Dream House

by Rochelle Krich

  “Bubbie's managing fine,” I assured him, hoping it was true. I wondered, not for the first time, whether my grandmother was really coping or whether she was pretending to, for our sakes. “Do you know the owner?”

  “Everybody knows everyone in this business. Walter Ochs.” He looked at me with curiosity, but he didn't press.

  It's one of the things I like about my brother-in-law. “Can I use your name?”

  “Not on a charge slip.” He smiled. “Sure, go ahead.”

  “What's the place like?”

  “Nice wallpaper.”

  It was my turn to frown. “Nice wallpaper? Is that supposed to be an important quality in a facility?”

  He smiled again. “Exactly.”

  From down the block I saw a white paper tucked under my windshield wipers. Like an increasing number of neighborhood streets, Martel has permit-parking-only after six P.M. My first thought, accompanied by an expletive, was that a parking enforcement commando had ignored the permit hanging from my rearview mirror. It's happened before.

  It was a flyer. Probably advertising the services of a handyman or gardener, I thought as I unfolded the paper and read the large words handwritten in thick black marker:

  HE THAT TROUBLETH HIS OWN HOUSE

  SHALL INHERIT THE WIND.

  BE CAREFUL.

  THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES.

  Someone peddling salvation, I thought, crumpling the paper.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Tuesday, November 11. 7:18 A.M. 4900 Cromwell Avenue. During the day, a thief entered a gated property and took nude statues from the front yard, valued at $6,800 in all. (Northeast)

  THE MORNING FOG HID THE SUN, AND I HOPED IT WOULD do the same to the bags under my eyes, the result of my staying up late watching French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, whom I adore. I'd shaved ten minutes off my treadmill workout, made tolerable by the French Kiss soundtrack, downed a power bar with a glass of milk instead of my usual muffin, and with “La Vie en Rose” still in my head, wondered why I'd agreed to meet Hank Reston at his Hancock Park house at seven-thirty.

  Fog thinned and turned into drizzle just as I got into my car. I drove east on Third and joined the slowing queue of automobiles heading downtown. Parisians or tourists may love Paris when it drizzles, but we Angelinos overreact to even a few drops of precipitation, and it must have been a slow news day, judging by the “You give us twenty-two minutes, we'll give you the world” KFWB radio reporter, who talked about the rain as though it were the precursor to Noah's flood. (“We'll bring you updates as they occur,” he promised somberly.)

  Minutes later I neared Muirfield, and making a left turn on the corner, I cast a quick, automatic glance to my right at the infamous Norwood Young house. I've seen it countless times, yet I always find myself looking. Most people look, which I understand is the point.

  It's stark white—the exterior, the roof, the wrought iron gate that gives the property a fortress feel. So are the nineteen pedestals, replacing the original pine trees, that form an arc on the lawn, and the eighteen anatomically correct marble copies of Michelangelo's David that grace them. The nineteenth statue, placed in the arc's center, is an armless nymph whose bored expression says she's seen it all before, or has seen better.

  The neighbors aren't bored. If The Dungeon on South Martel precipitated HARP status in Miracle Mile North, I suspect it's this white house that makes many pro-HARP Hancock Park residents see red.

  I wasn't particularly offended, but I didn't live next door. Last night at mah jongg, Edie told me a prospective homeowner had opted not to buy in Hancock Park because of “the Davids.” He'd probably be less inclined today. With the drizzle, I imagined that certain body parts on the statues would appear to be leaking.

  I wondered again who decided what was historically significant, and what happened when the rights of the individual clashed with the sensibilities of others. And how far would people go to protect those rights? Was it possible that Linney's death was, after all, a tragic unforeseen event and not premeditated?

  But what about the phone call from Margaret?

  Reston's house, half a block away from “the Davids,” was a stately two-story brick-faced Tudor with lead glass windows, a roof with multiple gables, and a sloped lawn the size of a small park. It was the kind of setting where a uniformed butler wouldn't seem out of place, and I was almost disappointed when Hank opened the door himself. He was wearing another baggy sweater—forest green this time—and black Dockers.

