by Dianne Emley
Patsy said through her sobs, “Not a lot. Two hundred dollars.”
He asked again, “Did Vince Madrigal ever give you money?”
She sniffed and said in a small voice. “Yes.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“Why?”
“Not for any reason you might be thinking of, Jim. It was a gift. He saw that I was always broke and he gave me a gift.” She held up her palm. “He was from Texas.”
Kissick later called Vining at home and told her about his interview with Patsy. “Your mother was consistent. I questioned her for nearly two hours. She finally told me that Madrigal had given her five hundred dollars as a gift. After that was on the table, she didn’t waver from it. She and Madrigal talked about current events and that was it.”
“Do you believe her?”
He paused before answering.
“That’s a ‘no,’” she said.
“Not necessarily. It was just sort of un-Patsy, if that makes sense. Her responses were brief, with no elaboration or gossip.”
“Or self-pity, like ‘Why do you think Madrigal had an ulterior motive in dating me? Don’t you think I’m attractive enough for him?’”
“Exactly. What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. I’m going to bed.”
“See you tomorrow. Love you.”
She smiled. She loved it when he told her that. “Love you, too.”
Later, after Emily had gone to bed, Vining was bedeviled by the sleeplessness that would hit her when she was the most tired. She made chamomile tea, which helped. Instead of watching a classic movie on television, as was her habit, she went into her bedroom and turned on her laptop.
She researched the J. Paul Getty family. The information was scattered and unofficial, but she pieced together a family tree going back a few generations. She didn’t find any mention of a Kingsley Getty or an illegitimate Getty brother.
Then, for the first time ever, she Googled herself. She was shocked by the number of times her name was listed.
THIRTY-FOUR
John Chase and his housemate, Kevin Ramirez, were hosting the bimonthly poker game with their group of cop buddies. Tonight, six had made it, including Alex Caspers, Chase’s best friend at the PPD.
Chase and Ramirez rented a house in San Dimas, one of the San Gabriel Valley’s plain-vanilla bedroom communities. San Dimas was between Pasadena, where Chase worked, and Pomona, where Ramirez worked, and far enough away from both cities so that they wouldn’t run into people they’d arrested or knew from the streets while going about their personal business in the grocery store or Home Depot.
Chase was telling the guys how he’d quit his job with Le Towne earlier that day. “So Gig Towne calls me and just about begs me to come back, but I told him, ‘Gig, I’m done.’”
They were sitting at a dining room table set that had been a castoff from the Le Towne household when Sinclair had gone on a redecorating binge. The pieces were formal and fancy, reflecting Gig’s tastes, and had garnered ridicule from Chase’s friends. It hadn’t taken long for the bachelors’ rough usage to rob the furniture of its pedigree.
“That was a good job,” Ramirez said. “What tore it?”
Chase raised a bottle of Sam Adams lager to his lips. “It was just a weird scene. Let’s leave it at that.” He was wearing his lucky shirt, which his ex-girlfriend Alison had bought him on a weekend trip together to Vegas. The rayon shirt had a loud pattern of playing cards, poker chips, and greenbacks.
“You’re still holding to that confidentiality agreement?” Caspers threw down three cards. “You can trust us.”
“It’s not that.” Chase frowned as if struggling to focus on the cards he held in his hand. “It’s too long to get into.”
“I wouldn’t mind that gig. Would you put in a word for me?” one of the other guys said. He had a prominent nose and small eyes—a combination that had earned him the nickname “Ratso.”
“No problem, dude. I’ll call Gig and put in a word.” Chase finished his beer. “I’m getting another one. Anybody want something?”
A couple of guys put in requests.
Caspers pushed up from the table. “I’ll help.”
Chase opened the refrigerator door and began moving bottles around. “There’s only one Sam Adams left. I’m taking it.”
“Chase, what’s going on?”
Chase looked behind Caspers to make sure they were alone. “That Ratso is a jackass. I’ll put in a word for him but he wouldn’t last five minutes with Gig.”
