I pulled out the insurance claim forms with Sunland listed as the employer and rattled off several names, including Sanjay Rhea, Anton Maslansky, and my own name.
The squint in her eye was no longer from the cigarette smoke. A definite frost had chilled our budding relationship. “I don’t remember any Mary Elder working for NeuroMed,” she said suspiciously.
“Felder. I’m a consultant with Aames and Associates, working for the owner, Mona Polk. It’s probably Francine Chalmers you’ve worked with before.”
She was starting to get froggy, overworking her tongue in search of saliva. “I can’t tell you anything. It’s confidential.”
“Confidentiality is certainly the bedrock of good employee-employer relations,” I said. “Of course, I could contact these people at home if you’d prefer. They’re all currently employed here, is that correct?”
She must not have liked me looming over her. She stood, but she’d need more than three-inch heels to look me in the eye.
“I don’t have time to answer any survey right now. I’ve got work to do. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” She sounded testy.
“Okay, but I’d like to leave my number for Mr. Cole.”
I didn’t have anything to write on, and she didn’t seem in the mood to cooperate, so I picked up a piece of paper from the wastebasket and jotted down Mary Jo Felder and my cell phone number. Irene glanced at it briefly. Then she slipped it into the Bernie slot of a plastic message holder, which was already bulging with other messages. That didn’t look promising.
By the time I left Borodin’s office, the roach coach was gone, along with the men. The place looked as deserted as a lunar space station. Irene Borodin hadn’t admitted knowing Francine, but she was familiar enough with the Center’s personnel to know that there was no Mary Jo Felder working there. That revelation by itself was a little suspicious. My message to Bernie Cole was probably already in the wastebasket.
I was up to my ankles in dust, heading back to my car, when I noticed a man in his thirties, wearing tight brown jeans and cowboy boots. He had short, sandy hair that was cut for utility rather than style. Baby fat padded his cheeks and chin almost as if his body had decided to grow up without telling his face.
A tool bag was propped up against the wall in front of two large gray metal doors that were standing open, exposing some kind of electrical panel. He was fiddling with the tangle of color-coded wires inside the box and humming “Climb Every Mountain.” He didn’t look like one of the von Trapp children, so I pegged him for a Julie Andrews groupie. That didn’t sound dangerous. Maybe I’d ask him if he knew any of the people on my list.
I walked over and paused for a moment, waiting for him to notice me. His body tensed, but he didn’t look my way.
I smiled anyway. “I tried to rewire my toaster once, but my mother made me stop. She thought I’d trigger somebody’s nuclear warheads.”
He turned his head, and his eyes swept slowly up my body, appraising me the way a lot of men do—as if they were looking for nesting birds in a palm tree. That’s when I noticed the bruises on his face. I paused for a moment, wondering if maybe he was the type to settle his differences with his fists. Just in case, I stayed out of his punching range.
Without commenting, he went back to work. No flirty wink. No smile. No nothing. This was going to be tougher than I thought.
“I just came from Human Resources,” I said casually. “A friend of mine who works here told me they were hiring. Maybe you know him? Sanjay Rhea?”
He didn’t pause to think. Just answered in a twang from one of those southern states. “Don’t know him.”
“How about Tucker Sinclair?”
“Him, neither.” He continued tinkering with the wires.
I waited for a moment and tried once more. “Anton Maslansky?”
He cocked his head like a dog that had just heard a high-pitched whistle. He looked at me as if he was trying to figure out what I was up to and what he should do about it.
“You got more friends than a wino with a credit card.” His voice was low and resonant.
I considered my alternatives. “Okay. I’ll be up front with you. I don’t know those people. I don’t even know for sure if they work here. In fact, I was hoping maybe you could tell me that.”
He studied me with sapphire blue eyes that looked more suspicious than angry. “You’re asking questions like a cop. Except you’re not one or you’d a told me. So what’s your game?”
“I guess you’d say it’s my own private investigation.”
