Cover Your Assets

by Patricia Smiley

  Max Farnsworth and his technicians arrived shortly after two p.m. in a red van with biohazardous-waste warnings printed on both side panels. Farnsworth was a wiry, intense man in his fifties, with large, earnest eyes and oversize ears. He supervised the unloading of various pieces of equipment, including barrels, masks, and several white, hooded HAZMAT suits. It didn’t take long. I guess if you clean up blood for a living, you want to make quick work of it. I gave Farnsworth the key to Evan’s apartment and told him to knock on Rose’s door when he was finished.

  I decided to see if the mice had spared any of the packing boxes. Rose warned me there wasn’t much light inside the building, so I borrowed a mini flashlight she kept by her bed, and headed outside.

  The storage unit turned out to be a shed in the parking lot that was large enough to displace at least three cars. It didn’t match the building’s original architecture in either age or design. I assumed it was an afterthought, moved in to enable Homo sapiens’s obsession for collecting useless junk. Luckily, most of the boxes were serviceable. I carted a few upstairs and propped them against the wall near Evan’s door. Rose was delighted to hear that they were still in good shape.

  “I was trying to remember how long they’ve been down there,” she said. “I moved here just after Rudy died—May eighteenth. For a long time I remembered that day every month: June eighteenth, one month since Rudy died. July eighteenth, two months without Rudy. Then one month I forgot to think about how long I’d been a widow, and that was it. You ever lose somebody you loved?”

  “No one like Rudy.”

  “Well, you will some day, I’m sorry to say. You never get over it, but you do get beyond it. I guess that’s the best I can say. What about your folks? They live around here?”

  “Just my mother.”

  She acknowledged my guarded tone with a nod. “Well, she’s probably not perfect, but enjoy her while you can. She won’t be around forever, you know.”

  While I waited for the cleaning crew to finish, Rose and I watched a Perry Mason marathon. During commercials she regaled me with the personal history of each of its stars. Who knew that Della Street and Paul Drake were married in real life?

  It was just before five o’clock. Perry was in the process of tricking yet another bad guy into confessing on the witness stand, when I heard a knock on the door. It was Max Farnsworth. I thanked Rose for entertaining me, grabbed my purse, and joined Max in the hallway, where he gave me a rundown of everything the crew had done. It was more information than I wanted to know.

  Fortunately, the apartment was small and the crime scene was confined mostly to the kitchen. The biggest problem was that blood had saturated the kitchen’s industrial carpet. The crew had removed it, so it would have to be replaced. Also, the kitchen needed repainting. I decided to delay those decisions. Perhaps the apartment owners preferred to do the work themselves. Farnsworth asked if I wanted a walk-through. I declined. I didn’t know how I’d react to being in Evan’s apartment, and didn’t want witnesses. I signed his contract, listing Cissy’s home address for billing purposes.

  After Farnsworth left, I found myself facing Evan’s door. The last thing I wanted to do was go inside, but the packing boxes were still propped up against the wall in the hallway. I should at least put them inside. I also needed to see how much work remained to be done.

  Evan’s key ring was looped over my index finger, which provided an overwhelming sense of forward motion that propelled me toward his front door. It was the same unstoppable momentum that must have gotten the old woman’s pig to jump over the sty. The hand began to hold the key; the key began to turn the lock; the lock began to open the door, so Tucker could get herself into deeper doo-doo in time for supper tonight.

  Once the door was open, I lingered near the threshold for a moment, holding my breath for as long as I could. Slowly I allowed small doses of air to register in my olfactory processing center as industrial cleaners trapped in stagnant air. I set my purse down near the threshold and carried the boxes inside before pulling the door closed until I heard the latch bolt slide quietly into the slot.

  The living room was narrow, with two small double-hung windows. It was now too dark outside to see much, but the building was on the beach. The view must be amazing. A telephone sat on the window ledge. I’d have to remind Cissy or Claire to have the service cut off.

