“My mother’s an actress. She worked with Brad before he got famous. She told me that for fun he signed some of those posters, but really small so you couldn’t see it right away. Guess his autograph on one of those old guys would be worth a fortune now. Look. See down there in the corner of Thelma & Louise? It almost looks like a P-I-T-T.” I squinted for effect and pointed, trying not to feel guilty for telling her a big one.
“Nah, that’s just a smudge.”
“Next to the smudge,” I said. “You have to look really close. See the squiggles?”
“I don’t know . . .” She sidled over to the poster and examined the corner.
“Did I mention he wrote really, really small? Like magnifying glass small?”
There was a brief silence, as if the woman was questioning her better judgment. Then she said, “Hold on a minute,” and headed toward the back room. As soon as she was out of sight, I quietly opened the ledger book, turning the pages until I found number 218. The entry read, Sunland Manufacturing. I’d never heard of the company before. I closed the book and pulled my hand away just as Rosie came back, carrying a magnifying glass the size of a Chihuahua.
She studied the poster for a moment. Talk about gullible. She was probably the type who thought those boys on Sunset Boulevard had nothing for sale but maps to the stars’ homes. When she turned around to look at me, her face clearly registered disappointment.
“Told you,” she said. “It was just a smudge.”
“Tough break. Thought for sure I recognized his handwriting.”
It didn’t appear that I was going to collect any more information here, so I decided to leave. Just then, Rosie Glenn’s eyes opened wide. It looked like the birth of a brilliant idea to me.
“Hey,” she said. “Find out your friend’s box number. Maybe I could move her and get the two of you side-by-side boxes.”
“I don’t know,” I said skeptically. “I’d better check with her first. I’ll let you know.”
As I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the traffic light to change, I noticed Rosie Glenn out of the corner of my eye. She was moving from poster to poster, inspecting every line and squiggle. It almost made me wish I’d been telling her the truth.
It was already six-fifteen and too late to research Sunland Manufacturing, so I decided to head for home, where my mother and her goofy dog were waiting for me. I love my mother, and Muldoon’s okay, but the two of them have a knack for complicating my life, and at the moment, that was the last thing I needed.
7
the moon cast a shimmering trail of light on the ocean as I turned left off Pacific Coast Highway and drove down the hill toward my house, past a cactus garden planted on the public hillside by one of my well-meaning neighbors who suffers from a succulent fixation that I call the Scottsdale syndrome. A lime green Beetle convertible was parked in my driveway. The car belonged to my mother, aka Pookie Kravitz, star of stage, screen, and infomercial. Pookie isn’t her real name, of course, but early on she’d decided that none of her prior names—Mary Jo Felder, Mary Jo Sinclair, or Mom—had what you’d call star quality.
I entered the house from the back door and made my way to the kitchen, which is one of those small apartment-type arrangements with an open counter separating it from the living room. I like the way it’s set up, because while I’m doing my least favorite thing, cooking, I can do my most favorite thing, looking at the ocean through my French doors.
I hadn’t done much to change the place since I moved in. I kept the few pieces of furniture that belonged to my grandmother, including an iron headboard and an old steamer trunk. Most everything else had either been trashed or stolen by renters. I’d also added a few touches of my own: a round hooked rooster rug in the kitchen, an overstuffed living room couch and chair covered in a rose and celery floral print, and hand-painted seashell tiles above the kitchen stove. I’d also bought fake white wicker furniture for the deck. The place might never make the cover of Architectural Digest, but it was all mine.
I called out to Pookie, but she didn’t answer. Across an end table in the living room lay a hat that looked like the leafy part of a celery stalk. It was from a commercial she’d done for Lettuce Entertain You, a produce co-op owned by some actor friends. Scale plus vegetable headgear. What a life.
