Breakdown

Chapter 31

Milo drove west on Riverside Drive, both hands clenching the wheel. “Poor woman, she has no idea what she just accomplished and we couldn’t tell her.”

I said, “We go fishing and snag a link between Zelda, Salton, and Loach.”

“A movie-star mother. Who the hell expected that? Not that Rutherford was a movie star. A delusion, like you said. Or could there be truth to Zelda’s story?”

“I’m not sure it matters. Zelda believed it and it drove her actions. Five years ago, when she was working and managing to be functional, she told her cast-mates about it. When she dug up the yard at Bel Azura she was screaming about it. And during her final days, when she was just about mute, one of the few words she uttered to me was ‘Mother.’ Now we know she believed Loach was behind it.”

“So she gets into Loach’s girlfriend’s place and ends up dead. How would she connect the two of them?”

“Enid is Loach’s only client, she visits him in the office. Zelda was stalking the building. She could’ve seen them together.”

“And found out where Enid lived? How?”

“No idea, but she did and switched her surveillance to the estate. Meanwhile, she’s breaking down mentally. But still clinging to her goal.”

“Justice,” he said. “Aka revenge.”

“As her Ativan wore off, she got crazier but less lethargic. Had enough energy to leave BrightMornings and walk ten miles to Bel Air. What if she spotted Loach driving in and went after him — she wouldn’t even have had to scale the wall, just squeeze in before the gates closed. As you guys say, a confrontation ensued and Zelda ended up the loser.”

“Lunatic home invader attacks society lawyer and he defends himself. We’re talking no charges filed, Alex. Why the need for them to cover up with two calculated murders?”

“Because we’re not talking about an errant backhand or gunfire. Zelda was poisoned, as premeditated as it gets.”

“Two old sadists deciding to have some fun along the way? Toss in a couple of housekeepers as collateral damage? It’s way beyond sickening. Add Rod Salton and it’s something I don’t have a word for. Speaking of Salton, why’d he have to go? Weeks before the others.”

“We just heard him described as someone who’d feed his own overdue parking meter. That’s admirable but it can also lead to zealotry. Salton was bothered by his encounter with Zelda. What if he mentioned it to Loach expecting Loach to laugh it off. But Loach didn’t, he reacted. Maybe subtly but enough to make Salton wonder. He had access to Loach’s papers, poked around, and found something. Loach found out and took care of him.”

“Poison,” he said. “Strange choice and when you do see it, it’s often women. And we know a woman with a world-class garden.”

“They’re in it together,” I said.

“Zelda died in Enid’s place, Alicia was Enid’s maid.”

We drove awhile.

I said, “That makes me wonder about a primary link between Zina and Enid, with Loach just the trusty assistant. Averell DePauw managed serious money and had industry connections. Hollywood folk like to be entertained and what better venue for a high-end party than a gated estate in Bel Air where Jean Harlow used to crash? Parties require entertainment. And certain types of parties employ sketchy entertainment.”

“Failed actresses doing one-nighters,” he said. “How your mind tracks.”

“Dub Ott told me Zina had an income stream but no job, her landlady was convinced she was hooking. He never found a john-book or evidence that she’d worked nearby bars. But no need for any of that if you’re a freelance party favor. What if she got an outcall at Enid and Averell’s love nest and something went really bad? If Loach goes that far back as a minion, he’d have been a young lawyer on the make.”

“So they disappeared her,” he said. “But would Zelda ever find out? Whether or not she really was Zina’s daughter? She’s wrestling with serious demons and managing to be an ace detective?” He laughed and pointed a finger at me. “Don’t say it’s been known to happen.”

“Never crossed my mind.”

“And here I thought you were open and honest.”

We caught the red light at Mulholland and stopped. Milo said, “How old was Zelda when Zina disappeared?”

“Five,” I said. “But Ott found no evidence of a child living with her during the two years she was in that apartment so if Zelda was given up, she was no older than three.”

“What I’m getting at is kids that young don’t have clear memories, right?”

“Not generally. You’re thinking someone had to point her in that direction.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he said. “However she found out, she decided she needed to take care of business and began living rough in Bel Air... nah, it doesn’t explain Bel Azura. If she’d fixated on St. Denis, even someone in her state wouldn’t have confused it with a totally different house. I know you said the houses are close but we’re still talking miles, not yards, and they’re not remotely similar. I’m getting a headache, amigo.”

The light turned green. We began descending the Glen.

I said, “Make a stop at my place.”

“Your car’s at the station.”

“I know. I want to check something. Actually, I want you to.”

“It can’t wait an extra ten minutes?”

“This time of day, could be fifteen, twenty minutes,” I said. “We’re right here, humor me.”

I explained.

He said, “That’s theoretically interesting.”

I fidgeted on the battered leather patients’ couch in my office as Milo worked my desktop.

Soon we had it: complete ownership records for the house on Bel Azura Drive.

Original date of construction: forty-three years ago. Original purchasers, a couple named MacAndrews.

Eight years after that — just after Zelda’s birth — ownership had passed to Zina Jane Smith, the down payment proffered by the G. S. Smith Family Trust of Shaker Heights, Ohio, mortgage payments to be handled by Miss Smith.

Eighteen months later: foreclosure on the grounds of non-payment, reversion to Ahmanson Savings and Loan.

In the ensuing years, the house had been bought and sold several times. Nothing that seemed tied to J. Yarmuth Loach, Esq., his firm, or Enid DePauw.

Milo’s eyes were wide. “She was making a pilgrimage to her childhood home — or what she imagined was her childhood home.” He grimaced. “Digging up the dirt.”

I said, “Digging and crying out for her mother.”

He wheeled my chair back a couple of feet and whirled so he faced me. “You think she believed Zina’s buried there? Then why didn’t she return to find out?”

“The arrest and commitment could’ve scared her off. Or her mental deterioration made it impossible to follow a sequential plan. I really don’t know and I probably never will.”

“I’m trying to imagine what it was like to be her,” he said. “Groping her way around the city, hearing things, head buzzing like a nonstop acid trip. Nothing can be done for people like that?”

“Some people respond to treatment, some don’t, some get worse. No one really understands the successes or the failures.”

Milo re-read the foreclosure documents. “A family rich enough to have a trust and they let Zina lose the place.”

I said, “Ott said it was the most disinterested family he’d ever come across. No one called or followed up except one brother who phoned once, a month after he couldn’t reach her on Thanksgiving. He made it clear that Zina had always been a problem child.”

“They got fed up carrying her financially.”

“And/or her lifestyle issues repelled them. As in a child out of wedlock, if Zelda really was her daughter. She’s never talked about a father.”

“All that plus living the La La party life, yeah, I can see noses getting bent,” he said. “We’re both from the Midwest, it’s a zillion parsecs from upper-crust Ohio to here.”

He put the papers aside. “Would the family kiss her off if they knew she had a child?”

“If it was a child they didn’t approve of? Who knows? The brother didn’t express any concern to Ott.”

“So maybe Zelda was delusional. Or she wasn’t and Zina had problems that led her to lose the kid along with her house. Psychosis can run in families, right?”

“Genetics isn’t destiny,” I said, “but it can be a factor.”

“So it’s possible Zina had serious mental issues of her own. Unstable party girl is hired for a party, freaks out, poses a threat to someone who can’t afford scandal, gets disappeared. I like it, we could sell it as a script. But I can’t see any way to prove it.”

I said, “Let’s learn about the Smiths of Shaker Heights.”