After we ended the call, I couldn’t stop wondering what Roberto Ortiz would do next. He was a sixteen-year-old kid. His family lived in East L.A. He couldn’t leave town without money and a place to stay. I wasn’t sure if he posed any threat to Helen, but I had to warn her he was in the wind.
There was no answer at her condo. Either she had unplugged the telephone because of all those late-night calls, or she’d gone to Dale Ewing’s place in Simi Valley to spend the night. The information operator informed me that Ewing’s number was unlisted. If Helen was in Simi Valley, she was probably safe. There was nothing else I could do at the moment. Besides, it was late. I wanted to go home to see if Eugene had left me another message.
Chapter 19
There was no call from Eugene that night or the next morning, so I called Nerine Barstok to see if she’d heard from him. She hadn’t. I told her not to worry. Charley and I were on the case. I kept my voice breezy so she wouldn’t detect my concern, but her only focus seemed to be on Eugene’s lack of foresight, which had left her stranded in L.A. without a car.
When I arrived at the office, I found Riley Deegan sitting at the top of the staircase, looking listless and forlorn.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
“Can we talk inside?”
I unlocked the door and walked across the lobby to my office. Riley followed. On my desk was a vase filled with a dozen red roses. The card in the plastic pitchfork read I had a wonderful time last night. Hope you did, too. It was signed Jordan Rich.
Riley took a seat on a guest chair. “Wow. Somebody did something right.”
I ignored her comment and moved the flowers to the top of the file cabinet. “So tell me what happened.”
“I’m giving up Luv Bugs,” she said. “My family thinks I should get a real job.”
“Even your brother?”
“Joe and I aren’t speaking. He told me to get a life and stop interfering in his. He thinks I’m wasting my time trying to run a dating service. He’s probably right. I’m a failure. My party was a dud. Nobody connected on any sort of emotional level.”
“Sex on a bathroom floor sounds emotional to me.”
“You know what I mean, Tucker. Nobody made a soul connection. People drank my booze and ate my food and somebody went home with a spare roll of toilet paper from Claudia’s bathroom. I mean, what kind of person would steal toilet paper at a singles’ party?”
“Probably not somebody looking for love.”
“Exactly my point.”
“Look, Riley, you can’t give up. Businesses take time to grow.”
Tears had formed in the corners of her eyes. She reached up with her index finger to stop one from dropping onto her cheek. I handed her a tissue from a box in my desk drawer.
“I’m just no good at this,” she said. “I can’t even save my own brother from a bad relationship. He doesn’t love Carly. He just feels he has to defend her.”
Nerine Barstok had given up her dream of becoming a teacher to have kids, and Mrs. Domanski had axed a budding singing career for marriage and martinis. Even my mother left her acting career to help Bruce open his yoga studio. True, she hadn’t exactly been an A-lister, but she’d had a decent career playing ingénues, then young moms, and finally the ditzy neighbor next door, until her forties, when the acting jobs started to dry up. It had been a life of struggle, but she seemed to enjoy it until she met Bruce. Riley Deegan was too young to give up so early just because a man told her to do so. There was plenty of time to consider sacrifice when she was older and wiser.
“Look, Riley. You hired me to create a business strategy for Luv Bugs. At least give me time to do my job. These parties are okay, but they’re not the best bang for your buck. I think you need to focus on Internet dating. You can reach more people and reduce your overhead. Plow all of the profits back into the business for a while. It’ll work. You’ll see.”
She dabbed at another tear. “I don’t know.”
“Trust me. You can’t give up before you even begin.”
“The problem is my mom loaned me money to get started. If Joe tells her Luv Bugs is a loser, she’ll cut me off.”
“Let me talk to your brother. I’ll make him understand how important this is to you.”
She looked up. “You’d do that? Really?”
I smiled. “For you? Yes, I would.”
I wanted to grab Joe Deegan by the lapels and shake him until he understood that loving somebody meant standing by her even when times got tough, even when you disagreed. It didn’t take much insight to understand that I wasn’t angry with Deegan because of Riley. I was angry with him because of me, the way he’d dumped me with no explanation. If I was ever to move on, I had to tell him how I felt, and this time he was going to listen even if I had to chain him to a chair with his own handcuffs. I just had to find the right moment.
Shortly after Riley left, Charley walked through the front door. “How about taking a ride?”
“Where are we going?” I said.
“To meet with Helen’s ex-husband.”
“We’re driving to Connecticut?”
“To Orange County. Brad Taggart’s company just opened a branch office in Irvine, and he’s been flying into John Wayne Airport every couple of weeks to supervise the operation.”
I felt a tingling sensation on the back of my neck. “I don’t suppose he was in town the night Lupe Ortiz was killed?”
“How did you guess?”
“I’m surprised he agreed to talk to you.”
“He not only agreed, he was gung-ho. Said he wanted to tell his side of the story. I need you to distract the guy with some business bullshit while I watch how he reacts.”
“Do you think he’s involved in Lupe’s death?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Is it likely?”
Charley walked toward the door and beckoned for me to follow. “Ask me again in a couple of hours.”
