K Is For Killer

19

I'd caught a glimpse of Berlyn's mouth, which opened with annoyance when she realized the chair had toppled over. She was looking sweaty and cross, her perpetual state, I suspected. I turned my back abruptly so I was facing the bar. I drank my beer, heart thumping. I heard her exclamation of surprise. "Look at this. Gaaaad…" She dragged the profanity out into three musical notes as she scooped up her belongings, apparently pausing to check the contents of her purse. "Somebody's been in here."

"In your bag?" the guy said.

"Yes, Gary, in my bag," she said, voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Anything missing?" He seemed concerned, but not freaked out. Maybe he was used to her tone of voice.

She said, "Hey."

I could tell she was speaking in my direction.

She poked me in the shoulder. "I'm talking to you."

I turned, feigning innocence. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, my God. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, hi, Berlyn. I thought it might be you," I said. "I saw Trinny a minute ago and she said you were around someplace. What's the problem?"

She gave the bag a shake as if it were a naughty pup. "Don't give me that bullshit. Have you been in here?"

I put a hand on my chest and looked around with puzzlement. "I've been in the ladies' room. I just sat down," I said.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

I looked up at the guy with her. "Is she on drugs?"

He rolled his eyes. "Come on now, Berl, settle down, okay? She wasn't bothering you. Give the chick a break."

"Shut up." Her blond hair looked nearly white in the flickering light from above. Her eyes were darkly lined, mascara separating her lashes into tiny rows of spikes. She fixed me with a look of singular intensity, swelling the way a cat does when it senses a threat.

I let my gaze roam across her face, resting on the diamond hoop earrings, which fairly quivered at her ears. I kept my smile pleasant. "Do you have something to hide, perchance?"

She leaned forward aggressively, and for a moment I thought she might snatch me up by the front of my turtleneck. She put her face so close to mine that I could smell her beery breath, which was not that big a treat. "What did you say?"

I spoke clearly, enunciating. "I said, your earrings are nice. I wonder where you got them."

Her face went blank. "I don't have to talk to you."

I shot a look at the guy just to see how he was taking this. He didn't seem all that interested. Already I found I liked him better than her. "How about this? You want to tell me how you acquired so much money in your savings accounts?"

The beefy guy looked from me to her and back, apparently confused. "You talkin' to me or her?"

"Actually, to her. I'm a private investigator, working on a job," I said. "I don't think you want to get in the middle of this, Gary. Right now we're fine, but it's going to get ugly in a minute."

He held up his hands. "Hey, you two have a beef, you can settle it without me. See you round, Berl. I'm outta here."

I said, "Bye-bye," to him and then to Berlyn, "My car's outside. You want to talk?"

We sat in my car. The parking lot outside Neptune's Palace seemed to have as much going on as the interior. Two beat cops were having a solemn chat with a kid who seemed to have trouble standing upright. In the aisle ahead of us and two cars over, a young girl was clinging to someone's fender while she emptied the contents of her stomach. The temperature was dropping, and the sky above us seemed clear as glass. Berlyn wasn't looking at me.

"You want to start with the earrings?"

"No." Sullen. Uncooperative.

"You want to start with the money you stole from Lorna?"

"You don't have to take that attitude," she said. "I didn't exactly steal."

"I'm listening."

She seemed to squirm, considering how much to "share" with me. "I'm telling you this in strictest confidence, okay?" she said.

I held a hand up Scout-style. I love confidences, and the stricter the better. I'd probably rat her out, but she didn't have to know that.

She weaseled around some more, mouth working while she decided how to put it. "Lorna called and told Mom she was going out of town. Mom didn't mention it to me 'til later, right before she went to work. I was upset because I had to talk to Lorna about this cruise to Mazatlan. She said she might be able to help me out, so I went over there. Her car was there, but her lights were out, and she didn't answer my knock. I figured she was out somewhere. I went back first thing in the morning, hoping I could catch her before she left."

"What time was this?"

"Maybe nine, nine-thirty. I was supposed to take the money to the travel agent by noon or I'd lose my deposit. I'd already given them a thousand dollars, and I had to have the balance or I'd forfeit everything I'd paid."

"That was for the cruise you took last fall?"

"Uhn-hun."

"What made you think Lorna had money?"

"Lorna always had money. Everybody knew what she did. Sometimes she was generous and sometimes not. It depended on her mood. Besides, she told me she'd help. She just about promised."

I started to quiz her on the subject but decided it would be better to let that pass for now. "Go on."

