Motive

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Beggars-choosers, Frank.”

  “That’s what my wife tells me.”

  Two hours later, well into evening, I pulled into the staff lot at the West L.A. station. As Milo unbuckled his seat belt, his phone played a Chopin étude.

  Frank Gonzales’s voice on speaker, basso, mellow, steady. “Back at you, Milo. Snagged myself a sweet deal that’ll play to your benefit. Officially I’m on the job but I get to take my boat out and watch Corey’s place from the water, department’s even supplying binoculars. And no rules against fishing, in fact my captain agrees a couple of rods in the water will provide excellent cover.”

  “How’d you pull that off?”

  “Put away a whole bunch of bad guys,” said Gonzales. “Or maybe it’s my minty-fresh breath. Anyway, if Corey does take a walk on the promenade, I can keep an eye on him for a good quarter mile in either direction. Same if he sails away because, yeah, he does have a registered craft, nothing fancy, twenty-foot cruiser.”

  Milo said, “Maybe it was out for maintenance the day we were there. As in he’s preparing to take a little trip.”

  “Maybe, but the papers say he keeps it in Ventura,” said Gonzales. “One good thing, he’s not going to get far in that thing, though he could set out on a fake pleasure cruise, dock in Santa Barbara or farther in San Simeon, or go the other way and bail in Long Beach.”

  “Why keep the boat in Ventura when he’s got a slip right behind the condo?”

  “Still trying to find out. Meanwhile, I’ve got a two-person team rotating on him, just what I said, couple of clueless young ’uns willing to sell their own mothers for the privilege of having their butts fall asleep.”

  Milo said, “Eight-hour shifts?”

  “Twelve,” said Gonzales. “Poor little suckers. Then again, I never met their mothers.”

  Tracing the Corey girls’ escape turned out to be simple. Milo cold-called Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and Discovery, struck gold with Visa, struck platinum with an astonishingly cooperative supervisor named Brenda. His assurance that it was a “life-or-death matter” might’ve cut through the red tape, but he hung up beating his chest and proclaiming, “The charm has been reactivated! Rico Suave is back!”

  Like the old song says, little things mean a lot.

  Each sister had her own card but the account numbers were sequential. Ashley’s had been used to buy a tankful of gas just east of Palm Springs. The rest of the charges alternated between the sisters, all racked up in Las Vegas, just as Laura Smith had said. Additional fuel, food, cosmetics, substantial charges at the Venetian that approximated the hotel’s rate for a deluxe room plus some room service.

  Milo said, “Escaping to Sin City. Hopefully it’s actually them and not someone with their plastic.”

  I said, “They can’t be thinking too straight. Even if Ursula paid the charges before, Richard would get them now.”

  “Ah, impetuous youth.” He called Brenda again, confirmed that a request had been made to mail the bills to the condo in Oxnard.

  “Is there any way to block that temporarily?”

  “Why would we do that, Lieutenant?”

  “Between you and me, that’s their father’s address and he’s who we’re worried about.”

  “Oh … sorry, officially there’s no way without a court order.”

  “But,” said Milo.

  Click click click buzz buzz. “Now we’re not being recorded. At least on my end.”

  “Not on mine either.”

  “All right,” said Brenda. “Here’s what I think: We’re a big company with excellent technical support. But glitches do come up. Though they tend to get fixed pretty quickly.”

  “Maybe one glitch could be replaced by another?” said Milo.

  The woman laughed. “You’re a demanding fellow.”

  “Truth, justice, blah blah blah, Brenda. Seriously, these are scared kids and they’re in danger.”

  “From their father. That’s horrible. Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks a ton.”

  “My brother’s a cop. Indianapolis.”

  “That’s great, Brenda.”

  “Thought you’d see it that way.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  Richard Corey proved to be a creature of low activity and even lower sociability.

  He remained inside his condo except for a noon trip to buy beer and a solitary evening walk along the waterfront.

