by Diane Capri
She missed Nana so much. Tomorrow was her birthday. She would’ve been seventy-five. Two things always reminded her of Nana. Camphor and clover. She thought back to that afternoon in the park with Nana long ago. A ten-year-old Piper had asked about the fire that killed her family. “I had taken your mother to the dentist that day. We returned home to find it in flames. I tried to go inside, but people held me back, telling me it was too late … that they were … gone,” Nana said as they lay on their bellies in the grass, their faces inches from the ground, probing meticulously through a patch of sweet-smelling clover. “Then, from the smoke and cinders, I saw your granddad and… and our two little ones, clinging to him. I saw them float like angels up from the roof of the house…up to heaven. Everyone said I was hallucinating, but I know what I saw, Piper. I saw them. I did.”
“Were they angels, Nana?”
“Yes, honey, they were angels. My guardian angels. Ah ha!” Nana rolled onto her side holding up a four-leaf clover. “Make a wish, Pipsqueak.”
Piper had wished for Nana’s angels to be happy in heaven.
The crank and whine of the city trash truck working its way up the hill brought her back to the present. It was their pickup day. The trash barrel overflowed with the cleanup from the quake. She rolled the large plastic receptacle down the driveway to the street and placed it alongside the Squire’s receptacle that, like every trash container on the block, was filled to the brim. She paused and stared at the receptacle.
She glanced around. Except for the waste employees going about their work two doors down, there was no one else within sight. She lifted the lid and peeked inside. In among the many crumbled cigarette packs, butts, and empty scotch bottles, she saw what looked like a bloody rag and tissues. There were also patches of orange fur, strands floated up and around her, sticking to her clothes and in her hair.
Who was bleeding? Sybil? The cat? That scream in the night flashed into her head.
The sound of the Lincoln starting up made her drop the lid with a guilty start. She wiped her hands on her jeans. Someone from the house was leaving. If Mr. Moto and the nurse were together, then Sybil would be alone in the house. Although she had promised Luke, aka Arnold Copeland, to stay out of it, she knew she couldn’t keep that promise. Not after seeing bloody things in their trashcan. She had to see for herself that Sybil was okay.
The trash truck pulled up just as the shiny black car reached the end of the driveway. Mr. Moto sat behind the wheel. He looked straight ahead, his brow furrowed with annoyance at the truck blocking the access to the street. In the backseat sat Sybil Squire. She wore a two-piece linen suit in a soft gray. Gloves covered the scars on her hands. Her stunning blue eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. Piper had not been this close to her since the day in her living room when she’d fallen asleep—or pretended to fall asleep. She was certain now that Sybil had wanted her out of the house, away from her caregivers, for Piper’s safety as well as her own.
She stepped up to the passenger side of the car, bent down, and through the closed window, over the loud whining of the truck, called out, “Mrs. Squire, do you have a minute?”
The trash truck pulled forward. Sybil turned away, a glum expression on her face. Mr. Moto cranked around in the driver’s seat to consult with her. She said something Piper couldn’t hear, but the movement of her hand, waving him on, was clear enough. The big car glided past, turned onto the street, and drove away.
Piper stared after it, hands balled into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms. Sybil looked all right, strong and healthy, but things weren’t always as they seemed. Deep in her gut she knew something was still very wrong.
In no mood to go back to the guesthouse alone, she crossed to the Vogts. Dr. J’s company was preferable to none. He called out when she entered. She released him from his cage. Doc was the best medicine for her when she was upset. It was her turn to do all the talking. For the next ten minutes she ranted and raved, using Doc as her sounding board. He ducked and bobbed his head as though in complete agreement with her complaints, and paced the length of his bar weaving in frustration, wholly sympathetic to her problems. When he’d had enough of her ranting, he climbed back into his cage and began to squawk.
She left him to his fresh nuts and berries and went to water the indoor plants. From a second story bedroom in the main house, she saw a different view of the Squire house, the back portion. That portion of the house appeared to be closed off or used for storage, the horizontal blinds shut at all times, the windows dark. As she misted a potted African violet, she glanced at the house. A tightly closed blind at an upstairs window flittered. She stopped misting and moved closer. It flittered again. Someone was trying to open the blinds. With Mr. Moto and Sybil still gone, the nurse was the only one in the house. What was she up to?
Piper dashed into the front office, grabbed a pair of binoculars and rushed back with them. It took a few seconds for her to find and focus on the window in question. Suddenly fingers clutched at four or five slats and yanked them down. She saw only the fingers and the back of the hand, the knuckles pressed against the pane. The fingers trembled, causing the blinds to shake. The fingernails were broken. The skin on the hand looked twisted, shriveled and discolored. Like burned skin.
Piper continued to watch, her heart beating like a wild thing in her chest, until the hand released its grip on the slats. The blinds quivered and then were still.
She covered her hand over her mouth.
Sybil.
It suddenly occurred to her why she had felt something was wrong, out of kilter. That was not Sybil in the car. It looked like her. Enough like her to fool even Piper, someone who thought she knew every feature of her face so well. But if it wasn’t Sybil, who was it? Who was swimming in the pool and who was moving around in the house in plain sight, chatting with the police? Detective Bower had said “…flirting even”.
