“He’s a pretty careful guy. Is there any message you’d like me to give him? About which building had the break-in?”
“Thanks, but it would be better if we spoke directly.”
“Okay,” said Bogard. “I’ll tell him you were here.”
“No idea at all when he’ll be back?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say late afternoon. If he comes back at all. You never know, with Sonny.”
Milo gave her a card, and said, “In case we don’t catch him today, please have him call.”
“Sure.” Cheryl Bogard returned to her cubicle, placed the card in front of her, looked up, and waved.
Milo started to leave, then changed his mind, went over to her, said something, listened to her reply.
As we stepped out into the hall, I said, “What did you ask her?”
“What was in the bag.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms, Almond Joy. Ol’ Sonny brings candy for the girls. She said they were all watching their weight, ate very little of it. He finishes off what’s left.”
CHAPTER
28
A block up from Sonny Koppel’s corporate headquarters was a coffee shop with a forties-era starship poised for takeoff atop an aqua metal roof. Milo and I sat at the empty counter, sucked in the aroma of eggs crackling in grease, and ordered coffee from a waitress old enough to be our mother.
He cell-phoned DMV. The address on Edward Albert Koppel’s driver’s license was the building we’d just visited. He’d registered four cars: the Buick, a five-year-old Cutlass, a seven-year-old Chevy, and an eleven-year-old Dodge.
“Buys American,” I said.
“You saw him,” he said. “You figure Mary Lou would go for a guy like that?”
“They were married years ago, when he was in law school,” I said. “Maybe he looked different.”
“The Candy Man . . . his secretary sure seemed wholesome.” He gulped down his coffee, drummed his fingers on the counter. “Kindly boss, noble patriot, all-around unpretentious guy . . . if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, right? Ready to go?”
“Where to?”
“You’re going home, and I’m back to the Quicks’ for that toss of Gavin’s room. Did you have a chance to check the psych licensing board on Franco Gull?”
“Clean,” I said.
“That so? Well, maybe Gavin didn’t think so, and look what happened to him.”
*
It was two days before I heard from him again. Ned Biondi hadn’t called, and my thoughts had drifted away from murders.
Robin came by and picked up Spike. Despite the two days of bonding, he reverted to instant disdain for me at the sight of her Ford pickup. Running to Robin as she crouched in the driveway, leaping into her arms, making her laugh.
She thanked me for babysitting and handed me a small blue gift box.
“Not necessary.”
“I appreciate the help, Alex.”
“How was Aspen?”
“Mean-looking men with bubble blond arm candy, lots of dead animal pelts, the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen.” She played with an earring. Spike sat obediently at her feet.
“Anyway,” she said.
When she moved in to kiss my cheek, I pretended not to notice, and pivoted in a way that made me unavailable.
I heard the truck door close. Robin was at the wheel, looking puzzled as she started up the engine.
I waved.
She returned the wave, hesitantly. Spike began licking her face, and she drove away.
I opened the blue box. Sterling cuff links, shaped like tiny guitars.
*
When Milo finally called, I was getting out of the shower. “Mr. and Mrs. Quick appear to have taken a vacation. The house is locked up tight. Her van’s there, but his car isn’t, and a neighbor said she saw them loading suitcases.”
“Taking some time off,” I said.
“I need to get into that room. I called the sister—Paxton—but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. Onward to Mr. Sonny Koppel. He may drive old cars and dress like a slob, but it’s not due to poverty. Guy has title to over two hundred parcels of real estate. Commercial and residential rentals, four counties, just like his girl said.”
“Definitely a tycoon,” I said.
“He’s also got all sorts of holding companies and limited corporations as shields. It’s taken me this long to winnow through the basics. This guy’s big-time, Alex, and from what I can tell he likes to partner with the government.”
“Federal?”
“Federal, state, county. A lot of his holdings seem to be cofinanced by public funds. We’re talking low-cost housing projects, senior citizen residences, landmark buildings, assisted care. And guess what: halfway houses for parolees. Including the one on Sixth Street where Roland Kristof crashes. The state legislature says we have to pay for the board and care of felonious individuals, and Koppel’s cleaning up.”
