Evidence

CHAPTER 6

Marjorie Holman sprinted up the ramp to her deck.

Milo said, “Freshening him up. Hubby as houseplant. Some nest of vipers ol’ Des got himself into.”

We headed back to the car, crossed a footbridge above still, green water.

I said, “Sounds like ol’ Des dove into the nest with enthusiasm. If he took Passant and Sanfelice to construction sites, we’re talking predictable, high-risk behavior.”

“Come away with me to le beeg deeg, mon amour. Might as well wear a Stalk Me sign. So maybe this will boil down to another jealous domestic and no matter what Holman says, we coulda just met the main players. A mister bitter over his plight. Missus thinks he’s greenery but there could be plenty of animal left.”

“Charming Helga called Holman a nibbler of forbidden fruit. It’s possible her flings weren’t limited to Backer.”

“All the more reason for pent-up anger, but right now the only lothario I care about is Backer. Mr. Smooth. Coming out and asking for it ain’t exactly suave, let alone three women in the same office. But it worked, so what do I know?”

I said, “Sounds like Backer had a nose for emotional vulnerability. Think about the Holmans’ house: Ned’s got no access to the second floor, where Marjie sleeps. She’s an architect, if anyone could figure out a way to get him up there, it’s her. They’ve chosen to live physically segregated lives. It’s not just a matter of sex, it’s intimacy. And that’s what she says she got from Backer.”

“He tries a little tenderness, she falls right in.”

“My question is, if her needs were being met, why limit it to a one-night stand?”

He rolled his shoulders. “She lied to us and she and Backer had something serious going on?”

“That would threaten Ned Holman big-time. On top of being humiliated, he’s left alone physically and emotionally. We’ve both seen enough domestic homicides to know the pattern: The jealous spouse focuses first on eliminating the outside threat. Maybe I was wrong about Jane Doe being the target. What if the goal was to eliminate Backer, after all, and Jane was collateral damage?”

“Or,” he said, “Jane was more than a fling for Backer. Or both she and Marjie thought they were number one, meaning a woman scorned.” Grimacing. “Just what I need, a bigger suspect pool… freshening the poor guy up. Why wouldn’t she design him an elevator or something?”

“Plus,” I said, “her alibi for last night is meaningless. She went to sleep, got up. The same goes for Ned’s physical limitations because he could’ve paid to get the job done. Either of them could’ve. A pro job would also be consistent with careful planning, positioning the bodies just so.”

He worried a pendulous earlobe. “Stunningly Shakespearean, Alex. Now all I need is something remotely close to evidence, say documentation of a torrid romance between Marjie and Backer and either one of the Holmans paying a killer for hire. Hell, long as we’re dreaming, I wouldn’t mind a warm spot in Warren Buffett’s heart. Right now, I’ll settle for finding out who Jane Doe is.”

As I drove away, he phoned the crypt, learned the bodies were still in the delivery bay waiting processing. He squinted at his Timex. “Damn numerals keep getting smaller… two fifteen, let’s see if we can find Bettina Sanfelice and Sheryl Passant. If they’re working as well as living in the Valley, there’s time to make it over the hill before the rush. Also, I know an Italian place. You up for it?”

“Sure.”

As we rolled out of the canal district, he said, “Some victim I’ve got. That mix of glands and charisma, he shoulda run for office.”

The clown-show that poses as the California legislature had finally bucked phone-company lobbyists long enough to pass a hands-free law. The system I’d installed delighted Milo, because he can sit back and smoke and grunt and stretch and scan the streets for bad guys while he chats.

As I approached Lincoln Avenue, he began punching in numbers. No one picked up at Sheryl Passant’s Van Nuys apartment, but Bettina Sanfelice’s North Hollywood landline was answered by a slurry-voiced woman who said, “Yeah?”

“Is this Bettina?”

“No.”

“Does Bettina live there?”

“Who’s this?”

“ L.A. police lieutenant Milo Sturgis.”

“Who?”

He repeated, taking pains to go slow.

“Police?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tina’s okay?”

“I need to talk to her about a case.”

“A case? What case?”

“Someone she worked with was murdered.”

“Who?”

“Desmond Backer.”

“Don’t know him.”

“Ma’am-”

“I’m her mother. She’s out.”

“Could you please tell me where?”

“How do I know you’re not some maniac?”

“I’ll give you my number at the police station and you can verify.”

“How do I know you’re not giving me some phony number?”

“Feel free to look it up. West L.A. Division, on Butler -”

“I should do all the work?”

“Ma’am,” said Milo, “I appreciate your caution but I need to talk to Bettina.”

Silence.

“Mrs. Sanfelice-”

“She went to T.G.I. Friday’s.”

“Which one?”

