The Museum of Desire

Chapter 47

As four thirty p.m. rolled around, I was itching to go but Jane Leavitt said, “I’ve so enjoyed chatting with you — please enjoy more high tea.”

I conceded another slice of cheese, two additional grapes, a water biscuit, and a slice of raisin bread. Thinking: Big Guy, you blew it.

Managing to withstand her urging to “try the butter, just a smidge, it’s from Denmark — okay, cholesterol, I get it. Then at least the jam, it’s a mixture of Alpine and conventional strawberries, a family in Milan — wait here one sec.”

She strutted out of the room and returned toting a leather-bound folio with both hands. Karen Amilyn Leavitt’s brief acting career was preserved between sheets of plastic. Semi-literate puff-piece reviews in a Beverly Hills throwaway paper, some dating back to high school days, had been preserved with additional photos from the Marilyn-clone shoot. Emphasis on come-hither headshots, lingerie glams, and airbrushed bikini poses.

Jane watched as I flipped pages. When I closed the book, I said, “Terrific.”

“She had so much potential.” She turned away, dabbed at her eyes.

I checked my phone and stood. “Oops, so sorry, I really need to go.”

“Police business? Something to do with her?”

“Yes.”

“Then be off,” she said. “Just as well. I’ve got a party to plan. The garden club, they love my palms.”

She directed my exit the same way she’d guided my entry: arm in arm, followed by a firm propulsion outdoors.

“When will you be able to clue me in, Doctor?”

“Soon as I can.”

“Grand,” she said, clapping her hands. “I want all the gory details, each and every one.”

Be careful what you hope for.

I drove south to Lomitas Avenue, hooked a right at Walden Drive, pulled over, and phoned Judge Martin Bevilacqua.

His clerk said, “I think he’s free,” and rang him in chambers.

A second later, Marty came on. “What’s up, Alex?”

“One more question about the Ansar divorce.”

“No new facts.”

“You mentioned art was part of the dispute.”

“Why does that matter to you?”

“It may connect to the murder.”

“One of them is involved? Oh, shit.”

“No direct involvement,” I said, “but our suspects claim to have sold to the Ansars. Any idea what?”

“Oh, man,” he said. “No, not a clue, Mister absconded with all of it according to Missus and she has no record other than it’s supposedly gazillions.”

“You have your doubts?”

“You know what it’s like. Everyone lies or at least exaggerates.”

“What kind of art does she claim he took?”

“Priceless Old Masters but she’s up the creek because there’s zero evidence. Are you telling me he hung out with really bad people?”

“He could’ve just been a customer.”

“Is there something weird about the art?”

Good nose. I said, “No details yet.”

“Alex, is this going to hit the papers?”

I said, “Not in the near future.”

“But maybe at some point.”

“It’s possible.”

“All right, thanks for letting me know. And if you do get any evidence that relates to the damn divorce, let me know and I’ll make sure you get paid for your time. By who, I don’t know, but by someone.”

Milo picked up his desk phone after one ring. “Nothing to report.”

“Get me into the staff lot. I’ll be there in twenty.”

Milo said, “What’s going on?”

“Twenty.”

A uniform was waiting by the barrier arm to the lot. He checked my I.D. and, still looking dubious, slipped a card into a slot. By the time I walked out and crossed Butler Avenue, he was gone.

I hustled upstairs and found Milo hunched at his desk, typing away. Long paragraph. Reply to a departmental questionnaire. Dated a month ago.

He logged off. “Seventeen minutes. Take a load off.”

Between Jane Leavitt’s high tea and driving, I’d sat enough and remained on my feet as I told her story.

He listened the way a good detective does. Silent, focused. Took a moment to consider before responding.

“January. So Candace was manipulating Okash for a while. The party thing threw me, sure, but I was kind of figuring the Kiersteads had taken premeditation to a new level. Okash named her gallery Verlang. I wondered why and looked it up and found out verlangen is German for ‘desire.’ Wanna lay odds who suggested it? So how do you see Gurnsey getting sucked in?”

I said, “Candace could’ve been one of his bar pickups. She suggested a threesome with a friend. From what we know about Ricky, he’d have jumped and asked how high. Unfortunately, they got nailed. Momentary embarrassment for Gurnsey and Okash but a lot worse for Candace. It cost her the social status the Daylighters affiliation was supposed to bring her. Killing Okash had been on the back burner, one way or another she was history. But she probably would’ve just dropped Gurnsey the way Joan Blunt did. Then the rage kicked in.”

“She screws up but she’s angry?”

“Psychopaths never take responsibility. It didn’t take long to convince herself Okash and Gurnsey were to blame. Grunting too loud, who knows what. The idea of replicating The Museum had also been percolating for a while but after the debacle she began planning in detail. Taking her time casting.”

“Five months,” he said. “Taking dogs out of a shelter to sacrifice them. And we ate her crackers and drank her goddamn coffee.”

He got up, took the one long stride that gets him out of the office, marched to the end of the corridor and back three times.

“This is so premeditated and twisted even John can’t stay constipated.”

He called Nguyen and pled his case.

The DDA said, “Yeah, it’s sick... but borderline at best—”

“John—”

“Hold on, I’m thinking it through... you do have eyewitness confirmation of Kierstead with Gurnsey... fine, give it a try, long as you understand the risk. You’ve got nothing on the husband and if you bust the wife and come up with nothing, she knows you’re after her and she’ll be free as a bird. People like that can lam internationally the way a ghetto thug slinks around the block.”

“I want to bust both of them.”

“What do you have on him?”

“At this point guilt by association and probable Nazi but you know as well as I do he’s involved. I get into that gallery building and his houses, I’m gonna find something.”

“Hmm,” said Nguyen. “Hell, why not?”

“Thanks, John. Any judge in particular?”

“I’ll make the call,” said Nguyen. “If they really are fucking fascist psycho lunatics, they need to go. Sit tight.”

For the next six minutes, Milo alternated among reading long-neglected email, muttering under his breath, playing with an unlit cigar, rubbing his face, and taking another trip up and down the corridor.

He was at the far end when his desk phone rang.

I said, “Hi, John.”

“Alex. You stirred something nicely. Long as I have you, it would help if you memorialize your conversation with that rich lady eyewitness sooner rather than later. Either dictate it to him or write it down yourself and he can stick it in the book.”

“No prob.”

“Nothing’s ever a prob with you. They teach you that in psychology school?”

“More like acting school.”

“You did that, too?”

“Nope.”

He laughed. “Where is he, in the john?”

“Pacing.”

“Ah, that. When he comes back tell him the arrest warrants came through courtesy Judge Cohen, I’m emailing them over. Ciao. As in breezy Italian, not Chinese food.”

I went out to the hallway and waved Milo back.

He said, “Please say good news.”

“The best. Check your email.”