A couple that was walking hand in hand on the beach headed past, back to their car. Scott and Vivian were alone now. He led her to an area of tall grasses and sand dunes, part of the Ballona bird sanctuary. He turned to look at her. She seemed nervous now.
Scott kept his expression amiable. “I know we’ve never really liked each other much, Viv. I always figured it was the way things were between the best friend and the boyfriend, some kind of anti-incest instinct at work. The fact is, I’m glad Laura has such a good friend.”
Vivian looked derisively at him. “You are such a bullshit artist. I bet you take that as a compliment.”
“I’m being as truthful as I can. I’m sorry you don’t believe me, Viv. I can’t help it if you don’t like me. You seem bent on making trouble for me, but there’s no need for it. Laura’s just fine. She’ll call or write you when she’s ready. That’s her way. You know that.”
Vivian seemed to deflate. He’d found her soft spot—her own timidity in claiming Laura’s friendship. There was a coolness about Laura, a way she showed affection without ever really letting you know where you stood. An independence that eschewed emotional neediness. Scott didn’t think it was a conscious thing Laura did, but it had manipulated him, and now he saw how it manipulated Vivian.
For a moment Scott was pleased with himself, but then Vivian turned and glared at him. “You think you have it all figured out, don’t you? But I know you killed her, and I intend to prove it.”
Scott was silenced by her intensity. He picked up a broken shell and ran his thumb over its sharp edge. He moistened his lips and glanced out toward the surf. “I would never harm Laura. She was a goddess to me.”
“If she’d been a goddess, you wouldn’t have been able to kill her.”
“I didn’t kill her! I haven’t seen Laura in months. I wish only the best for her. I wish you’d believe me.”
“You’re such a liar, I bet you don’t even know what’s true.”
He didn’t respond, just gazed at her, relaxing his face of any expression. She looked away, then around at the sand dunes, fear in her eyes as if only now realizing how isolated they were. He enjoyed observing her as her mind raced through different scenarios. Slowly, she stepped away from him. “I’d like to go back to my hotel,” she said.
“Sure, Viv, whatever you want.”
* * *
Isaac Brovsky lived in an older hacienda-style duplex off of La Brea Avenue, an area inhabited mostly by older Orthodox Jews and young Hispanic families. Reggie couldn’t find street parking, so he pulled into the driveway and walked up to the second-floor apartment.
Brovsky greeted Reggie at the door. He was five feet four, spry, with thick glasses. He was around eighty, and his pants hung off him as if he’d lost weight. In the palm of his left hand was a growth the size of a kumquat. He smelled faintly of pee.
“Excellent,” shouted Brovsky. “She has the original authentication certificate . . . Insurance records, too?” At first, Reggie thought Brovsky was talking to someone inside, then saw he was wearing a Bluetooth headset on his ear. “You make it too easy. I’ll get ahold of the Frick this afternoon. What’s her number?” Brovsky whipped out a BlackBerry, input the number, then grinned at Reggie as he let him in. “I love these gadgets. Every time they come out with something new, I’m first in line.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your call,” said Reggie
“No, no. It’s fine. A lady in Pennsylvania found proof that the Nazi stole a family painting by the French painter Théodore Géricault. It’s hanging in the Frick in New York. They’ll hate to do it, but they’ll return it.”
“You’re still placing stolen art from World War Two?”
“Oh my, yes. Just today I got a lead on Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna and Child. There’s lots of work to do. Swiss banks are returning bank accounts. And then there’s insurance claims. But I’m being rude. Please, come in.”
The rooms were stacked floor to ceiling with books and paper. Brovsky led Reggie through a narrow path between the towers of paper, through the kitchen, where someone was cooking a huge pot of soup, to his office in back. The office was also piled high with stacks of paper, but looked more organized. Two computers sat on opposite sides of the room. Behind one sat a dark-haired young man in a yarmulke, typing madly. He ignored Reggie and Brovsky.
“Oh, I remember now. You’re the cop with a ring. Let me see what you have.”
