“I see what you mean.”
“If you find funds missing from his account, you'll want to tell the police,” I said.
He was staring at me. “Of course.”
Maybe Modine had been searching for the planner in Maggie's dressing room. But I had found it first, and he'd had no choice but to give it to Reston. But he could have seen what was in it, I realized with a jolt. He'd taken it with him when he left Linney's room for a few minutes to check out a noise that turned out to be “the wind.” A noise I hadn't heard. Had he erased the entry then? Or had he asked Reston to do it? You have to help me, man. You know I didn't do it, but I don't need the cops on my back.
“What about Roger Modine?” I asked, to see Hank's reaction. “He was around the house a lot. He could have helped himself to a few of Professor Linney's checks.” In my mind I saw the contractor dangling the house keys in my face, smirking. “He showed me a key you gave him to the Fuller house. Has he had that a long time?”
Reston was looking at me as though I'd lost my mind. “Sure, he had a key. He was doing work in the house. But Roger wouldn't kill Oscar.”
“His construction business has been suffering from the HARP restrictions. Maybe he was desperate.”
Reston shook his head.
“He has a temper,” I said. “He tied me up that night. That wasn't necessary. At the Hancock Park HARP meeting he looked like he was ready to strangle Ned Vaughan. By the way, what were they arguing about?”
Reston hesitated. “The survey results. He thought that as my friend, Ned should have supported us. We have some properties in Hancock Park and Windsor Square.”
“He wanted Ned to lie?”
“Not lie.” Reston took another sip of coffee. “The survey was subjective. Basically what they did was take a bunch of photos and decide which house was contributory. The thing is, two architects could look at the same house and come up with two opinions. Roger thought some of Ned's calls were unfair. Anyway, it's over and done with.”
Reston seemed uncomfortable, and I had the feeling there was more to the matter. “You also have properties in Ladera Heights and Mar Vista, right? Those are HARP areas, so I imagine they're giving you grief.”
Was that the HARP “info” Modine had dropped off? Had he used the opportunity, and Hank's absence, to make a move on Maggie?
Reston had leaned back and tilted his chair. He studied me. “You really did your homework.”
“You asked me to look into your wife's disappearance, Hank. That's what I did. And into Professor Linney's death.”
“Are you saying our HARP properties are connected with Maggie's death or her father's?”
There was a warning in his question, and some anxiety. I reminded myself that I was sitting across the table from a man who may have murdered two people. I probably should have let it drop. But Louisa was in the house. “I know you're having problems with those properties, Hank. The police know it, too.”
“Every business has cash flow problems. HARP is a pain in the butt, but we hope to move those properties soon.” He sat upright, got to his feet, and pushed the chair back with an abrupt motion. It screeched across the high gloss of the new maple floor. “I think I made a mistake confiding in you, Molly. I thought you wanted to help me find out what happened to Maggie, and to her father. But it looks like you're just trying to make me out to be the villain. I didn't need your help for that.”
“I told you when we first spoke that I was interested in finding the truth.” I stood and picked up my purse.
“I loved my wife. I didn't kill her. I didn't like my father-in-law, but I didn't kill him, either. That is the truth.”
I have to say he sounded sincere. “I understand that Professor Linney was taken to the ER several times by ambulance. You didn't mention that.”
“Because it wasn't important,” Reston said with a flash of impatience. “Like I told you, he had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. His balance was off, he wasn't careful, so he'd trip and fall all the time. One time he dislocated his elbow. Another time he sprained his ankle.”
The same injuries Tim Bolt had told me about, a different story. Which version was true? “Wasn't he hospitalized once for a few days?”
“He overdosed on Mirapex. That's the medication he was taking for the Parkinson's. He wanted to write a paper and was frustrated because his hand shook so much that he couldn't hold a pen. He thought if he took more of the Mirapex, he would eliminate the shaking. He ended up having a psychotic episode. Is that it?”
“He told several people that you abused him.”
“Which people?” Reston demanded.