I laid the blue patient chart on the kitchen counter and pushed the rewind button on my message machine. I heard Venus’s voice, asking me to call her. She probably wanted to hear about my meeting with Polk. I was eager to speak with her, too, because manufacturing was her specialty, and I was hoping she could tell me something about Sunland. I pressed the speed-dial button next to her name, but the line was busy. There were no messages from Gordon. I was relieved. Maybe he’d been so tied up with Covington that he hadn’t noticed I’d left early and without bringing him the NeuroMed documents.
I thumbed through the Tucker Sinclair medical chart again, hoping to find some confirmation of her identity. Most of the registration page had been left blank. There was no social security number, no driver’s license, nothing.
All that bad hospital cafeteria coffee was wreaking havoc on my stomach, so I checked to see if there was any seltzer in the refrigerator. There wasn’t. The fridge door was still open when I realized I was cold. Not refrigerator cold. Cold cold. I turned toward the living room and let out a short, high-pitched noise that sounded like one of Muldoon’s yippy barks. The French doors leading to the deck were wide open. After the kind of day I’d just had, I didn’t need any more surprises. I walked cautiously out into the dank night air and scanned the beach.
“Pookie? You out there?” My voice sounded squeaky.
There were no sounds except for the waves hissing against the sandy shore. I went back inside, locked the doors, and tried to convince myself that Pookie’s absence was no big deal. She’d probably taken Muldoon for a walk. Only, she should have locked the door. My mother grew up in a small town in Washington State where people are still basically good at heart. But she’d lived in L.A. for years now. You’d think she’d have developed a healthier sense of distrust.
A tap on glass made me jump. I looked toward the French doors and saw Pookie standing on the deck, shivering. She had on a quirky Drew-Barrymore-meets-Indira-Gandhi outfit, which wasn’t meant for a chilly November evening.
My mother has short blond hair, blue eyes, and stands five feet three. At fifty-one, she weighs a hundred five pounds and has the body of a thirteen-year-old boy, which is good because, as an actor, her looks are her livelihood. Standing side by side, it’s hard to believe that the two of us share the same gene pool.
As soon as I opened the door, she hurried inside and kicked her shoes off onto a nearby rug. Muldoon followed close behind her, his wet paws leaving a trail of gritty sand on the tile floor. The guy was a sneak pee-er, so I kept an eye on him.
“Pookie, I’ve told you before, don’t leave the door—”
She interrupted. “I love you, sweetie, but don’t start with the door thing again. I’m trying my best to stay centered.”
More to the point, she was trying to stay centered because she hated to fly. Unfortunately, she was leaving the next morning for a week-long retreat to the backwoods of British Columbia to explore her shamanic powers. That was a little woo-woo for me, but what the hell. If you asked me, I was the one who needed centering, because in a serious lapse of judgment, I’d agreed to baby-sit for Muldoon.
The leg lifter and I had an uneasy truce. I objected to that pretty-boy hold-me, need-me, love-me look he always used to charm Pookie into excusing the yellow wee-wee stains on my couch legs. Once my mom was gone, Muldoon was going to find out that batting his baby browns wouldn’t work on me.
Pookie looked tense as she turned on a lamp near the couch. The heat from the lightbulb activated the lemony-smelling oil ring she’d installed. The aroma was supposed to heighten serenity or shrink kidney stones; I couldn’t remember which. She took a couple of whiffs and began packing the clothes stacked
on the couch into a vintage Samsonite suitcase.
She frowned. “You got a phone call today.”
“I know. Venus.”
“It wasn’t Venus.”
“Really? There was only one message on the machine.”
“I took the call.” She hesitated for a moment. “It was from Sylvia Branch.”
My jaw tightened. “She called me at work, too, but I shredded the message. Aunt Sylvia and all her baggage is the last thing I want to deal with right now.”
“I think you should hear what she—”
“Pookie, please, it’s been a rotten day. Can’t we talk about it later? Come on, I’ll help you pack.”
She hesitated but didn’t say any more. Muldoon jumped up on the couch and circled three times. I barely rescued a blue rayon bowling shirt with Min-Da-Lanes Mamas machine embroidered on the back before he settled in for a snooze.
