L.A. Dead

Chapter 54

Stone drove slowly up Vanessa's street and down again, making sure that nobody from the police or fire departments was at the site. Satisfied, he parked across the street and got out of the car.

The house was a sad shell, with most of the roof gone and with large gaps in the walls. He ducked under the yellow police tape and stepped through one of the gaps into what had been the living room. The acrid smell of burned dwelling filled his nostrils, and with a shudder, he thought he detected a faint whiff of seared meat. A few charred sticks of what had been furniture remained in the room and the remains the sofa were recognizable. He recalled that he and Vanessa had sat there, sipping their drinks and talking, no more than an hour before she had died.

He walked on a runner of plastic sheeting that had been placed there like a sidewalk by the fire department investigators, to avoid disturbing evidence. As he moved through the rooms he noticed that the ash around him had a smooth surface, and telltale marks showed that the debris had been raked, in search of evidence. If anything were left of Vanessa's diary, which he doubted, then the investigators would surely have found it. His trip here had been for naught. Her purse and the diary had probably been in the kitchen, and there was no longer a kitchen.

Then he turned and saw something he hadn't seen before: the garage. He hadn't seen it, because on his last visit, the house had been in the way, but now he could look through a giant, charred hole and see the little building. It seemed older than the house, or maybe it had just not been updated over the years, the way the house had been. It looked like something out of the twenties, a meager, clapboard structure with two doors, the old-fashioned kind that featured a brass handle in the middle of the door. One turned the handle, lifted, and the door rose. Surely electric openers would have been added by this time.

He tried the doors. The first didn't move, but the second operated as it had been designed to. It took some effort, but he got the door halfway open and stepped under it. He tried a light switch on the wall, but nothing happened. The power had either been interrupted by the fire or turned off by the fire department.

A single car, a Mazda Miata, was in the garage. It was red, small, and cute, and he reflected that Vanessa would have looked good in it, her hair blowing in the wind. The top was up, and he tried the passenger door: locked. He walked around the car and tried the drivers door, with success. He found the trunk release and popped the lid. There was a spare, flat, and the jack, and an old pair of sneakers-nothing else.

He went back to the driver's door and tried to sit in the seat, but found himself jammed, until he could locate the release and move the seat backward. The courtesy lights illuminated the interior, and he looked around.

Women made a terrible mess of cars, he thought. The most fastidious woman seemed unable to avoid the buildup of used Kleenex, fast-food wrappers, and old paper cups in her automobile. He checked the tiny glove compartment, which held only a couple of parking tickets and a lipstick tube. There were some road maps in a door pocket, and nothing behind the sun visors. He got out of the car, and as he did moved the driver's seat forward and checked behind it. Nothing there. He reached across and felt behind the passenger seat, and he came in contact with something made of canvas.

He reached over, unlocked the passenger door from the inside, then walked around the car and opened the door. He moved the seat forward and extracted a beat-up canvas carryall bearing the logo of a bookstore chain. He set it on top of the car and checked its contents. Inside was a thick book on interior design, a wrinkled bikini, a bottle of suntan lotion, and a leather-covered book with a binding flap that ended in a brass tip secured by a tiny lock. Stamped on the front of the book, in gilded letters, was "My Diary." If the cops had thought to search the car, they had done a lousy job, Stone thought. He tried opening it, but the lock held.

He put the carryall back where he had found it, closed the car doors, returned the garage door to its original position, and walked back to his car. He was tempted to try to open the diary here, but he decided it might be best to do it elsewhere. He drove back to Marc Blumberg's building.

He walked into Marc's office, smiling, holding up the leather diary.

Marc took it and turned it over in his hands. "It's not burned at all," he said.

"It wasn't in the house," Stone replied. "I found it in her car, in the garage."

"Can you pick a lock, or shall I pry it open?" Marc asked.

"Hang on a minute; what's our legal position? I took this from her car with nobody's permission. Given that, do we want to break into it?"

"We can open it with the permission of her executor," Marc said.

