santa Barbara.
Budowski had left a handwritten note at the bottom. If Nora had sprung for a private jet, that fact might never emerge. Some air-charter companies were less than meticulous checking I.D.s.
Milo said, “There’s everyone. Then there’s the rich.”
He made a few more calls to resorts, broke for coffee at two p.m. Instead of continuing, he leafed through his notepad, found a number, and phoned.
“Mrs. Stadlbraun? Detective Sturgis, I was by last week to talk about...he is? How so? I see. No, that’s not very polite...yes, it is. Has there been anything beyond that...no, there’s nothing new but I was figuring to stop by and talk to him. If you could call me when he gets in, I’d appreciate it. Still have my card? I’ll hold...yes, that’s perfect, ma’am, either of those numbers. Thanks...no, ma’am, there’s nothing to worry about, just routine follow-up.”
He clicked off, rotated the phone receiver, twisting the cord and letting it recoil.
“Ol’ Ertha says Peaty’s been acting ‘even weirder.’ He used to just keep his head down, pretended not to hear. Now he looks her in the eye with what she claims is ‘nastiness.’ What do you make of that?”
“Maybe he spotted Sean watching him and is getting nervous,” I said.
“I suppose, but one thing Sean’s an ace at is not getting made.” He wheeled his chair the few inches the cramped space permitted. “Would ‘nervous’ make Peaty more dangerous?”
“It could.”
“Think I should caution Stadlbraun?”
“I don’t know what you could say that wouldn’t cause panic. No doubt Brad will evict Peaty in addition to firing him.”
“So we’ve got ourselves a homeless, jobless, angry guy with illegal wheels. Time to grovel and ask the captain for help with surveillance.”
He disappeared, came back, shaking his head. “At a meeting downtown.”
I was on the line with the Wellness Inn of Big Sur, enduring a voice mail message about seaweed wrap and Ayurvedic massage and waiting for a human voice.
By three thirty, we were both finished. Nora Dowd hadn’t checked into any posh retreat we could find under her name or Dylan Meserve’s.
I tried Lauritz Montez at the Beverly Hills Public Defender’s office.
In court, expected back in half an hour.
Too much sitting around. I got up and told Milo where I was going. His reply was a finger wave. I didn’t bother to reciprocate.
I reached the Beverly Hills court building by five to four. Closing time for most sessions. The hallways were filled with attorneys, cops, defendants, and witnesses.
Montez was in the middle of it, pushing a black leather case on wheels. Thin and sallow as ever, gray hair drawn back in a ponytail. Giant drooping mustache and wispy chin-beard whitening around the edges. The lenses of his glasses were hexagonal and cobalt blue.
Walking alongside him was a pallid young woman in a filmy pink granny dress. Long black hair, beautiful face, old woman’s stoop. She kept talking to Montez. If he cared about what she had to say, he wasn’t showing it.
I blended with the crowd, managed to get behind the two of them.
Every time I’d seen Montez he’d gone for foppery. Today’s costume was a fitted, black velvet suit with an Edwardian cut, wide, peaked lapels trimmed with satin. The pink of his shirt brought painful memories of childhood sunburns. His peacock-blue bowtie was glossy silk.
The pallid girl said something that made him stop. The two of them veered to the right and stepped behind an open courtroom door. I edged closer to the other side and pretended to study a wall directory. The crowd had thinned, and I cou
ld make out their conversation through the jamb.
“What the continuance means, Jessica, is I bought some time for you to get clean and stay clean. You can also find yourself a job and try to con the judge into thinking you want to be a solid citizen.”
“What kinda job?”
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