by Lee Geiger
“Miss Samonte, if I wanted to, I could haul you down to the precinct right now and throw your pretty little ass in jail for obstructing an investigation.”
Sheyla’s tone went from silk to sandpaper. “I’ve got news for you, Inspector. We both know you’re full of shit. I know the difference between obstructing an investigation and not returning a phone call. Trust me, I’ve dated enough lawyers to pass the bar exam.”
She was right, and Mac knew it. In no time Sheyla returned to her charming self. “So tell me, handsome, what were you and Miss Silicon City talking about?”
“Diamond was giving me a vocabulary lesson. She claims you get ‘clocked’ all the time.”
Sheyla shook her head like a disappointed mother. “She says I get clocked all the time? Oh, please. Who is she kidding? Diamond gets clocked so often she should be doing Rolex commercials.”
Mac took delight at Sheyla’s zinger. “She also says guys hit on her even when she’s not wearing a ton of makeup.”
“Diamond not wear makeup?” responded Sheyla, shocked by such an assertion. “She’d rather be blind than leave her house without false eyelashes. Trust me, Mac, that girl wakes up in the morning wearing makeup. She has to. Diamond never met a mirror she didn’t like.”
“Of course she hasn’t. Tell me, what’s with the heavy metal charm around her neck?”
Sheyla sighed. “She tells customers the ‘D’ on her necklace stands for ‘Diamond,’ but we girls all know better. It stands for ‘Diva,’ which in Tagalog stands for ‘the bitch who is a royal pain in the ass.’ ”
Mac let out a boisterous laugh. He always appreciated a woman with a sense of humor, especially if it could keep up with his own. “Listen, Miss Samonte, I do need to ask you a few questions. Is there someplace we can talk?”
“First off, please call me Sheyla. And second, I don’t have time to talk to you tonight. But I know what you want from me. You see, besides having a lot of lawyers on my speed dial, I’m also a Law and Order junkie. You asked me if I knew Paul Osher. Well, I’m not going to lie to you. I do, and I know you’ve got the records to prove it. You also want to know where I was the night his wife was killed. All I can tell you is that I was home alone, and no, I can’t prove it. But it’s the truth. If you want to know anything else, then you can either drag me out of here in handcuffs kicking and screaming, or take me out for brunch tomorrow. Your choice.”
Mac thought he had heard every threat in the book. Being blackmailed with a date was a new one. “First of all, Miss Samonte, I don’t usually address murder suspects by their first name. And I certainly don’t take them out to brunch. It’s not what anyone would call proper police procedure.”
“Oh, so I’m a murder suspect, am I? Sounds exciting. I guess I’ll have to update my Facebook status.” Sheyla slid her arm around Mac’s shoulder. “C’mon, Inspector. It’ll be fun. Don’t get your boxers in a wad.”
“How can you tell I’m wearing boxers?”
“Oh, please. I wasn’t born yesterday,” she said, aiming her eyes at Mac’s .45 caliber erection. “Tell you what, Inspector. I’ll even buy. Plus I promise to tell you everything you want to know about Paul Osher and me. By the time we finish dessert, you’ll be calling me ‘Sheyla.’ That’s my deal. Take it or leave it.” Sheyla leaned over and kissed Mac on the cheek, glancing in Diamond’s direction to make sure the D-cupped diva was watching. She was, and the look on Diamond’s face could have melted dry ice. Like a dog peeing on a bush, Sheyla was marking her territory.
Mac did the math. What was Sheyla hiding from him? What secrets would she spill about Paul Osher? What was that perfume she was wearing?
“What time shall I meet you?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sunday, September 14, 2008 - 11:15 am
“Paul Osher, multi-millionaire businessman and husband of murdered KNTV anchorwoman Michelle Osher, said in a statement issued by his attorney that, ‘He learned about his wife’s death while on business in Los Angeles, and he is devastated and vows to cooperate fully with the police to help find her killer.’”