“I can't tell you that.”
“I never laid a finger on him.” Reston's face was flushed. He took a calming breath. “He was paranoid. He said people were out to get him and stealing his money.”
“Well, it looks like they were,” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
AT NIGHT THE DUNGEON LOOKED LIKE A SET FOR “THE Cask of Amontillado,” and I wondered again whether I was crazy to come here. (“You're going where?” Edie had said when I'd told her I couldn't play mah jongg tonight. And she's the levelheaded one in the family.)
This time I was prepared for the attack of the vines and ducked my head a few times as I made my way to the front door. I wondered whether the interior of the house was junglelike, too.
Charlene Coulter must have been waiting in the entry, looking through her privacy window, because she opened the door as soon as I pressed my finger against the bell. All I could think of was the Big Bad Wolf eagerly welcoming Red Riding Hood.
Not that she looked like a wolf in Grandma's clothing. She was younger than I'd expected—probably in her sixties, judging from the gray in the shoulder-length brown hair she wore brushed behind her ears. She was around five foot seven, neither heavy nor slim, in a pink sweater and charcoal pleated skirt that my sister Liora would wear.
“Contrary to public opinion, I don't eat humans,” she said, a twinkle in her blue eyes. “Too much cholesterol and fat. Please, come in.”
As you can imagine, my face was red. I stepped into a center hall that extended to the back of the house, and stared. The walls were painted with a trompe l'oeil of a garden beyond a mullioned window, and a skylight painted on the ceiling took my eye to a rose-streaked blue sky with feathery clouds.
“It's beautiful,” I said.
“You were probably expecting a dark room lit with candles. I save them for the satanic rituals. Just kidding.” Her smile, amused with a touch of bitterness, softened the sharpness of chin.
I didn't know how to respond. “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mrs. Coulter.”
Her smile disappeared. “I didn't really have a choice. I see that now. Let's talk in the parlor. Please call me Charlene. May I call you Molly?”
“I'd like that.”
“You're writing about Oscar and Margaret, aren't you?”
“Yes. How did you know?” I asked as I walked with her along the hall, taking in the “view.” A fountain, a bench. Mounds of blue and white hydrangeas, lilies, bushes of roses. Smoke curled out of the chimney of a small cottage in the distance.
“There's very little I don't know, Molly,” she said solemnly. Then she winked. “I read your article about HARP, and I saw you talking to people in the neighborhood. You can see quite a bit when you live in the only three-story in the area. You can hear quite a bit, too.”
I followed her into a cozy room with cream walls. She sat on a cerulean blue silk love seat and patted the cushion. “Come join me, dear. I've made us tea.”
I sat next to her. On the glass table in front of us was a yellow-rose-patterned porcelain tea service that seemed to be floating on air above the bleached wood floor. Charlene poured tea into a cup.
“Sugar or artificial sweetener?” she asked.
“Artificial.” I try to save calories where I can.
She placed a packet on the side of the saucer. “I used to take artificial
sweeteners, but when most of your world is a substitute for reality, you try to indulge in the real thing whenever you can.” She poured tea for herself and used tiny silver tongs to drop in two cubes of sugar. She looked up at me. “I'm sorry. I've made you uncomfortable.”
“Not at all. I imagine you've been lonely since your husband died.”
“Glen was my best friend. But I have other friends who visit, although people are so busy these days, don't you find? My son, Adrian, and his wife, Helene, come often with their little boy. They named him Glen. Isn't that lovely? Adrian placed the flyers on your windshield, by the way. I hope I didn't frighten you. I wanted you to be alert.”
“I appreciate your concern.” There was something I wasn't getting here. Something even Walter didn't know.
“You look troubled, Molly,” Charlene said, misreading my furrowed brow. “Don't be. I don't have a sad life, just a different one. I have my groceries delivered, and a lovely young woman named Lucy comes every month to trim my hair and give me a pedicure. She's encouraging me to do something about the gray, but I like it.” Charlene touched her hair. “What do you think, Molly? Be honest.”