  “The kid I put on him said he acted kind of weird,” said Frank Gonzales. “Kept his eyes on the ground, didn’t pay attention to anyone, even his tenants. Younger couple, they met him walking, Corey passed right by. But the kid’s greener than lettuce, could be dramatizing. Today I’ll check on Corey’s boat.”

  Milo said, “I found it. Cracked engine block, dry-docked in a boatyard near the Ventura harbor until Corey gives the okay to repair. Meanwhile he’s paying storage fees.”

  “Good for you,” said Gonzales. “Does the yard happen to be Harvey’s Boat Haven?”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  “I know Harvey Milner. I’ll have him call me if anything changes.”

  “Thanks, Frank.”

  “I should be thanking you, sunny day on the water, fishing’s been not bad, mostly smelts, but one nice rock cod. You cook?”

  “Not much.”

  “Me neither, but my wife does. In her hands, smelts is gourmet.”

  Milo phoned Deputy D.A. John Nguyen and asked if Richard Corey’s prior permission to examine his financial and phone records still applied.

  Nguyen said, “Probably not.”

  “It was pretty open-ended, John.”

  “This ever goes to trial, you want to blow it on something stupid?”

  “Damn.”

  Nguyen said, “Maybe … I guess a case could be made either way. Theoretically. But you didn’t learn anything the first time, so why bother?”

  “We think this guy had his wife killed and did three other women by himself. Now we’re concerned he’ll go after his daughters. He sold their horses for slaughter and emptied the ex’s house.”

  “Making a big change,” said Nguyen. “A John List thing?”

  “Could be.”

  “Horses, huh? Sounds like parent of the year. Where are the daughters?”

  “On the run. But Corey’s super-rich, can move fast, John. Anything we can do to get a handle on his behavior could be useful.”

  “Bastard ends up killing his kids, wouldn’t that be a headline? Okay, have your way with his paper trail. You need backup from some white-collar droid, give ’em my number.”

  “You bet, John.” Milo grinned at me. He’d already begun scouring without authorization.

  Nguyen said, “Any idea where the girls are?”

  “Their credit cards have them in Vegas yesterday, checking out of the Venetian and returning to California. Gas and munchies in Barstow, then Bakersfield, then to Carmel, where they rented another hotel room. If they’ve moved since, I don’t know about it yet.”

  “Which hotel in Carmel?”

  “Seaview Lodge.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Nguyen. “Took a chick there couple of years ago, we’re talking high-end girlie-spa. These kids are scared but they’re getting hot-rock massages and salt rubs? Daddy paying those credit cards?”

  “Yup, but I blocked his access to charges and if he tries to cut off the accounts it won’t go through.”

  “How’d you pull that off?”

  “Gentle persuasion and a bit of …”

  “Say no more,” said Nguyen. “Even so, the girls don’t know he’s been blocked, so what, are they stupid?”

  “They’re not geniuses, John, but maybe they’re just doing what they know.”

  “Which is?”

  “Living idly and well.”

  “Run for your lives and take a cool road trip? At the risk of emptying my bladder on the winning float in the Rose Bowl Parade, I’d be remiss if I didn’t raise another
possibility.”

  “What?”

  “They’re not rabbiting, my friend, they’re pulling a Menendez. Remember how the brothers traveled and partied right after they blasted Mom and Dad?”

  Milo looked at me. The same question had come up early.

  He said, “There’s no evidence these girls have done anything criminal, John.”

  “So far.”

  “They definitely didn’t kill their mother and I can’t see them involved in the others.”

  “You’re the detective,” said Nguyen. “I’m just saying keep a corner of your mind receptive to bad news.”

  “John, my entire damn brain is a satellite dish aimed at bad news. Failure and rot is what I’m thinking about at this very moment and it’s giving me a damn headache.”

  “Price of doing business,” said Nguyen. “For me, Advil is an hors d’oeuvre.”

  Milo passed the phone receiver from hand to hand, stared at the wall, drummed his desktop for a while, finally faced me. “Menendez gone femme?”

  I said, “I don’t think it’s any more probable. Corey would have no reason to include two kids in his plans and Laura Smith seemed credible.”

  “A luxury hotel in Vegas, then a spa?”

  “Just what you told Nguyen. Not too bright and sticking with the familiar.”

  “Even if they’re traumatized.”

  “Maybe especially if they’re traumatized. Also, they could be getting back at Daddy by spending his money while they can.”

  “Brat One Oh One.” He knuckled an eye. “Show up to ride your horses, find out they’re gone. Guess I can’t blame ’em.”

  I said, “The horses and the entire contents of the home where they grew up. Which raises an interesting point: Corey would’ve had to hire an equine transport company and a sizable moving van. Maybe the guardhouse recorded the names of the companies.”

  “Assuming there was someone on duty with a functioning brain.” Cursing under his breath, he found the number of the Rancho Lobo guardhouse and called.

  Monte’s Moving and Storage in Canoga Park had sent two vans paid for by Richard Corey to cart and transport household goods to a downtown warehouse leased by RC Enterprises. That company turned out to be a newly registered business owned solely by Richard Corey. No time lost replacing Urrick, Ltd.

  Milo said, “Out with the old, in with the new.”

  I said, “Like we thought, this is all about Corey starting a new life.”

  He rubbed his face. “Nothing like a renaissance of blood.”

  The horses had been picked up by a Lancaster outfit named Equi-Trans, specializing in “humane transformation.” The company’s website was thin on specifics but Milo finally pried out the cold facts from a “representative.”

  Unwanted steeds were shipped to a pet-food slaughterhouse in Roswell, New Mexico.

  He hung up. “Roswell. Coupla gorgeous animals turned to kibble for space aliens? Jesus.”

  Shoving his office door open, he charged into the hallway, stalked up and down a few times, returned. “Here I am with a bunch of murders and horses are getting to me.”

  “Animals can do that.”

  “Sydney and Jasper.” He shook his head. “What the hell did they do to deserve being turned into pet chow? All right, enough sentimentality, onward.”

  He sat back down, waited.

  I said, “What?”

  “Help me define ‘onward.’ ”

  If I’d had anything to offer, I’d have told him.

  The next forty-eight hours revealed no contact among Richard Corey, Grant Fellinger, and Flora Sullivan. After two nights of Fellinger and Sullivan returning dutifully to their spouses, enthusiasm for either lawyer as a suspect waned. The watch on Sullivan was lifted, surveillance on Fellinger limited to after dark.

  Two additional days passed with nothing to report and Milo stopped calling me to pass along failure. That left me nothing to do but think and imagine.

  The same questions kept spinning in my head.

  If Richard Corey had hired his ex-wife’s executioner and had worked solo on the other murders, why the dinner-for-two tableau? I’d explained it as a control-freak production. But there were all kinds of ways to assert dominance and Corey’s condo had offered no signs of interest in culinary matters. Just the opposite, it was Sad Bachelor Central.

  Had food and death somehow pushed an accomplice’s buttons? The obvious candidate was Darius Kleffer, a man who made his living cooking and had been dumped by one of the victims. Kleffer had been in New York during Kathy Hennepin’s murder but that didn’t absolve him of the other killings.

  Could Kleffer and Corey have met up somehow and devised a homicidal tit-for-tat?

  I carve up your girlfriend, you shoot my wife.

  And let’s toss in a couple of other women just for laughs.

  But so far no link had arisen between Kleffer and Corey and there didn’t seem to be an avenue to search for one. Still, I wrote down Kleffer’s name followed by a chunky question mark.

  Flora Sullivan had dined out in style with her husband and her boyfriend. On the face of it that meant nothing. But she was Frankie DiMargio’s link to a building that was looking more and more like a death-trap. Was she the link to the dinner scenes? Malignant foodie with a hobby other than pleather? Had we been too hasty eliminating her?

  Next: the Corey sisters. Recent expenses placed them clear out of the country, in Vancouver, Canada. They’d purchased only small stuff, nothing close to the cost of a room. Crashing with friends?

  If they were worried about their safety, why hadn’t they contacted the police? Could they have been criminally involved? Professing love and grief for their mother but secretly allying with their father?

  Had he used them, only to turn?

  Bad man seeking a new life. Did that include a new love slave? Another victim already culled from the herd?

  One thing seemed certain: Richard Corey was at the hub of all this evil. If nothing else proved it, the horses did; there was something about cruelty to animals that alerted you to a psychopath on duty, and Corey’s casual dispatch of his daughters’ beloved pets spoke to a special brand of callousness.

  That fit the exploitation of Kathy Hennepin and Frankie DiMargio. Shy, withdrawn women vulnerable to the advances of even an awkward man like Corey? But Corey as a lothario was hard to picture.

  That brought me squarely back to Grant Fellinger, a man able to overcome homeliness and bed a beauty like Ursula Corey. Smooth and aggressive and willing to use his legal training to battle a mentally ill homeless woman who’d yelled at him.

  Bringing about her terrible death. Because killing was fun.

  Maybe we’d been right about Fellinger from the beginning.

  Food and death.

  I looked down at my notes.

  One name stood out: Darius Kleffer.

  I tried to reach Milo, got voice mail everywhere, left multiple messages but didn’t hear back until he texted me that evening:

  thanks for the . boo hoo, dk alibied on everything.

  Advil was starting to look like a dandy appetizer.

  Eventually, I cleared my head and focused on a limited issue: Why hadn’t Frankie DiMargio been spotted at any tattoo parlors near her home or her work?

  Maybe because my circle had been too narrow. Using my phone and the Internet, I expanded by several miles, composed and printed a list, left and began dropping into establishments staffed by people with high pain thresholds.

  Smelling enough blood and electricity and rubbing alcohol to last a lifetime.

  The prevailing attitude was surly mistrust of anyone with unbroken skin. Some of that receded when I explained that Frankie was a murder victim. But no one recognized her or the inkwork visible on her DMV photo.

  I asked several artists about the quality of the work. Quick consensus: the kind of stuff anyone could achieve with stencils.

  A couple of needle-wielders thought it likely that she’d frequented m
ore than one source. I took that as a positive: more shops meant a higher probability of success. But a full day of searching proved futile.

  I returned home and used my phone.

  Clara DiMargio answered. “You found something!”

  Feeling like a jerk, I said, “We’re moving along, Mrs. DiMargio.”

  “Oh.” Deflated.

  “Could I ask a few more questions?”

  Long sigh. “Sure.”

  “Did the money you and your husband give Frankie pay for her tattoos—”

  “No way,” she said. “Even if I agreed to that, which I wouldn’t, my husband would have hit the roof. We paid her rent and her utilities—her phone when she still had one. Would there be enough left over for that garbage? I don’t think so.”

  “Any idea how Frankie did pay?”

  “You’re saying someone else gave her money? Maybe the same person who … oh my God, why didn’t I think of that? Where did she get money for that?”

  “How recent was her last tattoo?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know—hold on, maybe I do. A couple of months ago she came in with an especially ugly one, a snake around her neck, just crude and nasty and ugly. Bill got mad and asked where she was getting the money to waste. Frankie turned around and left.”

  Muffled sob. “I’d baked peanut butter cookies, Frankie loved them when she was a little girl. They went untouched. I tossed them in the trash. Oh, sir, everything just fell apart.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  A control freak financing fresh ink might want to be on the scene to supervise.

  I printed an L.A. street map and plotted, marking the epicenter between Frankie DiMargio’s rented garage in Mar Vista and Even Odd, then radiating outward.

  Plugging in the locations of tattoo parlors I’d already visited was discouraging: I’d covered more ground than I thought, with only a narrow band of untraveled territory remaining.

  But that blade-shaped bit of terrain included a cluster of ink shops on or near Fairfax Avenue.

  The fourth one I visited was called Tigray Art set between two Ethiopian restaurants and my hopes rose when I spotted an antiques shop called Nocturna sharing the space.