The Wall Street Journal
MAYES TORE THROUGH JIM Grisham’s medicine cabinet like a bear hunting for ants. He found over two-dozen prescriptions made out for either Jim or Sonia Grisham, a cornucopia of drugs that could have brought back the Sixties. But Mayes still hadn’t found what he was looking for; a reason to suspect anyone who attended Jim Grisham’s Thursday night soirée.
It was 11:15 on a spectacular sunny Sunday morning. Grisham hadn’t been expecting visitors, but Mayes had a schedule to keep. Just one hour earlier he pounded on the door of a junior assistant district attorney, who took the advice of a large black man pacing in his living room and woke up a judge to issue a search warrant. At that hour of the morning, figured Mayes, size did matter.
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Grisham?” asked Mayes.
“I’m an attorney,” Grisham managed to say between yawns. “And you better find what you’re looking for and get the hell out of here.”
“We’ll leave when we’re done, Mr. Grisham,” responded Mac, rubbing his latex-gloved hand along the top of a living room bookshelf. “Speaking of which, Paul Osher told us you have a key to his apartment. Would you mind showing it to us?”
Grisham walked over to an antique table located underneath a large gold-framed mirror hanging in the entryway. He pulled open a drawer and fished his hand among its contents. “That’s strange,” he said. “It’s always in here. If my wife were home she’d know where it is.”
Grisham’s statement surprised the detectives and momentarily halted their search. “Mrs. Grisham isn’t here?” asked Mac. “Where is she?”
“New York. She left a couple days ago. Friday, to be exact. She said she wanted to visit her college roommate and do some shopping.”
Mayes was more than a little annoyed. “But Mr. Grisham, on Thursday morning you said she was wasted and wouldn’t wake up for a week. Why the quick exit?”
“How the hell should I know?” barked Grisham. “Maybe Bergdorf’s was having a sale.”
Mac picked up a faded photograph of a much younger Jim Grisham and a woman in a wedding gown. Mac at first thought the picture was some kind of joke, because the bride was at least six inches taller than the groom despite his platform shoes. She had a Farrah Fawcett-inspired hairdo, while Grisham wore long hair and faded bell-bottom blue jeans. “Is this your wife?” he asked.
“Yes, back when Sonia was eighteen. That was from our wedding day.”
“Of course it was,” said Mac, who was thrilled he wasn’t around during the Seventies. Watergate and disco made people do things they would later come to regret. “When was the last time you saw her, Mr. Grisham?”
“Sometime after midnight, I think. She said she had to excuse herself from the, uh…. festivities, because she had too much to drink and wasn’t feeling very well. She said she was going to sleep in the guest room because she didn’t want to risk puking up in bed.”
“How considerate of her,” opined Mayes, rolling his eyes. “And she never once mentioned to you that she was flying across the country the next day? What do we look like, Mr. Grisham? Dumb and Dumber?”
“She’s an adult, for crying out loud. Sonia does whatever the hell she wants. Now are you guys almost done?”
“Not even close,” stated Mac. “Mr. Grisham, you uttered some less than flattering remarks about Michelle Osher to us after you learned of her murder. Our captain told us you and she didn’t see eye-to-eye on a few subjects, specifically the issue of gay marriage. Is that the real reason why you called her a ‘first-class bitch?’”
Grisham spent the next several seconds tying and retying his bathrobe, like a boxer preparing for a fight. “I know what you want to hear, Inspector. You want me to say ‘yes’ so you can suspect I had some kind of beef with her, and that maybe somehow our political differences gave me a motive to kill her. Well you just swung and missed.
“T
he truth is Michelle and I agreed on most issues, just not when it comes to same-sex partners tying the knot. Michelle believed extending marriage benefits to gay couples would increase the number of child adoptions, since God doesn’t allow gay couples to make babies. It was only after an hour-long debate on the topic over a bottle of ’97 Joseph Phelps that Michelle told me she was adopted. After that, I respected her opinion because she had some skin in the game. I would never admit this in public, but she changed my mind, and now I’m a supporter of same-sex marriages. So I had no political beef with her. I just didn’t like her, that’s all. The last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.”
Mac stopped what he was doing and scratched his salt and pepper locks. “Wow. You know, I never looked at gay marriage that way. How come you never made that argument, Mayes? You’re the brilliant thinker.”
