by Dianne Emley
A buzzer sounded, releasing the gate.
“My mother’s new boyfriend was Vince Madrigal?” Vining made a sound of exasperation as she walked ahead of Kissick down a cement path that was littered with pine needles. Patchy clumps of ivy grew in the flower beds between the trees. The sweet homey aroma of baking cookies came from one of the units.
Patsy’s door was ajar. Vining knocked twice, then pushed it open and entered the combined living room and dining area of the small town house.
Her mother sat on a swivel rocker in the living room, twisting a damp tissue between her hands, her face red and puffy. She was dressed for work, wearing a light blue blouse and black slacks.
“Nan, I’m so glad you’re here,” Patsy said, as if forgetting that she had not called her daughter.
On a couch beside the chair was a slender African-American woman who looked to be in her early thirties dressed in a navy blue pinstripe pantsuit and a crisp white shirt. Her hair was styled in a short straight bob with bangs and auburn highlights. Beneath her jacket, Vining saw a holstered gun.
Her male partner stood in the middle of the room between the living and dining areas. He was shorter, rounder, and older. Vining guessed he was in his forties, but they had been hard years. He was in a dark suit and had on a cheap stiff tie over a rumpled blue dress shirt. His brown hair had receded, and he’d closely shorn what was left.
The female detective stood and extended her hand to Vining. “I’m Detective Desiree Peck with LAPD Northeastern Division. My partner, Jeff Upton.”
“Detective Nan Vining, Pasadena Police. Detective Jim Ki—”
Patsy blurted before Vining had finished, “They’re asking me about Vince. He was—” She cried a stream of words that were unintelligible through her sobbing.
“Jim Kissick.” He finished his name.
Vining picked up a wooden dinette chair, moved it beside her mother, and sat.
Kissick stood arm’s length away from Upton with his hands behind his back and his feet apart, mirroring Upton’s posture.
Peck explained, “Vincent Madrigal was found murdered this morning in a motel in Eagle Rock. There was a second victim. A twenty-two-year-old female named Trendi Talbot. Your mother was involved in a romantic relationship with Madrigal.”
Vining remained poker-faced. She had many questions for Patsy, but would ask them after the LAPD investigators had left.
“Nan, I told them everything I know about Vince,” Patsy wailed. “They’ve been here for an hour, asking me the same things over and over. Vince never talked about his business or his clients to me. He never mentioned having anything to do with cremated remains.”
Cremated remains? Vining thought.
“I’ve never heard the name Trendi Talbot before today. I don’t know what Vince was doing at some motel in Eagle Rock. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Patsy’s fist tightened on the macerated tissue as her voice rose. She glared at Peck, “I don’t have anything else to tell you. My daughter is a detective with the Pasadena police.”
Peck’s face remained deadpan but Upton rolled back on his heels and pretended to stifle a laugh. Vining was well aware of some in the LAPD having an attitude about big-city cops versus little-city cops.
Patsy swung the balled-up tissue in Kissick’s direction. “That’s her boyfriend. He’s a detective too.”
This served to further amuse Upton. Even Peck raised an eyebrow.
Vining gritted her teeth, thinking, Too much information, Mom. She felt her cheeks redden but said to Peck, “My mother says she’s told you everything she knows. If she thinks of anything later, I personally guarantee that she’ll call you.”
Peck exchanged a glance with her partner before putting her hands on her knees and pressing herself up. “Okay. Mrs. Brightly, you have my card.” She reached into the breast pocket of her jacket and took out more business cards, handing them to Vining and Kissick.
Vining did the same with her card. Upton and Kissick didn’t participate in the formality. All of them knew how to find one another.
“I’ll be right back, Mom.” Vining followed the detectives outside, smelling stale cigarette smoke on Upton.
Kissick left also, pulling the front door closed but not locked.
Peck walked a distance down the path, then stopped. She asked Vining, “Did you know Vincent Madrigal?”
“No.”
“How long was your mother dating him?”
