“No sé.” Louisa shrugged. “She goes into her room, and she is yelling. ‘If you do not put it back by tomorrow, I am telling the policía. I do not care what you say.'”
I frowned. “Put what back?”
“No sé. She does not come out of her room.” Louisa picked up a napkin and rubbed at an invisible spot on the table. “The policía ask me questions about el profesor. I do not tell them. They will think wrong things. But now he is dead, so it does not matter.”
“What things?”
“He is yelling at Margarita to come out of her room. He is hitting the door.” Louisa slammed the table hard with her palm several times. “He heard the phone call, he will not go to Goldavista.”
So Linney had heard Ochs's message. “Then what happened?”
“Then Margarita comes out of her room and says I can go home early. And this is the last time I see her.” The housekeeper sighed deeply. “I think all this time el profesor's heart is heavy because he is yelling at her this last day that she is living.” She pressed her hand against her breast. “So many times he is crying. ‘Margarita, I'm sorry. Margarita, don't hate me.'”
“But you didn't tell this to the police,” I said.
“For what? El profesor is yelling all the time. He yells, and then he is sorry. They will not understand. A few weeks ago, before el profesor died, I tell Señor Reston. He says to me I am right not to tell.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A SECOND SEARCH OF LINNEY'S ROOM REVEALED LITTLE new. If there had been any bank statements from the home equity line of credit, they were no longer there. I did find statements for his checking account (he had a balance of $513.47) and a savings account with a little over $13,000. I jotted down the name and phone number of the bank and the account number.
The medicine cabinet was crammed with the usual assortment of vitamins, antacids, analgesics, cold medications, various ointments. There were vials of medications, including Mirapex. From my discussion with Elbogen, I knew that was for Parkinson's.
Louisa had told me she would be upstairs if I needed her. Leaving Linney's room, I heard the droning of a vacuum, a sound that grew louder as I neared the center staircase.
Reston's study was on the other side of the hall, to my right. On the phone this morning, when I'd told him I wanted to look through Linney's things again, he'd repeated what he'd said the other day: “Look anywhere you want.” I doubted that his study or papers were included in that anywhere, and though technically he'd given me carte blanche, I had qualms about nosing through his property.
Yes or no.
I could wait and hope that the lab techs would decipher the original entry in Margaret's planner, and that Porter or Hernandez would share that information with me.
But I was here, and Reston wasn't.
The bookshelves were still empty. The rosewood desk, bare with the exception of a brass reading lamp, a combination phone and answering machine, and a black leather desk set, exuded the delicious fragrance of new wood. I sat on the edge of the studded leather chair, and with my ears straining for the reassuring hum of the vacuum, I opened the top right-hand drawer.
Mostly bills. Land phone, cell phone, utilities, cable company, Internet access, credit cards. I didn't examine any of them, or the itemized bill from the decorator. I was trying to adhere to a fine line between curiosity and research. I did check Reston's bank statement. He had $12,000 in his checking account, almost $70,000 in savings. But if he was hurting because of the HARP properties, $70,000 wouldn't cover many months of the mortgage on the Muirfield house.
I also found a statement from Linney's bank for his line of credit. The balance due was $456,821. A hefty debt. I looked at it again to make certain I hadn't missed a decimal point. The maximum line of credit, Mindy had told me, is usually 80 percent of the property's assessed value. Assuming that the Fuller house, before the fire, had been valued at around $650,000 to $700,000, the amount borrowed against it was close to the limit allowed.
The bottom drawer was a file cabinet. Many of the folders contained material related to Reston's carpet and flooring business. I thumbed through some of the other folders and found documents dealing with various properties that Reston owned, mostly in Los Angeles, some outside the state. I didn't find anything related to Skoll Investments.
A folder labeled INSURANCE contained an itemized list of all the jewelry that had been stolen the night Margaret had disappeared. There were also several letters from Reston, the most recent dated last Thursday, inquiring about the status of his claim.
