Cold Blood

by Lynda La Plante

  *

  The following morning, after a hurried session on the word processor, they had what they felt looked like a reasonable folder, Lorraine giving full details of all her recommendations as a police lieutenant, listing the cases she had been involved with. They also included as part of Page Investigations’ team the experienced and dedicated ex-Captain William Rooney, recently retired from the Pasadena precinct.

  Rosie went off to deliver the freshly printed folder to the Caleys’ home in Beverly Hills. Lorraine sat in the empty office brooding over the new events. She had a couple of days before she had to give the store job a yes or a no so she didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t hang in there. Rosie may be right, they might be able to earn a few bucks, but she somehow doubted it.

  The buzzer on the office front door sounded as Bill Rooney wove in with an over-bright ‘Hi, you called, didn’t you? So as I was just passin’ . . .’

  ‘Oh yeah? Via which bar, Bill?’

  Rooney gave her the finger as he squashed himself into Rosie’s swivel chair. He looked unshaven and well hungover, his big, florid face and bulbous nose a shade of mulberry. One side of his shirt collar stuck up at an angle, and his tie was food-stained and pulled to one side; the seat of his pants was shiny, and the whole suit had a crumpled, worn-too-often look.

  ‘You look in good shape,’ Lorraine said, smiling.

  ‘I feel it, I feel real good. Lost half my pension on the PI agency I never got off the ground – in fact, I think the paint’s still wet on the door. Never was a businessman, never any good with figures, an’ the bastard that sold me the place must have seen me coming – he fuckin’ saw “sucker” written right across my forehead. I got a computer compatible with no one, least of all myself, a cock-eyed telephone system, and I had my mobile no more than half an hour before I lost it. I hadn’t gotten the insurance arranged, so I got no cover, an’ now I can’t sell the equipment for what I paid for it. So, I don’t know about passing any overflow cases to you, I’m looking around for myself, business pretty thin on the ground. You got much going?’

  He looked over the office and smiled. ‘I see business is flourishing, can hardly hear myself talk for the sound of telephones ringing!’

  ‘Very witty, considering your own fiasco.’ Lorraine fetched some clean mugs and prepared coffee. Rooney had glossed over the fact that he had been in no shape to run an agency – with Ellen dying, and making arrangements for her funeral, he had been in a deep depression for weeks. Lorraine felt sorry for him, as for all his bluff manner he was probably lonely, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he leaned on Rosie’s desk and looked at the new Page Investigations Agency folder.

  ‘Makes interesting reading. I like the way you skim over the missing years, sweetheart. Readin’ this it’s as if you left the Force with glowing recommendations instead of out the back door on your ass.’

  ‘Yeah, your section reads pretty good too.’ She banged down the mugs.

  Rooney laughed as he read about himself and then he let the folder drop. ‘I tell you Ellen passed on?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yep, went to collect her urn. I said to the guy, how can I be sure these are my wife’s ashes? I mean, I know it’s the urn I ordered but you could’ve filled it with any crap.’ Rooney shook his head as he continued. ‘“It’s your wife, Mr Rooney sir, you see her name is on it!” Fucking crazy, whole life and it’s packed into one tiny brass jar this size.’ He indicated with his hands and then rubbed his face. ‘She was in the kitchen, cooking. Her radio was on, always had her radio playing, used to drive me nuts. And she fell, I heard her sort of thump to the floor.’

  Lorraine poured water into the percolator. He didn’t seem to be talking to her or to care particularly if she was listening.

  ‘She was lying on the floor, still with a wooden spoon in her hand, and she had this sort of look of surprise on her face. She was dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bill.’ Lorraine leaned on the cloakroom door.

  ‘Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, I know I’ve not been easy to live with. I’ve not even cleared her clothes out yet, hadda move into the spare bedroom. It’s like any minute she’s gonna call me, tell me food’s on the table. I dunno what to do with myself, Lorraine, I’m goin’ nuts. The house is quiet, I even miss her goddamned radio.’

  ‘Don’t you still see all the guys down the station?’

  ‘No. I did for a while but you know the way it is, once you’re outside it, you’re an outsider. Old drinking bars don’t feel right any more, they all talkin’ about this or that case and I gotta be honest, it’s all high-tech nowadays, you know, everything’s computerized, breeds a different kind of cop.’