Reggie handed him the infrared photo. Brovsky looked at it for a second, then disappeared behind a stack of books. “Nope,” he said, shuffling into the dining room where the chairs and table were buried beneath books. He dove under the table and came back with five-inch-thick leather-bound book. It easily weighed twenty-five pounds. Reggie helped him with it as Brovsky motioned him to set it down on the dining room table.
“This book contains all the stamps for jewelers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths from the fifteenth to the late twentieth century. Let me take a look at that photo again.” Brovsky stabbed at it with a yellow fingernail. “Look here, that mark above the crown is an urn with a salamander in it. That’s the personal emblem of the French king François I, who reigned between 1515 and 1547. That tells me this jeweler was highly favored by the king, probably working at the royal château at Fontainebleau. That’s just south of Paris. The initials BC will give us the name of the jeweler.” Brovsky opened the book to the middle.
“Are these pages vellum?” asked Reggie.
“Yes,” laughed Brovsky. “European jewelers take themselves rather seriously. There are only five books in the world with such comprehensive information, all hand-copied by a monk in Athos. It’s the only place in the world where monks still copy illuminated manuscripts. The books were commissioned by a Russian aristocrat exiled to Israel. He personally gave me one for my work. I had it scanned into the computer for others to use, but I prefer the book.”
Brovsky found the seal quickly. “I was right. The jeweler descends from the workshop of Benevenuto Cellini, an Italian sculptor commissioned by King François I. Evidently, he made jewelry, too. He was granted use of the King’s emblem and established his own shop in Italy in 1554 under the patronage of Catherine de’ Medici. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the family of jewelers moved to Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, where they now have a shop called Cellini. That’s on the French border.”
“The family’s been in business for four hundred and fifty years?”
“That’s not uncommon among European artisans.” Brovsky led Reggie back to his office. “From here on, books are no good. You have no idea how much the Internet has helped my work. Before, it could take over a year to connect a possible heir to a treasure. Now we can do it in days.” Brovsky sank behind the second computer, adjusting a worn velvet pillow beneath him. He logged on to a website of a European trade organization for jewelers and gem dealers. Cellini was listed as a member. “Too bad Cellini doesn’t have a website. But they have an e-mail address. Let’s scan this in and send a message.” Brovsky laid the photo on the glass bed, scanned in the image, then attached the file to an e-mail asking if the seal was Celiini’s and if they had records of sale. “If they’re Swiss, they’ll have records,” Brovsky said confidently. “I’ve been doing this since 1950. Millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry was stolen from the Jews. Most of it was melted down, but the better pieces continue to show up. Jewelry is harder to track down than art, because people tend to hold on to it rather than sell it to museums. But we’ll find who it belongs to. It’s my obsession. But I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”
Brovsky turned and started talking rapidly. “What? You’re saying the Getty is questioning the documentation? Don’t worry about it.” Reggie realized he was on the phone again. “They’ve got enough problems with stolen art without stealing from holocaust victims. Give me his number.” As Brovsky whipped out his BlackBerry, he walked Reggie to the door. “I’ll call you when I get a response. Should be in a day or two.” Reggie assumed Brovs
ky was talking to him; he handed him his card and left.
* * *
Scott stepped into his apartment, closed the door, and locked it, too tired to even turn on the lights. He preferred the darkness. His quadriceps were shaking, like after a long workout; his mouth was dry. He stumbled across the living room and turned on the TV. He felt better almost immediately—the familiar droning faces—although he was too whipped to even follow what the newscasters were saying. He pushed a pizza box aside and sank into the couch.
When he shut his eyes, the image returned of the Mexican stepping out of the reeds at Ballona creek, whizzing like a dog. Disgusting! Where’d he come from? Peeing right in front of them, grinning like a crazy pervert. Jesus! Vivian had practically run back to the car. What animals! Yet in a way, Scott was glad the Mexican had shown up. Scott had almost done something horrible. The thoughts that went through his head . . . He had come so close!