“Public-spirited,” I said.
“It’s a great arrangement. Find some building or construction project that’s eligible for bond money or a grant, split your costs with John Q, take all the income. In terms of Koppel’s background, all I can find is that he did his undergrad work and law school at the U. But he never practiced, and I can’t locate any record of his taking the bar. Somehow he got bankrolled and built up an empire.”
“Is the office building where Pacifica practices a government deal?”
“Doesn’t seem to be,” he said. “But not because it’s in Beverly Hoohah. Koppel owns two B.H. properties—a senior residence hotel on Crescent Drive and a shopping center on La Cienega—that were financed with tax bucks. The hotel qualifies for an HUD gift and the strip mall got a FEMA grant because the stores that stood there before were earthquake-damaged.”
“He knows how to work the system,” I said.
“He works it well. The only time his name appears on court documents is when he sues someone or someone sues him. Mostly the former—back-rent and eviction cases. Once in a while he gets tagged with a slip-and-fall by a tenant. Sometimes he settles, sometimes he fights. When he fights, he wins. He distributes his business among eight different law firms, all downtown, all white-shoe. But get this: He doesn’t even live in a house, let alone a mansion. His primary residence—and it was hard to find—is an apartment on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills. Which sounds nice, but it’s not one of the fancy condos, just an old building, kind of shabby, six units. One of Koppel’s limited partnerships owns the place, and Koppel lives in a two-bedroom at the back. The manager doesn’t even know her tenant’s really her boss, because she referred to Koppel as ‘the heavy guy, real quiet’ and said the owners were some Persians who lived in Brentwood. On several of his rentals, Koppel hires a couple named Fahrizad to serve as his front.”
“Elusive fellow,” I said.
“Let’s challenge that.”
*
Sonny Koppel’s stretch of Maple Drive lay between Beverly Boulevard and Civic Center Drive. Mixed-use neighborhood, the west side filled by a granite-clad behemoth that served as Mercedes Benz headquarters, a high-profile, extravagantly landscaped office complex that catered to entertainment lawyers and film agents, and construction dust from a fulminating high-rise.
Across the street were two-story apartment buildings, souvenirs of the postwar building boom. Koppel’s was one of the dingiest examples, an off-gray traditional with a cheap composite roof. Three upstairs units, three down, a scratchy lawn, struggling shrubs.
Koppel’s Buick was parked in back, squeezed into one of the half dozen slots in the open carport. We cruised and found each of Koppel’s other cars parked within two blocks, each with Beverly Hills street parking permits that were up-to-date.
An Olds, a Chevy, a Dodge. Gray, gray, dark green. Lots of dust on the first two. The Dodge had been washed recently. I idled the Seville as Milo got out and examined each vehicle. Empty.
I parked, and we headed for Koppel’s build
ing.
*
Sonny Koppel answered the door palming popcorn out of a chartreuse plastic bowl. The fragrance brought to mind the theater-lobby smell of Pacifica’s building. Before Milo had his badge out, Koppel nodded as if he’d been expecting us and beckoned us in. He wore a royal blue U. sweatshirt over plaid pajama bottoms and fuzzy brown slippers.
Five-eight, 270 at least, with a melon gut and thinning reddish brown hair that frizzed above a high, glossy pate. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his stubble looked like dandruff. Saggy blue eyes, pendulous lips, short, thick limbs, beefy hands with stubby nails.
Behind him, an old nineteen-inch RCA TV blared financial news from a cable station. Koppel lowered the volume.
“My girls told me you were by,” he said, in a sleepy basso. “It’s about Mary, right? I was wondering if you’d get in touch—here, sit, sit.”