  Lorraine went to his side and patted his big, wide shoulder. He gripped her hand for a moment.

  ‘I’m not in the way, am I?’

  She felt sorry for him so she punched him lightly. ‘Like you said, we’re not exactly rushed off our feet. I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out for all of us.’

  Rosie stormed in.

  ‘What a place, it’s like a palace, I’ve never seen nothin’ like it . . . gardeners and servants, and the grounds are like some showpiece, ferns and flowers and swimming pools, two pools, and pool houses, and tennis courts and . . . Hi, Bill, how ya doin’? I was real sorry to hear about your wife.’

  Rooney rose to his feet. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You ever heard of a movie star called Elizabeth Seal?’

  Rooney nodded. ‘Sure, used to have the hots for her.’

  Rosie turned, pointing to Lorraine. ‘See? I told you she was famous. Well, that’s where I just come from, Elizabeth Seal’s home, like some kinda palace.’

  Lorraine passed coffee to Rooney and indicated a mug to Rosie.

  ‘I’ll have one,’ Rosie said as she took off her light coat. ‘They even got an English butler, I’m not kiddin’ and a maid. They left me in the hallway a while until Phyllis came down. It’s enormous, the hall, like you could roller-blade around it. They got some cash, reeks of it, got paintings worth millions, I’d say. These old movie stars sure know how to live in style.’

  Lorraine poured Rosie a coffee. ‘Did Phyllis say anything about us working for them?’

  ‘Nah, she just took the envelope, thanked me for coming round and said she’d see me at the meeting day after tomorrow. Never even offered me so much as a glass of water. To be honest she seemed edgy, know what I mean? Kept looking over her shoulder . . . Maybe we should have sent it by courier.’

  ‘Elizabeth Seal, I remember her,’ Rooney said, closing his eyes. ‘She’s originally from New Orleans, starred in a movie called Swamp somethin’ or other, while back. She was real sexy . . .’

  Rosie nodded and began to list Elizabeth Seal’s later films. Lorraine sat at her own desk with her coffee. Rooney frowned as he listened to Rosie, then nodded his head.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember now, she was all over the papers a while back, somethin’ about a girl – kidnapped, wasn’t she?’ Rooney was pinching his nose, trying to recall what he’d read about the case.

  ‘I said it made all the press, didn’t I?’ Rosie was nodding and beaming.

  ‘Her daughter, her body was never found?’ Rooney pondered.

  ‘Right, and they are still trying to find her. But it wasn’t here in Hollywood, it was in New Orleans. She went missing there, didn’t she?’

  Rosie pointed. ‘Yes, disappeared into thin air. She went there with her parents during Mardi Gras. She goes out and is never seen again.’

  Rooney chewed his lip and then looked at Lorraine. ‘I think a friend of mine, Jim Sharkey, handled the case here . . . all comin’ back to me.’

  ‘Lorraine didn’t even know who Elizabeth Seal is,’ Rosie interjected.

  The phone rang, making Rooney jump as he was sitting on the edge of the desk closest to it. Rosie answered, feeling very superior by now.

  ‘Page Investigations.’ She then commenced a waving pantomime to Lorrai
ne, gesturing towards her desk and her phone. ‘Would you hold one moment and I will see if Mrs Page is free to take your call.’ Rosie covered the phone with her hand and took a deep breath. ‘Elizabeth Caley, line one!’

  CHAPTER 2

  LORRAINE CHECKED her appearance. Her tan shoes looked scuffed so she kicked them off and Rosie was ready with polish and a brush. Rooney would drive her to the Caley house, not only saving money on a cab but, as an ex-captain of the Pasadena Homicide Squad, his presence might add extra weight to Page Investigations Agency.

  Rooney had jumped at the opportunity of filling up his empty days and had tracked down a few back issues of the papers that had run the story about the missing Caley girl. He had also used his police contacts to try to get further details from the officers that had been overseeing the case. Jim Sharkey, the officer heading the LA side of the investigation, had not been very helpful; Rooney reckoned he’d have to take him out and give him a night on the town to gain any decent information. But Rooney did have something regarding the private investigators that had already been hired – and it was an impressive list. Lorraine adamantly refused to allow him to begin digging up anything from the agencies as she felt it might all be a waste of time. They didn’t have finances to fritter away; they didn’t have finances, period. She gave herself one final check-over. Rosie finished polishing her shoes and then they heard the blast of a car horn from the street as Rooney arrived to collect Lorraine.

