It all led to the suspicion they were staying at a friendly residence where they could remain undisturbed for free. As I progressed along Colorado from Glendale into Eagle Rock proper, I went through the list of possibilities. Neither Jeanette nor Nelson had many friends, if any at all, and even if they did those friends would have parents who most likely would not be willing participants in these sorts of shenanigans. Relatives were another idea that I quickly ruled out as far as Jeanette’s side — no one would cross Valenti, not even Jeff’s family. Nelson’s family was a distinct possibility.
And that’s when it struck me. They were meaningless words when I first heard them, just an annoyed neighbor with an eye-sore of crab-grass suffocating the yard next door and threatening to invade his perfectly-groomed turf. The home was not being cared for and was bringing down the property values of those around it. He hoped I was there to do something about it. I remembered the house looking overly-unkempt, bordering on abandoned. But then the neighbor’s words said otherwise.
“They’re not home,” he told me.
Sheila Lansing had mentioned that she was a reluctant resident of the convalescent home. Such people often hold onto their past lives on the slim hope that they will someday be able to return to them. The empty house served as the perfect hideout.
As I reached my street I quickly made a U-turn and headed back to the freeway that would take me to Pacoima.
***
I could barely hear the doorbell over the whine of the leaf blower from the neighbor next door. I stepped back off the front stoop and watched the curtained windows for any sign of movement, but none came. I then walked the perimeter of the house just in case the occupants were prone to fleeing, but on this day I hoped they wouldn’t because the heat was excessively oppressive.
At the back of the house the yard was in even greater need for maintenance than the front. The dirt was like powder and coated my shoes in a thin film. I found the garbage cans around the side of the house. The fact that they had contents confirmed there were people living in the house. The existence of several used diaper bundles convinced me the occupants were who I was looking for.
“Can I help you?” asked an irritated voice.
The nosy neighbor held the silenced leaf blower like a shotgun.
“You know the people that live here?” I asked.
“Who are you?” he replied.
“We met before, remember?”
“Yeah, but who are you?” he persisted.
“I work for the original owner. The people staying here aren’t supposed to be.”
“No kidding? They’re squatters? But they seemed so nice.”
“Is there anyone else staying here with them? Maybe another woman, a little overweight, dark?”
“Nope, there’s none of that going on here,” he said defensively. His mind clearly went to a darker place than I implied. It felt like the neighbor still felt protective of the young couple. I decided to ease off lest he stir something up before I could talk to them.
“Well, I’ll swing by later to see if they are home,” I said casually.
“Hey,” he called after me, “don’t go getting them into any trouble.” He wagged his finger at me. “They’re good kids, you know.”
“I know,” I waved back and returned to my car.
I drove around the block and parked further down the street where I could still have a good view of Sheila’s house but wasn’t in a direct sightline of the overly-protective neighbor. I didn’t want him to see me and bring the local police down for questioning.
MAN LEFT IN CAR
I was a case study for why you should never leave your dog in a parked car. Even with the windows rolled down, the temperature inside was well over one hundred. I had a half-filled water bottle from a previous purchase that was warm enough to make sun tea. I futilely angled the visor to keep some of the sun off of my face but I didn’t want to completely obstruct the view of the house and so I was forced to get the full brunt of the rays. An hour in, I hit a point of woozy bliss where the body is covered in a sheen of perspiration and the breaths are short and metered and hypnotic. With every passing car I angled my head to catch the slightest of breezes they cast which were as refreshing as a tall glass of ice water. After about the fifth one of these I kept my head in that position leaning against the door frame. That’s when I saw a set of eyes staring at me from across the street.
It was Nelson.
The adrenaline shot through me and I awoke from my lethargic state. His body started to lean, and I knew he was going to try to make a break for it.
“Kid, don’t make me run. It’s too hot,” I pleaded. His eyes hung with me but his shoulders slowly swung around. “Come on, you couldn’t outrun me in a million years.”
He tried anyway.
I flung open the door in pursuit and fell flat on my face. My knees had buckled on the first step. The asphalt burned my palms and the tender skin on my forearms. Scrambling to my feet my head swirled from the quick movements and from the heat off the pavement. For a moment I thought I might vomit.
“Will you stop?” I shouted, but Nelson had no intention of obeying my command. I was more annoyed than anything because despite the head start he hadn’t made it very far down the street. And now I had to run, jog maybe, to catch up to him.
Nelson fumbled with his cell phone. He was a slow runner made impossibly slower when trying to text and run at the same time. My head cleared somewhat and I gave pursuit. I got within five feet of him long before he reached the intersection and by the end of it he was so gassed that I briskly walked up behind him and horse-collared him to a halt.