Mayes paused to reflect before answering. “The truth is, I never looked at it that way, either. Maybe because Pamela and I have two kids, and I’ve still got plenty of bullets left in my pistol, if you get my drift.”
An hour into the search and Mac and Mayes had found nothing. As they were about to leave, Mac peered into a large porcelain vase standing guard near the front entryway. Lying at the bottom was a plastic Fairmont Hotel room key card. Strange, because the Fairmont Hotel was just a block away. Mac turned the heavy vase over and out fell dozens of Fairmont Hotel key cards.
Mac examined the cards, and about half had pictures of the hotel’s newly restored lobby emblazoned on the front. “Some of these were used during the past nine months. They just finished remodeling the hotel last winter. Do you know anything about these, Mr. Grisham?”
“I’ve never seen those cards in my life,” professed Grisham. “I swear on my mother’s grave, I have no idea how they got there.”
Mayes took a card and pointed at the magnetic strip on the back. “You see these strips, Mr. Grisham? Each one of these is encoded with a date and room number. Each one has a story to tell. For all we know they may lead us to our killer. I sure hope you’re not lying to us.”
“When did you say your wife was returning?” asked Mac.
“I didn’t say and I don’t know,” protested Grisham.
Mayes glared a hole through the back of Grisham’s skull. “Find out.”
MAC AND MAYES MADE their way up one flight of stairs to Paul Osher’s apartment. They had requested another meeting to confirm his relationship with Sheyla Samonte. Lawyer Woodson greeted them at the door and led them into the living room. Paul Osher was ensconced with the morning newspaper in a brown leather easy chair, wearing only a pair of red silk pajama shorts barely covered by a flannel blue robe. Osher’s flabby body, which featured a single ab only because it had to, had more miles on it than the Space Shuttle.
Mayes led off by asking about Misha, the couple’s missing dog. Osher claimed he didn’t know where the dog was, nor did he care. As far as he was concerned, the dog belonged to his wife.
“I hated that rat,” proclaimed Osher. “Michelle’s the one who wanted a dog. She thought getting her picture taken while walking Misha through the neighborhood would make her look more…I don’t know…maternal. We couldn’t have kids, so that mutt was her substitute. What does that four-figure fur ball have to do with the case anyway?”
“We don’t know, Mr. Osher,” answered Mac, who wondered why, after Grisham’s revelation about Michelle Osher being adopted, the couple didn’t consider adoption as well. “But every piece of the puzzle always fits somewhere.”
Osher rose up and fetched yet another cigar, this time an H. Upmann Magnum 46 “That’s wonderful, Inspector Fleet. Maybe the dog murdered my wife. Now can we get this over with, please? My favorite caddy is waiting for me to tee off at the San Francisco Golf Club.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Osher,” continued Mac. “Where is your maid, Maria Madrigal?”
“You mean my former maid. She packed up all her crap and took off yesterday. Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned. And I can testify she told us she had a green card, if anyone gives a damn.”
“We don’t care about that,” retorted Mac. “What we do care about, Mr. Osher, is if she knew something you didn’t want us to know.”
The silence in the room was deafening. Lawyer Woodson decided to earn his fee by venturing into the void. “What are you implying, Inspector?”
“Nothing,” replied Mac, staring directly at Paul Osher. Osher stared back, blowing smoke into the air. Like two kids engaged in a schoolyard stare-down contest, neither one would back down. Mac finally had to lower his eyes to check his notepad. He may have lost this battle, but he was about to win the war.
“Mr. Osher, there is one last topic we need to discuss. Your phone records point to a woman you’ve been calling quite a bit… uh…wait, here it is…Sheyla Samonte. Can you explain this, sir?”
Osher gave a long pull on his cigar. “No, Inspector. I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t,” countered Mac. “Let’s say we cut to the chase, Mr. Osher. By this time tomorrow we’ll have records of any text messages you sent to her as well. So do yourself a favor and stop bullshitting us.”
