What, he didn’t feel at home here anymore?
I picked up a cushion from the floor and laid it on the bare couch frame, setting him down in the middle of it for a nap while we explored.
Lenore had been pretty well off before she was left “high and dry,” that much was clear. Even in its vandalized state the house was like a spread from Architectural Digest. The massive fireplace was decorated with hand-painted tiles and topped with a gnarled wooden mantelpiece that looked like it had held up a wall in a Spanish mission. There were oak beams across the vaulted ceiling, arched doorways, indigo slate tiles on the floor, original oil paintings on the walls . . .
Wait a minute.
Was that a Francis Bacon in the corner? I waded through the flotsam to take a closer look.
If it was a fake you could have fooled me. I’d only taken one art history course in my years at UCLA but the style was unmistakable. It was a simple portrait, a man slumped in a chair facing the lower left corner of the frame. His face was a double image—like an X-ray superimposed over flesh and blood. His black eyes stared vacantly, his teeth seemingly floating in space. A naked lightbulb cast a pale light in the darkened room, illuminating the man’s oversized wristwatch.
The effect was unsettling. Like someone marking time until his death, unaware that he’d already passed on.
“Hey, up here!” Terry called from the second floor. I ran up the stairs and found her standing in the doorway to Lenore’s bedroom.
There was an enormous four-poster bed of antique wood with a white lace coverlet, big enough to ice skate on. The drawers from the dresser were lying empty on the floor, lingerie flung pell-mell around the room.
Terry pointed to a wisp of black lace that hung obscenely from a lampshade. “Crotchless.”
“God, I don’t even want to know,” I said with a shudder.
We moved down the hallway and found that the other upstairs bedrooms were in the same condition. Furniture toppled, bric-a-brac smashed, throw rugs tossed.
We wandered back downstairs and found Lenore’s office, a small wood-paneled room off the kitchen. We sifted through the books and papers that were strewn all over the floor, looking for a clue—anything that might provide an explanation of who had been here and why. After a few minutes Terry jumped up waving a small piece of yellow paper.
“Oh my God, look at this! It’s a receipt from a pawnshop!”
“What, for redemption?”
“No, it’s the original pawn transaction. Check it out: a twenty-two carat gold and diamond Koala bear, diamond pavé bracelet and earrings, an emerald ring with matching pendant and earrings, a ruby hatpin—”
“Sounds like it’s worth a fortune.”
“Less than you’d think, but still a pretty penny.” She shoved the paper under my nose. “Ten thousand dollars.”
“What? Does it have Mario’s signature?” I looked at the bottom of the page. The contract was signed by Lenore Richling in an elegant, feminine hand.
“Lenore hocked her own jewelry,” Terry fumed. “That lying skank!”
“Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around this. “What does it all mean?”
“The story of jewel theft was total BS,” Terry declared triumphantly. “She said it to make herself look like a victim.”
“Well, okay. But maybe she hocked the jewels and then Mario took the money from her. And she was too embarrassed to tell us the truth.” I figured Lenore’s secret shame about her husband’s unsavory habits had to run pretty deep.
“Either way, she lied through her capped teeth.”
I sat on the carpet, surrounded by the contents of Lenore’s desk, surveying the opulent surroundings. “But why did she need to sell off her jewels?”
“She was desperate for the money we got from Mario,” Terry said, narrowing her eyes. “You could practically taste the desperation. She probably needed it to pay her bill at the hotel.”
“But why not sell the house or some of the stuff in it? There’s a valuable painting in her living room, probably worth millions.”
We sat there for a moment, stumped.
I got up and leaned on the desk, running my finger along the decorative scrolled carving on its edge. “Okay, Lenore pretended that getting the money back from Mario was a matter of principle, not necessity, right?”
“Right.”
“But she actually needs the money. Needed it enough to hock her own jewels.”
“Right. But Mario stole the proceeds and took a powder. Why?”