“All the way in Woodland Hills, I don’t know the address. She likes the burgers, you’d never catch me wasting gas for that.”

“What was she wearing?”

“How would I know?”

“She doesn’t live with you?”

“She sure does, ’cause she still don’t have no job. That don’t mean I pay attention to her clothes.”

Click.

He phoned Detective Moe Reed, asked for DMV statistics on the intern.

The young cop said, “I was just about to call you, Loo. Prints on Backer and the female vic got run through AFIS but unfortunately nothing kicked back…”

“I already knew that.”

“You did?”

“It’s been that kind of day.” He spelled Sanfelice’s name.

Seconds later Reed said, “Sanfelice, Bettina Morgana, thirty years old, five five, hundred and ten, brown, brown, wears corrective lenses, no wants or warrants. Here’s the address.”

Living at Mom’s when she’d had her license renewed three years ago.

“Anything else, Loo?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Milo hung up. “I hear intern, I figure a college kid. She’s way past that, unemployed, stuck with that loving maternal entity. Like you said, emotional vulnerability. Ol’ Des had a helluva nose.”

The 101 freeway was starting to clog up so I took Ventura Boulevard to Woodland Hills. The T.G.I. Friday’s was like any other, which is the point.

Chain restaurants are easy targets of ridicule for expense-account gourmets, documentary filmmakers living off grant money, and trust-fund babies. For folks saddled with budgets and faced with a world that seems increasingly unpredictable, they’re temples of comfort. Milo and I had grown up in the Midwest and we’d both flipped burgers in high school. The smell of the grill still evokes all sorts of memories. How I react depends on what else is going on in my life.

Today, the aroma was pretty good.

Milo inhaled deeply. “Home sweet bacon.”

The interior was vast, chocked with corporate oak, stenciled mirrors, not-even-close-to-Tiffany lamps, red-shirted servers mostly hanging around because of the three p.m. off-hour.

A bar ample enough to intoxicate half the Valley ran the length of the room. The layout made it easy to spot every customer: a scatter of bleary-eyed truckers with no idea what time it was, a mom and a grandmom teaming up to handle a whining kid in a booster chair, two young women in a booth midway down, sipping tall pink drinks and picking at a plate of fries.

A kid in a red shirt said, “Two for lunch?”

“We’re joining friends.”

Both women were pale, thin, wore drab, short-sleeved tops, jeans, and careless ponytails. Other than platinum hair on one, they each matched Bettina Sanfelice’s stats.

Milo said, “The blonde’s wearing glasses, so I’m betting that’s her. Now all I need to do is separate her from her friend and get her to blab about her sex life. Any suggestions as to the proper approach?”

“There is none,” I said.

“Your optimism is a blessing.”

Neither woman noticed until we got within three feet, then both looked up. Milo smiled at the blonde. “Bettina Sanfelice?”

The brown-haired woman said, “That’s me,” in a tiny, tentative voice. Small-boned but full-faced, she had close-set mocha eyes and puffy cheeks and looked like a child who’d just been punished. The white-sauce-slicked fry she’d been reaching for dropped back onto her plate. Not a potato-something pale green and breaded-deep-fried string bean?

Milo bent to make himself smaller, showed his card rather than the badge, recited his title as if it were no big deal.

Bettina Sanfelice was too stricken to speak, but the blonde said, “Police?” as if he were joking. She had good features but grainy skin with some active blemish, dark circles under her eyes that heavy makeup failed to mask.

Milo kept his focus on Bettina Sanfelice. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but we’re investigating the death of someone you worked with.”

Sanfelice’s mouth dropped open. Her hand shot forward, rocked her drink. It would’ve spilled if I hadn’t caught it. “Death?”

“By homicide, I’m afraid.”

Sanfelice gasped. “Who?”

Milo said, “A man named Desmond-”

Before Backer’s surname had been fully pronounced both women shouted, “Des!”

The kid in the red shirt looked over. A hard look from Milo caused him to veer toward the bar.

The bespectacled blonde said, “I have just got totally nauseous.”

Bettina Sanfelice said, “Des? Omigod.”

The blonde removed her glasses. “I need a bathroom.” She slid out of the booth.

“You also knew Des, ma’am?”

“Same as Tina did.” The blonde trotted toward the restrooms, moving clumsily in ultratight jeans and ratty sneakers.

The kid in the red shirt dared to come over. “Everything okay?”

Milo expanded like a balloon. “Everything’s grand, just go about your business.”

Now was the time for the badge. Gawking, the kid turned heel.

Milo said, “Your friend’s pretty upset, Bettina.”

“Sheryl’s got a iffy stomach.”

“That’s Sheryl Passant?”

Nod. “Omigod. Who hurt Des?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Mind if we join you?”