“I don’t know.”
Peck looked deeply into her eyes. Vining knew the other detective was trying to see if she was lying. “Your mother never talked to you about Vincent Madrigal.”
“That’s correct.” Vining didn’t elaborate. “What is the significance of the cremated remains my mother mentioned?”
The LAPD detectives exchanged a glance.
Upton spoke for the first time. His voice was raspy, as if he was a longtime smoker. “Cremains were spilled in the motel room.”
“Human remains?” Kissick asked.
“We don’t know yet, but we’ll find out,” Upton replied.
“Do you have any idea what Madrigal and Trendi Talbot were doing there?” Vining asked.
Upton again was the one to quickly answer. “Not yet.”
Kissick kicked away a pinecone that had fallen onto the walkway. “We heard that Madrigal stabbed the girl and she shot him.”
There was a guarded silence between the partners but Vining sensed their unspoken communication and guessed they’d been partners a long time.
Peck responded. “Where did you hear that?”
Kissick made a face that conveyed that the source was of no consequence. “Around.”
“We can’t get into specifics.” Peck took a photo from her jacket pocket. “This is Trendi Talbot. Have you seen her before?”
It was a mug shot. Trendi looked several years older and more road-hardened than in the girlfriends’ party photo Vining had found in Cheyenne’s room. Still, for a mug shot, it wasn’t a bad photo. Trendi’s straight blond hair was combed, and her makeup was on straight. Her light blue eyes betrayed her. Her gaze was piercing and fearful, much different than the happy girl in Cheyenne’s photo.
The LAPD detectives had been candid with them. Vining should probably reveal having seen Trendi in the group photo and her connection to Cheyenne Leon. Still, she replied “No” and handed the photo to Kissick. They had yet to interrogate Cheyenne, their reluctant witness in Tink Engleford’s mysterious death, and didn’t want the LAPD to interfere.
Kissick followed Vining’s lead and shook his head. He returned the photo to Peck. She and Upton turned and left without another word.
Vining looked at the dark orange front door of her mother’s home. A shadow moved behind the open vertical blinds.
She lowered her voice. “How did my mother meet someone like Vince Madrigal?”
“Maybe through Tink? Tink had Hollywood and big-money connections.”
“How old was Madrigal? In his sixties? My mother is fifty-four. Granted, she looks good, but Caspers captured it in his inimitable way: Madrigal dated models and starlets. Why would he drive from the Westside, where I assume he lived, all the way to Monrovia to date my mother? Last night, my mom talked as if this was an ongoing relationship. Maybe it was something more in her mind.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped.
Kissick grabbed her upper arms as if to help hold her together.
Patsy opened the front door and stood in the doorway. “Are they coming back?”
“No, Mom. Not today anyway.”
Patsy blew out a stream of air with relief. She nervously fumbled with a bracelet watch on her wrist. “Now I’m going to be late for work.” She went back inside.
“Just a second, Mom.” Vining and Kissick followed her.
“Honey, I have to go. I’ll call you later, okay?” Patsy picked up a blazer from the back of a chair and put it on.
Vining knew she had to tell her about Tink, but wanted to know more about Madr
igal. “Mom, how did you get involved with Vince Madrigal?”
“He’s just someone I met.”
“Did you meet him through Tink?”
“No.” Patsy was annoyed with the question. “I meet men all the time.” At first she wouldn’t meet her daughter’s eyes, but seemed to think better of it and faced her. “Vince stopped by the Estée Lauder counter to buy a birthday gift for his mother. I sold him a bottle of Beautiful eau de toilette.”
“At the Macy’s in West Covina?”
“Yes. At the Macy’s in West Covina.”
“Was he really your boyfriend?”
“I saw him a few times. I guess I exaggerated last night. He came out to have lunch with me at the mall.” She quickly added, “He took me to dinner, too, to nice places.”
“Where did he live?”
“In Beverly Hills.”
Vining looked at her mother without saying anything.
