“Was your husband in the military?” I said.
Her laugh sounded like a bark from a humorless dog. “Manuel? In the military? He was an accountant at a museum in Guatemala City.”
My face began to tingle. A moment later, I heard a door close in the back of the store. A man dressed in a suit and tie appeared from behind a rack of hanging clothes. My heart felt as if it had just dropped into my stomach. He was the customer I’d met at Nectar who had given up his place in line to accommodate the rude woman with the Fendi handbag.
“Well,” she called to him. “Look what the cat dragged in. Where have you been, Manuel? My feet ache from standing too long, and my head hurts from the cleaning fumes. I need a break.”
Manuel Navarro stared at me with a puzzled frown. My pulse was racing. My thoughts were in overdrive. Isela Navarro was his wife, the one who had warned him that his guilty pleasures would kill him one day. She said something to him in Spanish in an abrasive tone. He responded with a dismissive hand gesture as if he had heard the criticism before and had ceased to give it much weight. It was no wonder that the relationship had soured. She’d given away his priceless Mayan spouted chocolate pot to the cleaning woman.
Isela crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Navarro with a defiant stare. He ignored her, and a moment later she disappeared into the back room, leaving the pile of dirty shirts on the counter.
He walked toward me. “I did not know business doctors made house calls.”
I didn’t dare mention Eugene’s name, so I made up another story, hoping it would allay any suspicions he had.
“What a coincidence. I didn’t know this was your place. I got your name from Jay-Cee Janitorial Services. I’m looking for somebody to clean my office, and they gave me a list of clients to call for references. Your wife’s name was on the list. So, how would you rate the service?”
If he noticed the strain in my voice, he didn’t let on. He pulled a cloth drawstring sack from underneath the counter and began stuffing the dirty shirts inside. “I do not know. Isela manages the cleaning people.”
“Then maybe I should talk to her.”
“You are not likely to get a warm reception at the moment. Something I’ve done, I’m sure.”
“How did you find out about Nectar?” I said.
Navarro put the receipt in the sack and tied it closed with the drawstrings. “Lovers of cacao have networks of spies. I cannot tell you which one told me of this particular shop.”
“Since you’re such a chocolate aficionado, I wonder if you ever noticed the Mayan spouted chocolate pot Helen had on display in her retail store.”
It was a risky move to mention the pot, but I felt safe enough. Mrs. Navarro was in the back room, and I wanted to judge her husband’s reaction. Navarro was so quiet I thought he’d stopped breathing.
“I do not remember such a thing. Is there some problem with this chocolate pot that you should make the long journey to my dry cleaning store to ask me about it? I hope it has not been stolen.”
“No. It’s in a safe place. No one can get to it.”
“And what is so special about it?”
“It may be valuable.”
“So you are looking to return it to its rightful owner?”
“Perhaps.”
A bell tinkled above the door. I turned and saw a woman enter the store, carrying several items of clothing draped over her arm. Navarro greeted her with a nod.
“I would like to help you,” he said to me, “but now is not a good time. Perhaps we can meet tomorrow. There is a place near the chocolate shop called the Brighton Café. I will be there at eleven.”
He turned away from me, making it clear he considered our conversation over. Behind him, a rack of hanging laundry parted, exposing the face of Isela Navarro. Her eyes were dark with suspicion.
I left the store and rounded the corner, staying out of Navarro’s line of vision. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the number for John Jones, the man who had toured the quetzal display. I watched as Navarro patted his breast pocket. He pulled out a phone and squinted as if he was reading the caller ID. He studied it a moment, frowned, and closed the phone.
It was time to call in the cavalry.
Chapter 34
Charley told me to go home and sit tight. He’d contact Detective O’Brien at the Beverly Hills police department to let him know what I’ve found out about Navarro. I planned to take his advice, but first I decided to stop by the office to see if I could find more information on the man that might help the police make a case against him.
