Gone

CHAPTER 23

Milo toed the curb and watched as the Corvette sped off.

I said, “You wanted Brad to take Peaty more seriously.”

He reached behind and slapped his rear. “C.Y.A. time. If it turns out something bad happened to Nora, he’ll be looking for someone to blame.”

“You didn’t tell him Nora left Friday night.”

“There are limits to my honesty. First of all, Beamish never saw who was in the car. Second, there’s no law keeping her inside her house. She coulda been going out for drinks. Or she did have travel plans. Or she got abducted by aliens.”

“If Meserve snatched her, why would he leave his wheels at her school and broadcast the fact? And if the snow globe’s some kind of trophy, he’d take it with him.”

“If?” he said. “What else could it be?”

“Maybe a defiant message to Brad from Dylan and Nora: ‘We’re still together.’ That also fits with planting the Toyota in one of Brother’s Treasured Spaces. Is there some reason you don’t trust Brad?”

“Because I didn’t tell him everything? No, I just don’t know enough to be sharing. Why, does he bug you?”

“No, but I think his value as a source of data is limited. He clearly overestimates his authority with Nora.”

“Not so take-charge sib.”

“He assumed the caretaker role because Billy and Nora aren’t competent. That allowed them to remain adult children. Nora’s more of a perpetual adolescent- self-centered, casually sexual, smokes up. And what do rebellious teens do when they’re cornered? They resist passively or fight back. When Brad insisted she break off with Meserve, Nora chose passive.”

“Tooling off in her Range Rover and leaving lover boy’s heap behind so they can travel in style? Yeah, could be. So what do we have, just a road trip? Bonnie and Clyde in fancy wheels cutting town because they’ve been doing bad things.”

“Don’t know,” I said. “People who attend Nora’s school keep disappearing, but now that we know Peaty’s got wheels he’s got to remain center focus.”

“A van. Your basic psycho meat wagon. And soon he’s gonna be unemployed. If Sean’s yanked off surveillance and that bastard sneaks away, I’m further back than when I started.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “I screwed up by telling Brad about Peaty’s van.”

“Peaty cleans lots of buildings,” I said. “It was the right thing to do, morally.”

“Weren’t you listening? I was covering my own ass.”

“Sorry, can’t hear you.”

While we waited for the LAPD tow truck to arrive, Milo tried phoning Binchy. Again no connection. He said something about the “high-tech big lie” and paced up and down the block.

The truck appeared, moving slowly as the driver searched for the address. Milo ’s wave went unheeded. Finally, the rig pulled up and a sleepy-looking driver around nineteen got out.

“In there, the Toyota,” Milo told him. “Consider it a crime scene and take it directly to the forensics garage.”

The driver rubbed his eyes and shuffled paper. “Them wasn’t my orders.”

“Them is now.” Milo handed him gloves. The driver slipped them on and slouched toward the little car’s driver’s door.

Milo said, “There’s a snow globe on the seat. It’s evidence.”

“A wha?”

“One of those doohickeys that snows when you turn it upside down.”

The driver looked baffled. Opened the door and drew out the globe. Upending the toy, he watched plastic flakes flutter. Peered at the writing at the base and wrinkled his brow.

Milo gloved up, snatched it away, and dropped it in an evidence bag. His face was flushed.

The driver said, “I’m supposed to take that in?”

“No, Professor, I keep it.”

“Snow,” said the driver. “ Hollywood and Vine? Never seen no snow there.”

As I drove back to the station, Milo said, “Do me a favor and contact that lawyer- Montez- soon as you can. Find out if Michaela told him anything about Meserve and Nora that she didn’t tell you. Any idea who Meserve’s P.D. was?”

“Marjani Coolidge.”

“Don’t know her.”

“Me neither, but I can try.”

“Try is great.”

The second call to Binchy connected. Milo told him, “Check out your phone, Sean. You still on him? Nah, don’t worry about it, he’s probably working. I’ll figure something out for nights. What you can do for me is start calling health spas from Santa Barbara County down to mid-Baja and see if Nora Dowd or Dylan Meserve have checked in…spas- like in massages and health food. What?…no, it’s fine, Sean.”

He jammed the phone in his pocket.

“Stuck on robbery detail?” I said.

“Seems to be.” He beat a fast cha-cha rhythm on the dashboard. I could feel the vibrations through the steering wheel.

“Better get over to Peaty’s place myself tonight. The unregistered van’s grounds to arrest him. Maybe we can chat in his apartment so I get a look at the dump. Meanwhile, I make those spa calls myself- hello, ear cancer.”

“I can do that. Leave the big-strong-guy detective work to you.”

“Such as?”