“Forget Ratso and Gig. What else is going on? Something’s bothering you.”
Chase handed him bottles of beer. “It’s this tinnitus. Keep it between us, will you?”
“Sure. Especially because I don’t know what the hell it is.”
“It’s like a ringing in my ears. Sometimes I can hardly think.”
“What’s it from?”
“My doctor’s ruled out everything physical. That only leaves stress. I’ve had it since I was a kid, but never like this. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the guys, but the stress of working for Gig Towne is why I bailed out of there. Gig acts like he’s the freaking puppet master.”
Chase was quick to add, “Understand that I’m not putting myself or anyone else in danger. Ditching the off-duty gig should help.”
“No one will hear it from me,” Caspers said. “But I have to tell you, it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Nan cornered me and asked if you were having some sort of a physical problem.”
Chase loudly exhaled. “Crap. I couldn’t believe it when she and Kissick showed up to ask Gig about some old rich bag who’d drowned.”
“Nan’s buddies with your C.O.”
“I know.”
“Be better for you to be up front about what’s going on.” Caspers twisted the cap from a beer bottle. “I’m just sayin’…”
“You’re right. Now that I’m not working two jobs, I should start feeling better. If I don’t, I’ll come clean to Folke. I won’t put you in a position of getting called on the carpet because you knew and did nothing.”
Caspers slapped his back. “’Nuff said.”
“Where are those beers?” a guy shouted. “We’re dying of thirst.”
Chase and Caspers grabbed the bottles by the necks and carried them in.
As the dealer started a new round, Chase’s cell phone rang. He took it from his shirt pocket and looked at it. “I gotta take this.”
The guy next to him looked at the phone’s display and said, “Sinclair’s calling.”
“You in or out?” the dealer asked.
“Out.” Chase got up and headed toward his room to a chorus of guys giving him grief.
When he answered the phone, she said only, “John.”
He closed his bedroom door. “Sinclair, is it time?”
“No. Not yet.”
He wouldn’t relax until he’d rescued her and she’d delivered her baby at the hospital, safely away from the clutches of Gig, Paula, and Dr. Janus.
She was crying. “John, how could you just leave like that?”
Her anguish cut him. “Sinclair, please don’t worry. You and your baby will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. I had to leave. Gig was suspicious. He knew about our meetings.”
Her weeping turned to sobbing.
He was firm with her. “Sinclair, you need to calm down. Trust me, okay? Do you trust me?”
She sniffed and said meekly. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Good. Everything will be fine as long as you stick to the plan. Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.”
He heard the resolve in her voice and felt better. “Call me whenever you want. Just be careful.”
“Okay. John?”
“Yes?” He loved it when she said his name. “Thank you. You’re my best friend.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “No problem.”
He returned to the poker table and
his buddies’ ribbing. As soon as he sat down, his phone beeped, signaling that he had a text message.
“She really wants it,” one guy said.
“Won’t that poke the baby?” another joked.
Chase looked at the phone display. “It’s Alison. She’s texted me twice. Guess I didn’t hear it.”
“At midnight?” a guy said. “Can only mean one thing.”
“Booty call!” Ratso yelled and the others joined in. “Booty call!”
Chase made a face as if it was out of the question. “She’s dating some cop with Glendale P.D.”
“She lives in Glendale, doesn’t she?” one guy asked.
“She hooked up with another cop? Did he pull her over or something?”
Chase ignored the questions and read the message. “I don’t know why she’s texting me instead of him. Her sink’s backed up. It’s always backing up in that old place where she lives.”
“Booty call,” Ramirez said.
Chase texted a response, then slapped the phone closed.
“Why doesn’t she call her new boyfriend?” one of them asked.
“She wants something more than her sink fixed,” Ramirez joked.
Chase tossed in his cards and headed toward the bedroom.
“You’re down a hundred bucks,” Caspers said. “You don’t want to try to win it back?”