  After waiting while I inaugurated a woven hemp mat, he invited me into a vaulting entry that faced a wide, curving stairway and a living room you could bowl in. My eyes were drawn to the huge, ornately framed portrait hanging above the black marble fireplace of a dark-haired woman in a burgundy velvet gown.

  “That's Maggie,” Reston said in the reverential tone of a curator unveiling a work from an Old Master. “But I guess you figured that out.”

  He walked into the living room and I followed, our footsteps echoing in the bare, high-ceilinged room. He stopped in front of the portrait and studied it as if he were seeing it for the first time.

  “Oscar wouldn't give me the satisfaction of saying so, but I could tell he liked it,” Hank said. “It shows her a little more stiff than she was, but the artist was going for regal. She's something, isn't she?”

  “She's beautiful,” I said, keenly aware that we were both talking as though she were still alive.

  To be honest, she was more interesting and vibrant than beautiful. The face was too narrow, the nose a little too sharp and too long, the lips too wide. But my words gave Hank pleasure and cost me nothing, and the warmth in her large dark brown eyes and the smile that played around those lips lit her face and more than made up for any flaws. It was a smile that spoke of contentment and joy and made you want to smile right back. It was a smile that, given what had happened, seemed terribly poignant.

  The artist had gotten the regal part down. I didn't know if it was his suggestion or Margaret's (or Reston's?) but she'd pulled her hair into a tight, gleaming chignon, revealing a shapely skull and patrician forehead and an elongated neck around which lay a circlet of diamonds. Each stone was larger than my one-and-a-half carat engagement ring, and the center teardrop could have held its own on a chandelier. More diamonds sparkled in her ears and on her wrist and on her finger. If diamonds are a girl's best friend, Margaret had had a sorority.

  She wore the jewels well, as if they belonged on her, but I could see what Hank meant about her stiffness. It was in the set of her shoulders, in the posed hands folded on her lap. They looked restless and gave the impression that she wanted to gather her velvet skirts and get on with the business of enjoying life.

  And now she was missing, presumed dead.

  There was no other artwork on the sand-colored walls, no drapes or shutters on the many large windows, no rugs on parquet floors lacquered to a mirrorlike gloss. A black grand piano sat imperiously alone in the otherwise empty room as though it were on a concert stage, waiting for someone who would elicit magic from its keys.

  Reston's gaze followed mine. “Maggie ordered it a few weeks before she disappeared,” he said. “I forgot all about it until they delivered it.”

  “It's magnificent,” I told him, not knowing what else to say.

  “Yeah.” There was a world of sadness in the word. “I don't know if I'll keep it. I don't know if I'll stay in the house. I don't need anything this big, this fancy. But if there's the smallest chance she's alive . . .”

  He stood a moment longer staring at the piano, or past it, I couldn't tell. Then he glanced at the portrait again, turned sharply on his heel, and left the room. I did the same.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “MOST OF THE STUFF HASN'T COME YET,” HANK TOLD ME as he led me into a library lined with empty built-in bookshelves. “The decorator ordered couches and tables and rugs and all that stuff, but it's taking forever. Maggie chose her, so I know she's good. I sure
as hell wouldn't know what to do.”

  I figured the books were on order, too. Literature by the pound, I thought, recalling a fan who'd asked a sales clerk at one of my book signings for a hundred dollars' worth of Out of the Ashes. He'd left with four hardcover copies of Ashes, an Ann Rule paperback, and a magazine. If he'd waited for the Ashes paperback . . .

  I decided I was being a snoot. For all I knew, Hank was an avid reader. I'd been colored by Linney's prejudice, a prejudice I'd heard secondhand.

  Hank walked to a rosewood desk cluttered with papers and handed me a stack of stapled sheets. “A copy of Maggie's planner. I read it last night but didn't find anything helpful. Maybe you'll see something I didn't.”

  That was unlikely. Reston would be familiar with names and abbreviations that would make no sense to me. “Was there anything different about your wife in the days before she disappeared?”

