Dream a Little Death, page 13
If you’ve been famous for fifteen seconds and you meet someone else who’s been famous for fifteen seconds, boom, instant friendship. Sometimes they have their assistants text you, or they find you on social media and invite you to drinks. Or to their weddings.
I punched in my number, and handed her phone back. “And you’re Petal Collings. I was upstairs earlier. I was going to buy the coasters, but—”
She leaned in. “They’re crap. Made in China. Wait for the fall line. My fiancé found me this guy in Italy.”
“Excuse me, ladies,” said a wizened little woman holding a bathrobe. “Can you maybe wrap it up?”
Petal beckoned me into her dressing room. We sat down next to one another on the tiny wooden bench. We were both more or less naked. It was kind of awkward, actually.
“Hey,” she finally said. “You know that Victoria’s Secret supermodel with your ex? I can’t believe he cheated on you with her.” She clucked disapprovingly.
“Luke Cutt isn’t exactly the faithful type.”
Petal nodded. “I get it. My ex-husband Miles made a fool of me, too.”
At last.
“No way,” I marveled. “How is that even possible? You’re so beautiful. And so smart.”
“I know,” she said. “But Miles never really appreciated me. I think he was swayed by this horrible woman working for him who was, unfortunately, way smarter than I’ll ever be. She took care of his needs. And I mean all of them.”
This was a twist. But why was I not surprised? Miles and Pee Chee were joined at the hip. And not just metaphorically, apparently.
“That is so crossing the line,” I said. “Sleeping with your employer? Your married employer? What kind of woman does that to another woman?” I leaned forward, poised for something juicy. And then Petal’s phone started ringing.
“Never a moment’s peace.” She rummaged through her purse, pulling out a rhinestone-encrusted iPhone and two linty red Lifesavers. She popped one into her mouth, and offered me the other, which I accepted. Price of doing business.
“Shit.” Petal studied the screen for a minute, then mumbled, “Evil old crone.”
“The woman who worked for your husband?” I asked hopefully.
Petal stepped out of her leather teddy and pulled on her white dress. “No, my mother. Did you meet her upstairs? In the Nantucket red visor? She’s a nightmare, but the woman my ex worked with was even worse. Tattoos on her chest, hair like a fright wig. No way Miles would’ve touched her. No, the person he was screwing during the entirety of our second marriage was a hot, young thing looking for a free ride. Totally the opposite of me.”
A hot young thing looking for a free ride.
I could think of two people who might fit the bill.
Petal kicked off the marabou-trimmed sandals and slipped back into her white Christian Louboutins. “I’d love to keep talking, but unfortunately, Mommy Dearest says I need to go back up to the third floor and make nice to my fans. By the way, you should try on this bikini.” She handed me two tiny scraps of emerald green fabric. “It matches your nails.”
She couldn’t go yet. I needed more information.
“I’m worried about you,” I let slip.
She laughed. “I think I can handle some Japanese teenagers.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Remind me again, when did you and Miles get divorced?”
She looked confused. “Which time?”
“The second time. I mean, you want to be sure enough time has passed. You know, before you get married again. Just to be sure it’s going to stick.”
“You silly goose.” She smiled. “The divorce was final a year ago this March, thanks for asking.”
The hot young thing Petal was talking about wasn’t Maya Duran. Miles hadn’t even met her until after his divorce from Petal had been finalized.
That left Carmen Luz.
“I celebrated on the white sand in St. Barts with an underaged fuck-buddy of my own,” Petal said. “It was heaven. And all I had to buy him was one, lousy Versace suit. Miles, on the other hand—” She shook her head.
“What?” I was hanging on her every word now.
“He likes to do things big, you know? He didn’t rent his little slut some apartment somewhere. He bought her a house. For a girl like her, it must’ve felt like a dream come true.”
Those were Lizeth the housekeeper’s exact words.
But how could I be sure?
And then it came to me.