I was reading the letter when the ringing of the phone startled me. After three rings the answering machine picked up, and I heard Reston's brief message. For a second I felt as though he were in the room, watching me snoop though his private papers.
The vacuum was still going. I checked my watch. Eleven-ten. Almost an hour before Reston was due home.
In a folder labeled FULLER HOUSE I found a certified copy of a Grant Deed, dated May 6 of this year, transferring ownership of the property on Fuller from Oscar Linney to Margaret Linney Reston. According to another notarized document, Linney had granted Margaret power of attorney on the same date. A busy day, apparently.
I wondered when Hank and Margaret had executed their reciprocal powers of attorney. I'd phoned Central Realty this morning, learned the name of the title company that had insured the property, and spoken to a title officer who promised he'd get back to me as soon as possible.
The home insurance policy was in the folder, too. Attached to the front was a page with handwritten figures and the words Cash out? Approx. $500 G.
I also found Linney's checkbook for his line of credit. There were numerous checks written in the past two months, all made out to HR Floor Covering. I did a mental calculation and came up with approximately $390,000. There were quite a few checks written before Margaret's disappearance. Two, totaling $43,400, were made out to Skoll Investment. Several were made out to cash. I added those up. Another $22,000.
No wonder Reston had changed HELC into HELP. I wondered how he planned to explain all this to Hernandez and Porter, who were certain to examine all of Linney's finances now that they viewed his death as a homicide. Of course, Reston could claim that the money was a loan, but if the police talked to Linney's friends, they'd learn what I had: that the old man would never have loaned his son-in-law a nickel, let alone over a third of a million dollars.
Well, that was Reston's problem, not mine.
I still didn't know what Margaret had written instead of Check out Sub-Zero. I found her burgundy leather planner in the bottom left-hand drawer, under a stack of folders. I paged backwards and there, on the left-hand side, was the entry I'd read on my photocopy: Check out Sub-Zero. The page for June 13–14 was gone. Either Reston was telling the truth and Maggie had ripped it out, or he had.
I'd brought a magnifying glass. I held it over the entry and moved it slowly left to right. There had definitely been an erasure. The good news, for me, was that Margaret had written with a heavy hand, and the author of the newer entry hadn't. So I could discern faint indentations of what could be letters. The bad news was that the indentations were covered by the newly penciled letters, light though they were.
I moved the lens back to the beginning of the entry and held it there. I wasn't sure, but it seemed to me that beneath the Ch was the indentation of part of what could be a capital letter M. Next to that was something that looked like a slash. I couldn't identify what was next to the slash, but I made out a capital P at the end of the line.
Wonderful. M and a slash and a P. I needed Vanna White and a few vowels.
The vacuum stopped, and so, for a second, did my heart. Then my heart pounded against my chest. I waited, prepared to shut the planner and return it to the drawer. The droning started again, and I let out my breath.
I looked at the left side of the previous page and found the line that corresponded to Check out Sub-Zero. It was blank. Using a pencil from my purse, I ru
bbed the edge lightly over the blank line, hoping to bring into white relief the indentations made by Margaret's writing. I peered at the line through my magnifying lens.
Nothing but gray striations.
I erased my pencil markings, brushed the residue into my purse, and checked my watch. Eleven-fifty. Ten more minutes before Reston came home, but what was the point? I was about to close the planner when I looked at the facing page and noticed the impressions of Margaret's heavy script. I switched on the desk lamp. Raising the page, I let the light reflect off of it. Then, putting my finger on Check out Sub-Zero, I found the corresponding impressions.
I felt a surge of excitement. The letters were there, sharp and legible. The problem was that they were backwards.
I moved my eyes from right to left, as though I were reading Hebrew. The first letter was definitely an M. Then a slash. Then a capital D. Then, an R. Then—
The vacuum stopped. I waited a second, but this time the droning didn't resume, which was a good thing, because if it had, I wouldn't have heard the thunk of the front door being shut.
I froze.
