The carpet was marked near the window by a number of dust footprints, more than likely from the police and the medics that had removed the body, and some faint, washed-out brown stains, already dry, which could have been coffee or perhaps, as is usual in suicides by hanging, Tilda’s bowels might have opened and the mess been cleaned up. There was no other sign that anything untoward had occurred in the room; even the curtain rail Tilda had hanged herself from remained in position, and the dressing-table stool, covered in white fabric with silver upholstery buttons like out-size sequins, was back in place in front of the triptych mirrors.
Mrs Dubois stood in the open doorway, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes to try to stop herself from weeping.
‘You don’t have to stay with me,’ Lorraine said softly.
‘Thank you.’ Mrs Dubois turned away, just as Lorraine saw the white bear resting on the pillows of the bed. ‘Oh, just one thing, Mrs Dubois.’ Lorraine picked it up, sure it was similar to the white fluffy bears she had seen lined up on Anna Louise’s bed. ‘Do you know where Tilda got this bear from?’
Mrs Dubois swallowed, her brow puckering.
‘It’s just that Anna Louise had the same bears, and I wondered who gave it to Tilda.’
Mrs Dubois shook her head. ‘I really don’t know, it’s been there quite a while, I think. I recall seeing it before . . . it’s a Polar bear, is it?’
‘Polar,’ Lorraine said softly.
‘Yes, that’s what she called it, Polar.’
Mrs Dubois began to weep again and excused herself as Lorraine replaced the bear on the pillow. As soon as she was alone she drew back the covers and felt beneath the pillows, the sheets and the mattress, getting to her knees to look beneath the heavy woven cotton bedspread, but there was nothing hidden in the bed or underneath it.
Lorraine made a slow tour of the neat bedroom, sitting at the dressing table and opening each drawer. Some contained underwear, lingerie, all very expensive items folded with tissue paper placed between the garments. Even the rolled-up tennis socks were lined up like balls. In the closets, Tilda had as extensive a wardrobe as Anna Louise’s and rows of shoe boxes. Lorraine bent down, wondering if she would get lucky twice, that any personal mementoes might have been hidden in the same way Anna Louise kept hers, but she found nothing other than shoes. She recalled the room she herself had had as a teenager, full of junk, books and magazines, cards stuck and pasted to the shabby wallpaper, and all the pictures of the rock stars and movie stars she’d had the hots for. But it was clear that in Anna Louise’s and Tilda’s rooms their parents’ decorators’ taste predominated, and they had hardly a knick-knack of their own, apart from the somehow pitiful soft toys. Even the display of cosmetics and perfumes was more fitting for a much older woman; Tilda’s creams in the immaculate bathroom were for dry skin and wrinkles, intensive moisturizers, serums and chemical peels. Nothing was used – everything down to the toothbrush looked brand new.
Lorraine sighed. A girl had hanged herself inside this whiter than white, innocent room, but there was no sign of the tragedy, no sense of who Tilda Brown was. She closed her eyes, trying to remember their conversation. According to Tilda, Anna Louise was jealous of anyone being shown any affection by her father: had Robert Caley given the girls the white polar bears? Was that the reason she used the name Polar on her secret messages? Was that who the Valentine cards and birthday gifts were from? Did Robert Caley use the name Polar?
Lorraine picked up one of the tennis racquets stacked neatly in a row in the closet Tilda had set aside for her sport and ski equipment. Even if Robert Caley did sign himself Polar, what did that matter now? Even if he had been sexually abusing Anna Louise or having willing intercourse with her, she was not his own flesh and blood.
Lorraine leaned forward and replaced the racquet alongside the row of others. She glanced at one racquet, whose cover bulged slightly on one side – perhaps a pair of socks? Lorraine drew back the zipper and felt inside. Her fingers touched a package of some kind and she took it out. The newspaper-wrapped package was about eight inches long, string wrapped tightly around it. Lorraine sat on the dressing-table stool, carefully untying the knot, then unwinding the string. She put it to one side and placed the package on to the mirrored dressing table, moving aside mother of pearl-backed combs and brushes.