It was Saturday and traffic was light, so I got to the office at around three thirty and logged on to my computer. Manuel Navarro was a common name. My Internet search produced thousands of links. Many were in Spanish. I scrolled through page after page of listings before I finally moved on to sites dealing with stolen antiquities, Mayan spouted chocolate pots, and the Guatemalan civil war. I stared at gruesome photographs of bodies in mass graves, just as Jordan Rich had described the night we’d gone to the theater. I found nothing connecting Manuel Navarro to any of it. Even so, I could still piece together a theory based on what I knew. Some of the details may have been wrong, but the story held together.
Lupe and her mother had come to Los Angeles to seek asylum from death squads in the Guatemalan Civil War. Navarro came to Los Angeles because he was running from the law. He’d stolen a priceless antiquity from the museum where he worked as an accountant.
Navarro opened the dry cleaner’s in his wife’s name to cover his tracks, and she hired Lupe to clean the store. According to Roberto, Isela Navarro had been clearing out a storage room. She found the chocolate pot, thought it was junk, and threw it out. Lupe found it in the trash and got permission to keep it. Isela Navarro told me she didn’t know why her husband had made her leave Guatemala, so she probably didn’t know he was a thief.
It was difficult to say when or why Navarro discovered the pot was missing. Maybe he routinely checked it. In any event, he discovered his wife had given the pot to Lupe. He began hounding her to get it back, only to find it was in Helen Taggart’s chocolate store, where Lupe meant it to stay. Navarro must have been frantic. Not only was the pot valuable, it also tied him to a crime that could have landed him in a Guatemalan prison.
Under the guise of buying chocolates, Navarro traveled to Helen’s store. On one hand, he must have been relieved to see the chocolate pot displayed on the shelf out front. On the other, he had to be worried someone would break it or even steal it before he could get it back. Maybe he thought the customers would provide enough cover for him to take the pot without being discovered. That didn’t work, so he had to try another approach.
Navarro must have driven to Nectar on Thursday, knowing Lupe would be there, intending to take back the pot using whatever means necessary. He arrived at seven thirty. Bob Rossi had already delivered the garlic shrimp, but the door was still unlocked. Navarro killed Lupe and planted the quetzal feather by her body to implicate Roberto. It wasn’t until afterward he discovered the pot wasn’t in the store anymore.
Helen’s neighbor saw somebody matching Navarro’s description in her bedroom at around midnight. He could have found Helen’s home address on a packing slip in her office or on some other correspondence. Later than evening, he broke into her condo, only to find that the pot wasn’t there, either. He didn’t know at the time, but it was in the trunk of Helen’s car. I wasn’t sure why Navarro had come back to the store on the Friday after the murder when I was there helping Kathy. Maybe he’d become addicted to Nectar’s chocolates or maybe he was just a murderer returning to the scene of the crime.
Lupe’s cell phone led Eugene to the dry cleaning store. I wondered where he would go next. To Navarro’s house? I opened Charley’s property-records database. Navarro’s primary home was in Alhambra, but my heart started to race when I saw he owned a second home—in North Hollywood. Eugene had called Mr. Winn’s message machine yesterday morning to sa
y North Hollywood was the new capital of California. It had been a clue. I jotted down the address and shut off the computer.
I thought about the man I’d seen lurking in the shadows near my car at work. It must have been Navarro. He’d seen me at Nectar Thursday evening. He must have waited around until the police arrived. Maybe he’d even seen me load Helen’s collectibles into the trunk of my car. At the time, he couldn’t have known what was in those boxes, but in his search for the chocolate pot, he’d eliminated both Nectar and Helen’s condo. If he connected all the dots, he must assume that I had the pot or at least knew who did. So where would he look next? The only place he hadn’t tried yet—my house. He had my home telephone number. It was on the business card I’d given him the first time we met at Nectar. I included it because I often worked at the beach. I wanted my clients to be able to reach me there. With my number and a little ingenuity, Navarro could locate my address.
Pookie and Muldoon were at the cottage. I had to warn them.
