Breakdown

Chapter 24

Manfred Stoeller clicked the black gate open and we drove out of the Aziz estate. Milo coasted to the end of the block and pulled over.

He said, “Eight days missing. Anyone taking bets she’s okay? So the question is where did it happen? What’s more likely, a Bel Air lurker nabbing her during a lunchtime stroll or she encountered a lowlife during her commute through a bunch of high-crime neighborhoods?”

I said, “Probability-wise, no contest.”

“What’s the ‘but’?”

“There’s logic and there’s intuition.”

“You’ve got a feeling.”

“Two dead women within yards of each other, days apart? You don’t?”

“I’m not seeing anything in common between them and Zelda was most likely an accident.”

“Bernstein came to that conclusion by process of elimination. What if someone deliberately fed her the colchicine?”

“Pretty resourceful Bel Air lurker.”

“This is the perfect environment for a lurker.” I told him about the coyote. “It was there one second, gone the next, no big deal for a human predator to slip out of sight. Ironically, the fact that it’s a high-end neighborhood full of security features makes it hospitable to squatting: huge properties, a lot of them rarely occupied. Scale a wall or slip through a security glitch and you could live undetected for a long time. If we’re talking a bad guy with survival skills, he could know something about foraging plants for all kinds of purposes.”

“Or he’s a bum with gout — scratch that, it’s a rich person’s thing, right?”

“Nope,” I said. “It used to be called the disease of kings because eating too much meat and shellfish can bring on attacks and the peasants didn’t have much of either. But anyone with a tendency can develop it. And now that I think about it, there’s nothing like chronic pain to make someone hostile.”

“A sore-toed, angry lunatic taking it out on the world, just what I need.” He drummed the dashboard. “You spotted this coyote because you were...”

“Running.”

“Ah,” he said. “A random exercise spot.”

“Fine,” I said. “You want a confession, here it is: I came back trying to get Zelda’s death and Ovid’s disappearance out of my system. That didn’t work very well and on the fourth day, I drove up to Bel Azura. The woman whose house Zelda trespassed happened to be outside. We talked and she told me something not on the police report: While Zelda was pawing the dirt, she cried out for her mother.”

“So your theory was right.”

“Right but useless. At that point, I resolved to really get past it.”

“Then I call you about Imelda and bring you back here. Hey, what are friends for? Okay, let’s get out of here.”

“Two women days apart,” I said. “Imelda worked here for months, making her an easily spotted target. And now I’m wondering if Zelda put herself in the crosshairs by wandering around for a couple of days. I checked the distance between here and Bel Azura on my odometer and it’s shorter than I’d figured, less than three miles. Meaning she could’ve easily covered it on foot. What do they sell a few blocks down on Sunset? Maps to the stars’ homes. She could’ve fixated on Bel Air because she’d convinced herself Mommy had been a Hollywood luminary, not a washout working as a call girl. Unfortunately, she attracted a predator.”

“Bad guy emerges from the bushes and offers her nasty herb tea? I can see someone in Zelda’s state falling for that but how does Imelda figure in?”

“Nothing says she did. He discovered he liked killing people and decided to repeat a couple of days later using a blitz attack.”

“Pulling her into the bushes.”

“It would explain her body not being found.”

“Moldering on one of these properties,” he said. “If he exists.”

“Maybe we’re on the wrong track,” I said. “Not a survivalist squatter, someone who’d blend right in.”

“Twisted rich guy living behind high walls. Now all I have to do is go mansion to mansion asking residents if they grow poisonous plants... I’m gonna call Lorrie Mendez and let her know I’ve got squat.”

“Confession without the benefit of pastoral guidance.”

“Take your atonement where you can, lad.”

The following afternoon, he phoned to let me know Manfred Stoeller had come through with the camera feed.

“Three months of Imelda’s employment but I got through it. Not that hard — nothing much happens there and she was a creature of habit. Coffee breaks were usually taken on the property, same for most of her brown-bag lunches. But eighteen times she did take the bag offsite, was always back within twenty-five minutes. The camera catches her heading down the drive and turning right, which makes sense, left is the dead end. Unfortunately, Stoeller was right about the restricted range. No way to know how far she went.”

“She couldn’t have gone too far and returned in twenty-five.”

“True, but it still leads nowhere. Literally and metaphorically. Lorrie agrees. She feels bad for the family but is moving on. Not a bad idea for all concerned, no?”

“Not bad at all.”

The moment he hung up, I ran to St. Denis Lane and clocked the walk from the Aziz estate to Enid DePauw’s front gate. Even slowing my pace to that of a strolling fifty-eight-year-old woman, just short of four minutes.

Leaving plenty of time to linger at the bottom of the road, noshing, or chatting with someone.

Ample opportunity to be spotted by a stalker.

To return to work, unawares.

Until the day you didn’t.

Jogging back home, I showered and changed into respectable clothes. Pocketing my consultant badge and a photo of Imelda Soriano, I drove back.