The paper, she noted, was dated February 15, the year missing where the newspaper had been torn across. It was also dirty, stained with what looked like mud, some of the print smudged. She eased the paper away from the contents and almost dropped it, springing up from the stool with shock because of the horrible smell. Urine and human faeces were caked around a doll, whose trunk, arms and legs were made of crudely stuffed and tied sacking wound round with wool. It had a white dress, equally crudely hand-stitched, made from what looked like an old piece of T-shirt. The head was cheap plastic, like the head of a Barbie doll, and glued on to the face was a picture of Tilda. An ordinary dressmaker’s pin was stuck through the left eye of the doll, protruding right through the back of the head. When Lorraine turned it over there were two or three long blonde hairs and what appeared to be dried specks of blood attached to a tiny, pinkish-brown fragment of skin tied to the torso with cross-bands of wool.
‘Mrs Page,’ called out Helen Dubois, and Lorraine quickly rewrapped the doll and put it in her briefcase just before the door opened.
‘I think perhaps you should go. Mrs and Mrs Brown have the chaplain coming to arrange the funeral, and . . .’
‘It’s all right, I was just leaving.’
The driver started the engine as soon as he saw Lorraine emerge from the house. She sat back in the hot, stuffy car, slowly rolling down one of the windows. She could smell the doll in her briefcase, so she pushed it away from her. She didn’t want to take it out, didn’t want to handle it again unless there was soap and water handy. She washed her hands as soon as she got back to her hotel room, over and over again. Then she dried them, sniffing at them, and stared at the wrapped parcel.
‘Lorraine? Are you in there?’ It was Rosie.
Lorraine let her in, turning straight back towards the bed. ‘You will not believe what I found at Tilda Brown’s place, it’s already stinking out the room, and . . .’
Rosie was red-eyed from weeping, clutching a big white handkerchief. ‘Lorraine . . . I’ve got something to tell you.’
She knew something was wrong when the big, bulky figure of Rooney walked in behind Rosie and quietly closed the door.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ She could feel her legs shaking.
Rooney didn’t mean it to come out so bluntly but there was no other way. ‘It’s Nick, he’s dead, Lorraine.’
Her face drained of colour. She looked at Rosie, back to Rooney, hoping it was some kind of a joke, but she knew it wasn’t by the expression on their faces. She felt for the end of the bed and sat down, trying to keep calm and steady.
‘How did it happen?’
Rooney helped Rosie to sit down. ‘He was murdered, throat cut. The cops found him in an alley early this morning, no wallet, no ID on him, and he was taken to the city morgue. They haven’t done an autopsy yet.’
Rooney gestured helplessly. ‘The only identifying mark was a tattoo of the LAPD badge on his arm, lot of them had it done when they were rookies.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said softly. ‘Jack Lubrinski had one, wasn’t on his arm though, it was on his butt.’
Lorraine’s lips trembled and she clenched her teeth, needing to be alone. ‘You mind giving me a few minutes by myself, just want to be on my own for a while.’
Rooney nodded and took Rosie’s arm. ‘Sure, you give us a call when you want us.’ He knew intuitively that it was better to leave, but Rosie hung back.
‘Just go, Rosie. Come on, sweetheart.’ He pushed her towards the door and closed it behind them, leaving Lorraine still standing motionless, her hands clenched by her sides.
Rosie turned on him in the hall. ‘God, she’s a cold-he
arted bitch, imagine even talking about that guy Lubrinski, I mean, Nick, Nick’s . . .’ Rosie began to sob and Rooney put his arm around her and supported her down the corridor.
‘She didn’t show any feelings about him at all,’ Rosie wept, but Rooney knew different: he’d been a cop too long not to recognize that look on someone’s face, often followed by a joke or some casual comment, anything to conceal the blow to the heart. Lorraine would weep for Nick, he knew that, but not in front of anyone else. She would try to come to terms with Nick’s death in her own way, the way he knew too, privately – you never wanted to show anyone the pain.
Lorraine splashed cold water on her face, still dry-eyed and shocked, still not really registering the fact that she wouldn’t see Nick again. She whispered his name, over and over again, half-questioningly, as she patted her face dry, and then walked into the bedroom and looked first at the bed where she had been sleeping when he woke her, then at the bed opposite where he had sat. She lay down on her own bed, curled up facing the empty one, wanting to reach out to him as though he were still there.