I called both the house and Pookie’s cell phone. She didn’t answer. I hoped she and Muldoon had gone home to Bruce. In some dark corner of my mind I knew that wasn’t true. I looked up the number for the Malibu sheriff’s department and dialed. Then I ran for my car.
It was already dark by the time I got to my beach cottage. There was no dark Mercedes or patrol car parked on the street near my cottage, only Pookie’s lime-green VW Beetle sitting in the driveway. I pulled into the garage and cut the engine, scanning the area for something I could use as a weapon. The old broom I found propped up in the corner wasn’t going to do much good. The pepper spray was my only defense.
My heart hammered as I tiptoed up the steps to the deck and peeked through a side window. The house was dark, but the door was locked. I used my key and stepped over the threshold, inhaling the odor of cigarette smoke. Nobody in my life smoked, except Manuel Navarro. I remembered his nicotine-stained fingers and the burning cigarette arcing out of the Mercedes window the night Lupe was murdered.
It was cold inside my house—too cold. The pilot light in the furnace must have gone out. My hand fumbled along the wall for the switch. Light flooded the room. I gulped in some air and surveyed the damage.
All of the kitchen cupboards were open. Pots and pans were scattered everywhere. Items that had been in my grandmother’s steamer trunk now littered the floor—family photographs, some seashells my father had collected on the beach when he was a child, his camera equipment. I felt violated and angry. Mostly I felt scared about my mother and Muldoon. My gaze continued around the room until it had made a full circle, stopping at the French door. One of the glass panes near the handle was shattered. Cold November air seeped into the room.
My chest felt as if it was about to explode. Even if my mother had been in the bedroom with the door closed when Navarro broke the glass, Muldoon would have heard. He would have been barking his head off, raising hell. I called Pookie’s name. No response. I tiptoed past the kitchen toward the bedrooms in the back of the house, until I reached the utility room. Lying on the floor was the cooler in which I’d hidden the chocolate pot. It was empty.
I was heading toward the telephone to call for help when I heard the side door creaking opening. It wasn’t the deputy. He would announce himself before entering the house. Shoes clicked against the entryway tile. Someone was in the house.
“Tucker? Why is it so cold in here? Did you turn off the heat? Oh, my God! What happened?”
It was Pookie’s voice. A moment later, Muldoon ran down the hall toward me, barking and sniffing like crazy. Relief flooded through me. I collapsed on my knees next to him, burying my face in his thick coat.
“Where were you?” I said to Pookie.
“You don’t have to shout, Tucker. I was at Mrs. D’s place, trying to think of a stage name for her singing act. She wants something easy to remember, like Cher.”
I grabbed my purse. “Somebody from the sheriff’s department is on the way. I’ll explain later. Take Muldoon and go back to Mrs. D’s until the cops get here.”
“Maybe I’ll call Bruce and ask him to come over. He can board up the window. Where are you going?”
I flew out the door and down the steps to the sand. “To find Eugene.”
Chapter 35
It was close to nine when I arrived in North Hollywood, a neighborhood dotted with ordinary houses, neat lawns, and stone planters filled with annuals that tolerated the Southern California fall weather. The area was quiet. It felt safe.
As I drove down the street looking for Navarro’s address, I saw Eugene’s Volvo parked on the street about a block away from the house. I got out of the Boxster and put my hand on the Volvo’s hood, an old trick Charley had taught me. It was still warm from engine heat. The car hadn’t been there long. I pulled in behind the Volvo and stuffed my pockets with the flashlight, my cell phone, the pepper spray, and the lock-picking set. Then I secured my purse in the trunk and headed for Navarro’s house.
It was a one-story place. The curtains on the front windows were closed, which made it looked dark and foreboding. I made my way to the two-car detached garage, but couldn’t see anything because the windows were blacked out with some sort of covering. I tried the side door, but it wouldn’t open. I spent several precious moments working a tension wrench and diamond pick until the lock popped open. Inside the garage, I found a black Mercedes with an advertisement where the license plate should have been. It read GARVEY MOTORS—ALHAMBRA. Navarro must be inside the house. What I didn’t know was if Eugene was with him.