That day, standing by the trash cans, I’d shown Lizeth the wrong picture.
I shouldn’t have shown her Carmen’s picture.
I should have showed her Miles’s.
Chapter 24
The drive to Glendale took under an hour, counting a pit stop at Porto’s for a café con leche, half of which spilled in the car, and a guava pastry I’d intended to save for later.
Like my mother says, delayed gratification is for suckers.
I was still wiping the crumbs from my mouth when the woman in Madame Anna’s house who was not Madame Anna opened the door. The dog went straight for my ankles this time.
“Be nice!” the woman chided.
The dog let go of my jeans, hung his head in shame, and trotted away.
“Ace of Swords,” the woman said. “I knew you would come back.”
“You must be psychic,” I said.
“Funny girl,” she said. “You are here on good day.” She waved an enormous diamond in my face. “I meet rich man online, and yesterday he come over, make dinner, and propose.”
“Beautiful ring,” I said.
“Is not real diamond, do not worry. Real diamond is in safe. This is fake one to wear to Bootylates class and if somebody steal it, no problem. Sometimes, people are jealous—” She puffed out some air, then led me inside.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was on T.V. Everyone was singing, “Happy Birthday,” and a skeletal woman in a bustier was blowing out a prodigious number of candles.
“I know you’re busy,” I said, “so I’m going to get right to the point.”
She hit the mute button. “I am not busy. Are you busy? I think too busy. I worry for your negative energy. For sixty dollars, I help you fix it.”
“I think we already went over that,” I said. “I’m not here for me. I just wanted—”
She grabbed her water bottle and took a long slug of something yellow that definitely wasn’t Gatorade. “You want, you want.” She burped delicately. “What about me?”
No way I was paying this woman again. “Is Lizeth here today?”
She scowled at me. “Who?”
“Your housekeeper. She was here last time I came by. A week ago Saturday?”
“Oh. Lisa. I call her Lisa. Is easier to pronounce.”
“Okay, Lisa. Is she around?”
The woman cupped her ear. “What do you hear?”
The dog was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
“Nothing,” the woman declared. “Do you hear vacuum? No. Do you hear dishwasher? No. That mean Lisa is not here.”
“Do you have any idea where I can find her?”
“I will check crystal ball.” She strolled over to a plastic globe from the dollar store and plugged it in. Then she waited for the green mist to start spewing. Then she looked at me.
After I handed over sixty bucks, she typed Lizeth’s address into my phone.
Lizeth lived in neighboring Eagle Rock, a rapidly gentrifying hillside enclave known for a large eagle-shaped outcropping you can see from the freeway, and for being the stomping grounds of one of L.A.’s best-known serial killers, the Hillside Strangler, who was actually two people.
Lizeth’s apartment building was newish and surrounded by a ten-foot iron security fence, which was too bad for me. I searched the directory for “Pimentel.” Apartment 339. I pushed the buzzer a couple of times, but there was no response. So I pushed all the buzzers. Yeah, well, it works on T.V.
Sure enough, somebody let me in. The lobby was sparsely furnished, with a leatherette couch chained to the tiled floor, a large clock that read one o’clock, which was three and a half hours ago, and a healthy-looking Boston fern. I pinched a leaf. Plastic.
A teenaged boy wearing an Eagle Rock High wrestling shirt was sitting on the couch texting. He glanced up.
“No school today?” I asked.
He gave me a pitying look. “It’s Sunday.”
We took the elevator up to the third floor. He went left and I went right. Lizeth’s apartment was at the end of the corridor.
Now I was getting nervous. Uncle Ray had nailed it. I was an amateur, and amateurs blow it when the pressure is on. I pulled myself together. I could do this. I had to do this. Because Lizeth was the only one who could tell me whether or not it was Miles who’d bought Carmen that house. And whether or not it was Miles who’d given her that black eye. And if that was before or after Big Fatty had raped Carmen. And if Lizeth could tell me all that, maybe she could also tell me why, in spite of everything, Miles still carried Carmen’s picture in his wallet. Because if he still loved Carmen, well, I’m not entirely sure what that meant for Maya. It certainly didn’t augur well.