“Louisa?” Reston's voice boomed in the high-ceilinged entry. “There's a car in the driveway. Is Miss Blume here?”
“La señora is in el profesor's room, Señor Reston.”
I held my breath until I heard his footsteps on the marble, heading to the right. Away from the study.
I had less than a minute. I looked at the planner and almost cried in frustration. I'd lost my place. My eyes flicked over the M, the slash, the D, the R. The next letter was O, then P, DROP. There was a space. Then O, F, F, OFF. Drop off.
“Molly? Miss Blume.”
My hands were shaking and clammy. I made out the next word: I, N, F, O. Info.
Information about what?
“Louisa, she's not there,” Reston called, back in the entry. “Do you know where she is?”
R, E. Re.
He was about fifty feet away. My stomach was in knots. Common sense told me to stop, but there was one more word. The first letter was H. Then A, R, P.
H, A, R, P. HARP. Of course.
M/Drop off info re HARP.
I slipped the planner back into the drawer, shut off the light, and was standing at the French windows looking out on the pool when Reston entered the study.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“THERE YOU ARE,” HANK SAID. “LOUISA THOUGHT YOU were in Linney's room. Didn't you hear me calling you?”
My face felt sunburned. My heart was pounding. I put on a smile and turned around. “Sorry. I heard your voice, but not what you were saying.” He was looking at me with curiosity, and I wondered if he could see the heaving of my chest. “I hope you don't mind that I'm in here. I was passing by and remembered that the room looks out on the pool. I was mesmerized by the view.”
“Much prettier today than the last time you were here. It is beautiful, isn't it? Maggie would've loved the way everything turned out. I have to say Dorn did a great job.”
“It's too bad Ned Vaughan couldn't do it.”
“He felt bad about it. So did I.” Hank shrugged. “But Maggie chose Dorn, and Oscar approved. And I have no complaints. Louisa said you talked to her, so that's done,” he said, obviously changing the subject from Dorn. “And I guess you already looked in the Professor's room. Did you find everything you wanted?”
More than I wanted. I nodded. “By the way, I noticed that the Fuller house is no longer for sale.”
“Too much damage. I'm going to rebuild with the insurance money.”
“And list it again with Central Realty?”
Reston hesitated. “Actually, I plan to sell it on my own. I don't think Tim Bolt is the right person to handle it, but I don't want to insult him by going to another broker. Don't tell him I said that.”
So Reston had learned of Bolt's bigotry, too. “I won't. Do you have time for a few questions?”
“That's why I'm here.” He smiled.
In the kitchen I sat at the table while he filled two mugs with coffee. Just like last time, except that last time I'd been happily unaware of his financial problems and how he'd solved them. And the implications. I wondered about the altered entry. M/Drop off info re HARP. What info, and why had Reston erased it?
Hank brought the mugs to the table, placed one in front of me, and sat down across from me. “Thanks again for coming to the funeral, Molly,” he said in his soft drawl. “That was real nice of you.”
“I wanted to be there. It was an impressive turnout.”
“Oscar had a lot friends. I just wasn't one of them. I wish things would've been different between us, but wishing doesn't make it so. Anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Ned says you picked him cleaner than a corncob. So did he tell you all kinds of terrible things about me?” Reston treated me to one of his mischievous smiles.
“He's a loyal friend. He didn't want to talk about you.”
“But he did, didn't he? So what did he say?”
“That you'd been waiting a long time to find someone like Maggie.” I took a sip of the hot coffee. Hazelnut today, instead of cinnamon. “That you were possessive.”
“He said that, huh?” Hank chewed on his lip. “Well, I guess that's true,” he said quietly. “You find someone like Maggie, you don't want to let her out of your sight.”
“To be honest, I'm surprised Ned and Maggie never got together. He was at the house all the time. And, well . . .”
“And he was educated. You can say it. You won't hurt my feelings. Actually, it was Ned's idea to introduce me to Maggie. He thought we'd hit it off. And he has a girlfriend. I told him if he ever does marry her, his wedding vows would probably be ‘to love, preserve, and restore wherever possible.'” Hank laughed. “So what else did he tell you?”