Chapter 20
Brad Taggart had agreed to meet Charley at a coffee shop in Seal Beach, a town in Orange County just south of Long Beach. It’s a small, middle-class, white-bread community where surfers, fishermen, rocket scientists, and Lions Club members enjoy the laid-back beach vibe under the watchful eye of the U.S. Naval Weapons Station. The town also has a national wildlife refuge, which is good because about a third of the population lives in a retirement village called Leisure World, and that’s about the only wild life they see anymore.
The Espresso Express was located on a narrow main drag lined with low-slung buildings. Charley and I bought a couple of lattes and took them outside to a table under a tree in the adjacent courtyard. In the chill of the air, I welcomed the heat of sun and coffee.
A few minutes later, we saw a man in a dark blue power suit, rushing down the sidewalk toward us, carrying a paper coffee cup in his hand. His ebony hair was turning gray. His jaw was clenched. The cords in his neck were taut, leaving the impression he was all nerves and hard edges. When he got closer, I could see his eyes were an intense hazel.
Brad Taggart exchanged a curt greeting with Charley and shook his hand without even looking at me. He centered the knot of his muted tie as he scanned the courtyard.
“I don’t like this table,” he said.
Taggart found another one toward the back of the courtyard and set his cup down to cement ownership. There was no reason for us to move. Nobody who might overhear our conversation was sitting nearby. The table wasn’t in the sun. The way I saw it, Taggart just wanted to control the meeting from the get-go.
I glanced at Charley to see if the ploy registered on his bullshit meter. Apparently it didn’t, because he got up and joined Taggart at the new table. As I sat down, I noticed the markings on Taggart’s coffee cup, cappuccino with a triple shot of espresso. No wonder the guy was juiced up with nervous energy.
“I don’t know what Helen told you about me,” Taggar
t said, “but it’s all a lie. She’s the one who’s out of control. I wouldn’t be surprised if she killed that cleaning woman herself, whatever her name was.”
I felt my chest welling with anger. “Her name was Lupe Ortiz. Mom, to her four kids.”
“Why would Helen kill her?” Charley said.
“Helen thought the woman was stealing from her. She told my daughter she was going to confront her. Maybe she did, and the argument got physical.”
“Just for kicks,” Charley said, “where were you last Thursday night?”
A flush appeared on Taggart’s neck and began creeping upward. “I was at the gym in a spinning class.”
Charley nodded. “I guess lots of people saw you there.”
“I wouldn’t know. The lights were low. People concentrate on their workouts. They don’t care about the guy on the bike next to them.”
“Helen thinks somebody is out to destroy her business,” I said. “You know anybody who’d want to do that?”
Taggart glanced at me with narrowed eyes. “Helen isn’t the victim she’d like everybody to believe she is. And she’s no goody two-shoes, either. She has a mean streak—just ask my kids.”
“Since they’re not here,” Charley said. “How about you tell us instead?”
Taggart took a drink of his triple cap and stared into the void as if he was dredging up a bad memory. “With Helen it’s all about me, me, me. She’s a perfectionist. She always rode those kids too hard. She turned our marriage into a civil war and made them take sides. My daughter, Pammy, barely speaks to her mother. Helen has brain-washed my son and filled his head with all kinds of lies about me. I can’t even get close enough to knock sense into his head.”
I glanced at Charley to gauge his reaction to Taggart’s comment about his son, but he had on that mask of neutrality he frequently wore. I couldn’t tell how the words had affected him, but I suspected the undercurrent of violence had not escaped his notice.
Charley ripped open two packets of sugar and poured them into his latte. “I understand your marriage broke up because of an affair.”
Taggart looked less sure of himself now. “Helen drove me to it, all the time on my case for every little thing. A man can take only so much.”
“Before he snaps?” I said.
Taggart’s jaw clenched with tension. “Helen wants you to think I was angry because she got too much in the divorce settlement. That’s another lie. I would have given any amount of money to get out of that marriage.”
“Do you still call your ex-wife?” Charley said.
Taggart took a drink of his coffee. “No. Why should I?” “If the police checked your phone records, would they find outgoing calls made to Helen from your home or office?”
Even though it was chilly outside, beads of moisture were forming on Taggart’s forehead. “I can’t guarantee they wouldn’t be there. Pammy works for me, so she uses my telephone at home and at the office. She may have called her mother.”
“I thought you said Pammy barely speaks to her mother,” Charley said. “Now you say she calls Helen from both your home and your office. So which is it? Does she call her mother or doesn’t she?”
Taggart clenched his jaw. “It’s just my impression. I don’t watch her every minute of the day.”
If Pammy called Helen at all, the mother-daughter relationship couldn’t be as bad as Taggart made it out to be. I had a feeling he was lying to make his ex-wife look bad. If so, one day those lies were going to catch up with him.
“What exactly does your company do?” I said.
Taggart paused as if he was assessing whether my question deserved his attention. “We’re a multinational manufacturer of industrial ceramics and food-processing products. We have forty-two plants in eleven countries. We employ almost twelve thousand people.”