  He had made an effort: his shirt looked as if it had come straight out of the wrapping paper, with two large creases adorning the front, and his tie had flakes of cigarette ash, but not the usual breakfast stains, Lorraine was relieved to note.

  ‘Rosie not coming with us?’ he asked as he pushed open the passenger door of his Hyundai.

  ‘Nope, no need to overplay it. Just you and me.’

  ‘Fine. I drove by their place last night, impressive. It’s a mile past the Bel Air Hotel. In fact, it’s so impressive I almost hadda double-check it wasn’t a hotel.’

  ‘Yep,’ Lorraine said. ‘So, how you reckon we play it?’

  Rooney drove carefully, wearing his shades as the mid-January sun was so strong it already felt like summer. ‘Let ’em do most of the talking, we sit and listen. We don’t have to do a hard sell, well, not to begin with. Don’t look good. We don’t want to look desperate.’

  Lorraine nodded, staring out of the window.

  ‘What you make of it?’ he asked nonchalantly.

  Lorraine leaned back against the seat, eyes closed. ‘Well, from what I’ve read in those newspapers you got it sounds to me as if it was maybe a kidnap case that went wrong – no note, no ransom . . . she’s probably dead a long while. What do you make of it?’

  Rooney headed off the San Diego Freeway, the 405, then on to the Sunset Boulevard turn-off heading towards Beverly Hills.

  ‘Well, as far as I can make out, the kid didn’t seem the type to go off with any kind of rough trade. She knew the area, been there many times, parents have homes there. Maybe she went freely, but it was Mardi Gras so who knows . . . If we get the case we’ll get to know more details from New Orleans. Can’t do much this end, guys in LA just covered statements, you know, from family and associates, to see if there was a possible link to the case back here.’

  ‘Was there?’

  ‘Not as far as I know, they got fuck-all here.’

  ‘No ransom note,’ Lorraine repeated to herself. She remained deep in thought for another ten minutes or so as they drove on, then she opened her eyes. ‘Remember that case, 1986, young girl disappeared, turned up eighteen months later in Las Vegas as a show girl? The family really thought she’d be found dead, instead she was found wearing a G-string and her new silicone tits decorated with a few sequins.’

  Rooney shook his head. ‘Nope, don’t remember it.’ He stopped at traffic lights, then turned into Beverly Hills. Lorraine lit a cigarette, puffing it alight from the car’s dashboard lighter.

  ‘Reason I remember it is because of the time it took tracing her, eighteen months. If they want us on this, we gotta think about how long it takes tracing anyone, alive or dead,’ Lorraine said thoughtfully.

  Rooney reached out to the glove compartment and, flicking it open, handed Lorraine an envelope. ‘They’re a sort of guideline of expenses. Pal gimme them a while back, you know, when I first thought about bein’ a dick for hire, useful information. If we get the job we got to know how much to ask for. Check ’em out.’

  Lorraine skimmed over the notes and tucked the sheets back into the envelope; she’d already had a good idea how much to ask for, but nowhere near what some of the agencies were charging for their high-tech equipment, from bugging and tracking devices to computerized files and camcorders.

  ‘We’ll undercut those other agencies but give the same crap about our high-tech gear. We don’t wanna come on cheap.’ She replaced the envelope and snapped the glove compartment closed on seeing the stashed bottle of bourbon.

  ‘Right,’ Rooney grunted as they drove past the high hedgerows and the ornate houses patrolled by security guards with dogs at electronically barred gates. ‘Some of these places remind you of a prison?’ he asked, and Lorraine laughed softly.

  ‘No way, man. If you’d been banged up, no way you’d describe these millionaires’ mansions as prisons.’

  They reached a small roundabout with an arrow sign pointing to the Bel Air Hotel. They turned left, passing the Bel Air, and continued up the quiet road.

