Motive

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Change of slaves from Kathy to her. The novelty wore off?”

  “Or Frankie ruined the game by asserting herself,” I said.

  “You hurt my feelings, I stop your breathing.” He crunched a cracker to dust, brushed crumbs from his shirt. “Not only did Frankie drop her phone account; I spoke to her mother and she’s been using cash for a while. No credit cards for two years because her parents thought she couldn’t stay out of debt, found it cheaper to just give her money.”

  “So maybe her allowance got augmented by her ‘new person.’ ”

  “Same old story, pay to play.”

  The bespectacled woman carried over a platter piled high with animal protein and placed it in front of Milo ceremoniously.

  When we were alone again, he shook his head. “Time for Ganesha to feast … not sure I have an appetite.”

  I said, “Don’t disillusion me.”

  Midway through some marathon eating, he paused for breath. “No cameras in the damn tier. Fellinger and Sullivan would know that. You’re right, it is a perfect place for a conference about something other than work because no one spotting them would think anything out of the ordinary. And two psychos would make it easier to subdue victims.”

  He grimaced. “Help setting the damn table, you wash, I dry.”

  “Or Sullivan’s role was more subtle,” I said. “You know what we usually see when there’s a female involved.”

  “She’s the lure. If she is involved. Because let’s face it, kiddo, we’re running all over the place because she had a brief schmooze with Fellinger.”

  “It’s more than that. She definitely knew Frankie.”

  He put his fork down. “Poor kid delivers party-kinky duds, gets tagged and bagged—hell, a woman might be even better at spotting female vulnerability than a man, no?”

  “She’d certainly be less threatening.”

  “Maybe it went down that way with Kathy, too. It wasn’t Fellinger who snagged her in the elevator, it was his partnerette and now I’ve got both of them to keep an eye on.”

  His eyes hooded. “Or we’re wrong about Sullivan in a real bad way.”

  I said, “He’s grooming her as his next victim?”

  “Why not? Suppose she did play a role introducing him to Frankie but had nothing to do with the bad stuff? Offing Ursula turned out to be a huge kick so he’s decided to raise his standards—capturing higher-level prey. That’s the moral dilemma, no? We spot Sullivan hanging out too long with Fellinger, do we warn her? If she really is his co-star, we’ve just blown the entire investigation.”

  He downed two glasses of water, conference-called Reed and Binchy and informed them of the new surveillance regimen.

  First step: pull up Flora Sullivan’s DMV so they’d know what she looked like and where she lived. Then get right on her at the same time Fellinger was being watched. But separately, both of them assigned to the building on Avenue of the Stars.

  A scenario that would work well with half a dozen detectives. Reed and Binchy alternating with Milo meant long shifts, the risk that new cases would pull the young detectives off.

  “At least,” he told them, “you’ll earn mucho overtime, kids, I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Either way, L.T.”

  “You bet, Loot.”

  Milo hung up, grinning.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s so nice when the kids turn out well.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  For three days running, Flora Sullivan and Grant Fellinger arrived for work between eight thirty and ten a.m. Neither attorney was spotted leaving the building during the day; each was observed driving out of the parking lot between five thirty-four and six fifty-eight, p.m.

  Night one: Ensconced in his Pacific Palisades house, Grant Fellinger never left. Flora Sullivan, on the other hand, paused only for a one-hour stopover at her Georgian mansion on June Street in Hancock Park before emerging wearing a black-spangled trouser outfit and jewelry that Binchy could see glinting clear across the street. Her hair was brushed out, curls slackened to waves. She carried a white purse not much larger than a cigarette pack.

  Pausing to study her reflection in the driver’s window of her white Cayman S, she did a kissy thing with her lips, arched her back, got in the cool little sports car, and revved up.

  Property tax records had her residing in the big, blocky house for the past fifteen years with one Gary Sullivan. But no man accompanied her as she turned east on Sixth Street and headed toward downtown through Koreatown.