Pookie picked up a pair of chartreuse palazzo pants and held them up to her waist. “Remember these? Oregon. That cute little thrift shop. Do you still have that Nehru jacket I bought for you there?”
Of course, she knew the answer was no. That was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, and the last thing I wanted was a Nehru jacket to remind me. Pookie had been cast as Peter Pan off-off-off-Broadway, which in layman’s terms meant dinner theater in Eugene. For a month while she rehearsed, I stayed in a second-floor room at the Motel 6, watching The Brady Bunch and pretending that Florence Henderson was my mother.
“You said you had a bad day,” she said. “What happened?”
While she finished packing, I told her about the mail fraud charges, Milton Polk’s death, and the Tucker patient chart. I tried to put a lighthearted spin on it because I didn’t want to spoil her trip by letting her know how concerned I was. But even before I got to the good stuff, the Brad Pitt part, she stopped packing. She went to the refrigerator and filled two wineglasses with a liquid that looked like something from a car engine after a long stretch between tune-ups.
I studied the slime pattern on the glass. “What’s this?”
“Secret sauce,” she said. “For nerves.”
Secret sauce for nerves? Sounded therapeutic except for one thing: In less than twenty-four hours I expected to find my mother in a sweat lodge with a bunch of aging hippies, drinking her own urine. So if her secret sauce was supposed to make me feel less nervous, it wasn’t working. In fact, it was making me slightly hysterical just trying to figure out where she’d gotten the recipe. We clinked glasses, but I barely let the liquid graze my upper lip.
She rinsed her empty glass under the faucet and then turned toward me with a determined look on her face. “I’m canceling my trip.”
“What for?”
“You say this doctor was murdered,” she said. “What if the police think you did that, too?”
That hit a nerve. What if Detective Kleinman found out that I’d met with Milton Polk at the coffee shop in Venice? He’d be positively giddy to hear that Polk had accused me of trying to kill him. Of course, that had only been a figure of speech. Polk had meant I was killing his dreams, killing all the millions he’d planned to make. Whatever. I just hoped no one had overheard the conversation, and if they had, I hoped they couldn’t pick me out of a lineup.
I tried my best to sound offhand. “Nobody’s going to think I killed Polk. And even if they do, what’s the worst that can happen? The minute the jury sees how horrible I look in those county jail jumpsuits, they’re going to acquit me out of pity.”
“Tucker, this isn’t funny. Mail fraud, insurance fraud. Those are serious crimes. But murder . . . I’m afraid for you. What are you going to do?”
“Whoa,” I said. “The police will find out who killed Polk, and that phony patient chart is just another little snag. I’m checking in to it. Meanwhile, Gordon is arranging a meeting with our attorneys.”
She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “What do you mean by ‘our attorneys’?”
“The firm’s attorneys.”
“You mean Gordon’s attorneys.”
“You’re being cynical.”
She shook her head in disapproval. “You need someone representing you, Tucker. Not Gordon. Not the firm.”
“If I lose, Gordon loses,” I told her. “He has nothing to gain by screwing me over.”
“Trust smarter, not harder,” she said. “I don’t want to see you caught up in some power struggle. It’s you who’ll lose.”
“My knees are shaking.”
Her eyes flashed. “Go ahead, Tucker, have your fun.”
She was miffed, so I softened my tone. “Pookie, don’t worry. No one’s struggling for power here.”
“I just wish you’d get out of that business you’re in. There are too many sleazy, backstabbing little people. Watch yourself, okay?”
That was a funny thing to say, considering the business she was in. “Ditto,” I said.
Pookie finished packing while I nuked some vegetarian lasagna from the freezer and made a salad. A gray funk hung over her in the room, and I suspected that the little “watch yourself” pep talk had deeper roots than she cared to share with me. At dinner she picked at the cheese and sorted the tomatoes, but she didn’t eat much. Muldoon had grown tired of begging and fell asleep under the table, with his head resting on my foot.
“You know,” I said, “you don’t have to fly to Vancouver, if that’s what’s bothering you. There’s probably a train.”