“I like the gray.”
She nodded, pleased. “Glen would have liked it, too. And I buy everything from catalogs or on the Internet. I've learned that you don't have to leave your house if you don't want to. Or can't.” She gazed at me. “I'm sure you've heard the stories. ‘Charlene Coulter never leaves her house.' ‘Charlene doesn't invite anyone over.' ‘Something's wrong with Charlene.' In the beginning, every few months I used to try. For Glen and Adrian, more than me. The second I stepped outside, my heart would start racing and I found I couldn't breathe. So I stopped trying.”
I tried to imagine never leaving my apartment, being confined to its few rooms. “Have you always been . . .”
“Agoraphobic. For me, it's not just fear of the marketplace. It's crowds, or open spaces where a crowd might form. It's elevators and stairwells or any place I'm not familiar with or that may not allow me a quick exit. Because you never know when somebody's going to pop up, do you? That's why there are two staircases in this house, and more than the usual number of doors to the outside. That's why I couldn't let you in yesterday, Molly. There were too many people on the block. I'm sorry.”
My heart went out to her. She may have adjusted, but she was still trapped by her fears. “I understand.”
“Do you? I don't, not really. Adrian and Helene had a small wedding ceremony here. I wanted so badly to attend their reception. I got dressed, but couldn't go. I just couldn't. And when their baby was born . . .” She looked wistful. “I've learned that acceptance is more important than understanding. But you asked me whether I was always like this. I suspect the seeds were there. I never did like crowds or parties. And then one day I was mugged and badly beaten, and my whole life changed overnight. Therapy didn't help. No one could convince me that I wasn't safest inside my own house. And now, with poor Margaret Linney gone, and Oscar, too, I see that's not so. A person should be safe in her own house, don't you think?”
Ordinarily I do feel safe. I suppose that's odd, given the data I collect about the frequent crimes that take place in homes. But reading about strangers being burglarized or assaulted or raped, or even murdered, isn't the same as knowing the victim. And certainly not the same as when it happens to you. I hadn't felt safe in my apartment in days. I wouldn't feel safe until Margaret and Oscar Linney's killer was behind bars.
“Were you living here when you were mugged?” I asked.
“We were in an apartment in Santa Monica with a glorious view of the Pacific. I used to walk on the beach every morning. Do you like the beach, Molly?”
“I love it.”
“I love it, too. And then one day I was on the boardwalk in Venice, buying a pair of sunglasses at a kiosk. And the next day I woke up in the hospital. So we decided to move, and Glen built this house for us. For me, really. Three stories so that I could see around me without having to step outside my front door. I think now that we were wrong to do it. We should have considered the neighbors' feelings. But the city allowed it, and it didn't seem wrong at the time.”
I wondered what Walter Fennel would say if he heard Charlene. Would her regret make a difference? “Do you miss the beach?”
“I have the beach. I have New Orleans and Lake Arrowhead and Sedona. I have many of the places that I've been to and loved.”
“In your memory, you mean.” I thought about Bubbie G, who has to rely on memory more and more to navigate through her darkening world.
Charlene smiled. “Well, that, too. But I have them here, Molly, in this house. Would you like to see?”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“WELCOME TO PARIS,” CHARLENE SAID, OPENING THE double doors to the living room.
It was Paris, or what I knew of the city from movies and books. Through the “shuttered window” painted on one of the walls, I saw people walking near the Arc de Triomphe; through another, traffic in front of the Eiffel Tower. On the wall to my right, people at sidewalk cafés were talking and laughing and drinking coffee. The sky painted on the arched ceiling was a darker blue that threatened rain.
“That's my favorite.” Charlene pointed to the wall facing the street. “The Pont Neuf.” The window I'd seen from the street had disappeared, covered by a shade that had been incorporated into the vista. “Glen and I spent most of our honeymoon near that bridge. He sketched, I watched and read novels and ate chocolate. It was the best time of my life.”