  Rooney slowed down. ‘Next house on the left.’ He noticed she straightened up in her seat, pulling her jacket down. She looked great, and, compared to his bulky, unhealthy body, she looked fit. Amazing, considering the punishment she’d heaped on herself. Her resilience constantly amazed him, and he admired her for it. Not long ago she had been arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy, but she’d come a long way since then.

  He swung the car in front of the gates, opening his window to a blast of hot air. ‘Shit, it’s hot. Weather’s crazy, one second it’s pissing down, the next they’re saying it’s going to be way up in the seventies today.’ He reached out to press the intercom and announced their arrival.

  The gates remained closed for a couple of minutes, then eased smoothly open. From the entrance the house could not be seen but the plush gardens were even more exotic than Rosie had described. They were like a hothouse jungle of ferns and carefully planted screens of evergreens, with palms of every shape and size covering each side of the pale gravel drive. They drove slowly past tennis courts, manicured lawns and flower-beds blazing with colour where water-sprinklers ensured they flourished in all the seasons. The water-spraying jets spinning in a wide arc gave the garden a hazy, surreal quality. Not until they turned a wide bend in the drive did the house itself come into view. The white pillars of the three-storey Southern-style house were reminiscent of something out of Gone with the Wind – any moment one expected Scarlett O’Hara to come running down the white stone steps saying, ‘Why, I do declare.’ But there was no Scarlett. Instead, a butler in a black suit and white waistcoat stood poised at the ornately carved front doors.

  ‘Rosie said it was some place.’ Lorraine was in awe.

  ‘Money,’ muttered Rooney.

  A manservant appeared as if from nowhere to open the passenger door for Lorraine. She hesitated a moment before she stepped out and noticed that Rooney had broken out in a sweat by the time they began walking up the steps.

  ‘Good morning, would you please follow me, Mrs Page, Mr Rooney?’ said the butler stiffly. He was English, his frozen face devoid of any expression as he gestured for them to go ahead of him into the hall. The white marble floor was so polished it glittered, light sparkling on the surface as they followed the butler towards closed, ceiling-high white and gold-embossed double doors leading off to the right of the hall.

  ‘Mrs Caley will join you directly,’ the butler said as he gestured for them to head into the room. White sofas with white frilled scatter cushions
in satin and silks were everywhere, and everything was white on white with a gold embroidery finish. The white silk Japanese wallpaper had faint outlines of shimmering birds, and hanging between the impressive gilt mirrors on every wall were large oil paintings of Elizabeth Caley in all her many movie roles.

  ‘Ah, I remember her in that one,’ murmured Rooney as he stared at a painting. ‘The Swamp, it was called, and she danced with a big snake.’

  ‘May I offer you any refreshments?’ the butler asked as if he’d just smelt something bad.

  Lorraine asked for a glass of water. Rooney would have liked a beer but he shrugged. ‘Fine for me too, just water.’

  The austere butler departed and they were able to have a good look around the white palace, almost afraid to sit and disturb the carefully arrayed cushions. Rooney chose a white Louis XV chair, not that he had any notion it was the real McCoy. Only after he’d eased himself down into it did he worry that he might be too heavy for its spindly legs.

  Lorraine looked around the room, noting the many beautifully framed photographs of a young girl. She gestured to one. ‘This must be the daughter.’ She looked towards the doorway and then moved closer to inspect a photograph. The girl was exceptionally pretty, with waist-length natural blonde hair, a small, up-tilted nose and wide pale eyes.

  Lorraine sat down in the centre of the vast white sofa, sinking so low into it that she felt self-conscious: her weight had disturbed the carefully arranged scatter-cushions, which tumbled inwards.

  ‘I don’t suppose I could light a cigarette,’ she said almost to herself, looking over the white marble-top coffee table with its carefully placed objects, all either bronze or gold. None resembled an ashtray. She stared down at her shoes, almost hidden by the dense white pile of the carpet, and worried that Rosie’s quick brush might have left a smear of brown boot polish. She looked up as the clink of ice cubes could be heard.

  A maid in a black dress with a white pinafore entered with a tray of iced waters, fizzy, still, with lemon, all in tall crystal glasses in silver and gold containers. Lorraine could barely hide a smile as Rooney murmured his thanks and his chair creaked ominously. The maid passed each of them the water of their choice and then put the tray down. As she returned to the door, Phyllis appeared.