He stopped to study a stock quotation on the tube, switched off the set, cleared a massive pile of newspapers off a plaid sofa, and brought them over to a metal-legged dinette table. Four red vinyl chairs ringed the table. Hardback ledgers filled two of them. Half the table surface was taken up by more ledgers and legal pads, pens, pencils, a hand calculator, cans of Diet 7-Up, snack bags of assorted carbohydrates.
The apartment was basic: white walls, low ceilings, a front space that served as the living room–eating area, a kitchenette, the bathroom and bedrooms beyond a stucco arch. Nothing on the walls. The kitchen was cluttered but clean. A few feet from the counter, a PC setup was perched on a rolling cart. Aquarium screen saver. An air conditioner rattled.
Sonny Koppel said, “Can I offer you guys something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Koppel’s soft, bulky shoulders rose and fell. He sighed, sank into a green tweed La-Z-Boy recliner, kept the chair upright.
Milo and I took the plaid sofa.
“So,” said Koppel, “what can I do for you?”
“First off,” said Milo, “is there anything you can tell us about your ex-wife that could help us solve her murder?”
“I wish there was. Mary was a remarkable person—attractive, really smart.” Koppel ran a hand over his scalp. Instead of settling, his hair picked up static and coiled as if alive. The room was dim and he was backlit with fluorescence from the kitchen and the hair became a halo. Sad-looking, pajama-bottomed guy with an aura.
“You’re thinking,” he said, “how did someone like her ever hook up with someone like me.”
His lips curled like miniature beef roulades, approximating amusement. “When Mary and I met I didn’t look like this. Back then I was more shortstop than sumo. Actually, I was a pretty decent jock, got a baseball scholarship to the U., had Major League fantasies.”
He paused, as if inviting comment. When none followed, he said, “Then I ripped a hamstring and found out I had to actually study to get out of there.”
One hand dipped into the popcorn bowl. Koppel gathered a full scoop and transferred the kernels to his mouth.
Milo said, “You met Dr. Koppel when you were in law school?”
“I was in law school, and she was in grad school. We met at the rec center, she was swimming, and I was reading. I tried to pick her up, but she blew me off.” He touched his abdomen as if it ached. “The second time I tried, she agreed to go out for coffee, and we hit it off great. We got married a year later and divorced two years after that.”
“Problems?” said Milo.
“Everyone’s got them,” said Koppel. “What’s the cliché—we grew apart? Part of the problem was time. Between her dissertation and my classes, we never saw each other. The main problem was I screwed up. Had an affair with a woman in my class. To make it worse, a married woman, so two families got messed up. Mary let me down easy, she just wanted a clean break. Stupidest thing I ever did.”
“Cheating on her?”
“Letting her go. Then again, she probably would have broken it off, even if I had been faithful.”
“Why’s that?”
“I was kind of at loose ends back then,” said Koppel. “No goals. Only reason I went to law school was because I didn’t know what else to do. Mary was just the opposite: focused, put-together. She has”—He winced—“had a powerful persona. Charisma. I couldn’t have kept up.”
“Sounds like you’re selling yourself short,” said Milo.
Koppel looked genuinely surprised. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I’ve done some background on you, sir, and you’re one of the biggest landlords in Southern California.”
Koppel waved a thick hand. “That’s just playing Monopoly.”
“You’ve played well.”
“I’ve been lucky.” Koppel smiled. “I was lucky to be a loser.”
“A loser?”
“I nearly flunked out of law school, then I chickened out of taking the bar. Started experiencing anxiety attacks about taking it that put me in the ER a couple of times. One of those pseudo–heart attack things? By then Mary and I were having our problems, but she helped me through it. Deep-breathing exercises, having me imagine relaxing scenes. It worked and the attacks stopped and Mary expected me to take the bar. I showed up early, looked around the room, walked out, and that was it. That bothered Mary more than my cheating on her. Soon after, she filed.”
Koppel’s hand waved again, this time limply. “Couple months after that, my mother died and left me an apartment building in the Valley, so all of a sudden I was a landlord. A year later, I sold that property, used the profit and a bank loan to invest in a bigger building. I did that for a few years—flipping and trading up. Real estate was booming, and I made out okay.”