She recalled the night of the scream. The night Sybil staggered drunkenly to her bedroom window. Sybil or an imposter? Imposter. Of course. That’s how they’re able to steal her identity and systematically strip her of her estate.
She quickly locked up the house and returned to the guesthouse. She considered calling Luke at the Fraud Division, but talking to him didn’t feel right. This could be far more serious than fraud and extortion. Sybil was a celebrity, that’s what Homicide Special dealt with, and that meant Bower. If she told the detective that Sybil was being held prisoner in her own home, he would have to act upon it, wouldn’t he? It was all tied in to Vera’s death, even though he denied there was any foul play involved. It could turn into another homicide. The problem was, if he did believe her, how fast could he act? A search warrant would take time. Enough time for the caregivers to return and do something with Sybil. Kill her even. There was no choice. She had to do it, and do it now.
Her phone rang just as she reached for it. Caller ID identified Lee. She quickly answered. “Lee, I can’t talk now. Let—”
“Your friend plagiarized that screenplay. It was this year’s winner in the state’s annual screenwriter’s competition. The author is a woman.”
Piper’s stomach dropped. Shit. No wonder he freaked when she told him she gave it to Lee.
“Did he really think he could get away with stealing a prize-winning script? One that Mick optioned. He helped himself to more than Mick’s beer. Didn’t I tell you your handyman was not who he seems to be? Didn’t I?”
“There’s more to it than that. He’s not a handyman either.”
“What is he? Who is he?”
Piper rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” That was true. If he’d lied about being a handyman, and lied about writing the script, was he also lying about being an undercover cop? “I’ll call you back.”
She dialed, asked for Detective Bower and was told he was in a meeting. She left her name and number.
Time was running out. She had to go next door herself. Had to find Sybil and get her out fast.
Piper got as far as her deck when she saw the black Lincoln climbing up the hill to the house. She watched helplessly as it pulled into the driveway. Her throat tightened and tears welled up. She sank down on the top step, pulled the hem of her t-shirt up, buried her face in the cloth, and cried.
#
For the next two hours, she picked up and put down the phone more than a dozen times. Bower had not called back. She dialed the number for the Hollywood police station, but hung up before it rang. What would she say? I saw a hand in the upstairs window through my binoculars while I was spying on the house next door. The hand looked scarred, like the hand of Sybil Squire, only she was supposed to be out of the house at the time. Someone is impersonating her, I’m sure of it. Would they believe her? Even if they did, would she be placing Sybil in more danger if the police found nothing. She couldn’t do it. She needed proof—solid proof.
She picked up Detective Bower’s card again, running her finger over the embossed seal. Why was he the first one she thought about to contact whenever she had a problem? It wasn’t because of the Wade case. He’d made it clear the case was closed and therefore out of his hands. Yet Piper continued to look to him for help.
She called him, this time using the cell phone number on his card. When he came on the line, he was courteous.
“I have only one question to ask you,” she said. “That day when you spoke with Mrs. Squire in her home, did you at any time see the female caregiver? Please think carefully.”
The line was quiet for so long she thought he had hung up on her. “No. I can’t say that I did. I asked about her and Mrs. Squire said she was running errands.”
“Was the Lincoln there?”
“Yes. Yes, it was parked in the carport.”
“Then she was there. No one walks anywhere in LA. Did you notice any burn scars on Sybil’s hands?”
“That’s three questions. But I want to help clear up whatever it is that’s troubling you at this time, so I’ll answer your questions. Scars? No, she wore gloves. The Asian man, Mr. Ling, let me in and he let me out. Was there anything else?”
“No, Detective Bower. You’ve been very helpful.” She thanked him and hung up.
#
Luke returned that afternoon. When his truck pulled into the driveway, she went downstairs to meet him. She didn’t want to be alone with him in the guesthouse. He had come to fill her in on the Squire case.
“Well, we’re coming to a close in the investigation. Good news. What we suspected might be extortion and financial elder abuse turns out to be completely legit. Mrs. Squire is merely liquidating her assets here in California. She’s moving to the east coast. There’s nothing to keep her here, she says, and the last earthquake was all it took to get her moving.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“In person?”
“She came to the Crime Division to straighten everything out. She had papers and documents. Everything was in order.”
“Where on the east coast?”
“I don’t know. She has relatives in Miami, I think.”
That was a lie. Sybil had no known relatives. The death of her daughter forty years ago wiped out the last of the thin family line.
“What about the caregivers?”
He shrugged. “What about them?”
“Will they be going along with her to … wherever?”
“I don’t know. I do know that Jack Ming and Judith Avidon are clean. No priors to indicate they might be fleecing this patient, or any other patients. I can assure you your movie star idol is in no danger. Not from her caregivers, anyway.”
He reached out and caressed her bare arm. She stepped away. He dropped his hand to his side, his brow furrowed. “Look, I have to go. There’re still some things I have to iron out before I can close this case. I’ll drop by later and explain everything in more detail.”