  Destination: the Biltmore Hotel.

  Aha! thought Binchy. Rich person’s version of a no-tell motel. Maybe he’d luck out and that Fellinger would show up, too.

  But Sullivan had nothing spicy in mind. Walking straight to the hotel’s gilded grand ballroom, she attended a benefit dinner for Planned Parenthood.

  Binchy, wearing a suit and tie, as he always did, managed to blend in with the eight-hundred-plus people during the cocktail hour.

  When dinner was announced, he watched Flora Sullivan pick up her place-card and take her seat, introducing herself to her immediate neighbors, a pair of elderly, elegant women.

  “Two drinks,” he reported the following morning. “Picked at her food, that’s probably how she stays skinny.”

  “No boyfriend in sight,” said Milo.

  “Nope. She drove back home alone.”

  “Sounds like a fun evening, Sean.”

  “Didn’t mind, Loot. I’m in the groove.”

  Night two, Reed on Flora Sullivan, Milo on Grant Fellinger.

  Sullivan’s turn to hunker down at home, appearing only to greet a Real Food Daily deliveryman, whom she tipped generously enough to evoke a smile.

  “That’s a vegan place,” said Moe Reed. “Just like the stuff in Frankie DiMargio’s place.”

  “Common ground based on no-cruelty?” said Milo. “I’m in danger of irony overdose.”

  He hung up and continued watching nothing happen at Fellinger’s midsized contemporary abode. At nine fifty p.m., a woman stepped out, followed by the attorney. Milo recognized her as the aging brunette he’d seen in Fellinger’s office photos. No signs of the two boys in the portraits and no cars other than the BMW and the Challenger. By now the kids would be in college, let’s hear it for empty nest.

  The woman Milo knew from real estate records to be one half of the Grant and Bonnie Jo Fellinger Family Trust dyed her hair blond.

  One of those attempts at holding onto hubby as time did its thing?

  He watched Bonnie Jo pocket a ring of house-keys and slip her arm through her husband’s. The two of them walked up the block, heading north. Passing right by the Porsche 928 parked across the street.

  The car was Rick’s Sunday drive but he was always good about sharing it. Appreciating Milo’s contention, tonight, that something “classy” would blend in on an affluent street.

  Milo watched the couple stroll off and fade into the darkness. A few minutes later, the Fellingers were back in view, strolling languidly.

  Bypassing their house, they continued south. Without breaking stride, Grant Fellinger planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek. She pecked him back.

  The two of them, marital bliss personified. Like one of those ads for cruise ships, middle age filled with romance, what a hoot.

  They sure looked comfortable with each other. When they returned a second time, Fellinger’s hand was draped over his wife’s shoulders, and her arm looped around his thick waist.

  Exhibiting the ease you saw in contented couples.

  Milo supposed he and Rick could fit that description, all those years together, fewer arguments, almost no drama.

  Huge accomplishment, given the stress of both their jobs.

  Given the fact that both of them were prone to crankiness.

  Also the fact that they were men raised during a certain era; gay or not, emotional expression had never been a big factor in their household.

  So no arm-looping f
or the two of them, even in West Hollywood where PDAs were business as usual.

  Times had changed. Intellectually, Milo was fine with that. But sometimes when he saw young guys in Boystown hugging and kissing and doing whatever the hell they pleased, it could jolt him and make him feel ancient.

  Rick never said anything but it was definitely the same for him. Squinting the way he did, the compulsively barbered mustache rising and falling as his jaw flexed.

  Hell, they were getting old. Just sitting around like this was freezing up his joints, let’s not even talk about the urinary system.

  The lovebirds returned to their house, Bonnie Jo laughing at something Grant said, laughing again as Grant patted her more-than-ample ass.

  All that happy-hearth hoohah hadn’t prevented the bastard from screwing Ursula Corey and Lord knew how many other women.

  Helluvan actor.

  Was he concealing a lot worse than adultery?