Charley and I exchanged a glance. Then he sat back and let me take the lead.
“Do you have a plant in Orange County?” I said.
“Land is too expensive here. Our Irvine office is strictly administrative.”
“You must travel a lot.”
He adjusted his tie again, making it perfect. “A fair amount.”
“I’m doing a strategic plan for a small pharmaceutical company. They’re considering moving some manufacturing to Central America. Do you have plants there?”
“Yes, two. One near San José and one in Chiapas.”
“How’s it working out for you?” I said.
“We have the usual problems—unskilled labor and government regulations. I’ve had to spend a lot of time tweaking things, but the operations are finally starting to come together.” Taggart checked his watch and downed the dregs of his triple cap. “I have to go. I have a meeting in thirty minutes.”
“Just one more question,” Charley said. “You ever hear of a guy named Eugene Barstok?”
“No. Should I have?”
“Nope.”
“Then don’t waste time asking the question,” he said. “Let me leave you with a final word of warning. My ex-wife is a liar. Don’t trust her.”
Charley and I watched Taggart bolt from the table and disappear around the corner.
“Nice guy,” he said.
“Yeah, a real jewel.”
“What’s your take on his theory that Helen Taggart has a dark side?”
“I’ve never seen any evidence of that,” I said. “She can get intense because she worries all the time about failing and it scares her, but that hardly makes her evil. He’s right about the me, me, me part, though. It can get annoying. On the other hand, Taggart is a piece of work. My guess is he’s done something bad and he wants to deflect attention from himself by trashing Helen.”
“What are the odds that Helen Taggart killed Lupe Ortiz?” Charley said.
“Slim. Helen may be overestimating the role she played in Lupe’s life, but I think they had a good relationship. I suppose if she caught Lupe stealing chocolates from the store the friendship would have soured, but Helen insists Lupe’s no thief. She got upset when I suggested Ortiz stole the chocolate pot from her customer.”
“I guess we should contact her employer,” Charley said. “See if there’ve been any complaints against her.”
“Let me do that.”
Charley took the lid off his latte, looking at the foam at the bottom of the cup. “So, what about Taggart? You think he killed Ortiz?”
“If he did, Lupe wasn’t his target. It was Helen. I don’t know if he’s guilty, but I do think it’s interesting that one of Brad Taggart’s plants is located in Chiapas.”
“So what?”
“It’s within spitting distance of a zoo that breeds quetzals.”
Charley’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You think Taggart left that feather?”
“It’s possible. Taggart oversees two plants in Central America. He’s traveled there a lot. He could have easily heard about the Mayan belief that quetzals symbolize freedom.”
“What’s your point?”
“Taggart claims he would have paid any price to be free of Helen, but what if he’s lying? What if he went to Nectar that night to kill her and left the feather to make a statement? As hard as she tried, she’d never be free of him.”
“But Lupe Ortiz got in the way?”
“You have a better idea?”
“It’s an interesting theory, Sinclair, but way too deep for a guy like Taggart.”
On the drive home, Charley gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white. I asked him what he was thinking about.
“Nothing you’d want to know.”
“Lorna?”
“She isn’t talking to me since I took that baby crap back to the store. I keep telling her I’m too old to screw up another human life.”
“Dickhead didn’t turn out so bad. At least he doesn’t have any felony convictions.”
“Yeah, but he isn’t doing anything with his life.”
“You mean anything you want him to do.”
“He’s just a late bloomer.”
Charley stared straight ahead at the road. “I should have stayed single.”
“You don’t mean that.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, as if he had to think about how he felt. “You’re right. So what should I do about Lorna?”
“You’re asking me for relationship advice? I made up a fake boyfriend so I wouldn’t look like a total loser.”
He glanced at me and frowned. “You make fun of yourself, Sinclair, but you’re a smart, good-looking woman. You could have ten boyfriends or a husband and ten kids if you wanted.”
“Or I could be like Nerine Barstok, resentful because her children ruined her chance for a career.”
“You wouldn’t be like that.”
“How do you know?” The words came out sharper than I’d intended.
An uncomfortable silence settled in the car.
“What are you thinking?” Charley said.
“Nothing you’d want to hear.”
“Try me.”
I adjusted my seat belt and moved the lever of the air vent so it wasn’t blowing on my face. I was stalling for time to consider if I should confess what was really on my mind.
“Do you think there’s somebody for everyone?” I said.
“If a person keeps looking for true love, will they eventually find it?”
“You’re talking to the wrong guy, kid. Ask me something I know about, like basketball scores or fly fishing.”
“Or how to find Eugene?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”
What Charley didn’t say was if we’d find him alive.
It took us more than an hour to drive from Seal Beach to Culver City. Charley dropped me off at the office at about one, and left immediately for Garvey Motors in Alhambra to see if he could get a lead on the black Mercedes I’d seen parked outside Nectar the night Lupe died.
Someone needed to contact Lupe’s family to follow the chocolate pot’s trail of ownership. Charley was busy with other things, and despite Deegan’s warning, I decided to go back to the barrio.
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