  “Why don't we talk in the kitchen, Molly.” A good idea, since the massive black leather studded desk chair provided the only seating in the room. “You'll have to excuse the mess. The housekeeper had to go to the dentist.”

  I'm a lover of kitchens, and this one was Cordon Bleu worthy. It was enormous—I'd expected no less—but the designer had managed to create a cozy feeling by using warm lacquered woods for the cabinets and flooring, and the walls were painted a soft buttercup. The granite counters looked black, but on closer inspection were a dark green, and decorative tiles accented the beige ceramic ones on the backsplash. There were two Sub-Zero refrigerators, Hank showed me proudly, and two freezers, two Thermador double ovens, and a Viking range top with six burners under a stainless steel hood large enough to suck up a small city.

  “Maggie and I loved to cook together,” he told me, the wistfulness in his voice just short of a sigh.

  I love to cook, too, although since my divorce I haven't been doing much of it, unless you call broiling chicken or fish or heating pizza or take-out Chinese “cooking.” And my kitchen is about the size of Reston's center island. Since I keep kosher, if it were my kitchen I'd add a second dishwasher and sink (one for meat, one for dairy). But that's quibbling. I would chalesh to have a kitchen like this. That's Yiddish for swoon, but it means to crave intensely. Which I did.

  The “mess,” by the way, was a plate, silverware, and two tumblers stacked in the stainless steel sink. My brother Joey does more damage preparing a snack.

  Adjoining the kitchen was a breakfast room painted in that same soft yellow. The rain partially obscured the view through the French doors, but I could see the rectangular swimming pool at the end of a beautifully landscaped garden.

  Hank brought two crackled yellow mugs to a glass-topped table with a wrought iron base. We sat across from each other on chairs upholstered in a polished cotton print whose blues and yellows were echoed in ceramic bowls and knickknacks around the room. Some of the “stuff” the decorator had ordered had obviously arrived.

  The coffee smelled wonderful. I added creamer and a packet of sweetener, then took a sip. It tasted wonderful, too, rich with a hint of cinnamon.

  “You asked about Maggie,” he said, his large hands cupping the mug. “She seemed tense, but I figured it was the house. It's exciting building from scratch, but even with a decorator and an architect, there's so many decisions, and things never go the way you planned. Plus she was worried about her dad.”

  From what I could remember, several of Maggie's notations had been house related. Granite, flooring, bath fixtures. “Was she more tense the last few days?”

  “I don't know.” Reston shifted his gaze to the bare-branched trees visible through the windows. “I keep going over it, wondering if there was something I missed. And I was doin' a lot of business travel. I keep thinking about that, too. If I'd been home that night . . .”

  I'd been down that road myself. The night Aggie was murdered, she'd wanted me to accompany her to a prayer vigil for a young woman stricken with cancer, but laziness had made me turn her down.

  I pushed the thought back into a recess of my mind. “You mentioned a home invasion. Was anything taken?”

  “The diamonds Maggie had on in the portrait. A necklace, bracelet, ring, earrings. She wore them to a black-tie dinner Wednesday night and was going to put them back in the bank vault Thursday. I guess she didn't get around to it.”

  That added an interesting dimension, and an excellent motive. “How much was everything worth?” I asked, because it was relevant and I was curious.

  “The good stuff was appraised at a million three,” Hank said. “Another five or ten thousand for some pieces Maggie kept at home. And, yes, it was all insured. That was the first thing the cops asked. They'd be idiots not to. But the insurance won't pay till they know for sure Maggie didn't skip with the diamonds. I told the cops, if I killed her for the insurance, why would I hide the body? They didn't have an answer for that.” Hank sounded bitter.

  I admired his candor but cautioned myself not to be taken in by it. “Who knew about the jewelry?”

  “The cops had me make a list. My friends, some business associates. Maggie's friends. One of them told her she'd kill to have a necklace like that, but I think she was joking, don't you?” Hank flashed a faint smile. “Everyone who saw Maggie at the Beverly Wilshire Wednesday night. I told the detective maybe it was a waiter or valet. Or maybe it was one of those follow-home burglaries, but they waited a day to pull the job. The detective said they'd check into it. Did they?” Hank shrugged.

  “What about the housekeeper?”

  Hank shook his head. “Not Louisa. She's been with the family since Maggie was a little girl. She helped raise her after Maggie's mom died. Anyway, the cops talked to her.”

  “Maybe Louisa mentioned the jewelry to someone, not meaning anything, and that someone mentioned it to someone else.” I could see that Hank wasn't buying it. “What about the artist who did Maggie's portrait?”

  “The police checked. He was in Taos when it happened.”

  I took another sip of coffee. “Suppose it was a burglar. Why would he kidnap your wife? Why not just take the jewelry and run?”

  “The cops asked that, too. The way I see it, the bastard saw the jewelry and realized he was dealing with big money, figured there was more where that came from. Or, he planned the kidnapping, and the jewelry was a bonus.”

  Both scenarios were possible. Kidnapping will earn a person a much stiffer sentence than burglary, but from talking to criminals I've learned that many of them are more greedy than smart. Which is why they're often caught.

  “But no one ever contacted you for a ransom,” I said.

  “That's what makes me think Maggie's dead.” He stared into his coffee mug. “They found her blood in the house. Maybe she was hurt worse than the guy realized. Or maybe she tried to escape later.”

  “She didn't mention that she was worried about anyone? Afraid of anyone?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Maggie got along with everyone. I can't think of anyone who'd want to hurt her.”

  “Who knew you were going to be away Thursday night?”

  “This wasn't someone we knew,” Hank insisted with a flash of exasperation. “This was a stranger.”

  “Were there any signs of forced entry?”

  “No.” His tone was grudging. “But when I talked to her she was planning to paint. Her studio's in the garage, and there's an intercom to the house, but she checks on her dad 'cause sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night. So she doesn't always lock the house side door. I think the guy sneaked in and was waiting for her upstairs.”

  It was possible. In collecting data for my Crime Sheet column, I've read about similar occurrences. It was also possible that the assailant was someone who had a key. Someone like Margaret Linney's husband.

  From what Winnie and Tim Bolt had said, the police had found evidence of an assault. I asked Hank about it.

  “The desk chair was knocked down, the phone was off the hook. They found blood on the corner of the desk
and on a drawer pull.” Hank's mouth was grim. “A porcelain clock was on the floor, broken. That's how they figured when it happened, from the time on the clock. Ten minutes after one in the morning.”

  “Whose prints were on the receiver?”

  “What you'd expect. Hers, mine, Oscar's, the housekeeper's. I figure Maggie was trying to phone the police when the son of a bitch hit her.” Hank had laced his fingers into a tight, knuckled ball that he brought to his mouth. His eyes were filled with pain.

  I pictured Margaret running to the desk, grabbing the receiver. Her assailant clamps his fingers around her wrist. She drops the receiver. Did he smack her? Shove her? Did his hands lock around her neck the way my assailant's had locked around mine? For a second I was back in that dark room and I couldn't breathe. I realized that my hand was at my throat and dropped it to my side.

  “She must have struggled,” Hank said. “But see, if she opened the door for the guy, or if he'd followed her in, why didn't they find signs of struggling downstairs?”

  It was a good point. I could see the muscles working in Hank's face. I gave him a moment, wishing there were a better, gentler way to ask the next question. “Was she raped, Hank?”

  He glared at me, as if I were the offender. “There's nothing to say she was. They didn't find anybody else's . . . fluids. They found mine, on the sheets, but why wouldn't they?” His face was flushed with discomfort, and there was challenge in his voice. “I told you, we were together that morning, before I left.”

  With an abrupt movement he shoved back his chair and walked to the window. He stood there with his broad back to me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his Dockers.

  “I try not to think about how scared she must've been,” he said, his words muffled by the rain. “I try not to hear her screams, but they wake me up.” When he removed his hands from his pockets, they had formed fists. “I fantasize about what I'd do if I found the bastard. It's what keeps me going, but it's not enough.”