  Bonnie Jo’s laughter lingered in Milo’s head.

  She loves the guy.

  This one would not be easy.

  Night three, as Moe Reed follows at a safe distance, Flora Sullivan drives home to Hancock Park, stays inside her mansion for an hour and fifty-two minutes before emerging, pushing a man in a wheelchair. Guy around her age, gray-haired, handsome, and broad-shouldered, the contrast even more marked when his upper body is measured against his withered legs.

  Sullivan steps in front of the chair. The man smiles as she straightens his collar. She propels the chair curbside. Parked cars are thin on June Street tonight, and Reed worries his three-year-old Mustang, borrowed from the Narcotics impound stable, will be spotted, sitting obliquely north.

  But Sullivan and the man in the chair have eyes only for each other. They talk. She adjusts his clothing a few more times. He takes hold of her hand and brings it to his lips, briefly.

  Sullivan kisses the top of his head and, standing behind him, bites her lip and stares off into the distance. That brief gnaw, out of her companion’s view, the only hint life isn’t absolutely peachy.

  Her white Porsche is the only vehicle any of the detectives has seen at the mansion, no way it will accommodate the man and the chair so Reed isn’t surprised by the silent arrival of a huge black hybrid van bearing livery plates and the discreetly gold-stenciled name of one of the city’s larger limo services above the rear left bumper. A black-suited driver gets out. His instant smile and enthusiastic wave imply familiarity. So do the return waves from Flora Sullivan and the man in the chair.

  The driver slides open the van’s rear passenger door. An electric platform eases forward and lowers to sidewalk level. Taking the chair from Flora Sullivan, the driver wheels the man up the ramp and inside. As the door slides shut, Flora Sullivan walks into the quiet street, around to the driver’s side, gets in before the driver can assist her.

  The van drives away, slowly, smoothly.

  Reed waits a while before picking up the van’s taillights two blocks later. He follows the oversized vehicle onto Beverly Boulevard, hangs back as the van pulls into the valet lot of an extremely expensive Japanese restaurant just east of La Cienega.

  Extremely because last year Reed took Liz there for her birthday and the bill was a shock, though he figured he’d hid that pretty well because the rest of the evening had gone great …

  No problem for people who live in Hancock Park and can afford a chauffeur.

  The van pulls up in front of the restaurant. The driver gets the man in the chair out. Flora Sullivan takes over. Someone who looks like a maître d’ holds the door open.

  Sullivan and her companion—a man who fits the stats provided for her husband, Gary, minus the disability—remain inside for nearly two hours. Halfway through, Sullivan comes out and brings the driver what looks to be a plate of sushi.

  Fifteen minutes after arriving back at the mansion on June Street, lights out.

  Two apparently happy couples. Milo and I and everyone else are beginning to doubt our hypotheses.

  Day four of the surveillance, Milo’s back watching the building on Avenue of the Stars and this time, Grant Fellinger leaves earlier than before, at just before five p.m. Not in the BMW, not in the Challenger. He exits on foot, accompanied by an extremely pretty young Latina wearing a dark suit and pearls.

  The receptionist who’d been there the day of Ursula Corey’s murder.

  Okay, here we go, finally.

  Too bad, Bonnie Jo, you seem like a nice woman.

  But that big aha! moment dies when two more people join the party, a pair of fortyish women, one blond, the other black with beautifully coiffed gray hair, both wearing well-tailored dark suits.

  The party of four walks abreast, waits for the green light, and crosses the boulevard, heading straight for the building where Milo has developed a nice relationship with the parking attendants based on mutual respect and cash.

  A dark residential block is one thing, Avenue of the Stars drunk on incandescence is another. And no 928 to give him respectability; today he’s behind the wheel of an LTD that might as well bear signage proclaiming Unmarked!

  He starts the car up and bails out of there, driving half a block before hazarding a backward look.

  Fellinger and the three women are entering the structure across the street.

  From one office building to another? What the hell?

