Steady eyes. Every word spoken in an even tone. “Dad didn’t send you to narc me some more?”
Milo crossed his heart. “We’re West L.A., never met your dad. I mean, I’ve seen him, it’s obvious where you got the hair—”
“Yeah. Gee, thanks, Karl.”
“We’re totally leveling with you, Jeremy. It’s the building that interests us.”
“There’s criminal shit going on there?”
“Sorry, can’t get into details, but if you could answer a couple of questions it would be a huge help.”
“Doubt it, I don’t know shit,” said Jeremy. “I been working there for two months. Part-time.”
Milo said, “How part-time?”
“Two days a week.”
“What do you do when you’re not there?”
“Chill. Play bass with my band.” A beat. “Three times a week, I do the counter at Burger King in Venice.”
“Pico or Sepulveda?”
“Pico,” said Jeremy, smiling. “Sorry, no donuts.”
I said, “Sounds like a busy schedule.”
“They’re forcing me to do shit jobs so I’ll quit and go to college.”
“Mom and Dad.”
“She didn’t go to college and she became a dispatcher. He didn’t and he became a captain.”
Milo said, “Interested in police work?”
Jeremy stared at him as if he’d disrobed in public.
I said, “Music’s your thing.”
“I like it.” Shrug of narrow shoulders. “I’m not that good.”
Milo said, “Practice, practice, practice.”
“Huh?”
Milo showed him a picture of Susan Koster. “This girl. Recognize her?”
“Yeah,” said Jeremy. “I saw her a few times. Going in but not coming out. Not for a while. She’s a hooker?”
“She seemed like a hooker?”
“I dunno. You guys are cops, you don’t look for legal stuff.” Jeremey studied the picture. “She’s super hot, tight red dress showing off this killer bod, big heels. Who’s her john?”
I said, “Coming in but not going out?”
“Not during my shift,” said Jeremy.
“Day shift?”
“Yeah. You get them during the day.”
“Hookers.”
“Hookers, girlfriends of rich guys,” said Jeremy. “It’s the same thing. Pay for play.” He studied the traffic on Wilshire. “There is so much pussy around but you got to have the ess-cee.”
Milo said, “Ess—”
“Spending cash.” Orthodonture flashed. Another look at the photo before he returned it with reluctance. “So what’d she do? Rip off some rich dude?”
“No idea who she came to see?”
“How would I know? I’m stuck breathing in gas fumes, rich people throw me their keys or yell at me.”
“Is there a front desk inside?”
“Yeah, but there’s no one usually there. The management changed, they’re not putting any ess-cee out, people are pissed.”
“Like the bitch.”
“She’s always that way,” said Jeremy. “Husband produced stupid shit on TV, he kicks it, she gets the dough, thinks she’s a queen or something.”
Milo said, “Rest of the building like that? Showbiz types?”
“Showbiz.” Jeremy’s lips formed around the word as if it were a punch line. “I don’t know who they are except they’re all rich. I know her because she acts like that, Rudy gave me her story.” A beat. “She’s got a stupid name. Taffy.”
I said, “Do you know any of the tenants?”
“Not tenants, you can’t call them that, they’re owners. Why would I know them.”
“They treat you like shit.”
“A couple are nice. These two doctors, the Haleys, they’re like a hundred years old, get picked up by a chauffeur in an old Rolls.”
“Speaking of wheels, what did the girl in the red dress drive?”
“Hmm…you know, I never saw her drive anything, she’d just walk past looking hot.”
I said, “No taxi drop-off? Uber?”
“Probably,” said Jeremy. “Never noticed. Why would I?”
Milo said, “An hour or so ago a girl in a gray dress rode in on a bicycle and rolled into the sub-lot. About your age.”
“You say so.”
“You didn’t see her?”
“Like I said, I’m busy with the cars.”
“We thought you might notice a girl on a bicycle. Or just the bicycle parked down in the sub-lot.”
“There’s no bike down there now,” said Jeremy. “She probably took it on the elevator. She a hooker, too?”
Milo smiled. “Would you be willing to help us?”
“Like what?”
“Keep your eyes open for a girl on a bicycle. You see her, this is my number.” Handing his card over.
Jeremy pocketed it without reading. “That’s it?”
“You see her with someone, that would be even better, Jeremy. But whatever we can get is great.”
“Great,” said Jeremy. “That’s like an alien…” His lips moved. “An alien conception. I’m going back. I don’t, Rudy’ll narc me.”
“What’s Rudy’s last name?”
The kid stiffened. “What, you’re going to talk to him about me?”
“Not a chance,” said Milo. “We’ll maybe eventually talk to him about the building but your name won’t come up.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Scout’s honor.”
“What’s that?”
“An ancient ritual. Rudy…”
“Galloway. He used to give traffic tickets. He’s a total dick.”
* * *
—
We waited until he’d passed under the port cochere before retracing our steps and passing the building a second time. Things had quieted. Only two cars. Rudy and the other valet lolled near a phone-booth-sized structure and smoked cigarettes. Off to the side, Jeremy stood motionless, studying slate.
Milo said, “Twenty-four stories of people with fuck-you money. Try prying info out of the staff.”
I said, “One thing in your favor: The residents are owners, not tenants. Meaning they pay property tax and are on the assessor rolls.”
He stopped short. “Plug in the address, see who’s divvying up to the county…there’s got to be what, sixty units, seventy units, maybe more…cross off Taffy, the old doctors, look for a single guy or one whose wife travels…hell, yeah.” Slapping my back. “Muchas gracias.”
CHAPTER
39
Back at Milo’s office, he began researching the pink obelisk.
Completed in 1984, before the city imposed height restrictions. Ninety-four units.
The roster the assessor kicked out made him groan.
Fewer than half the owners were cataloged as individuals; the majority had shielded themselves behind ambiguously named trusts, holding companies, and limited liability corporations.
Milo said, “No one’s listed as Homicidal Asshole, aw shucks.”
He phoned Binchy and Reed, asked them to keep up the watch on Amanda Burdette, adding the details of the pink tower.
Just as he’d turned away from his computer screen an incoming email caught his attention.
As he read, his lower jaw dropped. Inching closer to the message as if he’d missed something, he rubbed his face. Sat back and pointed.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Topic: Meeting possible?
Lieutenant Sturgis: Brearely and I are leaving Rome and will be back in the US tonight. We’d like to meet with you as soon as possible, even tomorrow. Best, Garrett Burdette
Milo said, �
�Would ‘hell, yeah’ be over-eager?”
Hi, Garrett: Sure, no prob. Hope you had a good time. How about 10 a.m., tomorrow my office?
Robin put down her fork.
Dinner had been a surprise greeting, fragrant and just-plated as I got home. Grilled cumin-rubbed lamb chops, hummus, spicy carrots, and tomato-based Turkish salad. She’d cooked the meat. The sides had come from a take-out place in Pico-Robertson, not far from the run-down studio apartment of a ninety-three-year-old Spanish guitarist who could no longer drive and whose fingers failed at restringing his ’46 Santos Hernandez.
Robin had been servicing Juan’s prize instrument for a long time and considered her visits welfare checks.
I said, “This is delicious. So how’s he doing?”
“Such a sweet man, it’s sad. While I was working, he tried to show off with some Villa-Lobos on his other guitar, the cheapie. He managed to hit a few good notes that reminded me he was one of the best. But mostly…” She shook her head. “Anyway, you can thank him for dinner. I brought him a sandwich from the old deli and noticed a new place nearby. Kosher Tunisian. Smelled great, so I figured why not? What do you think?”
“Terrific. I’ll clear and wash.”
She smiled. “I’ll accept that offer unless Big Guy calls and you need to run out again.”
“Nope, the day’s over. Maybe tomorrow morning will be interesting.”
“The honeymooning couple. Think it’s some kind of confession?”
“To multiple murders? Unlikely. Milo’s been wondering about Garrett as the high-IQ boyfriend but that’s never felt right to me. Yes, he knows something about Poland, but in terms of direct involvement?” I shook my head. “If Amanda’s visit to the condo is relevant, it backs that up. Garrett was in Italy so it wasn’t him she came to see.”
“Hmm,” she said, cutting a small piece of lamb and chewing it.
I said, “What?”
“What if she was being sisterly and checking out his place for him while he was away? Watering plants, tidying up.”
“Unless he’s managed to conceal millions, he doesn’t own a unit there. Plus Amanda doesn’t come across as the tidying type.”
“Your basic sloppy student?”
“I have no idea about her personal habits,” I said. “She doesn’t come across as other-directed.”
“She wouldn’t do a favor for her brother?”
“I guess anything’s possible.”
We ate some more.
She put down her fork. “So what do you think he wants, honey?”
“To pass on information he’s been withholding about Poland,” I said. “In the best of worlds he’ll identify The Brain and clarify the link to Skiwski.”
“Why step forward now?”
“Conscience? Fear? Who knows?”
Robin smiled. “Am I being annoyingly Socratic?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I just don’t have answers.”
“Hopefully tomorrow will clear it all up.”
“As Milo would say—”
“My mouth, God’s ears.”
“Your mouth, there’d be a good chance.” I leaned over and kissed her hard.
“Whoa. I surprise-feed you, you get romantic, huh?”
“What, I’m all gastrointestinal tract?”
“Darling,” she said. “You’re a prince among men but you do have a Y chromosome. Please pass the carrots.”
CHAPTER
40
Milo’s seven a.m. text asked me to be at his office half an hour before the ten o’clock with Garrett and Brearely Burdette. I arrived at nine fifteen, found him hunched at his keyboard. He waved me to sit, kept typing.
An empty box from a West Hollywood baker and the crumbs that went with it littered his desktop. Ditto for a grease-splotched take-out carton from a pizza joint near the station. A mug filled with cold coffee sat perilously close to the edge. Toss in an unsmoked panatela, smudges under his eyes, black hair worked wild by nervous fingers, sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt, and a tie knot yanked down to mid-belly, and he’d been there for a while.
“Morning,” he said. “For what that’s worth. Went over the wedding list again, no overlap with the condo list. Doesn’t eliminate anything with all those owners shielded by corporate bullshit, so I searched those to see if I could find a link to Academo. The geniuses at Google failed me.”
He nudged the mug to safety, looked inside, shook his head. “You have breakfast?”
“I’m fine.”
“You always are.”
“When did you get here?”
“Six thirty but who’s keeping tabs?” Wheeling his chair around to face me, he examined his Timex. “Forty minutes, let’s strategize.”
I said, “Nothing I say is going to teach you anything.”
“Try me.”
“Don’t scare them away.”
He nodded. “I called at eight to confirm. Garrett answered and said, ‘Of course, sir,’ but he did sound like someone with a gun to his head.”
“Any indication why he got in touch?”
“Didn’t ask. Tell you one thing, he stands me up, I’m going after him big-time. And his parents. They all know something and they’re going to give it to me.”
I said nothing.
He said, “Fine, I’m posturing. Apart from not freaking them out, what’s the strategy?”
“Don’t know that the concept’s relevant.”
“Why not?”
“Too many unknowns.”
He rolled his shoulders, then his neck, a great ape chafed by a zoo cage. “I’ll ask it this way: What if it was you doing the interviewing?”
Collecting crumbs, he sprinkled them into his wastebasket. Creating a delicate beige rain that he studied with weary but sharp eyes.
I said, “I’d treat it the same as meeting a new patient. Keep things friendly, do very little talking and a lot of listening.”
“Psychological warfare.”
“That’s not exactly how I’d put it—”
“Fine, emotional manipulation. And if he tries to leave, I chain the goddamn door.”
* * *
—
He’d returned with a cup of biohazard coffee from the big detective room downstairs when his desk phone rang.
“Really…be down in a sec.”
Knotting his tie and smoothing his hair, he said, “Ten minutes early, ol’ Garrett is eager.”
I said, “Maybe you won’t need the chain.”
We walked up the hall where a couple of interview rooms sit.
He opened the door to the first, flipped the Interview in Progress switch. “Wait here, no sense overwhelming them with a welcome party.” Winking. “Psychological sensitivity and all that.”
* * *
—
I entered to find that he’d prearranged the furniture for The Soft Approach: table positioned in the center, rather than shoved into a corner to make an interviewee feel trapped. The chairs were also socially configured: three of them placed around three sides.
Like friends dining out, rather than two against one.
No equipment was visible but this room had been retrofitted last year with invisible audio sensors and video cameras. Flip the switch, it’s a go.
I’d barely settled when Milo stepped in toting a fourth chair. Following him were Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Burdette.
The newlyweds were both adorned by subtle tans and stylish clothes. For the bride, a white silk blouse with billowing sleeves, black skinny jeans, and red crocodile stiletto pumps. I’d never seen the groom duded up but a few days in Italy had changed that: bright-blue linen shirt, white gabardine slacks, brown basket-weave loafers, no socks. An impressive dark stubble beard sparingly flecked with gray lent Garrett Burdette’s face some g
rit and gravitas. So did black-framed Le Corbusier eyeglasses and a gold pinkie ring set with a tiny carved cameo.
A matching stone three times the size dangled from a gold chain nesting in the hollow of Brearely Burdette’s smooth neck. Her lush, dark hair bore lighter tints than at the wedding. The hand not enhanced by a diamond ring led to an arm graced by half a dozen gold bangles.
Milo said, “You guys look great.”
Objectively, the two of them did. But they hung their heads as they shuffled in, gripping each other’s hands, waiting passively as Milo arranged four chairs on four sides.
“Sit wherever, Mr. and Mrs. B. Make yourselves comfortable.”
The look that passed between the couple said that was impossible, but they cater-cornered from each other and held hands atop the table.
“Coffee? Tea? Coke?”
“No, thanks,” said Brearely Burdette. Hoarse voice, low volume. Slight redness around the sclera of her eyes suggested a tough morning. As she stroked the top of her husband’s jumpy hand, his Adam’s apple took an upward elevator ride before plummeting downward.
“Okay, then.” Milo shut the door. As he sat near Garrett, Garrett sucked in his breath and looked at Brearely.
She said, “It’s okay, honey. You know what to do.”
As if she’d coached him. She probably had.
He blew out enough air to flutter his lips and turn them rubbery. Scratching his stubbly chin, he said, “All right…this is something I’ve been thinking about. I wasn’t sure what to do so I waited to see if it would stay on my mind. It did. I told my wife. She convinced me.”
“Sweetie-doll,” said Brearely, “you would’ve done it anyway. You know what’s right.”
She gave his cheek a quick, light peck.
He said, “Thanks, babe—Lieutenant, I probably should’ve come forward earlier. I guess I just—all the stress, who goes through something like what we did?”
Brearely nodded.
Milo said, “Unbelievable.”
Garrett said, “So we needed to get away. Like I told you, a honeymoon now wasn’t our original plan, we really were going to wait. But then things…piled up. My firm said okay. So.”
The Wedding Guest Page 28