I knocked for a solid minute.
Lizeth wasn’t home.
I had one last trick up my sleeve.
The kid took his time opening the door.
“Hi again,” I said. “I was wondering if you knew where your neighbor Lizeth might be today.”
“Huh,” he said.
“She and I have some business to discuss,” I said.
“Huh,” he reiterated.
“Who’s at the door?” came a voice from inside. Thank you. An adult.
“Is that your mom?” I asked.
“Whatever.” He stared at his phone.
A harried-looking woman appeared at the door. “My son hasn’t left this apartment all weekend.” She pointed down. “Check his ankle monitor.”
“I’m not interested in your son. I’m trying to find your neighbor. Lizeth Pimentel?”
The woman told the kid to clean up the kitchen. She waited until he was gone, then said, “You another cop?”
Another cop? “Do I look like one?”
“Not really. Actually,” she said, studying my face, “you look like that girl from the song. That’s you, isn’t it? Dreama! Oh, my god!”
It never fails.
“I follow your mom on Twitter. Is she broke, or what? I know it’s none of my business, but I totally think she should go on Celebrity Apprentice.” The woman fluffed her hair, then grabbed me by the arm. “Why don’t you come in? I’ll make us some coffee.”
After shoving aside some pillows, she sat me down on the couch, then raced into the kitchen.
“How do you take yours?” she called out. “Move it,” she hissed at the kid, who came scuttling out of the kitchen with a Hot Pocket in one hand and a bong in the other.
“Black,” I said.
The woman had a lot to say about a lot of different things. It took some doing to get her to focus on Lizeth, but eventually she did, though I have to admit to being confused by what she had to say.
Earlier in the week, a man had come by to see Lizeth. They’d had an intense conversation, apparently, because she and this man went into her apartment and neither of them came out for several hours. Not that the woman was keeping tabs. She was just observant. When she’d asked Lizeth about it, Lizeth said that he was a cop, and that he was questioning her about something.
Maybe I was off base, but there was one cop I could think of who was turning up in a lot of unexpected places lately. I asked the woman if she could describe the man.
“I didn’t exactly—”
“Yes, you did,” I said. “So why don’t you just tell me?”
“Fine.” She scratched her nose. “Tall, good-looking, sixtyish—”
“And African-American? Dead ringer for Denzel Washington?”
She blinked. “How did you know that?”
I drained my cup. “Just a lucky guess.”
“Actually, I’m a bit worried,” she said. “Lizeth isn’t legal. I mean, she’s been here since she was a little kid, but she doesn’t have a green card. Maybe he had her deported.”
Suddenly, I got a very bad feeling. “Why would you think that?”
She started to clear the coffee table. “Because we usually bump into one another, you know, in the elevator, or the laundry room, or by the mailboxes. And it’s been I don’t know how many days since I’ve seen her.”
I stood up. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”
I went into the hallway and called the woman who was not Madame Anna.
“When was the last time you saw Lizeth?” I asked her.
“Who?”
“Lisa!” I said. “Your housekeeper. Please. It’s important.”
“She always come on Saturdays. But she did not come yesterday. She did not call, she did not explain. Is very bad. My man find dog hair in his salad.”
I walked back into the apartment. “I think there may be a problem.”
Lizeth was probably fine. It didn’t necessarily mean anything that she hadn’t been seen around her building in days. And what if she hadn’t shown up to work yesterday? Sometimes people need a break. There was no reason to assume it had anything to do with Uncle Ray. He was hardly the only African-American on the force. And lots of people look like Denzel Washington. In any case, I had only Lizeth’s word that the man on her doorstep was a cop. And why should I trust Lizeth? She was another one who kept popping up in unexpected places. Like the hospital where her friend Carmen’s ex-boyfriend’s current fiancée was under sedation and totally helpless. Maybe Lizeth was the one who’d come back and pulled out that IV.