He recalled how clearly it came to him, in an instant, cool as mercury, like a well-practiced military exercise: his plan to drive to the Ballona Wetlands, to lure her near the swamp where no one would see them, then to fall on her and strangle her, holding her face under the putrid, tea-stained water, then to strip her clothes, leaving her naked, to be found in a week or a month, an unidentified body. He imagined telling Harrison that she was a looky-loo, a pushy New Yorker checking out the L.A. market, a would-be speculator, not a serious buyer, and if the body was ever identified and he was questioned, he’d calmly tell them that he’d driven her around a few neighborhoods, dropped her off at her hotel, then went back to the office, never to see her again.
He thought of how calm he’d be under interrogation, even with that black cop glaring at him like a cannibal. He’d play a man concerned but not overwrought, a man trying to help out with what little he knew.
He wasn’t a murderer, he told himself. He did only what needed to be done, and it turned out he hadn’t needed to kill Vivian. They talked on the way back to Venice, and it seemed to him that Vivian finally believed him and would go back to New York and leave him in peace.
But he’d do it if he had to. He knew he could.
He’d proved himself before, that last night with Laura. He’d been calm and methodical. He hadn’t felt anything when he saw the body lying near the marble foyer. It was an empty casing, disposable flesh, a mess to be cleaned up. He’d felt a confidence take over, someone else stepping in like a maestro, competent and cool, pushing aside a clumsy pupil to do things properly.
It disturbed him now to think of how efficiently he’d taken care of things, as if he’d done it a hundred times before.
Was he finally splitting in two? He’d worried about it all through college. Hadn’t it happened to Uncle Fritz, and also a cousin on his mother’s side? Didn’t his mother struggle with depression? When he was younger, he thought schizophrenia was kind of a cool disease to have; it meant you were brilliant and artistic. You could claim Nijinsky and van Gogh as brethren. Was it happening to him now? Had Laura sent him over the edge?
He began to drift imagining Laura’s face as it was that night, vulnerable, pleading, her fate in his hands. Her most lovely.
He shook himself awake. Before he let himself completely fade, he needed to make a final call. He poured himself a Scotch, conscious that he’d been drinking a little more lately, but not overly concerned. Things would calm down soon. He sank down on the sofa again and picked up the phone.
Scott hated to involve Patricia, but he knew his youngest sister would do anything for him. As kids, they’d been close. He protected her from his other sisters and his mother. He was pretty sure he could trust her. He rang her number in Paris and asked her to FedEx him a map of the city. When he received it, he’d replace the map with a letter he’d typed and signed with Laura’s name. By now he was confident that his forgery could pass professional scrutiny. He’d keep the letter in case Vivian carried out her threats about the police. He also asked Pat to send him a blank postcard every week. He would fill in the backs, copying from postcards Laura had sent him in the past. Tomorrow he would overnight one of Laura’s credit cards to Pat, asking his sister to charge up a few hundred dollars. When the bill came to his mailbox, he’d pay it with a money order. He didn’t quite yet dare forge Laura’s name on checks.
He was oddly proud of his fabrication. It would be difficult to prove that Laura was not in France. The funny thing was, when Vivian was grilling him, his claim that Laura was in Paris simply popped out of his mouth without his thinking. And now it seemed true.
He imagined Laura strolling through cafés on the Left Bank, or sitting in the Rodin sculpture garden, watching pensively as if a drama were being played out before her. He often marveled at how she could sit so still, watching, and wished he could see the world through her eyes. He imagined her floating through the Louvre dressed in white chiffon, or past the booksellers along the Seine wearing black pants, a red and white sailor’s jersey, and a beret. He imagined French and Algerian men chasing after her and her blinking at them, tilting her neck, then turning away as if she didn’t even see them.
He imagined receiving postcards from her, rough sketches of the view from her room, the Eiffel Tower, or Notre Dame. He felt a lonely anticipation fluttering in his stomach; he was anxious for her return. When thoughts entered his mind that there was no possible way she could return, he chased them off; he preferred his fantasy.
It was just as easy to believe something that wasn’t true as something that was. All it took was repetition, investing the story with emotion, giving the lie a time and place, filling in the background canvas. If he believed it, it wasn’t a lie, was it?