Despite the worry that had worked tiny lines around her mouth, she looked way younger than her years. She stared at me without speaking. When she finally said something, her voice was unusually subdued.
“Tucker, we have to talk about Sylvia Branch.”
I sighed. “Okay. What kind of game’s she running now?”
“She found another will,” she said softly. “In a safety deposit box no one knew about. It was handwritten by Mrs. Sinclair and dated two weeks before she died. Apparently, she changed her mind, Tucker. She left this house to your aunt, not to you. Sylvia is planning to sell the place. She told me all the money is rightfully hers, but she’s willing to reimburse you for moving expenses.”
My heart began to pound, but I managed to keep my voice calm. “Look, even if this new will is real, which I doubt, probate is closed. I don’t even know if she can reopen it legally. I say, let Aunt Sylvia contest till the cows come home. This house is mine.”
“She has lawyers, Tucker, high-priced lawyers.”
Muldoon was still sprawled under the table, but he was now whimpering from a puppy dream. I petted him until he settled down, and then leaned forward in my chair, hoping to make myself look confident and self-assured.
“Don’t worry, Pookie,” I said. “The only way Sylvia Branch will ever get this house is over my dead body.”
The only problem was, I’d seen my aunt in action before. She was a woman with considerable resources and a history of getting what she wanted. I was guessing that my dead body might suit her just fine.
8
temperatures in the mid to low seventies. Winds out of the west at fifteen miles per hour. Early morning fog along the coast . . .”
It was 6:45 a.m. As I reached over to turn off the radio alarm, my foot nudged a lump on the bed. Muldoon was at my feet. His paws were up, and he was snoring. Pookie had probably left for the airport. I rolled out of bed, made some coffee, and went into the bathroom to shower. Taped to the mirror was a list of explicit doggie care instructions, along with the places that carried Pookie-approved dog food.
Before I dressed for work, I scanned the Los Angeles Times for any word of Polk’s death, finding only a small article in the California section.
BODY FOUND IN VENICE IS IDENTIFIED
The body of a man found in Venice was identified Monday as that of Milton Raymond Polk. Authorities said the body of Polk, 56, was discovered about ten o’clock Sunday night by a tourist walking on the beach. Homicide detectives are conducting a routine
investigation to determine if there was foul play.
Foul play? That sounded a little Agatha Christie. According to Kleinman, Polk’s body had been in the water for at least twenty-four hours. If Polk had been found at ten p.m. Sunday, he must have died some time on Saturday. That wasn’t exactly higher math. It was a good thing no one was counting on my keen deductive reasoning to solve this crime. I decided to switch to something I was good at, so I called Eugene to tell him I’d be late for work.
I wanted to stop by NeuroMed and find out if Francine Chalmers knew anything about the Tucker medical chart I’d found. After that, I’d try to get the scoop on Sunland Manufacturing. The company’s profile would be in one of the databases at work, but I didn’t want to invite questions about why I was looking. There had to be another way.
There were two patients in NeuroMed’s waiting room when I arrived. Neither one looked terribly stimulated by the murky fish tank or the selection of disease brochures. The Center’s secretary, Janet, was at her desk, transcribing from a tape. The door to the front office was no longer propped open, so when I asked to see Francine, Janet had to buzz me through.
I found Francine in Polk’s office, sitting at his desk. Her makeup was carefully painted on, but it looked slightly caked under her puffy, red eyes. She wore the same gold bracelets I’d seen the previous day, but her black dress, though appropriately funereal, was a little low-cut for an office.
She didn’t seem particularly surprised to see me, but she wasn’t hostile, either. Obviously, Kleinman hadn’t been back to see her, or she’d have known that I’d blabbed to him about the break-in at the Center. She nodded but continued filling the wastebasket with what looked like business correspondence. It made me uncomfortable not knowing what she was throwing away.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I assume someone’s taking over for Dr. Polk,” she said. “I thought I’d straighten out his desk. Get it organized. Can I get you some coffee or tea?”
False Profits Page 7
