Serpentine

Chapter 21

As Ellie walked us to the door, Melvin Boudreaux appeared. Before Ellie got there he was in front of her, cracking the oak six inches and peering outside. Satisfied, he opened all the way and stationed himself in the center of the inner courtyard.

Ellie looked startled at being cut off.

Boudreaux said, “Part of the job, ma’am.”

“Ma’am, again. Do they teach you guys that in police school?”

Milo said, “We pride ourselves on being gentlemen.”

“Ah,” said Ellie Barker. “I suppose I could get used to it.”

As we drove away, I said, “Artful dodge.”

“What was?”

“You told her nothing but left her satisfied.”

“Couldn’t have her confronting Val and screwing things up.”

“Double bonus, she gave you new info.”

“Stanley hated Dorothy.”

“And Stanley could have a temper when pushed hard enough.”

He reached Los Feliz Boulevard, waited to make the illegal left. “Turning purple. Think I pay a little more attention to Barker. What we said before: He finds her and waylays her.”

“In a shiny new Caddy,” I said. “Maybe that was symbolic: You left me for someone richer, look what good it did you.”

“The mansion, the car, yeah, I can see that bringing on some serious magenta.”

Five-second traffic gap. He swung across the boulevard. “Problem is, I can’t see any avenue to Stan. For Tony — or the other Des Barres kids, for that matter — I can at least look for someone who knew the not-so-merry wives of Mulholland.”

“Maybe there’s someone around who recalls Stan and Dorothy as a couple.”

“Thirty-six years ago and five hundred miles away? You come up with something, let me know. Meanwhile, I’m gonna see what I can dig up about Helen and Arlette.”

I said, “Here’s a possible arrow to Arlette. In the article about her accident, the owner of the stables is mentioned.”

“Remember her name?”

“Nope.”

“Me, neither.” He handed me his notepad.

As he headed south, I made my way through two pages of his backhand scrawl before I found it.

Agua Fria Stables. Pasadena. Winifred Gaines.

I searched. “No current listing for the business. Hold on... nothing online about her, personally.”

He pulled to the curb on Western just past Franklin. “You drive and I’ll play with the databases.”

For years, he’d been violating protocol by conducting police business in the Seville, but never had he relinquished the wheel of an official vehicle.

I said, “You’re off the grid so it’s legit?”

“Can’t imagine it would be,” he said. “You can move the seat.”

Property tax rolls showed Winifred Gaines divvying to the county for a single-family residence on Los Robles Avenue in San Marino. A DMV check revealed an eighty-eight-year-old with an active driver’s license and a fifteen-year-old Mercedes 500 living at the address.

I said, “Not far from the stables in Pasadena.”

He scrolled through a map. “Not far from Huntington Gardens plus a nice car. Maybe another one with a butler.”

The reverse directory kicked up Winifred Gaines’s landline.

I said, “One advantage of dealing with mature folk.”

“Always looking on the bright side, huh?” Five rings sounded before a strong female voice said, “Hello?”

“Ms. Gaines?”

“Who’s this?”

“Lieutenant Sturgis of the Los Angeles Police Department.”

“This better not be one of those scams.”

“It’s about Arlette Des Barres, ma’am. If you remember—”

“I remember just fine. If you’re some kind of reporter doing one of those retrospectives, forget it.”

“I’m not, ma’am. Feel free to check me out. Lieutenant Milo B. Sturgis—”

“One of my nephews is a deputy police chief in Philadelphia, he’s always ma’am this, ma’am that. The only other people who ma’am that much are Filipino caregivers. Sir, this, ma’am, that. Nice people, well trained and well bred. A couple of them took care of my mother and she lasted to a hundred and four. What do you want to know about that poor woman? The fools who investigated the first time certainly weren’t interested in what I had to say.”

“Forest rangers?”

“You bet,” said Winifred Gaines. “Bermuda shorts and funny hats.”

“Well, I certainly am interested.”

“You’ve got something on him posthumously?”

“Who?”

“That dissolute husband of hers.”

“Not exactly.”

“Then why bother?”

“Is there any way we can meet to discuss it, ma’am?”

“Forget that.”

“Just briefly?”

“You are persistent — you’d better not be a reporter.”

“Feel free to call West L.A. Division and—”

“And be put on hold? I don’t think so, sir.”

“Ma’am—”

“Can’t stand to hear a grown man cry, tell you what,” said Winifred Gaines. “I was planning to have a nice quiet alone dinner at four thirty. If you can make it by then, fine.”

Hour and twenty minutes’ grace time.

Milo said, “Four thirty it is. Where?”

“San Marino Fish Market on Huntington Drive. You show up with a badge that didn’t come out of the Cracker Jack box, I’ll talk to you. And it’s not Ms., it’s Mrs.”

Click.

Milo said, “Her mother made a hundred and four. Maybe what my aunt Agnes called ‘too mean to die.’ ” He looked up the restaurant. “Looks pretty good.”

“Want the reins back?”

“Nah, you’re doing great with the oversteer. Drop yourself at home, plenty of time for me to make it back on time.”

I said, “You’re kidding.”

“About what?”

“I miss the charm-fest and suffer informatus interruptus?”

“That’s a thing?”

“It should be.”

He got back behind the wheel, pulled a three-pointer on Western, and returned to Los Feliz Boulevard. Two miles past the turnoff to Ellie Barker’s house was an on-ramp to the I-5, a bipolar highway. This afternoon, the phase was acute depression: miles of vehicles bunched up due to a capsized produce truck. Severe dent in the city’s cabbage supply.

That finally surrendered to eight miles of overcompensating speed on the 134 E followed by a commuter clot on the 210.

Freeways. I thought of something an econ prof had said back in college. No such thing as free.

When we landed on the elegant streets of San Marino, an hour and ten minutes had passed.

Milo said, “Time to spare,” but broke some speed limits anyway. Drumming the wheel, then the dash, then back to the wheel. The edginess that comes when he tries to convince himself something’s going to break.