He frowned as though he took a dim view of that. “Knowing things gets you into trouble, and I don’t need any more of that.”
His tone was casual, but I had the feeling there was more to the statement than I was meant to understand. But I wasn’t giving up yet, because he hadn’t said no when I’d mentioned Maslansky.
“I understand,” I said. “So maybe you could help me out with my toaster problem. See, I’m pretty sure there’s at least one bad wire in there somewhere, and if I don’t find out which one, the thing’s going to blow up, and more than toast will get burned, if you know what I mean.”
Obviously, he didn’t understand the toaster analogy, because he looked at me as if my crumb tray had just come unhinged. Okay, so it wasn’t brilliant, but I didn’t want to tell him anything incriminating that might get back to Irene Borodin.
“Let me be a little more direct,” I said. “I’d like to hear everything you can tell me about those people I just mentioned, like if they work here now, if they ever worked here, and if they have any health problems.”
He didn’t respond. Just went back to fiddling with his wires. I made a few more attempts to draw him out. He remained civil but taciturn.
Finally, I said, “Maybe I’ll just leave my number in case you’d rather talk when you’re not so busy.”
I couldn’t give him my Aames & Associates business card. I didn’t work there anymore. And I couldn’t tell him my real name. I’d already lied to Irene Borodin about that. I still didn’t have anything to write on. Just the two Nut Goodies I’d taken from Eric’s desk but forgotten to give Venus. What the hell? I couldn’t keep inventing new identities, so I wrote Mary Jo Felder and my cell phone number on one of the candy bar wrappers and laid it on the cowboy’s tool bag. I waited for some reaction. Nothing. He didn’t even try to sniff the chocolate.
I had only five more days to find Mo Whitener’s money or risk getting an unwanted subscription to Women Behind Bars. My pitch to Wade Covington had better score some points, because I wasn’t exactly making progress. With my fingers crossed, I pointed the Boxster toward the freeway and Hancock Park.
16
hancock Park is located in the midcity area of Los Angeles, just south of Hollywood and about a fifteen-minute drive from downtown. The houses were built for Los Angeles’s elite back in the twenties. Rumor has it that many of the estates are still occupied by the second and third generation of what is now considered not just old money, but ancient money. Other than Wade Covington, I didn’t know who else lived in the hood, but I suspected it was mostly made up of folks yearning for a butler’s pantry and a decent ballroom.
Covington’s address was on one of Hancock Park’s A streets, where the houses are palatial, the children’s educations private, and the prenups ironclad. A seven-foot hedge protected the perimeter of the estate for at least a square block and obscured any view of the house or grounds. Employees of an all-girl valet service were adjusting pink vests and matching bow ties as I drove up to the curb. I wiped my dusty shoes on the floor mat of the car, took the claim ticket offered by the valet, and headed toward the house.
Just inside the gated driveway was a long table sporting a sign that read, Will Call. I approached a well-dressed young woman who was manning the R-S-Ts, and gave her my name. She searched the list twice but came up empty. Tiffany Amber/Carole had failed me.
“I was late RSVP’ing,” I explained.
The woman continued searching through a stack of cards in a nearby box until she stopped suddenly and studied one of them. Then she wrinkled her nose as if something didn’t smell quite right. “What did you say your name was?” I spelled it for her.
“Could this be you?” She produced a hand-lettered name tag that was mostly illegible but could have been Dickerson Claire. That Tiffany Amber/Carole was one creative puppy.
The woman wrote Tucker Sinclair on a new tag and asked whether I wanted to pay by check or credit card. I felt a twinge of concern because two grand was going to make a serious dent in my nest egg. I wrestled with my conscience for a few seconds and then pulled out my Aames & Associates Platinum Visa card. I figured it was about time the partners showed a little charity.
The woman handed me the new name tag. Right side, left side—decisions, decisions. I clipped the badge to my left jacket lapel and headed up the drive, where several Gourmand Performance catering vans were parked. I followed a path bordered by bent purple flowers and a box hedge. At the end of the path, two bouncer types in blue blazers that barely fit over their biceps spoke into handheld radios. Several more security people scanned the crowd. Why the private heat? I wondered. Were they expecting a riot over a pledge card shortage?