‘Nick?’ she whispered again. ‘Oh, Nick . . .’ she repeated, and then the tears came, her face crumpling like a child’s as she wept for Nick Bartello, lovely and crazy as he had been. She wept until she was exhausted, cried out, and then sat with her head in her hands.
It was then she caught sight of the bottle of vodka he had left. It had fallen on its side and rolled just beneath the bed. She stared at it, unable to look away, and it drew her like a magnet until she got down on her knees to retrieve it. She held it in her hands, examining the bottle, almost caressing it, and then slowly unscrewed the cap. Just one drink: she just needed the one to get herself back together and be able to work. Just the one and she’d be able to put the bottle away. She was sure of it.
CHAPTER 14
ROONEY ARRANGED for Nick’s body to be sent home when the autopsy was finished. He had . called Nick’s sister to tell her the news and she had been silent and uncommunicative, but had said she would bury him and gave Rooney the address in downtown LA. Not until the end of the call did she ask how he had been killed. Her voice broke just a fraction when Rooney told her.
‘Lenny was always getting himself into trouble.’
‘Lenny?’ repeated Rooney, confused.
‘Yes, he called himself Nick, but we, the family, always use his middle name, Lenny, well, Leonardo. Er, just one thing, Mr Rooney – we can’t take his dog.’
‘That’s okay, I’ll see to the dog.’ They had nothing more to say to each other, so he paid his condolences and replaced the phone.
‘I’ll take care of Tiger,’ Lorraine had said quietly. Rooney had nodded and then excused himself. She knew he needed to cry, and he did, leaning up against the elevator, returning later to force them all to get on with the job.
Lorraine drank from a can of Coke, seemingly more preoccupied with getting the day’s work started than discussing Nick, and her apparent lack of emotion confused and worried Rosie. Rooney had warned her to leave Lorraine alone, and not to ask her questions, but Rosie couldn’t stop looking at her: Lorraine’s face was chalk-white and her eyes red-rimmed, but that apart, she seemed almost over-bright.
‘Rosie, will you quit gawping at me all the time,’ she snapped.
‘I’m just wondering if you are all right.’
‘I’m fine, Rosie – now how about we get back to the reason we’re all here?’
They discussed the hideous, rotting doll, and then Rosie wrapped it in two newspapers and stuffed it into a drawer. Lorraine did not have any energy to interview anyone, but she knew she would have to speak to Elizabeth and Robert Caley. They also discussed the importance of Fryer Jones’s arrest and release, and his implication in some way with the disappearance of Anna Louise, but Rosie and Rooney would not allow Lorraine to go alone to his bar. Nick had been murdered a few blocks from there, and if there was a connection they would have to find out. Nick’s stupidity in going off alone made them angry, as now they had no idea where he had been or who he had spoken to. But their anger did nothing to ease their grief.
Rosie pulled a face at the smell coming from Lorraine’s briefcase as she withdrew the video of The Swamp and knelt down to slot it into the video recorder she had persuaded the receptionist to lend them from the lounge downstairs.
Lorraine drew the curtains and perched on one bed as Rooney and Rosie sat on the other. She saw him give her a gentle pat and lean in close. ‘You all right, darlin’?’
Rosie nodded, returning his pat of comfort, making Lorraine feel excluded, but she ignored it as the film began. It was faded like some old sixties Technicolor film. Even the old Columbia Studios logo was fuzzy and the music was sliding badly. The pre-film script made them all lean forward.
‘This film has carefully researched the life and times of the voodoo queen Marie Laveau, who arrived in New Orleans in the early nineteenth century.’
The film was tedious, it took a long time for the actual plot to unfold. Despite the faint picture and blurred lines across the print, Elizabeth Seal was certainly a great beauty, and her dance with a live snake was the high point of the first twenty minutes.
‘They really did a good job of her make-up, she really does look black,’ Rosie murmured. The film rolled on, the plot at times very confused. Even though the film spanned more than one generation and everyone else became grey and wizened, the star remained looking about twenty throughout. Even when they laid her body in her coffin she looked young and beautiful, whereas the real Marie Laveau had lived into her eighties. It really was a Hollywood-style distortion of the true facts.