"Well, I knocked on the door, but she never answered. I saw her car was still there, and I thought maybe she was in the shower or something, so I opened the door and peeked in. She was on the floor. I just stood there and stared. I was so shocked I couldn't even think."

"Was the door locked or unlocked the night before?"

"I don't know. I didn't try. I didn't even think of it. Anyway, I touched her arm and she was really cold. I knew she was dead. I could tell just by looking. Her eyes were wide open, and she was staring. It was really gross."

"What next?"

"I just felt awful. It was horrible. I sat down and started crying." She blinked, staring through the windshield, which was a little dusty for my taste. I figured she was trying to conjure up a quick tear to impress me with the sincerity of her anguish.

"You didn't call the police?" I asked.

"Well, no."

"Why not? I'm just curious about your frame of mind."

"I don't know," she said grudgingly. "I was afraid they'd think I did it."

"Why would they think that?"

"I couldn't even prove where I was earlier because I was at home by myself. Mom was there, but she was sleeping, and Trinny still had a job back then. I mean, what if I was arrested? Mom and Daddy would have died."

"I understand. You wanted to protect them," I said blandly.

"I tried to think what to do. I was really screwed, you know? I'd just been praying for the money, and now it was too late. And poor Lorna. I felt so sorry for her. I kept thinking about all the things she wouldn't get to do, like get married, or have a baby. She'd never get to travel to Europe-"

"So you did what?" I said, cutting in on her recital. Her voice was getting quavery.

She took out a ratty tissue and dabbed at her nose. "Well. I knew where she kept her bank books, so I borrowed her driver's license and this passbook. I was so confused and upset, I didn't know what to do."

"I can imagine. Then what?"

"I got in my car and drove down to the valley and took some money out her savings."

"How much?"

"I don't remember. Quite a bit, I guess."

"You closed the account, didn't you?"

"What else was I supposed to do?" she said. "I figured once they found out she was dead, they'd freeze all her accounts like they did with my gramma. And then what good would it do? She promised she'd help. I mean, it wasn't like she'd turned me down or anything like that. She wanted me to have it."

"What about her signature? How'd you manage that?"

"We write alike anyway because I taught her myself before she went to kindergarten. She'd always imitated my writing, so it wasn't that hard to imitate hers."

"Didn't they ask for identification?"

"Sure, but we look enough alike. My face is fuller, but that's about the only difference. You know, hair color, but everybody changes that. Later, when the news hit the paper, nobody seemed to put it together. I don't even think her picture ran in the paper down there."

"What about the hank? Wasn't there a closing statement sent out?"

"Sure, but all the mail comes to me at home. Everything from them I pulled out and threw away quick."

"Well, almost everything," I said. "Then what?"

"That's all."

"What about the earrings?"

"Oh, yeah. I probably shouldn't have done that." She made a face meant to signify regret and other profound emotional responses. "I've been thinking I should put the rest of it back."

"Back where?"

"We still have some of her clothes and stuff. I thought I could stick the jewelry in an old purse, like that was where she kept it. In the pocket of her winter coat or something, and then, you know, discover it and act all amazed."

"That's certainly a plan," I said. I was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what. "Could we get back to the money for just a minute here? After you drove back from Simi, you still had Lorna's driver's license along with the cash. I'm trying to understand what you did next. Just so I can get a picture."

"I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"Well, her driver's license was listed on the police report, so you must have put it back."

"Oh, sure. I put the license right back where it was. Yeah, that's right."

"Uhn-hun. Like in her wallet or something?"

"Right. Then I realized I better make it look like she'd closed the account herself, you know, like she took some money out before she left town."

"I'm with you so far," I said with caution.

"Well, everybody thought she was already gone, so all I had to do was create the impression that she was alive all day Friday."

"Wait a minute. I thought this was Saturday. This all happened Friday?"

"It had to be Friday. The bank's not even open on Saturday, and neither is the travel agent."

My mouth did not actually drop open, but it felt as though it did. I turned to stare at her hilly, but Berlyn didn't seem to notice. She was caught up in her narrative and probably wasn't tuned to my look of astonishment. She was really the most amazing mix of cunning and stupidity, and way too old to be so unaware.

"I went on home. I was really really upset, so I told Mom I had the cramps and went to bed. Saturday afternoon, I went back to her place and brought the mail in with the morning newspaper. I couldn't see any harm. I mean, dead is dead, so what difference did it make?"

"What'd you do with the bank book?"

"Kept it. I didn't want anybody to know the money was gone."