“Stop with this nonsense, already,” I said and wiped the prodigious amount of sweat off my hand that came from the back of his shirt. “Who are you texting?” I asked but didn’t wait for a reply. I snatched the phone out of his hand and read the latest text: Don’t come home. I didn’t have to read the recipient’s name because I already knew it was Jeanette. “Nice,” I grumbled and handed him back the phone. “Let’s go talk inside. I hope you have air conditioning in that house.”
The living room was mired in an early 1980s remodel. The coffee table and TV console were made of lacquered blonde wood. The floral-print wallpaper bubbled in spots and was starting to peel at the corners near the popcorn ceiling. It harkened back memories of my parents’ living room and getting a lecture for missing curfew.
“Listen, kid, I meant what I said before. I want to help you. If I didn’t, don’t you think the cops would be here right now?”
Nelson wasn’t buying it, and I didn’t think he ever would. He spooked Jeanette with the text he sent her, and if I had any hope of her ever coming back I was going to need him to help.
“Give me your money,” I demanded. Nelson looked at me like I was mad. “Come on, give me your money. Don’t tell me you guys are broke already?” I shook my head, “That rules out that option. Jesus, this is a mess.”
It was the first step from a persuasive selling technique called “controlled drowning.” The idea was to present the subject with several scenarios that all ended in locked doors. By gradually building on each hopeless scenario you could then dangle a solution that they never thought existed. The technique was undoubtedly developed by former Black Ops specialists.
I built an airtight case for gloom. They didn’t have enough money to last a week. They didn’t have the friends or relatives who would be willing to help them. And then add the unavoidable fact that the authorities wanted him for questioning in a murder case. Eventually they would track him down.
“I didn’t do anything to her,” he cried. He tried to elaborate but the words stumbled out in an incoherent babble. The boy rocked in the chair.
“All right, take it easy. I know you didn’t have anything to do with it.” I let him come a few steps back from the edge before giving him another shove. “The detective on the case seems like a reasonable guy but you never know with cops. They’re a stubborn bunch
and they got one and only one suspect — you.”
“But I didn’t do it,” he said.
“Sure, but these guys’ job is to close the case. That doesn’t necessarily mean closing it with the guilty party going to jail. We just somehow have to convince these guys that you are innocent,” I said but shook my head like what I had just uttered was a next-to-impossible task.
“How’s the baby doing?” I asked. I needed to ease into this part lest he completely shut down. “What’s his name?” I asked, even leaning back in the sofa to ease the tension.
“Holden,” he muttered.
“Catcher in the Rye fans?”
“Yeah.”
“Great book,” I lied. I thought it was great when I was too young to know better. “You left the father out of that decision, huh?”
“What do you mean?” he asked looking a little hurt.
“I’m sorry. I assumed you weren’t the dad.”
“He’s mine,” he stated.
“Nelson,” I said, leaning back in, “I have no doubt that you can and will be a great father, but you’re not the father.”
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” he said after a moment. It sounded like even he didn’t know the identity of the father.
“No, I get it. But obviously the courts won’t see it our way.”
That one had a greater impact than I thought it would. I had successfully maneuvered the kid to the point of total despair. It was time to bring him back. What was supposed to feel like a moment of triumph instead made me feel ashamed.
I convinced him to meet Jeanette and the three of us would contact the authorities. I would hire them a lawyer and be with them every step of the way. Nelson nodded his head in resigned acceptance to my plan.
There was a knock on the front door. We looked to each other for an explanation.
“Jeanette?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” but there was hope in his voice.
“Could be the neighbor next door,” I said.
We were both wrong.
“Hello,” smiled Detective Ricohr but there was nothing cheerful about it. “Can I come in?” he asked as he crossed into the living room.
Nelson stood by the couch as the Detective and the local police streamed into the increasingly cramped space. Through all the chaos Nelson never took his eyes off me.
“Sit down, son,” Detective Ricohr instructed. “It wasn’t Mr. Restic’s fault. Not intentionally, anyway.” He turned to me. “I took a gamble and put someone on you. I had a feeling you knew more than you let on.”
We all walked out together into the late afternoon sun. It sat low on the horizon and felt hotter than it actually was. The police activity attracted many onlookers from the surrounding homes, including the neighbor on the left. I avoided his gaze but I knew it was directed at me. I was getting tired of disappointing people.
***
Detective Ricohr rode with me on the long drive back to downtown. We were like a couple of travelers forced into intimacy on an oversold bus. There were no TVs to distract us and nowhere at all to escape.
We talked about anything and everything — the sectarian violence in the Middle East which neither of us really understood, the inanity of the Los Angeles highway system where major feeds crossed each other and somehow didn’t have connectors, the wild idea to have the concrete-encased LA river return to its natural state. Detective Ricohr was more of a revealer than me, and I heard all about his various ailments, his divorce from twelve years ago, and the three kids from the marriage. Two things we did not talk about were the weather and the murder case.