Okay, that seemed unlikely.
I turned to the woman. “Do you have a spare key to Lizeth’s apartment?”
“No,” she said. “Why?”
“Who would have one?”
She thought for a minute. “The manager, I guess.”
Her cell phone was on the coffee table. I picked it up and handed it to her. “I think you should get him down here right now.”
She said, “He can’t just go into someone’s apartment when they’re not there.”
“Sure he can.” I took her by the arm and marched her down the hall to Lizeth’s apartment. “I smell gas. Do you smell gas?”
When she saw the look on my face, she called the manager and explained that we smelled gas coming from Lizeth’s apartment.
He was there in a matter of seconds, jeans halfway down his butt, keys jangling on his belt loop.
“I don’t know what you ladies are talking about.” He hoisted up his pants. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Better safe than sorry,” I said. “You don’t want a lawsuit or anything.”
He knocked on the door several times, and when there was no answer, let himself in. We stood there listening to him trip over something, open a window, slam a door.
“I probably should have called the police,” I said. “It’s not a good idea to trample a crime scene.”
“Come on,” the woman said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid? I mean—”
She didn’t get to finish her thought, though, because at that moment the manager came running out of the apartment, dropped to his knees, and threw up right there in the hallway.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t a dead body on the other side of the door.
Chapter 25
“Welcome back,” Lieutenant Hepworth said. “Just a couple of questions.”
I crossed my arms and leaned across the big wooden desk. “I already told your colleagues. I’m not talking to you until my attorney arrives.”
It wasn’t for nothing that the family motto was, “lawyer up.”
“He must be caught in traffic.” Lieutenant Hepworth checked his computer monitor. “Yup. Accident on the 10 near at Grand. The left two lanes are closed and it’s backed up for half a mile.” He shook his head. “Always wear seatbelts. But I’m sure I don’t have to remind a law-abiding citizen such as yourself.”
Lieutenant Hepworth stuck a pencil into the electric sharpener and hummed through the high-pitched buzzing. When he was done, he picked up another pencil and did it again.
“I’d like to use the restroom,” I said.
“I think it would be best if you waited,” he said. “Coffee?”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “I’ve been cooped up here for hours. I gave my statement to the detectives. You, I’m not talking to.”
Lieutenant Hepworth tapped his pencil on the desk. “I suggest you calm down. You have nothing to be concerned about. Unless, of course, you happened to have murdered Lizeth Pimentel. Not that anyone is jumping to that conclusion. I mean, just because you spent much of today making inquiries about the victim’s whereabouts to multiple people, starting with—” He flipped through his papers. “Miss Rodica Balan of Glendale—”
“The woman pretending to be a psychic?” I broke in. “She’s a con artist.”
“Haven’t the Roma been discriminated against enough?” he asked. “And then you accosted young Tyler Loomis—”
“The stoner? Another model citizen, with his ankle bracelet.”
Lieutenant Hepworth said, “Perhaps you are unaware that juveniles placed under house arrest have much lower rates of recidivism than those who are incarcerated. So there’s every reason to be hopeful.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Guess I’m a realist.”
“And finally we have—” He flipped through his notepad again. “Ah, yes. Mr. Conor Gilligan. The residential manager out there in Eagle Rock. Hard-working fellow, just minding his own business. Then you come along, threatening him with legal action unless he opens the door to Lizeth Pimentel’s apartment. Someone could argue that you sent him in there knowing full well he’d contaminate the crime scene.”
“Don’t you think you’re reaching?” I asked. “I met Lizeth Pimentel exactly once.” Twice, if you counted bumping into her at the hospital, though I saw no need to mention that. “Why would I wish her any harm?”