“Because it was getting dangerous,” I said. “They took something—Lenore’s it—from someone who wanted it back bad enough to kill Mario. Then that someone came here and ransacked the place looking for it. It was just dumb luck Lenore wasn’t home or she’d be dead, too.”
Terry sighed. “Well, all I know is I can’t do any more of this advanced theoretical thinking on an empty stomach. Think she’s got anything to eat?”
“Let’s go see.”
I followed her into the kitchen, figuring a little glucose might be just the thing for my muddled thought processes. Terry pulled open the stainless steel refrigerator door. It was crammed with goodies. A bottle of Dom Perignon, a tin of French Paté de Campagne—for the dog, no doubt—and other assorted gourmet foods, from pickled Vidalia onions to something called a Torteau Fromage Soufflé sponge cake, to a can of wild burgundy snails from La Maison de l’Escargot.
I knew we couldn’t defy the law of thermodynamics forever, and the day would come when a binge like the one I was contemplating would result in thighs of thunder. But we were still in our twenties and that day seemed a long way off.
“What’s that?” I said eagerly, pointing to a Tupperware container toward the front. I could see a swirly brown substance through the lid that just had to be chocolate.
Terry reached in and grabbed it. “Mousse, I’ll bet, from some fancy restaurant like The Ivy. Those women always order dessert and squirrel it away for later. They like to eat it in bed ’cause it’s totally sexual for them,” she said, snapping the lid off the container and taking a deep whiff.
“Oh my God!” she screamed. “It’s dog poop!”
I jumped back. “What?”
“You heard me!” She held it out to me, gasping for breath.
I heard the happy click-clicking of Paquito’s toenails on the kitchen tile. We’d said the magic words, apparently, and he’d come running.
“Sniff it yourself,” she said.
“No way!” I shouted, motioning for her to put the lid back on. “You think it’s Paquito’s?”
She leaned down to him with the Tupperware. “This yours, buddy?” He wagged his tail and lunged as if to dig right in, but she jerked it away from him in the nick of time.
“You don’t think . . . ?” she said with a look of utter horror.
“That she feeds him his own leavings? Come on, Ter, Lenore may murder her husbands in crotchless panties, but she’s no monster.”
“Well, what’s it doing in the fridge?”
“Maybe he really has been sick and she needed a stool sample for the vet. They do that with dogs, you know. See any worms in there?”
She peered into its depths. “What do they look like?”
“You’re asking me what worms look like?” I looked, but there didn’t appear to be any critters in the doody.
“Besides,” Terry said, “why wouldn’t she have dropped it off at the vet’s before she went in for surgery?”
“Excellent question.”
I remembered Rini’s original instructions and found a list of numbers next to the phone. There under NM Tea Room and The Spa was a listing for Vet—Dr. English. I picked up the phone and punched in the number.
A young woman answered cheerily. “Good afternoon, Beverly Animal Clinic.”
“Hello, I’m dog-sitting for Lenore Richling and—”
“What’s the name again?” The clacking of computer keys.
�
�Lenore Richling.”
“Is that the dog’s name?”
“No, his name is Paquito.”
“We file under the pet’s name. Oh here it is, Paquito Richling.”
Okay. “Uh, were we supposed to bring in a stool sample for him? Mrs. Richling mentioned something, but I can’t remember exactly what it was. Were you expecting anything?”
More clacking. “Let me pull his file.” She was gone for a few moments then came back on the line. “The only thing I have scheduled is his shots in April, and of course his weekly grooming and nail clipping. Oh, I see he hasn’t been in for a while. Want to make an appointment?”
What’s to groom? I thought, but I didn’t want to look like a bad parent. “I guess we could do that.”
“How’s Tuesday at four o’clock?”
“Okay, sure.” She gave me the address and I committed it to memory, then gave her our home number for the reminder call.
“Fine, I’ll put you down. Have a nice day,” she said, clicking off.