The end titles began to roll and Rosie picked up the controls to switch it off when Lorraine shouted, ‘Wait, wait! Roll it back, Rosie, STOP!’
They looked at the last section of the artists’ credits, and under the group heading of ‘SNAKE CHARM DANCERS’ were two very familiar names, Juda and Edith Salina, and under the group of ‘VOODOO PRIESTS’ they found the name of Fryer Jones.
Rosie turned off the TV and opened the curtains, while Lorraine picked up a fresh can of Coke and opened it on her way to the bathroom. There, she poured part of its contents down the toilet, and then topped it up with Nick Bartello’s vodka before returning to the bedroom. She sat down, drinking from the can, her foot tapping.
‘Well, I’ve got my energy back. I want to talk to Elizabeth Caley this afternoon . . .’
Rooney puffed out his breath. ‘You want me with you?’
‘No. We need to get to Juda Salina’s sister, you got an address, Rosie?’
‘No, not yet, I was about to when . . .’ She was about to say Nick’s name but covered fast. ‘She’s not listed in the phone directory but I got a directory of clairvoyants, voodoo advisers and experts from the museum. She may be in that, I haven’t checked.’
‘Do it, but you don’t go near her until I’m back. From now on we stick together, report in frequently, and if we move on, we give time and location.’
Rooney looked pissed, and Lorraine turned to face him. ‘Bill, I handled the Caley situation badly. In an interview with Lloyd Dulay, I said things I shouldn’t have done without checking the facts first. So I have to see him alone and apologize.’
‘Okay, you know what you’re doing.’
‘Not always, Bill, and I was out of line with Caley.’
‘Well, you got results.’
‘Yes, I did.’ She hesitated. ‘Nick gets murdered, Tilda Brown commits suicide. I got those results all right because I was angry and tired out, tired because I had been up all night screwing Caley.’
‘What, are you serious? You fucked Robert Caley?’
‘Yes, yes, I did.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Rosie said, astonished.
‘Well, it’s true, and it was a dumb move to make, but . . .’ She gave a glum smile, and lifted her shoulders in an apologetic gesture. ‘Couldn’t help myself. So the next day I was so determined to find out if he was a susp
ect or not, I went at it like a bat out of hell.’
‘Nick was right then? He suggested you do it, and it got results.’
Lorraine turned away. ‘No, Bill, Nick was wrong. I didn’t fuck him for information, I did it because I wanted him. Now excuse me, I need a shower.’
She closed her bathroom door, and Rosie snatched up her notes, her face set rigid. Rooney reached for his jacket and made for the door.
‘That’s it, is it?’ Rosie said angrily.
He turned surprised. ‘What?’
Rosie put her hands on her hips. ‘We just accept it, say nothing? She sleeps with our client. The guy hired us, Bill, and she gets fucked by him. Oh, that is really very professional, really good work. Gets laid so hard that the next night she crashes out early and Nick goes it alone and gets killed?’
‘Rosie,’ Rooney warned, glancing towards the bathroom.
‘I don’t care if she does hear me, I am disgusted, disgusted!’
‘Don’t be.’
‘Why the hell not? Now she’s going to see his wife, what if she finds out, what do you think will happen? We’ll lose that bonus. I am through taking orders from that slut.’
Rooney opened the door and walked out into the corridor. ‘Come on, Rosie, she got the information on the trust fund and she might not have if she hadn’t gone through that connecting door.’ He stopped and turned back with a half-smile. ‘We don’t have one, do we?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Closing the door with a bang, she caught up with him at the elevator. ‘Was that a cack-handed come-on, Bill?’ Rosie glowered.
‘Hell, no. It was just a joke.’ He stepped into the elevator. ‘I wouldn’t make an indecent proposal to you, Rosie, I’ve more respect.’
The elevator door closed, and he pressed for their floor. They stood in silence as the elevator stopped and they stepped out into the hallway. Rosie’s door was first, and she was determined to open it without even looking at Rooney, but he placed his big hand on the handle.
Cold Blood Page 33