  Forming a tight cluster near the windows was the rental furniture: couch, coffee table, two canvas director’s chairs, and a home entertainment center, which housed a TV and VCR. The only other piece was a long worktable, pushed against the wall just left of the front door. It was strewn with copies of Variety and Hollywood Reporter. The arrangement seemed out of balance. I wondered if the police had moved things around and forgotten where they belonged.

  To my left, a small kitchen branched off the living room. As I moved toward it, I saw where the carpet had been hacked out, leaving pieces of jagged padding and hook fasteners against the plywood floor. I tensed, half expecting to feel Evan’s presence hovering over the Old Dutch Cleanser in some afterlife limbo, waiting to guide me to his killer. Instead, all I felt were cold prickles up and down my neck, and a growing concern that being here was maybe not such a good idea.

  I backed away from the kitchen and, despite my uneasiness, headed through the living room to take a quick look at the rest of the place. There was a bathroom at the center of a long hallway, which was anchored at each end by a bedroom. The smaller of the two rooms was empty. Looming large in the main bedroom was a canopied wooden bedstead. It looked expensive. Draped from the frame was a gauzy fabric that appeared to be mosquito netting on loan from the set of Call Me Bwana. The linens had been pulled off and then haphazardly thrown back on. The earthy textures and patterns looked rich and sensual, as if a woman with attitude had put her foot down: I’ll sleep with you in this dump, but not on a rental bed. I wondered who that woman had been—certainly not Cissy. She’d never been to the apartment.

  Perched on top of a small bedside chest of drawers were a dozen red roses, fighting to keep their heads high in a dry vase. I thought about the poem found at the crime scene. What had it said? “Red rose, dead rose. True love, cruel myth.” I didn’t know what Evan had meant by those words. Roses had never been a part of our relationship. In fact, I didn’t remember him ever sending me flowers of any kind. Perhaps the roses were a gift, but for whom or from whom? Self-doubt swept over me as I wondered whether the poem had been written for me or for somebody else.

  My gaze left the roses and continued around the room. Aside from the flowers and a few ghostly hangers in the closet, the place either had been stripped clean by the police or was that way when they arrived. As I walked toward the bed, I spotted a splash of color on the nightstand next to the flower vase. It was a key ring made up of red and green beads stitched to a flimsy piece of leather. One of the threads had broken loose, and several beads were missing. Even so, it looked as if the design had once been some kind of flower. Another rose?

  The workmanship was marginal, as if an amateur hobbyist or a child had crafted it. I thought of Evan’s daughter, Dara, and wondered if she’d made it for Evan. If so, Cissy would want to keep it. In any event, it wasn’t evidence, or it wouldn’t be sitting out in plain sight. I slipped it into my pants pocket.

  Out of curiosity, I opened the top drawer of the bedside chest and found a half-empty box of condoms and a pair of reading glasses, the type you buy from the drugstore. When I tried to close the drawer again, it jammed. I jiggled it a few times to free the blockage, but with no success. Frustrated, I yanked the drawer out and stared into the black cavity but saw nothing. I removed the next drawer down and felt around with my hand until I touched something that was wedged back there. It was a videotape. I didn’t spend much time wondering what was on it and why it was hidden in Evan’s bedside chest. Instead, I hurried to the living room and popped it into the VCR.

  The soundtrack started before the picture. The music was jazzy but
of poor sound quality. The image that came into view had a home movie feel to it: jerky camera work and grainy picture quality. A camera panned what looked like a doctor’s office and stopped on a man’s face. He appeared to be lying on an examining table. His eyes fluttered. His mouth contorted as if he were in the midst of gallbladder surgery without anesthetic. Then a satisfied smile spread to the outer corners of his eyes. The camera lens slowly pulled back to reveal the reason for the patient’s good humor: he was stark naked and encouraging a hard-on that was already as big as a dachshund. Evan, I thought, you dog, you.