"Do you know who he is?"

Marc grinned. "You're looking at him. Here's a paper clip."

Stone straightened the wire and began probing the lock. It was simple; one turn and it was open. He set the diary on Marc's desk and began flipping pages, while the two of them bent over it.

"Funny, I don't recognize any names," Marc said. "We knew a lot of the same people."

"Maybe she's giving people code names; if somebody got into the diary, it might save embarrassment."

"Let's start at the end and work backward," Marc said. They began reading; Vanessa had written in a small, but very legible, hand.

"Look, in the last entry she says she's going to Palm Springs to 'Herbert's' house. I wonder why she called me Herbert?"

"I guess you just look like a Herbert, Marc."

"Yeah." He flipped back further in the book. "There's mention here of a Hilda, quite often. Think that could be Beverly?"

"We need a context to figure this out," Stone said, turning pages. "Here, the pages are dated; this is the day Vance was shot. There's mention of Hilda, Magda, and Jake."

"Jake was Vance's character in one of his recent movies," Marc said. "Fear Everything, I think."

"She mentions lunch around the pool at Magda's. That must be Charlene Joiner. Here we go!" He began reading aloud. " 'When we left Magda's, Hilda insisted on going to Jake's house, which I thought was nuts. She knew about this service entrance at the rear of the property. I wouldn't get out of the car, but Hilda, bold as brass, walked to the house. Hilda has admitted screwing Jake, but, Jesus, I never thought she'd have the guts to go to his house. She must have been gone ten minutes, then there was a noise, and a minute later, she came running back, breathless, and told me to get the hell out of there. She wouldn't say what happened but I'd be willing to bet that she ran into Mrs. Jake. God, that must have been embarrassing! She was still breathing hard when I dropped her off at her house. I've never seen her so discombobulated. I know I'll eventually hear about this from somebody else, even though she won't discuss it. Hilda can never keep her mouth shut for long-she'll either brag about this, or try for sympathy. Jesus, I'm so glad I didn't go with her!'"

"Well, that's pretty clear," Marc said, "but I'd feel a lot better if she had just said that she'd watched Beverly shoot Vance."

"All we've really got here is what Vanessa told me."

"Yeah, we've got to get Beverly to admit that she's Hilda, or get corroboration from Charlene on the stand that they were at her house that day."

Stone was flipping forward through the pages, looking at the dates after Vance's murder. "Look at this," he said. "'Hilda keeps trying to tell me something, but she can't get it out. She seems very guilty about something. Having seen the papers, it's not hard to figure out that Jake was hurt while we were at his house, but Hilda won't tell me what she saw there. I keep thinking maybe I should go to the police. I've got to ask Herbert about this, but how am I going to do that without betraying Hilda's confidence?'"

"I wish to God she had asked me," Marc said. "Maybe I could have done something to prevent her death."

"Wait a minute," Stone said, "are you thinking that Beverly set the fire at Vanessa's, because she knew too much?"

"It wouldn't be the first murder that was committed to cover up another murder," Marc said.

Stone sat down heavily, feeling enormously relieved.

"You look kind of funny, Stone," Marc commented. "Was it something I said?"

"Yes, it was," Stone replied. "I had never connected Beverly with Vanessa's death, but what you're saying makes perfectly good sense. I'm afraid that I thought someone else…" He stopped himself.

"That someone else murdered Vanessa?"

Stone nodded.

"Who?"

"I'd rather not say. If you're right, then it doesn't make any difference."

"I guess not." Marc picked up the phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"The D.A. I want him to see this diary. If we're lucky, maybe we won't need the motion hearing."

"Marc," Stone said, "we don't have anything we didn't before. Beverly has obviously already told the D.A. that she was at Vance's that night; otherwise, how else could she be a witness."

"You're right, but I have to turn this over to either the D.A. or the police, anyway, and it at least independently establishes that Beverly was there. She won't know what's in the diary, so maybe I can use it to rattle her at the hearing."

"Call the D.A.," Stone said.