Parking near the big Tudor on the south side of the street, I rang the call button. A male voice said, “Yes?”

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but the police are investigating a missing person and I wonder if I could show you a photo. We can talk at your gate.”

“Who’s missing?”

“A woman who worked as a maid across the street.”

“Those people,” he said. “Hold on.”

Moments later, the mansion’s front door opened and a white-haired figure began a slow, tottering descent down the flower-lined driveway, aided by a pair of elbow-grip aluminum canes.

It took a while for details to come into focus. Sparse gray hair, leprechaun face, eyes buried in a network of creases. Warm day but he wore a tweed suit, a checked shirt, a green wool tie knotted huge, and high, bubble-toed hiking boots, one heel noticeably higher than the other. My guess was childhood polio compounded by age. By the time he reached me, he was breathing hard.

I said, “Sorry for the imposition, sir.”

“No problem, they say I should exercise. That place, eh? You manage to get in? I never have.”

“Yesterday, briefly.”

“Power of the constabulary. What’s it like?”

“Think of the Pentagon on growth hormones.”

He laughed. “Contemporary fortress, eh? What’s next? Radioactive moat, computerized bow-holes, and nuclear-powered crocodiles. Doesn’t surprise me, back when they were building the monstrosity they were insanely secretive. Put the walls and the gate up first, then the house. Trucks would roll in and out but the gate was never left open long enough to see what was happening other than a growing pile of ice cubes. Which unfortunately don’t melt. I suppose that type of furtiveness is necessary when you’re raping the earth.”

He shifted his weight from one cane to the other. “I can’t see tearing down a perfectly good — but you don’t care about that.” Corn niblet smile. “I’d shake your hand, but I need both of mine for balance. Charles McCorkle. How can I help you?”

“How long have you lived here, Mr. McCorkle?”

“Forty-two years, going on forty-three. Had only two neighbors before those people. The first was Sidney Lanscomb, the director. He sold it to Earl Muggeridge, the Cadillac dealer. Both were all-about-the-money types but they had decent enough families, I believe Lanscomb had a son who went to Yale... the children played with each other, we even had lemonade stands. Not that anyone but our households bought or sold the stuff. The point is, sir, this was a neighborhood. Furthermore, the house they destroyed was a classic Paul Williams Georgian Revival. Gorgeous thing, very well balanced, with a normal wrought-iron fence with quite acceptable finials, the air moved through freely, the environment was fresh. Then they came and sealed everything up. For what purpose, God only knows. Maybe Allah knows — am I allowed to say that? Or is there a new amendment to the Constitution that has eluded me since I retired from the practice of law?”

I slipped Imelda’s picture through a gate slat.

“Certainly I recognize her, one of their domestics. In the odd event our paths crossed, she’d always smile and say hello. I say odd because I don’t get out much. Give me my books and my Amati — that’s a violin — and I’m content. She’s the one missing? For how long?”

“Nine days. She left for work, didn’t show up here, never returned home.”

“Oh, dear,” said McCorkle. “That doesn’t sound promising does it? And you think they did something?”

“Not at all,” I said. “We’re just trying to retrace her steps.”

“Where was the home she never returned to?”

“Pico-Union.”

“Ooh,” said Charles McCorkle. “Did she drive a car?”

“She took the bus.”

“Exactly what I assumed. Now, think about it, young man: A bus from there to here would pass through slums, ghettos, whatever you choose to call them. Why would you think something happened here?”

“We’re being thorough, Mr. McCorkle.”

He passed the photo back. “Can’t help you, sorry. Darn shame, she seemed like a nice girl.”

“Did you ever notice her talking to anyone?”

“Never,” said McCorkle. “Except for other domestics.”

As if that didn’t count.

I said, “Any domestics in particular?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you aware who they worked for?”

“Why would I be? They’re all the same to me. Walking dogs, shooting the breeze with other domestics walking dogs... I don’t believe I ever saw this girl with a dog.” He glanced across the street. “Does that culture allow dogs?” He winked. “Or do they eat them?”

I said, “Any other problem neighbors?”

“Besides them? I’ve had no personal run-ins, but one does hear more and more of beautiful classic homes destroyed only to be replaced by grotesqueries.”

His eyes sailed past me. “Look at that gate. Hermetic. Plastic. When you were inside, did you spot anything aesthetically redeemable?”

“I’m no expert, Mr. McCorkle. Thanks for your time.”

“I should thank you. Now I can tell my meddling children that I got my daily exercise.”

As he began the tortured climb back to his house, I returned to the Seville. Just as I shifted into drive I realized what had been missing from the conversation.

He’d been eager to gossip, but had made no mention of Zelda’s death.

Too trivial an event to merit neighborhood murmurings? Not that this was really a neighborhood, because isolation is the ultimate luxury, and despite McCorkle’s reminiscence I doubted it had ever been much different.

But still, it felt sad.

A brief, tortured life. Its termination not even a blip.