I hung up the phone and looked at Terry. “It wasn’t for them. But Paquito has to go in for a grooming.”
“Go in for a grooming? We could groom him with a drop of Ivory liquid and a toothbrush.”
I shrugged. “Maybe we’d better get it done by professionals. Maybe he needs to be fumigated for fleas or something.”
“Okay,” she said, shaking her head, and she snapped the top back on the Tupperware. She opened the refrigerator door and put the container inside.
“You’re putting it back?” I said.
She gave me a look. “And you’d like me to do what with it?”
“Flush it. Something.”
“Uh-uh. It’s a crime scene. Better not tamper with the Tupperware.”
“I won’t be able to eat, knowing there’s a container full of dog poop in the fridge!”
“It’s not our refrigerator.”
“Anyone’s refrigerator!”
“Buck up, sis,” she said, stuffing Paquito into the Hello Kitty backpack. “This is a tough business.”
We passed a small park a few blocks from Lenore’s house, a beautifully landscaped enclave planted with red, white, and purple petunias, and shaded by lavender-flowering jacaranda trees. There was a gleaming jungle gym and a brightly colored swing set in the middle of the spotless playground.
In other parts of LA, the drug dealers and derelicts would have made short work of this little oasis. There’d be filthy encampments spread over the grass, walls covered with graffiti, and slavering creeps waiting in the bathroom for any kids naïve enough to think that parks were actually for playing in. But here it was only a weak echo of the surrounding neighborhood, where everyone had gardens that put Versailles to shame, and where kids were raised with Olympic-sized swimming pools, in-home theaters that rivaled the local multiplex, and video game players as technologically advanced as the average missile guidance system. Beverly Hills youngsters wouldn’t even know what to do with a regular swing set, I thought cynically.
Something caught my eye as we rode by: a group of dark-haired young women clustered on the benches, each with a perambulator containing a little blond baby with milky fat cheeks. The women were laughing and pushing the strollers, gabbing away, having a grand old time.
“Hold on!” I shouted to Terry.
She slammed on the brakes, pulling up to the curb.
“What?”
“Did you see those girls back there?”
“What girls?”
“Nannies. A half-dozen of them.”
“So?”
“So Rini had a baby with her when we saw her.”
“And?”
“Why would she have a baby with her? Obviously, it wasn’t hers.”
“Her nephew, the guy said.”
“Did she strike you as the devoted auntie type?”
“No, but—”
“Let’s head back to the park,” I said. “Maybe one of those girls will admit to knowing her.”
Terry nodded and made a U-turn and parked next to the greenway, a hundred yards from the nannies. They watched the Harley’s approach cautiously; we were unwelcome invaders of their private little paradise. I got off the bike and strolled up to them casually, trying to look like a weary traveler out to stretch her legs.
“Hi,” I called out.
A sweet-looking girl in a yellow cotton blouse gave me a smile, and I zeroed in on her. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.”
The other women avoided looking at us. They got busy wiping pabulum off their babies’ faces or bouncing them in their carriages.
“I’m looking for Rini,” I said. “Do you know her?”
“Rini Vallegos?”
Bingo. I didn’t dare look at Terry, who’d come up beside me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Seen her around lately?”
“She was here before with the baby, but she left. She’s quitting her job, going back to Boyle Heights.” Boyle Heights was an east-side neighborhood of quaint, 1930s-style houses that had been primarily Jewish ages ago, but now was home to a big, lively Latino population.
I nodded at the girl sympathetically. “Working here can’t be easy.”
The women all looked up now, rolling their eyes in agreement.
“You don’t even know,” the sweet-looking one said.
I handed her my card. “If you see Rini, will you tell her we’re looking for her?”
“Sure.” The girl looked at my card. “What’s this mean? Double Indemnity?”
“It means we’re private investigators,” Terry said.
Four of the women sprang up and made off with their prams like contestants jumping the gun at a supermarket sweepstakes, scattering in all directions.