  Just then the camera cut to the office door, where a blonde woman with pouty lips and a nurse’s cap appeared. Her outfit, or lack thereof, confirmed that I hadn’t just stumbled onto an old episode of ER. The action was gross. I should have turned it off immediately, but it was so icky I couldn’t stop watching. Five minutes into the scene I decided the only way this flick could get any worse was if Nurse Pouty-lips and the donkey from Shrek—well, never mind.

  I was about to turn off the VCR when a woman entered the room. She was wearing a lab coat with “Dr. Luster” embroidered on the left breast pocket. A woman doctor? Wow, I thought, a feminist porno flick. What will they think of next? She looked young—late teens, I guessed, maybe younger—but the lascivious look in her eyes made her seem older. Her complexion was flawless, as was her figure. I studied her bleached blond hair and brown eyes. It was an unusual combination. She looked vaguely familiar, but it took a moment before I realized who she was. When I did, a low but audible “Sheee-it” hissed through my lips. The good doctor was a much younger but still recognizable Lola Scott.

  Anyone who had ever glanced, however furtively, at a tabloid newspaper at the grocery store checkout counter knew that name: Lola Scott, the diva of daytime TV. She starred as Mallory Eden in a hugely popular soap called Kings Road. She’d been Evan’s first big success as an agent, a model with minimal acting talent but with a body that sold advertising. Her transition into acting had been mishandled by a manager/boyfriend until Evan discovered her in some cheesy horror film and made her a daytime soap star. He’d negotiated a contract that allowed her to do an occasional film, most of which went straight to video. Many actors like my mother, who worked hard at their craft and struggled to keep their head shots on casting directors’ desks, resented the breaks Lola Scott had been handed.

  Having a porn credit in her résumé didn’t seem like a very good career move—if the news got out, it could be damaging. I assumed the movie had been made before Lola got into “serious” acting, and maybe before she got into modeling. The big question was, why did Evan have the tape, and why here at this apartment? Why not lock it in a safety deposit box or, better yet, destroy it?

  As the video played on, I noted that the bedside manner of the young and sensuous Dr. Luster was now on full display. I muted the heavy panting and substituted my own dialogue: “Nice doggie. Beg. Stay. Play dead.” Finally, I turned off the VCR and slid the tape into the pocket of my vest, opposite the one that contained Evan’s mail. The tape might not have had anything to do with Evan’s death, but I was going to let Detective Green make that call.

  I made one last pass through the main bedroom to make sure I hadn’t missed anything else important. Again I noticed the dying roses. They seemed too poignant to ignore, so I took the vase to the bathroom and filled it with water from the sink tap, knowing that the gesture was futile but hoping it would extend their life by a few hours. While I was there, I went through the drawers in the cabinet. Most of the stuff—shaving cream, aspirin, and toothbrushes—I threw in the trash can under the sink. Several towels were piled up in the bathtub. A couple of white terry-cloth robes were hanging on the back of the door. I folded them in a neat pile on the toilet seat, ready to transfer into Rose’s boxes.

  I returned the flowers to the bedside chest and was walking back down the hallway toward the living room when I glanced up and saw the front door. It was ajar. I tried to remember if I’d locked it. I was sure I had, which meant that someone other than Monique had a key. That could include any number of people: Evan’s friends, lovers, drug dealers, or his killer. I assumed that the members of the latter two categories would be happy to send me into the afterlife limbo with Evan without batting an eyelash.

  A moment later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a closet door sliding on its track. It was coming from the second bedroom. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge.

  I had just bolted for the front door when something that felt like a freight train hit me between the shoulder blades. My arms flew in the air in an attempt at balance, but shoes bogged down in carpet defeated the effort. I crashed to the floor. I tried to scream but couldn’t. The freight train yanked me off the floor by my vest, struggled to turn me over but managed only to wrench my back. I groaned and put my arms over my head to defend the same lame brain that had gotten me into this mess.