I dropped him off on First Street in front of police central headquarters.
“What’s going to happen to Nelson?” I asked.
“We’ll just talk to him for a few hours and see what we can get and then send him home.”
“He probably won’t say much.”
“That’s what everyone thinks. Until they get in there.”
“No, I just don’t think he knows much about the girl’s murder.”
“You said before that you thought the murder and the old man’s missing granddaughter were connected.”
“I think the Valenti girl has the information, not this kid.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be hanging with you.”
“What’s he paying you, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Nothing. He fired me.”
Detective Ricohr mulled that over. He let two late commuter buses pass by with their roaring engines and plumes of exhaust.
“If you find the girl, do you find my killer?”
“When I find the girl and talk to her, your killer should become very clear.”
“You hope.”
“You hope,” I corrected.
“We both hope,” he finished and headed into the building.
“Detective,” I called him back. “I’m sorry for not telling you everything ahead of time. And you may not believe it, but I was going to call you after I had spoken to the kid.”
“Save the apology for later,” he said. “I suspect this won’t be the last time you disappoint me.”
Tired as I was, I headed in the opposite direction of my house and drove out towards the Westside. I stopped at a diner just off the 10 freeway and sat in one of the booths by the window. I picked at a tuna melt and fries but mostly I watched the heavy stream of traffic funneling on and off the freeway. There was something hypnotic about it. After the third time I was asked for a water refill, I got the hint and decided to give them their booth back.
Time never moves slower than when you are trying to kill it. I drove aimlessly around the side streets but that was only good for a half hour. I did a couple of tricks of randomly picking destinations and then driving there and back a few times like a runner doing track work. Finally I gave up and drove over to Nelson’s house and parked in one of the few open spots on the street.
I don’t know how long it took because I dozed off a few times but eventually a car appeared and parked in the narrow driveway. Nelson squeezed out of the passenger door and headed for the house with his tatted-up brother at his side. If I factored in all of the wasted time in and around any visit to a police station, the fact that Nelson was home before midnight was a bit of a miracle. Detective Ricohr had kept to his word.
I wasn’t finished with Nelson. He was my one link to Jeanette. I got out of the car, though not entirely sure what I was going to do to get past his brother and over-protective abuelita, never mind what I would say to him to get him to talk to me again. In that moment of hesitancy, I watched Nelson and his brother walk towards the front door and I marveled at the unspoken support emanating from the backs of one person walking next to another in silence. There was no steadying hand, no arm around the shoulder. He didn’t even hold the door for his brother. But Nelson was back with his family and that was a good thing.
I got back in my car, fired up the engine, and headed out for the long ride back to Eagle Rock. The black sedan waited for me in front of my house.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF DYING
I parked in the garage and came out the side door. Hector waited for me on the walkway. We silently made our way inside, and he waited patiently in the center of the living room while I turned on some lights and opened the windows to let in the cooling night air.
“They got another email,” he told me after I stopped buzzing around the room. I made a move to sit down, but Hector made no move at all, so I remained standing. “They want more money.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Three million.”
This time I sat down and thought it over. That was quite a jump from forty thousand dollars. “I assume the email came from Jeanette?” He nodded. “Did you see the actual email?”
“It was sent to Mr. Valenti. I heard him talking to his daughter and Jeanette’s dad.”
“What did you mean by ‘they’ wanting more money?” Hector shrug
ged his shoulders but I could tell he had some ideas. “The police found the Portillo boy,” I said and explained exactly how they found him, but the mention of the boy didn’t register with Hector. “Who do you think it is?”
Hector deferred to his boss.
“Mr. Valenti said if it was either of them he’d crush them.”
“Either of whom? Meredith and Jeff?”
“He told them when they came to the house.”
It was not a surprise that Valenti had suspicions about his daughter and her ex-husband. He was innately suspicious of everyone when it came to money. I wondered if he thought they were in on it together. Individually, they both had the motive and if I thought about it enough, I could imagine each attempting something like this, or trying it together.
“Sit down,” I instructed. “You’re making me nervous.” Hector shot me a look but eventually took a seat on the couch. “What do you think about this?”
“I don’t know. It’s not my business.”
“Then why did you come here to tell me about it?”
“I thought you would want to know.”
That reason made little sense. He had already pushed the limits of his relationship with Valenti when we were working together, but the act of coming to my house smashed all of those limits in one stroke. He was betraying the confidence of the family to someone whom his boss had dismissed. Valenti valued privacy above almost anything and this impropriety would have repercussions beyond Hector’s mere dismissal from the job he’d held for nearly fifty years.
“You know something that you’re not telling me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know you aren’t but you’re also not telling me everything. You’re concerned about something. Otherwise, you would never have come all this way in the middle of the night. What is it?”
The Eternal Summer (Chuck Restic Private Investigator Series Book 2) Page 16