Piper nodded. She just wanted him gone. She had questions, lots of them. If he had answers, she was pretty sure they weren’t ones she was looking for. At that moment, her mind was like a nest of squirming snakes emerging from hibernation.
He walked across the patch of lawn to his tools and began picking them up and putting them into the bed of the truck. She was halfway up the staircase, when he called out to her. “Oh, about that screenplay. Tell your friend to toss it. I didn’t write it. It was part of my undercover strategy to protect my anonymity. Sorry I wasted your time and that I deceived you like that, Piper. Hope you won’t hold it against me. Sometimes I have to do things I don’t want to do.”
Now there was something Piper had to do.
#
Inside the guesthouse, she took her digital camera with the zoom lens and snapped off a dozen shots of Arnold Copeland, alias Luke, as he cleaned up the mortar in the mortar box and deposited it and the last of the tools into his pickup. She imported the photos to her computer and printed them. After tucking the photos into an envelope, she drove to the Financial Crimes Division on North Los Angeles Street where she asked to speak to someone in charge of the elder abuse unit. A short time later, sitting opposite Acting Commanding Officer Lieutenant William Stroller, she told him everything she knew about the Squire investigation and Officer Arnold Copeland.
“Mrs. Lundberg, we would not put a man on a stakeout without the explicit permission of the homeowner, meaning, your friends the Vogts. Or at the very least, the person residing on the premises, which is you.”
“Then there is no undercover investigation?”
“No, ma’am, not from this division.”
She pulled out a picture of Luke from the photo envelope. “Is this Officer Copeland?”
He looked at several photos silently. “No,” he said, putting the photos to one side. He reached for a pen. “What’s your address, and the address of your neighbor? We’ll send an officer to Mrs. Squire’s to talk to her. In the meantime, stay away from her premises. If the man impersonating Officer Copeland returns to your house, call us immediately. Do not open your door to him or engage him in conversation.”
“You’d be wasting your time by talking to Mrs. Squire.”
“Why is that?”
“I think someone’s impersonating her as well. Her nurse.”
His eyebrows lifted.
Piper told him about Vera Wade and suggested he contact Detective Jason Bower at the Homicide-Robbery-Division.
“Have you contacted the Hollywood division of LAPD about your suspicions?”
“No. That’s all they are—suspicions. Detective Bower has been my only police contact.”
He jotted down the detective’s name and came to his feet. “Thank you, Mrs. Lundberg, for bringing this matter to our attention. We’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Star Tattler — 1965 [Archive]
Another drunken debacle and wild cabana party had the police out for the third time in two weeks to guess who’s stately mansion in the Hollywood Hills? Last week two male guests pummeled each other in the street, damaging several cars in the process. This week a young starlet nearly drowned when she passed out and fell into the deep end of the pool.
When is Hollywood’s platinum femme fatale going to crank it back a notch?
—Cricket Summers: Columnist to the Stars
The next day when Lee called for an update on the latest developments at the Squire house, Piper invited herself to dinner at Lee’s place. “I have to get away from here for awhile,” she told Lee. “I need to decompress.”
Lee promised a gourmet meal in exchange for all the juicy details.
At eight o’clock, she drove to Brentwood. Lee lived in a pseudo-adobe house, a stone’s throw from where O.J.’s infamous house used to be on Rockingham before the bulldozers knocked it to the ground.
“Where’s Erica?” They stood in the kitchen amid the aroma of fresh garlic cooking. Lee poured two glasses of chilled Chardonnay.
“Erica? Hmmm, that’s a good question. To be honest, I d
on’t know where she is. Even Erica doesn’t know where she is. She’s in a place where I can’t go, which happens to be the major source of our screwed up relationship.”
“Meaning?”
“She walked when I refused to agree to a ménage à trois.”
“The other party being?”
“Her personal trainer. This big bruiser of a jock. God, I’ve never been so turned off by anyone in my life. A pinhead attached to a mountain of muscle and no neck. Disgusting.”
“I’m sorry. I know how much you cared for her.”
She waved it off and shrugged. “I knew it was mistake … our meeting in therapy. We’re two transsexuals with similar hang-ups. Instead of pulling together, we only hurt and cripple each other. It’s ironic though, the thing that broke us up was something we didn’t have in common—a taste for semen.”
Lee served salmon with asparagus on the wicker table in her courtyard. Water cascaded over the rocks of the stone waterfall, tinkling and gurgling. They ate by the glow of a burning citronella candle. Crickets serenaded them from the corner of the yard. It was a lovely night, the moon—a Dreamworks silver slice—and a handful of stars managed to shine through the haze.
Lee poured pinot noir for Piper and more Chardonnay for herself.
“You have circles under your eyes. You aren’t sleeping well,” Lee said.
“You wouldn’t be sleeping well either, if you lived where I live, seen what I’ve seen.” She speared a piece of asparagus and held it on the end of her fork. “Did you know asparagus makes your urine smell really funky?”
“What did you find out about the man, the one who steals screenplays?”
“I don’t know who he is. Only that he’s not who he said he was. Not a handyman. Not an undercover cop. So what do you think?”
“Did he threaten you in any way?”
Piper shook her head. “But there’s definitely something threatening about him.”