“Finding out if Nora used her passport. Is it really tougher post Nine-Eleven? I’d think there’d be more interagency communication.”

“What a sage,” he said. “Yeah, I fibbed to Bradley, figuring he’d be motivated to get into Nora’s house, let me know if anything’s off. Technically, nothing’s changed, you still need a search warrant to access passenger lists. And the airlines, being busy figuring out ways to torment their passengers, still take their sweet time complying. But there is more buddy-buddy stuff. Remember that granny shooting I closed last year?”

“Sweet old lady subbing for her son at the liquor store.”

“Alma Napier. Eighty-two years old, perfect health, some methaddled dungball unloads a shotgun on her. The search of said dungball’s dump turns up a carton of video cameras from Indonesia hollowed out inside with pistol-shaped compartments. I thought the Federal Air Marshals might want to hear about that, got to know one of the supervisors there.”

He retrieved the phone, asked for Commander Budowski.

“Bud? Milo Sturgis…fine. You? Terrific. Listen, I need a favor.”

Fifteen minutes after we got to his office, a civilian clerk brought in the fax. We’d split the task of locating and phoning spas, were coming up empty.

Milo read Budowski’s report, handed it to me, got back on the phone.

Nora Dowd hadn’t used her passport for foreign travel since the previous April. Three-week trip to France, just as Brad had said.

Dylan Meserve had never applied for a passport.

Neither Nora nor Dylan’s name appeared on any domestic flights out of LAX, Long Beach, Burbank, John Wayne, Lindbergh, or Santa Barbara.

Budowski had left a handwritten note at the bottom. If Nora had sprung for a private jet, that fact might never emerge. Some air-charter companies were less than meticulous checking I.D.s.

Milo said, “There’s everyone. Then there’s the rich.”

He made a few more calls to resorts, broke for coffee at two p.m. Instead of continuing, he leafed through his notepad, found a number, and phoned.

“Mrs. Stadlbraun? Detective Sturgis, I was by last week to talk about…he is? How so? I see. No, that’s not very polite…yes, it is. Has there been anything beyond that…no, there’s nothing new but I was figuring to stop by and talk to him. If you could call me when he gets in, I’d appreciate it. Still have my card? I’ll hold…yes, that’s perfect, ma’am, either of those numbers. Thanks…no, ma’am, there’s nothing to worry about, just routine follow-up.”

He clicked off, rotated the phone receiver, twisting the cord and letting it recoil.

“Ol’ Ertha says Peaty’s been acting ‘even weirder.’ He used to just keep his head down, pretended not to hear. Now he looks her in the eye with what she claims is ‘nastiness.’ What do you make of that?”

“Maybe he spotted Sean watching him and is getting nervous,” I said.

“I suppose, but one thing Sean’s an ace at is not getting made.” He wheeled his chair the few inches the cramped space permitted. “Would ‘nervous’ make Peaty more dangerous?”

“It could.”

“Think I should caution Stadlbraun?”

“I don’t know what you could say that wouldn’t cause panic. No doubt Brad will evict Peaty in addition to firing him.”

“So we’ve got ourselves a homeless, jobless, angry guy with illegal wheels. Time to grovel and ask the captain for help with surveillance.”

He disappeared, came back, shaking his head. “At a meeting downtown.”

I was on the line with the Wellness Inn of Big Sur, enduring a voice mail message about seaweed wrap and Ayurvedic massage and waiting for a human voice.

By three thirty, we were both finished. Nora Dowd hadn’t checked into any posh retreat we could find under her name or Dylan Meserve’s.

I tried Lauritz Montez at the Beverly Hills Public Defender’s office.

In court, expected back in half an hour.

Too much sitting around. I got up and told Milo where I was going. His reply was a finger wave. I didn’t bother to reciprocate.

I reached the Beverly Hills court building by five to four. Closing time for most sessions. The hallways were filled with attorneys, cops, defendants, and witnesses.

Montez was in the middle of it, pushing a black leather case on wheels. Thin and sallow as ever, gray hair drawn back in a ponytail. Giant drooping mustache and wispy chin-beard whitening around the edges. The lenses of his glasses were hexagonal and cobalt blue.

Walking alongside him was a pallid young woman in a filmy pink granny dress. Long black hair, beautiful face, old woman’s stoop. She kept talking to Montez. If he cared about what she had to say, he wasn’t showing it.

I blended with the crowd, managed to get behind the two of them.

Every time I’d seen Montez he’d gone for foppery. Today’s costume was a fitted, black velvet suit with an Edwardian cut, wide, peaked lapels trimmed with satin. The pink of his shirt brought painful memories of childhood sunburns. His peacock-blue bowtie was glossy silk.

