The Innocents Club
Page 30
With the key card in the pocket of her linen shift, Mariah grabbed her purse and sandals from the closet, took one last look at Lindsay’s sleeping form and headed for the door, wincing at the clatter of brass on brass as she lifted the safety latch. At the last second, she remembered to hook the Do Not Disturb sign over the outside handle.
She was leaning against the wall at the end of the hall, wrestling into her strappy black leather sandals, when a soft ding announced the elevator’s arrival. A middle-aged man exiting the car nearly collided with her as he stepped off. “Sorry,” he said, reaching out to steady her briefly, then holding the door while she walked onto the elevator. But instead of releasing it, he frowned. “Are you Mariah Bolt, by any chance?”
Mariah studied the unremarkable-looking man before deciding whether to admit she was. His graying hair was very short, and his mustache was neatly trimmed. Closer to fiveten than six feet, she estimated. Fit-looking for his age, which might have had a year or two on hers. His white cotton shirt was neatly pressed, although the navy blazer over his gray slacks looked as though it spent most of its time folded over the back of a chair or car seat, to be shrugged into only when absolutely necessary. His tie was department-store silk in a safe, subdued burgundy print, and would probably be considered insufficiently trendy for either a guest or employee in a landmark L.A. establishment like the Beverly Wilshire. So who was he? A reporter? Doubtful. Too tidy for a newspaperman, too bland for TV. One of her own? she wondered briefly before discarding the possibility. Too domestic for the CIA, not buttoned-down enough for the FBI. By rapid process of elimination, she concluded he could only be a police officer, with the pass-anywhere, innocuous look cultivated by plainclothes cops worldwide. Her first thought was that Yuri Belenko’s irrepressible nature had finally landed him in hot water, and that her name had somehow come up in the process of investigating his claim to diplomatic immunity.
“I am Mariah Bolt,” she confirmed. “And you are…?” Sure enough, he flipped out a badge. “Detective James Scheiber. I was just coming to see you. Sorry to bother you so early, but I was worried you might check out and I’d miss you. I wonder if you could spare a few minutes to answer some questions?” He nodded back in the direction of her door as he struggled with the oscillating elevator door that was trying to close on his arm.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“I’d just as soon not discuss it in the hallway.”
“Well, that may be, but my room’s not an option, either,” she said. “If you want to talk to me, it’ll have to be downstairs. I was going for a swim, but I suppose I could do with breakfast, instead.” His skeptical glance at her outfit said he was finding the swim story implausible, but she wasn’t about to unzip her dress to reveal the tank suit underneath it. Let him wonder. In any case, he nodded and followed her into the elevator. As the door closed, Mariah frowned and added, “Can I see that badge again?” He retrieved it from his inside jacket pocket and held it out for her. “Newport Beach?” she read, peering at it more closely. “Aren’t you a little out of your jurisdiction?”
The detective shoved it back in his pocket. “Funny, that’s exactly what Tucker said. I never had the impression you Company people paid much attention to little things like jurisdictional limits.”
Mariah was sufficiently surprised to ignore the inter-agency dig. “Frank Tucker?”
“So, I gather you do know him?”
“Yes, of course, very well,” she replied. “When were you talking to him?”
“He broke into your hotel room yesterday evening. At least,” Scheiber added as she started to protest, “the assistant manager and I thought he had. He didn’t try to deny it, mind you, but maybe he was just being pigheaded. He’s not the most communicative person I’ve ever met.”
In spite of herself, Mariah smiled. “That’s a fact,” she said, “but make no mistake about it, he’s a good man.” The idea of Frank being near at hand was the best news she’d heard in a long time. Whatever else could be said about him, his timing was impeccable. The way things had been going for the last couple of days, professionally and personally, she couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather see.
“Did you give him a key to your room?” Scheiber asked.
“I didn’t even know he was in Los Angeles. You actually saw him here?”
Scheiber nodded. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since last night. I dropped by a little after eight. You weren’t around, but he was, and that’s where we ran into one another.”
“I don’t suppose you happen to know where he’s gotten to?”
The elevator doors opened onto the hotel’s rotunda, and as Mariah was stepping off, the detective delivered the news to her back. “He’s in an LAPD lockup not far from here. Under arrest.”