Osher heaved a heavy sigh and threw an anxious look toward Lawyer Woodson, who nodded his head. The detectives had uncovered a piece of the puzzle Osher hadn’t wanted them to find. “I’m not thrilled to admit this, but my lawyer says I should be completely honest with you. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“A great policy to live by, Mr. Osher,” responded Mac. “And thank you for such good advice, Mr. Woodworth.”
“It’s Woodson,” snapped the uber-expensive attorney.
“Of course it is.”
Osher cleared his throat and took a quick puff. “Yes, I’ve been uh…. been involved… with Sheyla Samonte for a long time now. But let’s face it. I’m not the first man to have a relationship outside his marriage. It’s one of the perks of being rich.”
“Did she know you were married?” asked Mayes.
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one,” needled Osher, chafing at Mayes question. “Of course she knew. Women like Sheyla prefer to date men who are married.”
“Do you provide for her?” continued Mayes.
“You mean do I pay for her to be my girlfriend? She lives in one of my apartment buildings, for God’s sake. What do you think?”
“What about the daily ATM transactions?” asked Mac. “Is that her meal money?”
“It is if she’s having champagne and caviar every day.” Osher stood up and started pacing around the room. “I’m not sure what she uses the money for, and frankly I don’t care. Just so long as she’s available when I want to see her, and smart enough to leave when I don’t.”
Osher also confessed to taking Sheyla Samonte with him to such exotic ports of call as Maui and Cabo San Lucas, and countless trips to Las Vegas. Besides first class airfare and four-star accommodations, Osher would also give Sheyla his black American Express card so she could shop ‘til she dropped.
“Did you make her any promises, Mr. Osher, like you would divorce your wife and marry her?” asked Mayes.
“Of course not. Women like Sheyla know who they are and what they want. Once a mistress gets married, she knows there’s another job opening.”
Osher walked over and gazed out toward Alcatraz Island. His eyes began to take on a dream-like quality. “You know, if you ever saw her, you would wish you were me.”
“Is that right, Mr. Osher?” challenged Mac. “Enlighten me as to why I’d want to be like you.”
Osher ignored the sarcasm. “Because she’s gorgeous as hell, that’s why. She’s the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. I get a woody just thinking about her.”
Osher may have had money, but as far as Mac was concerned, he was broke when it came to class. It was time to lay his cards on the table. Mac walked over to the window and spoke in a near whisper.
“Well, Mr. Osher, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. We’ve already been i
n contact with Miss Samonte, and you’re right, she is beautiful. We got her address from your phone records, and I’ve been to her apartment. I’ve also seen where she works when she’s not working on you. I’m sure you wouldn’t want the press to find out that when your mistress isn’t employed as your personal piece of arm candy, she’s a “gender illusionist” at Pearls of Asia.”
Osher’s face turned whiter than the walls in his living room. The secret he hoped to keep buried forever had just been unearthed. The world learning he had a mistress didn’t bother him, whereas the world learning she was a pre-operative transsexual scared him to death. Osher wanted to speak, but the words just wouldn’t come out. “So you know?” he finally uttered.
“Know what, Mr. Osher?”
“You know she’s a little…different.”
“We know that she works at a restaurant called Pearls of Asia if that’s what you mean.”
“Then you know what I’m trying to say.” Osher began to shake and needed to sit down. Lawyer Woodson went to the liquor cabinet and opened a bottle of scotch. Even at a thousand bucks an hour, what his client needed at that moment was a bartender more than a lawyer.
“Do you think she would have any reason to kill your wife?” asked Mayes
“None, whatsoever. Sheyla’s on the gravy train, for Christ’s sake. She’s living a fantasy life. Why would she risk giving it up? She had nothing to gain by killing Michelle.”
Mac checked his watch. It was 12:30, and they needed to go. They were scheduled to meet Sheyla in thirty minutes.
As Mac and Mayes headed for the door, a visibly upset Paul Osher rose from his chair to cut them off. “Detectives, please, please. Do me this one favor. Try to keep our little secret out of the press. Information like this could be devastating. It could ruin me. I beg you.”
Paul Osher wasn’t the first suspect Mac had put the squeeze on. But Osher was so stressed out, Mac could actually hear him sweat.