The pallid girl said something that made him stop. The two of them veered to the right and stepped behind an open courtroom door. I edged closer to the other side and pretended to study a wall directory. The crowd had thinned, and I could make out their conversation through the jamb.

“What the continuance means, Jessica, is I bought some time for you to get clean and stay clean. You can also find yourself a job and try to con the judge into thinking you want to be a solid citizen.”

“What kinda job?”

“Anything, Jessica. Flip burgers at McDonalds.”

“What about Johnny Rockets? It’s, like, close by.”

“If you can get a job at Johnny Rockets, that would be great.”

“I never flipped burgers.”

“What have you done?”

“I danced.”

“Ballet?”

“Topless.”

“I’m sure you were great on the pole, Jessica, but that’s not going to help you.”

He walked away. The girl didn’t.

I moved from behind the door and said, “Afternoon.”

Montez turned. The girl had her back to the wall, as if pressed there by an unseen hand. “Go look for a job, Jessica.”

She flinched and left.

I said, “Did Michaela say anything about Dylan and Nora Dowd having a relationship?”

“You stalking me, Doc? Or is this happy coincidence?”

“We need to talk- ”

“I need to go home and forget about work. That includes you.” He took hold of his luggage rack.

“Meserve’s missing,” I said. “Given the fact that your client was murdered last week, you might reconsider being a glib wiseass.”

His jaw tightened. “It sucks, okay? Now leave me alone.”

“Meserve could be in danger or he could be a bad guy. Did Michaela tell you anything that would clarify the situation?”

“She blamed him for the hoax.”

I waited.

“Yeah, he was fucking Dowd. Okay?”

“How’d Michaela feel about that?”

“She thought Meserve had lost it,” said Montez. “Going for a senior citizen. I believe her precise phrase was ‘tired meat.’ ”

“Jealous?”

“No, she had no feelings for Meserve, just thought it was gross.”

“Was there any indication Nora was in on the hoax?”

“Michaela never said so but I wondered. Because she was fucking Meserve and he didn’t get kicked out of her school. You think he killed Michaela?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Would you look at that,” he said. “Finally I get a shrink to be direct.”

“Is Marjani Coolidge back from her trip to Africa?”

“She’s right there.” Pointing down the hall to a short, thin black woman in a powder-blue suit. Two tall, gray-haired men were listening to what she had to say.

“Thanks.” I turned to leave.

Montez said, “Just to show you I’m not the asshole you think I am, here’s another tidbit: Dowd called me right after I got the case. Offered to pay any bills the county wasn’t covering. I told her the county could handle it, asked her why the generosity. She said Meserve was a gifted artist, she wanted to help him and if that meant clearing Michaela, she’d do it. I could smell the hormones through the phone. She good-looking?”

“Not bad.”

“For her age?”

“Something like that,” I said.

He laughed and wheeled his cart away and I walked toward Marjani Coolidge. The two men had left and she was examining the contents of her own lawyer-luggage. Double-case, scuffed brown leather, stuffed so tight the stitching was unraveling.

I introduced myself, told her about Michaela’s murder.

She said, “I heard about that, the poor kid,” then interrogated me about my association with LAPD. Appraising my words and my body language with huge brown eyes. Her hair was elaborately braided, her skin smooth and taut.

I said, “Did Meserve tell you anything that could shed light on the murder?”

“You’re serious.”

“Something nonincriminating,” I said. “Anything that could help locate him.”

“Is he a suspect?”

“He could turn out to be a victim.”

“Of the same person who killed Brand?”

“Maybe.”

She smoothed her skirt. “Nonincriminating. Last I heard that animal was extinct.”

“How about this,” I said. “Without divulging content, can you tell me if Meserve’s someone to be scared of?”

“Was I scared of him? Not in the least. Not the brightest star in the constellation but he did what he was told. That girlfriend of his, on the other hand…”

“Which girlfriend is that?”

“The acting teacher- Dowd.”

“She caused problems?”

“Battleax,” said Coolidge. “Phoned me right at the outset, said she’d hire a private attorney if I didn’t give Pretty Boy high priority. I felt like saying, ‘Is that a threat or a promise?’ ”

“What did you tell her?”

“ ‘Do what you want, ma-dame,’ then I hung up. Never heard from her again. I represented Meserve the way I do any other client. Turned out just fine, wouldn’t you say?”

“Meserve’s codefendant’s dead and he’s missing.”

“Irrelevant,” she said. “We settled, my obligations are over.”

“Just like that,” I said.

“You better believe it. My job, you learn to stay in your own orbit.”

“Orbit, constellation. You have an interest in astronomy?”

“Majored in it at Cornell. Then I moved here for law school and found out you can’t see anything because of all the light pollution.” She smiled. “Civilization, I think you call it.”