Patsy bristled. “Men find me attractive, Nan. And fun to be with. Enough to drive all the way from Beverly Hills to take me out. I didn’t know anything about his business, okay? And I never met that woman he was killed with.”
“I didn’t ask whether you did.”
“That’s all those other detectives wanted to know. I figured that’s what you were getting at too.”
“We didn’t come out here to talk to you about Madrigal.” Vining swallowed, finding her mouth dry.
“Why did you come out here?” Patsy’s anger passed and she snatched her daughter’s hand. “Something’s happened. Is it Granny?”
Vining flashed back to when she was a child and had held her mother’s hand while crossing a busy street.
Kissick saw that Vining was having trouble saying the words. “Patsy, let’s sit down.” He guided her to the couch.
Patsy moved tentatively, as if the world had become fragile and a wrong step would shatter everything she knew. Now sitting, she searched his face.
Vining was grateful that Kissick had taken over. She realized how much she’d come to rely on him.
He took Patsy’s hands and met her eyes. “It’s not about Granny. It’s Tink. She was found dead in her backyard pool.”
NINE
Vining observed that news about the untimely death of a loved one was nearly always received the same way. A sharp intake of breath. Eyes boring into the messenger’s eyes as if pleading for a joke or a mistake. Eyes then turning away, searching the distance while wrestling with the information. Some people screamed or cried. She’d seen a few faint. Then the practicality kicked in through the tears with questions about the facts. Sometimes those guilty of ending another’s life were able to fake the emotions, but they often forgot to ask what happened.
Patsy’s shock and grief were genuine. “Oh, my God, Tink!”
Vining flew to her mother’s side on the couch and threw her arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so, so sorry.”
“In her backyard pool? How?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mom.”
As Patsy sobbed with her face mashed into Vining’s suit jacket, Vining realized that she was crying too.
Kissick sat close, doing all he could to comfort them, patting Patsy’s hand and reaching across her to stroke Vining’s shoulder.
After a while, Patsy got to her feet and walked as if in a trance to a box of tissues across the room. She pulled out some and dabbed her eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady. “Who found her?”
Vining pulled herself together. “Her assistant, Cheyenne, came home and found her.”
Patsy disappeared into the small galley kitchen.
Vining heard the refrigerator door open, the clink of glasses in a cabinet, and the small pop of a cork being removed from a wine bottle.
Patsy returned holding a wineglass filled nearly to the brim with white wine. She raised her index finger as if to forestall commentary. She lowered herself onto a chair at the dining room table. Her hand trembled as she set down the glass. She gazed out the window between the vertical blinds.
Vining knew she was sifting through her memories of the last time she’d seen or spoken with Tink. She rose from the couch, pulled a tissue from the box, and sat on the swivel rocker, wincing when it creaked beneath her weight. There was something sacred about the silence, like in church, and she didn’t want to defile it.
Patsy took a long drink of wine. She raised a hand. “I’m okay.” Still staring outside, she shook her head, the movement small. “I just talked to Tink yesterday.”
“What time was that, Patsy?” Kissick asked softly.
Still shaking her head, she added a shrug of her shoulders. “About two, I think. She’d just come home from brunch at Annandale.” She huffed out a sad laugh. “You know Tink. All about the big names and labels. I asked her if she wanted to come over to your house, Nan, for dinner.”
Vining blinked at that news, miffed that her mother would issue an impromptu invitation to a formal dinner without asking, as if she was having a pizza-and-beer party.
“Was Tink alone?” Kissick asked.
“Yes. She said she just wanted to stay home and relax. Come to think of it, she said she was by the pool. She’d opened a bottle of Veuve. Her favorite champagne. We talked for a while, and then she had to hang up because someone came.”
“Someone came?” Kissick leaned forward on the couch. “Did she say who?”
Patsy shook her head. “She told me, ‘Wait a second.’ I guess she talked to somebody, and then she came back on and said she had to go. Said she had an unexpected visitor.”