“It's lovely. Did Glen do this?”
“It is, isn't it? Yes, this is Glen's. All of it is Glen's.”
The dining room was a piazza in Florence. The family room provided a spectacular view of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. The bedroom Charlene had shared with Glen was conventional, but each of the four other rooms on the second floor took you to another locale. And then there was the third floor. With the exception of a small room at the back of the house, the room in which I'd seen her yesterday, the third story was a large panorama of the Pacific that Charlene had enjoyed from her Santa Monica apartment. I could practically taste the salt in the air and hear the seagulls squawking.
“I couldn't go out into the world, so Glen brought the world to me,” she told me when we were back in the parlor. “I think he hoped that if I could get used to the people in these murals, that I'd eventually be able to face them outside. But that didn't happen.”
“Can I ask you something, Charlene?”
“You want to know why we painted the house that gloomy dark gray.” She smiled. “It was dove gray originally, a beautiful color. Some of the neighbors were giving Glen a hard time about the third story. ‘If it's a dungeon, shouldn't you paint it black?' they said. And we found fresh graffiti on the walls almost daily. So we painted the house charcoal. We weren't going to leave it that way, but then we did. And the stories started. Of course, we heard them. So did Adrian. Thank God he was in high school, or he probably wouldn't have had any friends.” Charlene smiled, but there was anger in her blue eyes. “And to tell you the truth, it suited me just fine that people kept their distance. I'd rather they think I'm crazy than pathetic. I didn't have to explain why I didn't leave the house, why I didn't invite guests. Except for Roberta.”
“Roberta?”
“Roberta Linney. Maggie's mother. She showed up on my doorstep one Sunday morning twenty-five years ago with Maggie and we became close friends. She'd overheard Maggie talking with her friends about the bad people in The Dungeon, telling them she'd uprooted some of the flowers on our walkway. We used to have a beautiful walkway. Pansies and snapdragons in the fall. Petunias and lobelias in the summer. The gardener was tired of constantly replacing the flowers that were mysteriously decapitated or yanked out by the roots. He thought it was dogs. Glen and I knew better.”
I didn't know how I would meet her eyes, but she wasn't looking at me. It occurred to me that Charlene didn't want to see in my eyes that I was
one of those who had violated her garden or her walls. I wanted to tell her that none of my siblings or I had ever stepped onto The Dungeon's front lawn, that we'd never snipped a flower or lifted a marker. It was true. But we had whispered about the house. We had vandalized it with our silly tongues and childish laughter.
“After Glen died I told the gardener no more flowers. Because as I told you, Molly, acceptance is more important than understanding. And I could never understand, not really. So he planted those ugly shrubs, and they serve their purpose, don't they?” A smile flitted across her face. “But I was telling you about Maggie. Roberta and Maggie brought a box of pansies. Roberta made her apologize for what she'd done, and of course I forgave her. Then Maggie asked me to show her where to plant the new flowers. She was eight, I think, but mature for her age. I remember standing in the hall. I remember telling her to leave the flowers, that the gardener would plant them. All because I couldn't, absolutely couldn't walk out that door.” She stopped.
“So what happened?” I asked, as though she were telling me a story.
“Roberta insisted. Maggie had to plant the flowers. So I called instructions from the doorway, and that was when Roberta understood. The next day she came with photos she'd taken on a trip, and our friendship began. I found I could tell her things I couldn't tell Glen, because I didn't want to depress him. And she knew she could confide in me. After all, who would I tell?” There was humor in her smile now, and some irony, too. The smile faded quickly. “And then she died.”
“She had cancer,” I said.
Charlene nodded. “She was in tremendous pain. She wasn't afraid of dying, Molly. She was afraid of leaving Maggie with him.”
I stared at her. “Are you saying he abused her?”
“Sexually? No.” Charlene shuddered. “And not physically either. But he controlled her, Molly. He made her practice four hours every day. When other children were outside enjoying the sunshine, Maggie would be at the piano.”
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