"So you waited a month and opened a couple of savings accounts." I was monitoring myself, trying to keep from using what an English teacher would probably refer to as the screaming accusative verb tense. Berlyn must have picked up on it to some extent because she nodded, trying to look humble and repentant. Whatever she'd told herself in the ten months since Lorna died, I suspect it sounded different now that she was explaining it to me.

"Weren't you worried about your fingerprints showing up at her place?" I said.

"Not really. I wiped off everything I touched so my prints wouldn't show, but even if I slipped up, I figured I had a right to be there. I'm her sister. I've been there lots of times. Anyway, how can they prove when a fingerprint was made?"

"I'm surprised you didn't buy yourself some new clothes or a car."

"That wouldn't be right. I didn't ask her for that stuff."

"You didn't ask her for the jewelry, either," I said tartly.

"I figure Lorna wouldn't mind. I mean, why would she care? I was so heartbroke when I found her." She ceased making eye contact, and her expression took on a troubled cast. "Anyway, why would she begrudge me when there wasn't anything she could do by then?"

"You do know you broke the law."

"I did?"

"Actually, you broke quite a few laws," I said pleasantly. I could feel my temper beginning to climb. It was like being on the verge of throwing up. I should have kept my mouth shut because I could feel myself losing it. "But here's the point, Berlyn. I mean, aside from grand theft, withholding evidence, tampering with a crime scene, obstructing justice, and God knows what other laws you managed to violate, you've completely fucked up the investigation of your own sister's murder! Some asshole's out there walking around free as a bird right this minute because of you, do you get that? What kind of fuckin' twit are you?"

That's when she finally started crying in earnest.

I leaned across the car and opened the door on her side. "Get out. Go home," I said. "Better yet, go to Frankie's and tell your mother what you did before it shows up in my report."

She turned to me, nose red, mascara streaking down her cheeks, nearly breathless from my betrayal. "But I told you in strictest confidence. You said you wouldn't tell."

"I didn't actually say that, but if I did, I lied. I'm really a wretched person. I'm sorry you didn't understand that. Now get out of my car."

She got out and slammed the door, her grief having turned to fury in ten seconds flat. She put her face close to the window and yelled, "Bitch!"

I started the car and backed out, so mad I nearly ran her down in the process.

I started cruising the neighborhood, hoping to run into Cheney Phillips somewhere. Maybe he was on call, doing vice rounds like a doctor. Mostly I was looking for a way to keep occupied while I sorted through the implications of what Berlyn had said. No wonder J.D. was nervous, doing everything he could to fix the day and time of his departure with Leda. If Lorna was murdered Friday night or Saturday, they were in the clear. Run it back a day and everything was up for grabs again.

I cut down along Cabana and headed toward CC's. Maybe Cheney was hanging out there. It was not quite midnight. The wind had picked up, moaning through the trees, blowing as if there were a storm in progress, though no rain fell. The surf was being churned up, a wild spray coming off the waves as they boomed against the shore. From a side street, to my left, I could hear a car alarm crying, and the sound seemed to carry like the howling of a wolf. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the flight of a dried palm frond that hurtled down from a tree and skittered across the road in front of me.

There were very few cars in the parking lot at the Caliente Cafe. The place was quiet for a Friday night, with just a smattering of patrons and no sign of Cheney. Before I left, I used the pay phone and tried to reach Cheney at home. He was either out or not answering, and I hung up without leaving a message on his answering machine. I wasn't really sure what bothered me more, the story Berlyn had told me or Danielle's revelation about Lorna and Clark Esselmann.

I took a detour through Montebello, feeling unsettled. The Esselmann estate was on a narrow lane, without sidewalks or street-lamps. My headlights whitewashed the road ahead. The wind was still blowing. Even with my car windows up, I could hear it whuffling through the grass. A big limb was down, and I had to slow to avoid it, my eyes following the low wall that edged along the property. All the landscape lights were out, and the house sat in darkness, its angular black shape discernible against the clay-colored sky. There was no moon at all. An owl sailed across the road, touching down briefly in the grassy field on the other side, rising up again with a small dark bundle in its grip. Some death is as silent as the flight of a bird, some prey as unprotesting as a knot of rags.

The front gates were closed, and I could see little beyond the dark shapes of the junipers along the drive. I backed up and turned around, idling my engine while I debated what to do. Later, I'd wonder what might have happened if I'd actually gone ahead and pressed the intercom button and announced myself. It probably wouldn't have made a difference, but one can never be sure. Finally I put the car in gear and headed back to my place, where I crept into bed. Above me, the wind blew dry leaves across the domed skylight like the scratchings of tiny feet, something pricking at my conscience while I tossed in sleep. Once, in the dead of night, I could have sworn a cold finger touched the side of my face, and I woke with a start. The loft was empty, and the wind had died to a whisper.