She swung around, stunned. “What? For being in my room? Don’t be ridiculous! He was obviously looking for me, and he’s welcome anytime. I’d never dream of pressing—”
“Not for break and enter,” Scheiber said. “He’s being held on suspicion of murder.”
It was one of those time-slowing moments that, by now, Mariah had come to associate with imminent crisis—like the morning she’d been pulled out of an embassy meeting to be told her husband and daughter had been in a devastating car wreck, or the night the hospital had called to say David had been found dead in his bed. Silence enveloped her like a thick shroud, and the only sound she perceived was her mind crying out in protest and disbelief. Oh, Frank! What have they done to you?
She glanced back at the hotel lobby, but it was virtually deserted at that early hour, neither the lone clerk behind the big front desk nor the concierge on the phone at his station taking any note of the urgent conversation by the elevator banks. One cleaner was pushing a droning floor polisher around the elaborate circular mosaic at the center of the rotunda, while another polished the already gleaming brass light fixtures.
Mariah took a deep breath and turned on Scheiber. “That’s impossible,” she said. “Frank Tucker wouldn’t murder anyone. There must be some mistake.”
“Well, maybe,” he conceded reluctantly. “It may be a case of mistaken identity at that.”
“I should think so.”
“There was a murder near here last night,” Scheiber explained, “and Tucker fit the description of the killer, but I just came from LAX. I caught a D.C.-based flight attendant just as she was boarding for the return run and I showed her a mug shot of Tucker. She put him on a flight that touched down here at almost the precise moment the murder was being committed. Mind you,” Scheiber added, frowning, “she thought his name was Lewis and that he was a talent scout. He’s some joker, your friend.”
“There’s no way he could have killed anyone, though,” Mariah said, slumping with relief even as her mind was racing, trying to think why Frank would have been traveling under a cover name. “So, you are going to get him released?”
“That was my next stop. Would you care to join me? I’ve got a few more questions for you, but the quicker I get over there, the quicker your friend gets a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.”
Mariah hesitated. “It’s close by, you said?”
“Ten minutes from here.” Scheiber leaned back and crossed his arms, dipping his head back toward the elevator. “I gather you’ve got company, but I’m sure you’ll be back long before Mr. Chaney wakes up.”
Mariah paused, then grimaced. Obviously, the discretion of hotel professionals had its limits, and even off his turf, a smart cop knew how to get around them. “Well, whoop-de-do for your investigative skills, Detective. You look so proud of yourself, I almost hate to tell you your information’s stale. That’s my fifteen-year-old daughter I left asleep upstairs. She got in late last night.”
“So Mr. Chaney did check out, after all?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” she said. Permanently checked out of her life, too, as far as Mariah was concerned, but that wasn’t any of this man’s business, either.
“Oh, God, no,” Mariah groaned. Poor Frank. She debated whether to call up and let Lindsay know where she’d be, but it was so early. She and Frank would be back long before Lindsay woke up. At the thought of the two of them, Mariah smiled, remembering how Frank had stuck up for Lindsay yesterday over the hair issue. Having him to act as referee was only one of the reasons she was pleased he was here. Where mother-daughter relations were concerned, she and Lindsay needed all the help they could get, at this point. “Why exactly was Frank arrested in the first place?” she asked, following Scheiber toward the hotel parking lot entrance.
“The LAPD had an eyewitness who thought she’d seen him at a crime scene,” Scheiber said. “But it turns out the building where the murder took place was pretty much locked down and running on minimum lighting when the murder happened. It’s an old place, and the halls are windowless and pretty dim, even in daylight. By the time the homicide team got there, all the lights had been turned on, so they assumed the witness had had a clearer look at the assailant than she did. Tucker, unfortunately, showed up just when the force was on the lookout for someone big, probably bald or with thinning hair, and dressed in dark clothes.”
“Lord,” Mariah said, shaking her head grimly. “What a cock-up! And remind me again what all this has to do with you? How did you get involved in it?”
The detective held open the front door. “I’ll explain on the way over.”