Later that evening, as Scott lay in bed watching television, he glanced at the bottom drawer of his bureau. He didn’t normally let his girlfriends keep things at his place. Next thing, they’d be moving in. But with Laura, it had been different. Even though she seldom stayed over, he’d given her a drawer where she kept a few T-shirts, a change of underwear, stockings, and a set of workout clothes. He got out of bed, walked over to the bureau, and pulled open the drawer.
It smelled of Laura, cinnamon with a hint of blackberries. He ran his fingers over the garments. The T-shirts had the soft texture of expensive cotton, and her underwear was so silky that his barbell calluses snagged on the fabric.
He took off his clothes and slipped on her underwear. The deflated bra cups looked ridiculous until he stuffed a sock in each side. He admired himself in a full-length mirror, imagining what it was like to be her. He thought of shaving his legs and around the panty line, wondering if his skin would feel soft and smooth like Laura’s.
He imagined walking with her along the beach on a hot tropical island, her head on his shoulder, her sarong flapping in the wind, her long hair blowing over his face, catching on his lips.
He missed her. Ached for her. Why did Laura have to ruin it all? They could’ve been so happy together.
He’d been ripped up inside when she refused to marry him. Taking care of things for her made them one, united forever. He was getting hard just thinking about it: Laura’s face that night, so childlike, so helpless, so trusting, as if he were the only one in the world who could save her.
In the mirror, he saw his erection peeking out of her panties. He put his hand around it and groaned, stepping toward the mirror, his breath moist against the cool glass, pressing her body against the cold marble floor, coming, blood on his fingers, blood coming on his reflection.
Embarrassed, he tore off her underwear and slipped on a pair of gym shorts. He wished he had a fireplace to burn the stuff. He’d have to get rid of it all tomorrow. He’d need to be careful, though. In this town, there were so many bums and trash pickers, you could never be sure about throwing something away.
It might pop up later.
PART FIVE
None
All morning and nothing but dead ends.
As soon as he walked into the station, he got a call from his Mexican friend.
Apparently, Scott Goodsell was stalking Laura’s apartment even though she wasn’t there. Was he revisiting the crime scene? Suffering a guilty conscience and forcing himself to relive his horrible crime? Then there was that business of him threatening a woman in the Ballona Wetlands. That is, if the Mexican could be believed.
Reggie was getting ahead of himself, he knew. There was no body, no reported missing person, no crime, no suspect. But while he waited to hear about the ring, he felt he should proceed as if Scott were a suspect.
Reggie’s first stop was with the harbormaster’s, to see if Scott Goodsell owned a boat. No Goodsells owned boats. He checked under Bay City Realty, thinking maybe Scott’s company had a boat. No dice. Second on the agenda were the boat clubs, to see if Scott was a member; at many of them, members could lease club boats. There were four main clubs: South Bay Yacht Racing Club; Santa Monica Windjammers Yacht Club (where Reggie and Audrey belonged); South Coast Corinthian Yacht Club; and Del Rey Yacht Club. Scott didn’t belong to any of them.
There were two other places that rented out boats unsupervised. Reggie checked to see if Scott rented a boat in April. No dice. Reggie asked the Coast Guard to see if Scott was even certified to operate a boat. He wasn’t, which meant he couldn’t rent. It was possible Scott had an accomplice who rented the boat. Reggie took down the names and numbers of everyone who had rented a boat from April 12 through the April 15. It was a long shot, but when he had time, he’d check out all the people with L.A. addresses.
Late morning, Reggie found his friend Paul Axelrod in the Windjammers clubhouse, mending a spinnaker. Paul didn’t actually work for the club, but he was always there, eager to help out. He had sold yachts in the eighties before the recession hit and no one wanted to buy a boat. He cashed out and retired. Paul was one of the last guys in the marina who knew how to mend a sail. He sat in a corner, red hair and beard, sewing a rainbow-colored spinnaker; he looked like a peasant in a van Gogh painting.
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