My phone rang at noon. I'd been awake for an hour but unwilling to stir. Having completed my transmigration into the nocturnal realms, I found the notion of getting up any time before two repugnant. The phone rang again. It wasn't that I needed more sleep, I simply didn't want to face daylight. On the third ring, I reached for the phone and pulled it into bed with me, tucking the receiver up between my ear and pillow. "Hello."

"This is Cheney."

I propped myself on one elbow and ran a hand through my hair. "Well, hey. I tried calling you last night, but I guess you were out."

"No, no. I was here," he said. "My girlfriend was over, and we turned the phone off at ten. What's going on with you?"

"Oh, man, we gotta talk. All kinds of shit is coming down on this investigation."

"You ain't heard the half of it. I just got a call from a buddy in the sheriff's department. Clark Esselmann died this morning in a freak accident."

"He what?"

"You're never going to believe this. The guy was electrocuted in his swimming pool. Dove in to swim some laps and got fried, I guess. The gardener was killed, too. Fellow jumped in to try to save him and died the same way he did. Esselmann's daughter said she heard a scream, but by the time she got out there, they were both dead. Luckily she figured out what was going on and flipped the circuit breaker."

"That's really weird," I said. "Why didn't the breaker cut out to begin with? Isn't that what it's for?"

"Don't ask me. They've got an electrician out there now, checking all the wiring, so we'll see what he comes up with. Anyway, Hawthorn's at the house with the crime scene boys, and I'm on my way over. Want me to swing by and pick you up?"

"Give me six minutes. I'll be waiting out in front."

"See you."

When Cheney and I reached the entrance to Clark Esselmann's estate, he pressed the button and announced our arrival to a hollow-sounding someone on the other end. "Just a minute and I'll check," the fellow said, and clicked off. During the drive, I'd told Cheney as much as I could about Esselmann's confrontation with Stubby Stockton at the meeting the night before. I'd also told him about my conversation with Berlyn and Danielle's claim about Esselmann's relationship with Lorna.

"You've been busy," he remarked.

"Not busy enough. I came over here last night thinking I should talk to him. I don't have any idea what I intended to say, but as it turned out, the place was dark, and I didn't think I should rouse the household to quiz him about his rumored kinkiness."

"Well, it's too late now."

"Yeah, isn't it," I said.

The gates swung open, and we started up the winding driveway, which was bordered with vehicles: two unmarked cars, the electrician's truck, and a county car that probably belonged to the coroner. Cheney parked the Mazda behind the last car in line, and we approached on foot. A fire department rescue vehicle and an orange-and-white ambulance were parked out front, along with a black-and-white patrol unit from the county sheriff's department. A uniformed sheriff's deputy left his post near the front door and moved to intercept us. Cheney flashed his badge, confirming his identity, and the two spoke together briefly before the deputy waved us through.

"How come you're allowed in?" I murmured as we crossed the porch.

"I told Hawthorn there might be a peripheral connection to a case we've been working. He's got no problem with it as long as we don't interfere," Cheney said. He turned and pointed a finger at my face. "You make any trouble and I'll wring your neck."

"Why would I make trouble? I'm as curious as you are."

At the front door we paused, stepping aside for the two paramedics from the fire department who were packed up and departing, presumably no longer needed.

We moved into the house and through the big country kitchen. The interior was quiet. No audible voices, no droning of the vacuum, no ringing telephones. I didn't see Serena or any of the household staff. The French doors stood open, and the patio, like a movie set, seemed crowded with people whose status and function were not immediately clear. Most loitered at a respectful distance from the pool, but the relevant members of the team were hard at work. I recognized the photographer, the coroner, and his assistant. Two plainclothes detectives were taking measurements for a sketch. Now that we'd been admitted, no one seemed to question our right to be present. From what we could ascertain, it hadn't yet been established that a crime had been committed, but the scene was being treated with meticulous attention because of Esselmann's high standing in the community.

Both Esselmann's body and that of the gardener had been removed from the water. They lay side by side, covered discreetly with tarps. Two sets of feet were visible, one bare and one shod in work boots. The bottoms of the bare feet were marked by an irregular pattern of burns, the flesh blackened in places. There was no sign of the dog, and I assumed he'd been locked up somewhere. The second set of paramedics stood together quietly, probably waiting for the okay from the coroner to transport the bodies to the morgue. It was clear they had no further business to conduct.