  Milo drives around the corner, parks at a neighboring office structure, and overtips the valet outrageously to buy himself time and space.

  Making it to the building Fellinger’s group has entered, he learns from a sign in the lobby that a restaurant named Gio occupies the top floor.

  Said establishment isn’t doing a riproaring business, at least not this early; even the long, ebony bar is mostly empty. Maybe the tenants—mostly entertainment firms—want to get the hell out of there after long days of dickering and swindling.

  Or the food sucks.

  Whatever the reason, Fellinger and the three women are easy to spot because no one blocks visual access to their corner table with a terrific city view.

  Fellinger and the black woman are seated with their backs to the untended maître d’s booth. The other two women face them.

  No way any of them will notice Milo; he is standing outside the restaurant, peering through the holes created in a wall of glass pocked artistically.

  A waiter brings drinks: two oversized Martini glasses of something coppery-red garnished with fruit salad for the pretty young receptionist and the black woman, what looks to be cola but could be rum and Coke for the blonde.

  Fellinger raises an Old-Fashioned glass of something clear—vodka or gin. Clinks all around.

  A different waiter brings bread. Fellinger waits until all three women have selected from the basket and either buttered or dipped in what is probably olive oil. Only then does he bite into his roll. What a gentleman.

  Menus arrive. Fellinger orders from a wine list. Two bottles, white and red.

  Everyone relaxed, happy, chatting without care.

  Nice boss, taking the staff out after work.

  This could really get complicated.

  Or worse, he’s really, really wrong.

  I finished reading the surveillance summaries, put them down.

  Milo said, “Fascinating, huh?”

  He was at my house, at eleven a.m., sprawled on the living room sofa looking thrashed and discouraged.

  “I still think you’re going about it the right way.”

  “If you were anything but a shrink, I might take comfort in that.”

  He ran his fingers through black strands, trailed down to white sideburns—what he calls his skunk sticks—and plucked idly. “I rechecked every phone company, maybe we missed something and Frankie still had an account. Nada.”

  I said, “What if he bought her a disposable and her world became his?”

  “Personal hotline? What would stop her calling anyone else?”

  “That’s assuming she’d want to. But even if
she did, he could always examine her log.”

  “You asked Reed to check shops that sell taxidermy and oddities. No luck?”

  “He found a couple of places in Venice and Echo Park. Echo Park got me hopeful because it’s not far from Even Odd. But no one had ever heard of Frankie. I followed up myself, tried out-of-town shops—San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Everyone told me I was wasting my time, the stuff can be picked up at flea markets, thrifts, online auctions, general antiques stores.”

  He stood. “I’m off to catch some beauty rest. Sorry for spreading all the good cheer.”

  “Apology uncalled for. You’re the one sitting in a car all night!”

  “Empathy,” he said. “That always come natural to you?”

  It had.

  I said, “Anything can be learned.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  Day five. Near the end of Moe Reed’s daytime surveillance shift, during the second of two quick sneaks into the parking garage, the young detective narrowly missed coming upon Grant Fellinger and Flora Sullivan.

  He was leaving an area just a few yards from where Ursula Corey had been gunned down when inaudible snippets of conversation caused him to duck behind a Buick SUV.

  Stocky man and stork-like woman walking together. Aimed again for Sullivan’s white Cayman.

  Taking a perpendicular route, Reed jogged around a corner, emerged due west of the Porsche, made sure Fellinger’s and Sullivan’s backs were turned, and hustled behind an SUV.

  Different body language from the amiable chat Sean Binchy had witnessed. Reed called in.

  “Wouldn’t call it a fight but definitely tense. She said something and got in her car and backed out fast. He didn’t wait around, just left.”

  “Who did most of the talking?”

  “Definitely Fellinger,” said Reed.

  Milo said, “Lovers’ quarrel?”

  “Guess it’s possible, L.T., but it seemed more business-like. Whatever they have going on could be falling apart, at some point we might be able to wedge them apart.”