The Second Goodbye

by Patricia Smiley

  16

  Before leaving the parking lot of the former Black Jack Guns & Ammo, Davie searched for Robert Montaine’s acting portfolio on IMDb, an online database of information on film, television, and video games, including people who worked in front of the camera and on the production side. She found no credits under his name.

  She maneuvered the car along the coast highway and turned right onto Sunset Boulevard, driving past dusty trees that lined the street. A short distance up the road in Pacific Palisades she saw a sign—Self-Realization Fellowship followed by Lake Shrine—that was ironically lodged in a bed of pink impatiens. As she left her parked car, the pungent aroma of incense from the open door of the Visitor Center beat a path to her sinuses, conjuring thoughts of sugar, jasmine, and moist forests.

  Robert Montaine had told her to meet him by the Mahatma Gandhi shrine, but she wasn’t sure where to find it. A brick staircase led to the lake and a waterfall but she didn’t see a shrine or anyone standing on the viewing platform. A flagstone path led her past several small cement monuments honoring various religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism—until the flagstones branched into a mulch path lined with rose bushes and sheltered by palm, eucalyptus, and magnolia trees.

  At the end of the path, she found Robert Montaine sitting in a small clearing in the center of a white stone bench that was just long enough for a man or three toddlers. His legs were crossed in a modified lotus position with his hands clasped together in front of his chest as though he were praying. He was in his late twenties with a slight build and delicate Waspy features. The neo-hippie getup he wore—bellbottoms, sandals with a toe strap, and a headband wrapped around his shoulder-length brown hair—seemed out of place. A tepid breeze ruffled the ferns bordering what appeared to be statues of two women and a giant teapot.

  “Mr. Montaine?”

  He looked up with a vapid smile and put his finger to his lips. “Shhh. People are meditating.”

  A quick glance around revealed no one else in the clearing. Just as well. She doubted anybody could reach the highest level of their vibrations with all those ducks quacking in the lake and the traffic noise on Sunset.

  “We could go to the station if it’s easier for you.”

  His smile faded. “I can’t leave the grounds. I’m on a retreat. Technically, talking is forbidden. I made an exception for you.”

  His comment seemed ironic, considering he’d been at the retreat when he answered her call and rattled off instructions on how to find him.

  “As I mentioned on the phone, I’m here about your stepmother.”

  “Please,” he said, holding up his palm to stop her. “Don’t call her that. She wasn’t any kind of mother to me. She was my father’s wife, okay? She’s been dead for a long time. Why are you here? Did you find out something about her past?”

  Davie ignored the question. According to the DOB on Montaine’s driver’s license, he’d been twenty-five when his father remarried. Interesting that Sara Montaine had been dead for almost a year and he still couldn’t find it within himself to be magnanimous. “Did you ever question that Ms. Montaine’s death was a suicide?”

  He shifted on the bench, stretching one leg straight and folding the other across his thigh. “I didn’t know her well, so I didn’t question anything. Truth is I didn’t care how she died, only that she was dead.”

  Davie raised her eyebrows at his brutal comment. It must have been difficult for Sara Montaine, knowing her stepson hated her. Davie waited a moment until the roar of a small plane flying overhead subsided. “What did you do with her remains?”

  He bent over his legs, averting his gaze. “I had her cremated. I kept her ashes in a self-storage unit until a few weeks ago. I finally had the urn buried in a plot near my father’s grave. Why are you asking? Did you locate her relatives? Maybe they’ll kick in for the cemetery plot.”

  “I gather you weren’t able to locate Sara’s family.”

  He adjusted the headband. “I didn’t try. She said she was raised in a series of foster homes after her parents died, but she refused to give details. Claimed it was too painful. I never knew where Sara lived before she latched on to my father, but she had a decent car. Funny thing, though, she never talked about having a job. That made me suspicious. I figured her for a call girl or a gold digger. Maybe both. I told my father to hire a private investigator to look into her background but he refused. Instead, he bought her a new Mercedes.”

  “You could have hired a PI yourself.”

  He placed his feet on the ground and elongated his spine. “Maybe I should have, but at the time I didn’t have the money.”

  Davie was getting tired of standing, but Montaine had taken possession of the only bench in the clearing. It didn’t appear he planned to interrupt his routine to accommodate her, not that rubbing shoulders with Robert don’t-call-me-Bob sounded at all appealing.

  “Did Sara have any enemies?”

  He glared at her. “Besides me? Isn’t that what you’re really asking?”

  Davie gave him a hard stare but kept her tone neutral. “I didn’t say that, Mr. Montaine. Those are your words. Were you her enemy?”

  “I thought she was an opportunist. That didn’t make us enemies. But as I told you before, I didn’t have much contact with her, so I don’t know how other people felt about her.”

  Nobody is universally admired, but opinions about Sara Montaine ran the gamut from loving wife to she-devil. Polar opposite opinions were always hard to reconcile.

  Davie shifted her weight and changed the subject. “Sara named the Four Paws rescue organization as a beneficiary in her will. You reversed that. Why? Especially since you were in line to inherit the bulk of your father’s estate.”

  Montaine seemed annoyed by the implication. “She signed a prenuptial agreement before she married my father. If he died first, she got to live in the house plus a modest allowance to maintain her lifestyle. After she died, the estate passed to me. They were married for less than a year. Those giveaways were an abuse of that agreement. My father never expected her to spend my money on a bunch of feral cats.”

  Davie thought of Hooch, her ex-roommate, and felt peeved on behalf of all felines. “You also asked them to return the watercolor.”

  Anger flashed across his face. “Sara may have thought the watercolor was valuable, but it was only a print. It was also one of my real mother’s favorites. She gave it away just to spite me.”

  If true, the print seemed like a distraction. It might prove relevant later on, but for now Davie would put the issue on the proverbial back burner. “Where were you at the time of Sara’s death?”

  Montaine turned his head toward her and smiled. “I see your game now. You think she was murdered and I’m your scapegoat. I can’t believe I have to say this again but here goes. I didn’t kill Sara. I was in New York taking in a few Broadway shows with my friends. My accountant probably still has the hotel receipts attached to my tax return.”

  Detective Sarlos’s report confirmed Robert Montaine had been in Manhattan, but Davie wanted to see his reaction when she asked the question. He seemed more arrogant than angry. On the other hand, maybe he was just acting.

  “What happened to Sara’s possessions?”

  Montaine stood up and bent over in a stretch, touching his toes. “After she died, I hired a moving van to haul everything to storage. The coroner’s office sent me a few things after the autopsy. I can’t remember what exactly was in that box. I took the cash out of her wallet and cut up the credit cards. She wasn’t wearing her diamond engagement ring or the Cartier watch the day she died. I found them in her jewelry box a week later.”

  It was odd that she had removed her valuables before going out that day. It upped the cred of the suicide theory.

  “Where are those other items now?”

  “Still in storage.” Montaine abandoned the
stretch and strolled under an arch topped with a gold lotus sculpture, petal closed, until he reached the lake, talking as he walked. “I remember setting the coroner’s box just inside the door of the storage unit. I kept thinking I’d go through her stuff one day, but I never got around to it. It’s easier to pay the monthly fee than to confront all that.”

  Davie joined Montaine at the fence. Her clothes and hair felt damp from the humidity. The atmosphere in the clearing was unusually muggy compared to the brittle heat of the outside world, due in part to a combination of the artificial lake, shade, and overwatering.

  “What was Ms. Montaine’s name prior to her marriage?”

  “I never knew. I went through their papers but couldn’t find their marriage license. I was going to order a copy, but it just wasn’t worth the bother.”

  “I want to look through her things if you don’t mind.”

  He shrugged. “Be my guest. In fact, do me a favor and haul it all to the nearest landfill.”

  She pulled a Consent to Search form from her notebook and jotted down the name, address, and unit number of the storage facility, along with a permission statement that allowed her to take any or all items belonging to Sara Montaine. Her stepson signed without reading the document. If Davie ended up taking anything, she would write up a property receipt that listed the items and then get him to sign off on that, too.

  He fished in his wallet until he found a key card. “This will get you in the gate. There’s a padlock on the door to the unit. The manager has the combination. I’ll call and tell him to let you in.”

  “Where can I return the card?”

  “Keep it. I’ll pick up another one next time I’m in the neighborhood. And by the way, if you find anything about Sara’s background, please let me know.”

  It was now clear why Robert Montaine had agreed to break the rules of his retreat to talk to her. He was hoping Davie would find dirt on his stepmom and share it with him.

  She turned to leave. “Good luck with the retreat. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  “What I’m looking for is inspiration for an audition next week. It’s the lead in a major motion picture set in the 1960s.” He took a deep breath, pressed his hands together with his thumbs on his chest, and bowed his head. “Namaste.”

  “Same to you, Bob.”

  With the image of Robert Montaine’s middle finger pointed toward the heavens, Davie made her way back to the car, trying to make sense of the man. The guy had issues. He hadn’t addressed his feelings toward his stepmother, much less reflected on why he’d avoided his father as he lay dying of cancer. His lack of compassion seemed pathological. Davie hoped he had an epiphany at the retreat and finally found peace and tolerance, but she suspected he had a long way to go before he was granted absolution by any of the major religions, much less a starring role in a major motion picture.

  17

  When Davie returned to the station, she found her computer booted up and her chair ratcheted down so far it was like sitting in a pothole. Somebody had used her desk while she was away. At least the offender hadn’t exchanged her chair for a less agreeable one. Some detectives considered that a sacrilege and chained their chairs to the desk when they left to discourage such transgressions.

  Davie adjusted the chair and walked upstairs where she found Vaughn in the employee lunchroom, reading the Los Angeles Times and nursing his latte. She was used to brainstorming with him about their investigations, but she’d been working the Montaine case alone and missed the interaction.

  He looked up as she approached the table. “Your head looks like hell. I dated a makeup artist who could turn you into a Vogue model. Should I see if she’s still speaking to me?”

  “Thanks, Jason. You make me feel so special.”

  He gave her the thumbs-up sign. “I checked with the watch commander when I got here. Blue-suits found the kid’s bicycle abandoned a half mile from the projects. SID can’t check for prints until later this afternoon.”

  “I’m heading downtown in a few minutes to interview a PI about the Montaine case. You want to come along?”

  He folded up the newspaper and grabbed his latte. “I’m good to go, but better not ask too much of me until the caffeine kicks in.”

  She headed for the door. “I’ll consider myself forewarned.”

  Before talking to Natalie Salinas, Davie had searched for information on the woman. Salinas worked for Norton Investigations as a private investigator licensed by the State of California. The company leased office space in a downtown skyscraper near the Staples Center and the entertainment complex called L.A. Live.

  Salinas was just a year older than Davie—thirty-two—and had been a patrol officer for the Beverly Hills Police Department before joining the PI agency. There were a lot of cops Davie knew who did that kind of work on their days off or after they retired, but not many who left the job to work at it full-time. Unless you were lucky, the pay and benefits weren’t in your favor. There must be a story behind her decision. There always was.

  Norton’s website advertised a variety of services, including investigating personal-injury fraud, burglary, and theft, but also process service and catching cheating spouses in compromising positions. All the investigators had a background in law enforcement or the military. None of them were pictured on the site, for privacy and security reasons, she assumed. The company’s dozens of Yelp reviews were mostly five stars. Some of those happy clients praised the investigator who’d handled their case. None of them mentioned Salinas.

  On the drive downtown, Vaughn confessed that after his recent trip to Italy to visit his mother’s family, he’d been inspired to sign up for an Italian cooking class.

  “It’s going to make me irresistible to women,” he said. “If you’re extra nice to me, I might even invite you to my graduation dinner.”

  “I love Italian food.”

  He did a Groucho Marx eyebrow wiggle. “Marry me?”

  Davie laughed. “That would be wrong on so many levels.”

  He cocked his head and frowned. “You know I’m joking, right?”

  “Right.”

  Davie and Vaughn entered the fifth-floor office suite of Norton Investigations. She identified herself to the receptionist, a young woman with a criminology textbook on the desk in front of her, and asked to see Salinas. Vaughn hovered in the background, observing.

  “She’s meeting a new client in fifteen minutes,” the receptionist said in a gruff tone.

  Davie wondered if the woman was an intern studying for her fedora and trench coat degree. If so, she wasn’t going to survive training unless she adjusted her attitude.

  “Fifteen minutes is all we need,” Davie said.

  The young woman lowered her voice as she made the call.

  A few minutes later, Natalie Salinas strode into the reception area in a business suit with a thigh-high skirt and a silver cross necklace nestled in her cleavage. She moved with the confidence of a woman who knew she was beautiful and had no interest in hiding the fact. Her vise-like handshake was meant to compensate for her petite stature. Davie knew because she’d been guilty of using the technique herself. Out of the corner of her eye, Davie saw Vaughn straightening his posture and tie.

  “What can I do for you?” Salinas said, her full lips shimmering with ruby gloss.

  “I’m looking into the death of a woman named Sara Montaine,” Davie said. “I was hoping you might have information about the case.”

  Salinas glanced at the receptionist, checking to see if she was listening. “I can give you five minutes.”

  As Salinas turned toward the agency’s inner sanctum, her luminous dark hair swished across her back, settling at the L4-L5 vertebrae. Davie and Vaughn followed her down the hallway to a corporate office that was generic except for the stout California penal code tomes held between bookends on the credenza near
the window.

  Salinas sank into an oversized leather chair that seemed to swallow her whole. Vaughn leaned against a wall by the door. Without an invitation, Davie took a guest chair across from Salinas. She grabbed a business card from a leather holder on the desk. Under the name of the agency were the words thorough • trustworthy • discreet. Beneath that line was the name J.D. Norton, the owner of the company, Davie presumed. This wasn’t Salinas’s office. Davie wondered why she didn’t rate a space of her own. Another story, no doubt.

  “So, how can I help you?” Salinas said, glancing at her watch.

  “As I mentioned, I’m looking into the death of Sara Montaine. She died at Black Jack Guns & Ammo on Venice Boulevard a year ago. The store owner was a man named Jack Blasdel.”

  “Blasdel? Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “What about Gerda Pittman? Have you heard of her?”

  She fiddled with a strand of hair before answering. “Why are you asking?”

  “Pittman says she hired you to do a skip trace on Mr. Blasdel. Do you remember that job?”

  Salinas’s tone was guarded. “What did she tell you about me?”

  Davie flashed her a hard stare. “If the information isn’t accurate, maybe you can tell me what services you did provide?”

  She fidgeted in the chair. “I vaguely remember her, but that was some time ago. I can’t recall the details.”

  “How did Ms. Pittman find you?”

  “From the telephone book. We still advertise there because not all clients are computer savvy.”

  Davie sensed Vaughn standing behind her but he didn’t join in the questioning because he had only a general knowledge of the case. Davie was eager to hear his take on this interview.