  Something ripped. Fabric. I floated for a moment before landing face-first on the carpet. Everything grew still except for the floor, which vibrated against my cheek from the force of heavy footsteps pounding toward the exit. Just before the door slammed shut, I looked up and caught a glimpse of a heavy square-toed black boot with a strap and buckle. Embedded in the leather on the side was a silver medallion the size of a quarter.

  My back hurt. My cheek stung from carpet burn. I lifted my head and rolled to a sitting position, fighting to calm the tremors vibrating every nerve ending. I looked myself over to make sure I was all in one piece. I was; my fleece vest was not. One pocket had been ripped off and was lying near my purse a few feet away. Aside from that, everything looked okay except for one thing: Lola Scott’s porn video was gone, along with Evan’s mail.

  -10-

  i sat on the living room carpet in Evan Brice’s apartment, waiting for my hands to stop trembling. The freight train hadn’t been inside when I arrived. I would have noticed. He’d probably entered while I was folding towels in the bathroom. My purse was still sitting by the door, which meant he’d probably come specifically for the video or the mail. If he came for the video, he must not have known it was hidden in the chest of drawers. He probably came on a fishing expedition, hoping the police hadn’t discovered it when they searched the apartment. If he came for the mail, I couldn’t imagine why.

  I tried to recall what letters had been in my pocket. There was a notice from the gas company, but I assumed that if they had issues with Evan, they would simply turn off his pilot light. Ditto for other bills. Deadbeat did not justify dead meat. Nothing else in the pile struck me as earth-shattering.

  I had to notify Detective Green about the theft, because it might have something to do with Evan’s death, but I felt safer making the call from my car. Whoever had attacked me was likely long gone, but just the same, he had a key and could come back at any time.

  I touched my cheek. It felt as if several layers of skin had been scraped off, but I couldn’t worry about that now. I grabbed my purse and the loose vest pocket and cautiously opened the door before venturing into the hallway.

  When I got to my car, I threw the pocket on the passenger seat. The tear looked clean. I didn’t know how to fix it, but hopefully somebody else would. Neither Pookie nor I had ever owned a sewing machine. In my mother’s world, sewing machines were symbols of the oppression of women. Right now they seemed more like symbols of a thirty-dollar repair bill at the dry cleaner’s.

  I used my cell phone to call the number for Pacific Station’s detective squad. After waiting on hold for what seemed like an eternity, I finally heard Detective Green’s voice on the other end of the line. He listened to my story without comment. When I was finished, he asked if I’d been injured. I told him no.

  “I’ll send a black-and-white to take a report, but it may take a while.”

  I was stunned by his nonchalance. Maybe he thought his case against Cissy was so airtight he didn’t need any more evidence, especially if it contradicted his theory.

&nb
sp; “Don’t you want to come over in person and look around?” I said. “You know, check for fingerprints or something. What if this video is connected to Evan Brice’s murder? You are looking for his killer, aren’t you?”

  For a moment there was silence on the line. “Yes, ma’am, I am—his and a few others, last I checked.” There was a defensive tone to his voice, as if I’d just accused him of sitting on his duff all day, eating bonbons.

  “Have you interviewed Monique Ruiz yet? I suppose you know she worked for Evan Brice. She also had a key to his apartment and left town around the time he was killed. Doesn’t that sound a little suspicious?”

  “In a homicide investigation, everybody’s movements are suspicious.” The implication was, even yours, but he didn’t say it.

  “That doesn’t exactly answer my question, does it?”

  “We’ve talked to the Ruiz girl. She has an alibi. It checks out.”

  This conversation was going nowhere. I certainly didn’t want to sit around Evan’s apartment waiting to explain my qualms to a couple of skeptical patrol officers. I told him that.

  “Why don’t you come to the station?” he said. “I’d like to ask you a few follow-up questions anyway. While you’re here, you can file a robbery report.”

  It was at least a compromise, so I agreed. When I walked into the lobby fifteen minutes later, two uniformed officers were at the front desk. One was listening intently to a telephone conversation. The other was taking a report from a woman whose personal computer had been stolen from her desk at work.