“Um…” Not budging.

Milo smiled. “Thanks for the compliment, but I need a little more room than that, Bettina.”

“Oh… sorry.” Sanfelice scooted over and he wedged beside her. Milo ’s presence turned her tiny. An abused child.

I settled across from them.

Milo pointed at the pink drink. “I know it’s a shock, feel free.”

“Oh… no, thanks.” But she grabbed the glass with both hands, took a long, noisy sip.

“Frozen strawberry margarita?” said Milo.

“Frozen straw-tini… Des is really dead? Omigod, that’s so… I can’t believe it!”

“Tina, anything you can tell us about Des would be really helpful. You and Sheryl both worked with him, right?”

“Uh-huh. At GHC-that’s a architectural firm. Sheryl got me the job.”

“You and Sheryl are old friends.”

“From junior high. We tried out for the army but we changed our mind because of Eye-rack. Instead, we enrolled in JC but we didn’t like it, so we went to ITT to learn computers but we didn’t like that so we switched to business technology at Briar Secretarial. Sheryl got a job right away, she can type fast, but I’m slower so I switched to computer graphics. My dream is to design furniture and draperies but there’s nothing right now so when Sheryl got the job at GHC, she told me they needed a intern, maybe I could get to do design.”

“Did you?”

“Uh-uh, I mostly ran errands, answered the phone when Sheryl was tied up. Which didn’t happen too much. There really wasn’t nothing to do.”

“Was Des working at GHC when you and Sheryl got hired?”

“No, he came later. Like a week later. We said, ‘Finally, a guy.’” Blushing.

“Mr. Cohen’s a guy.”

“He’s old.”

“How old?”

“Like sixty. He’s like a grandpa.”

A voice to our left said, “He is a grandpa, used to bring his rug-rat grandkids in and would go off all day with them.”

Sheryl Passant looked down on us, oracle on the mount.

I got up to let her in. No more ponytail; her blond hair was long and loose and streaming and her glasses were gone.

She slid in. “Why were you talking about Mr. Cohen?”

Bettina Sanfelice said, “We’re talking about Des, Sher. To find out who killed him.”

“Us? What can we tell them?”

Milo said, “For starts, what kind of guy Des was, Sheryl. Did he have enemies, who’d want to hurt him?”

Passant shifted closer. Her thigh pressed against mine. I scooted an inch away. She frowned. Flipped her hair. “Des had no enemies.”

“None at all?”

“Des was really mellow, I can’t see anyone hating him. Not even Helga the Nazi.”

“Helga the Gestapo Girl,” said Sanfelice, giggling, then turning grave. “Sorry, we just… she didn’t treat us good. Just getting our paychecks was a hassle. Sheryl, I mean. I was just an intern so I didn’t get paid at all.”

“Which totally sucked,” said Passant. “You did the same job as me, Teen. You should’ve gotten paid the same as me. Helga sucks.”

Milo said, “Wasn’t the firm a partnership?”

“Marjie and Mr. Cohen didn’t control the money, she did. The building was hers, the idea was hers, everything was hers. She was always talking like she was the one who’d made up Green. Like Al Gore had never existed. You think she killed Des?”

“You think she could’ve?”

The women looked at each other. Sanfelice stirred her drink. Passant said, “I’m not saying she’d have done it. But she’s not like a regular person, you know?”

“Different,” said Sanfelice. “She’s from Europe.”

The red-shirted kid reappeared, this time bearing two plates.

Bacon burgers oozing with molten white and orange cheese, salads the size of a baby’s head, a hay-bale of onion rings. “Um, do you guys still want this?”

Bettina Sanfelice said, “I was hungry but now I’m also feeling nauseous.”

Sheryl Passant said, “Yuck. Do we still have to pay?”

Milo said, “Put the food down, son, and give me the check. Here’s your tip in advance.” Forking over bills.

The kid said, “Sweet.”

A few minutes of routine questions produced nothing new about Desmond Backer, whom the women described as “Nice and totally hot.” The shock had worn off and they both seemed pleased at the attention.

Bettina Sanfelice studied her burger. “It’s probably gross but I’m going to try.”

Sheryl Passant said, “Not me.” Moments later, a grin as she bit in, wiped her chin. “Guess I lied.”

Milo let them eat, offered drink refills. They declined. Sanfelice wholeheartedly, Passant with some regret.

Milo stared at me.

I raised my eyebrows.

He cocked his head to the side and when I didn’t respond, said, “My partner’s gonna ask you some questions now. They’re a little personal, so sorry. But we really need to ask.”

Waving the red-shirted kid over, he ordered an extra-large Coke.

Both women had stopped eating.

Sheryl Passant’s thigh pressed hard against mine.