“Hey, we’re not cops or anything,” I shouted after them.
The sweet one got up, dropped my card on the grass, and rolled the wheel of her buggy right over it, then raced down the sidewalk, her raven hair streaming in the breeze.
I looked at Terry. “Boy, you sure know how to break up a party.”
She shrugged. “Illegals, easy to spook. But hey, at least you got Rini’s last name—and it’s the same as Mario’s!”
“So . . . Rini is related to Mario—a sister, maybe. And she comes here with a baby, pretending to be a nanny like the rest of them. Why?”
“For the company?”
“Yeah, but she’s not like them. She’s much more ‘street.’ I doubt she’d be that anxious for their company, unless they could do something for her.”
“What could they do for her?”
I let my eyes wander. On both sides of the palm-lined streets were rambling mansions filled with dozens of rooms. I did a quick calculation of the help that would be needed in each house to keep it running. Four to five servants minimum, I estimated, to maintain the house, chlorinate the pool, cook the meals, trim the lawn, cart the kids to soccer practice . . . Someone in every corner of the household, tending to all the details of daily life, seeing all, hearing all . . .
Then it came to me.
“What do you think these girls talk about while they’re here?” I asked, smiling.
Terry followed my gaze around the neighborhood, probably the richest this side of Brunei. “What does anybody talk about? Their work.”
“More specifically, their rich employers. Who knows more about what goes on in a house than the hired help? They hear every conversation, every phone call, they know who comes and who goes. They’re literally in charge of the dirty laundry—”
“Right!” she said, as understanding dawned.
“And maybe while they’re taking the air with the babies, Rini talks to the girls from the other households and finds out that la señora is doing the pool man, that el señor is hiding money from his partners, that the valuables they reported stolen to the insurance company are hidden in the attic—”
“Information like that could be worth a lot.”
“Yes, it could.”
Terry blew out a breath. “So Lenore’s been blackmailing her own neighbors? The crafty little bitch! That’s how she’s maintained her lifestyle!”
“It might explain her little gang of three. Rini gets the scoop, Lenore does the dealing, and Mario the enforcing.”
“And maybe the break-in was one of her victims trying to retrieve something she had on them. That’s why she wants them to know she doesn’t have it, because they’re coming after it now.”
We were just about to slap each other five when Terry frowned, thinking of a complication. “But if she’s blackmailing people, why doesn’t she have any money? Why would she be so desperate for the ten thousand?”
“Maybe she’s on the verge of a big payout, holding on by her fingernails till it comes.”
“A big payout, huh? You know, that makes total sense!”
“It’s just a theory.”
“But it’s brilliant, baby!”
“Elementary, my dear.”
That evening when it was time to go downtown, we made the difficult decision to leave Paquito at home. We didn’t want the attention he was bound to draw at Trotsky’s, so we filled a bowl with kibble and left a pile of newspapers in the kitchen for bathroom breaks. But when we tried to leave, he lunged on his little toothpick legs trying to get outside, whimpering so much it almost shattered our hearts.
“Stay,” I begged him. “Honey baby, stay!”
Whimper, whimper. Which translated to Take Paquito on moving machine! Paquito stick nose in air, have fun with new mommies! Or words to that effect. And you can believe me when I say we were very affected.
How on earth were we going to part with this little three-pound love muscle? We managed to close the front door, obliterating the sight of his quivering nose.
Terry blew out a sigh. “That wasn’t fun.”
“It was torture,” I agreed.
The bouncer at Trotsky’s looked like he’d just gotten off the boat from Siberia. Six-foot-five, face a foot-and-a-half wide, mean little eyes that said he preferred work as a Mongol horseman but this was the only gig he could get in LA. He fixed us with a freezing stare, until Terry batted her eyelashes and popped out with, “Zdratsvuitye. Kak vui pahjhivaetye?”
The Butcher of Beverly Hills Page 9