He shrugged, ate more popcorn.
Milo said, “You’re a modest man, Mr. Koppel.”
“I know what I am and what I’m not.” Koppel turned his head to the side, as if recoiling from insight. His jowls quivered. “Do you have any idea who murdered Mary?”
“No, sir. Do you?”
“Me? No, of course not.”
“She was murdered in her home,” said Milo. “No signs of forced entry.”
“You’re saying someone she knew?” said Koppel.
“Any candidates, sir?”
“I wasn’t privy to Mary’s social life.”
“How much contact did you and she have?”
“We stayed friendly, and I kept up my spousal support.”
“How much support?”
“It evolved,” said Koppel. “Immediately after the divorce, she got nothing except the furniture in our apartment because we were both starving students. When I started to earn a decent income, she called and asked for support. We agreed on a figure and over the years I’ve increased it.”
“At her request?”
“Sometimes. Other times, I decided to share some of my good luck.”
“Keep the ex happy,” said Milo.
Koppel didn’t answer.
“Sir, how much were you paying her at the time of her death?”
“Twenty-five thousand a month.”
“Generous.”
“It seemed fair,” said Koppel. “She stuck with me when I needed her. Helping through those panic attacks even after I cheated on her. That deserves something.”
Milo said, “Twenty-five thousand a month. I went through her bank records, never saw any back-and-forth on that level.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Koppel. “Mary lived off her practice and re-invested what I gave her.”
“In what?”
“We’re partnered on some of my properties.”
“She let you hold on to what you owed her and put it back in properties.”
“Mary did very well partnering with me.”
“Who gets her share of the partnered properties now that she’s dead?”
Koppel’s fingers grazed the rim of the popcorn bowl. “That would depend on Mary’s will.”
“I haven�
�t found a will, and no executors have come forth.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” said Koppel. “For years I’ve been telling her to do some estate planning. Between her practice and the properties, she was building up a comfortable estate. You’d think she’d have listened, being so organized about everything else. But she was resistant. My opinion is she didn’t want to think about death. Her parents died pretty young, and sometimes she had premonitions.”
“About dying young?”
“About dying before her time.” Tears beaded Koppel’s lower eyelashes. The rest of his stubbled face was impassive.
“She have those premonitions recently?”
Koppel said, “I don’t know. I’m talking back when we were married.”
Milo said, “Assuming there’s no will, what happens to her real estate holdings?”
“If there are no creditors or heirs,” said Koppel, “they’d revert to me. A hundred percent in the case of the ones whose mortgages I carry—I own a little financing company, allows me to keep things in-house. Those that are bank-financed, I’d have the choice of paying off Mary’s share or selling.”
“One way or the other, you’d get everything.”
“Yes, I would.”
Milo crossed his legs.
Koppel emitted a deep, rumbling laugh.
“Something funny, sir?”
“The implication,” said Koppel. “I suppose there’s a logic to it, Lieutenant, but do the math: Mary Lou’s holdings net out to . . . I’d say one and a half, maybe two million dollars, depending on the real estate market. I grant you that isn’t chicken feed. Eventually, she could’ve retired nicely. But to me, a sum like that isn’t significant . . . you say you’ve looked into my holdings?”
“Two million’s a drop in the bucket,” said Milo.
“That sounds ostentatious,” said Koppel, “but it’s true. A couple of million wouldn’t make any difference.”
“During good times,” said Milo.
“Times are good,” said Koppel. “Times are always good.”
“No business problems?”
“With business, there are always problems. The key is to see them as challenges.” Koppel placed the popcorn bowl between his knees. “What makes it easier for me is I have no interest in acquiring material goods. I do real estate because it seems to be what I’m good at. Since I don’t need much—without the burden of stuff—I’ve always got free cash. Meaning there’s no such thing as a bad market. Prices go down, I buy. They go up, I sell.”
Alex 18 - Therapy Page 22