The guards glanced at my name badge and nodded me through a gate that opened onto a yard the size of a soccer field. Dotting the lawn were what looked like a hundred or so large round tables, each shaded by a blue umbrella. This was a bigger affair than I’d anticipated. With all these people, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to speak privately with Covington. I had to make sure he didn’t make good on his threat and use the offhand scuba remark I’d made in Polk’s office as an excuse to deny Aames & Associates a consulting contract. I was in enough trouble at the firm as it was.
The caterer was still setting up. Several uniformed waiters were folding napkins and placing them on tables, and from somewhere near, I smelled a faint aroma of what I sincerely hoped wasn’t rubber chicken.
Small clusters of people were scattered throughout the area, chatting. I recognized an actor I used to swoon over in my teens. Unfortunately, his star had fallen long before his last face-lift. Nonetheless, several groupies were preening over him. His facial muscles remained rigid as he parted his lips to smile, showing straight white teeth. Only his eyes shifted, surveying who might be noticing him.
“That’s Jim Bob Boshanty. I did his smile.” A quite ordinary-looking man had appeared next to me. Everything about him was medium: height, weight, and hair color. Nothing would distinguish this guy in a crowd except for an unnaturally white smile that stretched ghoulishly across his face.
“Gerald Wykowski, DDS, cosmetic dentistry,” he said, pumping my hand. He handed me a business card in the shape of a molar. “Nice party.” He studied my mouth until I snapped it shut self-consciously. “Call. We’ll bond.” Before I could say, “Isn’t it time for your medication?” he was gone.
The conversational buzz ramped up a few decibels as the guests filtered in. Frankly, I was amazed to see so many WASPs in one place. It was an aberration in a city like L.A., where well over 150 languages were spoken by students in city schools. I decided to try for a chat with Covington before the party got into full swing, so I headed toward the house. The grass was damp, and my heels sank into the turf. Great! The last thing I needed was to leave a trail of divots in Covington’s lawn.
The house was a massive two-story brick Tudor shrouded by heavy shrubbery. I made my way to the front door and knocked. A pretty teenaged Latina in a blue maid’s uniform and a silly white cap answered the door.
“Hello,” I said to her. “I’m looking for Mr. Covington.”
She stared at me blankly. Then she closed the door. This wasn’t going well. I knocked again but got no response. I waited for a moment or two before making my way around to the side of the house. Through a row of oleanders, I could just make out a secluded flagstone patio and French doors. I parted the branches and had started to step through when I heard a female voice say, “You can’t go in there.”
Busted! I turned to see a young woman in a waiter’s uniform standing behind me.
“Uhh, I have to use the bathroom.” My creativity is legend.
“There’s one in the guesthouse. Over there.” She pointed to another house across the grounds that could have held two the size of mine.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to Mr. Covington,” I said. “Thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.” With snappy repartee like that, I thought she’d want to be my best bud, but no sale. Instead, she eyed me suspiciously.
“We’re not supposed to let anyone near the main house,” she said. “Some wacko’s stalking the owner.”
That was not good news. I hoped the guy didn’t get to Covington before I did.
“And,” she went on, “we’re supposed to watch out for anybody suspicious.”
She couldn’t be referring to moi, but in hindsight, the killing-two-birds comment wasn’t the best choice of words. I turned on the charm to compensate. “My goodness, I’ll certainly keep my eyes open.”
A stalker went a long way toward explaining why Covington had hired private security to keep folks out of his house on the same day he had invited hundreds of people to lunch on his lawn. But regardless of that, I had to speak with him, and hopefully before the luncheon started. I made a pretense of walking toward the guesthouse until the woman went back to her waiter work. Then I doubled back to a door at the rear of the house. From the food smells and the clanging of pots, I guessed it was a service entrance and the kitchen was nearby. The door was already propped open by a case of Diet Snapple. I felt invited in.