“No.”
“Gig Towne’s money,” one of them spitefully said.
“He is so not over Alison,” Ramirez said while Chase was still within earshot.
Caspers didn’t comment, not wanting to gossip about his friend.
After a few minutes, Chase returned. He wore the same jeans but had changed from his lucky shirt. He was now wearing a blue V-neck sweater over a crew-neck T-shirt with a khaki zip-front jacket over it. “I’ll get my tool kit from the garage and go over there.”
One of the guys cracked, “The tools she wants aren’t in the garage.”
The others laughed.
He tried to be game. “Yeah, yeah…” He headed for the back door through the kitchen. “See you guys later. Caspers, mañana.”
“Take it easy, buddy.” Caspers watched him disappear through the doorway. He was concerned about his friend.
Alison Oliver lived on a quiet street in the flatlands of Glendale, a city a short drive west of Pasadena and about the same size. It was another of the foothill cities that abutted the San Gabriel Mountains along the 210, aptly named the Foothill Freeway.
Chase parked on the street in front of a courtyard complex of ten Spanish-style bungalows with tile roofs set in pairs around a center walkway. Each unit had a tiny front yard, a minuscule porch with a light, and a backdoor off the kitchen. All the porch lights were turned off, as was the norm, as the tenants paid for their own electricity and cut corners where they could.
Chase grabbed his tool kit and walked to Alison’s bungalow in the back. He saw lights through the closed blinds over her living room windows. The bungalow had just one adjoining wall with the unit next door, which was occupied by Art, a bachelor in his fifties who was a crew manager at Trader Joe’s. He spent his weekends refurbishing a 1963 Chris-Craft cabin cruiser that was docked at the Long Beach marina.
As Chase walked past the darkened bungalows by the glow of ground lights dotting the front yards, he saw that Art’s 1992 Saab 900 Turbo convertible was not parked in its spot beside his unit, meaning he was probably staying on his boat. Art had helped Alison with small household repairs before.
Chase walked up the single step to Alison’s front porch, which was lined with pots of geraniums, two red and two pink. He opened the screen and rapped lightly on the door, not wanting to wake the neighbors, who were mostly college students and young singles who put up with the tiny bungalows because of the cheap rent and retro charm.
“Alison,” he said softly. “It’s me. John.”
The blinds over the windows moved. He heard the security chain being slipped off the door, which cracked open. He stepped inside.
At ten o’clock the next morning, when the reliable Alison hadn’t shown up for work or answered her phone, her girlfriend from work came to her front door. Her knocking and calls roused Alison’s neighbor. Art had been sleeping in, having the day off from his job.
Art knew where Alison kept her spare key, poorly hidden beneath a rock in the boxwood near her door. He unlocked the door and went in first. The tiny living room was neat as usual. A metal tool chest was on the floor inside the door.
With Alison’s girlfriend behind him, Art crossed to look inside the small kitchen, then walked through the living room again and entered the short hallway. At the end, the bedroom door was ajar. He smelled the gunpowder and blood before he’d fully pushed open the door.
It took him an instant to take it all in. Alison and Chase lay on top of a white chenille bedspread. Blood had spread in a dark crimson halo around their heads and shoulders. She was wearing a pink terry-cloth bathrobe. Pink-and-green striped pajamas extended beneath the bottom hem. She was barefoot. He was fully dressed, still wearing a zippered jacket over his sweater and loafers on his feet.
There was a single gunshot wound between Alison’s open eyes. It had done little damage to her face.
Chase was on his back, clasping her right hand with his left. His right hand was curled on his chest, holding the Beretta he carried off duty. The muzzle was beneath his chin. Hair, skull, and brains were splattered against the headboard, wall, and ceiling.
After looking at the scene for two seconds, long enough to imprint the image in his mind for the rest of his life, Art pulled the door closed and blocked it, not allowing Alison’s frantic friend to get any closer.