“Not much.” So Walter had been right about Ned. I couldn't wait to tell Zack, who had put the bug in my head. Still . . . “Actually, he seemed nervous and was happy to see me go.”
“He's got a lot on his mind. USC, his other work. And he took Linney's death hard. So who else have you talked to?”
“Jeremy Dorn.”
Hank stiffened. “And?”
“He said you fired him because you thought he and Maggie were having an affair.”
“That was a dumb misunderstanding.” Hank's face turned red. “Let me tell you, I felt like a jerk when Maggie explained everything. I felt like a bigger jerk when I had to beg Dorn to come back. And of course, he told the cops all about it, so I had to explain the whole thing to them, too.” He grunted. “Your turn. Did you learn anything?”
“Number one, Tiler is the name of an intellectual properties attorney. Gordon Tiler. Your wife had an appointment with him that last day. Any idea why?” I'd phoned the attorney's Wilshire office this morning and had left a message, asking him to call.
“Beats the hell out of me.” Hank was frowning. “You're sure?”
“Pretty sure. Was Maggie planning to do something with her musical compositions?”
“Not that I know. But she could've been. Anything else?”
“Professor Linney invested over forty thousand dollars with a Denver company called Skoll Investment.”
Hank nodded. “I saw that in his check register when I was going over his papers after Maggie disappeared. Too long after, actually. I was focused on Maggie, and, well . . . Anyway, when I did ask him about it, he said it was none of my goddamn business. Pardon my French.” He paused. “What was I going to do, fight with him? So I asked Ned to find out—Ned and Oscar were close—but Oscar wouldn't tell him, either. What kind of investments do they handle?”
“I don't think they exist.” I told him about my attempts to contact the company.
“I dropped the ball on that one.” Hank sighed. “Anyway, from what you're saying, that money was long gone. Bastards, preying on old people.” He clamped his lips together.
In view of what I'd just discovered, I found his comment outrageous. Maybe that's why I asked him the next questi
on. “Did Professor Linney write the checks from his personal checking account or another account?”
“Personal account. What other account would he use? Why?” He picked up his mug.
“Just curious.” I'd caught him in a lie. I should have felt gratified, but I was angry, and sad. “I found a bank statement in his room for a home equity line of credit on the Fuller house. So I wondered if he used that account.”
Reston took a sip of coffee. “Damn, this is hot,” he said, but he held the mug to his lips. I think he knew I'd trapped him. I think he was replaying scenes in his head, trying to figure out if and how he'd left one of Linney's HELC statements in the old man's bedroom. And if he hadn't . . . And maybe he started wondering what I'd been doing in his study, why I hadn't heard him calling me, what I'd found.
He sighed again. For a moment I thought he was going to confess to embezzling the money from Linney's account.
“Come to think of it, Oscar did write those checks from his home equity account, Molly. I didn't have a good night's sleep, what with the funeral and all. I probably shouldn't be operating heavy machinery.” The smile he gave me was a little strained.
There's a saying in Yiddish: “With lies you can go far, but you can't go back.” Hank was stuck with his lie. I was curious to see where he went next. “Did Professor Linney write other large checks from that account?”
“To be honest, I haven't been on top of his finances. The interest on that account is paid automatically from his checking account, so I didn't worry about it. But I'll definitely look into it now. Thanks for bringing it up.”
“The reason I'm asking is, maybe someone coerced Professor Linney to write the checks and killed him to keep him quiet.”
There was a long silence. I listened to the hum of the Sub-Zero and thought about the planner. M/Drop off info re HARP. M as in Modine? Had he come to the house that night?
“Like who?” Hank finally asked.
“It would have to be someone who knew your wife. Someone who had a tape of her voice and spliced it to lure Professor Linney to the Fuller house.” And saved the tape for that purpose? “Probably someone your wife called.”
Dream House Page 26