Cheney left me to my own devices. He was only marginally more entitled to be there than I was, but he felt free to circulate, while I thought it was smarter to keep a low profile. I turned and looked off toward the adjacent properties. By day, the rolling lawns were patchy, the grasses interseeded with a mix of fescue and Bermuda, the latter currently dormant and forming stretches of tatty brown.

The flowering shrubs that surrounded the patio formed a waist-high wall of color. I could see exactly where the gardener had been working that morning because the hedge he'd been clipping was crisply trimmed across one section and shaggy after that. His electric clippers lay on the concrete where he must have dropped them before he jumped into the water. The lap pool looked serene, its dark surface reflecting a portion of the steeply pitched roof. Perhaps it was an artifact of my overactive imagination, but I could have sworn the faint scent of cooked flesh still lingered in the morning air.

I wandered across the patio toward the breezeway that connected the four garages to the house, and then I ambled back. I didn't see how Esselmann's death could be an accident, but neither did I understand how it could be connected to Lorna's death. It was possible he'd killed her, but it didn't seem likely. If he felt remorse for their relationship, or if he feared exposure, he might have elected to commit suicide, but what a bizarre way to go about it. For all he knew, Serena might have been the one who happened on the scene, and she'd have died along with him.

I noticed activity at the side of the house closest to the pool: the electrician talking with the two detectives. He gestured his explanation, and I could see all of them looking from the electrical panel to the equipment shed that housed the pump, the filter, and the big heater for the pool. The electrician moved over to the side of the pool near the far end. He hunkered, still talking, while one of the detectives peered down into the water, squinting. He got down on his hands and knees and leaned closer. He asked the electrician a question and then took off his sport coat and rolled up his sleeve, reaching into the depths. The photographer was summoned, and the detective began to detail a new set of instructions. She reloaded her camera and changed the lens.

The other detective crossed to the coroner's assistant, and they conferred. The coroner had stepped back, and the two paramedics began to prepare the bodies for removal to the ambulance. From where I was standing, I could see the news ripple across the assembled personnel. Whatever the information, it spread from twosome to twosome as the group rearranged itself. The detective moved off, and I eased my way toward the coroner's assistant, knowing if I were patient, the news train would eventually reach my little station. The electrician had left his toolbox on the patio table, and he came over to pick it up. In the meantime, the deputy was talking to the fingerprint tech, who hadn't had much work to do so far. The three of them began to chat, looking back toward the pool. I overheard the electrician use the word deify, and my thoughts jumped to the transcript I'd been discussing with Hector.

I laid a hand on his arm, and he glanced back at me. "Excuse me. I don't mean to butt in, but what did you say?"

"I said there's a problem with the GFI. Wire's come loose, which is why the circuit breaker didn't trip like it should have. One of the pool lights is busted out, and that's what sent current through the water."

"I thought the term was GFCI, ground fault circuit interrupter."

"Same thing. I use both. GFI's easier, and everybody knows what you mean." The electrician was a clean-cut kid in his twenties, one of that army of experts who make the civilized world run a little more smoothly. "Damnedest thing I ever saw," he remarked to the deputy. "Break an underwater flood like that, you'd have to take a stick and poke it out from on top. Detective's going to find out when the pool was last serviced, but somebody really blew it. We're talking a big lawsuit. And I mean big."

The fingerprint technician said, "Think the gardener could have done it?"

"Doing what? You don't punch out a pool light by accident. I told the detective, that glass is tough. It takes work. If it'd been at night with the pool lights on, somebody might have noticed. Daytime like this and all that black tile, you can hardly see the near end, let alone the far."

From the other side of the patio, the detective motioned the electrician back, and he moved in that direction. Where I was, the deputy and the fingerprint technician had shifted the discussion to somebody who'd been electrocuted by his electric lawn mower because his mother, trying to be helpful, stuck the three-pronged plug into a two-pronged extension cord. The insulation on the neutral wire was defective, which caused direct contact between the cord and the metal handle of the mower. The deputy went into quite a bit of detail about the nature of the damage, comparing it to another case he'd seen where a child bit through an electric cord while standing in a puddle of water in the bathroom.

I kept thinking about the tape recording, thinking about the phrase 'she goes in at the same time every day'. Maybe Esselmann wasn't the intended victim. Maybe Serena was meant to die instead. I looked for Cheney but couldn't seem to find him. I approached the nearest of the two detectives. "Would you have any objection if I talked to Mr. Esselmann's daughter? It won't take but a minute. I'm a friend of hers," I said.

"I don't want you discussing Mr. Esselmann's death. That's my job."

"It's not about him. This is about something else."

He studied me for a moment and then glanced away. "Keep it brief," he said.