It wasn’t entirely kosher to have lured her that way, Scheiber admitted to himself. The subject of Tucker’s arrest had come up so early in their conversation, and her concern for the guy’s welfare had been so great that it had overshadowed the fact—which he was certain he’d mentioned—that he’d only met Tucker in the first place incidental to looking for her. She was obviously intelligent, though, and the conversation would inevitably return to the reason he’d been looking for her last night. In the meantime, she was preoccupied with the need to serve as a character witness for her friend Tucker and help bail him out of trouble. Scheiber was content to leave it that way until they got to the LAPD’s West L.A. Division.
He had no grounds to haul her in just because two people linked to her happened to have died under odd circumstances in the space of twenty-four hours. Fortunately, she had freely agreed to come with him and, even if she’d forgotten about it temporarily, to answer Scheiber’s questions. He had a lot of them, but the LAPD homicide detective in charge of investigating Louis Urquhart’s suspicious death would be as interested as he was in what Mariah Bolt had to say about the link between the two dead men, her father and her father’s possibly missing papers. Sitting her down between Ripley and himself, Scheiber rationalized, was simply the most efficient way of gathering facts.
His cell phone rang as he was pulling his car out onto Wilshire Boulevard, and he expressed a silent word of gratitude to Dave Eckert for giving him an opportunity to postpone explanations a little longer.
“Iris called,” Eckert said. “She wanted to let you know the Korman autopsy’s scheduled for around eleven this morning.”
“Good. Tell her I’ll be there, would you? You have any luck convincing your contact at the sheriff’s lab to rush those tox-screen results for us?”
“She drove a hard bargain. Never underestimate the determination of a mother of the bride. I had to promise to throw in another set of prints and a couple of extra eight-and-a-half-by-elevens of the happy couple, but she finally agreed to put us on top of the pile as soon as the tissue and fluid samples come in from the pathologist. Even so, we’re looking at Tuesday at the earliest, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s looking more and more like there’s reason to follow this one closely. You remember what I told you yesterday about naked bodies?” Scheiber glanced over at the woman next to him, but she was making a good show of watching the passing scenery, ignoring his half of the conversation.
“That suicides rarely die naked,” Eckert said, “because they think it’s too embarrassing to have their bodies discovered that way?”
“Exactly. Strange but true. Just another reason the Marilyn Monroe murder conspiracy theory has lasted as long as it has.”
“Hey, that’s no theory. It’s been conclusively proven. If the CIA and the mob hadn’t been so efficient at pushing the big lie that she’d offed herself, her killers would have been tried years ago. Poor old Joe DiMaggio. It breaks your heart to see the guy and know what the Kennedys got away with, you know? I mean, there was never anybody for him after Marilyn, was there?”
“It’s a tragedy, all right,” Scheiber said, shaking his head in bemusement.
“Just imagine if they’d had a better handle on your basic psychology of suicide, huh?” Eckert said. “There might not have been any debate at all, and poor Norma Jean’s murder would’ve been completely forgotten by now.”
“There you go. Anyway, if we rule out the possibility of suicide in that case of ours we were discussing earlier, it only leaves two other choices, right?”
“That case we were discussing?” Eckert repeated. “How many cases do we—oh! I get it! You’ve got someone there with you and you can’t talk?”
“You’re an astute fellow, you are,” Scheiber said.
“You sound like you’re in traffic. Where are you, anyway?”
“On my way to visit the LAPD.”
“You finally link up with the Bolt woman?”
“As we speak.”
“She’s in the car with you? Why?”
“Long story. I tried to call you last night, but you must have been showing off your Bang & Olufsen again.” Scheiber heard Eckert’s harrumph. “Anyway, turns out we may be looking at a series of incidents.”
“You mean, there’s been another hot-tub case?”
“No, but one that’s just as inconclusive, on the surface, and with a strong link back to ours. Look, I can’t go into it now, but why don’t you meet me at the coroner’s office for the autopsy and I’ll bring you up to speed. And don’t worry, buddy,” Scheiber added, “we’ll get you out in time for you and Iris to see those fireworks and maybe make a few of your own.”
“You’re all heart, man. Okay, I’ll see you in Santa Ana at eleven.”