I kept to the shadows, walking down a sloping driveway to the right of the garage until I reached a metal gate. The latch wasn’t visible from the street, so I reached over the top and released it from the back side. When the gate swung open, I guided the pin back into its notch to avoid making noise.
There were no lights in the side yard, so I ran my left hand along the rough stucco wall. A short distance down the path I stepped into a pile of dried leaves. The crunching sound was deafening. I froze, listening for any hint that I’d been discovered—footsteps, doors opening, a “Who’s out there?” I waited though a minute of silence before moving on.
As my right hand wrestled with overgrown foliage from an untrimmed hedge, my left hand bumped into a metal downspout. More noise. A spiderweb brushed across my face. I controlled the urge to cry out. My hand left the house and followed the curve of a retaining wall that grew taller as the path turned left and descended into the backyard, which was hidden from the neighbors by thick trees and shrubs. As I stepped closer, I could see light spilling from a sliding glass door. I peeked around the corner of the wall and saw what looked like the edge of a bed.
A wide stairway with six steps led to the glass door. To see the whole bedroom, I had to get to the other side of the steps without being seen. I crawled on my belly along the path until I reached a chest-high wall on the far side of the steps. Above was a brick patio. I stepped on a raised drain cover and used all of my strength to pull myself onto the cap of the wall, teetering for a moment at the top before recovering my balance. Falling would make noise, and I’d be discovered.
I rolled into a squatting position, keeping low. If anybody glanced out the window, they’d be looking at eye level, not toward the ground. At least I hoped so. I crept to the corner of the house to have a look.
The chocolate pot was sitting on the bed next to a gray handgun. I scanned the room and spotted a small plastic rectangle lying on the carpet. It looked like Eugene’s air purifier. I craned my neck until I saw a foot sticking out of the closet. I recognized the shoe. It was Eugene’s. The shoe moved. Relief washed over me, then white-hot anger. I wanted to smash the glass and charge in to rescue him, but I knew that would be a deadly mistake.
I needed to get help. As I stood to leave, I saw a flash of dark blue in the hallway outside the bedroom. I pressed my body against the side of the house and saw Manuel Navarro walk into the room. He looked placid. He said something to Eugene
and paused as if he was listening for a response. The window was open, but not wide enough for me to hear the conversation.
Eugene was still alive, but I couldn’t guarantee he was going to stay that way much longer. Navarro had killed Lupe Ortiz over the chocolate pot and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Eugene. I considered my options. If I called 911, I’d have to leave my hiding place and waste precious minutes explaining what was going on. If Navarro heard me talking, I’d put Eugene in jeopardy.
Charley would send the police, but I didn’t have time to use a middleman. I had to go directly to the authorities. To Joe Deegan. I dialed his cell phone number and left a text message with Navarro’s address followed by the words send help and the number 187, the California penal code for homicide.
Deegan would recognize my telephone number and know the call was from me. He also knew Eugene was missing. Even if he couldn’t guess precisely what the trouble was, he would call his LAPD buddies at the North Hollywood station and ask them to check out Navarro’s house.
I turned off my cell phone. If Deegan called back, I didn’t want it to ring or even vibrate. Any sound might reveal my hiding place. I kept my eye on Eugene’s foot, hoping he wouldn’t say anything to get him in more trouble. A moment later, Navarro left the bedroom and didn’t return for what seemed like an eternity. Not knowing where he was or even if he was still in the house filled me with panic. If the cops didn’t arrive soon, I’d have to break my vigil and go for help.
At least fifteen minutes passed as my limbs grew stiff from the cold. Just as I stood to stretch, Navarro walked back into the bedroom with the wooden box Marianne Rogers had given me for the chocolate pot. Navarro swaddled the pot in the packing material and laid it in its container. He looked as if he might be preparing to leave.
Eugene’s foot was still visible, but it was no longer moving. Navarro picked up the gun and turned toward the closet, toward Eugene. I had to distract him. I turned my phone back on, desperate to get a signal. It seemed to take forever.
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