“Could it have been her boyfriend, King Getty?” Kissick asked.
“Tink told me he was on a business trip to Dubai.” Patsy raised her eyebrows.
“Did you ever meet him?” Vining asked.
Patsy quickly shook her head. “Boy, the way Tink bragged about him. He was the most gorgeous, most wonderful man ever. The last time we had dinner, Mary Alice, Vicki, and I teased Tink. Anything she did had to be the best, biggest, and brightest. She couldn’t just be dating a nice man. He had to be a Getty. She said we were jealous. Said King had swept her away to Paris on a private jet for the weekend. He always picked her up in a limo.” Patsy’s tears started again. “No one ever took me to Paris on a private jet.”
Vining said, “He sounds too good to be true.”
“Vicki told her to hire a private detective to check him out.”
“Did she?” Kissick asked.
“I doubt it. I hadn’t seen her for a month. Mary Alice, Vicki, and I took her out to celebrate her birthday. We had such a good time, laughing, fanning ourselves when the hot flashes hit, trying to get the waiter’s attention, joking that now that we’re middle-aged, we’re invisible. We used to be hot stuff, but now no one will look at us that way ever again.” Patsy pursed her lips.
Vining went into the kitchen and filled a glass with tap water from the sink. “Where did Tink meet Getty?”
“Through friends. Her circle.”
Vining sat at the table with her mother and drank the water. “How did Tink meet Cheyenne?”
“Same way, I guess.” Patsy again looked out the window. “I think she met both Cheyenne and King at the Berryhill compound.”
“What was her relationship with Cheyenne?”
“Seemed like she was always chasing after Cheyenne to do the things she asked her to do. Tink said that she was trying to help Cheyenne out. That she’d had tough breaks.”
“Why did Tink let Cheyenne move into her house?” Vining asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
“That was Tink’s business.”
Vining thought that was an odd response from her meddling mother. “Were you and Tink having a fight?”
Patsy looked at her. “Why do you say that?”
“You seem sort of distant about what was going on with Tink and these strange people who were recently in her life.”
“Honey, I’m
in shock. My head’s spinning.”
Kissick got up and moved to lean against the counter dividing the dining room and kitchen. “Did Tink mention having medical problems?”
Patsy shrugged. “Just being hot all the time and having insomnia from menopause. Said her cholesterol was a little high. She was into this vitamin and supplement thing. The Berryhill Method. She spent a fortune on that stuff. It’s a big racket if you ask me.”
“Was she drunk when you last talked to her?” Kissick asked.
“No. She was just having some champagne.”
“How about her mental state? Had she been sad?”
“Of course she’d been sad. I thought she was doing better, but you know Tink. Always putting on a good front. If she was in a really bad way, I hope she would have reached out to her girlfriends. We’ve always been there for each other.” She finished her wine.
Kissick was still speaking gently. “Did Vince Madrigal ever ask you questions about Tink or King Getty?”
“No.”
Vining thought her mother’s response was unusually abrupt. “In the course of you and Vince getting to know each other, you didn’t talk about the people in your lives?”
“Of course we did,” Patsy said. “But not in detail. I already told you I just saw him a few times. I wish you’d drop it.”
Vining raised her eyebrows and reared back a little.
Patsy glanced at a teapot-shaped clock on the kitchen wall. “Oh, crap. My boss is going to kill me.”
“Mom, you’re in no condition to go to work.”
Patsy’s shoulders dropped as if relieved that someone else had brought it up. “I really don’t feel well. I have paid sick days coming to me.”
“Go call your boss,” Vining said. “I’ll talk to her if you want.”
“That’s okay, hon. I’ll do it.”
“I don’t want you staying here by yourself,” Vining said.
“You think someone might come after me?”
“No, it’s not that. You shouldn’t be alone right now. I’ll take you to Granny’s.”
“Nan. How is that going to cheer me up?”
“You could both use the company and I want to find out what’s going on with her.”