THIRTY-FIVE
Vining was at her desk the next morning, finishing typing her reports on the Catherine Engleford case, when she received a return call from the Department of Homeland Security. She didn’t see any problem in taking down the information, even though the case was no longer hers. The caller told her that there was no record of Kingsley Getty having traveled to Dubai or anywhere outside the country during the prior week. The only overseas travel on record for him over the past two years was a round-trip from L.A. to Paris the previous month and another to Madrid with a connection to Palma, Majorca, a year ago.
Getty had taken the trouble to lay the groundwork that he was going to be out of the country at the time of Tink’s death. But Dubai? That was baffling. Travel by airline, especially overseas, was easily verified. A cagier move would have been for him to have driven someplace close to L.A., like Palm Springs. Check into a hotel. Be seen at the bar. Buy gas. Slip out and make a quick trip back to Pasadena. Maybe Getty, the slick con artist, had never dreamed that Tink’s death would be considered anything but accidental and thought that his story would never be questioned.
Vining rested her chin against her fist with her elbow propped on the desk and stared at the cubicle’s gray fabric wall. When she thought of Getty as Tink’s murderer, she saw it as a crime of passion. Maybe Tink had turned down Getty’s request for money or called him out as a sniveling con artist. But Getty telling people in advance that he was going to be out of town suggested premeditation. Had Getty been paid by someone to sidle up to Tink and find out how much she knew about something or someone? Had Vince Madrigal learned the same information that had caused Tink to be eliminated? Vining thought of the bugs planted in her mother’s home. Patsy claimed ignorance but had she heard something that could put her in danger? Even if she hadn’t heard anything incriminating, it was enough if someone thought she had.
She took out photocopies of Tink’s sigils. Was the deadly secret encoded in them? She’d accused Cheyenne of having burned them, but maybe it had been Getty. Maybe they’d both been involved in bringing Tink down.
She spread out the pages and studied them. There were similarities between the three sets of symbols.
She went to Kissick’s cubicle. He wasn’t around. The book he’d bought about sigilry was on his
desk. She took it, telling herself this was just a little research. Sergeant Early shouldn’t have a problem with that. She couldn’t conceive of Caspers wanting to bother with this.
Back at her desk, she skimmed the descriptions of the mystical underpinnings of sigil-making, discussing how the sigil traps the expression of a desire into a powerful symbol, and found the nuts-and-bolts section. She first needed to come up with a statement about something she wanted to manifest and then write it in a line, spacing the letters evenly.
An intention popped into her head. She wrote it out:
F I N D O U T W H O K I N G G E T T Y I S
As per the instructions, she crossed out the vowels and the letters that repeated, and then began to superimpose the letters. They could be reversed, overlapped, or written inside other letters. Lines sticking out could be topped with a circle, a feminine symbol, to give power to something to be changed internally, or an arrow, a masculine symbol, to manifest something externally.
It didn’t take Vining long to come up with her sigil. Now she understood why each sigil is unique. It’s a product of the sigil-maker’s inspiration.
Vining again studied Tink’s three sigils. She now saw that Tink hadn’t densely overlapped her letters. She could pick out F, S, and G. She could see W, N, T, V…Since letters could be superimposed, it was hard to know which ones had actually been incorporated. The F, S, and G gave her an idea. She turned her pad to a clean sheet and wrote:
G E O R G I A S T E F A N
After removing the vowels and duplicates, she compared what remained with Tink’s sigils. She could make a case that Tink had crafted an intention about Georgia Berryhill and Stefan Pavel. She found a P but nothing that resembled a B, which led her to think that if the sigils were about Georgia and Stefan, Tink had used just their first names. The P pertained to a different message.
She tried to guess what Tink’s intentions might have been about Georgia and Stefan. She considered her own questions about the couple. A phrase popped into her head. She wrote it down and reduced it according to the sigil formula. She found evidence of these letters in Tink’s sigils:
