The scratch on O’Brien’s face seemed to be healing, but his disposition was still raw. He was probably pissed that Dale Ewing had complained to his supervisor.
“I thought you solved the Ortiz case.”
“We made an arrest, but the investigation isn’t over. You never know what else might turn up if you dig deep enough.”
His words sounded ominous, sort of like a threat. The last thing Helen needed was a Beverly Hills cop with a little power and a lot of attitude.
“You think somebody else was involved?” I said.
“That feather we found at the scene is from a bird called a quetzal. It’s a symbol used by a street gang called the MayaBoyz. Roberto Ortiz is a member. We think he killed his mother because she was interfering with his gang activities. Now we want to know if any of his homeboys helped him out.”
As I’d promised, I told O’Brien about the break-in at Helen’s condo and asked if he thought Roberto might have been involved. He didn’t express an opinion; just said he’d check it out with the LAPD.
It was around one thirty before I got back to the office. Eugene was working at his computer. The air purifier was still hanging around his neck, whirring. I handed him the chocolates Helen had sent. He clutched the bag to his chest in ecstasy.
“Isn’t she just too wonderful?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s a peach. Did you find out any more about the quetzal?”
He set the bag on his desk and handed me a stack of notes. “Yes, but it’s going to make you sad. I still don’t know if they’re extinct or not, but it doesn’t look good. The birds were considered a symbol of freedom to the Maya because they couldn’t be held in captivity. If you put them in cages, they’ll kill themselves in a sort of live-free-or-die suicide pact.”
For a moment, I imaged a cult of colorful birds wearing black tennis shoes and toasting the arrival of the Hale-Bopp Comet with poisoned punch.
“I found a book in the library’s online database,” he went on. “It’s about an East L.A. street gang called the MayaBoyz. And—get this—there’s a picture of some gang graffiti on the book cover. There’s a feather that looks a lot like it came from a quetzal. At least, it was long and green. There must be something about it in the book, or the link wouldn’t have come up in my search.”
“O’Brien told me Roberto Ortiz is a member of that gang, but I’d like to find out more.”
“I’ll stop by the library this weekend.”
The library. That didn’t sound dangerous.
“Great,” I said.
I was heading toward my office when Charley strolled into the lobby.
“Any luck with Helen’s neighbors?” I said.
“Nah. Only one person was home—the guy who lives next door. He said he was home sick all day Thursday, but didn’t see anything unusual. Claims he took enough cough syrup with codeine to sleep through an earthquake. He didn’t want to talk to me, wouldn’t even open the door. Said he was afraid I might catch whatever he had. The guy was weird, like one of those quiet types who turn out to be a serial killer. He gave me the willies.”
“Somebody must have seen something,” Eugene said.
Charley shrugged. “The place is secluded, lots of trees, and all the units have separate entrances.”
Eugene’s face was flushed. “Doesn’t Helen’s condo have a security gate or a concierge?”
“Sorry, kid,” Charley said. “The place doesn’t have anything like that.”
“So Helen loses again, and nobody can do anything about it.” Eugene’s voice was laced with futility and indignation. “We’re private investigators. We should be able to solve a simple burglary.”
Charley put his hands on his hips. I could tell he was about to scold Eugene about the use of the word we. I didn’t want Eugene pressured before he downed a couple of Mango-Tango squares, so I caught Charley’s eye and shook my head.
“What about that police contact of yours?” I said. “Did he know anything?”
“Not much. One of the neighbors heard Ortiz arguing with his mother at around four thirty. The kid wanted money to buy drugs, and she wouldn’t give it to him. The neighbor saw her leave for work at around five o’clock. Roberto left a few minutes later.”
“So the police think Roberto followed Lupe to Beverly Hills to kill her?” I said.
“Yup.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Charley. If he needed money for drugs, why didn’t he steal the cash from Nectar’s register?”
“Beats me.”
Charley walked into his office. Eugene and I followed. Several file folders were stacked on his desk chair. He dropped them on the floor and sat.
“Where did they find Lupe’s car?” I said.
“She was driving a van from the janitorial service she worked for. Beverly Hills PD found it in a parking garage about a block away. Funny thing, though: her cleaning bucket and some supplies are missing.”
I cocked my head. “That’s odd.”
“Who knows? Maybe her kid took them.”
“Why would he take cleaning supplies? Roberto’s a druggie who needed a fix. It’s not like a can of Old Dutch Cleanser is worth big bucks on the street. I just talked to Detective O’Brien. He says her cell phone is missing, too.”
Eugene picked up the files and set them on top of the cabinet. “Roberto didn’t do it. The police arrested the wrong guy.”
Charley and I exchanged skeptical glances.
“Believe me,” Eugene continued, “I understand the lure of matricide, but Roberto Ortiz had too much on his plate last night to pull it off. He had to drive all the way from East L.A. to Beverly Hills, kill his mother, and then drive home to open the door when Helen and Tucker got to his house. From what Tucker said, the guy was high on drugs. I don’t know how he could drive, much less accomplish all that.”
Charley crossed his arms over his chest in a defensive posture. “Like I said before, we don’t know if it’s possible until we know the timeline of the murder.”
True, but Eugene’s point was well taken. If Roberto’s motive for killing his mother had been revenge for meddling in his gang life, why had he driven to Beverly Hills to kill her? That seemed risky. Even if he’d been angry and desperate for a fix, it seemed more likely that he’d kill her at home at the moment she’d refused to give him money.
Eugene stood. “Roberto is innocent. I just know it. I think Lupe’s murder is a carefully planned conspiracy to destroy Helen Taggart.”
Charley rolled his eyes. “How so?”
“First came the harassing telephone calls, then the theft of her chocolates, then the break-in at her condo, and now murder. Somebody wants to drive her out of Beverly Hills.”
Charley picked up one of his number 2 pencils and shoved it into the electric sharpener. Over the noise of wood grinding to a fine point, he said, “And who would that be?”
Eugene began to pace. His words were punctuated with sweeping arm gestures. His breath grew shallower with each hypothetical. “Maybe the European chocolate industry is threatened by her success, or a band of antisugar terrorists wants to kill the candy industry one chocolate store at a time, or maybe it’s her ex-husband or that Rossi guy. He’s been vile to Helen. I bet one of them is behind all these problems.”
Charley blew the lead dust off the tip of the pencil. “Calm down. I have to go to the courthouse for another client. I’ll see if I can find a criminal record on either of those guys. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Let me do something,” Eugene said.
“If I need help, I’ll ask for it.”
Eugene turned and stomped out of the room. Over his shoulder he said, “I just wish you two had more faith in me.”
Charley loaded his sharpened pencil and a notebook into a battered leather briefcase and left for the courthouse. I returned to my desk. Soon after, I heard the outer door open. I glanced up and saw Lorna Tate strutting into the office like a cartoon runway model. I was surprised
her hip joints could withstand the gyrations. I walked to the lobby to see what she wanted.
Charley’s wife was in her late thirties, with violet eyes, chestnut hair, and a butt as flat as a tortilla grill. She had on her porn-queen outfit—high-heeled leather boots and a fake leopard coat. She looked like an escapee from a stuffed toy factory. She set a large Bloomingdale’s shopping bag on Eugene’s in-basket, collapsing the plastic Corinthian columns. He caught my gaze and stuck his finger down his throat, pretending to gag. Eugene and I tolerated Lorna, but you’d never see the three of us sitting around a campfire singing “Kumbaya.”
Lorna glanced into Charley’s office and saw it was empty. A pout began forming on her mouth. “Where is he?”
“At the courthouse,” I said.
She gestured toward the bag. “I have something to show him. When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know. Did you call his cell?”
“He doesn’t answer.”
I walked back toward my office. “Then I guess you’ll just have to wait until tonight.”
Lorna grabbed the shopping bag from Eugene’s desk with enough force to rip off one of the handles. “Thanks for nothing, Tucker.”
“My pleasure,” I mumbled under my breath.
A few moments later, the door to the outside hallway slammed shut. Eugene came into my office, his finger making a circular motion next to his ear.
“When I think of Lorna procreating,” he said. “I get Village of the Damned flashbacks.”
“Half the kid’s genes would be Charley’s.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
I smiled. “Yeah . . . you have a point.”
Elizabeth Bennet’s appointment was at three. I didn’t want to seem clueless about the matchmaking industry, so in preparation for our meeting, I searched the Internet for information on modern-day dating practices. I found several research papers on the public library Web site and discovered that a person has only a 17 percent chance of hitting it off with a blind date arranged by a friend. I didn’t need a research study to tell me what I’d already verified in the field.
I also read that people spent over forty billion dollars a year on weddings, and that in the past four years, annual revenues from matchmaking businesses had increased 300 percent. The researchers estimated that 75 percent of adults in the U.S. were looking for true love. I wondered what the other 25 percent were looking for. Lorna Tate?
Elizabeth Bennet was in a competitive field, but the potential was promising. She just needed to weed out the serial daters and the serial killers from her client list, price her services to beat the competition, and she’d soon be bringing in some cool cash.
I’d collected enough matchmaking facts to impress even the most jaded client, so I decided to search the Internet for Elizabeth Bennet to see if she had a presence on the Web. I got a number of hits, mostly for Jane Austen’s heroine in Pride and Prejudice. No wonder the name sounded familiar. I just hoped this Elizabeth Bennet was as sensible and smart as the literary figure, because I wasn’t in the mood to assume command of the bimbo brigade. A few minutes before three, Eugene called on the intercom. Elizabeth Bennet was waiting for me in the lobby.
Chapter 9
I straightened the papers on my desk into tidy piles. I wanted the place to look neat, but I didn’t want Elizabeth Bennet to think I wasn’t busy. I walked into the reception area and found a fair-haired, athletic woman in her midtwenties standing near Eugene’s desk. She wore no makeup, but that didn’t matter. It might have made her more glamorous, but it wouldn’t have made her more beautiful.
“Ms. Bennet? I’m Tucker Sinclair.”
She stared at me until her unwavering gaze made me uncomfortable. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Good things I hope. Do you mind telling me who referred you?”
She hesitated. “Nobody, really. I’ve just heard your name mentioned a bunch of times.”
That sounded suspiciously vague, but there was no point in being confrontational. I’d press her for more information during our interview. I led her into my office and we both settled in chairs across the desk from each other. As she set her handbag on the floor, a bottle of water rolled out and clunked against her shoe.
“I understand you run a dating service,” I said. “Sounds challenging and entrepreneurial.”
“I’m just getting started. You know, still trying to get clients, make good matches, that sort of thing. My goal is to get a few of my couples married. Don’t you think that would be good advertising?”
“I’m sure it would be.”
“Are you with anybody right now?” she said. “If not, maybe you could be my test case.”
Her smile was mischievous and appealing. I smiled, too, just so she knew I got the joke.
“I’m afraid I’d be more of a challenge than you need right now. So, tell me about your company. What’s it called?”
She hesitated, unsure of herself. “Luv Bugs.”
I felt myself do a mental cringe. My negative reaction must have played out on my face, because she looked crestfallen.
She took off the jacket she was wearing, exposing toned arms. “You don’t like it, do you? Me neither. In fact, I think it sucks. I considered Happily Ever After, Mixed-and-Matched, Strangers to Soul Mates. All of them were terrible.”
“Naming a company isn’t easy.”
She planted her elbows on the desk and held her face in her hands. “It’s harder than falling in love.”
“How long have you been in business?”