Scheiber disconnected the call and glanced over at the passenger seat. The woman swung around to face him.
“Naked bodies and Marilyn Monroe?” she asked, arching one eyebrow. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, and I don’t think I even want to know what that was all about. But all I can say is, people say my line of work is bizarre. Ha!”
“Ah, well, it’s revisiting those cold cases keeps us on top of our game, don’t you know.”
“Right,” she said dubiously. “So, how about telling me what exactly you want, and why you’ve been trying so hard to get in touch with me?” She frowned at him. “And, by the way, while we’re on the subject, I don’t suppose it’s you that’s responsible for the tail I’ve picked up?”
“You’ve been tailed? By whom?”
She shrugged. “Some nondescript but official-looking car. Not this one, admittedly. Although…” She paused, frowning. “Newport Beach P.D., you said, right? Oh, Lord, restore my faith in public institutions here, Detective. Tell me you guys aren’t under the thumb of the Hunter family like everything else in that damn city, would you? Because if that’s what this is about, and Renata’s got you harassing me, too, I swear—”
Now he was confused. “Renata?” Scheiber asked.
“As in Renata Hunter Carr?”
“Why would you think that? I mean, they do have a big place down there, and I gather both Nolan Carr and his mother are pretty active in the community. Personally, I’ve only been on this job for a few months, but I think I can safely s
ay they don’t get any kind of special service from the police department. Why would you think—”
She waved it off. “Never mind.”
As she fell silent for a moment, Scheiber vaguely remembered something Eckert had pulled up off the Net during his research into Korman’s client, Benjamin Bolt. Wasn’t there something in there about Bolt having left his wife for Renata Hunter? Ouch. That would certainly account for the daughter’s tetchy reaction.
She, in any case, seemed to have moved on. “Weren’t you going to tell me why you’ve been looking for me?”
“Yes, I was,” he said, pulling into the LAPD parking lot, congratulating himself on a masterful stall. “But let’s go inside. I’ve got a colleague here who’d probably like to sit in on our discussion.” There were plenty of open spaces because of the holiday. He pulled in right next to the front door and went to get out of the car, but the woman held back.
“Hold it right there,” she said suspiciously. “You never said anything about the LAPD wanting to talk to me. What’s going on?”
“We’re here to get Tucker,” Scheiber promised, “and to talk about a couple of cases where your name has come up. This shouldn’t take long, I promise. I, for one, have someplace I need to be later this morning, so I’m going to have to hit the road soon. Let’s just go have a chat with Detective Ripley and see what we can do about springing your friend at the same time.”
Tucker had slept very badly. Detectives Ripley and McEvoy had grilled him for over three hours once they’d gotten to the LAPD divisional interview room—intermittently, because one or the other or both of them kept getting called out of the room, forcing him to backtrack and repeat himself when they returned. It was a deliberate tactic, Tucker knew, to force him to redeliver his story over and over while they searched for inconsistencies and tried to poke holes in it. Since his plan was to tell them as little as possible, it had taken all his concentration as the evening wore on and his level of fatigue rose to maintain his focus and not elaborate on why he was in the city.
The detectives had finally parked him in a four-bed cell with indestructible concrete bunks while they checked out his alibi. Or so they told him. Since it was after midnight at that point, LAX and the airlines were virtually shut down, so Tucker had resigned himself to spending the night on a thin, smelly mattress with dubious roommates for company. He’d shared the cell with a six-foot, black transvestite hooker in a blond wig, muscle shirt, skintight leather skirt and fishnet stockings, and a skinny, acne-scarred guy who’d apparently been caught selling Saturday night specials out of the trunk of his car. Around 2:00 a.m., they acquired a fourth cell mate—an old drunk too iffy-looking to be trusted not to pee in the bunk over Tucker’s head. Tucker had ceded the bottom berth and climbed up top, trying to sleep through the drunk’s repeated groaning of “Why me, Lord?” Around 4:00 a.m., out of patience, Tucker had bellowed, “Because you’re an idiot! Now shut up before I come down and really give you something to moan about!” What was left of the night passed in relative quiet, except for the assorted snorting and snoring noises echoing up and down the concrete cell block.