As I suspected, the kitchen was a short distance down the hall. Julia Child would have given up coq au vin and cooking sherry for this setup. The place was dripping with copper and had a machine for every occasion. A pudgy middle-aged woman with maroon hair was placing cucumber rounds on a salmon mold and barking orders to a dozen harried assistants. In the midst of a heated debate over a burnt quiche, a breathless young man sprinted into the kitchen and created the diversion I needed to skulk past without being noticed. To my right was a stairway that led up to the second floor. To my left was a hallway. Hallway, stairs . . . hallway, stairs . . . ? I hate high-pressure decisions.
Before I had time to make up my mind, the woman with the maroon hair stormed through the kitchen door with a cell phone embedded in her ear. Her whole head looked like a really bad birthmark. “Yes, I’m pissed, you idiot. I have six hundred fifty for lunch and no fucking dinner plates.”
There was a lull in her conversation, and that’s when she noticed me standing in the hall. “No one’s allowed in here!” she shouted at me. Then she turned her back and screamed into the receiver, “Have those plates here in fifteen or you’re dead meat!”
I decided not to wait for the rest of the show. I took the hall to the left and ended up in a massive living room. Let’s just say the decor in there didn’t invite you for a comfy snuggle on the couch in a muumuu and bunny slippers. The same young woman who’d answered the front door was now dusting a large oil painting at the far end of the room.
“Hello again,” I said to her. “Remember me? I’m still looking for Mr. Covington. Is he around?”
She shrugged as if she didn’t understand what I was saying, and returned to her dusting. Strike out. Down the hall a door was ajar, so I peeked inside. The room was everything that a man’s den should be—a rich man’s den. The space was beautifully appointed with a leather couch and chairs, dark wood paneling, hardback books, and walls covered by paintings. I’m no connoisseur, but the art looked important. An ornate desk and a floor lamp completed the furniture inventory. On the far wall, two louvered closet doors flanked a grand fireplace. The dark wood mantel held a silver cup with an inscription commemorating Covington’s stint as commodore of the Marina Yacht Club. I wasn’t surprised that he would hold a position like that. The MYC was well known as
a place to take a client for a power lunch or for a powerboat ride, and many people at our firm were members, including Gordon.
Covington obviously wasn’t around. I was about to leave when I noticed a black textured leather briefcase, probably made from some endangered species, on the floor near the chair. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the one Covington had with him the night I saw him at NeuroMed.
I checked the hallway. No one was out there except for the maid, who was still dusting. Maybe Covington had taken something from the Center that evening. Maybe it was still inside his briefcase. I should check. My stomach did a flip-flop as I popped open the case.
Inside, among some other papers, was a blue patient chart similar to the one I’d found with my name on it. There was no name label on this one, only NeuroMed’s address stamped on the outside. I opened the file’s cover and thumbed through several pages filled with notes I could barely read, until I came to the registration page. It was only partially filled out, but I could clearly see the patient’s name at the top: Teresa García.
It took me a moment to realize where I’d seen that name before. García was the subject of the article in Spanish that I’d found in Milton Polk’s desk. Covington had obviously taken this patient chart from NeuroMed, but why? I wanted to study the file, but I couldn’t do it here, and if I took it with me, that would be stealing. Well, not stealing exactly. The file had already been filched by Covington, so I was actually recovering stolen property. That was a good thing. More to the point, it was good enough for me. I’d managed to fold the chart into quarters and stuff it into my purse when I heard a man’s voice coming from out in the hallway.
“María.” The tone sounded pleasant enough.
I felt heat on my cheeks, probably from guilt. For the first time since I’d arrived, I wondered if I was in the proverbial wrong place. I tiptoed close enough to the door just to see out. The young girl stood stiff and silent, facing a man in a dark blue suit with unnaturally brown hair. It was Wade Covington.
False Profits Page 14