“Not long.”
“How long is that?”
“About three months.”
“How much working capital do you have?”
She stared out the window behind me, avoiding my gaze. “It’s sort of depressing to talk about that.”
I leaned back in my chair, frustrated by her cryptic answers. “Just so you know, Elizabeth, I charge for my work.”
Her expression seemed pained. “I know that. Don’t worry. I have enough money to pay you.”
“Do you have a business plan?”
“Not a good one. That’s why I need your help.”
“What are your goals for Luv Bugs?”
Her eyes sparkled with youthful exuberance. “I want to make love happen. So many people make bad relationship decisions. I see it everywhere. People who should be together but aren’t. People who shouldn’t be together but are. I want to fix all that, give people a chance to find real love.”
If Elizabeth Bennet had been any sweeter, I’d be suffering from insulin shock. While she talked about her plans to save the romantically challenged, her long, graceful fingers were in perpetual motion, punctuating each sentence with swoops and loop-de-loops. Her voice danced up and down the scales, stopping with a sudden squeak that doubled as an exclamation point. She was serious one moment, laughing the next, sometimes all in the same sentence. Even her nose was expressive, wrinkling to make some point or another. She was mesmerizing. I didn’t want to take my eyes off her for fear of missing something delightful. Her naïveté would probably doom Luv Bugs, but by the time she’d finished talking, I was ready to bail water from the deck of her sinking ship.
“It’s an interesting coincidence,” I said. “Your name, I mean. Elizabeth Bennet is the woman who tamed Mr. Darcy.”
Her cheeks flushed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’ve probably heard that a million times before. What I meant was, it’s a lovely name.”
She fidgeted with the neat stacks of papers on my desk, making them neater. “I have a confession to make. My name isn’t Elizabeth Bennet. I told you that because I didn’t think you’d help me if you knew my real name.”
The possibilities flashed through my head, but I couldn’t think of anybody I disliked enough to turn down business because of an association with this young woman.
“My name is Riley.” She studied my reaction with her earnest blue eyes. “Riley Deega
n. You used to date my brother, Joe.”
I felt my muscles grow tense. Joe Deegan was the man who had driven me to seek solace on that bicycle trip in France. There had been some trouble for him a few months back, for which I was partly to blame. A disgruntled ex-lover had filed a complaint against him, accusing him of selling confidential government information to a private investigator—Charley Tate. It was a lie. It was also a felony. Not only could Deegan have lost his job; he could have gone to prison. I offered to help clear his name, but instead he chose to end our relationship.
I stared at Riley Deegan, wondering what kind of game she was running on me. “Does he know you’re here?”
“No. I need business advice, and I don’t know who else to ask.”
“This isn’t a good idea.”
Her shoulders slumped in defeat. A moment later she rose from the chair. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
I felt as if I had just melted a snowflake with a blow dryer. There was no reason to punish Riley Deegan for my failed relationship with her brother, and there was no excuse for turning down business, either. I needed clients to pay my rent and my half of Eugene’s salary. Besides, we were all adults. Relationships fail. Love dies. Blah, blah, blah.
“Sit down, Riley.”
She returned to the chair, but waited for me to speak first.
“How’s he doing, anyway?” I said.
She bowed her head as if the gesture would make the words come out easier. “The Board of Review finally cleared him of all charges, but it was hard on him.”
I tried to make the next comment seem offhand, but my cheery tone sounded false even to my ears. “I hope he’s happy.”
She shrugged. “I guess so. He’s engaged.”
I felt as if someone had just punched me in the stomach. It had only been five months since Joe Deegan and I stopped seeing each other. I didn’t expect him to be pining away for me, but it was painful to think he’d gone from zero to sixty with some other woman in such a short amount of time. In a way, it wasn’t surprising. He was a charming and funny guy who also happened to be eye candy. He’d had other women before me, lots of them. Now he had only one, and it wasn’t me.
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